Cookies & Catastrophe

by Beth Byers

  She stumbled through her order and I promised her a refill since hers was trash on the ground. I ran back up to the coffee shop and got her earl grey latte and the orange scone. I added a little box of chocolates and asked for a cup of ice for her face.

  When I came back to her, she cried into her teacup. Simon was there questioning her and she was trying too hard to avoid mentioning the blackmail. Simon could tell she was hedging. If he asked her about the person, she gave pretty clear answers even if she was weeping the entire time. When he asked her if the person said what they wanted, she stumbled, avoided his gaze, and blew her nose repetitively.

  Simon’s glance towards me was extra frustrated. I wasn’t asking a single question only holding the ice to her face, and rubbing her back as she wept and used me to avoid his questions.

  He cursed and said, “If you can help us figure out who did this to you, we can make them pay.”

  She nodded but said nothing.

  I took her hand, squatting down in front of her, and suggested, “Maybe you need to rest a little? Think about it? See what you can remember?”

  She nodded shakily, grasping onto it.

  Simon waited until she drove away and turned to me saying, “I thought you chose us. Us being a team?”

  “Her secrets aren’t mine to tell,” I told him. “I don’t know who hurt her. I promise.”

  He searched my face, and I said, again gently, “I promise.”

  I wanted to stomp my feet the moment he started to lead the way back to the restaurant. I had no idea what was going on now. If a man had hurt Paige then who had knocked Jane down inside of Donna’s house? Maybe one of the men being blackmailed was the assaulter?

  I wanted to shake my fist and call Zee immediately, but I couldn’t. Not with Simon watching. I smiled at him as we sat and said, “Poor Paige.”

  He nodded. His teeth were gritted and the muscle in his jaw was flexing.

  I ignored it and asked the waiter for a Dr. Pepper. The food arrived as soon as we sat, and I shoved a pot sticker in my mouth, so I wouldn’t say something without thinking it out, but I decided instead to comment on the weather. “Sure is drizzly today.”

  I had to hide my smile when he scowled at me.

  “And cloudy.”

  He sniffed and said, “I guess.”

  “More wind than I thought,” I said, eating a pot sticker to avoid laughing at how his eye twitched at that one.

  I took a sip of my soda as he finally relented enough to serve up some of his spicy beef. I took a bite of my own Hunan beef and then said, “You think it’ll rain tonight?”

  I couldn’t hold it in though and started giggling.

  He looked up as I laughed at myself and finally his lips twitched.

  “Probably gonna be cloudy,” he said, joining in on the joke finally.

  “A good evening for cocoa,” I suggested. “Maybe a fire.”

  “I’m going to need something fiercer than that.”

  “Well,” I laughed, “You are a manly man. That means you only drink whiskey right?”

  He took a sip of his coke, little finger out, and nodded.

  I drove him back to the police station after lunch. He got out of the car, and shut the door, leaning into the window as he asked, “What are you up to for the rest of the day?”

  His question was far too casual to be anything other than intentionally sleuthing.

  “Probably going to knock off a bank with Zee and then find a strip club for the ladies.”

  He cleared his throat but I didn’t wait for his follow-up question.

  “Have a good one,” I said brightly and rolled away until he stepped back.

  I called Zee the second the window was rolled up.

  I heard her phone click as she answered and we said in unison, “We need to talk.”

  Chapter 14

  “What happened?” Zee asked as she got into the car. We’d met at the diner, where she pointed out that someone had tried to break into the diner’s back door. We drove to the cottage where my dogs were barking.

  I ran to the cottage as the cleaner came out of one a building over. The door was still locked, but…

  “Someone tried to break into your place,” the maid, Chrissy, said.

  I closed my eyes, thinking of all that blackmail fodder but mostly of my dogs. I opened the door while I talked to Chrissy and Daisy came darting at me, whining and wriggling.

  “Oh baby,” I said. She was still little enough to lift and I pulled her into my arms, rubbing my face against her fur as I turned to the maid.

  “I called the police,” she said. “They came, but there wasn’t anything to see. I scared them off, I guess. I’m spooked though. You gonna be around for a while?”

  “Yes,” I said as Zee shook her head.

  “Yes,” I repeated, nudging Zee. “We won’t leave you here alone.”

  She nodded and went inside my place, letting Mama dog and the puppies out. She shooed them to the door and the little dogs all did their business while Chrissy went back into the cottage next to mine. There had been an overnight visitor, but the place had been dead whenever it wasn’t the weekend.

  I wasn’t sure if I felt good about that or not. While I started some coffee for me, Zee, and Chrissy, Simon called. My lips twisted as I answered.

  “Is it true someone tried to break into your cottage?” He sounded furious.

  “Yes,” I said. I closed my eyes and then said, “And the diner.”

  HIs response to that was a pretty vivid and extended string of curses.

  “It doesn’t look like they got into either place,” I said calmly.

  “I’m going to see if anyone saw anything.”

  “Chrissy saw something at the cottage,” I said. “She and Zee are here. Zee noticed something up at the diner. There are definite scratches on the locks that weren’t there before. At the back.”

  He sighed and hung up on me.

  I looked around for Chrissy, but she was still in the cottage one over. Then I asked, “Do you really think it is someone we haven’t talked to yet?”

  “I think we have one person left if we stick to the females,” Zee said. “And she works a few minutes away.”

  We waited until Simon showed up and cross-examined Chrissy.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I saw someone fiddling at the door when I got here. The second they saw my van, they ran around the side of the building. I heard the dogs barking, called my boss who said to call the police. The dude was wearing a hoodie.”

  “A green one?”

  She nodded and I pressed my lips together.

  “Why would the person who attacked Paige come after you?” Simon demanded as he turned to me as if I’d been caught with bloody hands.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “You can’t tell me you aren’t interfering in this case. I can’t believe that whatever Zee was up to has led to this.”

  “Me?” Zee asked innocently.

  “For the blackmail,” I told her.

  “Oh. Yeah. Of course. I wasn’t aware…”

  “She didn’t tell me what it was about,” Simon said, sounding exhausted. “Don’t leave her.”

  The order was directed to Zee, and he was not joking around. He left, muttering under his breath. Chrissy changed the sheets, vacuumed and wiped down the kitchen and bathroom while I started cutting up vegetables for a salad. I guess that Simon was going to show up again until this stuff stopped happening around me. Tonight I wouldn’t be drinking…but I didn’t want things to take any further steps until I didn’t feel like I was lying to him.

  “He assumed it was me?” Zee asked under her breath.

  I nodded and grated a carrot into the bowl of greens. Zee watched me and then peeled a cucumber and added it to the salad for me.

  “I couldn’t let him guess it was Jane, so I didn’t argue.”

  “Hmmm,” Zee said. “Jane shouldn’t have put you in the position where you’d have to lie for
her. She knows you are dating Simon.”

  I didn’t argue. I wasn’t feeling all that excited about that either. The next time I was in this position, may it never come, I wasn’t going to be trapped into not telling Simon what I knew.

  “So you think we should still talk to the last girl on the list? Even though it was a man who hurt Paige or tried to break into my place?”

  “I’d say it’s a toss-up. But, yes, let’s go talk to Juliette though. Maybe she just had enough of being pushed around by Donna? Maybe she has a boyfriend.”

  I shrugged, feeling frustrated. I wanted to stress bake, curl up by the fire, and have a nap without concern for my safety. Maybe, if I were safe at the diner, I could make pies for the freezer for the holiday rush. Or…just stop, Rose, I told myself, knowing that my mind wouldn’t settle down until we knew who killed Donna and that I wouldn’t feel all that safe.

  “Well, let’s wrap this whole murder and blackmail business up, so we can get back to making pancakes and serving iced tea,” I said.

  Zee had to call four people before she found an address for Juliette and then it turned out she was at work. The Silver Falls Surf, Bait, and Bike Shop was right off of Nehalem Road and within a 2 minute walk of my cottage, so we just strolled over after Chrissy left, and I hid the blackmail stuff as well as I could. I took Daisy with us. I couldn’t take Mama and leave the puppies, but I wanted to tuck the dogs into pockets on my coat and know they’d be ok.

  “I wondered how long it would take you to get to me,” Juliette said when she saw us walk up. She had to be in her early 20s, about a hair past 5-feet-tall, and a freckled, blonde, elfin goddess. Her pointed little face and tilted eyes seemed to scream mischief, and she reached out to flip the sign to closed and then she said, “I was hoping you wouldn’t.”

  Her face was totally unbothered, and she casually asked, “Are you going to tell my boss? I mean…I like my job. A lot. Enough to pay that stupid cow, but if you are…a heads up would be awesome sauce, y’know?”

  . Her face twisted as she put her hair up into a messy bun and then she said, “But whatever.”

  I glanced at Zee whose brows rose and then she demanded, “So did you kill Donna?”

  Juliette laughed so hard she almost fell off of her stool and then said, “Um…no. Obvy. Isn’t that obvy?”

  “Why?”

  “She was basing her blackmail off of minimum wage. I get tips, free rent, and lots of surfing. I mean…I didn’t love giving that stupid cow cash, but I wasn’t getting screwed as hard as she must have been hurting others.”

  I glanced at Zee and she glanced at me.

  “Who else is being blackmailed that you know of?”

  “Roxy, the poor kid,” Juliette said, referring to the teenager that had been taken for her babysitting money. “She was already so guilty about whatever it was she did that being blackmailed felt like some sort of karmic justice.”

  “Is she all you knew about?”

  Juliette came out of the little rental shack to love on Daisy and then glanced up carelessly, I wasn’t sure I believed anyone wasn’t the killer more than Juliette. Everyone else had hated Donna, but this kid…whatever affected her…it wasn’t blackmail or money.

  “Oh no…that poor boutique chick. Donna spent way too much time there for her not be tormenting the woman. Donna was like…a crocodile. She didn’t have friends.”

  I pressed my lips to keep from reacting in a way that Juliette could read if she were lying—not that I thought she was. If anything, she seemed to feel it was almost a game. I wanted to get back to the cottage where the blackmail stuff was. I handed Juliette her proof and said, “Maybe don’t steal from your boss again.”

  “Yeah. Lesson learned, huh? Besides, Stan’s a good guy. It was a jerk move.”

  She took a lighter from the display that advertised the shop and lit the picture on fire.

  “Thanks, yo,” she said sunnily.

  Zee grunted and then said, “You’re welcome, yo.”

  I shook my head at both of them and kissed for Daisy to follow. I wanted to get back to the cottage.

  “Oh wait,” Juliette called. “There’s also that crazy doomsday cult chick. Shawn? She was being blackmailed. I saw her give cash to Donna.”

  Zee paused at that, and I nodded, carrying on. We needed to respond casually, so we didn’t get this kid hurt. A doomsday chick? I could not imagine that. But if it was true…I hurried a little faster. Those people didn’t need to have any of the blackmail stuff. There wasn’t a lot that we hadn’t given back. Zee had taken Shawn’s stuff. Paige had taken her own. Jane had hers…we needed to return Betty’s and the dudes.

  “Shawn Robinette?” I asked, needing the confirmation.

  “Yeah,” Juliette said, making a face that said I was stupid to not have known it was Shawn from the beginning. “Surely you noticed her mad case of crazy eyes? She gave me the creeps before I even knew she was being blackmailed.”

  “We need to give out the blackmail stuff,” I said. “And somehow suggest to Simon that they’re involved. I don’t like the idea of a doomsday cult. What if the reason Shawn was paying wasn’t the job but whatever that cult is up to?”

  Zee just grunted and then said, “I’m calling Az. He’ll go with me to return the blackmail stuff and that way I won’t get murdered. And if the stuff is gone then you won’t have to be glued to your cottage.”

  Zee called Az and Mattie and intended to leave with the blackmail documentation before Simon came back.

  “How are you going to tell him without betraying Jane?” She asked me as we waited.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “He knows pieces. I might just tell him straight out. Everything but Jane and refuse to answer questions about you or Roxy.”

  There was a knock on the door, and she went to answer it. Hopefully it was Mattie. I’d begged for a super sugary espresso, and I needed it quick. I could make my own coffee, but it was feeling like I couldn’t leave that made me want something I couldn’t make for myself.

  “Don’t you work?” Zee asked meanly.

  That didn’t sound right, so I leaned out and saw Simon. I raised my brows at Zee, but she just casually let him in and then said, “Good. I have errands to run and stuff to take care of for Boss Lady here.”

  She said it so meanly that you could almost believe that I’d somehow successfully ordered her to do something.

  She looked behind him, saw Az and Mattie and took off, leaning down to casually grab the box of documentation for blackmailing.

  “Tell me,” Simon said after Zee left. “You have to know more. You can’t just…avoid it.”

  “Promise me to you won’t press me on the blackmail…I can’t tell you their secrets. I just can’t.”

  Simon didn’t like my answer, but he nodded once. So I told him every bit of it and then said, “What if Donna found out about the doomsday cult thing that Shawn was a part of? What if that was real? Then it wouldn’t just be Shawn who was in trouble. It would be whoever was part of that. Depending on what they have going on. If it’s a real thing…”

  “I need you to leave it alone,” Simon said. “You need to stay away from their property…you need to hold Zee back.”

  He paused and then turned his head slowly, looking at the door, thinking back. “Where did she go?”

  “To return the blackmail.”

  “Rose,” he said, shoving his hands into his hair, “That’s evidence.”

  “Only for one person,” I said. “For everyone else, it’s just their lives.”

  I heard the plea in my voice for him to understand.

  He rose, looking at me, but he didn’t yell, and he only paced, so I leaned back in my chair, sipping my sugary coffee and enjoy the relief.

  “The people who talked about Shawn said that she’s super girlie.”

  Simon glanced at me and said, “She used to be a tomboy. She worked construction with her dad. She could have killed Donna the way she died.”

  Oh
. My heart seemed to freeze in my chest.

  “Shawn’s super aggressive,” I said. “Even at the grade school. Even knowing she’d done wrong and that Zee could ruin Shawn’s teaching career.”

  “Her dad was a gun nut,” Simon said. “And aggressive. He used to be a real problem for the department. It doesn’t mean anything, but…it’s a…”

  Something crashed through the window of the cottage. I gasped, expecting a brick, but I knew that smell.

  “Daisy,” I screamed and my dog scrambled to me. The flames were fast and hard, and the door of the cottage was blocked.

  “Rose,” Simon said. He physically hauled me back from the fire. I couldn’t breathe already but the flames were far higher and faster than anything that had been happening in Donna’s house.

  “Mama dog,” I cried. I heard puppies crying and dropped to my knees, crawling, pulling Daisy behind me.

  “I’ve got one,” Simon said. He shoved a puppy down his shirt and followed the sound of another yelping. I heard a low whine between the sound of the flames and found Mama dog and another puppy. I followed Simon’s example, tucking a puppy down my shirt while I hauled Daisy and Mama dog under each arm.

  Simon led the way to the bedroom. The window was blocked, but he simply lifted a chair and slammed through it. I might have been unable to get out. But with Simon, I was going to live. Simon stepped out and pulled me through the window dogs and all.

  I wanted to collapse, but he lifted me, carrying me away from the cottage and towards the sand before he set me down. He called emergency services while also pulling a puppy from his shirt and handing it to me. Daisy was whining and there was a burn on her shoulder. Mama dog was unsinged but she was crying frantically.

  I sat in the sand, next to Simon’s leg and checked the puppies over. We heard the blaring sound of sirens and I rose, making a bowl out of my shirt to hold the puppies while I carried Daisy. Mama dog was going to have to follow her puppies as I led us away from the fire and towards the ambulance.

  Jane jumped out and I started crying as I saw her.

  “Daisy,” I said, handing my dog over.

  Jane didn’t blink at using her medical degree on my dog. She put burn salve on Daisy and told the EMT to call the vet at the same time to find out what they could give her for pain. Before I could even think further, Jane had taken the puppies from me and gathered up Mama dog, treating them while she put a face mask over me.