Leaving her mother in the living room with the small Yorkie on her lap, Olivia brewed a pot of coffee and sliced some carrots and celery. Okay, maybe Charlene was getting to her. At the last minute, Olivia added some cheese crackers to the serving tray. And a couple dog treats, to make up for the ones Spunky missed because he’d been trapped upstairs all morning. Back in the living room, Spunky settled at Olivia’s feet to crunch.
“Okay, talk,” Olivia said. “What have you got on Charlene ?”
“That sounds so harsh, dear. I’ve gleaned a bit of background, that’s all. But first, I have a few things to share about Maddie and also about your brother.”
“Old news, Mom. Maddie won’t speak to Lucas because he asked her to marry him—don’t ask me to explain it—and Jason is an idiot because he is besotted with Charlene.”
Ellie nibbled on a carrot stick and smiled in that calm and knowing way that always made Olivia want to crush something. “Okay, Mom, out with it.” Spunky’s ears perked up at Olivia’s tone.
“I am impressed,” Ellie said as she selected a piece of celery. “Soon you won’t need me to dig up information for you. However, that time has not come yet. As for Maddie’s reaction to Lucas’s proposal, I have a starting place for you. Maddie was about ten, as I remember, when her parents died in a car crash. I know that they were living in Clarksville at the time, and I occasionally saw her mother when my watercolor group wandered in her direction to find a picturesque scene to paint. Adele had been a part of our group before she married and moved away from Chatterley Heights. She always joined us when we gathered close to Clarksville, which we did at least once a month. Adele used to paint in the loveliest shades of pink and red to create a vibrant aura.”
Olivia grabbed a handful of carrot sticks and bit off several tips at once.
“Livie, I promise I’m going somewhere with this. You see, Adele was a lot like Maddie—enthusiastic, full of energy and ideas. But a few months before the accident, she began to change. She grew quieter and much thinner and—this is significant, I think—she started painting with blues and purples.”
Olivia dropped the carrots on her plate. “You think she was depressed? Or drinking, maybe?”
“I saw no evidence of drinking, but who knows? Mostly, she seemed terribly sad. I tried to question her about it the last time I ever saw her. She was vague, but she did say something about her husband having some problems. Apparently, she never shared her situation with anyone else from my circle, so I can only guess at what was going on. I did wonder if her husband was having an affair. Has Maddie ever talked about that time with you?”
Olivia shook her head. “All she’s ever said is that her memory is a blur for the period surrounding the accident. Maddie doesn’t like to dwell on anything that makes her feel sad. She’s fine with anger, as you know. But even when her high school sweetheart Bobby suddenly broke off their engagement, she reacted more with panic. We agreed that Bobby had acted like a jerk, and Maddie recovered in record time.” Olivia divided the remaining coffee between their cups and added milk and sugar to hers. She picked up a half-eaten carrot from her plate and wrinkled her nose. “I could use a cookie.”
“Me, too,” Ellie said. “I suppose there aren’t any left downstairs?”
“Cleaned out. However, not to worry, I always keep a small stash in the fridge. Because you never know. . . .”
“Absolutely. Besides, I have more information to share.”
“I’ll put another pot of coffee on,” Olivia said. She gathered up the tired-looking vegetables and headed toward the kitchen. By the time the coffee was ready, she had chosen four decorated cookies in shapes as unlike fruits and vegetables as possible. She returned to the living room with the refilled tray, only to find Ellie balanced on one leg in a yoga position. Spunky was stretched over her foot as if he were worried she might fall over.
Her eyes closed, Ellie said, “Just a few more seconds, dear, and I will tell you what I’ve learned about Charlene, poor child.”
“No problem, Mom. I’ll eat one of your cookies while I’m waiting.”
Ellie’s only response was a serene smile. After another twenty or so seconds, she relaxed and opened her eyes. “Now I feel more centered,” she said, settling cross-legged on the sofa.
“Your balance is impressive,” Olivia said, “given your advanced age.”
“Thank you, dear.” Ellie’s small, slender hand hovered over the cookies and finally landed on a yellow heart shape decorated with dark pink curlicues. “Now, about Charlene Critch. I had a revealing chat with your brother after he and Charlene finished their little talk. Jason tried to be evasive, but as his mother I was able to read between the lines.”
“Jason couldn’t be evasive if you swiped his favorite wrench and held it for ransom.”
“Which did make my task easier.” Ellie savored a small bite of her cookie before saying, “Jason does like Charlene very much, as you said.”
“I said he’s besotted.”
“Be that as it may, Jason sees another side of Charlene that you and Maddie do not. To him, she is vulnerable and sweet. I suspect Charlene is more comfortable with men than women, which is hardly surprising given how critical her mother, Patty, could be.” Looking pensive, Ellie nibbled on her heart cookie.
Olivia worked on an orange-and-purple butterfly cookie, determined to be patient with her mother’s unique delivery.
Ellie polished off her cookie and said, “I gathered from Jason that the abusive man in Charlene’s past has followed her to Chatterley Heights. Jason let slip the name Geoffrey. I suspect he is her ex-husband, the boy Jason introduced her to all those years ago. I assume you noticed Charlene’s bruised eye?” When Olivia nodded, Ellie said, “I asked Jason point-blank about the eye, but he said she was shelving some new items and hit her cheek on the corner of a shelf. He was lying, of course. I always know when Jason is lying; his left eyelid twitches.”
“You are scary, Mom.”
“Thank you, dear.”
“What about Charlene’s brother, Charlie?” Olivia asked. “Could he be the one abusing her? He seems devoted to her, but that could be a sign of possessiveness.”
Ellie pulled her knees up to her chest and leaned back against the sofa. Olivia felt a twinge of envy about her mother’s flexibility. Maybe yoga wasn’t such a revolting idea.
“I’ve seen Charlene and Charlie together, and I’ve never noticed possessiveness on the part of either of them,” Ellie said. “In fact, I saw them yesterday morning. I was having an early breakfast at the Chatterley Café, and the two of them were there. They seemed deep in serious conversation, as if they were trying to solve a pressing problem. By the way, I noticed that Charlene paid the bill.”
Having dispatched her second cookie, Olivia settled back to sip her coffee. “That fits with what Struts Marinksy told me. Charlie doesn’t seem to have any money, despite his inheritance.”
“Interesting,” Ellie said, checking her watch. “However, I’ve missed my voice lesson, and my classics reading group starts in half an hour. I need to pick up my copy of Sense and Sensibility on the way.” She unrolled her petite body from the sofa and shook out the wrinkles in her loosely draped outfit. “We can both keep an eye on Charlene’s safety, but there isn’t much else we can do. Jason said she refuses to talk to the sheriff.”
“I can at least mention to Del that someone might have blackened her eye,” Olivia said. “Even if she denies it, he should know.”
“You realize that Charlene will blame Jason for telling.”
“I’ll be discreet. After all, I’m not the only one who noticed the bruise.”
Since Spunky had been stuck in the apartment all day, Olivia took him out for a short, brisk walk before returning to The Gingerbread House. It was near closing time, and Maddie was the only one left in the store. Olivia could hear her singing snatches of tunes along with her iPod. Spunky had learned to open the kitchen door by running at it full speed and flinging his
little body against it. Olivia heard Maddie’s squeak of surprise when Spunky tumbled inside.
Maddie poked her upper body through the door, held out a squirming dog, and said, “Does this belong to you?”
“Never saw it before in my life,” Olivia said.
“One day he’s going to break his tiny neck.” The instant Maddie plunked Spunky on the ground, he took off like a furry rocket and raced around the store. Watching the blur, Maddie said, “If he destroys any of our displays, I’ll break it for him, the little darling.”
Olivia laughed. “You would act just like Spunky if you’d been kept prisoner all day. How were sales?”
“Great! I will leave the counting to you, as always. You do the boring stuff, and I do the fun stuff. It works. And as resident gifted baker, I am about to tackle the cookies for Gwen and Herbie’s baby shower tomorrow evening. Yes, I know, I should have them all cut out, baked, and in the freezer ready for icing, but things got a bit hectic.” Maddie stuck her iPod buds in her ears and turned her back on Olivia. While Maddie gathered ingredients and equipment for the cookies, Olivia collected the day’s receipts and settled at her little kitchen desk. She’d hoped to talk with Maddie about Lucas’s proposal and Charlene’s response to their “harvest” cookie event, but she could tell the moment wasn’t right. Maddie hadn’t even brought up Charlene’s bruised eye. When Maddie closed the door, it couldn’t be blasted open with dynamite.
After a couple hours of dealing with numbers, Olivia was ready to call it quits for the day. Their sales had been good for a Tuesday, but not as impressive as most previous events, especially when she factored in the cost of all those cookies the customers had consumed.
“I’m beat,” Olivia said. “I’m going to bed early tonight.”
Spunky trotted over to her, but Maddie gave her a puzzled look and pulled her iPod buds from her ears. “You spoke?”
“I said I’m heading for bed. Are you planning to work all night?”
Maddie shook her head. “I’m actually tired, for once. I’ll clean up in here and turn out the lights.”
Olivia nestled her sleepy dog in one arm and closed the kitchen door behind her. With the store lights dimmed and the air conditioner on low, the light clink and dull shine of the cookie cutter mobiles reminded her of outdoor chimes. The store still smelled faintly of lime zest. At that moment, Olivia could not imagine leaving Chatterley Heights and moving back to Baltimore. The Gingerbread House had sneaked into her heart the way Spunky had as a puppy, the first time she’d held him.
Feeling expansive, Olivia decided to give her brother the Duesenberg cookie cutter he so coveted. Without turning up the lights, she wound through densely packed displays to the transportation mobile from which she’d hung the cutter. It wasn’t there. Unable to comprehend what she was seeing, Olivia reached toward the spot where it had hung, on the right side of the mobile. It had to be there. Gwen had chosen the tin baby rattle cutter as her prize. And Jason wouldn’t have taken the cutter on his own. Would he?
Maybe Maddie had given the Duesenberg to Jason. It would be like her to take pity on him because he hadn’t won the contest, even with her hints. Olivia poked her head into the kitchen and waved to get Maddie’s attention.
“Maddie, did you by any chance take that Duesenberg cookie cutter out of the transportation mobile?”
“Nope,” Maddie said. “Not my job.”
“It’s gone.”
“It can’t be.”
“Well, it is. Gone, absent, disappeared.”
“Livie, you don’t think Jason would . . . ?”
With a slow shake of her head, Olivia said, “I can’t believe that he would. It’s a valuable cutter, but Jason knows I’d let him have it free, or at least for next to nothing. Anyway, he seemed awfully focused on Charlene and her problems. It’s hard to imagine he’d even have thought about it. Well, I won’t worry about it tonight, and don’t you, either. It’ll turn up. Maybe it fell off and someone put it somewhere in the store. I’m sure we’ll find it in the light of day. You look baked to a crisp. How many days has it been since you slept?”
Maddie yawned and stretched. “I’m fine. I went to bed early Sunday night.”
“This is Tuesday evening. I’ll clean up. You go home and get some rest.”
For once, Maddie didn’t argue.
Chapter Seven
Olivia lay awake and listed her midsummer resolutions. First, buy a new bedroom air conditioner. Second, never read the Cookie Cutter Collectors Club’s latest Cookie Crumbs newsletter right before bed. Way too stimulating. She could read a thriller and still drift off, but looking at photos of vintage cutters made her want to run out and find an all-night flea market.
It didn’t help Olivia’s sleep problem that the temperature in her second-floor bedroom was in the mid-eighties with a dew point she could take a bath in. The Weather Channel had mentioned a storm nearby, possibly heading in their direction. It couldn’t arrive soon enough.
Olivia lay spread-eagle on her bed wearing only panties and a loose cotton T-shirt that reached to her mid-thighs. When she’d first moved into her apartment, she had talked herself out of replacing the old window air conditioner in her bedroom. After all, it might be noisy and slow but it still worked. Frugality was her lifetime habit, inheritance or no inheritance. But with the distractions of Maddie’s impromptu cookie event and Charlene’s dramatic appearance, she hadn’t remembered to turn the useless thing on until bedtime. The day’s heat had snaked through the myriad, inevitable cracks in the old house and slithered up the staircase, gaining strength as it curled into her bedroom.
“I’ve been lying here for hours,” Olivia muttered. She switched on the bedside lamp and checked her cell phone for the time. It was one a.m. “Okay, thirty-five minutes.”
Spunky’s tiny body stretched out flat at the foot of the bed, as far as possible from Olivia. When she spoke, he lifted his eyelids and dropped them shut in one smooth movement.
Olivia considered going to her kitchen and pouring herself a glass of wine. No, she had to open the store in the morning; she couldn’t afford to feel groggy. She’d finished her last library book. Music never helped her to sleep, and the only television was in her living room, where the air conditioner was even older and louder.
Olivia shifted sideways to a cooler place on the sheet. Forcing her eyes shut, she tried deep breathing, which her yoga-addicted mother insisted would relax her. It made her crabby. As if mirroring her mood, Spunky raised his head and growled. But he was looking toward the bedroom windows, not at Olivia. She sat up, listened, but heard only the racket made by the air conditioner.
“What is it, Spunks?”
Spunky fixed his limpid brown eyes on Olivia and whimpered. His head snapped back toward the window, ears perked. The air conditioner consumed one of two bedroom windows. Spunky leaped off the bed and trotted to the second, moonlight-filled pane, where he fidgeted and whined. When he gave Olivia his most heartrending look, the one with the pleading eyes and tilted head, Olivia turned off the bedside lamp and joined him at the window.
“I don’t see anything,” she said. Spunky stood on his hind legs and leaned his front paws on her shin. Olivia picked him up so he could look outside. “See? Dark of night, not a creature is stirring.” Spunky’s ears fell, then shot up again. This time Olivia heard it, too, even with the air conditioner whining in her right ear. She turned it off. The sound came through clearly, a howl that would have sent a chill down her spine if the room temperature hadn’t already risen by at least a degree.
“Hang on a sec, kiddo,” Olivia said, depositing Spunky at her feet. At once he began to hop on his back feet and paw at the wall. Olivia unlocked the window and lifted the crank, but the humidity-swollen frame stuck. She hit the wood with her fist and felt it shift. She hit it again, and the window cracked open, allowing heavy, wet air to penetrate the only slightly drier room. She cranked the pane wide.
Spunky yapped until Olivia picked him up. T
ogether they peered out through the screen at what looked like black nothing until Olivia’s eyes adjusted and the clouds parted to reveal streaks of moonlight. She began to distinguish large shapes: other buildings on either side of The Gingerbread House, trees in the town square, the lamplight near the late-nineteenth-century band shell. Spunky wriggled his front paws free of Olivia’s grasp and reached out to touch the screen. He yapped three times and went silent. A faint howl answered his call.
“Oh no, don’t tell me.” Olivia pressed her forehead against the screen. “Is Buddy out there, Spunks? Is that Buddy howling?” Spunky yapped and wagged his tail. “I’ll take that as a yes.” Deputy Sheriff Cody Furlow’s dog, Buddy, was huge, even for a black Labrador. However, the part about having black fur would explain why Olivia couldn’t see him. Buddy and Spunky had forged a special bond and sometimes led one another into trouble, or out of it.
“Buddy sounds unhappy. Serves him right for running away.” Spunky leaped out of Olivia’s arms and ran to the bedroom door, which was closed to keep in the cooler air. Olivia sat on her bed and speed-dialed Cody’s cell. The call went to voice mail. “Cody? This is Olivia Greyson. It’s—” She checked her cell. “It’s one twenty a.m., and I think Buddy ran off again. Unless he’s home with you, he’s probably the dog I can hear howling from the town square. Anyway, Spunky thinks it’s him. Good luck.”
Hoping her job was done, Olivia flopped back on her bed. Spunky had other ideas. He scratched the closed door, whimpering piteously. Olivia groaned. “All right, I’ll make another call, but I’m not opening that door.” Still on her back, she punched in her speed-dial code for the police department. She got a recording telling her to dial 911 for an emergency. At the end of the message, she was instructed to press “one” to leave a message for the Chatterley Heights Police Department. She questioned whether Buddy on the loose would qualify as 911-worthy. However, it couldn’t hurt to leave a message for Cody.
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