Gluten-Free Murder (Auntie Clem's Bakery Book 1)

by P. D. Workman

  You thought you were so clever, with all your ideas and questions. You could outsmart the police department and the killer. You could figure it all out on your own. No one would even know you were investigating it, with your innocuous little questions. Just getting to know people in Bald Eagle Falls. Just making friends and getting to know people.

  And Erin couldn’t really deny it was true. She had thought that if she just gave it a little time and engaged people, she could eventually sort out who it was that had killed Angela.

  She had been naive. She obviously watched too many TV sleuths or read too many mystery books. It was always so easy in the fictional world. But she’d gotten too close to exposing the killer without even realizing what it was she knew. That never happened to Miss Marple.

  Erin wiggled along. Her brain felt like it was sloshing around inside her head like a seasick turtle. Every movement brought pain. She thought she would get used to it, or it would subside once she got moving, but she was wrong. She hadn’t thought it could feel any worse, but it could.

  Seeing us together and then letting me know you intended to blackmail me. All the while pretending to be the sweet little baker. You know I actually felt bad when Terry Piper suspected you? I never thought he would pin it on you. And if you’d just left well enough alone, the case would have gone cold. He never would have had enough to arrest you. It wasn’t like he wanted to.

  The knot on the back of her head gave one particularly sharp, all-consuming throb and Erin’s stomach erupted. She didn’t know when she had last eaten, but apparently that didn’t matter. The retching made the pain worse and the pain made the retching worse. She stayed there, frozen, trying to keep her body turned in such as way that she wouldn’t drench herself with the vomit or end up having to squirm through the puddle. The acid sharp smell of bile filled her nose and she didn’t suppose she’d managed to avoid getting it all down her shirt. She was already soaking wet with cold sweat from the effort of crawling along the floor.

  She wanted nothing so much as to just lie down and rest.

  But after the retching stopped, she forced herself to continue onward. She wouldn’t get anywhere if she didn’t move.

  Blackmail? She hadn’t threatened to blackmail anyone. Angela was the one who had been the blackmailer. She was the one who had hoarded all their secrets.

  Had Mary Lou been lying when she said she had no secrets? Everybody had something to hide. Was she really the exception?

  She had good reason to hate Angela, whether she had any secrets or not.

  Gema? She seemed open and friendly, but appearances could be deceiving. If everyone had secrets, that meant that Gema did too. She hadn’t invested with Angela, hadn’t lost everything she ever had. But that didn’t mean that she didn’t have anything to hide.

  Or was it Melissa? Had Melissa the gossip accidentally said something to Angela that she shouldn’t? Or had her involvement with Trenton been less innocent than she had let on? Maybe she had been involved in Trenton’s disappearance. Or maybe she knew something about it, something that Angela had done. Had she confronted Angela? Had she just been unable to hold back her hate for the family another minute?

  Why had any of them waited? They had all known Angela for years. And yet, something had changed recently. Something had triggered Angela’s murder.

  Erin breathed hard, swallowed, and breathed some more. It felt like she had been crawling for hours. The darkness obscured any landmarks and she could not see how far she had gone. A few feet? Had she made headway down a long corridor, or was she still only inches from where she had started, traveling in a U shape when she hit the precipice and ended up turning back the way she had come?

  What was it about blackmail? Her attacker had said that Erin had tried to blackmail her. What had Erin discovered that was a secret from the rest of the town? How could she blackmail anyone? All that she knew she had been told by other townspeople.

  Erin’s mind was circling feverishly. She wasn’t able to stay focused on the killer’s words and sort them out. Instead, her mind went back to opening day. She tried to count each of the patrons who had come through the store to keep herself alert. The Fosters. The older couple who had taken so long to make their choice. The church ladies. Angela. There had been businessmen and other women from the town. Not Officer Piper, he hadn’t come until later.

  She should have listened to him and just let him investigate. She had been stupid to try to draw the killer out, asking questions about keys and blathering on about hidden treasure. Who would ever believe such a story?

  Melissa had. The poor woman seemed to believe every story she was told hook, line, and sinker. Ghosts, Confederate treasure, everything. Or had it been Mary Lou? Pretending to be skeptical, but checking just to be sure.

  “Just a little further,” Erin said aloud. She didn’t know how far it was. But she could feel how she was lagging. How her body was gradually shutting down, one muscle fiber at a time, until she would no longer be able to push and pull her body forward.

  She had to believe that she had some chance of getting out.

  Time stretched on. It seemed as if Erin had been crawling all night. Crawling for days, even. In spite of the numbness in her fingers and toes, she could still feel all of the exposed skin being scraped away. And her head continued to roil and throb with every movement. Still, she pushed on.

  There was a noise far off in the distance.

  At first, she thought it was just her brain. The murderer talking to her again in her brain.

  Erin. Erin poking her nose into everything. Can’t leave well enough alone. Erin. Erin.

  But then Erin realized it wasn’t the killer’s voice. Someone was calling her name.

  It was so faint that she could only hear it clearly when she held her breath. They were so far away, she knew they wouldn’t be able to hear her weak voice if she tried to answer. Best to conserve what little voice she had left for when they got closer. And in the meantime, to try to get closer.

  It was a male voice. Or several voices. She couldn’t tell whether the overlapping words were separate voices or echoes.

  But someone was there looking for her.

  Someone would find her and help her, if she could just get close enough for him to find her.

  She was so eager to reach the voices that she forgot to take care, and smashed her face into an outcropping rock.

  Erin let out a yelp of pain and sucked in her breath over her teeth, trying to breathe through it and keep the pain under control.

  Once steadied, she tried to feel in front of her with her hands. There as a wall in front of her. Not just a single outcropping. Erin searched for a hole, for a break, but there was none. How had she gotten into the cave if it was blocked on every side? Erin turned, following the wall around. She was crawling away from the voices, but was determined to get turned around again as soon as she could. The caves were a maze. But if she could just keep following the wall, keep it to her right, that was the way to get out of a labyrinth, wasn’t it?

  A fraction of an inch at a time. She didn’t know how long it would take to get around the wall and facing the right direction again. Or maybe she never would. Maybe they’d just keep missing each other in the dark, moving along parallel tunnels, never meeting up.

  “Hello?” Erin tried to call out. “Vic?”

  It wasn’t Vic looking for her. She knew that. But she was still missing the girl, hoping that she was okay, not lying dead in the darkness somewhere close by.

  “Erin?”

  The voices were still too far away. They couldn’t hear her.

  Erin’s body shuddered. She was getting too weak. Too cold and weak to continue. Her traitorous body was getting ready to shut down.

  “No. No, no, no. Keep going. Keep moving.”

  Then she spotted the twinkle of a light. At first, she thought it was just an image from her brain. Maybe that light that people claimed to see when they had near-death experiences. The scientists she
had read about said they were just images thrown up by the oxygen-starved brain. They weren’t really anything. Just hallucinations.

  But she stayed focused on it and kept squirming toward it. She didn’t care if it was a hallucination or not, it was a goal. And she sorely needed a goal to work toward.

  “You see?” she told herself aloud. “Hang in there just a bit longer. I can get us out of here.”

  The light was getting bigger and brighter. Not very quickly, but it was definitely a light and not just a hallucination. It was more than just a twinkle or a flash.

  Then it was gone. It just winked out and disappeared.

  “No!” Erin shouted. “No, don’t go!”

  The words were so forceful they ripped her dry, raw throat. She heard them echo off of the hard stone walls. It didn’t sound like her voice, but it was louder than any sound she had been able to make up until then.

  A few more seconds passed in blackness and then the light reappeared.

  “Yes,” Erin whispered.

  “Erin?” The searcher’s voice was stronger now too, getting closer. “Erin, are you there? I’m coming.”

  “Yes.”

  Her brain was telling her that it was okay to stop and rest. Help was on the way and she could just wait for it. But she was afraid that if she stopped, her shocked body was going to shut down completely. It would be too late for them to do anything for her.

  “You can’t stop now,” she said sternly. “You have to keep going. Keep pushing.”

  And she did. Each excruciating, infinitesimal inch at a time. Her hands and face and knees raw. Her head nauseated, alternating throbbing with a sharp, stabbing pain.

  Something was approaching her in the darkness. The light hadn’t yet reached her, it was still somewhere in the distance. A mile away? Closer? Farther? It was impossible to tell. But there was definitely something moving toward her, low to the ground, not a human footstep but some kind of animal.

  “No! Get out of here!” Erin whispered sharply. She was too weak to defend herself from a predator. And so close to being found and rescued…! She puckered her lips and whistled, as high and loud as she could, trying to scare the creature away. Rat or coyote or whatever it was, surely it wouldn’t like the unexpected noise. It would know that she wasn’t yet weak enough to be taken.

  “Erin?” came the distant call from the bobbing light.

  The creature came at her then. But it wasn’t growling or snarling. And when it approached, it didn’t bite her. There was no attack.

  It let out a bark.

  Erin’s brain scrambled to sort out the new information. A bark? A dog? It wasn’t trying to avoid her rescuer, but to call him.

  “K9?”

  He nosed at her. He gave a little whine, snuffling and investigating. She couldn’t take a full-on doggie greeting and was thankful he didn’t jump on her or try to join in with this new, unfamiliar game. Instead, he lay down beside her, settling his long, warm body beside her torso. He barked again, a single time, encouraging the searcher to hurry up.

  Erin stopped trying to crawl. She relaxed her body, melting into K9, trying to soak up his body’s warmth.

  The light was close enough that she could detect the dip of each individual step. Erin was breathing heavily through her mouth.

  “Erin!” The man’s pace redoubled. He must have been able to make something out in the darkness. Erin still couldn’t see him, hidden in the darkness behind the light.

  Then he was right there in front of her, the light shining full in Erin’s face. Her eyes streamed and she couldn’t open them.

  Piper was swearing, the light moving around as he examined her without touching her. He clicked a walkie-talkie.

  “She’s here. We’re going to need the stretcher.”

  There was a staticky, garbled response. The man was leaning over her.

  “Erin, can you hear me?”

  She avoided nodding. Moving her head would just make the pain and nausea worse.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  He swore again. “You’re a mess. What can I do?”

  Erin rasped for breath. “Air?”

  “Yes. Yes, I have oxygen.” He went to work. There was a thud and a clank as he put down his gear. Zippers buzzing and equipment being shifted around. “Can I turn you onto your back?”

  “Okay… might pass out… hit on the head.”

  He bent close to examine her head and swore.

  “I see it. I’ll put a pad over it and try to cushion it.”

  He worked to secure a bandage over the bump without much success.

  “That’s not going to work,” he said finally. He put a mask over her mouth and carefully worked the elastic around behind her head, doing his best to avoid the worst of the damage. He put something on the stone floor beneath her. Not a blanket. Maybe a balled-up rain poncho. “You can rest on that.”

  Erin lowered her head a hair’s breadth at a time until her cheek was resting on the squeaky vinyl pillow. Piper checked the oxygen mask and opened the release valve on the small oxygen tank.

  “That should help.”

  Erin tried to relax. She was safe now. Piper would get her out of the cave. They would tend to all her injuries. They would warm her up again.

  Piper pulled out an emergency blanket, unfolded it, and laid it over her. His fingers found her wrist and stayed there for a minute, monitoring her pulse.

  “Vic?” Erin asked. “Where’s Vic?”

  “What?”

  Her voice was muffled by the oxygen mask. Erin tried to make her words as clear as possible. “Where… is… Vic?”

  “Vic is fine.”

  “She’s okay?”

  “Yes. She came to get help. She did the right thing.”

  Erin sighed in relief. She waited for unconsciousness to take her away, but it didn’t. She lay still there, listening to her own breathing. She was thankful for the heat of K9’s body. He still lay against her, warming her up directly and heating the air trapped under the reflective blanket.

  “Who was it?” Erin asked.

  The light turned toward her. “You don’t know?”

  “I don’t remember… I heard her voice…”

  “Well, best if I don’t tell you anything yet. I don’t want to taint your testimony.”

  Erin thought about that. He was probably right.

  She felt like she was floating up above them. The pain in her head wasn’t going away. If anything, it was getting worse. She hoped that she could last until they got a stretcher in there and got her out. Was it far? It seemed like a long time since Piper had radioed that he wanted a stretcher.

  He would feel so bad if he couldn’t even get Erin out of the cave alive. She really didn’t want to do that to him.

  “Erin.” There was a little nudge on her arm. “Erin, are you okay?”

  Erin tried to rouse herself.

  “Wha…?”

  “Maybe you should keep talking to me. You have a head injury, I don’t think I should let you go to sleep.”

  “Not sleeping.”

  “You’re drifting.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Why don’t you try to tell me what you remember? Do you remember how you got here?”

  “No…”

  He nudged her again. Erin was able to blink now and squint at him when his light wasn’t shining right in her face. It was nice to be able to see again. She hadn’t been blind after all. Just in total darkness.

  “You’re drifting again. Can you keep your eyes open?”

  “Keep the light away.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” He readjusted the headlamp so that it was pointing up instead of down at Erin. “There. How’s that?”

  “Better.”

  “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  Erin took a few deep breaths of the oxygen, hoping it would clear her muddled brain.

  “Remember the tea.”

  “What tea?”

  “At the bakery. After ch
urch.”

  “You went to church?” His tone was one of surprise.

  “No. The ladies. The church ladies came… for tea. To Auntie Clem’s.”

  “After they went to church.”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t think you were a churchgoer.”

  “No.” She wondered briefly what she had said or done that had clued him in to the fact. Or maybe he had just heard gossip around town. It did seem to be a little scandalous, the type of thing people loved to share around. In a Bible-belt town like Bald Eagle Falls, someone openly admitting to being an atheist was shocking.

  “I’ll let you in on a little secret.” He leaned forward. His voice was low and confidential. She couldn’t see more than the shadows of his face and had to picture the dimple in his cheek.

  “What?”

  “I’m not either.”

  “A Christian?”

  “Well… I was raised Christian… so I guess I still am. But I don’t go to church.”

  “Why not?”

  “I say it’s because of my work schedule. People are very understanding; they know emergency services still have to protect the public on Sundays.”

  “But…?”

  “But… that’s not why.”

  She waited for him to say more, but he didn’t explain further.

  “So, you had the church ladies over to the bakery for tea after their services? Clementine used to do that, didn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll bet they all enjoyed that. Everything went off well? Without a hitch?”

  “Yes.” Erin’s voice was tired and far away.

  “Nothing that seemed… out of place? Or that indicated you were in any danger?”

  “No. Nothing like that.”

  “You didn’t feel threatened?”

  “No.”

  There was a dragging noise, starting in the distance but getting gradually closer. Erin saw another light, twinkling off in the distance. Piper sighed.

  “That will be the stretcher. Then we can get you out of this hole and to the hospital for proper care.”

  “Yeah. Good.”

  They were silent for a while, both watching and listening to the man approaching with the stretcher. It wasn’t a wheeled gurney, which wouldn’t have been able to roll over the uneven floor, but a stretcher that had to be carried between two people and was currently being dragged behind one.