Brownies & Betrayal (Sweet Bites Mysteries, Book 1)

by Heather Justesen

  “There’s a candle burning inside a room filled with natural gas. Someone needs to blow it out.” I winced when gesturing with my hand caused pain to shoot through my elbow. And my shoulder throbbed.

  He turned and asked someone to take care of it, then looked at me more closely. “Looks like you got in the way of her gun.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, but even I didn’t believe it, and the detective’s snort was more than enough proof that he didn’t either. Still, I tried to make light of the pain. “It grazed me. I’ll live.”

  He looked at it again and gave me a withering look. “It didn’t graze you—it went all the way through. You’re lucky it didn’t hit a major vein or something. You’re bleeding everywhere.”

  Surprised, and more than a little dazed, I looked at it more closely and realized he was right. From the amount of blood I was losing, I thought maybe it had hit a vein. I hadn’t realized the back of my shirt was shiny red.

  The ambulance pulled up and Jack and his partner popped out. Again? Really? Did the man never take a night off? Jack came to me while his partner went to check on Lidia.

  “It’s a flesh wound,” I said with a half-smile. “Just going into shock. Nothing serious.”

  “Right,” he said in a smooth voice. “Because shock’s not serious at all.”

  People were shocked on a regular basis, weren’t they? I wasn’t sure how he managed to sound sarcastic and soothing at the same time. Perhaps I was going light-headed, and seeing his face calmed me.

  He turned to one of the other officers and asked him to get an oxygen tank from the rig and to grab a handful of four-by-fours—that had me wondering how he intended to use blocks of wood to help me. Or did he mean a truck with four-wheel drive? My head swam. He started asking me where I hurt.

  Someone came back with some packages of gauze. I glanced at one as Jack ripped several open and noticed it said “4x4” on it. Oh, okay. His partner put on the blood pressure cuff and started pumping it up. Officer Lambert brought over the gurney.

  “I don’t need an ambulance,” I said. I knew if they got me in there, he was going to try to stick a needle in me. I hate needles.

  Jack scowled at me. “You are so stubborn. You’re going to pass out from blood loss if we don’t get you to the hospital soon.”

  “I can drive myself.” Except my Outlander was still in Valerie’s apartment parking lot.

  “Forget it.” He put a hand under my good shoulder and helped me stand, then turned me to sit on the gurney. I shot him a dirty look, but was too tired and achy to argue. Dang it, he was right.

  “Hold this,” he said as he put the gauze on the front of my bleeding shoulder and set my hand on it. “Apply plenty of pressure if you can.”

  I felt light-headed and trembly, but did the best I could.

  He opened some more packages and threw them on the exit wound in back. “You’re lucky it’s not worse.” Someone kept a hand under my shoulder, holding pressure on that wound while we moved to the ambulance. Once inside, a couple of other EMTs I’d never seen before hopped in with him, and one held pressure on my wounds, while another cut my shirt from the sleeve to the neck, then wrapped a roll of gauze around my shoulder, under the arm pit, to hold everything in place.

  The one holding pressure started asking me all the same questions Jack had asked me on the day I was attacked.

  After answering a few I turned to Jack. “Do you ever go home?” I watched him opening packages of tubing. The man had been everywhere this week. I thought he could use a cheesecake.

  He smiled. “Not nearly enough. I’ve been pulling extra shifts because someone’s out sick.”

  Oh, that explained it.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “She was trying to kill me. She shot me; I managed to get away.” I squeezed my eyes against the white-hot agony in my shoulder. “Can you give me something to numb the pain?”

  “Sure. Just a minute.” I looked up when I heard a tearing sound and saw him adding the tubing onto a bag of the clear liquid they hook to IVs.

  “Oh, no. No needles.” The ambulance careened around a corner and bumped through a pothole or something. I groaned as the pain spiked.

  “If you want pain meds to get to you fast, this is the best way,” he said as he wrapped a rubber strip around my upper arm. “Besides, you need more fluid. You’ve bled quite a bit and your blood pressure has looked better.” He tore open a small package and pulled out a red-brown square.

  I looked away, even more sure I was going to puke. “I might need something to vomit in,” I warned them. One of the other EMTs handed me a barf bag faster than you could say “ralph.” “I hate needles. I don’t want an IV.” The words came out more as a whine than a refusal.

  “Fine I’ll wait until you pass out and do it anyway. It should take all of two minutes.”

  I scowled.

  As the IV needle went into my elbow a minute later despite my half-hearted arguments, I decided Jack didn’t deserve the cheesecake after all.

  It seemed to take forever for the doctors to sew up my bullet wounds and check for anything else that might be wrong. By the time they left me in peace to answer all the police officers’ questions, I had been given almost a pint of blood and a full bag of the clear stuff. At least they gave me some good pain medication, I thought as I looked into Detective Tingey’s grim face.

  The detective asked, “Feeling better?”

  “I’m pretty sure I’m not going to pass out or puke on you,” I answered. I thought those were relevant issues.

  He seemed to agree as he took the rolling chair next to me. “What happened?”

  I gave him a brief summary from the time I’d spoken to him earlier that afternoon. “There are videos. My surveillance system’s on. She tried to kill me, to make it look like an accident. To shut me up.”

  He scribbled notes. “Why would she do that?”

  I gave him the short version, not sure if my words made sense.

  “Where’s the security system set up?” Detective Tingey asked.

  I told him and he made another scribble in his notebook. “I’ll have Officer Lambert retrieve the videos as evidence. Someone phoned Honey and she said she’d lock up for you. I’m sure she’ll be here soon.”

  “Good. Are you going to let Millie go now?”

  “Yes, as soon as I talk to the judge. She may be out of jail tonight. Of course, there will still be charges for theft, but they’ll be minor in comparison.”

  I decided now was a good time to ask the question that had been nagging me for the past half hour. “How did you know I needed help? Why did the police show up?”

  “A woman stopped by to talk cakes with you—said you were expecting her. She heard the gunshot, so she called for help.” He gave me a hard look. “Apparently she’s smarter than some people I could mention.”

  I felt my face heat with a blush, but didn’t respond.

  He studied me for a long moment. “Looks like it’s a good thing you still have insurance with your old job,” he said.

  “Two trips to the ER and an ambulance ride in less than a week. It makes me think this small town might be more exciting than I remembered.” And I’d thought things were supposed to be slow-paced in Silver Springs.

  He shook his head like he couldn’t believe my comments. “It’s only exciting when you’re around. Do I take it you’re going to stay?”

  I smiled weakly and nodded. “Yeah. Looks like it. I have to head back to the city to settle things there, but I’ll be open for business by Easter.”

  “I’ll stock up on Tums.”

  I laughed at that, which meant the drugs were probably doing a great job.

  He handed me a couple of papers. “Now, I know you told me what happened, but can you write me a full report from the moment you pulled up at Lidia’s? Do you feel up to it?”

  “I’m a little fuzzy right now. Do you mind if I take care of it later?”

  “That’s fine.
I’ll come by for it tomorrow. I may have some more questions for you by then.” He stood and took one more look at me. “Try to stay out of trouble, will you?”

  I grinned. “I’ll do my best.”

  He disappeared through the curtain.

  Honey arrived a few minutes later and fussed over me. “I can’t believe you went out there alone,” she said. “I should’ve gone with you.”

  “And she would have tried to kill us both.” I wasn’t about to put her life in danger. She had a husband and children. Besides, it was only supposed to be reconnaissance, not a confrontation. Apparently I needed to work on my sneakiness in the future.

  “No way—she would have been stealthier and tried to take us out individually,” Honey protested. “You wouldn’t be here at all if we’d used the buddy system.”

  “She’s probably right,” Jack said as he entered the screened room where I lay. His eyes studied mine. “You look better. More color. Has the doctor said you’ll live?”

  “Yeah. I’m harder to kill than Lidia thought. How is she?”

  “She’ll survive to face the courts, despite her concussion. Remind me never to get in a fight with you.” His mouth quirked up on the right. “You know, when I first met you, I thought you were one of those city women who were focused on their careers to the exclusion of everything else. You proved differently. I’m sorry if I was a little cold.”

  His words somehow made the pain a little less acute. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  He stepped back, as if needing to put space between us. “So when are you going to open your shop?”

  “Before Easter.” I plucked at the blanket covering my legs. I wondered if I could really get everything together that fast, then made up my mind to be sure I did.

  “Good. Count on me to stop by for some treats.”

  “See you then.”

  With a wave, he disappeared down the hall.

  Maybe he wasn’t as bad as I’d originally thought. Perhaps, if I could go more than two days without him coming to check my wounds and poke holes in my veins, we could even become friends.

  Nah.

  Honey turned a wide grin on me. “Now what do you think of him?” She wriggled her eyebrows.

  “You can’t be serious.” I gave her my best scowl. “He stuck me with a needle. No way am I going to go out with a guy who stuck me with a needle.”

  “Lamest excuse of the century.” She straightened the blanket on my legs. “What? Is he not good enough for you?”

  I shook my head. “He seems nice, but guys are totally off the menu for me right now.” I looked at the IV bag and noticed it was almost empty. “Can you go find someone to disconnect this thing?”

  “I’ll let you change the subject—this time.” She disappeared out the door and left me smiling.

  Now if I could get through a week without a major catastrophe, life would be good.

  A week later I was amazed how much I could accomplish toward getting the business set up when I wasn’t running around interviewing murder suspects. As I waited for Honey to pick me up for the drive to the airport, I took stock of the restaurant-turned-bakery. My sign was in the window, the paint and trim finished. All the supplies and equipment that had come in were put away, my oven was installed and I’d placed an order for baking supplies, the delivery for which Honey would come accept on my behalf while I was gone.

  I’d even had a display case delivered the previous afternoon to show off my cupcakes and cookies and any other fun desserts. I was proud of what I was doing, and couldn’t wait to hear the bell ringing as customers came in to buy something to please their sweet tooth.

  I heard the kitchen door open and crossed back there to see Honey standing in the doorway. “About time you made it,” I teased, though she was less than two minutes late. “I have a plane to catch, you know.”

  “Yeah, yeah, tell it to someone else. You ready to go?”

  “Definitely.” We went out and she loaded the bags I’d left by the back door into her trunk—I claimed that lifting hurt my wound, which was true. I locked the door and turned to hand the keys to Honey. “You’ll remember to let the delivery guy in on Wednesday?”

  “Yes. Don’t worry about it. I have everything under control.”

  Of course she did. She was superwoman. I slid into the passenger seat and buckled up. “I heard Dahlia is staying at Tad and Analesa’s,” I said when she had started the car.

  She sent me a sideways glance. “Been talking to Shawn again?”

  I allowed a smile to curve my mouth. “I might have. He said Analesa got over her anger pretty fast when she got all the facts. It could hurt Tad’s chances at a senatorial seat someday, but they’ve decided not to worry about that now. I guess her parents and Tad’s are over the moon about having a granddaughter.”

  “Yeah, but rough on Dahlia, don’t you think? Can you imagine being in her place?”

  That was one issue I hadn’t been able to resolve. The poor baby. I still woke at night with visions of her running into that room, crying for her mom. “No. She’s the biggest victim in all of this. How confusing for her.”

  “But back to Shawn—so, you know. What’s up?” She maneuvered the car onto the freeway and we headed south for Phoenix as I laughed.

  “I guess the only thing that will answer that question is time.” And as I looked ahead, I knew there would be time to figure out answers to all my questions.

  Book 2 in the Sweet Bites Mystery series,

  Pistols & Pies

  Check out the excerpt:

  Despite how huge the fitness center’s cake had started out, there was only a small section of white cake left when the last of the guests dispersed. I packaged up the remainder in a couple of pastry boxes and headed down the hall where I’d seen the mayor and facility manager talking earlier. Someone might as well enjoy the end of this, and I sure didn’t need it. The local nursing home, women’s shelter and food bank already got regular donations of my leftover products.

  The halls were eerily quiet, my footsteps echoing on the gray asphalt tiles. Children’s voices trickled from the pool, while the clank of weight machines sounded down the other hall. The facility was free to the public for the rest of the day and plenty of people were taking advantage of it.

  When I didn’t find the mayor on the main floor, I went upstairs where there were rooms organizations could rent. I checked a couple of meeting rooms, then pushed on the door to the closet of a kitchen that could be rented to portion out snacks for events. The door stopped when it was halfway open and I looked down, seeing a big brown men’s shoe blocking the way. It appeared to be attached to a pair of men’s dress pants.

  My heart raced and I caught my breath as I looked around the edge of the door, already knowing I was not going to like what I saw.

  Eric Hogan lay on his back, the boxes of pie I’d made for him were next to him, one on its side with the pie falling out onto the floor in chunks. His hands were splayed at his side and there was a big red bullet hole in his forehead, blood still oozing out of it into a pool around his upper body and trickling down under the oven.

  My stomach clenched as I grew nauseated, the smell of peaches and spice assaulted my nose along with the coppery scent of blood (though that might have been my imagination). I took two quick steps back, holding my stomach, hoping I wouldn’t vomit. A few more steps and I ran into the railing that overlooked the main floor, then turned to see the mayor and a woman passing below me. “Mayor, help. Someone needs to call 911.” I didn’t think I said it very loud, but he looked up at me, confused. “It’s Eric Hogan,” I called.

  “What’s wrong with him? Is he hurt?” He started toward me faster than before.

  “He’s dead.” I slid down the railing to sit on the floor and pulled my legs to my chest, dropping my head between my knees, hoping I wouldn’t pass out. What was it with me finding dead bodies?

  “We really have to stop meeting like this.”

  I’d know the voice
anywhere—it belonged to paramedic Jack King, the man who always seemed to be there when I felt or looked like crap. I peered up at him now and hoped I wasn’t as pale as I felt. “You’re telling me. Did you get a look at him?”

  “Yeah, there’s nothing we can do for him. How about you? Need an IV?” His eye twinkled at me and I glared. He knew how much I hated needles.

  I hit his leg with my closed fist, though I didn’t put as much energy behind it as I could have. “Sure, just as much as you want an appendectomy.”

  “Too late, I already had one, but yeah, surgery’s not really high on my to-do list right now.” He crouched beside me. “Are you going to be all right? You’re kind of gray around the edges.”

  “I’m feeling better. Help me stand and we’ll see how much better.” I slid my hand into his and tried to ignore the way it wrapped around mine so nicely, or the gentle way he helped me to my feet. Instead I reminded myself that he’d put a needle in my arm that spring. I still wasn’t ready to forgive him, even though I’d needed the IV and had sort of given permission.

  “How’s that?” Jack asked when he got me to my feet. He put a hand on my back, steadying me for a moment as a bout of lightheadedness hit me.

  When it passed, I nodded. “I’m okay.”

  “Yeah, sure. Let’s find you a chair. Tingey will want to talk to you before you leave, anyway.” He nodded toward the detective, who was speaking with someone outside the kitchen door.

  “Of course he is. And then he’ll ask me again, and he’ll have me write it down, and if I’m really lucky, I’ll get a ride to the station to give a formal report too!” I pasted on a manic grin as if it sounded like barrels of fun. Having experienced it before, though, I knew better.

  My cell phone rang and I fished it out of my pocket as we headed down the stairs to a chair by the empty cake table. Someone had hauled off the board while I’d been upstairs trying not to be sick, and it looked like they swiped the end of the cake too. That was fine by me.