Apple-achian Treasure (Auntie Clem's Bakery Book 8)

by P. D. Workman

  “Sister.”

  “He’s in recovery now, and he’s awake and asking for you. And you,” she turned and looked at Beaver. “You must be the girlfriend.”

  Beaver nodded. “Yep. But I don’t know if you actually want to invite me in there right now, because I might just try to knock some sense into that boy.”

  The doctor gave a little smile. “I don’t normally encourage that sort of thing, but I hope this is the last time I’ll see him on my table. I know that boy’s insides a lot better than anyone should.”

  “He’s really okay?” Vic asked. “Where did he get shot? Where did the bullet go in?”

  “He’s okay,” the doctor confirmed. “He’s stable for now, and he’s awake and alert. We’ll need to keep an eye on him to make sure that he doesn’t get an infection and that we patched up all of the appropriate holes, but I think you can expect a full recovery. He seems like a strong boy, so I imagine he’ll bounce back from this pretty quickly and be back out there causing trouble again. I’d just appreciate it if you make sure that he doesn’t end up on my table again.”

  “Yeah,” Vic said sourly. “We’ll work on that.”

  “He took two bullets to the torso, but he was lucky and everything seems to be clean. No major organs, intestines are intact, it was mostly just muscle and a lot of blood.”

  “Two bullets.” Beaver shook her head. “Well, he’s got me beat. I’ve only ever had one at a time.”

  The doctor’s jaw dropped as she looked at Beaver. Erin waited for Beaver to laugh and say that she was just kidding, but Beaver didn’t. She just gave Erin and the others raised eyebrows and a rueful smile.

  “How many times have you been shot?” the doctor demanded. “And what exactly is it that you do?”

  “If I told you that, I’d have to kill you,” Beaver quipped. “Let’s just say that my job has certain hazards. I don’t plan on getting shot again, if that makes you feel better. It wasn’t a whole lot of fun the first time. Or the second, for that matter.”

  “You’re pulling my leg.”

  “Nope.” Beaver hooked a finger into her collar and tugged back her shirt to show off a scar below her collarbone.

  The doctor looked closely at it and shook her head. “You might not be the best person to tell Jeremy to stay out of trouble.”

  “Maybe I am the best person to tell him, since I have the most experience in the area. At least, I assume so…” She looked at Terry, who shook his head, and then at Erin, who shook hers.

  “I’ve never been shot,” Erin said. “I almost was once, but Vic shot him.” She nodded to Vic.

  The doctor made a noise of disbelief.

  “But you’ve been almost killed the most times of any of us,” Vic said. “Unless Terry…”

  Terry again shook his head. “I may be a cop, but I’ve led a pretty charmed life. I’ve never been in any life-threatening situation. And I plan to keep it that way.”

  “Good goal to have,” the doctor agreed. “Well, I don’t want all of you back there, but maybe if sister and girlfriend would like to come and just say hello to him, then we need to let him rest for a while. He’ll need a lot of sleep the next few days for his body to recover and start building up strength again. It was quite a shock to his system.”

  Vic and Beaver followed the doctor out of the waiting room into the area beyond the security glass. Erin sat back down again, letting out her breath in a long stream.

  “Okay. I’m beat. That was scary.”

  Terry nodded. He sat down beside her again and reached over tentatively to massage her shoulders. Erin melted into him, letting the muscles relax under his practiced hands.

  “Oh, that feels good. I was so scared.”

  “We all were,” Terry agreed. He didn’t sound jealous like he had before. Maybe he had finally gotten it through his head that Erin wasn’t scared because she was in love with Jeremy, but just because he was a friend and that he was Vic’s brother.

  “You won’t ever get shot, will you?” Erin demanded. “I’ve decided I don’t like you being a cop. I don’t want to ever have to be here waiting to see if you’re going to come out okay.”

  “I can’t promise that nothing will ever happen to me, but neither can you. It wasn’t that long ago that you were here after being poisoned and we were all sitting around here wondering whether Willie had gotten you here in time.”

  “Oh…” Erin smiled weakly. “I’d forgotten about that. All of it is sort of a blur, for a few days.”

  “But you’re okay now, and you’re not going to get poisoned again, are you?”

  “No.” Erin was definite about that. “It’s not going to happen again. What are the chances that I would get poisoned twice, anyway?”

  “I have no idea. But with you… I suspect it’s higher than with most of us.”

  “It’s not my fault. I didn’t really do anything to attract attention. People just… think that I know things when I don’t.”

  “They’ll think it less if you don’t ask so many questions.”

  Erin shrugged. “Well, I’m not asking anything now. We haven’t had any murders and I’m not going to upset anyone. That’s all over.”

  “Now you’re just hunting treasures.”

  Erin looked sideways at him. “Well… yeah. But that’s not the same. It doesn’t belong to anyone. It isn’t anyone’s secret. It isn’t related to anyone dying or poisoning anyone. It’s just… something fun to do.”

  “If you want something fun to do, take up geocaching. Or knitting. Or needlepoint.”

  “I’m not taking up needlepoint.”

  “Or knitting,” Terry prompted.

  “Not knitting, either.”

  Erin saw Willie looking around at the other people in the waiting room and waved to get his attention. He joined them, looking at Vic’s empty chair.

  “I gather she’s in with him?”

  Erin nodded. She relayed the details the doctor had given them. Willie sat down.

  “I guess I missed all of the fun stuff. But I can’t say I’m disappointed about that. Poor Vic. I’m glad you were here for her.”

  Erin nodded. “I’m not sure it did any good, but I’m glad too. Hopefully, after this, Jeremy will find something else to do. I don’t want anything like this to happen again!”

  “I wouldn’t have expected it with a job like this,” Willie said, shaking his head. “I’ve heard some pretty interesting things about operations like this, but I don’t think violence is high on the list of expectations.”

  “Operations like this?”

  Willie raised his eyebrows and looked back and forth at the two of them. “Well… places that grow valuable plants or raise endangered species. There are always poachers, but you don’t usually see violence like this.”

  “What do you know about this farm that Jeremy’s been working on?” Terry asked.

  “They’re well-known in the business,” Willie said slowly. “Good reputation. I haven’t heard about them doing anything underhanded. They stick to the rules for harvesting plants, have a good reputation for quality goods. No counterfeit plants.”

  Erin shook her head. “I’ve never heard of this kind of thing going on at a farm. What’s gotten into people?”

  “It isn’t common for people to get shot,” Willie repeated. “There is theft, yes. There’s a reason they hire security, especially during harvest. But believe me, no one could have predicted that this was going to happen to Jeremy.”

  Erin sighed. “Okay. Got it.”

  Terry scraped back his chair as he got up. “I don’t know about you two, but I’m going to need a coffee if I’m going to stay here much longer. Willie?”

  “Love one,” Willie agreed.

  “Erin?”

  Erin shook her head. “Not so close to bedtime, I’ll never get to sleep. Something non-caffeinated.”

  “I’ll see what I can find. No Monster energy drinks, then?”

  She punched him lightly on the arm. “
No Monsters.”

  Terry and K9 left in search of beverages. Willie gave a deep sigh and leaned back in the chair. Erin knew from experience that there wasn’t really any way to get comfortable in the hard plastic chairs. She could see a couple of people who had fallen asleep, but she had no idea how they had managed it. She could only guess that they were very sick. She tried to cover a yawn, but was too tired to repress it. Tears leaked out the corners of her eyes.

  “Long day,” Willie acknowledged. “You guys are up so early in the morning.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know what I’m going to do tomorrow. I’d call Bella and see if she and Charley could open, but Bella has never prepped by herself, and I’m sure there’s no way Charley would be able to get up that early.”

  “You might just have to open late or be closed for a day.”

  “I hate to do that.”

  “Of course. But people will understand. And it isn’t like you’re providing emergency services. People will survive without their morning muffin.”

  “I know…”

  Willie changed the subject. “How’s the treasure hunt coming along?”

  Erin was glad to talk about something else, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to be talking about treasure hunting when Terry made his way back with their drinks. “Interesting! I learned a lot from Betty and Edna at the library. They really know their stuff.”

  “They do,” Willie agreed. “If you want to know about the history of Bald Eagle Falls, you couldn’t ask for much better. But…”

  Erin looked at him, frowning. “But what? They’re not making it up, are they? They do know what they’re talking about.”

  “They know what they’re talking about. It’s just that they talk about it an awful lot.”

  “Meaning…”

  “Meaning you may have let the cat out of the bag. Loose lips.”

  “They said they would keep it quiet. They understood and said they wouldn’t talk about it…”

  “Uh-huh.” Willie’s skepticism was clear. “I wouldn’t count on it.”

  All of the effort she had made to keep her treasure hunt quiet, and they were going to spoil it for her. “So I guess I’d better get out ahead of it. Did you find some maps for me?”

  Willie looked blank for a moment, as if he’d forgotten all about it. “Yeah, they’re in the truck. I can give them to you tonight. You know what you’re looking for?”

  “I have a better idea.” Erin told him about Edna’s knowledge about the routes that a payroll wagon probably would have taken. “Do you want to get your maps now? We could look at them together?”

  Willie shook his head. “I don’t think we need other people seeing us looking at them. Or listening in.” He glanced around. “It may look like nobody is listening to us, but I can assure you that’s not the case. Half the people here who look like they are sleeping are probably eavesdropping on our conversation. They don’t need to see what those routes are that Edna told you about.”

  Erin looked around at the bored and sleeping people in the waiting room. No one twitched or gave her any sign that they were listening to the conversation between her and Willie. No one smiled to give away the fact that they knew they had been caught. A nurse moved around picking up newspapers, coffee cups, and candy wrappers.

  Erin was pretty sure that no one was really listening to them.

  Chapter Twelve

  W

  hen Vic got back from seeing Jeremy, she looked exhausted, but there was a light in her features that hadn’t been there before she went in to see him. Erin was relieved. She was comforted by the fact that Vic looked peaceful and relaxed instead of more wound up about Jeremy’s injuries.

  “He’s going to sleep now,” she told Erin. “He needs his rest. But he really is okay.”

  “He talked to you?”

  “Yeah. He wasn’t all loopy, but he was a bit… sedated still. Not quite his usual self, but he was trying. He looked a lot better than I expected him to.”

  Beaver nodded her agreement. “I’m sure I didn’t look anywhere near that good after I got shot,” she contributed. “They’ve given him plenty of blood, so that helps. But he seemed… strong. Like there was no doubt he was on the road to recovery.”

  Vic smiled. “It’s such a relief. When we get home, I’ll call Mom and let her know what happened. I didn’t earlier because I didn’t think there was any point in upsetting them when I didn’t know how he was.”

  “Will they come out and see him?”

  Vic shrugged. “I don’t know how things are between them. I never really asked. I assume they’re not real happy about him leaving home and splitting from the clan, but it isn’t like they kicked him out like with me. I think they’re still on speaking terms.”

  As much as Vic loved her family, they were not prepared to talk with her for as long as she was living a life that was so different from what they had raised her to.

  “I love my family,” Vic said, echoing what Erin was thinking. “But they can be pretty hardheaded sometimes. Rednecks.” She gave a little laugh.

  “Are you ready to go home?”

  Vic yawned and nodded.

  “Are you going with Erin or with me?” Willie asked.

  “Oh…” Vic looked form one to the other uncertainly. “I don’t know. How are you doing, Erin? Are you okay to drive? Do you need someone to keep you awake?”

  “I’m pretty wound up. I don’t think keeping awake is going to be a problem.”

  “Are you sure? I’ll go with you if you need someone. I don’t want you having an accident on the way home from the hospital.”

  “I’ll be fine. I’ll walk out with you, though, Willie has some maps for me.”

  Erin was sure that whoever had designed the hospital and the parking around it had to have been on drugs at the time. Or maybe none of it was planned and it had just been added on to haphazardly until it was a complete mess that no one could have sorted out. She suspected that even the people who worked at the hospital didn’t know their way around the place. They’d know the places that they needed to go, but not the whole hospital. She had walked with Willie and Vic to Willie’s truck to get the maps. Willie had not been able to find any parking near to the emergency entrance, of course, because there wasn’t any, but he hadn’t picked the same parking structure as Erin. It was on the opposite side of the hospital. Erin didn’t try to cut through the hospital, it was much easier to go around the outside, even if it was longer physically.

  As she walked around the building, she could hear another set of footsteps. At first, it didn’t really enter her consciousness, but as she got farther away from the doors, she became more aware. Someone was headed the same direction as she was. That wasn’t surprising. The hospital was teeming with people, and even that late, there were plenty of people who were coming and going to the parking structures.

  Choosing to go around the hospital instead of through it might not have been the safest choice. The parking lots were not well-lit and, since most people did travel through the hospital rather than around it, there were not a lot of people outside. The farther she went around the hospital, the darker and quieter it became. Erin swallowed and clutched the maps to her and tried to breathe normally. There was no point in getting worked up over nothing.

  She thought of Beaver’s gun. Vic had encouraged Erin to get a gun and go target shooting with her for some time, but Erin just didn’t feel comfortable about guns. Walking by herself in the dark and lonely parking lots around the hospital, she suddenly wished that she had made a different decision. She wished she had at least something in her purse that could be used as a weapon. Maybe not a gun, but at least pepper spray or a taser. She should have had Terry or Beaver escort her to her car. Everybody had gone their different directions without paying any attention to the possible dangers. The hospital was busy; who was going to get mugged there?

  Erin sped up her pace, looking behind her to reassure herself that it was just another visitor like her,
going back to his car. It was too dark to get a good look at the person behind her in just a quick glance, and she wasn’t going to turn around for long enough to get a good look.

  Her heart was pounding and she was breathing heavily, unable to get enough oxygen. She wasn’t even close to her car. Where was a security guard? Wasn’t there anyone patrolling the area outside the hospital?

  Erin spotted a side door and broke into a run to reach it. She wrenched the door open and jumped back into the safety of the hospital. She stopped there for a minute, trying to catch her breath and calm the wild pounding of her heart.

  She was fine, safely inside the hospital again. Perfectly safe.

  She started walking again, more relaxed, chuckling at herself for being so paranoid just because someone was walking behind her in the dark. Inside where it was bright and she could hear the constant hum of voices and see people hurrying from one hall to another, she felt much better.

  Erin went back to navigating the signage to find her way back to the parking structure she had parked in. She asked for directions a couple of times along the way, trying to avoid getting lost.

  As she was leaving the hospital once more in the final stretch to the parking structure, Erin spotted a security guard.

  “Oh, hey! Would you be able to walk me to my car? I was a little nervous earlier that someone was following me.” She gave a little self-deprecating laugh. “I’m just over here in D-East.” She pointed.

  The guard looked at her for a moment, not answering.

  “I guess maybe you have certain rounds you’re supposed to do. I was just hoping maybe you could go this way…”

  “Of course.” He smiled and nodded. He had a big flashlight on his belt that he pulled out and clicked on. Comforted by his presence, Erin calmed down and walked with him into the parking garage. He stayed with her while she found her level and parking space.

  “Thanks so much,” Erin told him gratefully. “I really appreciate it.”

  He nodded and gave her a salute with his flashlight, then turned and walked back out.