by Harper Lin
“I know you. You’re that pretty thing that makes the cupcakes with Rusty’s gal.”
“That’s right.” Amelia beamed, almost forgetting what she and Dan were there to do.
“Pete, I’ve got a problem with one of the patrons. You think you can get Roy to help me out?”
“Absolutely. I’m on parole. I don’t need no trouble. My granddaughter is turning eight next week. Pop-Pop is going to be at that birthday party.” He winked at Amelia, who grinned.
Pete hit a bell, and within a few seconds, Roy was at the door. As soon as he saw Dan, he pushed the swinging kitchen door in and walked up to the detective.
“What can I do for you, Dan?” Roy grumbled. Amelia had to look up over a foot to see in his face. It was a scary sight.
Dan explained that they didn’t want to cause any disturbance but needed to speak to Todd.
“Please. Get that trash out my restaurant. Rusty told him more than once he wasn’t welcome, but word gets out when the cat’s away.”
“I’d be grateful, Roy. Thanks.”
“What is your granddaughter’s name?” Amelia asked quietly as Roy went to summon Todd.
“Crystal.” He tapped the photograph taped to the wall above the sink to his right. A black-haired girl with new front teeth grinned back.
“She’s beautiful,” Amelia whispered.
“Amelia, why don’t you stand outside, just in case,” Dan said.
She nodded and stepped just out of view but could still hear everything. Pete went back to his grill, and Dan stood next to a tall silver rack of various breads and buns. In just a few minutes, Todd entered the kitchen.
“Who the hell are you?” he snapped at Dan, wiping his nose on the back of his hand.
Dan flashed his badge and identified himself. Pete stayed focused on the grill as if nothing were going on behind him.
“So, Detective.” He spat the words. “You want to tell me why you pulled me away from my pool game?”
“Did you speak to a woman tonight? Good looking. Owns her own business.”
“Maybe,” Todd answered smugly. He swayed a little and peered at Dan through squinty red eyes. Obviously, happy hour had started for him already. He smelled as though someone had dumped a pitcher of beer over him.
“Well, that woman said you were trying to extort money from her. Any truth to what she said?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Todd chuckled.
“Okay. So you weren’t with a woman this afternoon?”
“I don’t remember.” Todd looked as if he was enjoying himself.
“You’d remember this woman. Blond hair. Hourglass figure. Wears those kinds of dresses that wrap around real tight.” Dan rocked back on his heels.
Amelia was peeking through the crack in the door and saw Todd’s jaw go slack. Sobriety slapped him across the face, and he swallowed hard. He thought Dan was talking about her. Not Luann.
“No. Don’t know anyone like that.”
“You sure, because she described you, your bike, your tattoos, everything about you.”
Amelia wanted to laugh but bit her tongue. Dan was a genius.
“Yeah. I’m sure. Now, are you done?” Amelia could see Todd’s fingers twitching.
“Well, I guess if you don’t know anyone like that, maybe this woman has you confused with someone else. That’s a shame.” Dan cleared his throat. “Thank you for your time.”
Todd eyed Dan but didn’t say a word as he pushed the swinging door in and stomped out of the kitchen. Dan clapped Pete on the back before exiting through the back door and into the alley where Amelia was waiting.
“That was awesome!” she whispered excitedly. “Now what?”
“Listen.” Dan pointed his right index finger in the air and looked up to the darkening sky. The sound of a motorcycle rumbling to life cut through the rock music. The tires kicking up stones and peeling across the parking lot and onto the street indicated someone on a motorcycle was leaving in a huge hurry.
“Do you think your friend Bud would mind some visitors?” Dan tilted his head to the right.
“I don’t know. But I think once he knew what it was about, he’d be glad to see us. Especially if we came bearing gifts.”
Dan looked at Amelia oddly.
“You can’t have a proper stakeout without sustenance. You taught me that on the first stakeout you invited me on.”
“I knew there was a reason I kept you around.”
Dan went back into the Twisted Spoke and picked up three cheeseburgers and a couple of Cokes for the road. Within fifteen minutes, they were pulling down Brightway with the lights off on the car and the police scanner turned down to a quiet murmur.
Amelia showed Dan where Bud had asked her to park. At night, it was almost completely concealed in shadows. Quietly, they exited the vehicle and approached the front door.
“Do you think he’s home?” Dan asked.
“Yes. I don’t think he goes out too much.” Amelia clicked her tongue. “But he did say he has a girlfriend. I hope we won’t be interrupting.”
Dan laughed outright. Amelia looked at him and shook her head.
“Sorry.”
They walked up to the front door and were nearly blinded with motion sensor porch lights. Amelia pressed the doorbell and then knocked on the door. There was no answer.
“Something doesn’t feel right,” she said, setting the bags of carryout on the stoop, then she started to walk around to the back of the house. “I’m going around back.”
“Wait. We’ll both go.”
The terrain around the side of Bud’s house was rocky and uneven. Amelia was sure he designed it this way on purpose. Why make it easy for the men in black, right? She carefully stepped over smooth, slippery stones then tripped over vine-covered dirt before traipsing over an obstacle course of cut wood and large stones.
“Jeez, one false step, and a person could crack their head open. Or fall into those bushes.” She pointed to the right, where a long row of thick shrubs ran along the parameter.
“Be careful. Those are sticker bushes,” Dan stated flatly.
“How do you know?”
“Because they just scraped up my entire right side from my neck to my hand.”
The lights from Bud’s kitchen spilled out onto the yard. Not because they were so bright but because the back door had been kicked outward and was hanging dangerously by one hinge.
“This doesn’t make any sense.” Dan put his arm in front of Amelia. “Stay behind me. That door was kicked from the inside. Why would Bud do that to his own house?”
“He didn’t.” Amelia remembered their conversation over tea. “He told me that he had the kitchen rigged like jewelry stores. If someone breaks in, they get trapped in there. Looks like whoever got trapped didn’t like Bud’s home protection system.”
Slowly, they proceeded toward the open door. Once at the top of the porch, Amelia saw Bud lying on the ground. There was blood coming from his head.
“Oh no! Bud!”
The kitchen looked as though a tornado had hit it. The heavy picnic table was pushed to the side, with its benches wedged underneath it. Bud’s bureau had been knocked over, and everything in the china cabinet was shattered into a million shards all over the floor. Even his elegant box of teas didn’t escape the rampage that took place. They were scattered everywhere. But what broke Amelia’s heart was that Bud’s Mr. Spock mug was broken beyond repair.
Before he could stop her, Amelia had dashed into the kitchen and carefully felt Bud’s wrist.
“He’s still warm.” She sighed. Dan pulled his cell from his pocket and got 9-1-1 in motion sending an ambulance immediately to Bud’s place. Within sixty seconds, the sirens could be heard in the distance.
“Bud? Bud? Can you hear me?” Amelia asked carefully. “It’s Amelia Harley.”
Bud’s eyes fluttered open, and he attempted to move.
“No. Don’t move. Your head is bleeding.”
“Those bastards,” Bud muttered.
“Was it the men in black?” Amelia asked nervously. What if Bud had been right all along and now she was on their radar because of her connection to Bud? What would happen to her or the kids? What about her business?
“No. It was Luann’s attack dog.”
“Oh, that’s better.” Amelia sighed.
“What?” Bud snapped.
“Sorry. Just lie still. An ambulance is on the way.” Amelia looked up at Dan.
“Bud, can you tell me what happened?”
“Yeah, I’ll tell you.” Bud winced while trying to talk. “I was served with papers saying that Luann was suing me for property damage because she claimed a tree fell on some shed she had just put up. The tree is on my land, and the shed is on hers.” He swallowed hard, prompting Amelia to get him a glass of water. She gently helped him take a sip before he continued.
“Well, I went to investigate said tree. The next thing I know, some guy in a black ski mask is chasing me.”
“How do you know it wasn’t someone who was, you know, trying to prevent you from finding out ‘the truth.’” Amelia air-quoted the last two words.
“Because I could smell the liquor on him.” Bud clenched his teeth.
Amelia looked at Dan, who nodded.
The ambulance was down the street. Dan ran out to the edge of the driveway to flag them down, leaving Amelia alone with Bud. She took his hand in hers.
“Help is here. So just relax, and they’ll take care of you.”
“Can you do me a favor?”
“Of course, Bud.”
“Please call Fiona. Tell her what happened, and tell her I’ll need her to implement Plan Nine.”
“Plan Nine?”
“She’ll know.” Bud cringed. “That light is killing my eyes.” He squinted into the overhead kitchen light and tried to turn his head, but that hurt even more.
“You probably have a concussion,” Amelia told him. “So do what the doctors say. Would you like me to see if Dan can get an officer placed outside your hospital room?”
“No. Everything that needs to be done, Fiona will handle it.” The corner of Bud’s mouth went up slightly in what was sort of a smile. “Thanks, though. I-I appreciate it.”
Just then, the paramedics came rushing through the door into the kitchen then pushed Amelia outside while they loaded Bud on a stretcher.
A uniformed police officer began a conversation with Dan, and Amelia could hear Dan instructing him to get the plywood up over the door immediately. Whether Bud’s information that he had on secret government agencies and alien sightings was real or not, he didn’t deserve to have his home vandalized further.
“Well, what an interesting turn of events.” Dan walked back to the front of the house, where he grabbed the bags of food and handed one to Amelia as he kept one for himself and took a seat on the stoop.
“Poor Bud,” Amelia said. “He asked me to call his girlfriend. I better do that now.”
“Are you serious?”
“Let me use your phone.” She pouted.
“Let me guess. She’s long distance in Canada.”
“That’s what I said, and he nearly bit my head off. No. Her name is Fiona, and she works at the Gary veterinary office.” The recorded operator voice asked for city and state before Amelia finally got the digits for the vet’s office. A woman who was not Fiona answered the phone but promised to give her the message, including the implementation of Plan Nine.
“Plan Nine?” Dan muttered with a mouth full of burger.
Amelia shrugged as she took a seat next to him and began to eat her own meal.
“I think we should wait until his house is secured. The boys with the plywood company are usually pretty quick. They’ll secure that back door, and Bud’s place will be safe until he gets back. He must have put up a real fight. I would have never guessed he had it in him.”
“What do you think about what he said?” Amelia covered her mouth as she spoke with it full of food. “About the guy in the ski mask smelling of booze. I was downwind of Todd at the Twisted Spoke, and I’ll tell you what—it was Miller Time.”
“Yeah. But it doesn’t prove anything. You know how many guys are already drunk in this town at this very moment? Too many.”
Amelia nodded then snapped her fingers.
“What about his surveillance cameras? He’s got this place wired.”
“It’s a possibility. We’ll have to wait until he’s released from the hospital. In the meantime, I think I’m going to do a little digging on Todd Coz, and while I’m at it, I think a closer look at Luann Jameson might be in order.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Well, it seems to me that a lot of people who are in the vicinity of Luann seem to be having a string of misfortunes. First her son-in-law, then you with the cupcake order, and now Bud. Coincidence?”
“There are no coincidences,” Amelia said, wiping her mouth with a napkin.
Chapter Twelve
Amelia finally got home with a sack of McDonald’s for the kids. Without mentioning Todd Coz’s visit to The Pink Cupcake, she apologized to Adam and Meg for being late.
“That’s okay, Mom. I got all my homework done,” Meg boasted.
“What about you, Adam?”
“I’ll get it done,” he muttered nonchalantly.
“Okay, well, when you do get it all done, can you post something online for me?” Amelia yawned as she pulled out the description she and Lila had finalized.
“We need to hire an extra person. Lila and I are overwhelmed, and as much as I’d love to pull you kids out of school and chain you to the truck to work with me every day, making twenty-five cents an hour, there are these silly laws that prevent that.” Amelia twisted her lips as she looked at her kids.
“Sure, Mom. What job sites do you want them on?”
“How many are there?”
“Dozens,” Adam replied as his mom handed him the piece of paper.
“I’m going to leave that up to you since you seem to know more about it than I do. Is that okay?”
“Sure. Consider it done.”
“Thanks, honey. I appreciate it. So what did you guys do while I was gone besides homework and anything but homework?” Amelia pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and flopped down in it.
“Dad called,” Adam answered.
“Oh yeah? What did he want?” Amelia felt a tingle of satisfaction as she recalled being thrown out of the Four Seasons and really hoped the word would get back to him.
“He said they were having a nice time and that they’d be home in a few more days and that they had souvenirs for us.”
“Well, that sounds nice.” Amelia rubbed the back of her neck.
“He also wanted to know what Meg and I thought about moving in with him.”
Amelia’s heart stopped beating in her chest.
“What?” She was suddenly no longer sleepy.
“He wanted to know if we would consider moving in with him and Jennifer. Something about making it easier on everyone and you wouldn’t have to struggle so much.”
Amelia knew this had to do with alimony. If he had custody of the kids, he could pay less to her. But that wasn’t even the issue. If he took the kids, Amelia would die. They’d become such a good team together. John couldn’t possibly be serious about uprooting them.
“What did you tell him?” Amelia was surprised the words came out as calmly as they did.
“We said we’d think about it,” Meg said, shoveling half a dozen fries in her mouth at once.
“Okay. Well, guys. I’m beat. I’m going to take a hot shower then probably go to bed.” She pushed herself up from the kitchen table. Her legs felt wobbly underneath her.
“Okay, Mom,” they both replied.
Amelia literally had to pull herself up the stairs. She felt dizzy, and the urge to vomit swept over her as she made it to the upstairs landing.
Carefully, with one hand supportin
g her against the wall and the other waving to help her keep her balance, she made it to her room, closed the door, and dashed into the bathroom.
The burger Dan had bought her came back up and burned her throat. Her eyes watered, and once everything was up and her gut was empty, she felt her heart break.
Quickly, she turned the water on in the shower and sat on the cool tile floor.
The running water was enough to drown out the sobs of rage and frustration that swept over her.
Why would he suddenly want the kids? He couldn’t get away from them fast enough when he handed Amelia divorce papers. He had no problem just forgetting about them when everyone in town knew he was sleeping around.
The thought of not seeing the kids every day was too much. Amelia pulled off her clothes and climbed into the tub and let the hot water fall over her. She held her knees tightly and cried into them as she prayed.
Please, God, don’t let him take my kids. I’ll do anything. Just don’t let him take them away from me.
It was true that Amelia was tired. As soon as she crawled into bed, she fell asleep instantly. But she kept waking up every couple of hours with her mind racing. Songs in her head were running in an endless loop. Every time she started to doze, John’s proposition to the kids yanked her back to consciousness. Plus, if Luann could do what she did to Bud, what was to stop her from doing something to ruin The Pink Cupcake? It was all too much.
When she finally fell asleep, it was two in the morning, and she had to be up at five.
When the alarm went off, Amelia rubbed her eyes, which were puffy from crying, swallowed hard, and grimaced. Her throat was sore, and she felt achy all over.
“Not now,” she whined, her eyes beginning to water. “I’ve got too much to do.”
But when she flung the covers back, an instant chill wrapped around her, causing her arms and legs to pull back beneath the covers like a crab retreating back into its shell.
She waited a couple minutes. Sometimes it just took a few minutes. Slow and steady won the race, so Amelia slowly emerged from the blankets and dropped her feet over the side of the bed.
Once out in the hallway, she went to Meg’s room and opened the door. Her daughter was still asleep. Her brown hair was like a halo around her head, and her mouth hung open so she could breathe in a steady rhythm. It reminded Amelia of all the times she checked on her as a baby, listening for that steady breath those first couple of months, so terrified that she might not hear it. But every night she did. Every night for the past fifteen years, Amelia heard her daughter’s breathing. She couldn’t live without it.