Sweet Hearts (19 page)

“Thanks, Jonathan. I appreciate
anything you can do.”

The agent clicked off the call
before she could quite formulate the question that nagged at the back of her
mind. She folded her phone shut and it rang again immediately; Kelly, wanting
to let her know that she’d be out again this evening. She’d no sooner ended
that call than Jen called from the bakery.

“I’m on my way,” Sam said. “Five
minutes.”

The ‘emergency’ would have been
laughable if the young woman hadn’t looked so absolutely stricken.

“A wedding cake on two hours
notice—I don’t think we can do that,” Jen was saying when Sam walked in.

“But Jorge and me, we’re going to
the judge at five o’clock. And then to my sister’s for the reception.”

The desperate bride probably
wasn’t more than seventeen. Sam got the feeling it was sort of a last-minute
wedding. “I make it a policy never to tell a customer no, but this will be a
stretch.” She took the girl’s elbow and led her to one of the bistro tables.
“Let me see what we can do.”

She left the customer with a cup
of tea and went to check the refrigerator. A quarter-sheet and one small
six-inch round were the only cakes that were already frosted.

“Are these committed to anyone?”
Sam asked.

Becky shook her head. “They were
going toward tomorrow’s stock.”

“Bake a couple extras for the
displays. I’m taking these.” Sam picked up her sketch pad and headed for the
front.

Sitting at the table with her
young customer, she quickly sketched an idea for using the small sheet cake as
a base and stacking the little round tier on top.

“I’ll put roses around, like
this. What color would you like for them?”

“Pink. And can you write
‘Congratulations Jorge and Christine’ on it? And maybe put a little bride and
groom on the top?”

Sam remembered a little plastic
topper left over from the days when they were more popular. “I’ve got you
covered. Give me thirty minutes.”

Jen’s eyes widened as the girl
stood up, but Sam ignored her and squelched the knowledge that she would
normally spend twice that time on the simplest of wedding cakes.

The girl pulled out a wad of
bills and began counting ones and fives.

“Five dollars,” Sam said. “That’s
the price.”

Now Jen’s eyebrows went straight
to her hairline, but Sam placed an arm around her young client’s shoulders.
“We’ll make you a beautiful cake.”

“That was nice of you,” Jen said,
once the girl headed toward the bookstore.

Sam shrugged. “Those kids need
some kind of a break. Might as well give it to them now.”

She dashed to the kitchen and
began stacking layers. Luckily, with the Valentine’s Day hubbub, she had plenty
of shades of pink buttercream already made up. The roses flowed from the tip of
her pastry bag, and it took no time at all to pipe borders and add little
embellishments to personalize the cake to the young bride’s content.

“Twenty-eight minutes,” she said,
raising the pastry bag in a sign of triumph.

When three pair of eyes stared at
her, she realized she’d just revealed one of the magic box’s effects.

“Well, it was probably actually
longer than that,” she backtracked. “You know how time flies when I get wrapped
up in something.”

When she heard the chime on the
door, she boxed the cake and took it out front.

“That was close,” Sam told Jen as
they watched the happy bride carry away her prize. Jen smiled at her.

“Okay, back to the real world.”
Sam handed out assignments for the rest of the day: bake layers and heart cakes
in chocolate, vanilla and red velvet. Blend up a triple batch of dough for
cut-out cookies and get it into the fridge. Make sure there was plenty of
tinted fondant and buttercream for the two wedding cakes that would be
delivered tomorrow afternoon. Her three kitchen staffers set to work, and when
the last two left at six o’clock, Sam surveyed the suitably stocked shelves.

As Jen handed Sam the bank bag
with the day’s receipts, the phone rang.

“Thanks, Jen. Don’t worry about
that—I’ll get it if you’ll lock up the front.” She turned to sit at her desk.
“Sweet’s Sweets, how may I help you?”

“Sam, hi, it’s Marla.” Her voice
was strong and cheerful.

“My gosh, Marla, you sound so
much better.”

“I am better, Sam. I don’t know
how, but I feel wonderful.”

Wonderful, as in, slightly
better than dying?

“My doctors can’t explain it, but
they sent me home.”

“
What?
You’re at home?”

Whatever Sam thought she might
have gotten from the wooden box, this was way beyond. Way beyond anything.

“Isn’t it amazing? They came into
my room this afternoon and I was sitting up in bed. After that little nap, when
you were there? Well, I felt pretty chipper and I was just about to try taking
a walk down the hall. The nurse was supposed to draw some blood, I guess, and
when she saw me sitting up she called Doctor Caulder in. He tested the blood and
came back after an hour or so. He said my white count was so much better, he
couldn’t believe it.” Sam heard something metallic in the background. “I told
him I wanted to come home, that I wasn’t sick enough to be in that bed. He
thought I should stay a few more days and have some more tests. But I didn’t
want any of that. I called Diane. She and Jolie came and picked me up. We’re at
my house now, making dinner.”

Making dinner. Sam remembered her
vision of Marla cooking for Tito and Jolie. She felt her mouth flap open but
words wouldn’t form.

“So, I just thought I’d let you
know, in case you went by the hospital and didn’t find me in that room.”

“Well, you sound . . . you sound
amazingly good.”

“I am good. I’m great, in fact.”
She let out a little giggle before she said goodbye.

Ohmygod, what have I done?
Sam leaned back in her chair and stared at the screen saver on her computer.
Was there any way that her touch had brought such a change in her friend’s
condition? She pictured the nearly skeletal woman in the bed shortly after noon
today. Was there any way that her touch had
not
brought this change?
What she would give right now to have a chat with Marla’s doctor.

She pulled out the phone
directory and looked up the number for the hospital. There was always a chance
he might still be on duty. It took a few transfers, a little explanation and
some outright lies but Doctor Caulder finally believed that he was talking to
Marla’s niece from Colorado.

“I recommended against her
release,” he started out, covering his liability right from the start. “The
turn-around in her condition was so absolutely sudden that I can’t rule out a
quick and equal relapse.”

“So, the cancer isn’t gone?” Sam
asked.

He rattled off some numbers that
Sam didn’t begin to understand but the gist of it was that Marla’s cancer was
still there, although the tests showed huge improvement. “I’m recommending
another round of chemotherapy,” he said. “Even though she is resistant to the
idea, it’s my opinion that it would prolong her life.”

When baffled by good news,
stick with standard medical procedure.
Sam wanted to snap back at the man
but held her tongue.

“It would be a good idea for the
family to keep a close watch,” he cautioned. “If you notice any signs of
fatigue, loss of appetite, a downturn—I want you to call me. It will be very
important to get her right back here.”

Sam thanked him and set the phone
down. The cancer wasn’t completely gone, true, but the change in Marla was
startling. Despite the doctor’s pessimistic attitude about the temporary nature
of the upturn, as long as Marla felt well enough to be at home there was hope.
One thing about it—this development bought Sam more time to work on finding
Tito.

Something Jonathan Ernhart had
said earlier on the phone continued to nag at the back of her mind but she
couldn’t pinpoint it. Glancing up from her desk reminded Sam that she was
facing one of the busiest days of the year tomorrow. She checked her supplies
and reassured herself that they had plenty of everything. Her earlier burst of
energy as a result of handling the wooden box seemed to have evaporated and she
remembered the phenomena from other times. When she transferred vitality to
someone else, it was as if she’d used it up and left none for herself. Which
was fine—if she could make Marla well, it was worth it. She should go home and
get a good night’s rest to be ready for the full day tomorrow.

Locking up and driving home she
pondered this newest development. If she were to handle the box often—say,
every day for a week—and transfer the energy to Marla, would it be possible to
completely cure her friend’s cancer?

But how far would she take this
newfound ability? She had a quick snapshot of herself sitting under some little
canopy, extending her hands to the masses who would inevitably find out about
her and bombard her with pleas for help. If she had the power, it would be the
right thing to do.

Then, too, what would be the
repercussions? There had to be side effects to channeling all this energy
through her own body. Would she weaken herself irreparably? And how could she
ever hope to cure everyone of every affliction—it was an impossible task. And
what of her own life—would she willingly give up her business, her
relationships, and all hope of privacy in the quest to help others? By the time
she pulled into her driveway she felt weary from thinking about it.

She gazed disinterestedly into
the refrigerator but nothing appealed to her. Instead, she shed her work
clothes and took a long, hot shower and put on her cozy robe. The wooden box
sat on her dresser and she placed her earrings inside.

Back in her kitchen, Sam dialed
Beau’s cell phone on the off chance that he might have been thinking of coming
by for dinner. They hadn’t touched base all afternoon and she couldn’t remember
what his plans had been for the evening. But it only rang once and went
immediately to voice mail, which probably meant he was swamped at the office
and had switched it off. She sighed and opened a can of soup, heated it and
carried her bowl and some saltines to the living room.

A ringing phone brought her out
of a doze. She stared, a little disoriented, at the empty soup bowl on the
coffee table before she realized the sound came from the kitchen table where
she’d dropped her cell phone when she came home.

“Ms Sweet, this is Jonathan
Ernhart again.”

She squinted her eyes tightly
shut, placing him. Beau’s FBI contact.

“Yes, of course.”

“I’m afraid I may have some bad
news.” He paused but she didn’t fill the gap. “We’ve tentatively matched a John
Doe in Washington DC with Tito Fresques.”

Sam felt as if an ice-blue fog
enveloped her head. Her vision and hearing blurred for a few seconds. “A John
Doe? He’s dead?”

“Yes, ma’am, I’m afraid so. I
mean, the John Doe is definitely deceased. We’re not absolutely certain that
it’s Tito Fresques, not yet.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“The partly decomposed body was
found in a park in a DC suburb about two years ago. DNA samples were taken,
photographs, all the standard crime-scene work. He was not identified at the
time and was eventually buried. When I used Bellworth’s file prints of Tito
Fresques to run a nationwide missing-persons search, an eighty-percent match
came back with this unknown man’s prints.

“These fingerprints alone aren’t
enough to positively say that it’s him. As I said, the body wasn’t in great
shape. To do an ID, I should try to get something with Fresques’s DNA, and I’m
wondering if his mother might contribute a sample for matching. I thought I
would drive up in the morning and visit her, but you said she’s in the
hospital?”

Sam could envision Marla’s
recovery taking a sudden and sharp downhill turn.

“I might be able to offer
something better,” she said, the idea popping into her head instantly. “I was
at Mrs. Fresques’s home a few days ago and found a couple of items that
belonged to her son. They’ve been stored in a cardboard box for years.” She
described the sock and the comb. “Do you think they might still have anything
useful on them?”

He hesitated. “I don’t know.”

“It’s just that Mrs. Fresques’s
health is very precarious. If she felt that there was some hope for finding
Tito alive . . .” Sam swallowed hard at the thought of telling Marla about
this. “It would be best not to break this to her until you are absolutely
certain.”

“I understand.” He seemed to be
pondering.

“I could go out to her house, ask
her for the items.” She didn’t want to say that she could be more tactful than
a lawman could, but it was what she was thinking.

“I’d like to pick them up
myself,” he said, “rather than hoping the mail could get them here safely.
Faster too.”

Sam looked at the clock on her
oven and saw that it was not quite eight o’clock.

“Let me talk to her first,” she
suggested. “Call me when you get to town tomorrow and I can fill you in on her
state of mind.”

Surprisingly, he agreed.

Before he had the chance to call
back and talk her out of it, she dashed to her bedroom and slipped out of the
robe, putting on warm sweats and a fleece top. The wooden box sat on her
dresser; she picked it up and held it close.

“Come on,” she pleaded. “I can
use a second dose of strength right now. For Marla.” She held on until the hot
glow became almost too much, then set the box down.

While her truck warmed up she
called Marla’s house. Diane answered.

“She’s a little tired right now,”
the neighbor said, “but I know she’d love to see you. I’m sure it would be
fine, as long as you don’t plan to stay too late.”