Back at home, showered and spruced up, Holly didn’t feel like eating. She sat on the sofa, staring into space. Not thinking. Not moving. Not doing anything at all.
When the phone pierced through the air, she jumped halfway to the ceiling. She ran to catch it, thinking that it would be Aidan and she could tell him the whole, terrible saga. You should have rung him already, Holly scolded herself as she picked up the handset.
“Hey, Holly. Is your sister about?”
It was Alec, and suddenly every horrible emotion that had slapped Holly about during the day recurred. He was apparently trying to hide the worry in his voice, but it crept out of hiding until it was all that she could hear.
“Crystal was going to meet me in the garage after work,” Alec continued. “When she didn’t turn up, I went to see if she was still at that new shop, but it appeared closed.”
It had appeared a lot more than closed. Holly shut her eyes tight and bunched her free hand into a fist. “I’m sorry, Alec. She’s in the surgery center at the moment.”
For a second, tears threatened to rain in such abundance that Holly had to stop talking. She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek until the pain drove the other emotions into retreat enough to continue.
“She’s recovering okay, but there was a case of poisoning at the restaurant today.”
Alec was silent for such a long time that Holly pulled the handset away from her ear to check the connection. Then, a flurry of questions poured forth from him.
“What happened? Who else? What did the doctors say?”
Holly let him talk until he got to the question she knew he most wanted to ask.
“Can I see her?”
“Are you at work?” Holly asked. It was just around the corner from her place, while his actual home was much further out.
When Alec replied that he was, Holly continued, “I’ll drop by to pick you up. The nurse at the center told us there’d be no more visitation for the night, but we can see if the two of us can twist her arm.”
Although seeing Alec would bring up that horrendous stew of emotions that she’d just managed to repress, Holly was glad to have something to do. She grabbed her coat and walked out the door, clapping her hands together to ward off the chill.
The poor nurse was already harried with so many patients. Under a gentle but insistent onslaught from both Holly and Alec, she soon gave in. Any guilt that Holly might usually feel about the situation was alleviated by the joy of getting to check on Crystal again.
After holding her hand for a minute and kissing her forehead to let Crystal know she was there, Holly moved back out of the room. As she walked the short corridor back to the waiting room, she heard Susan calling out.
“Holly? Is that you?”
With a quick glance at the nurse to check she wasn’t watching, Holly stole into Susan’s room. Unlike Crystal, she was in a built-for-purpose room, but it was crowded with the addition of another cot bed—this one with the sleeping waitress on it.
“Hey, can I get you anything?” Holly asked as she reached over and touched Susan’s hand. The woman’s eyes were closed, but they flickered open for a second before shutting again.
Perhaps the call had been her imagination? The poor woman didn’t look healthy enough to press a call-bell. But then Susan rallied, opening her eyes and trying to sit up.
“Maybe you should just stay lying down,” Holly whispered. “Do you want me to fetch the doctor?”
“No. The police,” Susan replied, her body shaking so much that she soon had no choice but to fall flat on the bed again. “I want to talk to the police. I think I’ve been poisoned!”
Holly reached out to grab one of Susan’s hands, pressing it between hers. “That’s correct, and they already know. Sergeant Matthewson is out there right now, trying to find out who did it.”
Susan appeared to fall back asleep for a few minutes. Her chest rose and fell with the long even breaths of slumber. Then she jerked awake again. “Is the shop okay?”
For a second, Holly frowned down at her. What? “Of course. The shop is fine. The police are taking care of everything, you just need to concentrate on getting well.”
Suddenly, Susan returned the grip, her hand clasping onto Holly with more strength than she would have believed possible. “There’s been someone watching the shop. Someone bad.” Susan hitched in a long breath, visibly struggling to say more. “That’s why the last tenant left. Call him and see. Someone’s been casing the place for months now.”
The effort took its toll after that, and Susan let go of Holly’s hand, dropping back into unconsciousness. Holly waited for a few minutes to see if there was more. Fear had flared up in her chest again at the words, but Susan appeared to have exhausted herself. With the warning ringing in her ears, Holly backed out of the room.
“Visiting time’s up!” the nurse said, coming to check on them. Holly nodded and walked with Alec back into the waiting room.
She sat down in a chair next to him, knowing that he wouldn’t want to leave and feeling the same urge to keep watch recurring in herself. That, and the need to stay close to Susan in case she said something else.
“Do you want a coffee?” Alec asked after a few moments spent idle. He was fidgeting already, a man used to action.
The last thing Holly needed was caffeine—she was wired from the day already—but she could see that the man needed to do something. “Sure. I’ll have a decaf latte, if you’re going.”
Alec jotted down the request, then went around the room asking the other waiting loved ones. He not only received their orders, but Susan’s father joined him to help. Susan’s husband had already gone, the needs of a small child placing demands even in this worrying time.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to take care of at a time like this? Holly thought. Somebody to distract your focus, so your worry had to take a backseat?
A second later, Holly sat bolt upright. Aidan! She still hadn’t called him to tell him what had happened. If it came to a contest, she could compete for the prize of lousiest girlfriend with a good chance of winning.
On the phone, Aidan sounded relieved to have the opportunity to come and take care of her. While he was on his way, and Alec was out on his task, she sat alone and tried to think through the logistics of what Susan had said.
Now that the shock of the unexpected statement was over, Holly felt a brief surge of anger at the sick woman. How dare she rent the place to them when Susan believed that doing so might pose a danger.
Alec arrived back before Aidan, handing out the coffees and drawing the group of anxious relatives closer together with his kind gesture. They began to talk with each other, rather than keeping silent and to themselves. In ten minutes, Holly learned more about the group than she had for all the hours she’d waited with them earlier.
The waitress’s parents were May and Robert. Their daughter’s name was Bethany and working at the restaurant as a waitress was her first job.
“Remember when she came home after the first day?” May exclaimed. “Her feet hurt so much for being on them all day that she went straight to bed just to stop them touching the floor.”
Zach’s friend and old workmate was called Richard and worked at a cat food factory in town. He told them an anecdote about working the punch-card system once, to let Zach take a few hours to propose to his girlfriend before he left town. “We got another mate from down the pub and snuck him in. They changed clothes in the bathroom so Cory would be in uniform for the shift while Zach had to sneak out in a second-hand suit, which was the best clothing we could come up with between us. To this day, he blames the quality of that suit as the reason she didn’t say yes.”
Ethyl and Greg were Susan’s parents, while Nancy and Colin were her husband Michael’s. Their grandchild, Susan and Michael’s daughter, was a bundle of trouble called Felicity—or Flick for short.
When it was Holly’s turn to take the floor, she didn’t know what to say other than offerin
g up her name. “I’ve not been in town long enough to have any good anecdotes,” she said, feeling a bit lame.
At that, Alec snorted. “Lady, well before you turned up in my garage needing to repair a bike, I’d heard all about you. There was a joke around town that your bakery should be renamed from Sweet Baked Treats to Murder Inc.”
“Well, perhaps it isn’t the best time to be bringing up those incidents,” Holly said. Unfortunately, the bored and anxious group demanded to know more.
Halfway through a story of the wedding day from hell, a throat cleared behind her. Holly turned to see Aidan standing there, looking worried and confused. She’d been so deep in her retelling that she hadn’t even heard the door open.
“Is the doctor available?” Aidan asked.
Holly frowned and stood up, crossing over to him. “She’s out the back, I think, but you don’t need to see her. Dr. Allende has already told us the prognosis.”
“Not for your sister.” Aidan glanced back over his shoulder at the car in the parking lot. Elvira was sitting in the passenger seat, her face a mask of worry. In the scant light available, Holly could also make out that someone else was in the car—lying down in the back seat.
“It’s my cousin. She’s struggling to breathe.” Aidan saw the nurse walk out into the room from the corridor and left Holly to run to her instead. “Can you please come and help? Tilly is out in the car, and I think she’s dying.”
Chapter Six
Holly ran out to the car. While the nurse and Aidan ran to the back seat to deal with his cousin, Holly ran to the side door, pulling Elvira out of the car and into a hug.
“You poor thing. Come inside, it’s freezing out here!”
“I can’t. I have to stay with Mom.”
Holly saw that Aidan was helping the nurse to pull the woman out. “They’re bringing her inside, too. Let’s go in, so we’re not standing in their way.”
As Elvira walked in through the automatic doors, she screwed up her eyes against the bright light. The dark makeup that she wore had run with tears, flowing down her cheek to form coal scars.
The nurse must have triggered some internal alarm because Dr. Allende was in the room, ready and waiting. She directed Aidan and the nurse into the hallway, where a chair was waiting.
“Where’s the exam room?” Aidan asked, his voice squeaking. “She can’t stay out here.”
“Our rooms are all full,” the nurse explained. “This is the most privacy we can offer at the moment. If we need to, we’ll pull around an ambulance and treat her there.”
The burden on the small facility was evident not only in the hasty arrangements but the deepening lines of stress on both the doctor and nurse’s faces.
“Can I go through and see her?” Elvira asked. Her voice was tiny, almost disappearing in the bulk of the room.
“I think you might have to wait until the doctor finishes her examination.” Holly put an arm around the girl’s shoulders and pulled her close. “But that won’t be too long. Then you can visit with her.”
Aidan stood in the doorway, pointedly not glancing into the corridor to gift Tilly her privacy. The straightness of his back told Holly all she needed to know about how worried he was. Usually, Aidan was slumped over and loose, like a teddy-bear who’d been cradled in loving arms for a few decades.
“Where’s Esmerelda?” Holly asked Elvira, trying to distract her. The day had sapped so much energy out of her that the query was the best she could offer on short notice.
“She stayed at home. Said there wasn’t room in the car for Mom to stretch out like she needed if she came along too.” Elvira wiped her nose on the back of her coat sleeve.
Holly searched the room and spotted some tissues on a small side-table. She loosened her grip on Elvira’s shoulders just for long enough to snag them and offer one to the girl.
“How about you give your Granny a phone call to say that you made it to the medical center okay?” Holly pulled her phone out of her coat pocket. “By the time you’ve finished that, hopefully, the doctor will have examined your mom.”
Elvira took the phone, then walked over to the corner of the room nearest the door to make the call. With her shoulder hunched over, it was the closest she’d be able to get to privacy without going outside.
Holly felt a pang of guilt that while she’d forgotten to even tell Aidan what had happened, she’d also overlooked the fact that he had an illness in the family to deal with.
Holly didn’t know that much about the multiple sclerosis that Elvira’s mother Tilly suffered from. Just that the disease couldn’t be cured and usually led to increasing disablement. It had been one of the things on her list to research when she had a moment. For some reason, even though when reflecting back her day seemed full of moments she could have done just that, Holly had never gotten around to it.
Dr. Allende came to the connecting doorway and spoke to Aidan. Her face was calm, and her hands were steady, but they’d been that way when she announced to the room at large that all their relatives had been poisoned. It just seemed to be part of her nature, not a giveaway to the diagnosis.
“Thanks,” Elvira said, dropping the phone back into Holly’s lap. “Do you think it’s okay if I go over and listen to what the doctor’s saying?”
“Of course, go on.”
Elvira walked over, and Aidan introduced her. The girl’s arms were clutched across her middle, tensed so hard that her biceps appeared as rigid as steel.
The automatic door opened, and Sergeant Matthewson walked inside. He saw the doctor and nurse were busy, then nodded to Holly and walked over to her. “Any updates?”
“Everyone is still in the same position, as far as I know.” Holly turned to see Aidan’s face scrunching up with worry. The conversation was going on for far longer than she’d expected. It didn’t seem to bode well.
“Oh, before I forget. Susan woke up just long enough to tell me something. Apparently, the tenant who vacated the shop suddenly left because of some guy who was hanging around.”
Matthewson turned to her with a frown that seemed close to a scowl. “Some guy? Hanging about how?”
Holly shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not even sure if any of it’s true—Susan was fading in and out of consciousness. She just said that he’d been hanging around and then the tenant up and left.”
“And is he hanging around still?” Matthewson now seemed so frustrated by the news that Holly wished she’d kept her mouth shut and let Susan tell him herself when she felt better.
“She didn’t say, but I did see somebody staring into the shop earlier when I left with Meggie. When I turned around to see what he was doing, the man ran away.”
“Description?” Matthewson pulled out his notepad and pen.
“A man, average height. It was hard to see his build because he had a large coat on and I couldn’t see his hair because there was a hoodie underneath it.”
The sergeant waited for a moment, then glanced at Holly. “Anything more than that? Ethnicity? Age?”
“I’m sorry. It was dark, and the man stood in front of the houses, so there’s not much in the way of lighting. I only noticed him because he seemed to be staring into the shop rather than looking at the pools or the police tape.” Holly shrugged again. “It just seemed a bit odd.”
“A man in large coat and hoodie. Seemed a bit odd,” Matthewson read back. If his sarcasm had been any thicker, it would have run down his chin.
Holly flushed with embarrassment, then felt a kick of indignation. “If you want people to tell you information, Sergeant, perhaps you shouldn’t make fun of them when they do.”
The officer ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Sorry, you’re right. It’s just been a very long day and, as usual, you’re sitting right in the middle of it. You know, I was just saying to the station the other day that it would be great if I attended a crime scene one day and didn’t find you standing in the middle of it. I guess I’ll still have to wait for my luck to cha
nge, eh?”
“Considering that it’s my sister sitting in the back of this surgery fighting for her life, don’t think that I’m enjoying this any more than you are.” Holly stood and moved away, choosing a different chair.
Her outburst over, tears of worry started to form in her eyes. Holly sniffed and glanced over at Aidan. He was the one speaking now, appearing to interrogate the doctor. The poor man. He must be feeling just as worried as Holly was at the moment.
The conversation suddenly stopped. Aidan and Elvira rounded the corner, disappearing down the corridor, while the doctor walked out into the waiting room, immediately waylaid by the sergeant.
“Is Ben still here?” Holly asked Richard. “I thought he’d still be in the waiting room.”
Richard pursed his lips for a moment, appearing thoughtful. “That the young lad that you and the sergeant brought in?”
Holly nodded.
“He went home a while back. The doctor checked him over and said he was fine. Since they don’t have a lot of room here, she sent him home to his mother and said to call an ambulance if anything changed.”
“Oh, good.” Holly settled back into her new seat. If the cupcakes had been poisoned, then Ben should have been showing symptoms well before now. At least on that point, Crystal was in the clear. Now she just had to get onto the road to recovery, and everything could get back on track.
Aidan and Elvira came back into the room, walking straight up to Holly. “They’ve called through to Christchurch,” Aidan said. “We’re going to have to transfer her there. Would you be able to get Elvira back to Esmerelda’s place?”
“I want to go with her.” Elvira’s brow furrowed as she stared up at her cousin. “Why can’t I travel in the ambulance with Mom? It’s school holidays—I don’t have anywhere else to be.”
“Because you don’t have anywhere to stay in Christchurch,” Aidan answered in a tone that indicated he didn’t want an argument. “We can visit her on the weekend, and I’m sure she’ll be much better by then.”
The Sweet Baked Mystery Series - Books 1-6 Page 47