Fudge-Laced Felonies (16 page)

I pulled away. “Not with you.” And what did he mean, asking for trouble? I’d done nothing to lead him on. I’ve been the perfect picture of virtue. At least with him. My thoughts toward Ethan were something I’d been working on for years.

“Don’t pout. It doesn’t become you.” Nate’s voice sounded cold. He’d stopped his sweet-talking.

I turned and headed toward the kitchen’s square of yellow light. Once I stepped into the safety of the open yard, I spun around to face Nate. “I don’t think we should see each other anymore. You want something I’m not able to give.”

“Summer,” he said, “you’re so irresistible I can’t help myself.”

“You’ll learn.” I spun on my heel and marched toward the house.

“It’s Banning, isn’t it?” His words cut through the night.

“Yes.” I spoke so softly I wondered whether I’d said it aloud.

“You’ll regret this, my dear.”

I glanced over my shoulder. Nate melted into the shadows. From the front of the house came tuneless whistling as Duane took his walk. I stepped from the night into the warmth of Aunt Eunice’s kitchen. Immediately the stress of walking with Nate dispelled, drifting on the wind.

Aunt Eunice wiped the speckled tabletop with a dishrag. The flab beneath her ample arms waved, and I smiled at the homey picture she made.

“Where’s Ethan?” I locked the dead bolt behind me.

“He went home.” Aunt Eunice tossed the rag into the sink. “Same as Joe and April. Your uncle’s gone to bed. And I’ve just finished up in here.” She reached behind her and untied her sunny yellow apron then tossed it across the back of a chair. “Follow me.”

Uh-oh. I recognized her tone. Aunt Eunice had something that needed explaining. And usually I had the explaining to do.

I followed her into my messy bedroom. Aunt Eunice lifted the bed skirt and pulled out my book. “What’s this? I thought I’d get started on putting your room back together, and I stumbled across it. The Dolt’s Complete Guide to Private Investigating?”

“It’s to help me solve this case.” I snatched the book from her hand.

“Doesn’t seem to be helping much. Unless you’ve got a suspect you haven’t told anyone about.”

“It will. I haven’t had much of a chance to read.”

I plopped on the edge of the bed and stared at the book. According to the cover, I could be a private investigator or at least be as smart as one. I read down the cover’s listed points. Getting a license didn’t interest me. I did want professional tips on gathering evidence. These case examples were interesting. I returned my gaze to my aunt’s face. “I really want to solve this, Aunt Eunice. I’ll take whatever help I can get.”

The bed sagged beneath her weight. “It’s going to be harder now that Joe is off the case. That other officer might throw you in the slammer for getting in the way.” Something inside me burned to follow these events through. Other than the candy store, I couldn’t recall finishing a single thing I’d ever started. Flitting from one idea to another.

I shrugged. “I can’t let it go now even if I wanted to. Someone thinks I have something I don’t. If I back off the case, I don’t think they’d leave me alone. I can do this. I know I can.”

“I agree with your uncle on this one. It’s not a game we’re playing.”

“I know that.” I tossed the book back on my nightstand. “It’s hard to explain. At first I thought it’d be fun trying to find out where the diamonds came from. Then everyone seemed so adamant I stay out of things. Now I don’t feel I have a choice in the matter. It’s either solve the case, or someone’s going to do something bad. Maybe to me.”

“I probably sound like I’m beating a dead horse here, but have you prayed about it? Asked God what you’re supposed to do?” Aunt Eunice plucked a pillow from the floor. “About your safety and Ethan?”

“I don’t even know where to start.” Heaviness weighed me down. Tears pricked at my eyelids.

“Then you’re in a bit of a pickle. But things sure would be easier if you didn’t try relying on yourself all the time. God says His yoke is easy. His burden light. You should try asking Him sometime.”

Aunt Eunice was right. But I’d done things my way for so long that I didn’t know how to let go.

Truly joined my aunt and me on the bed, planting her sturdy body between us. I scratched behind her ear while my gaze roamed across the room. It resembled a war zone.

The curtains hung lopsided. Fingerprint powder covered every surface. Clothes hung from drawers or were scattered around the room. Stuffing from the mattress lay strewed about, and a metal spring poked my left buttock. At least I had a good reason to buy a new mattress—one of those pillow-top styles I’ve always wanted.

“I told Nate I didn’t want to see him anymore.” Saying the words gave me inner peace. Like an immense burden lifted from my shoulders.

“Any particular reason?”

“When I was with him, it was like avoiding the arms of an octopus. He suffocated me. Nate moved way too fast.”

“He seemed like such a well-mannered boy.” Aunt Eunice rose from the bed and scooped rumpled clothing into her arms.

“Nate seemed too perfect. Too well mannered and smooth talking.” Give me a real man like Ethan any day.

“Probably for the best.” Aunt Eunice dropped the armload of clothes into the hamper. “You’re hung up on Ethan anyway. It’ll be hard to find someone who compares.”

I rolled my eyes and plopped back on the bed. “I’m nothing but a little sister to him. His Tinkerbell.”

She grabbed handfuls of mattress stuffing. “I think Ethan cares more than he lets on.”

“You think so?” I sat upright. “He’s just playing it cool? Hard to get?”

“He’s still single, isn’t he? A handsome young man like him.” Aunt Eunice shoved an armful of stuffing at me. “You might want to stick this back in the mattress until you’ve got something better to sleep on.”

Stuffing? Sleep? My aunt’s views on Ethan’s feelings were more important. “You think Ethan is single because he cares for me? Why doesn’t he do something about it then? Make a move? Kiss me?” Marry me.

“Why don’t you ask him?” She shoved the last wad at me. “Waste not, want not. It’s late, and I’m going to bed.” She cupped my cheek. “Either ask him, or wait to see what God does, huh?” Her fingers slid away, and she left the room.

Staring at the stuffing in my hands, I shook my head. I’d never heard of such a thing. Restuffing a mattress? Why wasn’t everyone impulsive like me? If I wanted something, I went for it. The word wait wasn’t in my vocabulary unless it meant confronting Ethan about his feelings for me.

My legs gave way beneath me, and I sank onto the mattress. It would be too mortifying to ask him and find out his feelings weren’t the same as mine. I let go of the stuffing. It rolled from my open arms and fell in clumps back to the floor.

I groaned and followed the fluffy what-used-to-be-white stuff until my knees hit the floor. A sharp object pricked my knee, and I drew in my breath with a hiss. I glanced down. A trickle of blood welled and coursed down my shin. I pressed a handful of stuffing to the cut to halt the thin stream.

What did I cut myself on? My gaze traveled the room, halting at my nightstand. Where was the crystal vase I’d gotten for my birthday? Shards of glass glittered up from the fallen snow of the mattress stuffing reminding me of the diamonds.

I remembered something I’d read in my Dolt’s Guide, and a smile spread across my face. Thieves always left something behind or took something with them. The crook’s shoe might carry embedded pieces of broken glass. Now all I had to do was find the culprit and examine his footwear. Then I’d have my perpetrator.

I took fistfuls of the stuffing and shoved them into the mattress. My once-smooth bed became lumpy. Yep, I should’ve retired this mattress years ago. I shoved my arm through the hole in the fabric, struggling to even out the lumps.

Something stabbed me. A cry escaped, and I withdrew my hand, staring in revulsion at the slash across my palm. Pain throbbed through me. Blood dripped onto the wooden floorboards. Maybe I’d found the tool used to slash my mattress.

I held stuffing against the gash in my palm and headed to the bathroom, yelling as I passed my aunt and uncle’s bedroom door. “I need some help!”

They both appeared, dressed in their pajamas. Bless their hearts. Uncle Roy held his gun.

“There’s a knife in my mattress.”

Aunt Eunice’s maternal instinct kicked in when she saw the blood, and she rushed to me. She cradled my hand in her own. “This is going to take stitches. Roy, start the truck.”

“I need to call Joe first.” He chuckled. “Most of the time, people put the knife beneath the bed to cut the pains of labor. You aren’t hiding something from us, are you?” He turned, his mouth split with a smile, and left the room.

“Yeah. Right.” With my love life? I’d probably be childless and a spinster for my whole life. A person could always count on Uncle Roy to find a hillbilly fable to fit almost any circumstance.

“If you’re going to call Joe, call him. Then get the truck started.” Aunt Eunice clicked her tongue.

I pulled my hand from my aunt’s. With the blood washed clean, what we’d thought was a gash looked more like a deep scratch. “I don’t need stitches, Aunt Eunice. I need to clean and wrap my hand.”

“I told you you’d get hurt messing with this case.”

“I wasn’t investigating. I was fixing my bed like you told me to.” I yawned. Too many late nights. I stood like an obedient child while my aunt wrapped my hand. Finished, I went downstairs and lay prone on my back on the sofa. My hand throbbed, my knee stung, and my head ached. Pretty standard feelings for me this week.

Maybe twenty minutes later, Joe arrived entering the house with his own key. I didn’t know Joe had a key to the house. I shrugged. Like Uncle Roy said, Joe might as well move in.

I remained where I lay, grunting a welcome as Joe marched past me. Minutes later, he returned, holding a plastic bag with what looked like a kitchen butcher knife inside.

“Ever seen this before?”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t match our set.” I sat up. “Could that be the knife that killed Terri Lee’s friend? That guy they found dead in the woods? Will you be able to tell with my blood on it?”

Joe held up a hand to halt my questions. “It’s quite possible, and, yes, we’ll be able to determine if this was the knife used to kill David Young.”

“Why would someone slash up my room then hide the incriminating evidence? They had to know we’d find it sooner or later. Do you think we could’ve interrupted whoever was in the house, and that’s why they had to stash it so quickly?”

Joe glowered. “Incriminating evidence? Have you been reading again?”

After work on Friday, dressed with a new Band-Aid on my knee and fresh gauze wrapped around my hand, I drove the thirty miles to the nearest mattress outlet. My stomach soured. I’d slept with a knife inside my mattress, one possibly used to murder someone.

What if the killer had used the knife on me? I broke into a cold sweat. Life had definitely increased in excitement since finding the diamonds. This wasn’t a story in a book, but real life. Things like this didn’t happen in real life, did they?

The strip mall loomed in front of me, and I steered into the first available parking slot. I opened the door and slid from the driver’s seat. Mabel’s late-model black Cadillac was in the spot next to mine. Seeing that, I felt tempted to get back into mine and find another mattress dealer.

When I saw Mabel exiting the store, I ducked on the pretense of checking the bandage on my leg.

“Yoo-hoo!”

I grimaced and straightened. “Mabel, how are you?” The woman wrapped me in a hug. “You sweet thing. Worrying about me. The question is, how are you? If someone attacked, stabbed me, I don’t think I’d—”

“Wait a minute, Mabel.” I pulled free of her suffocating grip and sickening sweet perfume. “Who told you someone stabbed me?”

“Well—” Mabel put her index finger to her lips. “I heard something about a knife, your bed, and you bleeding all over the house.”

And the woman called herself a reporter. “But who were you talking to?”

“I don’t remember. Somebody who spoke with somebody else, probably. It’ll make a great story for the paper.”

“I’m fine. I cut myself when I discovered the knife. Now, I intend to purchase a new mattress. Please don’t mention anyone stabbing me and, whatever you do, don’t write an article about it for the paper.” I tossed the woman a quick smile to take the bite off my words and pushed open the door to the store.

Although I wasn’t in Mountain Shadows, my reputation preceded me to the town of Oak Hollow. Every gaze in the store turned to me, and my face heated. An elderly man wearing a white tag with the name Edgar in red ink took my arm and led me to a cushioned chair.

“Have a seat right here, darling. You tell us what you’re looking for, and I’ll see what kind of a deal I can get for you. My, the things you’ve had to endure.” He shook his head as he patted my hand.

Something wasn’t right. There was more going on than everyone thinking someone stabbed me, right? Complete strangers usually weren’t this kind. I stared around the room in confusion. I wanted my aunt Eunice. I suddenly knew what a caged monkey felt like.

“Uh, I want one of your queen-size pillow-top mattresses. Not too expensive, please.”

“You bet. Anything. Don’t worry about the cost. The woman who left here told us all about what you’ve been through.” With those words, the man turned and disappeared behind a door.

Horror. What had Mabel said? Things didn’t get any clearer when the manager approached me. He clutched a clipboard in his right hand. “We’re going to give you our top-of-the-line mattress for only a bit above cost.”

I glanced up to meet his eyes. Were those tears? “We want you to be as comfortable as possible.”

“Sir.” I stretched to see his name tag. “Mr. Miller.

What exactly did she tell you?”

“How you’d tried recovering stolen diamonds and someone attacked you, and now you don’t have much time left.” He perched on the arm of the chair. “Honey, hasn’t anyone told you?” The man hung his head. “No one should have to find out like this. From a stranger.”