“This is Detective Stone with the Frozen Pine Police Department. Come out with your hands up.”
It made for a tense few moments as we waited for an answer. None came. Then again, I didn’t think the detective really expected one. When did criminals ever give up easily? They did everything the hard way, so why should this time be any different?
As silence hung in the air, Stone gave another warning.
“This is your last chance to come out.”
Once again, there was no response from inside. That forced the detective into a tough situation. The tension ratcheted up as he thought about what he wanted to do.
Meanwhile, I scanned the area, fully expecting to see someone darting in the shadows from my backyard to my neighbor’s, hoping to make a quick escape. That didn’t happen. There was no movement whatsoever.
For the detective, the time to delay was over.
He whispered in my ear.
“Give me the key to your front door and stand back,” he said.
I complied. He approached the door with my house keys in one hand and his gun in the other. I hid behind the pine tree in my front yard with my heart nearly beating out of my chest. Detective Stone slowly opened the front door and went inside. He didn’t make it very far before he stopped. Much to my surprise, the next noise I heard was the least likely of all.
The detective chuckled, making me more confused than ever.
“Why are you laughing?” I asked.
“You can come out from behind the tree,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because it turns out we got worked up over nothing.”
I wrinkled my nose. “What do you mean?”
“Come and see for yourself.”
I gingerly approached the front door and joined the detective. As I looked over at my kitchen floor, the answer was revealed to me. It turned out the crashing noise wasn’t made by a burglar or one of the murder suspects, but rather my Maine Coon cat, Buster.
The gray, long-haired, two-year-old cat had developed quite a mischievous streak ever since he’d come into my life as a cute little kitten. He was getting feistier with each passing day. In a fit of hunger, like the little furry cat burglar that he was, he’d found a way to pry open the door to my kitchen cupboard with his paws.
From there, he’d knocked over everything in his path, including a number of cans, until he’d found the bag of cat treats that he wanted at the back of the cupboard. Never mind the fact that I’d left out an entire bowl of dry cat food for him in the corner of the kitchen. The dry food to him was apparently as appealing as a kale-and-spinach salad. He wanted the good stuff and didn’t stop until he’d found it.
I’d never been happier to see a messy floor in my entire life. That could easily be cleaned up. The alternative was infinitely worse. Now that danger had been averted, I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
“Buster, you little troublemaker. You scared us half to death,” I said.
Detective Stone corrected me. “Speak for yourself.”
I’d address the detective’s bluster in a second.
First, I had a cat to feed. After all the trouble Buster had gone to for a treat, I didn’t want to deny him his snack, even if he had inadvertently almost given me a heart attack. Go ahead, call me a softie. I couldn’t deny that. The little guy had me wrapped around his paws. I opened up the bag of treats and set them down in front of him, and he started gobbling them up like there was no tomorrow.
With Buster taken care of, I replied to the detective.
“Come on, you weren’t scared a little?”
“Being put in scary situations is just part of the job. The question is, do you let your fear prevent you from doing your job?”
He was right on all accounts. While I tried not to let it get to me during an investigation, close calls could happen at any given time. The detective could put up a tough-guy exterior all he wanted. To me, this was a sobering reminder. At the same time, it showed how worked up I was and how on edge the case had made me.
“I’m just happy it was a false alarm,” I said.
The detective looked deep into my eyes and urged me to heed his advice.
“Get some rest. It’s been a long day.”
Even from a restrained man like Detective Stone, that was an insane understatement.
Chapter Eighteen
After such a horrible day, I really needed a break. It was during times like this when I usually turned to Jake. He always knew just what to say to make me feel better. Comforting me was his specialty. Unfortunately, when I needed him the most, he was gone.
Thankfully, I wasn’t completely alone. After finishing up his cat treats, Buster came over and parked his furry body on my lap. Cats were often accused of being aloof, but I didn’t find that to be the case. When it came to Buster, the love he gave me was equal to the love I gave him. If anything, since Jake’s death, Buster had been more affectionate than ever. As if he knew I needed the extra attention.
After curling up on my lap, he waited for his customary pets then purred loudly while gazing at me adoringly. In addition to busting into cupboards, Buster also had other unique abilities. When he turned my way, he didn’t just look into my eyes. Sometimes he gazed so deeply at me that I felt like he was peering into my soul. If so, he knew just how much I was aching inside.
As I stroked his fur, I kind of went into a trance. Buster had a particularly soft coat that was like rubbing a plush toy. Giving him pets was a soothing experience with some serious stress-busting properties. Plus, he loved it.
Other than the fact that he had a good heart, one of the reasons I was such a softie for Buster was because Jake was the one who found him and brought him into my life. While on a case one day, Jake stumbled upon him, alone and underfed in a parking lot. Knowing that I was an animal lover, he brought Buster to me.
Over the course of a few months, we nursed him back to health. At that point in my life, Buster was the closest thing to having a child. So, even though he was a cat, I went out of my way to baby him. Having Buster around took on even more significance now, as I couldn’t look at him without being reminded of Jake.
Then again, what didn’t? By far, the toughest thing for me to grapple with was trying to come to grips with the Jake-sized void in my life. The ghosts of my own routines haunted me as I was so used to having him alongside me that, in his absence, I felt like only a shell of my former self.
I found myself talking to him like he could hear me, as if he were beside me, even though I knew that wasn’t the case. The fact that my thoughts were illogical didn’t stop me from having them. It was an irrational time, and I was just doing everything I could to get through the day. Part of me talking to Jake was really just that I was talking to myself, trying to work through things out loud.
I looked at a photo of Jake on my phone that showed him smiling from ear to ear. It was my favorite picture of him. The mere sight of it nearly brought a tear to my eye.
“I could really use you,” I said.
I wanted to believe that he could hear me up in heaven—that he was watching over me. Regardless of whether that was true, I carried on like it was. Either way, letting it all out couldn’t hurt.
“I’ve prayed for strength to solve this case, but I need another kind of strength, too—the kind to go on without you. My heart doesn’t want to move on. Neither does my head. I don’t want to let you go.” I took a deep breath as a tear streamed down my face. “Maybe when I solve this case, I’ll figure out how to do that. But know this—I won’t stop until your killer has been brought to justice.”
At that point, my emotions overwhelmed me. I could have kept going, but it would have just upset me to do so. For the sake of my own mental well-being, I headed off to bed to get some rest. Before finally nodding off, I made sure to say a little prayer to God. After all, I had so many questions, and if anyone knew the answers to them, it was the Lord.
Chapter Nineteen
In the m
orning, I woke up with an empty stomach and a head full of confusing thoughts. Despite the twisted jumble that my life had become, one thing was crystal clear—the noticeable lack of an answer to my prayers. It had been a tall task to ask for a revelation to come to me in the night. Still, it was worth a try.
Not to mention it was very early—both in the hour of the day, and considering the length of this investigation. Even after all the obstacles I’d been confronted with, I was far from giving up hope.
That didn’t mean things were easy for me. Far from it. Something as simple as clarity of thought was hard to come by. While I tried to sort through all the motives and alibis, my hunger pangs made their will be known.
The easy answer would have been to just throw a breakfast sandwich in the microwave—a quick little meal to tide me over. Only, that was what I did most mornings. Each workday, I zapped an egg, sausage, and cheese breakfast sandwich before leaving for my shift at the coffee shop and tried not to spill any of it on my work uniform on the drive over to the java joint. Such a posh life, right? Don’t remind me.
At that hour of the morning, the sun wasn’t even up. No rational person would expect me to roll out of bed fifteen minutes early to fire up the stove and cook a fresh meal. So, the fact that I had the luxury of time to eat a full breakfast that morning was something I didn’t want to pass up.
While I was eager to take advantage of the moment, at the same time, I had no interest in cooking that breakfast myself. That seemed too much like work when I knew life already had plenty of stress in store for me. Thankfully, I knew just the place to trust with my appetite.
That was how, for the second time in as many days, I found myself at The Frozen Pine Diner. What could I say? When I found something I liked, I stuck with it. That was a good motto to have—in life, love, friendship, and breakfast.
Even though it took a considerable amount of willpower to get myself out of the house to brave the cold, I didn’t regret it in the least. As I swung open the door of the diner, the smell of bacon greeted me and dared me to try and resist it.
When it came to something as delicious as bacon, there was no such thing as resistance. What was a sumptuous breakfast without a little scrambled eggs and a buttery biscuit thrown in for good measure?
I didn’t even have to look at the menu. My taste buds knew exactly what they wanted. Astrid led me to my usual booth in the corner of the diner and could tell immediately that I was in need of a pick-me-up.
“Rough morning?” she asked.
That was more of a rhetorical question than anything. The frustrated look on my face gave my mood away.
“Is it that obvious?” I replied.
“Well, yeah. Here you are at seven in the morning, and I don’t usually see you until the midafternoon.”
“What can I say? It’s my day off, and the last thing I was in the mood to do was cook my own breakfast.”
“You’ve come to the right place. It turns out breakfast is our specialty.”
Astrid had the kind of energy that I found impossible to muster at this hour. Granted, she undoubtedly had a few more coffees in her system than I did, but it would be nice to be as excited about the day as she was.
“My taste buds are happy to hear that,” I said.
Astrid could tell that I was just trying to put on a good face. I wasn’t able to fool her in the least. She put her hand on my shoulder and tried to comfort me.
“Don’t worry. You’ll crack this case,” Astrid replied.
I stopped her before the conversation devolved into a pity party. “Thanks, but that’s actually the last thing I want to talk about right now.”
“Understood.” She then changed the subject. “I’ll bet you could use some coffee.”
“I sure can.”
“Don’t you worry. We’ll get that frown turned upside down. One cup of coffee, coming up.”
Before she scooted off, I grabbed her dress. “Actually, I know what I want to order.”
“All right. Fire away.”
I gave Astrid my order, and she scuttled off to the front counter to input it into the computer. While I waited for her to return with my coffee, I let out a big sigh. I was hoping that getting some food into my stomach would help me get better control over my thoughts. So many conflicting ideas were bouncing around in my head.
All that changed when the front door to the diner swung open and I saw Kristen Cramer enter, talking with Lisa Conklin. I couldn’t keep the look of surprise off of my face. Kristen, of course, was one of the murder suspects. Lisa, meanwhile, was Billy Conklin’s estranged wife. I could only guess what Kristen and Lisa were doing talking to each other. The answer could be crucial.
As I stared at them deeper, the answer became apparent. They both wore parkas, yoga pants, and had yoga mats under their arms. Had they just finished a yoga class together? Either way, my eyes remained wide as I almost couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Yoga class or not, the fact that a murder suspect and the estranged spouse of another suspect were conversing made for fertile ground for speculation.
At that moment, I had mixed emotions. Part of me wished that I was closer to them so that I could hear what they were saying. The other part of me was happy that I was sitting at a booth in the corner of the diner, which put me out of their line of sight. Thankfully, Kristen went right up to the front counter and didn’t spot me.
They both ordered muffins from Astrid at the front register, grabbed their snacks, then left the diner.
***
When Astrid returned to my booth a few moments later with my coffee, I was still wide eyed.
“What was that?” I asked.
Astrid wrinkled her nose, confused. “What, you mean the muffins? Do you want to change your order already?”
I shook my head. “This isn’t about the muffins.”
“Oh. Because in case you’re wondering, they are delicious.”
“I’m sure they are, but I was referring to Kristen Cramer and Lisa Conklin.”
Astrid wasn’t following my logic. “What about them?”
“I didn’t expect them to come in together, talking to each other. I didn’t even realize they knew each other,” I said.
Astrid nodded. “Yeah, they’ve been swinging by a lot recently after finishing up their yoga class next door. Although, I don’t understand what the point of doing all that yoga is if you’re going to torpedo your diet with a muffin afterward.”
“That is crazy.”
“I know, right? You do all that downward dogging then sabotage your hard work with baked goods.”
Astrid and I were clearly talking about two completely different things.
I tried to get her on the same page as me. “I meant, it’s crazy that they are friends.”
Astrid finally realized what I was getting at. “Oh. I thought you knew that.”
“Not until just now.”
I had apparently been behind the curve, but now that I did know about Kristen and Lisa’s friendship, I couldn’t stop thinking about the significance of that. Suddenly, all the jumbled thoughts that I’d been wrestling with dissipated, and I was left with nothing but clarity. It was as if I’d been trying to put together a puzzle all this time but didn’t have all the pieces until just now.
Astrid became concerned as she saw me getting so lost in my thoughts.
“Andrea, are you all right? Usually, I’m the resident space case.”
I flashed her a smile. “Actually, I’m great.”
“Really?”
I nodded. “Yeah. That was just what I needed.”
Confusion was all over her face. “I’m not sure I understand.”
I didn’t have time to explain everything to Astrid. I would go over everything with her later. In the meantime, I knew exactly what I needed to do.
Chapter Twenty
The following morning, when Kristen Cramer arrived for her shift at Ainsley’s Bakery, as she put on her apron, one of her co-workers informed her that
the boss wanted to speak with her. As Kristen entered the doorway to Ainsley’s office, she began the conversation with a nervous tone in her voice.
“Ainsley, you wanted to see me?” Kristen said.
With Ainsley’s big leather office chair turned away from the doorway, she didn’t notice that I was the one sitting in the chair, not Ainsley. I whirled the chair around so I was facing Kristen. As expected, she looked ready to tee off on me. Before she had a chance to chew me out, I spoke up first.
“I’m not Ainsley, but I do want to see you,” I replied.
Kristen folded her arms and snapped at me. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to get the truth.”
“So, what, you broke into my boss’s office?”
I shook my head. “No. When I told Ainsley what was really going on with you, she had no problem lending me her office.”
Kristen gave me a death stare. “How dare you cause trouble for me?”
I fired right back at her. “You’re the one who caused trouble for yourself.”
Kristen had heard enough from me. “I’m done talking to you.”
Kristen turned around to storm out of the office. She didn’t get very far.
Detective Stone emerged from the hallway and stopped her in the doorway. “Not so fast. We’re not done talking to you.”
Kristen’s anger wasn’t just reserved for me. She barked at Detective Stone.
“What more do you want from me?”
I reached into a bag from The Frozen Pine Diner and pulled out a muffin. “You hungry?”
“No,” she replied.
“You’re right. You’ve already had plenty of muffins in the last few days. One too many, actually,” I said.
Kristen’s forehead wrinkled. “What are you talking about?”
“You should have just stuck to your downward dogs. Instead, you couldn’t resist going into the diner yesterday and grabbing a muffin with Lisa Conklin. It wasn’t until then that everything came together for me,” I explained.
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