Cinnamon Girl

by S. J. MacIver

  When the football game was over—the Vikings won—Mike ordered a pizza, and then got to work convincing Lacy to accompany him back to church for the youth activities.

  She did not want to go. She'd had enough church for one day. And if she pressed her luck by attending twice in less than twenty-four hours, this time the ceiling might actually fall on her head.

  So of course, she hopped in Mike's truck and off they went to help the youth ministry. When they stepped into the church, Lacy was surprised by two things. The front of the church where the pulpit had been this morning, was now a stage complete with colored lighting from the loft at the rear of the church. A full band was positioned on the stage, and they were busy warming up their musical instruments.

  The second surprise was in the form of Jeremy Hankins. He was sitting on a chair next to Brian, and they were deep in conversation.

  "Jeremy's here," she said to Mike.

  "Yeah, I know. Brian arranged it as part of his counseling."

  "Why didn't you tell me?" He'd dragged her here kicking and screaming. "It would have been a lot easier to convince me to come."

  Mike took Lacy by the shoulders and turned her until she faced him. His blue eyes smiling, he said, "I wanted you to come here because you wanted to, not because you might get an interview. You can set one of those up any time."

  Lacy didn't know whether to tear herself out of his arms or throw herself further into them. She was insulted on the one hand, touched on the other. She did neither but made sure he understood one important thing.

  "I wouldn't think of trying to interview Jeremy here, of all places. I like him, and frankly, feel sorry for him. I just wanted to see him again and find out how he's doing."

  "All right." Mike released her and spun her around. "There he is, and I think he's about to join the other kids for the dance. Go say hello."

  Needing no further encouragement, Lacy headed toward the boy. Brian was just getting out of his seat when she reached them. He glanced her way, looked back at Jeremy, and then did a double-take that nearly snapped his neck.

  "What are you doing here, Lacy?"

  She shrugged. "Checking out the youth activities."

  "But didn't I see you here this morning?"

  She nodded.

  "Twice in one day?" Brian glanced up at the ceiling and slowly inspected the tiles.

  She punched his shoulder lightly. "Don't make a big deal out of it, or I may never darken this door again."

  Brian ran his thumb and index finger across his lips. "Not another word."

  Then he made a bee-line toward Mike.

  Laughing to herself, Lacy regarded Jeremy, who'd gotten out of his seat. "Hi, Jeremy. How are things going?"

  He looked at her with his usual blank expression, lips not quite pouting, but not smiling either, basically emotionless. Lacy couldn't help but wonder how long he'd been wearing this expression. Before or after his step-mother's death? As she considered this, she realized that she'd never seen the boy smile and silently made it a goal to find a way to bring a little amusement into his life.

  Across the room, Brian approached Mike and said, "What on earth did you do to get Lacy to church twice in one day?"

  "Thanks to my boyishly good looks and charming ways, she can't resist me," he said, scuffing his nails against his chest. "I tell her what to do, and she does it."

  Brian rolled his eyes but remained otherwise unimpressed.

  "I'm talking about Lacy Erikson," he clarified. "The same Lacy Erikson who would write your obituary if she heard what you just said to me."

  "Oh, that Lacy." Mike shrugged. "I'm not sure how I convinced her to show. I didn't even tell her that Jeremy would be here. Maybe it's because I plied her with nachos and pizza first."

  Brian nodded. "That would work. I've noticed that my Lois is a lot easier to manage if I feed her first, but maybe there's something more than that with Lacy."

  "I promised her dessert later?"

  Brian laughed, but quickly sobered. "What I meant was this thing with Lacy, I mean, if you two are seeing each other on a regular basis, it makes a fellah wonder if you're getting serious or if you're just—"

  "We're getting married Wednesday."

  Brian reared back as if slapped. "What?"

  "That was a lie, but I had to shut you up somehow."

  Brian flashed a crooked grin. "Sorry. I'm just wondering, watching out for her, I guess."

  "You and her brother. What a pair. Maybe you ought to get together with him and compare notes."

  "She took you to meet her family?"

  He nodded enthusiastically. "And a lovely bunch of coconuts they are. I've got the scars to prove it."

  "Scars? What did they do to you?"

  "It's what they intend to do that has me worried. I'm no expert on farming, so maybe you can tell me this; what exactly is a combine?"

  Brian scratched his head in obvious confusion, but went ahead and answered the seemingly bizarre question. "It's a big, really big piece of farming equipment that basically harvests crops, say corn, cuts off the stalks, sucks the cobs from them, beats the heck out of them till the kernels fall off, and then spits the trashy parts out at the end. Something like that."

  "Geeze." A little chill ran down Mike's spine.

  "Why do you ask?"

  "Charlie, that's Lacy's brother, actually threatened to run pieces of me through his combine."

  Brian considered this. "I wouldn't worry about that. I don't think any farmer would risk an expensive combine on the likes of you. He'd probably be more likely to stuff you in the wood chipper."

  "Hey, what's that supposed to mean? I don't see the problem with me seeing Lacy. We happened to like each other. How can that be such a bad thing?"

  "It's not," Brian said with a chuckle. "I think we all feel that she deserves the best, maybe more than you're willing to give. I just don't want to see her hurt."

  "Man, this is like déjà vu all over again."

  "Come again?"

  "Exactly."

  Brian shook his head in frustration. "I'm not going to get a straight answer out of you, so how about I leave you with a straight question."

  "Fire away. You can't hurt me. I'm wearing my new brother slash self-appointed uncle Kevlar vest."

  Somehow Brian managed to ignore Mike's very clever response. He somberly said, "Lacy's a good woman and deserves the life she set out to have. Just watching her with Jeremy, I can tell that she's going to be a good mother someday."

  Mike shot a quick, alarmed glance her way.

  His tone a little too smug, Brian added, "How's that going to work for you?"

  * * *

  Down in South Dakota, parenthood simply wasn't working out for Martin and Sara Jones. Oh, they still held a great deal of affection for little Moses, but in a word, he was absolutely driving them crazy. If only he would stop crying for more than an hour or two at a time, things might be different. They might still be trying to live the family life they'd once dreamed of so mightily.

  Now all they could think about was getting their old life back. Of being together again, happy, alone in the quiet of their humble home. It seemed an impossible task—how did one relieve themselves of a baby?—until Martin thought back to the way they'd come across Moses in the first place.

  If a baby broker sold babies, it stood to reason that they probably bought them, too. What were the odds of selling Moses back to the broker who'd brought him to them? They still had the email address of the broker. All Martin had to do was hop in the truck, make the trek to the Pierre Library, and borrow one of their computers again.

  But could they go through with it, shed themselves of the baby they'd wanted so badly? A thin wail coming from the back room, a sound that promised to grow into a full on screech, suddenly convinced the Martins that, yes, they could.

  Chapter 15

  November blasted the Dakota plains with icy winds and the promise of an early and bitterly cold winter. The first snow of the sea
son had yet to fly, but those with a nose for the weather, claimed that day wasn't far off.

  Lacy didn't mind, in fact she rather enjoyed the winter months with the exception of icy roads. She loved watching fat snowflakes trickle down from the sky, made it a point to catch the first flake of the season on the tip of her tongue, and never failed to throw herself backwards onto a thick blanket of snow to make her annual snow angel. She was, however, of sound enough mind to dislike blizzards and all the havoc they wreaked.

  The air was below freezing as she drove to work in the morning, but the streets were dry and clear, and she looked forward to a long day at the office. When the temperature dropped, generally speaking, crime did too, so Lacy was busy at her computer writing a centerpiece article on winter preparations. She was working on a section of the piece regarding conditions where the city might call for anti-icing, a method of preparing the streets prior to the first snowfall in order to make the roads easier to maintain after the storm. That's when a voice suddenly shattered her concentration.

  "Hey, you planning to work right through lunch?" asked Paula, who plopped down on the edge of Lacy's desk.

  She glanced at the clock and saw that it was past noon. "Oh, wow. How did it get so late?"

  "Professional focus," Paula said with a laugh. "You're so busy concentrating on that article, you haven't noticed anything else. Nothing at all, in fact."

  When Paula went off on one of her vague insinuations, Lacy knew she was prepping her for one of her mental scavenger hunts. She hit 'save', closed the file, and then sat back in her chair.

  "I'll bite," she said, studying her friend for clues.

  Paula's wispy blonde hair was pulled back in a sloppy ponytail as usual, and Lacy was pretty sure she'd seen the long turtleneck sweater before, so maybe it was something she wouldn't ordinarily notice.

  "Glasses," she guessed. "You got new glasses."

  Paula rolled big blue eyes magnified to twice their size and said, "How can you possibly be a reporter and yet be so unobservant?"

  Lacy had no idea what she was talking about. She shrugged.

  "Look where I'm sitting," Paula hinted. "There's a reason I chose this part of your desk."

  Lacy blinked and scanned the area around Paula. And then she finally saw them. A string of tiny white bells draped around her printer and across her bulletin board. Wedding bells.

  "Very funny," Lacy remarked, not particularly amused. "Who's getting married? Anyone I know?"

  "I was hoping you could tell me." Paula leaned forward conspiratorially. "You haven't said much about Mister Not-So- Tall, Dark and Handsome lately. You're still seeing each other, aren't you?"

  "Sure. I see him, he sees me. We've both got excellent eyesight."

  "Oh, you know what I mean. Why do you have to play things so close to the chest? I tell you how things are going in my romantic life."

  Lacy sighed. "Paula, you tell strangers on the street what's going on in your romantic life."

  "That's not true." She pursed her lips and considered that a minute. Then she amended the statement a little. "Okay, it may be partially true, but not with complete strangers."

  The two shared a laugh, and then Paula poked Lacy with another probe. "Come on. What gives with you two?"

  Lacy sighed again, this time deeper and heavier. She really wouldn't have minded sharing her feelings about Mike, but she wasn't entirely sure exactly what they were. It was as if they'd reached some kind of plateau in their relationship, a stalling point where the engine that drove them to be together could either die off, or jump into a higher gear. Worse yet, Lacy didn't know which option she'd prefer. She knew she cared about Mike, and deeply, but was it enough to make the jump? And what about him? She knew that Mike held her in great affection, but he too was dragging his feet, holding something at bay, that little burst of fuel that could fire them up like a rocket ship.

  "Uh... Lacy? You still there?"

  She snapped her chin up. "Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to ignore you. I just don't know how to answer your question."

  As Lacy searched for the perfect portrayal of their relationship, the city editor made his way across the room and saved her the trouble.

  "Got a press conference at the Sheriff's department at two," he announced as Paula hopped off the desk. "There's a break in the Hankins murder case."

  Lacy leapt out of her chair. "They have a suspect?"

  He shrugged. "That's all I have. Just the press conference. Get there early and take Paula with you. I want pictures of this one."

  Lacy almost saluted him. "Will do, sir. I'm on it."

  Moments later the two piled in Paula's car and headed for the nearest fast food restaurant. Lacy wasn't even sure what she'd ordered, much less what she ate. Then, determined to arrive early enough for a front row seat, the two raced over to the courthouse. After going through security, they made their way back to the sheriff's department, showed their credentials, and were escorted down to the basement where the press conference would be held.

  A few reporters had somehow beaten Lacy to the room, but she still managed to secure a front row seat. After what seemed like an endless wait, Sheriff Lyla Seifert finally took her place at the podium.

  "Good afternoon," she began. "Thanks for coming. The subject of today's press conference is one Dale Hermann, a person of interest in the Hankins murder case. I'll give a brief outline to bring you up to date, and then I'll take a few questions. Very few questions."

  She paused to let that soak in. "We have been looking for Mister Hermann over the past few weeks, and finally located him at the Miles City Sheriff's Department."

  Reporters buzzed among themselves and Lacy scribbled furiously.

  "Mister Hermann came to the attention of Montana law enforcement when he was pulled over as a suspected drunken driver. They booked him on DUI charges and that's when they discovered that we had more than a passing interest in the man."

  She took a sip of water, and then the sheriff went on. "It seems that Mister Hermann was driving on a license suspended here in North Dakota due to more than one DUI. This was a violation of his probation as well, so we sent our officials to Montana in order to bring Herman back here to face those charges, as well as answer a few questions we have about the Hankins case. He is, as we speak, on his way here and will probably be interviewed sometime tomorrow. Any questions?"

  Flashbulbs popped, and a slew of reporter's hands went straight up.

  A voice behind Lacy shouted out, "Why is he a person of interest in the Hankins murder?"

  "I'm not at liberty to offer too many of the details," the Sheriff warned. "I can say this much; we have witnesses that place a pickup similar to Hermann's near the Hankins home on several occasions, including the day Misses Hankins disappeared. That truck has been impounded and is in the process of being transported back to Bismarck for a thorough forensic examination." She glanced around the room. "Anything else?"

  Lacy's hand shot up with all the rest, but the sheriff chose a reporter from the local Fox News affiliate. She asked, "Has Hermann said anything about the killing?"

  She shook her head. "No, but he has absolutely no alibi. He also fled the State immediately after Misses Hankins' body was discovered."

  The sheriff pointed to another television reporter who asked, "When he was apprehended, was Mister Hermann carrying any weapons that could be tied to the case?"

  "I'm not at liberty to say." Then finally, she pointed at Lacy.

  "What about the baby?" she asked. "Was there any sign of him, or did Hermann mention him?"

  To Lacy's dismay, the sheriff shook her head. "We have nothing on the baby so far. Mister Hermann claims he can't remember even hearing about the Hankins murder, much less the disappearance of her baby."

  Crestfallen, Lacy jotted a brief note about the missing baby, and then heard another voice ask, "What about Misses Hankins' autopsy? Did you ever establish the cause of death?"

  The sheriff nodded. "Suffocation. She also sho
wed a series of burn marks around her neck caused by several contacts with one or more stun guns. It's safe to say that she was already dead or close to it and unconscious when the baby was removed."

  A few other hands went up, but the questions were quickly dismissed for one reason or another. Sheriff Seifert ended the conference by pointing to a stack of papers on the table to her right.

  "These are mug shots of Dale Hermann. Help yourselves. We'll keep you all informed about our progress on the case as best we can. Thanks for coming."

  * * *

  By nightfall everyone in Lacy's circle, if not everyone in town, knew about the arrest of Dale Hermann and the fact that the police were taking a hard look at him for the Hankins murder. She and Mike had gone out to supper at a quiet restaurant near the Missouri River, and their entire conversation centered on nothing else.

  Now, after talking her into taking a walk along the riverfront, Mike suddenly and decisively changed the subject. He took Lacy by the hand and said, "When you're not writing about the murder or wondering whatever became of the baby, do you think about anything else?"

  She came to a halt and cocked her head. "That sounds like a loaded question."

  Mike formed his fingers into the shape of a gun and fired. "Bang."

  "Ouch. Bull's-eye." Shivering against the bite in the air, Lacy pulled up the collar of her heavy coat and fastened the top button. "That didn't sound like you loaded up with rock salt. What's on your mind?"

  He gathered the lapels of her coat in his hands and pulled her close. "Us."

  She swallowed hard, knowing somehow this conversation was coming, dreading the fact that it had already arrived. Forcing a light tone, she said, "What about us?"

  Mike took a long moment to answer, spending the time staring deeply into Lacy's eyes. Finally he smiled and said, "For the past few days or maybe even weeks, I've been kind of on the fence about us and where we're going. It seems I finally figured out that all I had to do was let go and fall... in love, that is."