Miguel and I walked up the meandering path toward the front door. It was made of real wood and looked custom. What I had surmised, so far, was that Alice Ryder had good taste and had a fair amount of money. I wondered if the inside of the house would match the outside.
Miguel raised his knuckles to the door to knock, but before he could make contact, it opened. Alice Ryder greeted us with a forced smile, looking from Miguel to me and back. “You really were in the neighborhood, weren’t you?” she said, trying to sound light and amused, but coming off more as accusatory. I hadn’t really spoken to her before so I hadn’t registered the accent, but now I heard it clearly. She was Southern. The drawl was slight, but it was distinct and definitely there.
“We were,” Miguel said with his own disarming smile. “We are.”
Mrs. Ryder looked as put together as she had the first time I’d seen her, at Yeast of Eden. She was about as tall as me, but she wore pointy-toed heels that gave her another few inches. It was the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday and she was at home, but she looked like she should be at a high-powered job or out hobnobbing with the who’s who of Santa Sofia. If there was a who’s who, which I’m thinking there actually wasn’t. Our little coastal town wasn’t anywhere close to city life in Los Angeles or San Francisco, with politicians and celebrities and money. Santa Sofia was more like a getaway from all of that.
And yet here was Alice Ryder looking as if she was ready to go to a fund-raising luncheon at the country club.
Miguel and I stood there awkwardly. Was she going to invite us in? “As I said on the phone,” Miguel started, “I’m looking for Hank Rivera. We talked with Mrs. Rivera a little while ago and—”
“They’re divorced,” she interrupted.
“They are,” Miguel agreed. “But their son is worried. He hasn’t seen his dad in a few days and can’t get ahold of him.”
Alice looked at me more closely. “You’re from the bread shop, aren’t you? Didn’t I see you there the other day?”
“Yes, you did. I’m Ivy Culpepper.” This time a formal handshake felt right, so I held my hand out. She took it in hers. I’d half expected a firm power grip, but she fooled me and we ended up in a weak clasp, which I quickly disengaged.
She turned back to Miguel with a sour look on her perfectly made-up face. “I haven’t seen Hank Rivera for a few days. I am afraid I simply cannot help you. Frankly, I’m not sure why you thought I could.”
As if on cue, a man appeared behind her. He was a silver fox. Tanned skin, tall and lean, and a full head of shimmering silver hair. “Everything okay?” he asked, placing his hand protectively on her shoulder.
She smiled up at him, her demeanor softening. For his benefit, I gathered, which was interesting. Was she hiding something? “Fine, darling. Do you remember Miguel Baptista?”
Miguel held out his hand and the man took it. Theirs was a firm handshake. They disengaged and Miguel introduced me.
“Michael Ryder,” the man said. “Good to meet you both. Something we can help you with?”
“No, darling, it’s fine. They’re looking for the produce man. I gather he was last seen at the bread shop a few days ago. I’d been there with the girls, you know.”
Michael looked up sharply. “You mean Mustache Hank?”
I’d been feeling like a dolt, just standing here and not taking an active role in the conversation, but now I inserted myself. “Do you know him?”
“Sure. We went to high school together,” he said. “Alice dated him for a while back then, for what—” He looked at his wife—“a few months, right?”
Alice smiled, but her lips were tight. “Right.”
“I actually went out with Brenda,” Michael said with a chuckle. “Ironic that Hank and I dated Alice and Brenda back then, but ended up with the opposite woman. We laugh about that sometimes, don’t we, honey?”
She just nodded.
I was interested in the unspoken dynamics between Alice and Michael, but Miguel just forged ahead. “Like I said, we talked to Hank’s wife—”
“Ex-wife,” Alice interjected.
Her husband nodded. “Yes, that was sad. I always thought Brenda and Hank could survive anything, you know? There are people like that. They just seem to be thick-skinned. Tough. You can throw things at them, but they’ll manage to fend it all off. Me? I take the blows and it wears me down. I mean, how could it not? Alice and I, we’ve had our share of—”
He broke off suddenly, looking down at his wife, and I wondered if she’d thrust her elbow back slightly, poking him in the ribs to get his attention, or perhaps she’d pressed her stiletto heel down on his shoe. Or maybe she’d pushed her back up against him slightly, just enough to let him know what she was thinking. People who’d been married for a long time had the gift of silent communication. I’d witnessed it over and over with my parents. A nudge here, a look there, a raised eyebrow or a scowl.
I hadn’t noticed a signal, but the way Michael Ryder had stopped abruptly, and now looked at her, and then at me and Miguel, was a clear sign. She’d aborted whatever it was he’d been about to say, redirecting it somehow. Michael responded by making a slight course correction. “We all have our fair share of troubles, you know? I guess Brenda and Hank didn’t quite handle theirs. At least not like we thought they would.”
He’d opened the door, though, and I was ready to walk through. “What kind of troubles did they have?”
He glanced down at his wife as if looking for permission before speaking. She was stony-faced. I read Michael’s face as he weighed his options: Go forth and say what he’d planned to, retreat altogether, or temper his comments to satisfy my question and his wife’s dictates. The lines around his eyes deepened as he fought the grimace surfacing. He’d opened a can of worms, and he was clearly realizing that he had to put the lid back on it, and quickly.
His face relaxed and he grinned at Miguel, manto-man. “Oh, you know, the type of troubles we all have, right?”
Miguel went along with it. “Right.”
A light bulb seemed to go off over Michael’s head. “God, bad manners: Would you folks like to come in?”
Alice had taken a backseat while her husband dug himself out of the hole he’d made, but now she piped up again, jumping in before we could say anything. “We don’t need to disrupt their day, darling. They were just stopping by for a minute. Miguel has a restaurant to run, and Ms. Culpepper has . . .”
She looked at me as she trailed off, leaving the space for me to fill in just what I needed to take care of. “I actually need to get back to the bread shop. We have the Winter Wonderland Festival this weekend. Lots of baking to do.”
“Right, of course,” Michael said. “Maybe we’ll see you there. Alice’s home-decorating company has a booth.”
I perked up. “I just bought a house recently. It’s an old Tudor. It’s in wonderful shape. The woman I bought it from had done some pretty extensive renovations, but I’m starting from scratch. I have a vintage baker’s rack—it was a flea-market find. I love it, but that’s about it. I have an old couch that has definitely seen better days. I could definitely use some help fixing things up.”
Alice’s demeanor underwent a complete shift before my eyes. She’d been ready to send us on our way, but now she stood up straighter, angled her head, and asked me a series of questions about my house: What area of town is it in? When was it built? Are there gables? Yes ? How many? What’s the stone like? Are the windows original?
With each question and answer, she became more animated. “I’d love to see it, Ivy.” I guess we’d graduated to first names, now that I was a potential client. “I do hope you’ll stop by my booth at the festival.”
“Absolutely,” I said. I’d make a point of it. Miguel and I hadn’t gotten any closer to figuring out where Hank Rivera was, but it was clear to me that Alice and Hank’s relationship hadn’t ended back in high school. They still had some sort of connection, but Michael didn’t seem to know anything about i
t. Strange, I thought. I wanted to know what it was, though. I aimed to find out more.
Chapter 5
After Miguel had dropped me off back at Baptista’s, I picked up Agatha, my feisty pug, from my dad’s house and drove home. I contemplated changing clothes and heading for the beach to walk, but decided against it. A walk in my historic neighborhood would be just as helpful as I processed through the day. I harnessed up Agatha and headed out, locking the front door behind me. I’d been here for a few months, but I was still learning the different streets. I could walk for thirty days straight and never hit the same route twice.
My mind wandered as I trudged along, Agatha’s short little legs moving double time to keep up with me. I thought about my past with Miguel, Hank’s disappearance, Jason’s concern, Brenda Rivera’s convoluted emotions, and whatever Alice Ryder was hiding—because I was sure she was keeping something close to the vest. Finally, I decided a call to Emmaline was in order. Back at home, I sat at the little mosaic table set I’d put on the front porch, put my smartphone on speaker, and placed the call. “So,” I said after a little chitchat, “how long does a person need to be missing for before he’s officially missing?”
There was a pause before she said, “Um, what?”
I repeated the question, my voice completely serious.
Instead of answering me, she heaved a sigh. “Are you really asking me that, Ivy?”
“Why do you say it like that? Of course I’m really asking you.”
“Because you sound like you’re part of the Justice League, or something. Or, I don’t know, a wannabe X-Man.”
“Hey,” I said, feigning indignation. “I happen to have a strong sense of right and wrong, that’s all. And I have a sixth sense.”
Emmaline harrumphed over the cellular phone line. “Yeah, yeah, because you’re absorbing the bread-shop magic, I know.”
“You jest, but it’s actually true. Olaya Solis has a gift. The things she bakes—”
“Oh, I know, Ivy. I’ve been on the receiving end. In fact, I half wonder if Billy ate some magic romance bread that helped him finally take the leap with me.”
I shook my head to that, although she couldn’t see through the phone line. “He didn’t need magical bread. He’s been in love with you since high school. Middle school, even.”
Silence. And then, “You’re so right. He has. No magic bread needed. Okay, so lay it on me. Is it Agatha? Is she missing?”
It was my turn to harrumph. I leaned down to scratch the top of Agatha’s flat head. “No, I said he, and Agatha’s a she. And she’s right here beside me.” I paused, wanting to emphasize my next sentence. “I’m not going to tell you unless you’re going to take it seriously.”
The conversation had been lighthearted, but now I sensed her sitting up straighter and taking notice. “Ivy, if someone is legitimately missing, of course I’m going to take it seriously. Let’s hear it.”
“Hank Rivera,” I said.
A pause, and then, “As in Mustache Hank?”
“Does everyone in town call him that?”
“Pretty much. That’s all I’ve ever known him as. Have you seen the handlebars?”
Indeed I had. I understood the connection; I just wasn’t clear on how such a name had stuck. I pushed on. “No one seems to have seen him for a few days.”
“Okay,” she said, biting, “tell me what you know.”
I relayed Miguel’s concerns, ending with the odd conversation with Alice and Michael Ryder.
Her response was silence. More than silence. Crickets, in fact. I waited for a few seconds, and then a few seconds more. Finally, I said, “Hello? Em? You still there?”
“I’m here. Just thinking.” After a moment, she continued. “So you saw him Monday at Yeast of Eden?”
“Right. About ten o’clock in the morning, or so.”
“And then today Jason Rivera called Miguel, who took it upon himself to go see the ex-Mrs. Rivera, and then based on the ex-Mrs. Rivera’s comment about Alice Ryder, you both went to see her, too? Do I have that right?”
I wasn’t going to get snookered into her telling me I was butting my nose in where it didn’t belong. “You have it perfectly right. Look, Em, I don’t know the guy. I just know that Jason is worried, Mrs. Rivera seemed pretty sure that Alice Ryder might know something, and Mrs. Ryder was definitely odd when we spoke with her. She couldn’t wait for us to leave, and I got the distinct impression that her husband might not know the depth of . . . um . . . the friendship between her and old Mustache Hank.”
I heard the tapping of a pencil as Emmaline processed our conversation. “What do you think?” I asked.
“What I think is that I should give Jason Rivera a call. Thanks for the heads-up, Ivy.”
“That’s it? Can I help?”
She hesitated and I knew she didn’t want to just cut me off. She wanted to cut me off with kindness. “Don’t you have the Winter Wonderland Festival Saturday?”
Of course she was right. I did. But I didn’t want to drop my concerns about Hank Rivera at Emmaline’s feet and walk away. Unfortunately, at this point I had no choice. “Are you coming to the festival?”
“I hope so. We want to.”
I grinned. “We?”
“Oh, stop it. Gloating is not becoming, Ivy.”
I took some credit for Emmaline being with my brother. Theirs had been a relationship fraught with bad timing and trepidation. Emmaline had dug her heels in deep, her worry about getting involved with Billy stopping her dead in her tracks. “A friend of mine went to college in Oklahoma,” she’d told me. “She fell in love with a guy. They’re married now, but it was rough. She’s Latina and he’s white. She had things thrown at her. People accosted her. It wasn’t pretty, Ivy. It wasn’t okay. I don’t want that to happen to Billy and me.”
My answer had been simple. “If you love each other, you need to be together. It’s that simple. It doesn’t matter that you’re black and he’s white. Life is too short.” We’d learned that lesson good and well when my mother died. I went on: “It never mattered that Miguel is Mexican and I’m white. At least back when we dated. What matters is how you feel about each other.”
It had taken years, and a lot of moments when Billy had been free and Em had been with someone else, and vice versa, before they’d both finally found themselves unattached and ready to give their relationship a go. Months later, they were going strong. “When’s the wedding?” I asked her, the huge grin on my face infusing itself into my voice.
“You’ll be the first to know,” she said. We talked for another minute and then she was tapping her pencil again, the click-click-click carrying from her desk to my ear. “Gotta go, Ivy. I’ll keep you posted.”
* * *
Bright and early the next morning, all I could think about was if Emmaline had found anything out about Mustache Hank. I drove through town, my mind so distracted that I didn’t even register the whitecaps on the ocean water, the pristine sand, smooth and white after high tide and a night undisturbed by human feet, or the rising sun. I parked a few blocks away from the bread shop so I could walk and think. The air was crisp. The salt from the ocean carried on the breeze, making the air fresh. Where in the world was Hank Rivera?
I had no choice but to push the thoughts away as I circled around the back of the bread shop and entered through the back door. It led straight into the kitchen. The stainless-steel countertops sparkled, not yet dusted with flour. The bread racks sat ready for the trays of batards, baguettes, scones, croissants, French bread, and every other offering we’d make for the day, and for the Winter Wonderland Festival. Several slots in one of the racks were already filled with trays of long-rise dough, Olaya’s specialty.
One of my first lessons from Olaya during my initial baking classes with her was that the factory-produced plastic-wrapped breads in the supermarkets didn’t allow the bread to rise for longer than three hours. As a result, the gluten proteins couldn’t adequately break down. A long ferm
entation process, on the other hand—usually twelve to fifteen hours—was needed to allow this natural process to happen. It was the traditional bread-making Olaya had grown up with in Mexico, and was the method she practiced at Yeast of Eden.
The rack also held the day’s tray of sugar-skull cookies, already iced and ready for hiding. Olaya, I had learned during the time I’d known her, was a morning person. Early to bed, early to rise. She arrived at the bread shop by 4:30 every morning, starting her day with the sugar-skull cookies, moving on to the long-rise breads, and ending with the quick rise and yeast-free recipes. I didn’t know how she kept the pace she did, or how she stayed away. “It is just what I do, mi’ja,” she’d told me when I’d asked her one time.
I retrieved a utilitarian white apron from the back room where Olaya kept a collection, as well as all the laundered dish towels, extra supplies, mixing bowls and utensils, and anything else we might possibly need. As I secured the apron ties behind my back, Olaya swept into the kitchen, green caftan flowing around her. Her iron-gray hair was cropped close to her head in a stylish cut that complemented her face. She looked like a free spirit—and she was, on a lot of levels—but she was also organized and structured, especially when it came to her bread shop. I knew she’d been here for several hours, but she looked as fresh as a daisy. Somehow she managed to bake in her caftan without missing a beat. When I baked, I ended up covered in flour dust, random spots, stains, and bits of dough dotting my apron.
“Hola, mi’ja. How are you today?”
I gave a halfhearted smile, still distracted. “Okay.”
She perched on a stainless-steel stool near my workspace. “Por que? Why just okay?”
“You know Hank Rivera?”
“Por supuesta. Of course. Chocolate croissant.”
I had to chuckle. Some people remembered others by their names, their hair, their voices. But Olaya remembered people based on what they ordered at the bread shop. And she was always right. “Nobody can find him,” I told her.
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