by Mary Maxwell
“Wow!” Zack said. “That’s one colorful past.”
“I ran into them at the drug store,” Blanche said. “He’s cute as a button. And his manners were impeccable. When I couldn’t reach the Fiddle Faddle on the top shelf, Kyle very gallantly stepped in to lend a hand—literally!”
I forced a smile at the pun. “What a gentleman! We can’t wait to meet him.”
“Yeah,” Zack said, lightly wedging one elbow into my side. “Crescent Creek needs as many chivalrous men as possible.”
“I so agree!” Blanche announced, pirouetting on her tiny feet. “And I shall return!”
“She’s a firecracker,” Zack whispered once we were alone. “I hope we’re that lively when we’re eighty.”
“I hope to be that lively next week,” I joked. “We’re going to be working really long days between now and then with all of the special orders and catering jobs.”
“I’ve got some free time tomorrow afternoon. Want me to come help you and Julia?”
I leaned over and pressed my lips against his. We lingered in the moment while Blanche hummed loudly in the kitchen. When she reappeared in the living room, my forehead was pressed against Zack’s cheek and our eyes were closed.
“Goodness me!” she exclaimed. “Do you need a minute?”
Zack cleared his throat, squared his shoulders and smiled.
“Oh, not at all,” I said. “Zack just offered to help out at Sky High tomorrow. We’re pretty swamped with special orders and he’s handy in the kitchen.”
Blanche shifted her gaze slowly from me to Zack. “I have every confidence,” she said in a low rasp, “that he’s quite handy wherever he goes.”
I felt my cheeks redden. “Well, uh…”
“Oh, now!” Blanche said, handing me a glass of chardonnay. “We’re all adults here!”
“Yes, but…” I sipped the wine to try and think of what to say next. I didn’t want to offend our hostess, but I didn’t want to wander into a discussion that might become uncomfortable. “Well, you were right, Blanche,” I said finally. “The chardonnay really is lovely!”
“I thought you’d like it, dear.” She offered a bottle of ale to Zack. “The sales clerk at the liquor store said it’s one of their best sellers.” She stood with both hands pressed together for a moment before announcing that she was returning to the kitchen for appetizers. “I won’t be but a minute or two,” she promised. “And it’ll give you lovebirds more time to canoodle.”
As soon as we were alone again, Zack asked what Blanche was talking about.
“Canoodling?” I said.
He nodded. “Yeah, what’s that mean?”
I put down my glass. Then I wrapped my arms around him and kissed his cheek.
“Oh!” His eyes went wide. “I never knew for sure what that word meant, but I definitely like doing it!”
As we canoodled a bit more, Blanche yelped loudly.
“Did you hear that?” I asked Zack.
He started to get up, but I pressed one hand on his arm and told him that I’d check on our energetic hostess. When I walked into the kitchen, Blanche was angrily jabbing one bony finger at her mobile phone.
“Do you know how to work this thing, Katie?”
“Most of the time,” I said. “What’s wrong?”
“Well, it’s Tipper.”
“Did she just call?”
Blanche jeered at the blank screen. “No, she sent one of those little message thingies.”
“A text?”
“Yeah, sure. Whatever you call them.”
“Is everything okay?”
Blanche sighed. “How should I know? The minute I tapped the screen like my grandson told me to do, all of the words disappeared. The only thing I saw was ‘Sorry for the late notice, but…’”
“Sounds like Tipper’s not going to make it tonight, huh?”
The elderly woman stopped fussing with her phone long enough to turn and glare at me. “Will you please see if you can get this dagnabbit gizmo to work properly?”
I took the phone, pressed the power switch and the screen blazed back to life. Then I tapped and swiped until the text from Tipper was on the screen. I read the message twice before sharing it with Blanche.
“This is very peculiar,” I said. “Tipper’s message reads: ‘Sorry for the late notice, but we ain’t going to make it tonight.’”
Blanche’s nose wrinkled in dismay. “What’s so strange about that? People cancel plans all the time.”
I shook my head. “That’s not it. Tipper used the word ‘ain’t’ in her message. Don’t you think that’s odd? I mean, for an English major who writes a homemaking blog? Have you ever heard her say ‘ain’t’ before?”
Blanche pressed her lips into a flat line as she contemplated the questions. Then she rolled her shoulders, picked up the tray of snacks and said, “Her loss, Katie! Come with me. Let’s go see how that hunk of mantasticness of yours is doing!”
CHAPTER 4
“A hunk of what?”
I laughed at Zack’s expression. “Mantasticness,” I said. “There’s a first time for everything.”
We were driving back to Sky High Pies from Blanche’s place. After Tipper’s odd text, I asked if we could swing by on the way home to make sure she was okay. We’d just pulled onto her street when I told Zack what Blanche had called him earlier in the evening.
“Mantastic!” he said, puffing out his chest. “I kinda like that one, Katie!”
“I thought you might.”
He hit the brakes as we approached Tipper’s house. The front porch lights were shining and two vehicles were in the driveway: the black BMW that Tipper drove along with a dark green F-150. The truck had New Mexico plates and a noticeable dent along one side.
“That must be her boyfriend’s truck,” I said.
“That’s a logical guess,” Zack murmured.
“Should I go up and check on her?”
He frowned. “What if they’re enjoying an intimate moment?”
“Good point.” I pulled out my phone. “I’ll just send her a quick message.”
When there was no reply within a few moments, I sent another.
“She’s going to think you’re stalking her,” Zack said. “Maybe you should just call her tomorrow.”
“I suppose…” I studied the front of the house. “After all, she is an adult.”
Zack muttered something.
“What was that?” I asked.
“I said ‘most of the time,’” he answered. “I’ve seen Tipper at Bier Haus on more than occasion acting like she’s trying to relive her teenage years.”
“I remember those years,” I said. “We were good friends back then.”
“Aren’t you still?”
I thought about the question. When I moved to Chicago for college, Tipper stayed behind to help her father run his hardware store. She visited me a few times in the Windy City and we always had fun. But after her father died, she sold the store, married a man from Boulder and then divorced him before the ink was dry on the wedding license. We drifted apart during the next few years, reconnecting only after I returned to Crescent Creek to take over Sky High Pies when my parents retired to Florida.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Zack said.
“Huh?”
He squeezed my thigh. “It looked like you were a million miles away.”
“Just thinking about Tipper.”
We sat in silence for a few moments. Zack drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as I tried to shake off the sense that something was wrong.
“Do we need to keep loitering?” he asked finally. “Or have we seen enough?”
I glanced back at the house. The windows on the first floor were dark, but two rooms upstairs glowed with soft golden light. I’d been in the house enough to know the layout of both levels. The upper windows on the left were Tipper’s bedroom; the other set were the office that she used to publish Home & Heart, a blog about everything from cleaning an
d cooking to shopping and fitness. Although she started the project as more of a part-time hobby following her divorce, it quickly became a reasonably profitable business.
As my eyes lobbed back and forth between the upper windows, I saw a silhouette moving against the sheer curtains in Tipper’s bedroom. It was a flash of shadow, a dark shape against the filmy drapes.
“Katie?”
Zack’s voice was soft and gentle. I turned and he was smiling at me with narrowed eyes.
“Will you feel better if you go check on her?”
“No, that’s not necessary.” I took another quick look at the house: windows glowing brightly, cars in the driveway, no signs of anything but a typical evening on Hanover Lane. “Let’s go,” I said, reaching over to take his hand. “I’m delivering an order tomorrow afternoon, so I’ll just stick with the plan and talk to her then.”
CHAPTER 5
The next afternoon a few minutes after three, Julia stood in the Sky High kitchen with a blue rubber spatula in her left hand and a red one in her right. I’d been in the office talking to our paper goods vendor for the past half hour. Since the conversation had rambled from placing a quick order to Spencer’s daughter’s dance recital and his critical analysis of the Broncos season, I had exactly five minutes to load Tipper Hedge’s goodies into the car and deliver them by four o’clock as promised.
“Hey, Jules?”
She glanced over her shoulder.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
She smiled. “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”
“Because you were in almost the same position when I went into the office.”
Her eyes crinkled. “I was?”
“Uh-huh. What are you doing?”
She giggled. “I read this really cool article last night about the energy of color. Blue is supposed to be relaxing; red is better for more demanding tasks or when you feel totally drained and need an extra little oomph to get the job done.”
Since Julia often dispensed new nuggets of wisdom gleaned during late-night web surfing sessions, I simply smiled, collected Tipper’s order and started toward the door.
“That’s it?” Julia called. “No comment?”
I stopped and turned around. “Are you asking for my opinion?”
She nodded.
“How about a purple spatula?” I suggested. “Maybe that would be the perfect combination of blue relaxation and red energy.”
“Get outta here!” she joked. “You’re going to ruin my yin and my yang.”
Before she revealed any more mystical eye-openers, I slipped through the door, loaded the bakery boxes into my car and headed across town.
On the drive, I thought about how lucky I was to have Julia and Harper on my team. Between the three of us, we juggled breakfast and lunch business and special orders like a well-oiled machine. I’d learned how to run Sky High from Nana Reed and my parents. They were wonderful teachers and patient mentors, guiding me through everything from simple baking tips to complex bookkeeping theories. Although my grandmother had passed away and my parents had retired to Florida, my mother and father called two or three times each week to check on how things were going. “We’re not trying to snoop,” my mother would always say. “We’re just trying to be helpful. I mean, your daddy and I ran the place for twenty-five years, Katie. After that long, you tend to learn a thing or two.” I smiled at the thought of my parents in their seaside condo, offering advice and wisdom like wise shamans speckled with flour and confectioners’ sugar.
As I turned onto Hanover Lane, my phone jingled in my purse. I checked the screen: LIV OFFICE. I hadn’t talked to my sister for a few days and I’d made it to Tipper’s in record time, so I decided to pull over to the curb and answer the call.
“I need your advice!” she yelped after I clicked onto the line.
“Well, good afternoon to you, too.”
“Oh, sure!” Olivia said breathlessly. “Hello and all the rest of that stuff, but this is an emergency, Katie!”
I asked her to fill me in on the crisis. When she explained that she was in the swimwear department at Nordstrom trying to decide between a candy apple red bikini with mesh side panels or a body-sculpting one-piece with a strappy back, I couldn’t help but laugh.
“What?” she hissed. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Not at all, sis. I just find it amusing that buying a bathing suit is your idea of an emergency.”
“Well, it is! Cooper won a trip to San Diego in some raffle at work. We’re going in two weeks and I have to figure out which suit will look better.”
“Which one do you like?”
She hemmed and hawed. Then she announced that she couldn’t decide.
“Well, I can’t help you with that,” I said. “I have about thirty seconds before I have to hang up. I’m delivering an order to Tipper Hedge, and she—”
“Oh, really?” Olivia said. “I haven’t heard that name in ages. How is she?”
I glanced at the dashboard clock. “She’s going to be really mad if I don’t get there on time. Can I call you later?”
“Sure,” my sister said. “But, real fast before you go: body-sculpting one-piece or sexy bikini?”
“Yes!” I answered. “Buy them both so you have options! I’ve gotta go, Liv. I love you!”
I dropped the phone back into my purse, checked traffic and then pulled away from the curb. It took less than a minute to reach Tipper’s house. When I came around a bend in the road, her black BMW was in the driveway.
“Okay, Miss Capricious Whimsy,” I murmured to myself, using the childhood nickname Tipper had received from her mother. “Are you going to start second-guessing what you ordered or graciously accept this delivery?”
Hoping for the latter, I parked in front of the house, carried the Sky High boxes to the porch and rang the bell with one elbow. As I waited for Tipper, I heard someone crunching up behind me across the snow-covered lawn.
I turned to see a lanky guy dressed in a snowmobile suit walking a small dog with fluffy white fur. His eyes were covered by a pair of mirrored aviator shades and a bulky knit cap was pulled down low on his forehead. There was something green wedged in the corner of his mouth. I guessed it was an hors d’oeuvre toothpick with frilled cellophane on one end. I didn’t recognize the man, but thought he might be Tipper’s neighbor if he was walking a dog so casually down the street.
“Hey, there!” he called in a deep voice.
I smiled a silent greeting, carefully cradling the Sky High boxes against my body.
“She’s not home,” the man said, coming closer with the energetic pooch. “My wife stopped by about ten minutes ago to return a book she’d borrowed. We live just over there.” He removed the toothpick and gestured at a yellow bungalow across the street. “Missy came by, like, right before you got here, but there was no answer.”
The dog yelped. As I turned to coo something reassuring, I saw its collar: a bright pink faux crocodile number decorated with glittering crystals.
“Okay, thanks,” I said. “Any chance you know what time she left?”
“My wife?”
I shook my head. “No, sorry. I meant Tipper. I just thought maybe…” I looked down at the fluffy dog. “…you know? If you were out walking the dog, then maybe you saw Tip leave with someone. I mean, since her car’s in the driveway and all.”
The man grinned, returning the toothpick to his mouth. “Nah. Me and Stella just got out here. It’s my day off, so I decided to take her for a long walk.”
The dog strained against its leash, trying to get as close as possible to the baked goodies.
“Ah!” The man pointed at the Sky High sticker on the top box. “That’s your place, isn’t it?”
“Guilty as charged,” I said. “Tipper ordered these for a meeting she’s having tomorrow morning.”
The toothpick twitched as he frowned slightly. “Like I told you, she’s not home.”
His tone had shifted from cordial and pleasant
to borderline crabby, but I guessed he might be the kind of guy who got peeved if he had to repeat something.
“Thanks for telling me!” I said as Stella jabbed her wet nose against my ankle. “Looks like somebody else wants to indulge their sweet tooth.”
The man shrugged. “No doubt! She’s a Hoover when it comes to people food, but we try to limit her to a few cheese crackers now and then.” He raised one eyebrow and looked down at the dog. “Don’t want her to lose the girlish figure or anything.”
“That makes two of us,” I agreed. “All things in moderation, right?”
He laughed. “Well, we’ll leave you to it then. I hope Tipper shows up soon. Otherwise, feel free to drop those boxes on our front porch.”
We shared a brief smile and the pair crunched back through the snow toward the street. I tried the bell again, waiting a minute or two before deciding to walk around back and peek in the kitchen window on the off chance that Tipper was wearing her headphones. She often listened to music while cleaning, so there was a possibility she hadn’t heard the doorbell.
The walkway from the drive around the side of the house was neatly shoveled, so I reached the kitchen window in a flash. The trash can lid was ajar, so I paused long enough to nudge it back into place with my hip.
“Please be in there rocking out,” I whispered. “I do not want to sit in the car and wait any longer than—”
The thought went unfinished as I noticed the back entrance.
The door was ajar.
An unfired bullet sat on the threshold.
And there was something on the handle that looked far too familiar from my days as a PI in Chicago.
“Blood,” I said in a hushed murmur. “That definitely looks like blood.”
CHAPTER 6
I stood on the stone walkway, my heart beginning to gallop in my chest and a chill spreading down my spine.
“Don’t panic,” I whispered. “Take a breath.”
As I filled my lungs with the icy winter air again and again, I gave the surrounding area a quick glance. I didn’t see anything in the snow or on the dark stones underfoot, so I finished the trek along the back of the house.