by Liz Schulte
I nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. I can finish up here if you want to head out.” I looked at Boone. “You want anything? Coffee? I might have saved you a cupcake.”
“That’d be great,” he said and his dimples flashed, though his smile was strained around the edges and it didn’t quit reach his eyes.
After a vision, he wasn’t quite himself for a couple days. Not that I knew him super well, but we’d spent a lot of time together while he was working on my shop. That was how I found out about the visions. Since then, though he still came around, we didn’t talk a lot about our personal lives. He didn’t ask me questions, so I didn’t ask him. He came into the store once a week for a cupcake, usually on Wednesday mornings, and we’d talk about the weather or something equally bland because in the café someone could potentially overhear. He also stopped by each evening to see if I had anything to donate to the homeless shelter he volunteered at. Other than that, we spoke only about the things he saw and had questions about. And that was fine with me. Our friendship worked because we were both free to be exactly who we were. I didn’t have to watch myself or pretend with Boone. Something I had taken for granted before I was like this.
“Sold out? That’s great. Knead to Know really took off, didn’t it? It’s unbelievable how fast people accepted it.”
I smiled all the way back to the kitchen.
“That’s because Maggie’s the best baker in the city,” Emery said.
High praise, but not deserved. I had in no way earned such a title, but if other people wanted to say that who was I to argue. My smile grew. Obviously it was my greatest hope that the business would be successful. I wouldn’t have invested my life’s savings and taken a loan from Holden had I not believed in myself, but I had expected it to be a struggle. I thought I would have to slowly build a customer base, but almost as soon as I opened my door, people loyally showed up every day. Not that I wasn’t complaining. Who would complain about that?
I boxed up a couple dozen cookie bars for Boone to take to the shelter, and returned with a fresh cup of coffee and a death by chocolate cupcake because it was his favorite. Emery was still sprawled in her chair, bemoaning midterms as she mashed her finger against the last few crumbs on her plate.
“I thought you sold out,” he said, accepting the box of treats.
“We did. I made these for you.” Nope that was wrong. My stomach tightened and I laughed awkwardly. “I mean the shelter. You don’t need this many cookies. Not that you can’t have them if you want them. You can. I’m just going to be quiet now.”
He studied the box of goodies for a moment, his dimples deepening. “I know everyone will appreciate them, but you didn’t have to do that.”
“I wanted to.” Motivations aside, helping people was helping people. It was always better to do something than nothing. Given how great business had been, paying it forward was the least I could do. “Everyone has been so great accepting me into the community. I want to give back to them even if it is a small thing.”
Boone smiled easy this time, his eyes connecting with me. “You’re a good person. Thank you. Seriously. For everything.”
I smiled back, suddenly feeling a little shy. “Anyone would do the same.”
He shook his head. “Nope. They don’t. You really go above and beyond.”
Emery looked back and forth between us, her own grin growing. “Well, I should probably head out.” She stood with a groan, rolling her shoulders back. “See you in the morning, Maggie. Have fun tonight.” She made eyes at me over Boone’s shoulder. Pointing at him, she mouthed, “He’s hot.”
I pressed my lips together, feeling my cheeks grow warmer again. “Have a good night.”
“See ya, Emery,” Boone said as I let her out the front. When the door was securely locked and I had taken Emery’s seat, he started again, much more serious this time. “I’ve been thinking about the maid all day. Her uniform was gray. Maybe that could narrow it down.”
I nodded. “Right. A hotel with an enclosed parking garage and gray housekeeping uniforms. That should be a cinch.” There was no way we could find her, even if we had a month to look. As I said, there were thousands of hotels in this city. Plus, I didn’t have time to give to the cause. I wanted our plan to work. I wanted to help Boone use his visions to make a difference, but what exactly could I do when the clues were this vague and time worked against me? I pressed my fingertips to my forehead and closed my eyes. There had to be a way to solve this and I just wasn’t seeing it. You’d think after countless hours devoted to watching detective shows, I’d be better at this. It was so much easier on television.
Boone’s fingers brushed against my other hand lying on the table. “It’s not impossible, Maggie. If I can see it, then it has to be for a reason. We’re supposed to help these people.”
I looked down where his hand had touched mine. It was soft, barely even there, but I could still feel the ghost of his skin against mine. Though his hair was slightly too long and he probably hadn’t shaved in a week, Emery was right, he was completely hot. “We don’t even know where your visions come from. They could mean anything.”
“I’ve had so many more since I met you. And …”
“And, what?”
“Sometimes when you are quiet I can sense your thoughts. Does that make sense?”
I shook my head. If he meant what I thought he did, the next step would be keeling over. Did he know about my crush? Oh bird.
“You know how it feels just before rain and you know it is about to downpour? It’s like that. More general impressions than anything.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. That was manageable. Back to the real problem. “What if we’re thinking about this the wrong way? Maybe finding the housekeeper is impossible. Maybe we need to focus on the woman in white. You said she felt the same as the old woman, but they didn’t look anything alike, right?”
Boone leaned forward, resting his elbows against his knees. The light caught the scuff along his square jawline. “Both times I saw her she had silver hair and was wearing all white, but the first time she was old and stooped with a large hooked nose and a prominent chin. The second time she was young and gorgeous. But I don’t necessarily trust what I am seeing. It’s hard to explain, but there’s an energy to her. The images that appear in my head are more about feelings than actual pictures most of the time. She definitely gives off the same energy, which might be why the silver hair and white clothes are consistent. And she is aware of me, which is completely new. I don’t know how that influences the vision.”
I stared at the aged hardwood floor beneath my feet. Even though it had been refinished, I could still see some of the scars and imperfections it had earned over the years—and yet it was still a good floor and beautiful in its own way. How it looked now was probably different than how it had looked thirty or fifty years earlier, but the floor was the same. “Could it be different times? Maybe it isn’t going to happen, maybe it already happened, and that’s why she looks different. Maybe this most recent vision is from the past—and your earlier visions were from the present. Perhaps she’s a witch. That would explain the door. She has to have some sort of magic.”
He shook his head. “No, it hasn’t happened yet. My visions have never been of the past. It’s still coming…” His forehead wrinkled. “She was putting on a show. She knows I’m there. I think she wants me. Or, at least, she likes having an audience.”
“How do you know that?”
He made a helpless gesture and leaned back in his chair. “You know more about this stuff than I do. I’m just telling you what I feel. I don’t know if it means anything. The visions were never like this before you came into my life. I’m just the lowly human here.”
“If I’m the expert, we’re in huge trouble.”
This time, his grin was small and sincere. “I have complete faith in you.” He stood up. “And speaking of being a lowly human, I’ll get out of your hair. They’re expecting me at the shelter.”
He clapped a hand down on my shoulder. “I know it’s hard, but we’ll figure all of this out, Maggie. That’s why we met.”
“You can see that?”
“Since the day I met you, I’ve never had a doubt.”
Something fluttered in my chest again, but I squashed it down. I wasn’t ready to move on. I liked Boone a lot. But my heart couldn’t take being hurt again, not yet. I didn’t know how long it would take to get over Baker, but until I was, it wasn’t fair to start anything with someone else. My ex-boyfriend, Baker, had been a lot of things to a lot of people. To me he was the person who introduced me to the Abyss, who made me laugh and sometimes cry, but above all else he’d been my closest friend—and I had to kill him. I was still trying to figure out how to move on from that.
I met his eyes. “I’ll do my best.”
Chapter 3
“It isn’t the same world it used to be,” Emily von Brandt said in her shaky voice. “Children used to be respectful. When I was young, we didn’t even know what gluten was. We took responsibility for our actions. When I was young—”
“No one cares, Emily,” Mr. Court said. “Let’s get on with this. I don’t want to be out all night.”
“Why I never…” Mrs. von Brandt shook her head, taking a dainty bite of her third cookie bar.
“Can I get anyone more coffee? Water, perhaps?” I asked.
There were a couple nods, so I headed to the kitchen. “Have you met Garrett, Maggie—from the newspaper?” Emily called out and I cringed. I had met him and it hadn’t gone well. At all. “He’s a handsome boy.”
The better I got to know my neighbors, the more I understood that normal meant very little and was entirely subjective. Tonight we had Emily von Brandt, who had a massive sweet tooth and liked to sit on the sidewalk outside of her first floor apartment, weather permitting, to keep an eye on the neighborhood. She talked to everyone who walked past her and kept talking even after they were gone. Then there was Alfred Court, who was so curmudgeonly that I couldn’t help but like him, though he had no filter and said absolutely anything he thought. He had pretty much offended everyone within five minutes of stepping through my door. He called my bakery a candy-colored nightmare. Then there were Betty and Harold Lawrence who owned the travel agency named Golden Years Getaways that specialized in senior tours. They were both in excellent shape, dressed well, and seemed very nice. However, Betty had stolen all the sugar packets out of the glass jar on the table when she thought I wasn’t looking. Megan Bishop and Stephanie Donovan hadn’t revealed their weirdness yet, though Stephanie’s T-shirt read Wiccan and Proud. They’d opened a candle shop, Beeswax, across the street a few months before I came to the neighborhood, and were the closest to my age. They had been in the bakery a couple times already, but I hadn’t had a chance to get to know either of them. And finally there was Vinny Fabrizi, who owned Vinny’s Italian restaurant.
I freshened Vinny’s coffee last, then took my seat next to him.
“You haven’t been to my restaurant yet,” he said, raising a wooly black and gray eyebrow at me, over his lively brown eyes.
“I will. I promise. I’ve been so busy with the bakery, but once things settle down, I’ll be in. I want to see everyone’s store.”
He considered me for a moment, his whole body turned toward me. Finally he nodded, taking my hand. “When? I will make you something personally. Beautiful food for the beautiful girl.”
I grinned at the old charmer. “How about next week?”
He shook his head. “Next week? No. Too far. Tomorrow.”
“Um, I have plans,” I lied. This couldn’t have been a worse time to pretend to eat dinner.
Those crazy eyebrows fell low over his eyes.. “What time are you plans?”
“Seven?” I said.
He nodded. “Good. You will come at five-thirty.”
I laughed, but nodded, afraid if I opened my mouth more lies would come out and I’d lose track of what I was telling these people who I was destined to see every day. I would just have to think of an excuse and cancel later. He patted my knee.
Megan stood up and brushed her pretty blond hair behind her shoulders. “I guess this is everyone who’s coming tonight. I would like to welcome our newest member to Neighborhood Watch, Maggie Edwards. Thank you for hosting, Maggie, and for providing such wonderful refreshments—but especially thank you for moving into our neighborhood. We’ve had a lot more traffic in the store since you opened.” There were mutters of agreement.
“That’s great.” I crossed my legs. “The response has been unbelievable. I guess the area was ready for a bakery.”
“There used to be one not five blocks away. No one went there. They didn’t even last for a year,” Mr. Court declared, boney arms folded across his chest. “Diabetes peddlers, all of you.”
My eyes widened. I didn’t know if I should laugh or defend myself.
Megan shifted uncomfortably, clearing her throat. “Well, we’re glad to have you here tonight, Maggie.”
“Thanks.” There were lots of reasons why a bakery failed. I had done my research before making the investment. I also knew that just because business was good now didn’t mean it would stay that way. I made a mental note to check out the other bakery to see what happened. “I come in pretty early in the morning, so I’ll definitely keep an eye out for… has the neighborhood had any problems?” The area seemed nice. A lot nicer than where I lived.
“We had some kids spray-painting signs and buildings a few months ago, but all of that has cleared up,” Betty said. “Other than that, things tend to be quiet. So you said you come into the store? You don’t live here?”
“No, but I spend most of my time here. I haven’t decided what to do with the upstairs unit. I might rent it out.”
“Some cars were broken into as well, but not much was taken,” Stephanie added. “The police think they were kids.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Do you have a boyfriend, Maggie?” Emily asked. “Garret is still available.”
“Yes,” I blurted. Garret was the last person in the neighborhood I should see. He had actually been the first person I met here and through a few unfortunate events he almost discovered what I was. Holden wiped his memory, but I didn’t really know what that meant. Was it gone for good or could it come back with the right triggers? Whatever the answer was, I certainly wasn’t going to go around poking bears.
Vinny smiled. “Nothing is better than finding your amore. Bring him tomorrow. Dinner for two, no need for other plans.”
I forced a smile.
“Are we here to play twenty questions with Ms. Edwards, or are we going to talk about the strange men who have been lurking around my trashcans at night?” Mr. Court demanded.
Every head in the room swiveled to him.
“I haven’t seen anything,” Harold said.
“What strange men?” Megan asked. “What did they look like?”
“He was dreaming,” Emily proclaimed. “His eyesight is awful. You haven’t seen more than a blur since 1987, Alfred.”
Mr. Court stood and pointed his cane at her. “You want to see how well I can see?”
“Why don’t we give Mr. Court a chance to speak?” Megan said, stepping between them and convinced Mr. Court to sit back down. “This is why we have the meeting. Tell us what exactly happened?”
“I was getting ready for bed and heard something in the alley. I cracked the window and saw two men by my trashcans. I know what I saw. I yelled at them to get the hell out of there and they looked at me with dead eyes, then strolled away like they owned the place. I should have called the police. They were up to no good. No good at all.”
She nodded. “Did they disturb anything?”
“Me,” he said, and I stifled a giggle. “I didn’t like the looks of them. They aren’t the first people like that I have seen. Mark my words. Trouble is coming.”
“That may be,” Megan said, “but we can’t stop people from being in the ne
ighborhood. However, everyone should keep an eye out for these men. Can you give us any further description?”
He shook his head. “It was too dark.”
“Okay, then we should all watch for anyone suspicious. Did anyone see anything strange over the last month, or do you have anything to report?”
The rest of the meeting was pretty boring, compared to the beginning. When Megan finally adjourned, Mr. Court was the first one out the door, whacking his cane against the sidewalk as he went. The Lawrences’ helped Emily home, while Megan and Stephanie stayed behind to help me straighten up.
“I can get this,” I said. “I’m sure you guys are anxious to get home.”
“No, no. We’re grateful you volunteered. It’s the first time we haven’t had to meet in our store, and we really don’t have room for a table and chairs. Obviously, business has been good, but how’s everything else? Are you settling in? Getting a feel for the neighborhood?” Stephanie asked.
“More importantly, how do you not look tired? You have to be exhausted. When we opened, I thought I could sleep for a week. You look fresh as morning dew. You’re like Wonder Woman,” Megan said, handing me a stack of plates.
I took them, my smile freezing on my face. How was I supposed to make myself look more tired? I hadn’t even considered that. “Makeup and I think I’m still running on pure excitement. The high of living my lifelong dream hadn’t faded. I wake up every morning excited to come to work. I’ve always wanted to own a bakery. It will all catch up with me eventually, no doubt.”
“And when it does, we have wine. Stop by any time,” Stephanie said as I went into the kitchen. “Actually, you’re welcome to come over now. You haven’t seen the store yet.”
“Yes,” Megan chimed. “We want to hear all about you.”
Talking about myself and my lack of a life was getting to be its own sort of hell. It was like everyone I met was the terrible relative at a family reunion, who asked if you were married yet and when you were going to have kids. I tried not to make a face as I pushed the door open, shaking my head. “I would, but I’m supposed to meet a friend. Next time. We definitely need to hang out.”