it.”
“Yes ma’am.” She smiled as she watched them drive away. Troy seemed like a responsible guy, pretty good looking. Maybe she should introduce him to Kelly.
Ignoring her protesting muscles, she drilled the old lock and replaced it with the new lockset. Pocketed the remaining key, locked up the rest of the house. In the waning light she walked slowly through the rooms where walls and floors were now free of clutter. The condition of that old coat weighed on her mind, but she could see no sign of blood anywhere in the house. She would have to ask Beau if he’d taken a look at the garment.
As much as Sam yearned to work on her new shop, her body was simply telling her not to. She drove through town, stopping at the market for something ready-made for dinner, realizing that part of her energy slump might be because she’d entirely forgotten to eat lunch.
Her kitchen phone was ringing as she walked in but before she could reach for it, the cell phone in her pocket went off too. Sheesh. The readout on the cell told her it was Beau; the voice coming over her answering machine was a bakery customer. The woman won out. Sam felt around for pen and her order pad as she intercepted the call. A Chamber of Commerce breakfast. They wanted eight dozen pastries—assorted muffins, breads and coffee cakes. And if she could provide fruit platters and juice, that would be even better. Oh, and it all needed to be delivered by eight o’clock the next morning. Sam gritted her teeth but put a smile into her voice as she assured the woman she could handle it. Why did she have the feeling that someone who’d been assigned the job of organizing all this had completely forgotten until the last minute?
Sam immediately phoned Kelly and gave her a list of groceries to pick up on her way home from the Cardwells. Then she collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table and seriously considered whether to scream or simply cry.
Bertha Martinez’s words came back to her:
Sam’s eyes narrowed. The dream she’d dismissed last night now seemed to offer hope for accomplishing all she needed to do in the next few hours. She eyed the bottle of ibuprofen sitting on the counter but got out of her chair and walked into the bedroom instead. The bottom dresser drawer where she’d shoved the wooden box this morning stood open a couple of inches. Sam came to a dead stop.
She stared around the room but nothing else was out of place. What the hell was going on? Could the damn box move?
She gingerly reached for the edge of the drawer and pulled it open. On top of a folded sweater lay the box, its dull red, blue and green stones catching the light from the overhead fixture. Sam picked it up and ran her hands over the quilt-shaped surface.
Immediately, the box began to warm to her touch. She wrapped her arms around it and held it close to her body. When she looked down at it, the sour yellow varnish had taken on a golden glow. The colored stones sparkled with life. Her hands warmed and she felt a new energy surge up her arms and through her chest. The aches in her body vanished.
The first time this had happened, more than a month ago, it frightened her. Farm girls from Texas did not buy into the idea of magical powers,
She tried to put it out of her mind as she rushed back to the kitchen, washed her hands and got out her recipes. Assorted pastries. She would need at least three varieties of each item. And she better go with simple recipes and rely on little embellishments. Autumn flavors. Pumpkin, apple, cinnamon. Pulling ingredients from the pantry she mixed the first batters. As pans of muffins went into the oven, she mixed streusel for one of her favorite coffee cakes and a lemon glaze for another.
When Kelly got home Sam put her daughter to work cutting up fruit and arranging it on platters.
“Is there going to be any dinner tonight?” Kelly asked as she came in from the service porch after placing the fruit platters into the spare refrigerator.
Sam aimed her elbow toward the microwave. “Would you mind warming up that deli casserole I brought home?”
Fresh, homemade goodies for the clients; deli food for themselves. Sam vowed to stop that trend once the bakery opened and her own kitchen was once again reserved for home cooked meals. She set the pans of perfectly baked muffins out to cool and put the coffee cakes into the oven.
Sam’s chirping cell phone interrupted. Beau again. She’d forgotten all about returning his previous call. She set her dinner plate down and fished the phone out of her pocket.
“Hey there. Sorry I didn’t get right back to you.”
“It’s okay. I’ve been pretty tied up today, too. It’s about a trench coat that Rose found at the thrift shop.”
“Ah, yes. Was it okay that I gave her your direct number?”
“No problem. She was right. It’s . . . well . . . a mess. She said you brought it in?”
Sam explained the circumstances and how she’d not found any other traces of blood at the house where she’d gotten the coat.
“I’ll need to come out there and take a look. Someone may have cleaned up the visible evidence, but there could be traces. Would tomorrow be good?”
She explained about the pastry delivery first and they made a plan to meet around nine o’clock. It wasn’t until she’d hung up that she realized he’d used the word ‘evidence.’
Chapter 5
Sam rolled over in bed and grumbled at the beeping alarm clock on her nightstand. Even with Kelly’s help, they’d been up until after one o’clock to finalize the pastry order for the Chamber breakfast, and now six o’clock was here way too quickly. She slapped at the button to shut off the annoying thing and flung the covers off. The room was too chilly to tolerate being coverless for long, so she pulled on her robe and headed for the shower.
By the time she’d finished slicing the breads and arranging everything on disposable platters, her delivery deadline was quickly approaching. At some point Kelly drifted through the kitchen, grabbed a mug of coffee and headed out for her job at the Cardwell’s. Sam felt a small flash of envy toward her daughter. Most likely Iris would still be in bed when she arrived, giving Kelly the luxury of time for another cup of caffeine. They would eat breakfast together at Beau’s sunny dining table which faced out over open pasture land, and it wouldn’t matter if the elderly lady wasn’t dressed and ready to face the world until well after mid-morning.
Sam loaded all the platters into her van and drove to the conference center where the breakfast was being hosted. Parking, as usual, was non-existent and she found herself in a red zone, hoping that she could get away with it. Luckily, the woman who had placed the last-minute order was waiting there for her and Sam informed the customer that she could use some help. Three volunteers stepped up and soon all the goodies were carried inside. Once Sam had the check in hand she was on her way.
She arrived at Hickory Lane to find Gus, Phillip and Troy already at work and looking far more chipper than she felt. She wandered inside, sipping from her travel mug of coffee and nibbling at the one slice of pumpkin bread she’d saved for herself.
The cleaning effort was going well. The living room was down to the furniture, a threadbare natty brown sofa, two end tables of peeling laminate and a recliner that wouldn’t go upright. She started to instruct the guys to toss everything, but decided to wait. Those might be the very things Beau would want to look at.
In the dining area, they’d revealed a table that was probably once a fine piece of furniture—someone might be able to refinish it—but the chairs were a mismatched conglomeration. Sam brushed pumpkin crumbs from her hands and braced herself for the kitchen.
It was exactly as she’d left it—darn it. No kindly gnomes had appeared in the night to finish off the work. The spoiled-food smell had begun to dissipate, at least until she opened the refrigerator door. She slammed it quickly and debated. An older model, not worth much, saturated with that odor. She called a man who’d previously disposed of used appliances for her and asked him to come get it. He knew, far better than she, all the rules and
