Pen in hand, notepad in front of him, he focused on Hannah. “Let’s have it.”
Her cheeks turned pink. “Elias makes it sound like I’m some femme fatale, which is ridiculous. Considering I’ve been in town for over two years, not very many men have asked me out. And, like I told him, half the time the invitations are jokes as much as anything. They take a bite of my fudge and say, ‘Marry me, please.’”
Daniel grinned at her. “If not for Sophie, I might have done the same.”
She laughed, visibly relaxing. “I’d have married Naomi, just for her cooking.”
She had a point. Naomi Kendrick’s huckleberry cobbler, a whole pan of it made just for him in thanks for his help, had almost been enough to make his commitment to Sophie waver.
“Yeah, but your peppermint crunch truffles, not to mention the gingerbread ones…” Seeing her smile, he said gently, “Okay, where shall we start?”
“Ron Campbell.” Elias bit off the name.
Interested, Daniel wrote it down. He’d made an enemy of the city councilman last year, when he’d had to ask questions while investigating a murder. After that, Campbell had opposed extending another two-year contract to Daniel, but had been overruled by the rest of the city council.
“He suggested we have dinner a while back, but he’s been friendly even though I refused. He’s exceptionally fond of caramel peanut fudge,” Hannah offered. Her forehead crinkled. “I guess he’s hinted a few more times since then.”
“He’s conservative, and thinks of his own interests first.” Elias again. He did not like Campbell, a viewpoint the two of them shared.
“He grow up here?” Daniel asked, trying to remember what he’d heard.
“Couple years ahead of me. Student council, student body president. Don’t remember where he went to college, but I don’t think anyone expected him to end up back here. He wanted to be rich and successful.”
He was, by Cape Trouble standards, but Daniel knew what Elias meant.
Into the small silence that followed, Hannah reluctantly released another name. “Arlo Castaneda. Um, maybe six months ago?”
“Ed Castaneda’s son,” Elias said slowly. “He was four or five years behind me in school. Doesn’t he work with his dad?”
She nodded. Ed Castaneda was a local truck farmer whose son had persuaded him to go organic, growing their business enormously. They now supplied produce to restaurants up and down the coast. Daniel didn’t really know the son, but felt sure the father wasn’t the kind of guy to buy a latte at Mist River Coffee or fancy fudges at Sweet Ideas.
“Arlo a customer?” he asked.
“Yes. He likes walnut maple fudge and buys coconut truffles for his mother.”
Elias stirred, but refrained from saying anything.
“Ron Slawinski.” At Daniel’s expression of disbelief, Hannah smiled. “He blushed bright red and stammered, but I’m pretty sure he asked me out.”
“What is he, eighteen?” Elias said disagreeably.
“You know he’s older than that,” Hannah said, tone reproving.
Poor Ron, a Cape Trouble police officer, was tall, gawky and probably forever condemned to look half his real age. “Twenty-four,” Daniel said in amusement.
“We have something important in common,” Hannah pointed out. “Freckles.”
Elias shook his head. “A genetic match made in heaven.”
“Now, now. You’re the one who said young men like older women.”
The reminder of Elias’s youthful passion for Sophie’s mother had Daniel remembering the many reasons he ought to stay cautious where Burton was concerned.
“I decided the gap was a little too much to overcome,” Hannah added primly.
Elias said what Daniel was thinking. “And think how long before he could overcome the stammering.”
She made a face. “I tried to be nice, but I think I crushed his hopes.”
Good God, Daniel thought, as shy as his young officer was, working up the courage to ask Hannah must have been a monumental achievement.
“I think it’s safe to say he’s not my secret admirer,” she added. “Afterward, he didn’t come into the store for weeks, but now he has his eye on Alice.” In the ensuing silence, Hannah bit her lip. “Um, Rand Bresler. You know, the resort owner. He’s the most recent to suggest we have dinner together.”
Elias’s expression cooled. “We’ve met.”
“I’ve gotten to know him,” Daniel said slowly. “He rented several houses in town to put up the construction workers.” The foundation for the upscale resort had been poured last fall, but obstacles had pushed back the opening beyond the original plan for spring. Daniel understood they were finally getting close. “Young guys get in trouble. I had to drag a few home from bar brawls and the like.” Bresler had seemed pretty direct to him, but also like a guy who was used to getting what he wanted. Daniel underlined the name.
“Let’s see, there was a D.A. who I think lives in North Fork. Ryan something. That was ages ago. I was just opening the store.” She appeared to dredge for a couple more names, looking more and more self-conscious. She might not be looking at Elias, but Daniel was. He had a good idea what that stone face concealed.
“Patrick Fletcher.”
Elias looked surprised, even perturbed. “Fletch? He and I were friends in high school.” He shrugged. “Still are, I guess. We’re both part of a group that plays touch football, shoots baskets. He actually lived with Mom and me his senior year. His dad was a drunk, finally took off. His mother hadn’t been in the picture for a long time. With foster care his alternative, Mom offered to take him in.”
“He’s pretty successful with that real estate business, from what I hear,” Daniel commented.
“He sold me my house and helped me find space for my business,” Hannah agreed.
“He was both buying and selling agent for my place, too,” Elias said, a frown lingering.
“Jeff Lee has asked a couple times, too.”
Elias looked increasingly unhappy. “I know him, too. He was a couple years behind me, but we overlapped on the football team. Big guy, played tackle and offensive line.”
She nodded. “He’s a paramedic now.”
Lee was someone Daniel dealt with on the job. “I heard he has a fianceé finishing grad school at the U of O.” Seeing Hannah’s outrage, he hurried to say, “Might be just a girlfriend.”
“And he was hitting on me?” Her eyes narrowed. “If he ever brings her into Sweet Ideas, I might just tell her what scum he is.”
“My info could have been old news,” Daniel suggested.
She made a grouchy sound that he’d heard from Sophie. Daniel didn’t let himself smile.
“I think that’s it,” she said.
“Okay.” Daniel leaned forward. “Have you ever gone out with any of these guys, even so casually it didn’t feel like a date? Say, shared a table in a coffee shop because there wasn’t anyplace else to sit?”
“I really don’t think so. For one thing, I don’t go to coffee shops. Or eat out much, and when I do Ian is with me. When I’m not at work, Ian is my priority.”
“I know you have lunch with Sophie.”
“With other friends, too,” she agreed, “but they’re all female. Not that I have anything against having a male friend, but it hasn’t happened here in Cape Trouble.”
Daniel asked whether Hannah had had any other dealings with men on her list. Did any of them have kids at the same daycare Ian attended? Or were the father of one of his friends? Worked on her house or her car?
She shook her head. “Fletch was one of the first people I met when I came to town. Come to think of it, we probably did have coffee a time or two, when we were out looking at property. But that was two and a half years ago.”
“All right.”
Elias stayed silent, watching her. She frowned in concentration.
“My next door neighbor took a fall six months or so ago. Jeff Lee was one of the two EMTs that respo
nded. He was really kind to her.”
“Any personal interaction between you?”
She shook her head. “I sat on the floor holding Edna’s hand until they shifted her to a gurney, then got Ian and followed her to the hospital. Jeff was leaving as I arrived, so we exchanged a few words about her condition, and that’s all.”
Prompted by more questions, Hannah said she’d chatted a few times with Ron Campbell when she was in the hardware store, but she wouldn’t describe it as flirting on either of their parts. “I mean, telling me what kind of washer I needed to fix a dripping kitchen faucet is his business.”
Daniel kept making notes. Hannah didn’t remember ever seeing the assistant district attorney – last name still unknown – outside of Sweet Ideas, and not even there in a long while. She occasionally crossed paths with Arlo Castaneda at the seasonal farmer’s market, where his father sold produce.
Daniel scraped the bottom of the barrel for possible encounters she’d forgotten. Had she ever had a flat tire and needed help? He found out who’d built the shelving units for the bookstore, where she’d purchased the refrigerated case for the chocolates.
That’s when her eyes widened. “Oh! I didn’t tell you that Rand Bresler wants me to…well, not work for him, but contract to sell truffles to the resort. You know, like on cruise ships when passengers find a chocolate on their pillow every night. We’ve sat down several times to talk about it.”
Silent for quite a while, Elias spoke up. “It’s got, what, seventy rooms? Seventy truffles times seven days a week…”
“Is two thousand truffles a month in addition to what I sell through the store.”
Even Daniel blinked at that.
“He might buy slightly fewer than that, because there’d be empty rooms some nights, especially in the off season. More likely, it would be closer to double that amount. Most rooms are occupied by a couple, not a single person, thus two truffles.” She sounded crisp, reminding Daniel that she’d been remarkably successful at a singularly tough enterprise, launching a small business. “That’s why I’m still hesitating, despite his pressure. Obviously, I’d have to hire more help to ramp up production. I’m not actually sure I want to do that. More production, more employees, means more problems. I’m a single mother, going non-stop as it is.”
“Then say no.” Elias, sounding annoyed.
Not intimidated, she said, “But it would also mean significantly increased income and therefore security, which is nothing to sneeze at when you’re self-employed and have a young child. Thus my dilemma.”
“What do you mean by ‘pressure’?” Daniel asked. “Frequent phone calls? Invitations?” He paused. “Gifts?”
Hannah blinked. “No. Not gifts, and only a couple of phone calls. Just that he keeps wanting to sit down with me so he can pound away at what a fabulous opportunity he’s offering. I make the best truffles he’s ever tasted. His resort will be first class, which means Sweet Ideas would develop a reputation beyond Cape Trouble. This is my chance to go big. Etcetera.”
Daniel circled Randall Bresler’s name, even though, on the face of it, he was only making a business proposition. Being pushy would be usual for a man like that.
“Last time he asked me out, he told me he didn’t get where he was by taking no for an answer,” she said, echoing what Daniel had been thinking. “He also said we have a lot in common, offering only the best to our customers.”
“Son of a bitch,” Elias muttered.
Something in the way she moved made Daniel suspect she had put her hand on Elias’s beneath the table. He had confirmation when he saw the way the artist settled.
“You’ve given me a job,” Daniel said. “In the meantime, be careful. Call me if something makes you feel even the slightest bit uneasy.”
Hannah nodded and pushed back her chair, Burton doing the same. “Thank you.” Her wan smile didn’t measure up to her usual beaming ones. “I’ll apologize in advance if you’re wasting your time.”
“No need,” he said, rising, too.
After seeing them out and taking the notebook to his office, Daniel ran his eyes down the list of men. He wished the time he’d spend on background checks would be time wasted. But all he had to do was remember that Beth Stanford had seen no option but to leave town when the secret admirer targeted her. Daniel’s gut said the same guy had fixated on Hannah, and he wasn’t done.
Especially if he’d seen the way Elias Burton looked at her.
CHAPTER SIX
From the minute Hannah turned the sign to open on Saturday morning, people poured in. And they kept coming. Maybe it had to do with the fog, which often lingered until close to midday but always took tourists by surprise. Everyone wanted hot cocoa or coffee, along with fudge or truffles. Hannah bet Mist River Coffee and some of the restaurants were doing a booming business, too.
Hannah would have tried to drum up some additional counter help, but suspected that by the time she found someone, the fog would have cleared and the tourists would be hitting the beach instead. Swamped as she was, she had to make a conscious effort to check on Ian every ten minutes or so. He scared her once when she couldn’t immediately spot him, only to discover he’d climbed into the playhouse in the children’s section of the bookstore. The next time she looked, he sat at the low table putting together a simple puzzle.
“A piece is missing,” he complained. “See, Mom? The tractor?”
“I do see. I don’t have time to hunt for it right now. Can you? Maybe it’s in the playhouse, or mixed up with books.”
“Yeah!”
Smiling, she returned to the sweets side. “May I help you?” she asked a woman who was next in line, holding hands with a boy close to Ian’s age. The bell over the door rang. A big family entered, the kids rushing to put their noses up to the glass and stare covetously at the goodies.
She didn’t know how much later it was when Ian appeared, tugging at the hem of her shirt even though she was using tongs to put a selection of truffles into a box.
“Mom,” he said urgently. “Jack-Jack is outside barking. I can hear him.”
“What?” Wait, the order was for five coconut truffles, not six. She put one back then added five walnut-butterscotch truffles to the box. “You know it’s not Jack-Jack. He’s home with Edna. How could he be here?”
“But it’s him! I know it’s him.”
With a smile, she handed the box to the man waiting and said, “Alice will ring you up at the cash register. Thank you for your patience.” Then she bent to hiss, “Ian, it’s not Jack-Jack. If there’s barking, it’s some other dog. You can see how busy I am. I don’t have time to go out in the alley and prove it to you.”
“But, Mom—!”
Hating the look of betrayal on his freckled face, she begged, “Please, will you go look at books or draw?” This behavior was unlike him, but expecting him to entertain himself for so many hours was probably unreasonable. She’d think about options for tomorrow…later. When she had time.
His shoulders slumped and he retreated.
“No daycare today, huh?” said an older woman, next in line, with sympathy.
Hannah smiled, grateful for the understanding. “No, and I’d forgotten how busy we get this time of year. Now, what looks good to you?”
She had no idea how much time had passed when she started to say, “May I help you?” to thin air. A lull. She almost moaned in relief. And what kind of businesswoman did that make her?
One who’d wanted a nice, quiet bookshop, Hannah thought in chagrin.
“I need to check on Ian,” she murmured to Alice, who said, “Take your time.”
Ian was nowhere to be seen when she stepped into the bookstore. In fact, there wasn’t a soul visible among the book stacks. The castle again?
“Ian?”
There was no answer. She peeked inside the carpeted, two-story structure and found it empty. Bathroom. Of course he’d gone to the bathroom.
The bathroom door stood ajar. Ian often
didn’t close it at home, either. Modesty wasn’t a word he yet grasped. The stock room door was half open, too. If he was really bored, he might have gone in there to explore.
But he was in neither room. Fear trickled into her bloodstream even though she knew better. He was hiding, or—
He wouldn’t have gone out into the alley to look for Jack-Jack, would he? If so, he could easily have locked himself out.
Heart pounding, Hannah flung herself at the door and threw it open. The fog had long since cleared. A car passed on the side street. A flick of movement drew her gaze, but all she saw was the stray cat dive beneath a dumpster.
“Ian! Ian, where are you?”
She kept calling his name as she ran from one end of the alley to the other, looking behind the two dumpsters, even levering herself up to peek inside the taller of the two although there was no way Ian could have climbed in. She ran up and down a block each way on both side streets, then raced around to the busier Schooner Street. People were staring at her, and she realized she was screaming her little boy’s name.
A passing man stopped. A stranger, his eyes kind. “What’s wrong? Can I help?”
And she said the terrible words. “I can’t find my little boy.”
*****
“Sit down,” Daniel said. “Please.”
Hannah hadn’t cried. She was probably too distraught. “I need to keep looking—”
“Hannah.” He didn’t want to tell her, but couldn’t put it off. “I was able to see what happened on the security camera footage.”
She blanched. Her freckles stood out in sharp relief. She tried to form a word, but failed.
“The puppy was there. It was Jack-Jack barking that Ian heard.”
Hannah was panting. “How could—?”
“I think we have to assume he was stolen and brought here to lure Ian out.” Hannah’s next-door neighbor, Edna Stanavitch, had called shortly after Daniel arrived in response to the 911 call. Her gate had been open and the puppy gone. Unfortunately, she had walked around the neighborhood calling for Jack-Jack before letting Hannah know.
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