Spooky Sweet

by Connie Shelton

  “Tell you what,” he said. “How about we go out and you show me that new place?”

  “Really? You want to?”

  “I do. Let’s grab a bag of tacos and have dinner there.”

  She laughed. His idea reminded her of the spontaneity of their first date.

  “The power’s not on yet. You have any candles around here?”

  He rummaged in a desk drawer and came up with two. “From the last power outage. They’re not the pretty, smell-good kind.”

  “Let’s go. Can you get away now? If we get there before it’s pitch-dark outside at least you’ll get an idea of what it looks like.”

  “Take a breath, Sam. We got this.” He grabbed his jacket from the coat rack in the corner and ushered her out the back door. “Let’s take your van. I gotta come back later anyway. Told Tim Beason I’d make it by the hospital to see how Tansy Montoya is doing.”

  They pulled through the drive-up at Lotaburger and got a dozen tacos to go. Fifteen minutes later, Sam steered into the circular drive of her new property. The moon, even more full tonight, was rising when they started for the front door.

  “Look at that moonlight. We may not need the candles.” Beau aimed his flashlight at the lock so Sam could use the key. He’d snagged a blanket from the back of his cruiser and it now became an impromptu picnic cloth.

  Sam swiped a finger across the hardwood floor. “Darryl and his guys have their work cut out for them. There must be an inch of dust on everything. At least I’ll have the electricity turned on for them tomorrow.”

  “Let’s eat while these are warm, then I want the whole tour,” Beau said.

  As it turned out, the meal went down quickly and the conversation turned romantic, the first time in days they’d shared more than a quick kiss. The blanket was soft and the candles cast a beautiful glow that brought out the relief carving on the fireplace mantle and somehow diminished the shabby wallpaper. Beau had unfastened the third button on her shirt when lights flashed at the uncovered windows.

  “Uh-oh,” he said, sitting upright. “Expecting anyone?”

  “No. Not unless the friends who know about the place happened to come by and spot my van.” She quickly buttoned up while Beau moved to the edge of the window.

  “Hm, not here,” he said, staring into the darkness. “A vehicle is slowing down, pulling in at the house next door.”

  ‘Next door’ being used loosely out here, Sam thought, since the closest neighbor was about a hundred yards away. The house over there was plain by comparison to its Victorian neighbor, a tan stucco, one story, with a red metal pitched roof. No one seemed to be at home during Sam’s previous visits, not surprising since she’d now spent a grand total of two hours here.

  “The real estate lady said we had the one neighbor, but no one would mind my running a business here.” She joined him at the window. “Funny, the car stopped there, but no lights are coming on in the house.”

  She supposed it would be polite of her to walk over and say hello before full-fledged candy production began, although she couldn’t imagine who on earth would object to living next to a small-scale chocolate factory.

  A couple of figures moved back and forth in the moonlight, then a motor started and the vehicle backed out.

  “Short visit,” Sam said as she and Beau stepped out of sight when the car passed.

  “Looked like about a ’93, ’94 sedan. Two occupants. Too dark to see the plates.”

  Sam chuckled. “Lawmen. Do all of you focus on details like that?” She walked back to the blanket and picked up the wrappings from their dinner.

  “I suppose we do. Ah, it’s just this robbery case. I’m on the lookout for black pickup trucks all over the place, but I have nothing in the way of probable cause to use as an excuse for pulling someone over. If I stopped every black truck in this town, I’d get nothing else done all day.”

  And there went the romantic moment, Sam thought.

  “Let’s get you back to the office. You can make your hospital visit and still get home at a reasonable hour.”

  He folded the blanket and blew out the candles while she reached into her pack for her keys. Her fingers felt the lumpy surface of the carved wooden box. It immediately warmed and her fingertips picked up the heat.

  “Hey, would you like me to come along with you?” She touched the back of his hand and watched the tension ease from his expression.

  “Sure. That would be nice.”

  She locked up and started the van while he tossed the blanket and cold candles into the back. She saw him stare back at the neighboring house, and took the opportunity to warm her hands more thoroughly against the wooden box.

  “Still don’t see any lights on over there,” Beau commented as he took the passenger seat.

  “Maybe they have heavy curtains.”

  He reached over and squeezed her hand. “Um, warm … maybe we should have stayed on that blanket a little longer.”

  Sam sent him a winsome smile. She would see to it he made good on that promise once they were home in the comfort of their own bed.

  Hospital visiting hours were nearly over when they arrived and it took a little talking on Beau’s part to get the night nurse to let them go to Tansy’s bedside.

  “Sheriff, her condition hasn’t changed at all since the last time Beth said you visited.”

  “Is it true patients in a coma can hear voices when someone speaks to them?” he asked, not slowing his pace.

  “Some people think so,” said the young nurse with the nametag B. Monroe.

  “Let my deputy and me give it a try,” he said gently.

  A monitor in another patient’s room went off and Miss Monroe hurried off.

  Sam had already reached Tansy’s bedside. She took the woman’s right hand, closing her eyes and willing the warmth from the box to flow toward the patient. The monitors blipped steadily. Sam ran her hands the length of Tansy’s arm. Still no change.

  She looked up at Beau, who was speaking Tansy’s name quietly.

  “Is the nurse watching us?” Sam asked.

  He looked toward the deserted station. “No. No one’s there right now.”

  Sam pressed her hands together then cupped Tansy’s poor, injured face. Three quarters of it was bandaged but the unhurt part, the woman’s lower jaw on the right, seemed to warm to Sam’s touch.

  Please get well. Your kids need you. Your family is worried.

  The monitors blipped, the moving lines wiggled momentarily then settled back into their same pattern.

  “Sam? We’d better go,” Beau said.

  “But—”

  “Maybe it’s going to take more time.”

  Sam closed her eyes and sent out one more silent prayer.

  Chapter 17

  Sara steadied her mother’s arm as they walked into the clinic.

  “Now you two go on,” Mom said. “Riley’s right here and she always takes great care of me.”

  “I’ll stay with you,” Sara said. “There’s nothing important at school today and, besides, they always give me extra days for my assignments whenever you have your chemo.”

  “I know, sweetie, but I also know you have a math test today. You were studying for it last night. I’m not letting your grades fall off because of me. Go on, now.”

  Mom pulled her stick-like arm away from Sara and reached for the nurse who’d greeted them.

  “Matthew, drive your sister to school. I don’t want either of you to be late.”

  “Sure, Mom.” Matt kissed his mother’s forehead. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

  Sara looked back as her mom went into the treatment room with the nurse. Not that she loved hanging around during the chemo treatments, but she really wasn’t up for school today either. She was sick of the teachers asking about her mother and sick of the kids who gave knowing looks whenever papers were handed back. Sara’s grades were falling and everyone knew it. She debated about hanging back, hoping her brother would just get in the car
and forget about her, but he didn’t. Matt was several paces ahead of her when he reached the door, but he turned and waited.

  Her feet dragged as she got in the car. Neither of them spoke during the ride to the high school. The car stopped at the curb in the drop-off zone.

  “Later,” Matt said as she got out. He roared off, too important to hang around and try to catch the eye of high school girls anymore.

  Sara watched his battered old Mustang circle the teachers’ parking lot and stop at the street before he gunned it again and pulled into traffic. He would report for his job at the machine shop and then go back and pick up Mom at the clinic on his lunch break, most likely going back to work after she was settled at home to rest. Sara stared at the building; kids were milling around but she didn’t see anyone she knew.

  The first-period bell rang and she started moving, knowing at once what she would do. She walked to the end of the building and while everyone else was tromping up the steps and filing inside, Sara kept going. A small irrigation ditch ran beside the school property; she jumped it easily, even with her backpack on, and ducked through a thick stand of scrub willow.

  Invisible to the eyes of those inside the buildings now, she felt her step lighten. A day alone!

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had more than a few minutes to herself. Tiny apartment, sharing a bedroom, Matt and his friends hogging the living room and TV. She skirted the ditch bank and picked up the pathway across a vacant lot, noticing for the first time in weeks the field of late-blooming sunflowers. Preoccupied with school and her mother’s health, she couldn’t think of the last time she’d stared up at the sky, played with cloud patterns in her head or picked a flower. She plucked one of the sunflowers and let out a happy giggle.

  She would make herself a hot cocoa and watch movies all day. There were a half-dozen DVDs she hadn’t seen yet. Or, she might get back to that book Lindsay Beacham loaned her two months ago. She used to love to curl up in the big chair they once had in their living room—before the apartment—and read all day long until her eyes went fuzzy and her head felt as if it were stuffed with cotton. Pure bliss.

  The possibilities felt endless and the fifteen minute walk went by in a flash. She let herself into the apartment and locked herself in. For one long moment she simply stood there and savored the silence. Nothing made a sound but the refrigerator motor until a thump sounded from the unit next door—the front door closing as someone left. Ah—truly alone now!

  Sara flung her pack through the bedroom door and it landed on her bed with a soft thud. While the kettle heated water for her hot cocoa she hurried about, making her mother’s bed with clean sheets and gathering a few stray clothing discards into the laundry basket. No way was she going to use her secret day off to do chores, but this way she wouldn’t stare at the mess and let it bug her all day. She dropped her backpack to the floor in the space between bed and wall, refusing to let the reminder of school diminish her pleasurable day either.

  By the time the kettle whistled she’d decided on the book. She could watch TV anytime with the family. Reading was a solitary pleasure and perfect for her mood now. Plus, this was one she couldn’t very well read in front of her mother, a bestseller title everyone was buzzing about because it contained a lot of sex. Truthfully, Sara was more interested in the historical setting but a tiny part of her thought if she’d read the book she wouldn’t feel like such an outsider at school. It felt as if everyone had read it but her, and now she could be part of that crowd. Silly, yes, but tempting.

  She carried her mug to the bedroom and felt around under her mattress until she found the paperback. A pile of pillows, switching her jeans for flannels jams, the opening line of the book: From the moment Sir Richard took me into his arms, I knew it was wrong …

  Sara sighed and sipped her hot chocolate, eyes riveted to the page as she slipped into the world of Elizabethan England. She had no idea how much time had passed when she heard a key in the front door lock. Surely, chemo wasn’t done already, she thought with a sinking feeling.

  A glance at her mother’s bedside clock confirmed that couldn’t be the case. It was barely past ten. The door opened and she heard her brother’s voice. He wasn’t alone. Crap.

  She tiptoed from her bed and quietly closed her door. Matt would assume she’d left it that way this morning, and as long as she remained quiet he and his friends didn’t need to know she was here. Except what was he doing home at this hour? He was always hyper-diligent about putting in enough hours at work—the family was surviving on his paycheck since Mom’s disability money was practically nothing. With luck, he’d just stopped by for something he’d forgotten. She stood with her ear to the doorjamb.

  The front door barely closed before a male voice—not Matt’s—practically exploded.

  “What the hell you tryin’ to pull with me?”

  “Me? I—”

  “Part of my haul is missing and you’re tellin’ me it’s not your fault?”

  A scuffle, then someone slammed into a wall, sending a shudder through the whole apartment. Sara flinched and slapped a hand over her mouth.

  A third voice spoke up. “Kurt, we don’t know—”

  “Shut it, Wolfe! Shut it right now!” Heavy footsteps paced the length of the living room and back. “I gotta think. Gotta figure this out.”

  The footsteps continued, slowed.

  “When’s the last time either of you saw all five bags?” Quiet. “When!”

  Matt’s voice, tentative: “Uh, the picnic area. Right after—”

  “Yeah, yeah. But the black ones I brought with me. When?”

  Wolfe’s voice this time: “We came into town, I cut through the Meadows, went down that lane …”

  Another loud thump against a wall somewhere.

  “Hey! Hey, someone’s going to hear all this noise and report us,” Matt said, sounding a little more composed this time.

  “Matt’s right. We have to calm down and think this through. So one bag’s gone but we still have four. That’s a lotta money. We’ll just div—”

  “Yeah? Well, we’re dividin’ up the full amount and I’m gettin’ my full share. You two get the rest.” The heavy steps went toward the front door. “You hear me? This ain’t my loss.”

  The door opened and slammed. Sara squeezed her eyes shut, trying to cram the tears back inside.

  “Wolfe, we have to report—”

  “No way! You saw the news. That lady—that driver he shot? She’s gonna die, and you know what that means? Means murder. Means you and me, we’re accessories to it. We’re goin’ away forever if we’re caught. I’ll shoot my own head off before I go to prison forever, Matt.”

  “But, what if—”

  “He ain’t ever confessing, if that’s what you’re worried about. This is all about the money, for him. He’s coked up and furious right now but he’ll cool down. Once we get our shares, I’m leaving this town,” Wolfe said. “Probably this state. I’m getting so far away from him that nobody can connect the two of us. We just gotta hold out til he calms down and we divvy up the cash.”

  Matt said something else, so low Sara couldn’t catch it.

  “Exactly,” said Wolfe. “You go back to work, I go back to work. We just do our jobs like any other normal day. A few more days … a week or so at most … we’ll be done with him.”

  Sara heard steps go to the front door, heard it open and close, heard the key in the lock. She waited a full five minutes before she dared peek out of the bedroom. The apartment was empty but her wonderful day alone had been shattered. She retreated to her bed and leaned against the headboard, staring into space.

  Chapter 18

  Beau sat at his desk, studying the blood alcohol tests from the two drivers in yesterday’s head-on collision. Sadly, the one who died was stone-cold sober. The woman who crossed the yellow center line—her levels were twice the legal limit, even at that hour of the morning. An all-night bender, or a drink-your-breakfast type? Unfort
unately, they wouldn’t know until a defense attorney presented whatever story he thought would be most likely to get her off the hook. Beau was in danger of letting his own blood pressure get out of hand over this thing, but his phone rang.

  “Sheriff Beason from Colfax,” the duty officer announced.

  “Tim, hey. Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner,” Beau said, shoving the drunk-driver data aside.

  “Just thought I’d see if you guys came up with anything on the black pickup.” Beason sounded a lot more chipper than Beau felt.

  Between the multi-car collision yesterday and the domestic dispute case he’d been hoping would work itself out, it took him a second to click to what the Colfax County sheriff wanted. The vehicle in the armored car robbery.

  “Nothing has come across my desk,” Beau said, pushing papers around to be sure. “Nothing more on the money, although I haven’t had a minute to ask my deputy if any prints showed up on those bank bags.”

  His gaze landed on the photo on his desk of himself and Sam, which reminded him of their visit together to the bedside of Tansy Montoya last night.

  “I’ve had feelers out on this end of the county, looking for suspicious activity from the usual suspects. We have our little share of perps, the convenience store opportunists and the druggies who’ll do anything for cash. Everyone I’ve questioned has come up with a decent alibi.” Beason sighed loudly. “I just don’t know what to make of this case.”

  Beau’s intercom line buzzed. “Me neither, Tim. There are a couple things I plan to check on today, provided I can keep everyone from each other’s throats.”

  A second obnoxious buzz.

  “Look, I gotta go but I’ll touch base again when we get something.”

  When. Should have said if.

  “Sheriff, it’s a call from the hospital,” Dixie said when he responded.

  His pulse raced a little as he took the call.

  “This is Beth Baughn, in the ICU. You wanted to know when Tansy Montoya regained consciousness?”