Cream Puff Murder (33 page)

It hadn’t been long, or at least she didn’t think that much time had passed, but she felt dizzy, disoriented, light-headed. Her skin felt hot and it reminded her of sausages on the grill. They split open if you didn’t score them with a knife. Would her skin split open before anyone found her?

Heat rose. The moment she thought of it, she dropped to the floor. Could she dig her way down to safety? But the floor was tile and under the tile would be a concrete slab. Out of luck. She was trapped. There was no help to be had below her.

The ceiling. She hadn’t checked that out yet. But the ceiling was perfectly smooth…except for something that made her draw in her breath sharply. Hope bloomed as she stared up at the round white disk with the holes ringing its circumference.

The conversation with Herb about the alarm systems in the sauna came back to Hannah with startling clarity. It was a smoke alarm, not a heat alarm. If it was set off, it went straight to the Lake Eden Fire Department. Hannah glanced down at the rose she’d placed on the bench of the sauna. Some plastic smoked when it melted. The rose Andrea had given her could be her lifesaver!

It was her only chance. Hannah took a deep breath of the stifling hot air and did her best to pull herself together. Then she forced her body to move. She was so hot, so enervated, but she couldn’t give in to the lethargy that threatened to leave her gasping. She’d be a lifeless puddle on the floor if she didn’t act now.

Fire. Plastic. Smoke. The words flashed in her fading mind. She had to hold the rose close enough to the heating coils to ignite it. And then she had to climb up on the bench, stand up as tall as she could, and hold the rose up to the smoke alarm.

Hannah crawled. She couldn’t stand upright. She was simply too weak. She crawled to the source of the heat, the coils that were so mercilessly draining her life away, and held the rose directly over them. Her vision was wavy, but she saw the rose send up a wisp of smoke and start to melt, the red petals of the flower sinking into the green of the leaves. And a horrible smell began to rise from the smoldering, smoking, melting plastic.

Now, Hannah’s mind told her, and she forced herself to climb up on the redwood bench. It took all the strength she had, but somehow she managed to raise her arm and hold the melting, malodorous rose as close to the smoke alarm as she could.

There was no way she could breathe. The stench of the smoking plastic or the smoldering wire, she wasn’t sure which, was unbearable. She was probably breathing in carcinogens, but that didn’t really matter in the giant scheme of things.

Hannah held her position until her arm muscles spasmed and what was left of the rose dropped to the floor. She was right behind it, collapsing on the bench and giving way to the horrible lassitude that consumed her body and her mind.

Time passed, how much she wasn’t sure. Life passed and there was a loud, awful ringing in her ears. Images of family, of friends, of things near and dear to her came, and faded, and changed, until they all melded together in one unfinished life. Hannah crawled her way to the wall, the farthest she could get from the cloying lethal heat. And then she curled up, her ears almost deafened by the ringing, her nose to the floor, praying for a breath of fresh air.

“Hannah?” a voice called her name. “Hang in there, Hannah! I’m here!”

A dream. Mike’s voice. It was the last voice she’d hear in this world.

“Hannah!” Mike lifted her in his arms. “I’m getting you out of here now. Don’t worry. I’ll never let anybody hurt you again.”

That’s nice. That’s good, Hannah thought, as her mind began to revolve in concentric circles.

“We got him. We got Tad Newberg. Stella got the call while I was there. He was the stalker at Macalester.”

“Not Tad. Frank,” she squeezed the words out of her parched throat. “Frank…killed Ronni. And he tried to…kill me.”

She heard him give orders for someone to go after Frank. And then he was carrying her out, out where she could breathe again.

“I’ve been such a louse,” he said, placing her on a gurney. “I am such a louse. But I love you, Hannah. I love you more than anyone else in the world.”

He leaned over her as they pushed the gurney to the ambulance. “Just a quick checkup with Doc Knight,” he said.

“I need to go home,” she said, and her voice was weak and scratchy. “Don’t let Doc keep me. Come with me and take me home.”

“I will.”

“Promise?” she whispered, just to make sure.

“I promise,” Mike said.

H annah felt like doom was imminent as she opened the door at the Lake Eden Community Center. She was no longer worried about Ronni’s killer. Frank Hurley had fled shortly after the smoke alarm activated, but the sheriff’s department had caught him and taken him into custody. With one count of murder and a second count of attempted murder, Hannah figured it would be years, perhaps a lifetime, before Frank saw the outside world again.

When Mike’s team had searched Frank’s house, they’d found the tape from the parking lot camera, which had functioned perfectly, showing everyone leaving the birthday party before Ronni was killed. They’d also discovered the tapes from the hidden camera at the Jacuzzi, including the one that contained footage of Frank knocking Ronni unconscious and deliberately leaving her in the tub to die.

Tad Newberg had been the stalker at Macalester, but he hadn’t really done anything illegal. It was just that the romantic attentions he’d paid to one of the young teaching assistants had been both obsessive and unwelcome. She didn’t appreciate the flowers he’d left on her doorstep in the middle of the night, or the way he’d called her several times a day to ask for a date. When the head of security at the college had confronted Tad about his actions, Tad had been so embarrassed that he’d resigned.

Hannah opened the inner door and walked across the lobby. Today she faced the real danger, the menace that turned her mouth as dry as dust and caused her legs to tremble as she walked down the hall to the dressing room that brides and bridesmaids used to freshen up before their wedding receptions. It was time to try on the Regency dress that Delores had ordered for her, the same dress that had been much too tight to button only two weeks ago!

“Oh, dear!” Claire Rodgers made a little sound of distress. “It’s too large in the waist!”

“Too large in the waist,” Hannah breathed, taking immeasurable delight in saying the words. Never, in her wildest imaginings, had she ever thought anyone would use that phrase to describe an article of clothing that belonged to her!

“It’ll be fine, don’t worry.” Claire patted her on the shoulder. “I’ll just tie the apron strings tighter. No one will even notice.”

“No one will even notice,” Hannah breathed, and this time the words took on the character of a dirge. She’d lost so much weight that her dress was too large in the waist. And no one would even notice!

It was the big day, and Claire was there to help them dress. The actual launch party and book signing would be held in the community library with volunteer librarian, Marge Beeseman, handling the sale of their mother’s book.

“I’m so proud of you, Hannah,” Andrea complimented her. “I knew you could do it, but I had no idea that diet and exercise would work this well. Your dress really is too big.”

Michelle nodded. “She’s right. You must have lost almost twenty pounds!”

“I think it was the sauna,” Hannah said, making light of her harrowing experience. “I was in there so long, I must have sweated off ten pounds.”

“Are you girls ready?” Claire came back with a digital camera. “Your mother asked me to take a picture. She’s going to put it up on her Web site.”

“The Web site for Granny’s Attic?” Michelle asked, and Hannah could tell she was wondering how a picture of the three of them in Regency dresses would go with photos of collectibles for sale at the mothers’ antique shop.

“Mother has a new site,” Hannah told her. “Norman’s creating it for her. It’s just for her books.”

“Books, as in more than one book?” Andrea asked.

“That’s right. She says she likes writing so much she’s already working on the next one. And even more people from Lake Eden are in it!”

Andrea gave a little groan. “I just hope that Mother was complimentary when she wrote about her friends and neighbors.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Hannah said, shaking her head. “Remember the night that Mother told us about the book?” When both sisters nodded, she continued, “I write the people the way they truly are, Mother said, the way someone who didn’t know and like them the way I do would describe their flaws and their strengths.”

“Uh-oh,” Andrea breathed.

“Uh-oh is right!” Michelle gave a little groan. “But maybe we’ll get lucky and people won’t recognize themselves.”

Hannah looked doubtful. “Maybe, but I still wish Mother had set her romance in medieval England.”

“Why’s that?” Andrea asked.

“Because then she could have worn a suit of armor, just in case.”

“You look great, Hannah!” Mike said, snagging a chocolate mini cream puff from her platter, popping it into his mouth, and swallowing it practically whole. “I just love these things. Do you have a minute? I need to tell you something.”

Hannah put her tray down on top of a low bookcase and let him lead her to the back of the library, as far away from the crowd as they could get.

“You have to hear this,” Mike said with a grin, pulling his copy of A Match for Melissa from his pocket. “Here’s what your mother wrote about me. The Duke of Oakwood was a fine figure of a man, dressed in exquisitely tailored clothing and boots that glistened from the attentions of his valet. That’s me, Hannah. I always polish my boots so they shine like that. And then she said, His deep eyes sparkled with humor and gleamed with a keen intelligence, and as he ran his fingers through his hair, a lock eluded him and dropped low to his forehead. I run my fingers through my hair a lot, and she must have noticed. What do you think of that, Hannah?”

Hannah’s mind flipped through the possibilities and came up with a winner. “It’s amazing,” she said, borrowing the phrase Michelle had used to describe their mother’s signing.

“That’s what I thought! Your mother must like me even more than I realized. She described me perfectly, and she made me the hero of her book!”

A few minutes later, Hannah was back at work. She’d just served Stella Parks, who’d come to the launch party to congratulate them all on a job well done, when Carrie came rushing up. “Would you care for a cream puff?” Hannah asked her.

“I’d love one, but I’ve already had three.” Carrie stepped a little closer. “Do you have a minute, Hannah?”

Off they went to the rear of the library, and Hannah had a feeling she was about to experience déjà vu. She knew she was right when Carrie pulled a copy of A Match for Melissa from her purse.

“Just listen to this, Hannah,” she said, flipping it open and starting to read. “Her soft, well-modulated voice was as music to the ear, and her lovely features were a delight to the eye. Isn’t that just wonderful?”

“It’s amazing,” Hannah said, resorting to the phrase she’d used with Mike.

“I never dreamed your mother would make me the heroine of her book. I’m just too flattered for words! And she even describes the hairstyle I wore when I first moved to Lake Eden. Just listen…Her shining tresses were neatly confined in the twist she had fashioned at the nape of her long and shapely neck. I’m just so thrilled, Hannah!”

“Of course you are,” Hannah said, grateful that the two descriptions, either correctly or erroneously attributed to Lake Edenites had been complimentary. “I’d better get back to work, Carrie. We don’t want the author to get mad at us.”

The next request for a private conference came only a few minutes later. Before Hannah could find a convenient place to set down her tray, Mayor Bascomb had pulled her to the back of the library.

“You know, I always thought your mother didn’t like me,” he said. “But I was wrong, Hannah. Just listen to this…”

Hannah had all she could do not to groan as the mayor pulled a copy of her mother’s book from his pocket. He flipped to a page he’d marked with a square pink sticky from Marge Beeseman’s desk, and began to read.

“His deep eyes sparkled with humor and gleamed with a keen intelligence. Now tell me that isn’t me!”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Hannah said quite truthfully.

“And how about this? As he ran his fingers through his hair, a lock eluded him and dropped low to his forehead, giving him a boyish attitude and reminding her of a joyful childhood spent with boisterous friends. Your mother nailed it, Hannah. That’s exactly what my childhood was like, and she knows it because she used to be my summer babysitter.”

“That’s just amazing,” Hannah said, and it was. It seemed three people thought Delores had written about them!

“Well, I’d better let you get back to work. I just wanted to tell you how pleased I am that Delores acknowledged me by making me the hero of her book. Do you think I should thank her?”

“No! I mean…” Hannah thought fast. If Mayor Bascomb mentioned it to Delores, she might deny it, and then there’d be trouble. “I think Mother would be embarrassed that you unraveled her little secret. And she’d probably say it wasn’t you, just to throw you off the track.”

Mayor Bascomb thought about that for a moment and then he nodded. “You’re absolutely right. I won’t say anything about it.”

During the next hour, no less than five people came up to Hannah to tell her they were the heroine or hero of A Match for Melissa. They all had their own reasons. Claire Rodgers told Hannah, a trifle hesitantly, that she thought she might be the heroine because of the way Delores had described the color of her gown.

“Listen to this, Hannah,” she’d said. “The sea-green color set off her sparkling eyes perfectly, and the vivid hue accentuated her flawless skin. I wore a dress just like that to church, and your mother asked me to describe the color. And then she said it went perfectly with my eyes and my skin.”

“Amazing,” Hannah had said, for the fourth time.

The next to corner Hannah had been Bonnie Surma. “Oh, Hannah!” Bonnie had said, smiling so widely Hannah wondered if the corners of her mouth might crack. “I think your mother modeled the heroine of her book after me!”