Assaulted Caramel

by Amanda Flower

  I blinked a few times against the glare. “Can you lower the light? It’s shining right into my eyes.”

  “Bailey King.” He frowned. “You upset my sister.”

  I knew that he must be referring to Esther, not Emily. I had a feeling that Emily now considered me a friend, since I had decided to take in Nutmeg. I held a hand in front of my eyes.

  Abel lowered the light, so the beam fell on my neck, not directly in my eyes, but it was still plenty bright.

  “You scared me half to death!”

  “What are you doing out here so late at night?”

  I could barely make out his features in the dark. “I was at the church making desserts for tomorrow’s wedding.”

  He frowned. “Wedding?”

  I swallowed. “The Hutton-Colton wedding.”

  He took a step toward me. “Are you a friend of the Coltons?”

  I took two large steps back and bumped into a tall evergreen bush. Its sharp branches bit into my back. “No. I’m just making the desserts. I’m not friends with anyone in Harvest except for my grandparents.”

  He held the lantern up again, and the light hurt my eyes. “You were alone in the church making these desserts?”

  His closeness made me increasingly uncomfortable, and I was reminded of the time he had tried to trap me on the square when we were children. This time his tone was much more sinister. “No, my friend Cass was with me. She should be coming along at any moment,” I lied, knowing full well that Cass was already inside the candy shop, undoubtedly passed out on my bed in the guest room.

  Mercifully, he lowered the lantern. “It is gut that you are not friends with the people from the wedding. They are not gut people.”

  Since I couldn’t think of anything kind to say about Jace or Eileen, I said, “Mira is a sweet girl.”

  “She is the worst of them all. She is the one who causes me to worry.” He stepped closer to me. As I retreated farther into the bushes, the branches dug even deeper into my back.

  Mousy Mira caused this huge Amish man to worry? I couldn’t imagine how that was possible. In the short time I had known Mira, I couldn’t imagine her worrying anyone, not even a small child or Juliet’s pig.

  I tried to straighten up and edge my way out of the bushes, but I realized that if I did that, I would touch Abel. The bushes held much more appeal. “It’s late. I have been up all night making desserts. If you don’t believe me, you can talk to Juliet Brody or any of the other ladies who were at the church dinner tonight.”

  The light from his lantern made a geometric pattern on the bushes. “You’re friends with Deputy Brody’s mother as well. You seemed to have made many friends for being here for so short a time.”

  “I wasn’t friends with Tyson Colton.”

  He stepped back. “No one was Tyson’s friend. It is little wonder he is dead.”

  I shivered. He said this so coldly, with such little feeling. He didn’t sound Amish at all, or at least not what I thought an Amish person should sound like. Perhaps Aiden had been right. My childhood summers in Amish Country weren’t enough to fully understand the Amish way of life.

  Now that there was some space between us, I straightened up. “Please just let me by. I’m tired, and it’s late. I don’t think either of us should be having this conversation right now. We might say something we would regret.”

  He stepped closer to me and forced me into the bushes for a second time. I ignored the pain of the needles piercing my back through my jacket. “I never regret anything that I say or do.”

  Fear shivered up my spine. There was something about this conversation that felt like we teetered on the brink of something dangerous. Abel was a large man, a strong man. His family’s business was right next to the candy shop. The building was about to become the property of a man he clearly despised and that man was now dead, which meant the family could keep the building.

  He stepped back, and I went limp with relief. Breath whooshed back into my lungs.

  “Outside of making dessert, I wouldn’t spend much time with the Coltons or the Huttons if I were you.”

  I watched as his back receded into the inky darkness. I pressed a hand against my thundering chest as if to hold my heart in place.

  Was that a threat? As he walked away, the smell of Kerosene from his lantern wafted in my direction. The scent was strong. It was the same smell I had encountered behind the candy shop when I’d found the broken glass yesterday morning. I had a new suspect to add to my growing list, and he’d just bumped Jace Colton out of first place.

  All attempts to keep my cool were gone as I ran full tilt to the candy shop, not once stopping to look over my shoulder.

  I sighed with relief when I found the shop key under the mat just where I had told Cass to hide it.

  When I was inside Swissmen Sweets, I bolted the door and leaned against it. My chest heaved up and down, and the ambient light from the streetlamps caught the crime scene tape stretched across the kitchen door.

  “Meow!” The small cat came out from under one of the candy shelves.

  I knelt and held out my hand to him. Nutmeg—or not Nutmeg as Cass would have it—strolled over to me and pressed his velvety cheek into the side of my hand. He began to purr.

  “I see now why Emily didn’t want to leave you at the mercies of her brother. Who knows what a man like that would do to a gentle creature like you.” I shivered at the very thought, and Emily’s sweet face came to mind. What must it be like for her to live under her brother’s thumb?

  Nutmeg mewed and rubbed his cheek against my hand.

  I picked up the cat and hugged him against my chest. The cat settled there as if I carried him around all the time, so I took him upstairs with me.

  In my bedroom, I found Cass’s enormous suitcase just on the other side of the door. Designer clothes, almost exclusively in black, poured out of it. Cass herself was passed out on the bed.

  I kicked off my shoes and didn’t even bother to change into my pajamas. Fully clothed, I lay on the bed next to Cass. She grumbled and scooted over but didn’t wake. Nutmeg curled into a ball on my chest. I stared at the ceiling for heavens knew how long. My mind was so full that it was blank.

  At some point, I must have fallen asleep.

  * * *

  I woke the next morning to find Nutmeg curled up in an orange ball at the foot of the bed. Cass was gone, although her clothes were everywhere. At least I knew she was still in Harvest; she’d never leave her clothes behind.

  Sunlight streamed into the bedroom through the sheer curtains over the window. Slowly, I sat up, slightly dizzy. I pressed the heel of my hand to my throbbing forehead. Apparently, I was no longer conditioned to stay up all night, as I had been earlier in my career when I had desperately wanted to impress Jean Pierre with my work ethic.

  I glanced at the nightstand, where there was an old battery-powered alarm clock. It was after nine. I had slept longer than I’d thought. I groaned. The honey crisp apple Aiden had given me the day before sat next to the clock. I picked it up and twirled the shiny piece of fruit in my hand. I couldn’t bring myself to eat it. It meant something. Exactly what, I had no idea. I set it on the far side of the nightstand, and told myself not to think about it or its benefactor anymore.

  Nutmeg sat up, stretched, and began washing his forepaws.

  “At least one of us is rested,” I said to the cat. I ran a hand through my hair. I needed a bath too. I smelled like chocolate.

  Cass walked into the room dressed in black jeans and a black sweater. In New York, I would have thought nothing of her outfit. In Holmes County, she looked like an undertaker, a stylish undertaker, but still. I knew better than to share my thoughts on this point with her.

  Her hair was wet as if she were fresh from the shower. She held a hair dryer in one hand and a hand towel in the other. “I can’t find an outlet to plug this in.”

  “The only electrical outlets are in the kitchen. But you can’t go into the kitchen. It’s a c
rime scene.” I rubbed my eyes.

  “Bailey King, are you telling me that I can’t dry my hair? I’ll be a frizz ball all day. I have standards.” She yanked the towel from her head. Her hair stood out in every direction.

  I shrugged. “You’ve gone country.”

  She groaned, unceremoniously dropped the towel and hair dryer into her open suitcase, and began rifling through her cosmetic bag. “I think I have bobby pins in here somewhere. By the way, I talked to my brother early this morning, and he gave me a few names of criminal defense attorneys that you might want to talk to. I knew he would know all the right people. A couple of them are even in Ohio. My brother has a wide network of lawyers.”

  I rubbed my eyes. “I’m hoping that it won’t come to that.”

  “Me too.” She pulled a compact from her makeup bag. “But it’s best to be prepared for these types of things. My brother taught me that. By the way, I’m starving.” She dropped her cosmetic bag on the bed and picked up the apple from my nightstand.

  She was about to bite it when I yelped, “Don’t eat that!”

  She stopped the apple halfway to her mouth and cocked her head at me. “Do you want it?” She held out the apple to me.

  “I don’t want to eat it either.”

  She stared me. “Bai, I think you have been in the country too long.” She set the apple back on the nightstand. “We have to return to civilization—to the real world—where they have hair dryers and outlets and people eat apples.”

  I forced a laugh. “I’m sorry. I know I’m a little on edge.”

  “That’s one way to describe it,” she said.

  I hopped off the bed. “I’m going to jump in the shower. I’m sure Maami has a huge breakfast waiting for us in the kitchenette. Don’t wait for me to eat.”

  “I won’t. I’m starving.” She combed her hair and pinned it behind her ears. Her damp purple bangs fell into her eyes.

  “You hair looks nice,” I said before I left the room.

  “Don’t mock, Bai,” she warned. “Don’t mock.”

  When I returned to the bedroom a few minutes later, feeling at least halfway human again, I found that both Cass and Nutmeg were gone. To my relief, the apple was still there.

  I turned away from it and dried my hair the best I could with my towel before throwing it up in a knot on the top of my head.

  In the hallway, low murmuring flowed from the direction of my grandparents’ sitting room. I walked that way, wanting to see how my grandfather was doing this morning.

  Maami’s voice floated out of the cracked open door. “Jebidiah, you aren’t being reasonable. There’s no reason to run yourself ragged for this shop. You’ve given it your whole life, that’s enough. It’s time to retire.”

  I froze midstride in the middle of the hallway and listened.

  “Gott made us for work,” Daadi said.

  “I know this,” she said, and then added something in their language.

  “I’m not in denial about my health,” Daadi protested. “I know my life is at an end, and I am ready for the Lord to call me home. Until that hour, I must work. It is our way.”

  Maami gasped. “Don’t say that you are at the end of your life.” Her voice caught. “Bailey and I need you.”

  A tear rolled down my cheek. I did need him, more than he could ever know.

  “We must be prepared for the truth. You must go on without me when the time comes, and if you must sell the candy shop in order to do that, know that you have my blessing. I may have given my life for this place, but I do not want you to.”

  Sell the candy shop? The thought of it turned my stomach. At the same time, if that’s what it took for my grandfather to get well, I’d be happy for him to do it.

  They continued their conversation in Pennsylvania Dutch. I stumbled down the hallway into the small kitchenette, where I found Cass digging into a mountain of my grandmother’s French toast and scrambled eggs. She waved her fork at me. “If you tell me how many calories I’m consuming, I will stab you with this.”

  “I won’t,” I said vaguely, still reeling from the conversation I had overheard in the hallway.

  She lowered her fork. “What are you wearing?”

  I looked down at my jeans and flannel shirt. “What?”

  She wrinkled her small nose. “It’s time for us to go home and hit the boutiques on Fifth Avenue, to purge the memory of whatever it is that you have on.”

  “Cass, please, you’ve seen me in jeans a thousand times.”

  “The jeans, yes, the shirt, no.” She stabbed a bite of French toast with her fork.

  “What’s wrong with flannel?”

  “Nothing. If you’re a lumberjack on a roll of paper towels.”

  I snorted.

  “Bai, this isn’t 1994. Grunge is long gone. I don’t care what the teens are wearing. Flannel is not back, not for you, not for anyone who works in the city.”

  I tuned her out as my thoughts wandered back to the conversation I’d overheard between my grandparents just moments ago. Could my grandfather really know that his life is ending?

  She dropped her fork on the plate. “Hey, what’s wrong? I mean, your shirt is hideous, but if you really like it that much, I won’t disown you.”

  “It’s not the shirt.” Tears pooled in my eyes. “I think my grandfather is getting worse, not better.”

  She jumped out of her seat and wrapped her arms around me in a tight hug.

  That’s all I needed her to do.

  Chapter 30

  Cass let me go. “What can I do to help?”

  “Help me find out who killed Tyson Colton,” I said. “The stress surrounding the murder can’t be good for his already weak heart.”

  Nutmeg meowed and rubbed his striped cheek against my leg. I bent over and picked him up. I sat in the chair across from Cass and set the cat on my lap.

  Cass pushed the serving plate of eggs across the table to me. “You’d better eat up, then, if we’re going to catch a killer.”

  My stomach turned over again.

  “Eat,” she ordered. “I know you, Bai. When you’re stressed you stop eating. That’s not going to work this time.”

  I spooned a small serving of eggs onto my plate. Nutmeg sniffed it.

  Cass picked up her fork again and studied the cat. “What about Pumpkin? Jerry? Buttercup?”

  Nutmeg jumped off my lap.

  I picked up my fork. “I don’t think he cares for any of those suggestions.” I managed to swallow a small forkful of eggs.

  Maami stepped into the kitchenette. “There you girls are,” she said in a voice so cheerful, I never would have known that just a moment ago she was having such a serious life and death conversation with my grandfather. “How is it tasting?”

  Cass touched a cloth napkin to the corner of her mouth. “This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten. Better than anything you can find in New York, and that includes the bagels.”

  Maami grinned. “Danki. That is quite a compliment. Bailey has sent us fresh bagels from New York before—they are quite gut. In fact, I like them more than Amish pie. Don’t tell the ladies in my district. I would be excommunicated if they found out.”

  Cass dropped her fork. “They would do that?”

  I laughed. “She’s teasing you.”

  Maami chuckled.

  “Nobody told me that the Amish have a sense of humor,” Cass muttered.

  “Would you like coffee too?” Maami directed the question to me as she lifted the coffee pot from the burner and poured the dark liquid into two waiting mugs.

  My stomach turned at the thought of coffee, but I knew I would need the caffeine if I had any hope of remaining alert.

  “I should not have asked you that, because, of course, I know the answer.” She handed one of the mugs to me, and kept one for herself.

  Usually, I liked to add cream to my coffee, but there was no waiting for that. If I was going to face the day and clear my name, I would need the caffeine in my system
as fast as possible. I took a swig and burned my tongue.

  My grandmother shook her head but refrained from comment.

  I poured cream into the cup, and she added more coffee. I sipped from my mug a little more cautiously this time. “What are you and Daadi up to today?”

  She pursed her lips. “That depends on the police. There is no farmers’ market today,” she said. “I’m hopeful that Aiden will let us back into the kitchen. Everything will need to be scrubbed from top to bottom before we can use it again.”

  I grimaced. That was certainly true. “Aiden said he knows a company that can do the cleaning for us.”

  Maami wrinkled her nose. “I can clean the kitchen. I am capable of that.”

  I shook my head. “Maami, this is different. For food safety, you will need the kitchen professionally cleaned. It helps that Aiden knows someone.”

  “Who’s Aiden?” Cass asked after swallowing another mouthful of French toast.

  “You met him yesterday at the church,” I said. “He was the guy I spilled water on.”

  Cass gaped at me. “The cute cop?”

  Maami wrinkled her brow. “You spilled water on Aiden? Why would you do that?”

  “Why didn’t you introduce him as Aiden when we met?” Cass watched me over her coffee mug.

  Maami watched me too. “He’s a very fine young man.”

  I could tell where this conversation was headed and decided to go on the offensive. “Maami, why didn’t you tell me that you and Daadi had taken in Aiden and his mother when Aiden was a child?”

  “What?” Cass sat up straight in her seat.

  Maami set her coffee mug on the counter. “He told you then. I’m glad of it.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

  “It was Aiden’s story to tell. If he didn’t want to share it with you, it is not my place to interfere. It’s his history. Now that he has, it will be easier for you to trust him.” She picked up her mug again and took a sip.

  “Why would I have any reason to trust him?” I asked. “He’s a member of the sheriff’s department. His sheriff has made it no secret that he believes I’m the one who killed Tyson Colton. Aiden suspects me too. He admitted that he did.”