Apple-achian Treasure (Auntie Clem's Bakery Book 8)

by P. D. Workman

  Vic’s hands were in her lap, her long, white fingers twisting together in her anxiety to get there and find out what had happened.

  “I’m going as fast as I dare,” Erin told her.

  “I know. It’s okay. We’ll get there. I’m sure it’s nothing. He probably shot himself in his foot loading his gun.” She gave a little laugh that ended up sounding like a squeak or a hiccup.

  “Yes. It’s probably nothing,” Erin agreed. But she didn’t think it was nothing. If it was nothing, then Jeremy himself would have called Vic instead of the hospital. He would have laughed and made a big joke out of it, like he did about everything.

  Finally, they were into the city, and Erin navigated the streets, keeping an eye out for the ‘H’ street signs indicating the route to the hospital. She hadn’t been there enough times to know the way without them. She pulled up to the emergency doors.

  “You go ahead. I’ll go find parking and see you in a few minutes.”

  “Thanks, Erin.” Vic jumped out, slammed the door behind her, and dashed in through the doors.

  Parking was always an issue at the hospital; space was at a premium and they charged an arm and a leg for it. Erin laughed grimly at the thought of a hospital charging and arm and a leg, but she knew it wasn’t really very funny. She was just anxious.

  She had to work her way through the maze of hallways from the parking structure, following cryptic signs and ending up in the wrong wing more than once. Finally, she made it back to emergency after going out of the hospital and walking around the outside to the doors she had dropped Vic at.

  She looked around the groups of chairs for Vic. She wasn’t there, but was standing near the triage desk looking lost.

  “What is it?” Erin asked, the pulse in her throat pounding so hard she could hardly hear. “What did you find out?”

  “He’s in surgery. He got shot in the torso, they won’t say how bad it is.”

  “How did he get shot?”

  “I don’t know yet. They said someone would come out to talk to me. There are police…” She looked over her shoulder to the area behind the security glass where doctors and nurses were busy with their usual activities. There were several dark-uniformed cops in close conversation with each other. As Erin watched, one of them broke away from the group and swiped his card to open the security door that got him back into the waiting area. He nodded at Vic.

  “You’re Jeremy’s sister?”

  Vic nodded. “Yes. What happened? Is he going to be okay?”

  “We still need to finish taking statements.” He motioned them toward the grouping of chairs close by.

  Erin guided Vic over to one of them and sat down beside her, keeping a comforting hand on her shoulder. The policeman remained on his feet.

  “As I say, we’re still investigating, but the bottom line is that he was shot at work, exchanging gunfire with a poacher.”

  “At work?” Vic echoed. She shook her head. “How does he get in a gunfight with a poacher in broad daylight?”

  “The farm has had issues with poaching, which is why your brother was hired. We’ll have to have some discussions about whether everyone was properly licensed and registered. As you say, it was pretty bold, planning a daylight robbery, but that appears to be what happened.”

  Vic rubbed her hand across her eyes and forehead. “What are they growing that is so valuable? Please tell me it’s not drugs. Are they growing marijuana or poppies?”

  He gave a sympathetic smile. “Everything appears to be legal.”

  “Well, thank goodness for that.”

  Erin noted that the officer still hadn’t disclosed what it was that they were growing.

  Time passed slowly. Erin sat and rubbed Vic’s back and they spoke quietly to each other in fits and starts, mostly sitting silently, but occasionally talking about something unimportant as it came to mind. Erin watched the clock on the wall, as she was sure Vic did, willing the time to pass faster and for Jeremy to be out of surgery, fully restored.

  After a couple of hours, Vic looked up, her eyes tired and swollen.

  “Your knight in shining armor has arrived,” she observed.

  Erin followed Vic’s gaze and saw Terry approaching with K9 at his side. He spotted the two of them and moved with more certainty.

  “Vic. How is he? Do you know anything?”

  “No, not yet. He’s in surgery. Took a bullet somewhere in his body. That’s all we know. Just… waiting for word of how the surgery goes.”

  Terry shook his head. He pulled a chair over, scraping the floor noisily. “I can’t believe it. I figured he’d get in trouble while he was with the Jackson clan, or trying to get out of it, not when he got a legitimate job.”

  “It is legitimate, right?” Vic asked.

  “As far as I can tell. I’m not getting any chatter that there’s anything illegal going on. It seems to be all above-board.”

  “I can’t believe it either. He’s a good shot, so how did this poacher get the drop on him?”

  “It sounds like there was more than one of them. So, he might have been pincered between two of them. I can’t imagine that they’d be intentionally approaching him rather than trying to get… whatever it was they were trying to get, but there’s no telling. Maybe he snuck up on one and didn’t see the lookout.”

  “Did he get any of them?”

  “We think so. They got away, but there is enough blood at the scene that he probably got at least one of them. We don’t know how badly or how far they’ll be able to travel. It will take time to do all of the blood analysis, of course; we’re just going from droplet patterns at this point. They’ll do typing and maybe DNA to sort it all out. If they think it’s important. It might not really matter.”

  “Why wouldn’t they?” Erin demanded. “They’d want to track down and arrest whoever these poachers are, wouldn’t they? Why wouldn’t they follow up on every lead?”

  “Because testing takes time and money that could be better spent on other things. A couple of poachers don’t rank high on the priorities list. Not when you’ve got drugs, gangs, and murders to deal with. Nothing was actually stolen, so there are no losses. It’s just Jeremy’s injury. Weapons and assault charges. And more than likely, they’ll catch these guys when they show up somewhere for medical care. No need to waste money on unnecessary testing.”

  “It isn’t important that Jeremy got injured?” Erin asked in disbelief.

  “Not in the grand scheme of things, no.” Terry looked away uncomfortably. “That doesn’t mean that I don’t care, it just means that’s the way they prioritize resources. Of course, I care that Jeremy got hurt. I’m here. I want to support Vic and to make sure he’s okay. It’s not ‘nothing’ to me. But to bureaucrats who don’t know him… it doesn’t mean much to them. Just one non-fatal injury.”

  Vic choked up. Terry reached out to her and Vic held his hand.

  “He’s going to be okay, Vic,” Terry said. “He’ll be laughing about this before you know it.”

  “You don’t know that. He could… he could be badly hurt. He could be…”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound like that. He’s going to be okay.”

  “If he is, he’d better not go back to this job again,” Vic said forcefully. “He can find another job. This is crazy. Who shoots someone over a cornfield? I can’t understand it.”

  “Corn?” Terry repeated.

  “I don’t know what they’re growing. No one has actually said. But the policeman who was here and talked to us said that it wasn’t drugs. It wasn’t anything illegal. I can’t think of what anyone would be growing that was that valuable.”

  “Maybe some kind of orchid,” Erin suggested. “I know there are some really rare species that are really hard to grow. They need special greenhouses and monitoring equipment… maybe it’s something like that.”

  “Maybe it is. I don’t know.” Vic ground her teeth. “Orchids!”

  Th
ey were all quiet for a while. Terry looked at Erin.

  “Do you want me to take you home? You can leave your car here for Vic.”

  “No, I’m not going anywhere. We need to know that Jeremy is out of danger.”

  “Oh, I know. I meant after that. When everything is sorted out and you’re ready to go.”

  Erin shook her head. “No. I’ll stay. Thanks.”

  “Okay…”

  Erin looked at him. “What?”

  Terry raised his brows questioningly.

  “What’s that tone?” Erin asked.

  “No tone.”

  Erin looked at Vic for confirmation. “There was a definite tone,” she insisted. “So, what is it? What’s the problem with me staying here?”

  Vic gave a little nod of confirmation, looking at Terry curiously. “There was something.”

  “No tone,” Terry insisted. “I was just thinking that… you seem to have gotten pretty close to Jeremy. It seems strange that you’re so protective of him and concerned about him when really, you hardly know him.” He paused. “Because you really do barely know him, don’t you…?”

  Erin blinked. “You’re jealous? I’m here because I’m concerned about my best friend and her brother, and you’re jealous over that?”

  “I just wonder… if it’s more than that.”

  “Oh, good grief!” Erin blew her breath out in exasperation. “I’m not secretly in love with Jeremy. I’m here to support my friend. I care about Jeremy. I can care about someone without being… in a relationship with him.”

  “Of course you can,” he agreed, his voice carefully neutral.

  “And I do care about him. But we’re not in a relationship. We’re just friends. Like you say, we really don’t know each other very well. But I know Vic.”

  He nodded slowly. “He was living in your house.”

  “I told you that there was nothing going on between us. He had his room and I had mine. I’m at the bakery all day and I just squeeze in a few hours of sleep each night. I don’t have time to be running the bakery and going out with you and carrying on a torrid affair with Jeremy on the side.”

  Vic snorted and started to laugh. “A torrid affair?” she repeated. “Erin and Jeremy?”

  Terry’s face flushed red. “I never said that. I just worry that… there was more going on than Erin and Jeremy would like to admit. I don’t even mean there was anything going on between them physically, but you don’t know what people are thinking about… and they were living together, keeping it a secret.”

  “Because the Jackson clan was after Jeremy. You know exactly why he was living there. And you know that I told you as soon as I could. Before he wanted me to.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You think that he didn’t want me to tell you because he had designs on me? He was hoping that if he kept it a secret that he was living there that… somehow, he’d get his chance with me? Even though I was still dating you?” Erin shook her head vehemently. “There’s no way, Terry! And you know he’s with Beaver now, so why you’re still worrying about anything…”

  Vic frowned and looked around. “Beaver.”

  Erin looked over at her, the same thought crystallizing in her mind. “Where is Beaver? Why isn’t she here already? Didn’t anyone let her know what was going on? Wouldn’t Jeremy have asked them to call her?”

  “If he could have,” Vic agreed, “but maybe he couldn’t.”

  “He had them call you.”

  “They called me… but I was his emergency contact at work. He told me that he put my name down because he wasn’t sure where things would go with Beaver or if she’d always be available if something happened. You know, if she’s undercover, they wouldn’t be able to reach her, and she wouldn’t be able to reach any of us. They wouldn’t know to call me if they couldn’t reach her.”

  “Do you have her number? Maybe no one has contacted her.”

  Vic shook her head. Erin looked at Terry. “Do you have her number? Or could you get it from someone?”

  “I have it,” Terry confirmed. He pulled out his phone and turned it on to check the contact phone numbers. Erin looked at Vic while Terry was looking it up.

  “Me and Jeremy,” she scoffed. “I mean, Jeremy’s a nice guy, but I’m in a relationship already. And so is he, now. I love him like a brother. I never looked at him any other way.”

  “I know that,” Vic said, but there was something in her eyes.

  Erin frowned, getting a headache from the tension across her forehead. “Not you too? I didn’t have romantic feelings toward Jeremy.”

  “No.”

  “Are you saying that he has feelings for me?”

  Vic took a little too long to answer the question. Erin’s heart beat faster. She looked at Terry, who had looked up from his phone and had his eyes fixed on Vic’s face.

  “He might have had an interest,” Vic said carefully. “He wouldn’t horn in on another man’s girlfriend, so it’s not like he would ever do anything about it, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have feelings.”

  “But he’s with Beaver now.”

  Vic nodded quickly. “Yes. And they’re getting along famously. I’m just saying that I wouldn’t be able to say that he never had any feelings toward you.”

  “I’m older than he is,” Erin dismissed.

  “So is Beaver.”

  “Well… yes.”

  “So maybe he likes older women.”

  “That’s just…” Words failed Erin. She looked back at Terry. “That doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean there was ever anything between us. Maybe he liked me, I don’t know, he never said or did anything inappropriate. We never did anything.”

  Chapter Eleven

  E

  rin was sitting with her hands over her eyes, elbows resting on her knees. She was done with talking. Done with trying to figure out how Jeremy could have been shot over some plants. Done with trying to explain to Terry that she wasn’t attracted to Jeremy and he wasn’t attracted to her and there was no need for concern. She was so done with waiting for the doctors to come out and tell them how Jeremy had fared with his surgery that she was at the end of her rope.

  She heard the thud of approaching boots, and didn’t look up, knowing that it wasn’t going to be the doctor. Not in boots.

  “So just what did that boy do now?” Beaver’s voice was loud over the muted whispers of the emergency room.

  Erin dropped her hands from her eyes and looked at Beaver. “You made it.”

  “Of course I made it. Now somebody tell me what’s going on.”

  Even though Beaver’s body language said she was completely relaxed and her voice was good-humored, Erin was sure she detected something around Beaver’s eyes that said that she was just as concerned about his welfare as everyone else who was waiting there.

  “We don’t know exactly what happened,” Erin sighed.

  “He was shot at work,” Vic explained once more. “Poachers. More than one, according to Terry,” Vic nodded to him, and Terry nodded. “They exchanged gunfire. Jeremy was hit somewhere in the body. He’s in surgery.” Vic pressed a button on her phone to wake up the screen. “He’s been in there for two and a half hours.”

  “He was shot at work? I thought I was the one who was supposed to have the dangerous job. Isn’t that what we agreed to?”

  Erin couldn’t bring herself to laugh at Beaver’s humor. Beaver looked at the sad little group. She dragged a chair over.

  “If he’s been in there for two and a half hours, then they are probably almost done,” she said. “The doctor will be out before long, telling us that everything is going to be just fine. Then I’m going to kill him.”

  “The doctor or Jeremy?” Vic asked.

  “Jeremy. Definitely Jeremy. How could he do this to me?”

  Vic shook her head. “How could he do this to any of us? He was supposed to be safe. He left the farm and left the clan and he was supposed to be safe now. I wasn’t supposed to have to w
orry about him anymore.”

  “Either he didn’t get the memo, or he didn’t understand it,” Beaver grumbled.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Vic said. “If I have to tell my parents that he’s…” she gulped. “I just can’t do it, Beaver. I can’t call them and tell them that something happened to him.”

  “You’re not going to have to. He’ll tell them himself when he gets out.”

  Vic sighed and shook her head, unconvinced. Erin grasped her hand and gave it a squeeze. She didn’t have the words to make Vic feel better. All she could do was be there.

  “Where’s Willie?” she asked.

  “He was doing a long courier run. He couldn’t get back. He’ll turn around as soon as he can and meet us here.”

  Erin nodded. “He probably won’t be long, then.”

  “No.” Vic turned and looked at the entrance. “Shouldn’t be too long.”

  Beaver pulled out her phone and started tapping away on it. Erin was relieved not to have to carry on a conversation again. She just covered her eyes and waited some more. Surely, as Beaver said, it wouldn’t be too long before Jeremy was out of surgery and they would have something to tell them. They would say that he’d need some time to recover, but then he’d be just fine.

  It was still another hour before a tired-looking woman in scrubs came out and looked around.

  “Family of Jeremy?” she asked.

  Vic stood up like a shot. Erin and the others got to their feet more slowly.

  “How is he? Is he going to be okay?” Vic demanded.

  “He’s going to be okay,” the doctor said. She put her hand on Vic’s arm. “Just calm down there, hon’. Take a deep breath.”

  Vic did so, swaying slightly on her feet.

  “Are you the girlfriend or the sister?” the doctor asked.