by C Farren
“I call it an iced black coffee,” said Wren. “What do you call it? A banana?”
The bearded hipster took her sarcasm as a personal attack. “You gave me a plastic straw. Do you know how many plastic straws end up in the ocean each year?”
“How many?”
“I don’t know how many exactly, but it’s a lot. I want a paper straw and I want an apology.”
Wren sighed. She was enjoying annoying this awful, awful man. It was time to teach him a lesson or two.
She pulled the straw from his cup. “This straw is made from biodegradable corn starch. Unlike most paper straws, which can’t be recycled by the way, this one is good for the environment and you can chuck them into your compost bin. I’m planning on starting a garden where I can use the compost to grow organic fruits.”
He looked sheepish for a moment before saying, “Corn starch? That’s actually pretty awesome.”
“Glad I could educate you.”
He smiled and went to tell all his friends about the amazing corn starch straws. Wren was happy. This news would spread around their social media sites quicker than anything and it would be good for the business.
“How’s it going?” Benedict asked. She hadn’t seen him come in. “You look busy.”
“We’re rushed off our feet, but I can give you a few minutes.”
He moved behind the counter and pulled her in for a kiss. All Wren’s stress and worry washed away into nothing. Her neck did ache a little because he was so tall, but she didn’t mind. It was something she’d have to get used to.
I need a good chiropractor. If I marry him I might have spine damage in ten years.
“You still have fake eyelashes on,” said Wren, grinning. She tried pulling one of them off but it was glued on tight.
Benedict laughed. “No wonder Paula’s teacher gave me a funny look when I dropped her off at school this morning.”
“They look good on you.”
He hugged her and she leaned into his strong chest. He made her safe and wanted and it brought out such joy in her she wanted to sing.
“Can I have a hand over here?” Aarna shouted.
“I’m coming!” Wren called back.
Benedict kissed her on the forehead and said, “I knew you could do it.”
“You can congratulate me later,” she whispered.
He raised his eyebrows suggestively and said, “I’ll take you up on that.”
She blushed as he left.
If all went well then tonight would be the night.
They’d been taking things slowly so far. They’d kissed but nothing more intimate. There’d been a fair amount of flirting, dirty innuendos, and suggestions, but that was the extent of it. Was tonight the night they’d take things a step further? The thought made her feel like an inexperienced teenager again. It was a good feeling though. She wanted to be intimate with Benedict.
“Don’t break his heart,” Reo warned her.
“I take it he hasn’t had much success in the romance department?” Wren asked.
“That’s the understatement of the century,” said Reo. He looked deep in thought for a moment and added, “I’ve known Benedict most of my life, but I’ve never seen him like this before. There have been others, but he’s never looked at them the way he looks at you.”
“Wren!” Aarna screamed. “I need help!”
She was about head on over to Aarna when someone tapped her shoulder.
“We’ve ran out of scones,” Maureen whispered.
Wren almost jumped out of her skin. She didn’t know Maureen was still here, never mind behind the counter with her. She could’ve sworn she’d gone home ages ago. She was even wearing a white apron with the Metropolitan logo on it.
“What will we do?” Wren asked.
“I can ask Wanda to bake some more,” Maureen suggested.
Reo shook his head as he poured some heated milk for a customer. “Chelsea says Wanda has a migraine. She won’t be able to bake until tomorrow morning.”
It was nothing that couldn’t be sorted out, though she should have planned for this. How was she to know they’d be this popular on opening day? And would Wanda be able to cope with such high demand on a regular basis? She was getting old now. She wouldn’t be around forever.
Wren nodded. She knew what she had to do, and it might solve two problems at once.
She went into the back area, away from the noise, and called Lenny. He was the next best thing to his grandmother’s legendary baking.
“It’s good to hear from you,” said Lenny.
“I need your help,” said Wren. “And I need it fast.”
Forty minutes later Lenny was as true as his word, more so. He brought blueberry scones, raspberry scones, and strawberry eclairs, far more than she needed. They all looked really delicious though, and soon as he brought them in people were demanding to buy them. Lenny looked so proud she knew he’d done good.
“Where shall I put them?” Lenny asked.
Wren smiled. “Thank you so much.”
“I’d do anything for you. You know that.”
By closing time, they were out of all of Lenny’s baked goods. There were still a few customers left, lingering, letting their last cup of coffee last so they didn’t have to go back out into the freezing cold. Wren didn’t mind. She was exhausted but she was having fun. It brought her much pleasure to see people enjoying what she’d created.
Maureen was still there. She’d stayed around all day, helping out occasionally, talking to people mostly. Wren was a little concerned about her. Hadn’t she gone back to work yet? Didn’t she have anything better to do?
“Do you need a job?” Wren asked.
Maureen was cleaning a table as Wren asked her question. She’d been wiping it over and over again for at least five minutes.
“Of course not,” said Maureen. “I work at the unemployment agency.”
“You can tell me the truth,” Wren asked, concerned.
Maureen sighed. “There were staff layoffs. I was made redundant yesterday.” She shrugged. “But it’s not like I’m upset. I hated working there. It was like working in a morgue but without the laughs.” At Wren’s sad look she said, “Don’t worry about me. The only reason I worked there was to pass the time. I don’t really need a job.”
Wren sat down at the table, and Maureen followed. It was time to have a proper talk.
“My father was a property developer,” said Maureen. “He owned Raccoon Real Estate.”
Wren’s mouth dropped open in shock. “Raccoon Real Estate? But they built a quarter of the buildings in this town. They developed the marina front shops. They built my house! They built your apartment building!”
“I’m a millionaire.”
Wren laughed. “You sure kept that quiet.”
“Nobody knows. I don’t want people to treat me differently. Most of my money goes to charities anyway. It’s not as if I’m buying fast cars and going on cruises. I like to live as normally as possible. I might buy the occasional fresh whole salmon for my cats but that’s about it.”
“You should treat yourself. I would.”
Maureen looked away. “I don’t deserve it.”
She was about to inquire further when the lights flickered a few times and went out. The Metropolitan was plunged into pitch blackness.
“Damn,” snapped Wren. “The fuse must have gone. Wait there.”
Wren went into the back and found the fuse box. It was smoking.
The electrician came out to redo this just last week!
She opened the fuse box door and wafted the smoke away. Several wires were singed black. The whole thing was wrecked.
She called Bill straightaway. He said he’d be there early the next morning. He wasn’t his usual self, which was starting to worry Wren. Ever since Fiona had been wiped from everyone’s memories, bar herself for some reason, Bill had acted oddly. Fiona had said this would happen, that he would know he once had love but just couldn’t rememb
er where or how. He acted like someone who’d just been dumped at the altar.
Was it even love, anyway? They only flirted a few times.
There was a shout from inside. Wren ran back into the main area of the store. From the light coming in from outside she could discern someone lying prostrate on the floor. It was Maureen.
“Maureen!” Wren cried, coming to her aid.
She groaned. “Oh... my head...”
She helped Maureen to a chair. “What happened? Did you fall?”
“No,” said Maureen. She put her hands to her neck. “I was just sat here when I felt someone put their hands around my neck. They tried to strangle me!” Maureen started to cry. “I pushed them back and I fell and I hit my head and I think I blacked out a little.” She pulled out a handkerchief and blew her nose loudly into it. “Someone tried to kill me, Wren. Someone tried to kill me!”
Chapter 6
“Can you tell me exactly what happened?” Sheriff Rob Fisher asked.
Wren had driven Maureen straight to the hospital. Waiting for an ambulance was not a priority. She complained she was perfectly fine but it was better to be safe than sorry.
Maureen looked uncomfortable. “Someone tried to strangle me.”
“Any detail would be appreciated,” the sheriff pressed.
“The lights went out, and Wren went to check the fuse box. It was dark, but not too dark. I could see a little because of the lamps on Main Street. Then I felt a pair of hands go around my neck. They squeezed hard, though not too hard, and I pushed back on my chair and fell and hit my head. I think I scared them off.”
To think this was happening while she was messing with the fuse box. She should’ve been there!
“Did you see or hear anything?” the sheriff asked. “Did you smell anything? What did the hands feel like?”
Maureen shook her head.
“Okay,” said the sheriff. “I’ll be in touch. Try to get some rest.”
The sheriff pulled Wren aside as Maureen went to sleep on her hospital bed. She looked so pale and frightened it broke Wren’s heart.
Anthony was talking to someone at the other end of the hospital corridor. She needed a word with him about her mother. He avoided her every time she tried to talk to him.
“The blackout wasn’t a coincidence,” said Wren. “Someone sabotaged the fuse box on purpose.”
“So they could try and kill Maureen?” the sheriff asked.
She nodded. “It would a strange coincidence that my coffee shop went dark at the exact same time someone wanted to kill Maureen.”
He nodded, agreeing with her.
“Why would someone want to kill Maureen?” the sheriff asked. “Not to be horrible or anything but she seems a pretty... simple person.”
“Maureen has depths.” Wren thought for a moment. “A couple of months ago she fell down a well. Just after Christmas she couldn’t come to my house for dinner because she said she had food poisoning and had to have her stomach pumped at this very hospital. She’s having a very bad time of it. Do you think... do you think the well incident wasn’t an accident? Do you think the food poisoning wasn’t just a bad prawn salad like she said it was?” It made sense now. “Someone is trying very, very hard to murder my friend.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions just yet.”
“But you know I’m right. I can tell by the look on your face. You just don’t want me to start investigating this.”
Sheriff Fisher grinned and nodded his head. It didn’t matter what he said or if he tried to arrest her, she was going to look into this. Nobody tried to kill her friend and get away with it. Chances were they’d try again, and next time Maureen might not be so lucky.
“I’ll assign Deputy Stark to guard her,” said the sheriff.
Wren nodded. “Talking about deputies, Keegan was supposed to join me at the Metropolitan this morning. He never turned up. I was going to call him but I was just so busy I never had the time.”
“I haven’t seen him since yesterday,” said the sheriff. “He was excited about today.”
Suddenly alarmed, Wren took out her cellphone and called Keegan. Nobody answered, and it went straight to voice mail. His father the sheriff tried to phone him too and got the same result.
“Where the hell is he?” Wren wondered.
They called Lenny and several of Keegan’s friends, but nobody had seen him today. It was like he’d vanished off the face of the planet.
“Hello?” Maureen called from inside the cubicle. “I know about Keegan!”
Wren pulled the curtain back. “You should be asleep.”
“I haven’t been totally honest with you about everything.” Maureen looked guilty before continuing. “Last week, when I had my casts off at the hospital, I was just walking out across the road when a car came swerving past. It nearly ran me over – no, it purposely tried to run me over. Keegan saw everything. He was at the hospital donating blood. Anyway, I told him about my food poisoning, and my trip down the well, and he seemed to think someone was trying to kill me. I thought so too.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Wren demanded.
“I was embarrassed, and Keegan said he could help me sort it out.”
“He’s trying for a promotion,” said the sheriff. “He probably didn’t mention it because he wanted to solve it on his own.”
There was a tightening in Wren’s stomach. She feared the worst.
“Keegan has been looking into this,” she said, sickened. “And now he’s missing.”
“He could be at home,” suggested the sheriff. He definitely looked worried now. “Or he could be visiting friends in the city.”
“I don’t know,” said Maureen. “All I know is he was helping me. I’m sorry. I should have said something sooner.”
Sheriff Fisher left to do a little more research. Maureen had fallen asleep in her hospital bed, snoring away like a hippo with a sore throat. She looked so peaceful, unconcerned. Wren didn’t know how she could fall into such a deep slumber after everything she’d been through. If something like that happened to her Wren knew she’d worry so much she’d never get a wink of sleep.
She sighed and closed the curtains around Maureen’s cubicle. Anthony was walking up to her. He looked nervous.
So you should be, you gigolo!
“Can we talk?” Anthony asked.
“It just so happens that I wanted to talk to you,” said Wren. She found her anger suddenly calming. She sighed. “I was going to give you a piece of my mind and tell you to stop sniffing around my mom like a dog on heat, but I can’t do that. She’s so happy now and that’s because of you.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk about.”
She put her prejudices aside and gave him the benefit of the doubt. He was a good man and a good doctor. What did she have to lose?
They sat down in the hospital cafeteria with two mugs of tea and some cream eclairs. The tea was bitter and the cream in the eclairs was runny. It was utterly foul.
“I love Dot,” Anthony revealed. “I love her very much.”
“I can see that,” said Wren. “I knew it the first time I met you.”
“And I’m not sure what I mean to her, but...”
“You can’t go on seeing her when my dad comes out of prison.”
He took a sip of his insipid tea and shook his head. “No. Far from it. I’m going to ask Dot to divorce your father and marry me.”
So much for the gentleman. Wren wanted to squash her runny eclair into his face.
“Excuse me?” Wren demanded.
“I make your mother happy and everyone knows it,” said Anthony. He wasn’t pulling any punches now. He wasn’t smug or nasty, just calm and collected. “I wanted to be the gentleman in this, but I can’t do that anymore. I love Dot and I’m pretty sure she feels the same about me. I want her to be happy. I want myself to be happy.”
“You’re breaking up a marriage here.”
“There’s the thing. I’ve spoken to Wa
rwick. He gave me his blessing. He said if Dot wanted to marry me then he wouldn’t stand in our way.”
This had to be a mistake. Her father would never give up like this. He loved her mother and nothing would stop him from being with her. They’d been through so much together. They’d even committed crimes together! They were like a low-rent version of Bonnie and Clyde, minus the horrible death.
“You’re lying,” she accused him.
“Phone him yourself,” said Anthony. “Ask him.”
“You... you must have threatened him. He wouldn’t give up on Mom like that.”
“Please talk to him.” He left, leaving her a lot to think about.
Ten minutes later Wren was still in the hospital cafeteria, debating what to do next, when her cellphone rang. It was Sheriff Fisher.
“Keegan isn’t at home,” said the sheriff darkly. “I’m really worried.”
“Don’t panic,” Wren assured him, though she was on the verge of panic herself. “There has to be a reasonable explanation for this. Maybe he met a guy and stayed at their place?”
It wasn’t a good suggestion. Keegan wasn’t the one-night stand type of person.
Please, Keegan. Please be that type of person just this once. Please be okay.
“He looked into why someone was trying to kill Maureen and now he’s missing,” the sheriff stated. “We both know what that could mean.”
“Have you talked to Lenny again?” Wren asked. “Maybe he saw him and didn’t want to admit it.”
The sheriff groaned. “He says he hasn’t seen him and I believe him, and now I’ve gotten him worried he’s going to interfere too.”
The sheriff hung up, eager to continue looking for his son. Wren didn’t know what to think. The sheriff’s department must be stretched thin at the moment, especially now someone was trying to kill Maureen. They needed her help. She was doing them a favor, really. But what should she investigate? Time was of the issue with both Keegan and Maureen.
Except if Keegan is already dead.
She banished that thought instantly. Keegan was alive. She knew it in her gut.
“Why are you worried?” Brock asked.
He’d flitted into the seat opposite her. She’d hated it when Fiona did it and she hated it now. Quite why nobody had seen them doing it she didn’t know.