Cinnamon Girl

by S. J. MacIver

  "Oh, Mike—"

  He hushed her with a well-placed finger. "I was pretty sure I was falling in love with you, and then with sudden clarity, I realized that it had already happened. I love you, Lacy, and I can't help but wonder if you feel the same."

  Her heart soared for a brief moment, and then sank like a stone. Lacy struggled to find the words, to say the things Mike wanted to hear, but she couldn't force her tongue to frame the syllables. She looked up at him with tears in her eyes and anguish in her heart.

  "So that's how it is," he said sadly. "I've gone and gotten myself into another lopsided relationship."

  "No, please, let me explain."

  He abruptly released her. "What's to explain? You don't love me. Case closed."

  "You don't understand," she pleaded. "It's not that I don't care about you. It's like I gave my heart away a long time ago, and now I can't seem to get it back. I don't know how."

  He took a while to absorb that, and then said, "You're scared. I can understand that, but I'm not in much better shape. Who wants to get hurt again?"

  "I don't want to hurt you."

  Mike touched her cheek. "I know that, but you already have. I'm afraid if I keep seeing you, I'll wind up hurting even more."

  Lacy gasped. "You're dumping me?"

  He laughed and shook his head. "Not yet. Besides, if I were dumping you, I'd take the coward's way out and send a text."

  Allowing herself a little chuckle, she said, "You would not."

  He shrugged. "Okay, probably not. Maybe I'd take out an ad in the personal column of your newspaper instead. Look for something like, Cinnamon Girl has lost her spice."

  Lacy laughed, and then let her head fall against Mike's shoulder. He put his arms around her in response as she said, "Please give me a little more time to get myself together. You do mean a lot to me."

  "I'll give you as much time as I can," he promised. Then he kissed her, his lips hard against hers, took her by the hand, and walked her to his truck.

  They drove toward Lacy's home in awkward silence, each absorbed in their private thoughts. That quiet was suddenly shattered as the sound of sirens overcame them and pulsing red lights filled the cabin of the truck.

  After a quick look in the rearview mirror, Mike immediately steered the vehicle to the curb.

  "What is it?" Lacy asked. "The police or firemen?"

  "Fire trucks," he answered as the first of two behemoths passed the truck. After waiting for a third set of flashing lights, a fire department SUV, to zoom on by, Mike pulled back out into the traffic lane and punched the gas pedal.

  "Are you following them?" Lacy said.

  He grinned. "It's in my blood." He took a quick glance at her. "Don't tell me that the crime reporter in you isn't interested."

  She shrugged. "Oh, I'm interested, but more often than not, these calls turn out to be false alarms."

  As it turned out in this case, the sirens did not herald a false alarm. When they arrived at the scene of the fire, and much to Lacy's horror, Carole Hankins' lovely Victorian home was fully engulfed in flames.

  Chapter 16

  After parking well away from the fire trucks and law enforcement, Mike and Lacy hurried back to the scene of the fire and picked their way through the gathering crowd. Once he finally spotted Carole Hankins standing across the street from her burning home, Mike took hold of Lacy's hand and tugged her in that direction.

  "I see Carole over at the curb talking to a police officer," he explained over the din of voices, crackling flames, and firemen fighting the blaze. "But I can't find Jeremy. Maybe he wasn't home at the time the fire broke out."

  "Even if he was home, I can't believe his mother would make it out without her son."

  As they got closer to the mother in question, Mike spotted Jeremy, who was partially hidden by Carole's bountiful body. He breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Jeremy's standing beside his mother, thank God. They both look fine."

  As they waited a respectable distance from the trio, Mike noticed that barricades had already been set up to keep bystanders out of harm's way, and that the firemen seemed to be making progress against the raging fire. Once the officer moved on and left Carole and her son standing alone, Mike and Lacy approached.

  "Evening, Misses Hankins," he said. "Do you remember us?"

  She tore her gaze away from her home, studied him and Lacy for a moment, and then snapped her fingers. "You're from the newspaper, right?"

  "Right. Lacy is a reporter for the Herald."

  "And you're the photographer," Carole finished. She touched the sides of her hair. "I hope you're not planning to take my picture. My hair must be a mess."

  Mike held up both hands. "No camera, see?"

  Her gaze immediately flickered to Lacy. "And what about you? Are you looking for an interview?"

  "I'd like to conduct one, but only if you feel you're up to it right now."

  She shrugged. "Everything happened so fast, there isn't much to tell."

  While Lacy dug out her reporter's notebook, Mike took the opportunity to go visit with Jeremy in order to make sure that he was all right.

  Pen at the ready, Lacy asked, "Were you and your son in the house when the fire broke out?"

  "Oh, yes." Carole nodded vigorously. "Jeremy was upstairs in his room doing homework, and I was down in the family room watching television."

  After making sure the quote was accurately described, Lacy asked, "And how did you become aware there was a fire? Did you smell smoke?"

  "No, I heard a crash, some kind of commotion in the kitchen."

  "And where is the kitchen located?"

  "At the back of the house. At first I thought a ceiling fan or lamp had crashed to the floor. I couldn't imagine what caused that horrible sound. When I went to investigate, I saw that the kitchen floor—it's solid oak, you know—was in flames."

  Lacy wrinkled her nose. "The floor?"

  "Yes, it looked like a pool of fire."

  Lacy considered this as she jotted the quote. "I'm afraid I don't understand. What was the loud crash then? Did a lamp fall, and how did you wind up with a pool of fire?"

  "The police are going to investigate after the fire is out, but the officer I was just talking to thinks that someone threw a Molotov cocktail through my kitchen window."

  Lacy wrote this down as a possible explanation for the fire. Then she clarified. "A Molotov cocktail. Isn't that a glass bottle filled with oil and gasoline?"

  Carole brightened. "Very good. That's exactly what it is except they put a rag in the bottle and lit it just before tossing it through the window. At least, it looks like that's what happened."

  Lacy shuddered. "Who would do such a thing?"

  Carole shrugged and waved one manicured hand. "Who knows? A juvenile delinquent from Jeremy's school, a jealous neighbor? I don't know."

  Lacy did not make a note of Carole's suspect list. Instead she asked, "Can you think of anyone at all, somebody who might be angry enough with you to set fire to your house?"

  "Nobody I can think of." She shrugged and went back to watching the fire.

  Lacy tucked her notebook back into her bag and glanced over to where Jeremy and Mike were quietly talking. Then she said to Carole, "Are you two going to be all right tonight? You must have lost everything you own."

  The woman tore her gaze from the flames. "We'll be all right. When I saw the fire, I shouted to Jeremy to grab his school books, laptop, and favorite games. Then I dashed into the basement where I keep all my important papers and such in case of a tornado, grabbed everything I could, and we stuck it all in the Cadillac. It's parked out front."

  Lacy didn't even give the vehicle a glance. She was impressed by the woman's cool head and efficiency. "What about a place to stay tonight?"

  The corners of Carole's mouth turned up for just a second, allowing the tiniest smile before she said, "Given the circumstances, I'm pretty sure we can talk Jeremy's father into putting us up for a few days or so. It's not like
he doesn't have the room."

  * * *

  Down in South Dakota, Martin and Sara Jones had come to the end of their rope. There was no way they could keep the fussy baby, not and retain their collective sanity. He had to be returned, something they both agreed upon.

  With that in mind, Martin had gone to the local library several times and tried to the contact the baby broker, all to no avail. The email address he'd used before still swallowed up his notes, but he never received any kind of reply. It was almost as if the company had sold Moses to them, and then gone out of business.

  When it became apparent that the broker would be of no help, the pair finally came up with a plan that would free them of the nightmare parenting had become, and ensure that Moses would be placed in a new and hopefully loving home. Even better, the plan would leave them in the clear, safe from the authorities over any laws they might have broken during the adoption and subsequent return of the sickly child.

  Martin, who had an eye for cars and trucks, had been more interested in the baby broker's ride than he'd been in the baby, and remembered the vehicle in great detail. He'd salivated over the mother of pearl paint job, and coveted the excess of chrome and gold trim that garnished the big SUV. He hadn't been clever enough to memorize the license plate, but did note the fact that the custom-made plate holder, a fancy rope made of gold-plated chrome, sported the name of the automobile dealer. While he wasn't entirely sure of that name, he was positive the dealer was located in Bismarck, North Dakota.

  Martin and Sara put their heads together, decided that the dealer was probably from the same area as the baby broker, and that the best plan would be to return Moses to Bismarck. They would take him to a hospital, the biggest one in town, duck into a bathroom for a diaper change, and then leave the baby and his belongings behind.

  They would also, they cleverly decided, leave a note explaining that Moses was sick and not gaining weight, make mention of the baby broker, and include a description of the SUV and its fancy license plate holder. Since neither had the patience to cut letters out of magazines the way they'd seen done on television crime shows, Sara took it upon herself to draft the note using childish block letters.

  Proud and relieved by their decision, the pair climbed into their rusted-out pickup truck and put the sack containing the baby's meager belongings on the floor. With Martin driving and Sara cradling Moses in her arms—they figured as little as they drove, a car seat was an unnecessary expense—the little family headed north.

  Chapter 17

  A few days after the fire, Lacy got some news that filled her with hope and put a song in her heart. Her first impulse was to call Mike and share what she'd learned with him, but she quickly decided that would spoil the fun. This was the kind of news best delivered in person, perhaps with a big fat kiss.

  Since she'd never been to his office before, Lacy had to dig through her bag in order to find the business card he'd given her when they first met, and then she was off and running. By the time she'd found the correct address and parked, she was ready to explode with excitement.

  She burst into Mike's office unannounced, and shouted, "Guess what?"

  At almost that exact same moment, Lacy noticed that a woman was standing next to Mike's desk. She wasn't standing for long. Startled by Lacy's outburst, the woman turned, caught the heel of her stiletto in the carpet, and fell awkwardly onto Mike's lap.

  Equally stunned, he stared at the young woman floundering around between his legs, and then got hold of himself and helped her to her feet.

  She was wearing a black pencil skirt topped by a tight pink sweater, and had long silky hair so very blond it probably glowed in the dark. Something ugly darted across Lacy's mind as the woman apologized to Mike and then excused herself.

  As she passed by Lacy, she furrowed her brows and gave off a brusque nod. Then she was gone.

  Full of apologies, Lacy focused on Mike and said, "Oh, I'm so sorry. It never occurred to me that you might have company."

  He settled back into his chair, gestured to the empty chair across from his desk and said, "Have a seat."

  Before Lacy could take him up on the offer, Mike pointed to his lap and added, "Unless you'd rather sit here. I have a recent opening."

  Fighting the fire that had erupted in her cheeks, Lacy dropped into the chair and said, "Sorry again for the intrusion. Was she a client?"

  Full of contemplation, Mike stared across the desk for a long, thoughtful moment, before he said, "Misses Weiner stopped by to inquire about my services, but I was forced to turn her down."

  Lacy glanced out the window and watched as the woman, showing way too much leg, climbed into her sporty little roadster. "It must have been difficult turning a beautiful young woman like that away. What did she want you to do—murder someone?"

  He laughed. "Nothing so sordid, but you're right. It was an ethical dilemma. I don't do the kind of work she wanted done."

  Lacy already knew some of the things Mike refused to do as an investigator. Still she had a hard time matching the guidelines she already knew with the fetching blonde. "It must have been something bad because I can't imagine that she wanted you to follow her cheating husband around."

  "Imagine away because it was precisely something like that."

  With another look out the window, and just in time to see the woman drive away, Lacy whistled softly. "If a woman like that thinks her man is cheating on her, what hope is there for the rest of us?"

  Again Mike laughed. "You don't really want me to answer that, do you?"

  She joined in his laughter, shook her head, and then took a quick look around the office. It was small, not much bigger than her bedroom. The room contained Mike's desk and chair, both in basic office gray, a pair of client chairs situated in front of the desk, and two gray filing cabinets. That was it. Nothing decorated the plain beige walls, not one sketch or poster, and not even a clock.

  When she looked back at Mike, he grinned and said, "Pretty fancy, huh?"

  Lacy arched one eyebrow.

  "I was going for retro, twentieth-century austere to be precise."

  "In that case, I'd say your sense of style has been a magnificent success."

  Chuckling, Mike sat forward and placed his hands on the desk. "So what has you excited enough to finally put in an appearance at my place of business and drive my only customer away?"

  Lacy paused, checking his expression to make sure he was only kidding about the lost customer, and satisfied that he was said, "I came here to tell you about an abandoned baby."

  Mike frowned. "That sounds awful. And that excites you how?"

  Lacy inched forward until she was sitting on the edge of her chair. "I don't think it's just any baby. It's very possible that this child might turn out to be the missing son of Jerry Hankins."

  Mike perked up. "Have the police said as much?"

  Lacy shrugged. "Not in so many words, and I don't have all the details, of course, but I do know this. Someone dropped a baby boy off at the hospital with a note saying they'd adopted him, but that he was sick so they were returning him."

  "Returning him? You mean like curtains they bought at Wal-Mart and brought back because they didn't match the couch?"

  Again Lacy shrugged, as perplexed by those details as Mike. "I guess he got to be too much trouble."

  "Who were these people?"

  "I don't know. They didn't leave their names, of course, and so far as I know, there are no leads." She scooted even closer to the desk. "One thing I do know is that the hospital has a lot of security cameras in and around the parking lot. It shouldn't take too long for the police to figure out who came in with a baby and left without one."

  Mike absorbed all this, and then quietly said, "None of that points to the baby belonging to Jerry Hankins. I hope you don't have your heart set on that."

  She did, of course, but said, "Oh, I know all that, but here's what's working in favor of this being the Hankins child. There are no current cases of missin
g babies, this baby is the approximate age the Hankins boy would be, and from what the police can piece together, the adoption appears to be the black market sort."

  Mike shrugged. "Okay, that makes it a stronger case for making this the Hankins baby, but I still can't make sense out of the whole thing."

  "What thing?"

  "The entire crime, right from the minute Candee disappeared until now. I think about it now and then, and haven't been able to figure out how the ex-boyfriend figures into the murder or anything else for that matter."

  Law enforcement had been very quiet about their person of interest of late, and reporters' questions were usually met with a stern, 'the matter is still under investigation'. All Lacy knew for certain was that thanks to his driving record and probation violations, Dale Hermann would not be leaving his cell jail anytime soon.

  "There's nothing new on any of that. As far as I know, all we have is a few neighbors who spotted Hermann there the night Candee disappeared, and he doesn't have an alibi. It's not much to go on, but I still think he looks good for at least having a hand in the crime."

  "And that's my point." Mike tapped his forehead. "If he had anything to do with the murder and beyond, he had to have had some kind of help, especially with the baby. That part just doesn't fit."

  "Well, no, not really," she had to agree. "I just can't imagine anyone who would have helped him pull off such a heinous crime."

  "Someone did," Mike insisted. "I can see Hermann, a drug addict and alcoholic, getting drunk or high and killing his former girlfriend, but then how does he even have the idea, much less the smarts to deliver the baby, find a buyer, and make the transfer so smoothly? More to the point, why does he even bother to save the baby?"

  Lacy had considered things from that point of view, and only one explanation made any sense. "Because maybe he thought the baby was his and not Jerry's?"

  Mike looked as if he'd been slapped. "I never thought of that. At least it makes a little more sense that way, but I still don't see a drugged-up guy capable of pulling this off. His truck came back from forensics clean, didn't it?"