Sweet Holidays: The Third Samantha Sweet Mystery (The Samantha Sweet Mysteries)

by Connie Shelton

  Thank goodness he had some kind of creep-limits.

  “I was supposed to deliver it the next day—the next day after September twenty-fourth.” He rubbed his hands down the sides of his face. “I can’t believe I’ve been away this long.”

  “What happened here? What sent you on the run?”

  He dropped the empty bean can into the trash and filled his water glass for the third time. Sam followed him into the living room where he flopped into an easy chair.

  “I feel like I’ve been walking forever. There was never a comfortable place to sit down.” He took a deep breath. “It was late September, business as usual. I’m working at my desk and hear a noise in my bedroom. Went to check on it. Two huge goons jumped me. I kept a baseball bat under my desk and thank goodness I thought to pick it up before I went in there. Smashed one of them in the head. He went down but the other one came after me. I ran out. Got out to the woods—it was dark. Guess I only got away because I was smaller and lighter and knew my way around out there.”

  “The sheriff found blood in the bedroom and a broken vase.”

  “Yeah, that got knocked off the nightstand. Guy I hit, probably his blood.”

  “The other guy must have come back and taken his buddy away,” Sam guessed.

  Montague shrugged. “Guess so. I sneaked back in for my computer but there wasn’t time to take much of anything. Had my wallet in my pocket but I got scared to use credit cards or bank accounts. I took the max from the first ATM I came to, that same night. That, plus a pretty good cash commission from a client . . . that’s what I’ve been living on. Slept in sheds, sprang for a really cheap motel now and then.”

  “So, why didn’t you just report it? They invaded your home. They would have been arrested.”

  Montague snorted. “You don’t get it, do you? These were Larry Lissano’s men.”

  Sam felt like the kid who’d not read the assigned chapter. “Lissano would hold a grudge for years? What was his problem with you?”

  “Aside from the very stupid affair I had with his wife, I can’t think of much.”

  “But they’ve been divorced for awhile. From what I gathered, he would have been a lot more angry with her than with you.” Bunny was the one who took her ex for a fortune.

  “I said they were Lissano’s men. I didn’t say he sent them.”

  Huh? Sam was wading in deep mud here.

  “I think Bunny sent them.”

  “And that would be because . . .?”

  He glanced around, clearly unsure how much to tell her.

  “The wooden box. Bunny was the client. That woman is obsessed. She wants that box, no matter what the cost. Okay, so I don’t know anything about the box—to me it’s an artifact of some kind. She seems to think it has some kind of powers and that she’s the one person in the whole world who is somehow destined to own this box. Whatever. I told her I’d try to locate it. The damn thing is supposedly famous. It has a name and everything. Facin—something—I don’t know. So I have a photo of this box, I’ve learned that some old woman here in Taos owned it, I tell Bunny I’m pretty close to finding it for her.”

  Sam held very still, forcing her facial expression not to reveal anything.

  “You think she’d be grateful. You’d think she’d be all over me with sweet talk and lovey-dovey. No. Bunny comes all unglued, starts calling me day and night, pestering, ‘where’s the box, where’s the box?’ until I’m about to go nuts. Then she goes completely paranoid. Starts to think I’ve got the box and I’m just not giving it to her. That’s when the goons show up.”

  “And you’re pretty sure Bunny sent them to force the information out of you?”

  “I believe so. The woman is truly evil.”

  Sam’s mouth twitched. Montague broke into a smile. “Yeah, I know. An evil bunny—” He broke into a laugh that lasted about two seconds. “Don’t underestimate her, Ms Sweet. Seriously, she’s off her rocker.”

  “I’m surprised the two men didn’t ransack the place, trying to find the box.”

  “Me too. If they walked into my study they would have seen a photograph of it and my notes about the search. I didn’t have names yet, any contacts for locating it, and the notes clearly showed that I hadn’t found it yet. The guy who was still standing could have just grabbed up the notes for Bunny and then decided he better get his buddy to a doctor.” He shrugged.

  Sam puzzled over that for a minute. The guy probably had grabbed the notes and given them to Bunny. Otherwise, this house would have been a shambles when Sam got assigned to it. Somehow, though, he’d missed the photograph in the drawer. Bunny may have recently found another dealer she could trust and that’s why she’d come back twice, looking for the photo of the box.

  Sam told Will about walking into the house earlier and finding Tiffany and Bunny going through his desk. “One of them must have hit the switch to the secret room, because that door started to swing open.”

  “Oh, god, did she see it?”

  “No. Luckily, I was facing the bookcases—they were facing the door and I got them out of the study. Rob made them leave when he showed up.”

  “She won’t give up.”

  “Do you want protection from the sheriff’s department?”

  “It won’t do any good. She’ll either come back herself or she’ll hire those huge guys to catch me in a dark alley somewhere. I have to stay out of sight until . . . I don’t know.”

  He sounded so discouraged that Sam felt sorry for him. It would be hard to live that way, hiding and knowing someone was after you.

  “We have to at least tell the sheriff that you are alive and well. There’s an open investigation into your disappearance and probable death, right now.”

  He stood up and paced the room. “I don’t like it.”

  “Will, no one likes it. But Beau Cardwell is smart and he’ll be discreet.”

  He thought about it for two or three minutes before he turned to her. “I guess. Call him.”

  She did, and Beau agreed to come alone and not to say anything within the department.

  An hour later the three of them were sitting at Montague’s dining table. He’d repeated the whole story to Beau, who took careful notes and got descriptions of the two attackers. He promised to quietly close the missing person’s case without fanfare, then he asked Montague if he wanted to press charges against Bunny Fitzhugh or Tiffany Wright for breaking and entering.

  “No, I can’t risk it. If she knows I’m alive—”

  “Sam could actually be the witness who files the report. She arrived here today, found the two women in your home. The open front door and fingerprints which are surely all over the files provide plenty of evidence.”

  “And what would I gain?” Will said. “Even if they took something, which Sam says they didn’t, all I get is unwanted publicity. Bunny might, at most, get a slap-on-the-wrist judgment against her, which would infuriate her.”

  “Beau, I think he’s right,” Sam said. “Bunny doesn’t need one more reason to be angry at Will.”

  Beau and Sam left the worried homeowner with a warning about keeping drapes closed and having a watchful eye. Beau gave him both the department numbers and his own direct line.

  Sam glanced uneasily at the house as she pulled away. Montague’s recount of the details about the wooden box were an uncanny match for what Bobul had told her, and she didn’t for one minute believe that Bunny wouldn’t try again for the box.

  Chapter 28

  Sam was a half-mile from her house when the phone rang. She’d decided to go home, get the box, and take it somewhere for safe keeping. It seemed like a pain to rent a safe-deposit box at the bank, but it was the only thing she could think of at the moment. The cell call, however, changed all that.

  “Mom, we’ve got a little bakery emergency here,” Kelly said. “A lady swears she placed an order for a birthday cake—” she lowered her voice “—for Jesus. Uh, yeah. And we can’t find either the order or the cake.”
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br />   “I think that’s one I would remember,” Sam said. “The lady is mistaken, but if you want to keep her there, I can swing by and we’ll see what we can do.”

  Sheesh. Would the drama of this day never end?

  By the time Sam entered the bakery through the back door, Jen, in her most diplomatic way, had coaxed the information that the cake was to be chocolate, the frosting vanilla buttercream and the design was to include a manger-type crib with a baby in it.

  “We can manage,” Sam said. “There are some chocolate layers in the fridge that weren’t committed to anyone else. Buttercream, we have by the tubs. Offer the woman a pastry and some coffee and just keep visiting with her.”

  She reached for her apron and began assembling ingredients. “Becky, can you fill and ice this and pipe a shell border on it? I’ll see whether I can manage to make a baby that doesn’t look too deformed.”

  Becky chuckled and started in with the cake.

  “Miss Sam, Bobul help.”

  She’d walked right past the chocolatier without noticing what he was doing.

  “I hear ladies talking,” he said. “Here is baby.” He held up a perfectly sculpted infant, with a blanket draped over its midsection. The skintone was probably a little pale, but hey, this was winter, and Sam thought it looked great anyway.

  Together, she and Bobul managed to form a passable crib from chocolate, with some coconut straw to cradle the baby.

  “Do you suppose she actually wants us to write Happy Birthday Jesus on this?” Becky asked, a bag of royal purple icing in hand.

  “Hold on, I better check that little detail.” Sam picked up the intercom and posed the question to Jen. “Looks like that’s affirmative,” she said a minute later.

  “Whatever the customer wants, right?” Becky smothered a laugh and steadied her hands before starting the script.

  Sam carried the cake out to the customer. “Here we go. It just wasn’t quite finished yet. Thank you for waiting.”

  The woman seemed pleased enough with the free pastry and coffee she’d gotten, and she promised to come back. Sam watched her drive away and wondered which bakery now had a spare cake sitting in their store, waiting for their eccentric customer to come pick it up.

  Kelly raised an eyebrow as Sam headed back to the kitchen.

  “Whatever the customer wants,” Sam reminded, although she had a hard time hiding a grin. She stepped up to the work table to finish the second party cake, a fairly standard sheetcake which Becky had prepped. Sam finished the company logo and a Happy Holidays greeting, and when the customer arrived a half hour later she was delighted with it.

  By the time she got home that night, Sam had completely forgotten that she’d planned to find a safe hiding place for the odd magic box. It sat on her dresser, completely unaware that it had become the subject of such controversy and greedy desire. She looked around the room, trying to think what to do with it. Clearly, her attempt to do away with it permanently had failed.

  She stared again at the box. Strange little thing.

  One of the red stones winked in the lamplight. Did the box have some nearly-human affinity for her, Sam wondered. Had it come back to her house on its own or, more likely, had Sam dreamed that whole event? It was almost like a stray pet that had latched onto her. She reached out and patted the lid and swore the colors deepened as she did so.

  Okay, you. We have to find a hiding place.

  If, by some remote chance, Bunny Fitzhugh figured out that Sam possessed it, where would she be least likely to look? Sam put the jewelry into a drawer and cradled the box in her arm as she walked through the house. Bedrooms and desk were out—those would be the obvious places. She ended up wrapping it in an old towel and stashing it in the vent leading from the evaporative cooler. She wouldn’t even consider turning on the air conditioning for months to come. She tightened the screws holding the vent cover in place and surveyed her work. It was high on the living room wall and well hidden.

  “Now stay there!” she ordered as she brushed dust from her hands.

  “Mom? Were you talking to me?”

  Sam jumped, dropping her screwdriver.

  Kelly closed the kitchen door as she stepped inside. A breath of chill air followed her.

  “No, just fixing something. I didn’t know you were home.”

  “I brought Chinese takeout. Sound good?”

  Anything I don’t have to plan, prepare, cook or clean up sounds good right now, Sam thought, taking a deep whiff of the fragrant containers.

  She barely remembered eating the meal or falling into bed. Her dreams became a muddle of scenes from the Montague house, the bakery, and the lingering memory of Bunny Fitzhugh’s piercing glare, her hunger for possession of the box. Except that in the dream, she wasn’t called Bunny. She was Lorena.

  * * *

  Wednesday and Thursday passed in a blur. In one of their scanty conversations, Beau told Sam that he was wrapping up the loose ends in the Montague case, that it appeared the man was back in business and handling his consignments of art as usual. Life at the bakery became a whirl—customers with last-minute orders, dozens and dozens of pastries and cookies going out the door.

  Thursday was designated as pie day. Sam, Becky and Kelly baked dozens of pumpkin, pecan, apple and cherry plus a few specialties like a chocolate peppermint crunch pie, more of the nutty-buttery fruitcakes and some eggnog cheesecakes. By the end of the day Sam felt as if she had piecrust permanently embedded under her nails and the scent of pumpkin pie spice wafting out of her hair. But the town was supplied with holiday desserts and her cash register was singing.

  Friday was to be the final push. With Christmas Eve falling on Saturday, she planned to be open only a half day, with a little party for the crew and friends that afternoon, and then everyone could enjoy their Christmas Day at home.

  Sam awoke Friday morning with her head full of plans but by the time she’d dressed, her kitchen phone began an insistent ringing. Delbert Crow started talking before Sam fully figured out who it was. He was emailing some kind of final release form that she would need to take over to William Montague and get signed. He wanted it in the mail today. Fine, whatever. She went to her desk in the corner of the living room, located the message and printed the attached form.

  She drove her van to the bakery and spent an hour getting the early-morning routine going. Kelly and Jen quickly made the coffee and started serving up breakfast pastries, sending bags of them with office workers who were making the most of their final day of the work week. Boxes containing pre-ordered pies and fruitcakes stood in stacks on the back counter, awaiting pickup.

  Sam stood at the front windows, sipping at her first cup of coffee and enjoying the sights of evergreen boughs on the shops and red bows on window fronts. She bagged a couple of filled croissants for each of her neighbors, along with a small printed invitation to the store party the following afternoon.

  “We’ll have a special cake for the event, and then I plan to box up everything that’s left in the displays and take them to the homeless shelter,” she told Riki, the dog groomer.

  “Might I come along?” she asked in her charming British accent.

  “Absolutely. The more the merrier, and maybe we can spread a little cheer.”

  Ivan Petrenko, the bookseller to the north of Sam’s place, was equally enthusiastic. “I even can be including some books for the children,” he offered.

  Sam returned to the shop with a warm sense of Christmas spirit. It lasted up to the moment Delbert Crow called again. She promised to drop everything and get out to the Montague place right this minute, and she would drop the form in the mail at the Ranchos branch of the post office. Sheesh, the man was all business, all the time, she thought as she wished him a merry Christmas. She addressed an envelope and put a stamp on it, left the girls with instructions for the next few projects, then headed out to her van.

  This time she approached the front door of the Montague place, ringing the bell and waiting
what felt like a very long time before she spotted the flicker of a shadow at the peephole. She gave a little wave and said, “It’s me. Sam.”

  Will stepped to one side of the open doorway and tugged Sam inside by her sleeve, quickly closing the door behind her.

  “I see that you’re still lying low,” she said. “Sorry to bother you but my supervisor wants this final release form signed and mailed today.” She held up the page.

  “Sure. Come on in the study.” He was wearing sweatpants and a plain t-shirt with a robe over it all, complimented by house slippers.

  A laptop computer hummed on his desk, and folders littered the surface.

  “I would have called first but I didn’t have a number for you.”

  “Wouldn’t matter. I’m not answering phones and I’m spending minimal time online right now.” He sat in the tall desk chair, scanning the clutter in front of him.

  This guy really is convinced that Bunny and her people know all and see all, Sam thought.

  “The good news is that I’ve had a couple of sales. People buy big at the holidays.” He patted the thick mat of papers, searching for a pen. The grip of a pistol showed as a sheaf of pages fell to the floor.

  He noticed Sam noticing.

  “I can’t be too careful,” he said simply. He found a pen and dashed his signature across the blank line at the bottom of Sam’s form, without even reading it. She countersigned and had him repeat the process with the duplicate copy.

  “This one is yours,” she told him, folding the other and sliding it into the prepared envelope. “And I guess that means we’re done, as far as the USDA—”

  Montague’s eyes were riveted on something beyond Sam’s shoulder. She spun around and came face to face with Bunny Fitzhugh.

  Chapter 29

  The woman’s eyes blazed.