by Destiny Ford
Drake’s lips lifted in a slight smile that indicated he didn’t believe that at all. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at six.”
I nodded, and watched him walk out the door.
I smiled as I sat down. The thought of going out with Drake and not having to worry about anything except possible arguments with him for a few hours was nice. I needed some time to let my mind clear, and not be concerned about someone vandalizing my personal belongings, or trying to hurt me.
“Woo—eee!” Ella chortled in a sing-song voice. “Drake and Katie, sittin’ in a tree—“
“There are no trees involved,” I said, cutting her off. “No kissing, either.”
“Not yet.”
I shook my head. “I have enough to deal with in my life right now without adding romantic entanglements to it.”
She chuckled. “You’ve been in romantic entanglements since you moved back here. I don’t think it’s gonna stop any time soon.”
I frowned. She was probably right, but I had other things I needed to concentrate on at the moment.
“I heard Salt Lake has a bomb squad. Maybe we should hire those guys to follow you around for a little while,” Ella suggested.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Between you and your mom, that’s actually a good idea,” Spence said.
“Eh,” Ella said, her tone unworried. “She has Drake and Hawke to protect her. She’ll be fine.”
I had to admit, having those two on my team certainly made me less apprehensive. I’d been threatened before, but never with explosives. I’d exposed the cookies and stopped them from being sold in Branson. Any other sane person would probably stop investigating and let sleeping dogs lie. But apparently, I wasn’t sane. Exposing the cookies wasn’t the end of the story. I needed to find out who had a cookie vendetta, what they were trying to accomplish, and why I was still being targeted. I had to get more information on Isaac Handler and the Brigham Smith Group.
The city council room was even more crowded than the grocery store had been last night. People were smashed into the main room—which was small to begin with—hallway, and were even standing outside. News vans lined the street in front of the building. Cookies spiked with drugs were being sold in public locations to anyone who had a few dollars, including kids. The story was big enough to warrant state, and even national, attention. I glanced around at the reporters and saw Karrie Williams, a friend I’d interned with during college at one of the big newspapers in Salt Lake. Karrie and I had worked on a few stories together, and I liked her a lot. I smiled and waved at her across the room. Her mouth spread into a wide grin and she waved back.
The meeting started, and Councilman Mark Brady addressed the mumbling crowd, assuring them all the cookies had been taken off the shelves, and everything possible was being done to figure out how this had happened, and why cookies containing drugs were being sold in grocery stores.
I took some photos, and notes, and listened as people took turns at the microphone, expressing their concerns. Several people brought up the point that if the cookies had drugs in them and no one knew about it, what other foods contained drugs or harmful items. Privately, I thought the answer was most foods, unless they were certified organic. Food ingredient lists were scary, and most contained items you couldn’t even pronounce. If I couldn’t even sound the word out, chances were high that it wasn’t the best thing for my body…which was why I’d never asked for the ingredient list of some of my favorite foods. I’d feel guilty every time I ate them.
The meeting went on for over two hours with the city council and mayor trying to assuage people’s fear and anger. After the meeting ended, the crowd dispersed a bit and I went over to talk to Karrie. “Hey!” I said, giving her a hug. “I never thought I’d run into you in Branson Falls.”
She laughed. “Me either.”
“Don’t you usually cover crime?” I asked. I’d read some of her articles, and knew a story like this was out of her usual reporting duties.
“Yeah,” she said. “I mean, I guess cookies spiked with pot could fall into that. But I was kind of in the area when we heard about the cookies, and my boss asked me to cover it since I was close.”
My bag started slipping from my shoulder so I shifted it and asked, “Were you working on another story?”
Karrie nodded. “Yeah. A body was found in Rowe.”
Rowe was a few towns to the south of Branson, about thirty minutes away. It wasn’t in my reporting jurisdiction, but I was surprised I hadn’t heard of it. Bodies were typically something that got noticed and talked about for miles. “Do they know what happened to the person?”
“A couple of guys were seen leaving the scene. It could have been organized crime, or a drug deal gone wrong.”
“I bet the citizens of Rowe weren’t happy to hear about that. It always makes people uneasy when a body is found, especially in a small town.” People liked feeling safe, and dead bodies, drug dealers, and organized crime didn’t help that.
“Definitely. People don’t really blink an eye in Salt Lake unless it’s a strange circumstance,” Karrie said, putting her notebook in her purse. “Speaking of strange circumstances, this pot cookie business is crazy. It’s fantastic that you broke the story. Great investigative work.”
“Thanks,” I said, meaning it. It was always nice to hear praise from other reporters I respected. I didn’t add that I’d only started to suspect something was amiss after I’d discarded most of my clothes and tried to seduce Dylan Drake. “Now I just need to figure out who was spiking the cookies, and what their motive was.”
We walked out of the building together, skirting the groups of people who were still talking after the meeting.
“Well, if you need any help, let me know,” Karrie said.
“Thanks. And let me know if you need any more cookie info.”
Karrie got in her car and waved as she drove away. It was a long two hours to get back to Salt Lake. I didn’t envy her the drive.
I went back to the office after the meeting, and stayed there working late, a police car driving by every ten minutes or so. Ella and Spence had both left over an hour ago. I couldn’t bring myself to go home alone, though, and liked that the Tribune office was at least in a more populated area of Branson. As long as I was in public, with other people, I didn’t think much about the email or the bag of cookies that had exploded on my desk. But once I was alone, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It wouldn’t stop me from doing my job, but the fact was, I didn’t really feel safe anywhere.
I couldn’t stay at the office for the entire night, though, and I needed to get some sleep. I stretched in my chair, and then started gathering my things. I scrolled through my inbox right before I was about to shut down and noticed a new message from the cookie bomber.
Your Last Warning
Next time, it won’t just be your desk.
A shiver ran through me. I hadn’t checked my email since before the bag explosion. I looked at the time stamp. It had been delivered one minute after the explosion. I didn’t like being threatened, and being threatened by someone I couldn’t identify made me even less happy. I glared at the screen. Well, they could keep on trying to scare me away. I wasn’t going anywhere. If anything, now I was determined to figure out who they were and what was going on just so I could tell them off in person.
For people who seemed to have access to explosives and drugs, they sure were giving me a lot of warnings.
Still, I found myself looking over my shoulder every three seconds.
I picked up my phone and dialed Bobby. “I got another message from the cookie bomber.”
“Dagnabbit,” he hissed. “Where are you?”
“The office.”
“I’ll send a patrol car over to check on you.”
I gathered my stuff with shaky hands. “I’m fine,” I said, trying to convince myself. “I was just leaving for the night.”
“Okay. Can you send me the email?”
; “Yeah, but Hawke is already trying to find out who sent it.”
Bobby made an ahhh sound. “Well, he’s going to have access to much better IP address tracking software than we do, but send it to me anyway so we can have it on file, and check into it.”
I clicked on forward, and typed in Bobby’s address. “Done.”
“And I’d rather not have you alone tonight, Kate. Stay with someone if you can.”
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks, Bobby.”
“Be safe,” he said, and clicked off.
I texted Spence to tell him about the email. He texted back and told me to go somewhere safe for the night, too. Part of me—the stubborn bit—felt like I should go home by myself as a way to prove that I could handle things on my own, and wouldn’t let the jerks threatening me win. I got in the car and started for my house. My heart sped up the closer I got to my street, and I finally decided that proving myself probably wasn’t the best plan, and I wasn’t ready to be there alone. It was times like this that I wished I did have a little dog to keep me company. Seeing his happy, wagging tail every day would make it easier to deal with the demons of daily life.
I found myself steering away from my own house, and going to my mom and dad’s instead. Nothing felt as safe as home, and since my own home wasn’t offering that right now, I thought my parents’ house probably would.
I was watching TV with my dad when my phone rang to the tune of “Sweet Caroline.” I looked at the caller ID and recognized the number, I just hadn’t assigned him a ring tone yet—I wasn’t prepared for the commitment. I got up to take the call outside. The night breeze was the perfect temperature, and it was beautiful outside.
I answered. “Are you calling to cancel our date?”
“Never,” Drake said. I could almost feel him smile on the other end. “Our date. I like the sound of that.”
I was glad he was so confident in his feelings about the subject. Mine wavered like a seesaw.
“I was calling to check up on you. Do you need anything tonight?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m okay.”
“Are you home alone?”
“Not right now. I’m at my parents’ house.”
“I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or not. Your mom is more dangerous than you are.”
“She’d bop you on the head if she heard that.”
Drake laughed. “I forgot to tell you this earlier, but I found some information on the Saffron Star PR Marketing firm you asked me to look into.”
I perked up. Saffron Star was the marketing firm that had organized the pot protest. “What did you learn?”
“They’re a pretty big firm in Salt Lake. I looked into some of their clients, and recognized several.” He started rattling them off. “Press Automotive Group, Trellis Restaurants, Safeharbor Financial, the Brigham Smith Group—”
My jaw dropped. “B.S.!”
“No, seriously.”
I shook my head. “No, that’s what I call Brigham Smith because of their initials.”
He gave a low laugh. “Only you would think of that.”
I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only one who had thought of it, but didn’t say that.
I tapped my hand against the railing on my parents’ front porch. So, Saffron Star had organized the pot protest, and they worked with Brigham Smith. But how were they tied to the Saints and Sinners Cookies? And why? There was a link there that I was missing, I just didn’t know what it was yet. “Spence and I were looking into them because of their connection with the pot cookies.”
“How are they connected?” Drake asked.
“We’re not sure, but think B.S. might have invested in Saints and Sinners. The pot cookies were made under a company called Makhai, LLC. Makhai is owned by a guy named Isaac Handler, and he has some connection to Brigham Smith, probably through the investment side.”
I could practically feel Drake’s mind puzzling it out on the other end. “Interesting. I’ve worked with Brigham Smith in the legislature.”
“Do you work well with them?”
“Depends on the day. They’re lobbyists. Far right.”
“How far?” I asked.
“They make Fox News actually seem fair and balanced.”
I wrinkled my nose. That didn’t bode well.
“So they’re active in the Utah political community?”
“Very. Especially when it comes to moral justice. They have a theme song.”
I raised a brow. “Seriously?
“The religious hymn “Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel”.”
I snorted. The hymn encouraging people to get to work. Apparently the work of this group was trying to stop anything they thought of as morally dubious.
“Are they affiliated with the Mormon Church?”
“Officially? No.”
Ah. “But unofficially, they’re there to do the bidding of the Church where the Church can’t because if they do, they’re apt to get their non-profit status revoked.”
Drake’s tone softened like he was amused. “I would say that’s an accurate assumption.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re such a politician. It’s not like I’d quote you on that.”
“I have to cover my bases, Katie.” I still wasn’t fond of the name, but the more I got to know Drake, the more I liked that he had a pet name for me.
“When did you work with them last?” I asked.
“All the time, but I don’t know why they’d be tied up with a company selling pot cookies. Maybe it was someone trying to discredit Brigham Smith.”
“Yeah, that’s the theory I had, too. I don’t understand the motive. Whoever is doing this can’t be doing it for profit. The Saints and Sinners Cookies were each about three dollars. A cookie from Frosted Paradise is two dollars and fifty cents. If you had to cover the costs of production and the drugs, you’d want to charge a lot more than three bucks.”
“That’s true,” Drake said, “and pot bakeries do charge a lot for their items. Even a mini cookie at a pot bakery is usually around five dollars.”
I raised a brow. “How do you know that?”
He chuckled. “I keep informed.”
I wrinkled my brow. This was a side of Drake I hadn’t seen before. Like, maybe he was a normal person and not the superman everyone made him out to be. The thought was disturbing because it made him a lot more accessible for someone like me.
“But,” he continued, “people go into those bakeries knowing they’re getting pot with their chocolate chips. If people didn’t know what they were consuming, they wouldn’t have been willing to pay the going rate for pot-spiked baked foods.”
“And most people in Branson wouldn’t have tried them at all,” I reasoned.
“Exactly.”
“Okay, well thanks for checking into Saffron Star PR for me, and for the call.”
“No problem. Let me know if you need anything else before tomorrow.”
“I will. I’ll be fine, though.”
There was a pause on the other end. “I wouldn’t have been able to sleep without checking on you first. Have a good night, Katie.”
I hung up, and went to find my parents for dinner. My mom was making hand-cut French fries. My favorite.
After hearing about everything that had happened in my day, my parents had insisted I spend the night. I hadn’t argued, and felt relieved I had a place to go, and didn’t have to ask to stay. I’d spent dinner thinking about the story, but still couldn’t figure out how it all tied together. When that had become too frustrating, I’d switched my train of thought to Drake, a man who seemed to care about me far more than I’d believed. Before, I thought his interest in me was just to have another notch on his bedpost. I wasn’t falling for that. The rumors about him and his arrogant, overbearing attitude had pushed me away. But now I was seeing another side of him. And it was making me more confused than ever.
The next morning, I was in the kitchen pouring a glass of orange juice when a knock sounded on the d
oor.
I opened it and found Hawke on the porch. His sandy hair was slicked back and he smelled like the beach. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Good grief, I loved his Swagger body wash. “Morning,” I said. “Did you just get out of the shower?” Hawke had a glorious shower. Gigantic—like him—and it looked like it belonged to a multi-millionaire. It might.
“I had a long workout this morning.”
I frowned, wondering who he’d been working out with.
He seemed to read my mind. “I was alone, but it would have been better with you, Kitty Kate.”
I flushed and invited him inside. “How did you know I was here?”
He gave me a knowing smile. “Tracker on your Jeep.”
“Oh yeah. I forgot that’s still there.”
“And it’s never coming off.” His tone was no-nonsense. “I heard about the explosion at the Tribune and the new email. I wanted to check on you.”
I smiled, not even questioning how he knew about both of those things. “Thanks. I’m fine.” I did have a question for him though. “Any news on figuring out who sent me the emails?”
He folded his arms across his chest. “Not yet. Bobby called and forwarded me the email from last night too, though, so I've got my people working on all of them.” Ah, so that’s how he knew about the previous night’s events—well, one of the ways at least.
“I thought it was pretty easy to track IP addresses.”
“It is if the sender doesn’t know what they’re doing. If they don’t want to be found though, they can route the address to other addresses in a path that stretches all over the world, and goes on for a very long time. That’s what the sender of your emails did.”
That sounded complicated, I thought, as I leaned against the door frame. “How do you track that?”
He gave a slow smile. “It’s not easy, and not many people can do it. Luckily, I know a few of them.”
I chuckled. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”
“Kate?” I heard my mom call from the kitchen. “Who are you talking to? Do they want breakfast?”
