Cremas, Christmas Cookies, and Crooks

by Harper Lin

  I slipped into the back room before I could hear anything else and closed the door again behind me.

  Sammy looked up at me from where she was slumped in the chair by the computer. “I’m so sorry, Fran.”

  “For what?”

  “It’s my fault they’re here.”

  “Unless you invited them, I don’t think it is.”

  She looked at me solemnly and then looked down. “They’re still here because of me.”

  “They’re here because of their own bad decisions. Because of some weird game of follow-the-leader. They didn’t even get up when the police told them to. Ryan was threatening to arrest them when I came back here.”

  “Ryan’s here?”

  I nodded.

  She looked even more miserable. “It’s so embarrassing.”

  I pulled a chair up next to her. “Why’s it embarrassing? You’re not the one showing up at someone’s workplace, making a fool of yourself.”

  She sighed and stared at her fingernails. I patted her on the back. I understood.

  “I think she’s stalking me,” she said after a long while, during which I could hear muffled voices out in the café but, thankfully, couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying.

  “I think that’s fair,” I replied. It might be a hard sell to get the police to do anything about it after just a few times of showing up at her place of work, but I didn’t think she was wrong to call it stalking.

  “I think she followed me home last night.”

  “What?” My voice came out louder than I meant it to, but I was stunned by what she’d just said.

  “I kept thinking I heard footsteps behind me, but when I turned around, there was no one there.”

  “Are you serious?” I asked, even though I knew she was. Sammy wouldn’t make up something like that.

  She nodded. “And I’ve been getting a lot of email from places I didn’t sign up to get email from.”

  “That happens sometimes. They sell your email address.”

  “I know, but I’ve been getting a lot of spam lately too. I know that’s not that weird, but these are coming through to my inbox. And they have my name. They always say ‘Sammy’ in the subject or in the email.” She looked at me, and I could see the fear in her eyes. “Do you get spam that has your name in it?”

  I tried to think. I didn’t think so, but I really didn’t know. I didn’t usually pay that much attention to my spam folder except to make sure there weren’t any emails about good sales that mistakenly got sent there. “I’m not really sure.”

  “Me neither. I don’t know if my mind is playing tricks on me, or if she’s doing something.”

  “Have you told Ryan about any of this?”

  She shook her head. “No. It would just make me sound crazy and jealous.”

  “Ryan wouldn’t think that.” At least, I didn’t think so. Cheryl certainly seemed crazy enough to make Sammy’s story believable. But maybe Ryan had a habit of dating crazy girls and wouldn’t realize that Sammy wasn’t. “What about Mike?”

  “I thought about it, but—” She glanced at me then looked down and shrugged.

  “But what?” I asked. “He’s here all the time. You could just mention it to him and see what he thinks.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Sammy?”

  Her eyes flicked up at me and then back down. “He hasn’t been in,” she said softly.

  I thought I heard her wrong. “He hasn’t—” I stopped. “At all? Since Tuesday?”

  She shook her head, and I sank down in my chair. I felt sick. Mike usually came in at least twice a day. If we only saw him once, I wondered if something was wrong. And he hadn’t been in at all in two days.

  We sat there in glum silence until my phone dinged to alert me to a text message. I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at it. For a second, my heart stopped.

  It was from Brett.

  He wanted me to come see him.

  Chapter 23

  AFTER A LENGTHY INTERNAL DEBATE, and then another one with Brett about how it was a really bad idea for me to go see him in the hospital, and then another with Matt about how mad Mike would be when he found out—because he inevitably would—I went. I wasn’t sure why, but I was pretty sure it was to apologize for—for what? For driving him to attempt suicide by accusing him of maybe murdering his teacher? Showing up in his hospital room seemed like an awful way to apologize for that. Going away forever seemed like a much better way to do it. But Brett was insistent and, I was pretty sure, quite used to getting what he wanted. So I went to the hospital.

  I showed up the next day—around lunchtime, when Brett assured me his mother would be out lunching with her friends. Even with his assurances, after signing in, I practically crept down the hall, ready at any minute to jump into a room if I saw anyone not in nurses’ scrubs approaching. And then, when I got to his room, I stood outside for a long while, making sure the only noise I heard inside was the television. Finally, when I had more or less convinced myself it was safe, I knocked.

  “Come in!” The voice that called out sounded like Brett’s, but I still hesitated. “I said, come in!” it yelled again, louder this time. “Don’t make me come to the door; I’m an invalid!”

  Had Brett really just used the word “invalid”? This kid really was weird. I opened the door.

  “Fran!” He smiled broadly when he saw me. “Did you bring me some cookies?”

  “And cocoa,” I said, holding up the drink carrier. The other drink it held was a latte, but that was for me.

  “Cocoa?” He wrinkled his nose. “I’m sixteen, not six.”

  “Too much caffeine isn’t good for a boy your age,” I said, handing it to him. I realized I probably sounded old and uncool to his ears but decided I didn’t care. I was way too old to care what the popular kids thought of me.

  “What’s in the other one?”

  “More cocoa,” I fudged.

  His eyes narrowed. “Liar.” He sipped his cocoa. “But this is good.”

  I handed over the bag of cookies. He looked through it carefully before pulling out one of Sammy’s sparkling snowflakes. A good choice.

  I sat down in the chair beside his bed as he munched on the cookie. Despite the sound of the TV and his chewing, the room was too quiet for me. “I’m sorry,” I said in an attempt to ease my discomfort.

  He made a face.

  “For, you know, making you want to, uh, um—” I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.

  “Kill myself?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, feeling even more uncomfortable than before I’d spoken up.

  “You think that’s what happened too? Why does everybody think I was trying to off myself? Do I seem like I want to die?” He took another bite of the cookie.

  “No, um, well, yes, um—” I couldn’t put two words together. I tried to remember what I’d seen on some morning show about talking to depressed teens.

  “I didn’t drive into that light pole on purpose.”

  “You didn’t? But Mike—I mean, the police said—”

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s what the cops are telling everybody. But it wasn’t on purpose.”

  “Distracted driving then?” I asked, more relieved than I should have been by the thought of a teenager not paying attention to the road.

  “Try road rage.”

  “You drove into the light pole because you were angry?”

  He rolled his eyes the way only teenagers can. “No, Fran! I drove into the light pole because someone else was angry! He pushed me into it.”

  “He did? Someone pushed you? Why? What did you do?”

  “It’s always the teenager’s fault, huh? You’re such an adult. I thought you were cooler than that, Fran.”

  For a second, I found myself inordinately pleased that Brett thought I was cool, but then I remembered that he was less than half my age and I wasn’t in high school anymore. But regardless of that, he was telling me that someone had intenti
onally driven him off the road. “Okay, so why was this guy so angry that he drove you off the road?”

  “Because of what I know.”

  “Because of what you know?” I hadn’t thought about it before, but he must have gotten a concussion from the accident. He was delusional.

  “Yup.” He bit into the cookie.

  I knew I shouldn’t ask it, but I did. “And what is it that you know?” I took a sip of my latte as I waited for his answer. That we didn’t really land on the moon, maybe. That lizard people were secretly running the world. That an espresso would magically go bad after ten seconds.

  “Why Veronica Underwood was murdered.”

  I barely kept from spitting my latte all over him. “What?” I managed to get out as I coughed out the coffee I’d inhaled.

  “I know why Veronica Underwood was murdered,” he repeated.

  Because she was an awful person? Because someone had finally gotten sick of her attitude? Because she was into something dangerous involving people I wasn’t used to dealing with?

  “Well, not exactly why, but it has something to do with it.”

  Figures. Brett was just screwing with me again.

  “Take a look at this.” Brett held out his phone for me to look at.

  It was a picture of a document with Veronica Underwood’s name at the top. I quickly tried to skim its contents, but it was too small. I reached out to take the phone from Brett so I could enlarge it, but he pulled it back.

  “Know what that is?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Veronica’s teaching certificate. Well,” he scoffed, “her lack thereof.”

  My forehead wrinkled in confusion.

  Brett swiped at his phone. “That came with this.” He held out his phone again. All I could tell was that it was a letter. I thought I saw the name Varros on it, but he turned it away again before I could be sure. He swiped again. “And then there’s this.” It was a printed-out email. “And this.” Did that say Marcus? “And this.” A check? “And this.” It looked like another email, but Brett turned it around again before I could be sure.

  “Stop that!” I snapped, fed up with him flashing the pictures at me faster than I could comprehend them. I tried to grab his phone, but he was quicker than me and pulled it away.

  He laughed.

  “Stop being a brat and just tell me whatever it is you’re trying to tell me.” I wanted to call him another name, but on the off chance he was actually trying to share some valuable information with me, I didn’t want to alienate him. Of course, knowing him, he probably would have respected me more and been more willing to share whatever information it was he claimed to have.

  But as it was, he laughed again.

  I leaned back in the chair and crossed my arms across my chest.

  “Aw, come on, Fran! Don’t get mad!” He was still laughing.

  “I’m not mad,” I said, even though I knew I probably should have just kept my mouth shut. “I’m just done playing your little games.”

  “But games are fun!”

  I rolled my eyes and sipped my latte. I considered telling him that was what it was, but I was pretty sure he already knew. Letting him know that he was right would just feed his little ego.

  “C’mon, Fran!” he said again.

  I ignored him as I relished the rich flavor of my latte.

  “Oh, all right!”

  I looked at him skeptically and waited.

  “Look, I don’t know all the details, but Veronica shouldn’t have been allowed to teach.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “That one letter I showed you—” He scrolled through his phone and pulled up the letter that I’d thought I saw Varros’s name on. “It’s from the Rhode Island Department of Education to Varros. It says that her Rhode Island teacher’s certificate had been revoked because all her records were faked, and tells him he should check on it.”

  Interesting, but I didn’t see why it was reason to kill her. I’d never heard of someone being that furious over a falsified resume. Unless… I sat up. “What do the other documents say?”

  Brett grinned. I could tell he was happy he’d piqued my interest. “Well, one’s a check, and the rest are emails.”

  “What do they say?”

  “They’re mostly between Veronica and Varros. I saw Blarney’s name on a couple of them. I didn’t get to read them all, though. I had a test and then play practice and then violin, and then, well—” He gestured at the hospital bed. “I got put up in this place. It’s not bad, though. The bed’s comfortable, and the food’s better than you’d think. Not much on TV, but I watch everything on here anyway.” He wiggled his phone in his hand.

  “Where did you get these pictures?” I asked.

  “I took them.”

  I took a deep breath, trying to control my temper. “Where did you take them?”

  “Just wherever I was. In between classes.”

  “Brett!”

  He laughed again. It was annoying. “I pulled the folder with all the papers in it from Varros’s office and then took the pictures during my classes. I had a feeling I’d need a backup.”

  “Where are the papers now?”

  He shrugged. “Dunno. They were in my bag when I was on my way to see you, but they’re not there now. I figure he took them when I was passed out.”

  Part of me already knew the answer, but I had to ask the question anyway. “Who is ‘he,’ Brett?”

  He smirked. “You know.”

  “Brett!” I fully realized I sounded like a parent about to lose their patience.

  “It’s Varros. He’s the only one who could have known I had the papers. Didn’t know I had a copy, though.” He waggled his phone again.

  If Brett was right—if Varros had run him off the road in order to take back the documents Brett had stolen—then this might be exactly the break in the case I was looking for. On the other hand, he might be wrong. Or he might be lying just to get a reaction from me. With Brett, it was entirely possible. I had to see the pictures for myself.

  “Can you send me a copy of those?” I asked.

  He smirked again. “I already uploaded them to a secure site where they can’t be hacked or deleted.” He told me the name of it and gave me my username, which was just my name, somewhat disturbingly including my middle one. I didn’t know how he got that, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Then he rattled off a series of letters and numbers that were supposed to be my password.

  “Hold on,” I said. “Let me write that down.”

  “You can’t write it down! Then it won’t be secure.”

  “Brett, there’s no way I’m going to remember all that.”

  “Why not? It’s just an alphanumeric Fibonacci sequence using the letters of your name for a Caesar cipher. I mean, it’s barely secure as it is.”

  I stared at him blankly.

  He sighed. “Fine, I’ll change it.”

  He picked up his phone and started tapping again, but the door flew open before he could finish.

  “Bretty!” A woman’s voice called out.

  I froze.

  “I brought you some lunch. And I have good news! I talked to the nurse, and she said you can come home today. So you’ll still be able to go to your little play.”

  I turned around slowly, afraid of who I was going to see. Sure enough, it was an immaculately coiffed blond woman.

  “Hi, Mom!” Brett said.

  I sat completely still, hoping she was one of those predators who could only see movement.

  Apparently not. “Who is this?” she asked, laying eyes on me.

  “Oh, she’s just a social worker,” Brett said without hesitation. “She was worried that an unstable home life contributed to my accident.”

  I looked at him, wide eyed. The last thing I needed was for his mother to think I was trying to take custody away from her.

  “But I assured her it wasn’t, and she was just on her way out.”

  “Yes, I w
as,” I said, standing up. Despite myself, I was grateful to Brett for providing me an easy exit. “Thank you, Brett, for your time. And it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Wallace.” I shook both their hands in as official a manner as I could manage and made my escape.

  Chapter 24

  BEFORE I WAS EVEN OUT of the hospital, Brett had texted me with a new password to use to access the documents he’d gotten from Varros’s office. My plan had already been to head straight to the café since I needed my car there to load up for the play’s opening night that evening, and now I was just hoping I could find some time to squeeze in a review of the documents. It was going to be tight with all the last-minute baking and packing Sammy and I needed to do. We were already closing the café early so we could get everything taken care of and then get over to the school to get set up before the doors opened.

  I parked my car in the lot behind the café and headed for the back door. Inside, Sammy already had boxes of supplies piled high—plates, cups, napkins, plastic wrap, to-go boxes, jugs of water, a variety of freshly roasted, freshly ground coffees, and the small, somewhat portable espresso machine we used for occasions like this. I looked at it all and wondered if Sammy would have to go get her car too. I wasn’t sure it would all fit in mine.

  “Oh, Fran, thank goodness!” Sammy said, coming into the back room. “I need your help! It’s crazy out there.” She grabbed a pile of napkins and disappeared again.

  I sighed as I put down my handbag and took off my coat. Brett’s documents would have to wait until later. Much later, as it turned out. The café was unusually busy all day, and between taking care of customers, mixing, baking, and decorating fresh batches of cookies, and getting everything organized and loaded into my car—it did all fit, but just barely, with Sammy holding several trays of cookies and other baked goods on her lap—I didn’t have a minute to spare the entire day.

  “I heard Mrs. Crowsdale—I mean Ann—is going to be at the play tonight. In the audience, I mean. They’re not letting her participate since the school system suspended her until the case is resolved,” Sammy said as we drove over to the high school.