Baker’s Law (3 page)

Marissa snagged her purse and keys and was coming out to tell Kya she’d be back as
the girls all received their orders. The lot of them headed back out the store. At
the door, the one from Marissa’s neighborhood paused—they’d met at block parties several
times over the past couple of years. “I forgot my book. I’ll catch up.” She waved
her friends away and walked back toward the counter. She checked over her shoulder
a couple of times until the other girls were out of eyeshot. “You live up the street,
right?”

“Yeah.” Marissa leaned her hip against the display case, then waved her hand at herself.
“Marissa.”

The teen’s eyes widened for a moment, then she glanced at the cup in her hand with
the store logo on it. “Cool.” She gave a quick nod of approval. “I’m Lexi. Why were
you running after that boy?”

“You know him?”

Lexi nodded, then took a long sip of her drink. “He goes by Hill. He’s a senior at
my school. Why were you yelling at him?”

“He forgot his change,” Marissa lied easily. “Do you know where he lives?”

Lexi’s cheeks flushed. “He, um, I don’t know. I should go. My friends are waiting.”
She hurried to the door.

“You forgot your book.” Marissa scanned the counter and the table they’d stopped at
momentarily, but there was no book. By the time she turned back to Lexi, the girl
was already out the door.

Marissa shook her head as she removed her apron. “Kya, I need to run out for a bit.
I promise I’ll be back in time to meet with my brother for the door.”

“Okay, boss.” Kya came out of the back with the broom.

Marissa headed out to her SUV. Was she being silly to chase after a teenage boy—one
she’d unsuccessfully tried to turn in to the police chief?

“Maybe it’s sleep deprivation,” she muttered as she slid behind the wheel. Lack of
sleep or no, it didn’t stop her from driving the direction she’d seen the boy—Hill—go.
She was being stupid. There were any number of places a boy could hide, not to mention
he might have just gone home. She was crossing the bridge into one of the main neighborhoods
in Oak Hollow as she shook her head.

“Might as well go back.” Her brother was due at her shop any minute. Marissa made
a U-turn as soon as there was a break in traffic. As she was pulling into her lane,
a flash of color caught her attention. Bright green and blue. Whatever it was, it
hung from a tree branch next to the small creek that bisected the business end of
town from the soccer fields. It caught her attention more when she remembered where
she’d seen something similar before, on Hill—his backpack.

What in the world would the boy be doing next to the creek?

She gnawed her lip. Stop or not, she wasn’t sure, but since she’d been going on foolish
impulse since grabbing her keys, she went ahead and pulled over to the side of the
road and got out. The small area off to the side of the bridge was more cluttered
than she might have expected for a town that boasted its civic pride on every posted
sign.

“I must have lost my mind.” Marissa turned to head back to the SUV and the dirt under
her foot gave way. She slid down the short embankment on her butt, squealing the entire
way down until she hit the bottom. The air jerked out of her lungs. It took a moment
to catch her breath, then she stood and scanned the area. Her heart hammered as much
from her quick ride as it did from the realization of how isolated she was. So far
off the road, no one would be able to see her unless they came down the embankment
as she had. Nor would anyone know if she needed help.

Luckily, no one was lurking about.

She twisted and checked the back of her pants. No holes, but dirty. She shook her
head and dusted off her butt.

For some reason she tiptoed as she crossed over to the small tree that held the backpack.
She checked around her, feeling a little guilty and slightly exposed while snooping.
When she was sure she was alone, she unzipped the largest of the compartments of the
backpack. There were several schoolbooks and a notebook. She slid out the notebook.
Paul Hillman
was written across the front in small, precise black letters.

It was the boy’s backpack. But what did that mean?

Under the bridge overhang, Marissa found a clean sleeping bag. She studied it until
a car horn honked. She looked at her watch. Time to get back to the shop to meet Duff.

She breathed a little easier once she was back in her car and headed back to work.
All the while her mind tried to process a young man breaking into her shop, taking
only a few day-old cupcakes and…doing homework. It made too much sense when she considered
the backpack and the sleeping bag. She got a terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach.

When she arrived at the shop, she headed straight to the restroom to clean herself
up before Duff got there. She didn’t want to explain what she’d been doing since she
wasn’t entirely sure she
could
explain it. Just as she finished cleaning the last of the grit from her palms, Duff
walked in.

“Hey, little sis.” He gave her a quick hug, then pushed her to arm’s length and frowned
down at her. “You look like hell.” One of his blond eyebrows cocked upward as he grabbed
her by the shoulders and gave her a good onceover.

She elbowed her oldest brother in the ribs. “Well, you’re just a ray of sunshine,
aren’t ya.”

“You love me anyway.” He gave her a quick noogie as she tried to swat him. “What do
you need fixed?”

Marissa showed him the hole in the back door, then skirted the issue when he asked
how she’d found it. He told her it had rust around the edges, so it was probably pretty
old.

“I need to run up to the hardware store to get some supplies. Shouldn’t take me too
long to get it done once I get back.”

“Thank you, big brother.” She reared up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek quickly.

Duff snorted. “None of that brother-sister kissy stuff. I want cupcakes.”

She chuckled. “Okay.” She hurried over to her desk and snagged a notepad. “Give me
a list of flavors and I’ll have them ready for you when you’re done.” Duff’s sweet
tooth was only surpassed by his wife’s. He and Libby were often two of her first tasters
when she was working out new flavors for the shop.

After he finished the order, he left for the hardware store.

Marissa grabbed two Black Forest cupcakes, two of the vanilla bombs and four of the
new orange crèmes. And for good measure she added in two of the new maple bacon and
nestled them into the pink-and-white bakery box with a note atop for Duff to let her
know what he and Libby thought of the new flavor. Then she took the rest of the quiet
time in the back to get to work on the paperwork she’d fallen asleep over the night
before. Her eyelids were again growing heavy as she scanned her employees’ time sheets.
It shouldn’t be that difficult with one part-time employee and Kya working full-time,
but the numbers kept swimming around the page.

Maybe if she took a quick break. She crossed her arms over the sheets and laid her
head down.

The next moment, someone was tapping on her forehead. “Wake up, sleepyhead.”

Marissa lifted her head to find Duff standing over her.

“You’re lucky the only markers on your desk were permanent.” He tapped her forehead
again. “You’d be sporting some wicked eyebrows and a ’stache.”

“Small favors, I guess, that you do have your standards for your sibling torture.”
She leaned back in the chair and massaged a kink in her neck. “So how long do you
think it will take you?”

Duff gave a quick snort. “Mar, I’ve already finished.”

Marissa’s eyes widened.

“You were sleeping like a rock.” Her brother gave her a long look. “What’s up with
that? Are you having troubles?”

She debated telling him about the break-in, but what could he do about it other than
worry? “No trouble. Just a lot of paperwork that seems to be interfering with my sleep.”
She lifted the time sheets in front of her.

He looked like he didn’t believe her but didn’t comment further on the subject. “Come,
let me show you what I did.” He motioned for her to follow him to the back door. “The
patch will hold, but I would suggest you think about getting a new door altogether.
And an alarm. This door’s not even wired for anything.”

She opened her mouth to complain about funds being low, but he raised his hand.

“I know they’re expensive. I’m just throwing that out there as an overprotective big
brother.” They stopped at the door and he showed her the small panels he’d fastened
on both sides of the door with some superglue. “And just in case someone gets the
bright idea of prying the panel off, I filled the hole with caulk.”

“Thanks, Duff.” When he straightened he merely held out his hand and batted his eyelashes
at her expectantly.

Marissa rolled her eyes. “Let me get your cupcakes. I’d tell you to go easy on them,
but I think Libby will be lucky if there are any left by the time you get home.” She
patted his belly. “And I threw in two of a new one I’m working on.”

He clapped his hands together. “What is it this time?

“Maple bacon.”

“Hmm.”

That was a noncommittal response if she ever heard one. “Trust me. You’ll love it.”
She handed him the box. “You’ll be calling me begging for more. Just you wait and
see.”

Once Duff left, Marissa finished the rest of the time sheets. Paying her employees
was much more important than leaving a little early if she wanted to keep said employees.

Kya popped back into her office about an hour before close. “Boss, there’s a group
of teens loitering outside the shop.”

Teenagers on their own weren’t that big a deal—their orders made up probably a third
of her business—but for Kya to come back and bring it to her attention… The fine hairs
on the back of her neck stood but she shook it off. It was probably nothing. Or it
could be someone returning to the scene of the crime. Marissa sat up straighter in
her chair. Would Hill be brazen enough to come back to the shop when she was open?
She pushed back in her chair and followed Kya out to the front of the shop. “Where?”

“Right now they’re across the street but they’ve walked past the front of the shop
at least three times.”

“Did they come in?”

The younger woman shook her head.

Under the guise of wiping down the tables, Marissa moved to the large window next
to the door. A group of three guys stood next to a trash can on the opposite side
of the street just as Kya said. It was hard to determine their ages, but they were
dressed like typical teenagers. Hill was not with them. One of the guys, dressed in
khaki pants and a loose button-down shirt, looked over at her. With his close-cropped
blond hair, he didn’t stand out—he looked like any young man from the local high school—other
than the way he kept eyeing her. When it looked like he might cross the street, an
Oak Hollow officer drove slowly down the street. The boys walked in the opposite direction,
not fast enough to look like they were running, but enough to see they didn’t want
any part of the OH police force.

“They’re gone now,” Marissa said returning the rag back behind the counter. “But I’ll
stay here with you ’til close just in case they decide to come in and cause trouble.”

The rest of the evening was thankfully uneventful. Marissa even managed to get the
rest of her reordering done since she had the payroll out of the way. By closing time,
they’d not seen the boys again and her jitters had tamped down considerably.

She and Kya went through the closing procedures in silent efficiency and said good-night
in the parking lot. Marissa sat behind the wheel of her SUV, unsure where to go next.
Her little power nap had energized her enough she wasn’t completely dead on her feet
but wasn’t ready to head home. She’d promised her best friend since practically birth,
Cherry Humphries, that she’d stop by at some point. Since it’d been at least two weeks,
she might as well stop on her way home. And if she
happened
to pass by the bridge where she’d seen Hill’s backpack…who was to know?

She drove over the bridge three times and saw no lights, nor any sign of life for
that matter. And while she may have been crazy enough to go down there in the middle
of the afternoon, after dark there was no way she’d pull over, much less scale the
slick embankment.

She wasn’t sure what she expected, nor was she sure what she might have done had she
found Hill there, but when her side trip came up nil, it swiped at her suddenly waning
energy. At the next intersection—a four-way stop that to the right would take her
home or to the left to her friend’s family restaurant—she merely sat. Contemplating.

Cherry or sleep. She waffled for a moment. When her SUV crept into the intersection,
she hadn’t made up her mind, but at the last minute she made a left and headed out
to the far edge of town to see her friend. Sleep was highly overrated.

Marissa’s stomach rumbled in happy relief as the scent of baked bread and grilled
meat engulfed her the moment she stepped through the door of Calista’s Bistro. The
young girl standing behind the host stand smiled brightly when she saw Marissa.

“Hey, sweetie.” Marissa enveloped Cherry’s youngest sister in a hug.

“My mom’s been wondering when you were coming by.” Violet made a notation in the book
on the stand. “Come on back. How’ve you been?”

“Good. Busy. How are the desserts selling?” Once a week, Marissa sent over a few dozen
cupcakes for the restaurant’s Sunday brunch. She was pretty sure that Mrs. Humphries
only ordered them to help her business along. She wasn’t going to complain, though.

“Usually gone before we can sneak one.” Violet winked at her as she guided Marissa
to the kitchen where the staff was bustling about. At the back of the kitchen, at
a sturdy wooden door, Violet paused to rap her knuckles quickly, but didn’t wait for
a response. “Knock, knock. Momma, look who I found out front.”