Bitter Sweet (24 page)

“Renata Butler wasn’t so lucky.
Multiple fractures of her left leg, trauma to her neck, a gash to her temple.
She was hospitalized for two days before being moved to Life Therapy. She may
be there for weeks.”

Sam’s attention had grabbed onto
one fact. “Why didn’t Renata slow down before pulling out onto such a major
street?”

“Well, inexperience wasn’t the
reason. I’ve just been on the phone with the mechanic that I asked to
re-examine the car. Her brake line was tampered with. There wasn’t a drop of
fluid in there.”

“How did she get that far from
home without noticing?”

“There would have been enough
pressure in the line to stop the car at slow speed, maybe a time or two. That
probably got her out of her driveway but by the time she reached Paseo there
was nothing left. Stomping on that pedal would have been completely useless.”

Sam let the information settle.

“Beau, I’m worried for her.
Clearly, someone tried to kill her and make it look like an accident. Now that
she’s lying there helpless in a bed, they’ll come back after her.” The words
rushed out faster and faster. “Post someone by her door, Beau. Someone has to
keep her safe.”

“
Darlin
’
you know how understaffed I am for the next couple weeks. Guys are on vacation.
Two of my deputies were out sick this week and somebody always calls in sick
Sunday morning.”

Hungover
.

“It’s almost a sure thing.” He
paused but she didn’t argue with him. He sighed. “I’ll call over to the rehab
place and ask that they keep an eye open for trouble, but I can’t put one of my
own men out there for at least a few more days.”

Sam opened her mouth. Closed it
again. He would do whatever he could.

“I
gotta
go,” he said. “Somebody’s tapping on my door.”

Sam closed her phone and tried to
come up with a good answer. But no brilliant ideas presented themselves.

She realized she was tired but
she forced her attention to the road and drove toward Sweet’s Sweets. Kelly was
just walking out the back door of Puppy Chic when Sam pulled up.

“Leaving early?” Sam teased.

Kelly pushed her damp curls off
her forehead. “It was a little slow today. Like the calm after the storm,” she
said. “How about you?”

“Crazy. Every bride thinks hers
is the only Saturday wedding in town.”

Kelly followed her up the steps
to the bakery’s delivery entrance. “Are you coming home tonight or going out to
Beau’s?”

“Home, I think. He’s swamped at
the moment. Lot of overtime for him, since some of his guys are out on
vacation. I need to catch up on my sleep.”

Kelly gave her a knowing glance.

“For your information, Miss, I
just couldn’t fall asleep last night. I got to looking through some of Iris’s
things. Beau hasn’t done anything toward clearing out her room yet. I guess
he’s just not ready.”

“It’s been hard, losing her,”
Kelly said with a catch in her voice.

“If you want to lend a hand here
until closing time,” Sam said, “I’ll spring for dinner. Your choice, anything
you’d like.”

Her daughter gave it about three
milliseconds of consideration. “Italian? I hear that new place is fabulous.”

“Call for a reservation. If we
can’t get in by eight, it’ll have to be another night. But yeah, I’ve been
wanting to try it too.”

Sam did a quick visual survey of
the kitchen while Kelly pulled her phone from her pocket. Becky had a mass of
sugar wildflowers in front of her—asters, lilies and sunflowers. Sam remembered
taking the order from a middle-aged couple who definitely looked like the
earth-child types. Their cake would be simple but beautiful. Julio was taking
the half-sphere of cake that would form the skirt for the last-minute Barbie
cake from the oven.

“Mom? We can grab a five-thirty
reservation or there’s nothing until after nine.”

Sam glanced at the clock. She
would have less than an hour to shower, change clothes and be there but she
could make it. “Earlier sounds better.”

“
Kel
,
can you gather these decorating tips that I left out earlier? Toss them into
that tub of soapy water in the sink, then store the pastry bags and extra icing
in the fridge?”

She stepped to the front to see
how sales had gone for the day. Jen was alone and the displays were nearly
empty.

“Let everyone take whatever they
might use at home over the weekend,” Sam told her. “There’s not really enough
here to make a donation to the homeless shelter. A slice of cheesecake, two
turnovers and three cookies might only cause a riot there.”

A woman walked in just then and
took the two turnovers. Sam threw in the cheesecake for free and told Jen that
the employees could divvy up the cookies however they saw fit.

“I’ll donate mine to Becky’s
little boys,” Jen said. “My waistline is already suffering from this job.”

Sam considered her own width
compared to her slender helper, remembering the sting of Nina Rae’s comment
about Sam losing weight before her wedding. As a teen she’d been called curvy,
later it was voluptuous, and in middle age she knew she was just plain chubby,
even though working with sugar and chocolate all day had somewhat dimmed her
own taste buds for desserts. She vowed to order a small portion of whatever she
chose tonight at the new Italian place.

She left Jen in charge of the
final locking up and by the time she and Kelly arrived at
Venezia
she got a hint of its popularity. The restaurant consisted of one narrow room,
lined with tables full of chattering people, the air filled with the voice of
Andrea
Boccelli
. Their last-minute reservation netted
them the tiniest table near the kitchen but the smells coming through that door
literally made her mouth water.

Once their glasses of the house
red wine were delivered, Sam chose a spinach ravioli and Kelly opted for a
baked ziti dish. They clinked glasses and didn’t do a very good job of ignoring
the plate of
foccacia
bread the waiter deposited in
front of them.

“So, Mom, you said you were going
through some of Iris’s things last night?” Kelly said through a mouthful.

“There was a box of stuff the
rehab center sent home with Beau, just the few things she had with her.” Sam
pulled her hand away from the bread plate. “A couple of things disturbed me.”

“Like what?”

Sam told Kelly about the lawyer’s
business card and the religious pamphlet. “Beau says Iris would have never
given that preacher the time of day.”

“That’s an understatement,” Kelly
said. “Boy, she told me some things . . .”

“Really?” Sam knew Kelly had
developed a great fondness for the old woman and had spent a lot of time with
her, visiting and reading books to her.

“She was down on religion
big-time after Mr. Cardwell died. What was it she said? ‘When my Matthew died,
those people came swooping in and wanted to run the show.’ ”

“Really? What did she mean?”

Kelly sipped from her wine. “I
guess his mother—that would be Beau’s grandmother—donated a lot of money. At
one time she even left the church some land. Iris gave me the impression that
her motherin-law’s generosity left some of those church people with the idea that
they could show up anytime they wanted, with their hands out.”

“And by the time Matt died the
family didn’t have anything to give. Beau told me how tough things were for
them financially, how they lost their ranch. I had no idea what was behind it.
I’m not sure he even knows.”

“Well, don’t quote me. I got
those details in bits and pieces. I’m just saying . . . Iris wouldn’t have
welcomed anybody who said he was a clergyman into her room. If he left a
pamphlet, that thing would have been in the trash.”

Their dinners arrived and Sam’s
first bite of the rich, smoky marinara sauce caused her to moan. “Oh my, that
is
so
good.”

Kelly’s baked dish was so
steaming hot that she had to stir it to let the heat escape.

“Anyway,” she said as she watched
tendrils of steam rise, “I wonder why Iris
did
keep that pamphlet. There
has to be a reason.”

“Did she ever say anything to you
about it, that or the business card, specifically?”

Kelly took a tentative bite and
thought about it. “You know, she might have. I’d forgotten all about this.
Twice when I visited her she talked about some bad men who were not to be
trusted. One time I thought she said they were coming after her.”

Sam stared.

“But you know, Mom, how garbled
her speech was. And I think that place . . . I think they gave her sleeping
medications at night. You know, to keep her from getting up and trying to
wander around or something. Some of the things she told me seemed like pure
fantasy, like she’d dreamed them. The part about the strange men seemed so farfetched
that I chalked it up to that. And the part about not trusting, well, she got to
where she was untrusting of nearly everyone. I could see this suspicious look
in her eyes, even when
I
came through the door. At least until she
recognized me. I mentioned it to a nurse once. She said paranoia and fears were
very common when elderly people were put into a new environment.”

Sam chewed slowly, trying to
absorb this new information. Back then she’d been so busy with the Christmas
holidays and then the new year and trying to plan for her own wedding. She
hadn’t gotten by to see Iris nearly enough, and then she was gone so suddenly.
What if Iris
had
been begging for
help? She needed to talk to Beau about this.

*

That proved more difficult than
Sam anticipated. She and Kelly gave up their table at
Venezia
,
as a crowd of people formed near the door. From the passenger seat of Kelly’s
little red car, Sam dialed Beau’s cell phone, only to have it go to voicemail.
No answer at his house either, but that wasn’t surprising. He’d hinted that he
would probably be working late. The desk officer answered the sheriff’s
department line and told Sam that, yes, Beau was in but he was on another call
and three others were on hold. Could a deputy help her?

“I’ll just catch up with him
later.” She redialed and left a message on his cell to call her whenever he had
some free time, but she really didn’t expect to hear from him before morning.

When they got home, Kelly said
she was going to change into something looser and watch her favorite reality
show. Sam agreed about comfortable clothing but once she’d changed she couldn’t
settle on the couch and become interested in the television. She busied herself
cleaning out the refrigerator—something she hadn’t done in weeks—making space
to store their Italian leftovers.

By nine, she still hadn’t heard
from Beau but her eyelids were drooping. She said goodnight to Kelly and hit
the bed hard.

When she rolled over and glanced
at the clock it was only 1:37. Odd dreams—probably sparked by the rich food and
unsettling conversation—punctuated her attempts at sleep and she finally
decided to go to the bakery at her regular time, even though it was her only
day off.

The streets were deserted at this
hour on a Sunday morning, and the cool air felt good on her face as she drove
with her van’s windows down. She parked in the alley and went into the kitchen.
Her only “must do” tasks for the day were to decorate the Barbie doll cake for
that woman who had flagged her down yesterday, and to check her supplies and
place an order online. She would deliver the birthday cake early and be free.
With luck, she might get sleepy enough to go home and get a few more hours
rest. One thing she’d learned about her work schedule—she had to grab sleep
when and where she could.

She found the dome shaped cake
that would form the doll’s skirt. Julio had placed it in the fridge after it
came out of the pan. Plenty of pink and lavender frosting was already made up
in tubs and Sam set that out too, gathering her tools and the plastic doll’s
head and torso, which, when assembled and decorated would look like a slender
princess wearing a ball gown. While the icing reached room temperature she
booted up the computer and then made the rounds of the kitchen, checking her
inventory of everything from flour and sugar to toppers for wedding cakes and
tiny flags for Independence Day cupcakes. She jotted notes on a scratchpad.
Better check the coffee and beverage supplies while she was at it, she decided.

The sales room was in night mode
at this hour, with only a hint of the lightening gray sky outside. She switched
on the overhead track lights and started toward the beverage bar when something
caught her eye. A square of white paper lay wedged under the front door.
Someone must have dropped a napkin and Jen missed it. Sam walked over to pick
it up.

Not a napkin. The folded sheet
looked like standard copy paper. She opened it and stared in disbelief.

STOP MEDDLING YOU BITCH!! was
hand printed in bold black marker.

Sam’s heart raced. Who—? She
stared at the block letters.

Her thoughts zipped every which
way. Had she made a customer angry? Had someone targeted her business? She
reread the note four times. Meddling, bitch. No, this wasn’t about business.
This was personal. And it probably had to do with the questions she’d been
asking at the nursing homes. Instinctively, she held the note by one corner,
although something told her that her prints were already all over it.

She carried the note, like a
disgusting dead thing, to her desk and dropped it there. Beau should see this.
But it was way too early to call a man who’d put in a very late night. She
paced the floor, too full of adrenaline to settle back to her work. Finally,
she realized the futility of it. Nothing could be accomplished until she could
talk to Beau. And she wasn’t going to be such a baby that she had to go crying
to him at five in the morning.