Bake Until Golden: A Novel (The Potluck Catering Club)

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Bake Until Golden: A Novel (The Potluck Catering Club) Page 22

by Linda Evans Shepherd


  Our calls to the Cairo hospital had garnered no information other than a young male receptionist’s insistence, in broken English, that “Sorry, only member of family can speak for him.” Whatever that meant.

  But besides Ray’s condition, the question was: where was Mandy? Why couldn’t we reach her at the hospital or her hotel, or even through her cell phone, which had been set up for worldwide calling? Why hadn’t we been able to reach anyone from the company Ray was working for?

  Even Clay hadn’t been able to find out anything. “It looks to me,” he’d said in a phone call late last night, “like one of you is going to have to fly to Cairo to get to the bottom of this.”

  “I’ll go,” Henry had said as he’d dined on a midnight bowl of my crabby corn chowder. He’d held his spoon aloft then added, “Lisa Leann, you’ll need to stay here with Kyle. I’ll fly over and make sure Ray and Mandy are okay. I’ll get the State Department involved if I have to. But because of that prowler the other night, maybe you and Kyle could stay with one of your Potluck friends while I’m gone. Do you think?”

  “But what if Mandy should call here?” I asked.

  “Simple,” Henry explained. “We have call forwarding—just forward our phone to your cell.”

  ———

  It was Vonnie I’d thought of first, probably because, with her vast baby doll collection, she seemed like the one who would most welcome having a real-life baby move in with her. She hadn’t hesitated about my self-invitation when I’d phoned the next morning. In fact, I could almost picture her jumping in glee. “Lisa Leann, nothing would make me happier.”

  So before I’d left to drop Henry off at DIA, he’d spent the morning helping me move Kyle’s crib and baby backpack, as well as a few of my suitcases over to Vonnie’s guest bedroom, which had been readied for our arrival.

  As Vonnie held the baby and Henry and Fred set up the crib, I arranged a few of his disposable diapers in the basket storage unit of his changing table. As Kyle cooed, Vonnie said, “Lisa Leann, I’m so pleased you thought of coming to stay here. It’s been a bit lonely without my dear little Chucky.”

  I looked up and into my friend’s sad, blue eyes. “Any idea as to what could have happened to him?”

  Vonnie, dressed in her favorite gray sweatpants and rosy sweatshirt, kissed the top of Kyle’s head as he nestled deeper into her arms while she rocked him in my rocking chair, a chair that had been carried inside only moments before. “I wish I did, but with my car window cracked open the way it was, I guess someone was able to unlock the door and make off with my little pup.”

  “Still,” I said. “With all the creepy things going on around town, I just can’t help but wonder if somehow these things aren’t connected.”

  “If you figure it out,” Vonnie said, “be sure and let Evie know. She could sure use a ‘get out of a criminal trial free’ card about now.”

  A few minutes later, when Henry and I got ready to head to the airport, Vonnie had insisted on taking charge of Kyle, looking as happy as I’d ever seen her. “Now, don’t you worry. Though I’ve never raised any little ones of my own, I’m an old hat at caring for the babies in the church nursery. He’ll be fine with me for a few hours. Plus, Fred’s here; we’ll be safe till you get back.”

  ———

  Still, I’d dreaded getting in the car with Henry, because I didn’t want to be reminded of my past sins with his favorite country music. But this time, instead of punching “play” so his CD player could blast Shania Twain’s “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under,” he tuned in to the Christian radio station, where Natalie Grant belted out her “Perfect People” song, a song acknowledging that perfect people don’t really exist. That much is true, I thought as I listened.

  We sat quietly as that and other songs poured from the radio, one following the other. As we neared the airport turnoff, Henry spoke. “Lisa Leann, I think I owe you an apology.”

  Startled, I looked up at my husband, who hid his expression behind his dark sunglasses. “What do you mean, Henry?”

  “Before Mandy and Kyle came, you should know that I’d planned to leave you.”

  My eyes stung, and I looked toward my husband of almost thirty years. “Is that still your plan?”

  He shook his head. “No. What you did was wrong, your affair with Clark, I mean.”

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “I don’t know if I can bear rehashing my misconduct again, Henry. It happened two years ago, and you know how sorry I am. I don’t know what more—”

  His voice stayed steady. “What I want to say to you isn’t about that.”

  I watched as he followed the curve of the Peña Boulevard exit off I-70. “Then what is it?”

  His voice sounded tired, as if he was giving up a restricted confidence. “I’ve allowed myself to live in a secret state of anger.”

  I cut my eyes toward him. “Maybe it hasn’t been as secret as you think.”

  Henry nodded, grasping the steering wheel as he merged onto the boulevard. “I figured as much. But that’s what I wanted, to hurt you as much as you hurt me.”

  “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

  Henry’s head turned toward me before he turned back to the traffic that was building around us. “I know. But I’m the one who allowed anger to fester.”

  “So what’s changed?”

  “Everything. With all that’s happened, then the thought of losing you and the baby the other night, plus what’s going on with Ray and Mandy, I’ve reconsidered both my behavior and decision to leave.”

  I turned to my husband, a man who never admitted when he was wrong. I felt nothing but absolute shock. “You have?”

  He continued. “Deep down I know the truth. You cheated on me because I wasn’t enough.”

  I shook my head. “Henry, don’t say that.”

  “It’s true. In most all our years in Texas, the years the kids were still at home, I was absent from your life with my work and such. But seeing you with our grandson, it’s made me remember what we once were.”

  I nodded and dropped my voice to an almost-whisper. “We were in love.”

  “Now I’m thinking I want that again, to be in love with you, if that’s okay.”

  “You don’t think it’s too late for us?”

  Henry shook his head. “It’s only too late if I can’t find a way to forgive you.”

  I pushed my sunglasses off my nose and onto the top of my head and studied my husband. “Can you? Can you forgive me, I mean?”

  Henry pulled into the far left lane, toward the airport’s west departure sign before taking the turnoff. “I’m only human, but . . . I’ve been thinking.”

  “And?”

  “I’m not a strong enough man to forgive you. So I decided to ask God to give me the strength, his strength—to forgive you through me.”

  We pulled up to the curb in the drop-off zone, and Henry and I both got out of the car. We met at the trunk, where he retrieved his suitcase. I tentatively ventured, “Is your prayer working?”

  “Let me put it to you like this,” Henry said as he placed his suitcase down next to him. He stepped toward me, wrapping me in his arms, and drew me into a kiss so tingling that my knees grew weak and my toes curled inside my pink sneakers. I think we would have stayed in that embrace for eternity if one of the policemen managing the traffic and pedestrians hadn’t tapped Henry’s shoulder. “Break it up, you two,” he said with a wink. “You’re holding up traffic.”

  Henry unlocked his lips from mine then handed me the keys to the car before turning to walk toward the glass airport doors. He stopped to wave at me one last time, then he was gone.

  I got back into the car and looked up to see the policeman signaling me to enter the flow of traffic. I obliged despite the tears streaming down my face. Henry still loves me. He’s chosen to forgive me. Despite all the trouble we were dealing with, I knew I’d just witnessed a miracle.

  “Thank you, Lord,” I whispered. As I d
rove back to the high country I continued to praise God and to pray for my family’s safe return.

  ———

  Though I’d been gone from Summit View for about four hours, the late afternoon sun still shone brightly on the glowing aspens that brushed the mountain slopes with gold. But before I turned toward Vonnie’s house, I decided to swing into the alley behind my boutique so I could run in to my office and download some emailed invoices since Vonnie’s home was internet free.

  I pulled into my parking spot then hopped out to unlock the back door before keying in the code and switching off the alarm.

  Despite the break-in, the place looked the way I’d left it the last time I’d been inside, the day I’d brought the baby over. I walked through the kitchen and into the living room, where I gazed at the rug in front of the fireplace. I stepped toward it, then kneeled down, turning the edge of the carpet back. Sure enough, I saw the scratches I’d been told about on one of the wooden planks. Moments later, I was able to lift the plank and peer down into a small cavity, a perfect hiding place for some past resident of this old home. But who? All I knew was it had been bank-owned before Henry had made a deposit on the place.

  I carefully replaced the plank and smoothed down the carpet before standing. My eyes slowly scanned the room in the afternoon light. Who knew how many hiding places an old home like this could have? Henry and I hadn’t found anything out of the ordinary when we’d remodeled the kitchen last year, but what if this house contained other unexplored secrets that might still be undisturbed?

  I followed the spiral staircase up to my office, walked over to my desk, and booted up the computer. While it booted, I let my eyes trace the floral wallpaper, the upstairs fireplace, the floor, and even the ceiling for clues of other hiding places. Nothing looked amiss, though there was no way to see if anything could be hiding inside my walls, besides maybe a mouse or two.

  After logging into my email account and printing the invoices, I gathered up my purse and went downstairs.

  But instead of heading toward the back door, I turned down the hall toward the cellar door. It creaked open to a set of wooden steps that disappeared into the darkness below. I pulled out my cell phone and turned it on so that its light would illuminate my journey downward.

  When I reached the bottom, the light of the phone glowed a soft blue into the darkness. The cellar had quite a few boxes stacked around the room, creating odd silhouettes against the dark walls, the perfect hiding place for a felon, I decided. I walked to the string hanging from the middle of the ceiling and pulled it, watching the shadows give way to the yellow glow of the overhead bulb. Besides the boxes that Henry and I had placed down here ourselves, the room was devoid of any mysterious crates or bundles. I walked around the cellar’s perimeter, looking at the concrete floor. If something was buried down here, I wouldn’t know how to detect it, not beneath the concrete, which had probably been poured in the seventies or so.

  My walk took me behind the old wooden staircase and the crawl space beneath it. It appeared empty, though I decided to give it a closer inspection. I turned on my cell phone’s light again and leaned into the dark space. Everything looked normal. That is, except for the wider base on the bottom step. I knelt down and studied it. Is that a loose board? Brushing aside the cobwebs, I tugged at the board, and it pulled open, revealing another cavity. I bent down, shining the light of my phone into its darkness. Ho! What is this? I gingerly tugged on a corner of a crackled piece of leather. It slid toward me and into the dim light until I could see that I had found a leather pouch, a bit heavy and tied with an ancient string.

  But before I could open it, the back door, not far above my head, suddenly swooshed open. “Hello?” a male voice I didn’t recognize called.

  I froze. Hadn’t I locked the door and reset the alarm? Apparently not. I quickly walked to the center of the basement and pulled the string to extinguish the light before rushing back to the cubbyhole beneath the stairs. All the while, the footsteps continued to echo overhead. The footsteps stopped at the top of the stairs above me. “Anyone down there?” the voice called through the open door and into the darkness.

  I held my breath, wondering if the beat of my heart was loud enough for the intruder to hear. I heard a footfall on the landing above me, then another, as a man descended the stairs. A voice I didn’t recognize said, “Lisa Leann? Are you down here? It’s Nate Sawyer from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. I saw your car outside, and you didn’t answer my knock. Is everything okay?”

  Knees trembling, I crawled out of my hiding place. “I’m here,” I simply said. “I was just moving a few boxes around.”

  “In the dark?” Nate finished his descent.

  “No, you scared me; I turned off the light.”

  Nate arrived at the bottom step just as I found the string and pulled it. “There,” I said as the room flooded with yellow illumination.

  “Sorry, ma’am, I was just checking on you. Your back door was cracked open and there was a bike leaning against the steps. Seemed suspicious after the trouble you had the other night.”

  Shock smacked me hard. “My back door was open?” But before Nate could answer, the cellar door above us slammed shut and loud footsteps reverberated toward the back door.

  Nate looked alarmed. “Is someone here with you?”

  When I shook my head no, Nate’s hand automatically went for his holster before he turned and ran back up the stairs. After finding the door locked, Nate battered it open with his shoulder. “You stay here,” he called from the top of the staircase before running out the back door.

  I felt my heart pound. Someone had been in the house while I’d been down in the cellar. If Nate hadn’t happened along . . . I shuddered and hurried back to where I’d left the pouch, then stuffed it into my purse just as Nate returned to the top of the cellar steps a few minutes later.

  “It’s safe to come up now,” he said. “Whoever was inside is long gone.”

  “Did you get a chance to see who it was?” I asked as I ascended the stairs. Nate stood in the shattered door frame. “Unfortunately, I didn’t see anyone. Though the bike’s gone.”

  When I reached the top landing, Nate escorted me to the living room, where we sat down in front of the fireplace. “So, why were you in the neighborhood anyway?” I asked.

  “I dropped by to see you,” he said. “I was just wondering if you had any theories about why your friend Evie would kill Ms. McGurk.”

  “Gracious,” I said, standing with a start. “Evie didn’t kill anybody.”

  Nate stood too. “How can you be so sure?”

  “For starters, shouldn’t you be trying to track down that prowler? I mean, for all you know, he may be Dee Dee’s killer.”

  “Any ideas on who your prowler could be? You may be the lady with the clues for all I know.”

  “I don’t know anything, but if this mystery guy reveals his identity to me, I’ll let you know.”

  “How do you know it’s a he?” Nate asked.

  “Well, that sure wasn’t Evie up there.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “You’d never catch her on a bike, for one thing, and for another, she wouldn’t have locked us in the cellar.”

  Nate smirked. “If you say so.”

  I picked up my purse and swung it over my shoulder as Nate said, “That looks pretty heavy. What do you carry in that thing, rocks?”

  I smiled sweetly, though I was irritated with the man. So irritated I decided not to show Nate my find, but to talk to Donna instead. “Just a few office supplies,” I said. “Now if you don’t mind, I have a baby to attend to.”

  Vonnie

  29

  Bubbling Memories

  Fred was playing with Kyle and I was pulling my deep-dish pizza out of the oven when Lisa Leann burst through the front door, looking as if she’d seen a ghost.

  “Everything all right, dear?”

  “There was a prowler at the shop.”

&nbs
p; “Not again,” I said, putting the pizza pan on my ceramic doll trivet and turning to face her. “Was anything missing?”

  “That detective Nate showed up and scared him off.”

  “Did Nate at least see him?” Fred asked, bouncing Kyle on his knee.

  “I’m afraid not,” Lisa Leann answered.

  “Well, at least no one got hurt,” Fred said, turning his attention back to the baby.

  Lisa Leann nodded, so I asked, “Did you get Henry situated at the airport?”

  She took a deep breath and gave me a twitchy smile. “I did. He called while I was still driving home, just before his plane took off for New York.” Lisa Leann set her large pink and black quilted purse on the kitchen desk and looked at her watch. “He should be landing at JFK soon, in fact. He won’t be in Cairo until sometime tomorrow.”

  When she heard Kyle chuckle, she turned and spied Fred playing peekaboo with her grandson. Fred had perched the baby in his recliner while he knelt beside it, hiding his face behind a pillow, then popping out. “Boo!”

  Lisa Leann walked toward the pair, grinning. “You two look like you’re having way too much fun.”

  “Dinner’s ready,” I called from the kitchen. “Go wash up and meet me at the table.”

  Lisa Leann didn’t say much at dinner, chewing slowing and staring at Kyle, who was rocking merrily away in his nearby baby swing. I didn’t push her to confide her thoughts as I knew she must be frightfully worried about her family. So I wasn’t too surprised when Lisa Leann pushed back her plate with half a slice of my pizza still intact. “Sorry, Vonnie, your pizza is good, but I’m just too nervous to eat much. Let me help you clean up.”

  “Don’t worry about these dishes, dear. Fred will help me.”

  Lisa Leann stood. “Then I think Kyle and I will get ready to retire for the evening.”

 

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