Don't Forget Me

by Meg Benjamin

  The chief shook his head. “The call forwarding we’re using now should be enough, and the county 911 center. This hasn’t turned into a crisis yet, just a serious nuisance.”

  “Do we know for sure yet what was taken from the bookstore or the bakery?” Nando asked.

  Toleffson frowned. “The ebook readers and MP3 players from the bookstore. We’ve put out an alert to pawn shops, but we can’t do much if he sells the stuff online. The only other thing Docia couldn’t find was a silver box she used for miscellaneous things next to the cash register. And she’s not sure when she saw it last—it could have been missing before the break-in.”

  “And Allie?”

  “She’s still sorting through the mess. Nothing is missing besides the copper bowls and the mixer, so far as she knows.” The chief narrowed his eyes, watching Nando. “So?”

  “So why’s he doing this exactly?” Nando leaned back in his chair. “I mean it could be kids, somebody who just likes to smash things up. But if it’s kids, we should hear about it—kids can’t keep quiet, as a rule.”

  “Dope fiends,” Ham said flatly.

  The chief turned toward him. “Excuse me?”

  “Dope fiends looking for money. And then trashing the place after they don’t find any. That’s what dope fiends do.”

  Nando thought about asking Ham how many dope fiends he’d met, but he decided the possible amusement wasn’t worth it.

  “But why would dopers knock over a bookstore and a bakery? Wouldn’t they go for someplace that actually might have some money around, like a liquor store or a Stop ‘n Go?” Delaney looked like he expected Ham to take that question seriously.

  “Dope fiends don’t think like that. Dope fiends don’t think at all.” Ham gave him a faintly condescending smile. “They’re too hopped up on dope. They just break in places to steal stuff.”

  Toleffson pinched the bridge of his nose. Nando wondered if he ever regretted not firing Ham when he’d had the chance, back when the previous mayor had been dragged off by the Rangers for corruption. “While dope addicts are a possibility, I tend to agree with Clayton that they’re not the most likely possibility we’ve got. So either this is somebody like teenagers who are vandalizing stores for fun or…” He paused.

  “Or…” Nando prompted.

  “Or somebody who’s got his own agenda. Which we have yet to figure out.”

  As the meeting broke up, Nando caught the chief’s eye. He assumed they were both thinking the same thing—figuring out what that agenda was would simplify figuring out who was smashing up the shops in the first place.

  Kit came home around seven to find Allie slumped at the kitchen table. Wonder was standing at the stove, staring pensively at a frozen pizza.

  Sighing, Kit removed it from his hands and turned on the oven. “Did you get into the kitchen in time to do any of tomorrow’s baking?”

  Allie nodded. “We got all the B and B stuff done, and a lot of the stuff for the restaurants is ready to go into the ovens first thing tomorrow. Since we couldn’t cook anything for Sweet Thing, we had lots and lots of time.” She lowered her head to her folded arms.

  Wonder frowned as he watched Kit take the pizza out of the box. “I could have done that. I’m just shell-shocked from an afternoon spent defrosting blueberries. The whole damn state of Maine is down in that kitchen.”

  “They’re Texas blueberries,” Allie muttered. “Locally grown, if not exactly in season. We’re nothing if not responsible.”

  Wonder turned to look at her, his frown transforming into concern. He raised one hand as if he wanted to pat her shoulder but didn’t know exactly how well that would be received.

  Kit sighed again. “Why don’t you open a bottle of wine, Steve? And get yourself a beer. This should be ready in a few minutes.” Once Wonder was on his way to the dining room, she sat down beside her aunt. “So tell me the rest of it—when do you open again?”

  Allie shook her head without raising it from the table. “I’ve got a professional cleaning crew coming in tomorrow. I don’t know how long it’ll take them to clean up the mess in the bakery. I’ve also got insurance adjustors to deal with, and repair people for the cash register. I still hope we can open next week, though.” She raised her head slightly, enough so that Kit could see her eyes above one arm. “I can’t afford to stay closed too long, even if I can keep my restaurant and B and B customers.”

  Kit began to rub her shoulders. “There’s no reason for you to lose the restaurants and B and B’s. And all the other customers will come back as soon as you open—nobody else can do your scones. You should have a grand reopening party. Bake something special. I guarantee everybody in town will be there.”

  Allie groaned again, although she moved her back slightly to give Kit better access to her shoulders. “I can’t think about that now, any of that. I’m too tired.” She half-turned her head, looking back at Kit. “Tell me something that will make me happy.”

  “I sat down with Joe LeBlanc last night and worked out some menu possibilities. I think you’ll really like them.”

  Allie stared, her eyes suddenly wide open. “Menu?”

  Kit took a deep breath. “For the wedding. Your wedding. Joe’s going to do the cooking himself. And Clem Rodriguez had some suggestions too. She’d be a great person to cater your shower.”

  “Shower?” Allie squeaked. “We have to plan a shower? Oh god, there’s no time!”

  “Allie, come on,” Kit said firmly. “You don’t do the shower, your friends do. And this is going to be a wonderful wedding. Everything’s falling into place. You won’t have to do anything about the food except finalize the menu, and it’s a terrific menu, believe me. We got help from Deirdre and Clem.”

  Allie sat up, chewing on her lip. “I don’t even know if I can afford Joe LeBlanc anymore. Not until I get the bill for the shop. Maybe we should postpone.”

  “I can afford Joe LeBlanc,” Wonder said flatly, walking back from the dining room. He put a glass of red wine in front of Allie. “I’m paying for at least half of this shindig, and if it’ll move things along I’ll pay for the whole thing.” He turned to Kit. “What’s on the menu you worked out?”

  “You can have a choice between redfish or smoked beef tenderloin. Or he said he could do chicken in Madeira sauce instead of one of those if you’d rather.”

  “Redfish and beef.” Wonder nodded. “That’ll take care of Calthorpe Toleffson, my non-red-meat-eating best man, and me, the red-meat-eating groom. What else?”

  “Grilled asparagus,” Kit counted off on her fingers. “Roasted fingerling potatoes. Wedge salads with some kind of special dressing that Joe didn’t want to give too many details on, but I think it involves a balsamic reduction. Wedding cake and sorbet for dessert, with chocolates and mints for after. And then chipotle sliders and shrimp quesadillas at midnight if you plan on dancing until dawn.”

  “Oh.” Allie chewed her lip again. “That sounds…”

  “Delicious,” Wonder snapped. “We’ll take it.”

  Allie stared up at him, blinking.

  He knelt beside her, taking her hands in his. “Sweetheart, this has dragged on for a long time already. If you really want to get married, let Kit do her thing.”

  Allie was still blinking nervously. “I do want to get married. Of course I want to get married. And Kit has taken a lot of the pressure off me.” She raised her gaze to Kit. “What’s left to get set up? Flowers? What about flowers?”

  Kit shrugged. “The event center has a deal with a florist here in town, Clarice Baumgarten. I saw some pictures of her stuff and it looks okay.”

  Wonder shrugged. “Got an overbite she could use as a bottle opener.”

  Allie narrowed her eyes.

  “I guess that’s not relevant,” he said quickly. “I’m sure her flowers are superb.”

  “What are your colors?”

  Allie’s eyes widened to that panicked look again. She pulled her hands away from Wonder. “Colors? I don’
t know. I didn’t think.”

  “Orange and white,” Wonder blurted. “Go Longhorns.”

  Allie stared at him open-mouthed. “No. That can’t be right.”

  “Then pick two colors of your own,” he said patiently.

  “Lavender,” she blurted. “And…silver.”

  “Lavender it is.” Wonder winked at Kit over Allie’s head. “What else you got?”

  “Um…” Kit ran through her mental checklist a little desperately. “Who do you want to perform the ceremony?”

  Wonder shrugged. “I’ll get Judge Alaniz. He owes me. I came in on the weekend to fix his broken molar.”

  “You’ll need to get the license.”

  “We can do that next week,” he said quickly. “I’ll put it on my calendar.”

  “I don’t know if I can—” Allie began.

  “You can,” Wonder said flatly. “What else?”

  “Okay. Attendants?” Kit checked back and forth between them.

  Wonder nodded. “Already taken care of. Cal and Docia on lead, the rest of the Toleffsons on backup.”

  “Right. So they’ll take care of the bachelor and bachelorette parties.”

  “Parties?” Allie gasped.

  “They’ll take care of them,” Kit repeated more firmly. “You don’t need to worry.”

  “Anything else?” Wonder raised an eyebrow.

  “The wedding cake. And the groom’s cake.” Kit turned to Allie. “That’s you, Aunt Allie. Nobody else would dare.”

  “Oh god,” Allie whispered. “They’ve got to be perfect. When will I have time to plan it?”

  “This weekend,” Wonder said firmly.

  Allie stared up at him.

  “Think about it. The shop won’t be open again until next week. Denny can oversee the bread for the restaurants and you’ve already done the stuff for the B and B’s. You’ve got time to sit and design cakes while the cleaning crew takes care of whatever the hell that bastard did to Sweet Thing.”

  Allie blew out a long breath. “You’ve got a point.”

  “Of course I do.” Wonder topped off her glass. “I’ve also got a lot more wine where this came from. Maybe by the time you’ve finished the bottle, I’ll have convinced you that bride and groom statuettes based on Battlestar Galactica aren’t really that weird. Plus I’ve got some definite ideas about that groom’s cake.”

  “Oh Steve, not German chocolate,” Allie groaned.

  “I’m flexible.” Wonder shrugged. “Black forest also works. C’mon, grab some pizza and we’ll head over to my place.”

  Allie sighed, pushing herself to her feet. “Just let me get my drawing pad and we can go.” She headed down the hall toward her office.

  Wonder turned to Kit. “Nice going, kid. I’m beginning to believe this is actually going to happen. After the world’s longest engagement.”

  “Look, I hate to bring this up, but does she actually have a wedding dress?” Kit murmured. “Or bridesmaid dresses?”

  Wonder sighed. “I knew it was too good to last. I don’t think she’s actually done anything about that. Can’t she just wear something she’s got? I mean she’s got all these dresses already—wouldn’t one of them be okay as a wedding dress?”

  Kit narrowed her eyes.

  “No, no,” he said hurriedly. “Of course not. I’ll see if I can find a way to work the question in this weekend.”

  Allie’s footsteps sounded in the hall as Kit shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got an idea. Leave it to me.”

  “Gladly.” Wonder turned as Allie stepped back into the room again. “Come on, cupcake, let’s head back to the ranch.”

  Allie sighed. “Don’t call me cupcake, okay? Right now I feel more like a piece of flatbread.” But she gave Kit a slightly tremulous smile as they headed out the front door.

  Kent’s Hill Country Books reopened on Saturday. Nando had to hand it to Docia—she’d found a way to make sure the place would be packed even if she wasn’t serving cake and cookies. She’d landed a signing by an Austin historian who specialized in writing spicy chronicles of Texas. He had a new book about a notorious brothel located midway between Konigsburg and Marble Falls that was guaranteed to attract both locals and tourists, the tourists to read about the racy past and the locals to see if any of their relatives showed up in the anecdotes.

  Janie Toleffson kept an eye on the book-signing table, while Docia ran the cash register. Nando saw a fair number of copies going out the door. Briefly, he wondered if he ought to pick up a copy for his mom, but then decided against it. His dad would probably scalp him if he did, given the number of Avrogados who undoubtedly studded the index.

  He waited for a lull in the traffic at the register, then leaned against the wall beside it. “Looks like you’ve got a hit.”

  “Yeah, he’s selling a lot of copies. Of course some people may try returning them when they find out Uncle Joe didn’t make it into the list of the madame’s customers.” Docia flashed him a quick smile. “You want a copy, Nando? I’d even let you check the index first.”

  “Don’t tempt me. My ancestors were probably regulars.” He grinned in what he hoped was a reassuring way.

  Apparently, it wasn’t reassuring enough. Docia’s smile faded slightly. “So what do you need to ask me? You’re not in uniform, but I assume it’s something to do with the break-in.”

  He sighed. “It’s my day off. I talked to Janie last week, but I wanted to talk to you. Particularly now that Allie’s been hit too.”

  Docia’s jaw tightened. “I heard. You think it’s the same person?”

  “Seems likely. We haven’t had a lot of vandalism around here up to now.”

  “So what do you want to know?”

  “Mostly if you have any ideas about who could be behind this. Anybody who’s got a grudge against you and Allie, say. Disgruntled customers, teenagers you threw out for messing up the merchandise, people who don’t like your taste in books, former employees, anybody like that.”

  Docia shook her head. “I guess I’ve lived a pretty bland life. I mean Dub Tyler might be pissed over that map of his I gave to the historical society, but they decided it was possibly counterfeit anyway so it wasn’t worth as much as he thought it was. Besides, he moved to Dripping Springs after that whole thing with Brody.” She sighed. “That’s the only scary thing that’s every happened to me—the thing with Brody. And I don’t know how it could have any connection to this. Sorry, Nando.”

  “Right.” Nando nodded slowly. “I kind of figured it was a long-shot, but I thought I’d ask anyway. If anything occurs to you…”

  “I’ll tell you. Or Erik.” She gave him a quick smile, then glanced at something over his shoulder, her eyes widening.

  Nando turned. Kit was standing behind him. “Oh. Hi,” he blurted.

  “Hi.” She licked her lips, then turned quickly. “Have you got a minute, Docia? I’ve got a favor to ask.”

  Docia gave her another smile. “Sure. But I have to stay here in case we get more people buying brothel books.”

  Kit blinked, then refocused. “Oh. Okay. I wanted to ask you if you’d give a shower for Allie.”

  “Sure.” Docia shrugged. “I’d planned on it anyway. Is there some kind of problem?”

  “Not exactly. But I had a sort of special shower in mind.”

  “Okay, now you’ve got my complete attention.” Docia beckoned to Janie, still standing near the historian’s elbow, although he didn’t appear to need any help. “Let’s head back to the storeroom for a minute.” She gave Nando a quick smile. “Unless you’ve got anything else you need to ask me.”

  He shook his head. “Not right now.”

  “Okay, then, lead on. This sounds like more fun than anything else I’ve talked about in a while.”

  He watched the two women walk away toward the door at the side, Docia’s fiery red hair followed by Kit’s sleek black curls. Something inside his chest tightened painfully. Enough already.

  “Wan
t a book, Nando? Guaranteed to hold your interest until you finish checking the index.” Janie gave him a smile that seemed almost sympathetic.

  He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Not today, thanks. Maybe I’ll give it to my dad for Christmas, as long as I’ve got a good head start.”

  He heard Janie’s chuckle behind him as he headed out the door.

  Chapter Eleven

  Saturdays at the Woodrose were always hectic. The guests who came in for the three-day weekend packages were out trying to get their money’s worth, soaking in the spa the inn had a contract with, playing nine holes of golf on the private course where the inn had privileges, and, of course, sampling the cuisine. The Rose had gotten a good review in the Dallas Morning News that brought a lot of people in from the surrounding motels as well as their own guests. Kit spent the morning answering the phone to take reservations in the restaurant for lunch, as well as dealing with minor emergencies in housekeeping that were usually Mabel’s business. Mabel herself was apparently off supervising the set-up for a wedding in the event center. Kit wasn’t sure when she’d become responsible for managing the inn when the real manager was missing, but everybody seemed to accept it as a given.

  Around ten Mr. Didrikson, the gardener, waylaid her in the lobby, gray hair bristling. “Where’s Morgenstern? I got a load of fertilizer I need her to sign off on.”

  “She’s down at the event center until two,” Kit explained. “Why don’t you call her?”

  “Tried that. She’s not answering her phone.”

  Kit punched in the numbers for Mabel’s cell without a lot of hope. If she was screening Didrikson’s calls, she’d probably be even less likely to take Kit’s. After five rings, Kit left a message on the voice mail, then turned back to the gardener. “I don’t know what’s going on. She’s not answering me either.”

  “So? You can sign instead.”

  Kit shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t have the authority to do that.”

  “Ah for Christ’s sake,” Didrikson growled. “Took me a week to get her to agree to the order. Now she won’t pay? Pretty soon nobody’s gonna deliver out here.”