“I’ll let you repack. So you can put it back the way you want it.”
Erin’s face burned. She was sure he must be thinking what a slob she was. And just what had he learned about her as he went through her bag? Her whole life was in there. She didn’t store everything on the phone or a planner like some people did. Instead, it was all loose notes and papers in an unruly stack in her purse. Hard to break the bad habits she had established.
Erin started to go through the pile, sorting through miscellaneous papers and throwing out what she didn’t need anymore. Getting rid of the tissues and random cough drops or hard candies. Making the rest as neat as possible. Maybe she would start using a planner. She wouldn’t have to rewrite as many lists that way.
Wilmot had finished going through Vic’s purse. He set it down gently and looked at her. “Do I need to verify whether you have a permit?”
Vic’s lips tightened and formed a thin line. “In my wallet.”
Vic hadn’t been watching, but Erin had, and she knew the sheriff had already gone through Vic’s wallet. She tried to give Vic a warning look.
Wilmot picked up the wallet and handed it to Vic. Vic impatiently flicked it open and started going through the card file. She stopped after going through it once and tried again, more slowly. Then a third time, separating cards to look in between. She swallowed.
“It’s not here. I do have one! I don’t know where it could have gone. I’ll have to… get them to send me a replacement, I guess.”
“If I do a database search, it will show up?”
“Yeah, of course.”
Wilmot nodded. He motioned for Vic to pick up her things. “Please leave the handgun at home until you get your new card.”
Vic’s face was rosy red. She began packing her things back away without answering.
Chapter 22
Terry picked them up from the parking lot behind Auntie Clem’s. His expression was serious and he didn’t initiate a conversation with them on the way back. When they got back to the house, Erin got out of the truck and looked over at Vic. Vic seemed torn whether to go in with Erin or go around the back to her own loft.
“Can we talk?” she asked.
Erin nodded. “Yes. Sure.”
They all went into the house. Terry’s eyes moved back and forth between Vic and Erin. “Is this a private discussion?”
Erin raised her brows at Vic inquiringly.
“No.” Vic sighed and flopped down into an easy chair. “Neither of us has done anything wrong, and if the police department can get that through their thick skulls, all the better.”
“Don’t attack Terry,” Erin warned. “He wasn’t there.”
Vic chewed on her lip, a stress behavior Erin hadn’t seen in her before. Vic was clearly very upset. “Fine,” Vic agreed. “As long as he doesn’t give us grief and act like we must have been the ones to mess with Mary Lou’s fortune cookie.”
Erin rolled her eyes and looked at Terry, giving a small shrug of apology. Terry sat down on the couch and patted the seat next to him for Erin to sit down. She took the seat and Orange Blossom immediately jumped up into her lap. He had been yowling around her feet, but she had ignored him.
“Shh…” She petted the cat and snuggled him close. “The grown-ups are trying to talk.”
Terry looked down at Erin and stroked the cat once. “I guess the sheriff made it over to Auntie Clem’s.”
“Yep.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Erin looked over at Vic. “We’re fine. But… it’s embarrassing. Being treated like we’re criminals when we didn’t do anything. He shut us down right in front of our customers, saying that he was going to get a warrant if we didn’t voluntarily let him search Auntie Clem’s. And I couldn’t supervise or show him anything, just unlock the computer for him and let them do whatever they want.”
Vic nodded. “And they searched our handbags! Like we were shoplifters.”
“They just needed to be able to say that they didn’t miss anything. They made sure that you couldn’t walk out of the bakery with any evidence.”
“I don’t care why. It was… humiliating. So invasive and demeaning! And I have a gun license!”
Terry raised his brows at her angry tone. “Okay.”
“I don’t know where it could have gone,” Vic said in a more thoughtful tone. “It’s not like I take it out of my wallet very often. It just stays there unless someone asks for it.”
“You don’t remember when you had it out last?” Erin asked.
“No. No idea.” Vic frowned, trying to remember. “I don’t know… when I bought a replacement gun, I guess. After…” Vic glanced over at Terry, swallowing. “You know, after Mickey.”
“Maybe you left it at the store? Is that possible?”
“They would have called me, don’t you think? If I left it on the counter?”
“I would think so… maybe you dropped it when you thought you put it back and no one saw. Or… it got put in the garbage with the bag or box the gun came in.”
Vic shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense. I don’t see how I could have lost it. Unless someone has been in my purse. But who would go into my purse?”
Erin couldn’t think of anyone who would have had access to it. Other than Erin or one of the other employees when it was placed in Erin’s office for safekeeping.
“I don’t know.”
“I’m so steamed. That’s just the cherry on top of everything else.”
Erin scratched at a splash of batter on her pants. Despite her apron, she could never seem to get through a day at Auntie Clem’s without something getting on her clothes. “I’m more worried about Mary Lou. You can get your card reissued. But I can’t take back what happened to her. On top of Joshua being missing… she just doesn’t need something like this.”
Vic deflated. “Yeah. I’m being miserable for no reason. She’s the real victim here. So what if I misplaced my license?”
“How could this have happened?” Terry asked. “Can you walk me through how the cookies were prepared and how Mary Lou got this… strange fortune?”
Erin nodded. “Yeah, I guess… I can’t understand what happened. We got the order for gluten-free fortune cookies from the Chinese restaurant. I got the fortunes printed at the Quiki. It was a big cookie order. They keep forever. So… we had everyone working on baking and folding small batches over a few days. You have to fold them while they’re still warm, so you can’t just do a great big batch and fold them over a few hours or days.”
“Who is ‘everyone’?”
Erin shrugged. “Everyone. All of the employees. Everyone wanted to try their hand because it’s such a unique item. Most people never get the chance to make fortune cookies.”
“So it could have been done by any of your employees.”
“I guess. But… I can’t imagine anyone doing that. Sneaking a different fortune into the bunch. And how would they know… how would they make sure that Mary Lou got the wrong one? Or the right one, I mean.”
Terry pursed his lips. “Okay. So what do you think happened?”
“I think… someone must have done it at the restaurant.”
“How would they do that?”
“I think… just pull out the fortune that was already in the cookie and then… feed a new one in through the crack into the cookie…”
“Would that have been easy?”
Erin shook her head. “I never tried it. I guess if it was a big enough crack. Or you folded the fortune in half. The fortunes aren’t supposed to be folded. But you could.”
“So for someone to give Mary Lou that particular cookie, they would have to see her at the restaurant, swap out the fortune, and take that one to her.”
“Yeah. And if she was eating with other people… she was at the bakery with other women, I don’t know if they were all eating together or if they just… gathered because of the spectacle.”
“Then how would anyone make sure that sh
e got that particular cookie?”
Erin nodded.
“Maybe it was someone who was eating with her,” Vic suggested. “They took one of the cookies, did a little sleight of hand, and gave her the swapped one.”
That sounded a little better to Erin. At least if the fortune had been swapped by a restaurant worker or by someone in Mary Lou’s dinner party, that took Erin and her employees off the hook.
“That seems a little complex to be doing at the table,” Terry said doubtfully.
“Well then…” Vic stared off into space. “They could have taken a fortune cookie home without eating it, and then replaced the fortune at home. Then go out to lunch with Mary Lou, and pass the swapped fortune cookie to her.”
“That’s possible,” Erin agreed. “Someone could do that.”
“Possible,” Terry agreed. “You are avoiding the possibility that it could be one of your employees, though. Who had a motive to replace the fortune?”
“It couldn’t have been someone at the bakery,” Erin insisted. “There would be no way to get the replaced fortune to Mary Lou. Someone had to give it to her at the restaurant.”
“What if it wasn’t targeted,” Vic mused. “What if it’s only coincidence that it got to Mary Lou?”
Erin didn’t need that kind of help. She glared at Vic, mentally urging her to move to another possibility.
“It had to be targeted to Mary Lou,” Terry objected. “It wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else.”
“Sure it would,” Vic argued. “This is Bald Eagles Falls. Everybody knows that Joshua is missing. Anyone who got that fortune would wonder if it was about him and take it to the police.”
“That’s too big of a coincidence to be believed,” Terry objected. “I can write off a small coincidence. But that one fortune was swapped and Mary Lou just happened to get it? I don’t believe that.”
“She likes Chinese.” Vic leaned forward in her seat, trying to explain it away. “She eats at the Chinese restaurant, so she would have a better chance at getting that fortune cookie.”
Even Erin couldn’t believe that. “The switch can’t have been made at Auntie Clem’s,” she insisted. “It had to be at the restaurant.”
Chapter 23
Joshua wasn’t sure how long he had been trying to wake up. He’d been having dreams of waking up. Every time, something bad happened. He couldn’t open his eyes. He walked into traffic. He was forced to do something to hurt someone else. He couldn’t find the bathroom.
He was pretty sure his brain had been trying to wake him up for some time, but his body wasn’t ready to get up.
He shifted back and forth restlessly. He was hot and clammy, sweat standing out on his forehead and temples and running down his back in the occasional cold drip.
He tried to raise his arms enough to wipe his face, and managed to wipe part of his head along his sleeve, mopping up the sweat. But it wasn’t long before his face was coated with sweat again.
Eventually, he opened his eyes.
Things weren’t much different with his eyes open instead of closed. He still couldn’t see anything, just shadows in the darkness.
“Is anyone there?” he asked in a soft voice, reaching out mentally into the darkness, trying to feel someone there. Or not there. He should be able to tell whether the figure was watching him or not. But the air seemed empty and still. How long had he been lying there?
He held his wrists in the best lighting he could find and moved his head down to study the bonds.
Just zip ties. Nothing fancy or recognizable about them. They were crusted with blood and his fingers were swollen like sausages. Joshua opened and closed his hands a few times, looking at them. They were numb. He felt like they belonged to someone else. How long had they been tied? Were the zip ties cutting off his circulation? If they were, how long before he would be in danger of losing his hands?
And his feet. Joshua rolled onto his side and pulled his feet up, trying to get a peek at them. But his pant legs were gathered around the bond and it was impossible to see how they were tied or what kind of condition they were in. Like his hands, his feet were numb. And his legs too, for that matter.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to live if he were going to lose his hands and his legs. That would be too much.
He looked around him, trying to make sense of the slightly lighter shadows around him. How long had he been in the dark? There was too little light for his eyes to adjust. He would need to be a cat to make out anything around him. Or be wearing night-vision goggles. Maybe when his captor came around for a visit, Joshua could ask to borrow the goggles for a few minutes. Just so he could see what it was like to wear them. Then he would give them back.
He thought he heard a far-off click. Joshua strained to hear anything else. He was lucky that the place he was being held seemed to be free of rats.
Or if they were biting his fingers or toes, he was lucky he couldn’t feel them. He studied his hands an inch from his face again. He didn’t see any marks that would suggest rats had been anywhere near them. That was a relief. At least if he were found, his family wouldn’t have to see anything gruesome.
There was another rustle of sound, and Joshua watched the shadows for any shifts in density.
“Are you there?” he whispered.
His captor didn’t answer but, in a minute, stood before him. Joshua didn’t say anything, waiting. More food? Water?
“They’re never going to find you,” the dark figure said.
Joshua’s stomach tightened. He had already suspected this. Whoever had taken him away had hidden Joshua too well for anyone to find him. He had no idea whether he was in a warehouse or some other kind of storage unit. No idea whether he was close to home or far away, in the town, the country, or the city. Even if someone from his family had been able to contact him, he wouldn’t be able to tell them where to go. Not even a clue, like they often gave on TV. A train going over the railway tracks. Chapel bells. Traffic sounds. He couldn’t hear anything outside the room.
“Why did you do this?” Joshua asked.
It wasn’t a demand this time. Not something he shouted at the top of his lungs or hurled out as an accusation. He just wanted to know. What was the point of it all? Was it because of something he had done? Some fatal misstep in the past? A girl he hadn’t paid attention to or a boy he had beaten in grades or some sport? It wasn’t like Josh had even done that well in school. Not lately.
“I needed to put a stop to it,” the shadow whispered. “I couldn’t think of any other way to stop it.”
“Stop what? What did I do?”
“I needed some time. Some space. People were getting too close.”
Too close. Josh closed his eyes, thinking. Too close to what? Physically too close to the hooded figure, infringing on his personal space? Town development getting too close to his farm? Or something else?
Too close to what?
“You don’t know what it’s like,” the shadow hissed at him. “You live in a whole different world.”
Josh tried to puzzle through this. But the half-clues were not helping him. He didn’t want to die without even knowing why.
“I’m not feeling well.”
The hooded figure didn’t answer for a few minutes.
“Don’t feel well how?” he asked after a few minutes.
“I just… I’m so tired and sore. And…” He used his arm to wipe his face again. “I’m hot. I don’t know… if it’s a fever.”
The figure reached out and touched him, but the hands wore medical gloves, so he didn’t know how that would help him figure out whether Joshua really was sick.
The hand touched his forehead, then his cheek. The hand grasped one of Joshua’s numb hands and raised them to study the ties and wrists as Joshua had done.
He released Joshua’s hand and moved down to his feet, checking them out as well.
“Does everything look okay?” Josh asked. He didn’t want to be surprised. If he were seriously ill
, he wanted to be prepared.
“Looks fine to me,” the shadow told him without emotion.
Did that really mean he was okay? Or did the shadow just not care?
“What do you want? Is there… some way I can get you to let me go?”
“No. There’s nothing you could do.”
“I want to do something. Isn’t there anything?” Josh didn’t want to suggest anything specific, but he worried that it was something to do with Campbell. Had Campbell cheated Josh’s captor out of money or product? If Joshua could just do something to make up for it, to pay the captor back, he would. He would do almost anything. He didn’t care if it were illegal or unethical. People would understand that it was a matter of pleasing his captor or dying. They would understand.
“You’ve already done enough.”
That made it sound like it wasn’t Campbell’s fault that Joshua was there, but his own. Something that he had done. But what could he have done? He was a kid. And he wasn’t involved in anything he shouldn’t be. He went to school and tried to get his schoolwork done. He tried to do chores at home and to work part time to contribute to the household income. And when Mary Lou was not going to be home to make dinner, Joshua tried to help out. Too often, he didn’t have anything on the table by the time Mary Lou got home. But he tried.
“What did I do?” he begged. “What can I do to make up for it? Isn’t there anything I can do to… get out of here?” He swallowed. “I promise I won’t turn on you. I won’t tell anyone anything I know. I’ll help you. And then I’ll say I escaped. That I don’t know anything. No one will ever know anything.”
“It’s time for me to go.” The figure made a looking-at-his-watch gesture, though Joshua couldn’t see anything on his wrist. But maybe there was and his captor could see it with the goggles.
“Is there… did you bring anything to eat?”
The shadow patted pockets in various locations on his body. He had obviously not come prepared to feed Josh. Maybe hoping that Joshua would have fainted with hunger by now.
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