Sweet Hearts (24 page)

At Marla’s nod, Sam suggested
that she put her feet up on the sofa and let Sam massage them. She glanced
toward the other visitors but Camille seemed occupied seeing the priest out the
door and Jorge had disappeared into the kitchen. She applied the warm touch to
Marla’s feet, running her fingers upward to the knee, back to the arches. One
leg and then the other. Energy ran through her fingertips and Marla’s color
seemed to improve almost immediately.

The knitted afghan lay over the
back of the sofa and Sam retrieved it and tucked it around Marla’s lap.

“Stay warm,” she said. “And try
to get some sleep soon. I think you’ll feel better in the morning.”

Marla settled a pillow under her
head and leaned into it. “I will. Thank you, Sam.” Although her coloring was
better, the tiredness remained in the lines of her face.

Sam stood, a wave of
lightheadedness washing over her.

She held her balance against the
chair for a second until the dizziness passed. Camille stared at her, but with
some concentration Sam walked away, picked up her coat and said her goodbyes to
the group. The outdoor chill felt good, bracing her as she willed energy into
her legs and walked to her truck.

The drive home felt like it took
forever. She seriously thought about pulling off the road at Beau’s place; she
knew he would welcome her. But there was something more appealing about
settling into her own bed at the moment. No conversation, no intimacy, just the
temptation to walk into her bedroom and totally, completely, crash.

She kept her eyes on the road and
forced them to stay open. She’d never experienced such a complete letdown after
transferring energy to someone else. Perhaps Marla’s cancer was too formidable
a challenge for Sam’s abilities. As she’d told Zoë, a terminal disease was a
whole different thing than a pulled muscle.

She nearly missed the turn onto
her own street.

“I’m too tired for this,” she
said out loud, talking herself into staying awake two more minutes. “I can’t
keep—”

She hit the brakes hard, a
fraction of a second before the truck would have run into her van in the
driveway.

“Okay, Sam, slow and careful.
Just get inside and get into bed.” She coached herself through each step of
locking the truck, opening her back door, walking through the kitchen.

Television noises came from the
living room.

“That you, Mom?” Kelly called
out.

Sam sent a feeble wave toward her
daughter. “Going right to bed,” she mumbled. But Kelly’s attention had already
wandered back to the screen.

Inside her room, Sam’s backpack
fell to the floor and her coat landed across the bed. She barely remembered
pulling back the comforter before everything went black.

*

Sam startled awake to
unaccustomed bright sunlight in her room. She still wore her same jeans and sweater
and had pulled the comforter over herself at some point.

Marla Fresques. Memories of
driving out to Marla’s house, trying to heal her, coming home completely
exhausted, falling into bed. She groaned and rolled over. From somewhere in the
room a muffled tune played. Her cell phone.

She sat up and patted the
bedcovers until she located her coat and fished around in the pockets for the
phone.

“Sam? Everything okay?”

She assured Jen she’d merely
overslept.

“We got a little worried when you
weren’t here first thing. But it’s fine. Sandy and Cathy got all the muffins
and scones made. Becky is decorating cupcakes. It’s been a little slower than
normal up front.”

Sam thanked Jen and told her she
would be there in plenty of time to finish the two birthday cakes for pickup
later in the day. Then she dialed Marla’s number, which was answered by Diane.

“She’s hanging in there,” Diane
said. “I think she finally slept some last night. Father Joe just called to say
that the funeral home has Tito’s body, and of course Marla’s first reaction was
that she wanted to go see him. They pointed out that wouldn’t be possible.”

Thank goodness. Sam didn’t even
want to think what a murder victim from two years ago would look like.

“Let me know if there’s any
change in Marla’s condition,” she told Diane.

“Realistically, she should be
back in the hospital.” The neighbor’s voice came through quietly. “But she
won’t go. There’s no debating this until after Tito’s funeral.”

Sam glanced at the readout as she
ended the call. After eight o’clock. She pulled herself out of bed and took a
long, hot shower complete with shampoo and lots of conditioner. In the kitchen
she stared into the fridge and decided to go all out with eggs and toast for
breakfast. A pastry at the shop just wasn’t going to give the energy boost she
so desperately needed this morning. For good measure she rummaged through a
cabinet and came up with a multi-vitamin and a few vitamin C chewables.

By nine she was on her way to the
bakery, wondering if she could entirely chalk up the lag in energy to her visit
with Marla last night. She walked in to find that the girls actually had
everything well under control, and Jen showed a decent sales amount on the
register.

Sam pulled the layers for the two
birthday cakes and began assembling them. She put Becky to work icing and
smoothing the quarter-sheet for the soccer girl, while Sam lost herself in the
sculpting of small figures of the players and soccer balls for the green field.
With a miniature goal net and some other details, the piece came together
quickly.

The flowerpot cake was a little
more challenging. Becky began creating sugar flowers and hanging them from a
raised rack to chill in the fridge, while Sam took a stack of round layers and
carved at them until the flowerpot shape emerged.

“Let’s dirty-ice this one and get
it back in the fridge,” she told Becky. “I’ll do the fondant and assembly after
lunch. The customer isn’t planning to be here until around three.”

When she took a short break and
headed for the coffee pot at eleven, she felt surprisingly better.

“I don’t know what happened to my
energy this past day or so,” she commented to Jen when they were alone in the
sales room. “Glad it’s coming back, though.”

“You push pretty hard, Sam. Gotta
give yourself a break now and then.”

Yeah, us old gals,
she
thought. But she didn’t say anything. Her phone rang, down in her pocket, at
that moment.

“Hey, darlin’. How about lunch?
Stop by my office in an hour or so and we can go from there?”

It felt like it had been awhile
since she and Beau had any private time for themselves, and although restaurant
lunches were rarely quiet, it would be something. She told him she would get
there as close to noon as possible.

When she walked into Beau’s
office, a man stood inside, talking animatedly with Beau.

“Hey, Sam, come on in, you’ve met
Jonathan.”

His smile was warm when he turned
to face her and she could tell that the two old buddies were enjoying catching
up.

“Mind if Jon joins us for lunch?”
Beau asked.

She couldn’t very well refuse.
Besides, she had a few questions for the FBI man.

“I had a visit from Rick Wells,”
she said as they settled at a table at the Taoseño. “I guess the two of you are
working the Tito Fresques case together.”

Jonathan raised one shoulder.
“Off and on.” He lowered his voice. “Sometimes our agencies work certain
operations together. Rick grew up in Arizona and has connections to the
informants we’re using against the Mexican cartels. We take the evidence they
gather and work to build the case.”

He got quiet when their waitress
approached. Sam didn’t speak again until the woman had taken their orders and
walked away.

“I haven’t told Tito’s mother
anything about his role in all this and I didn’t think it was a good idea for
Mr. Wells to spring that information on her either,” Sam said. “I hope you
aren’t going to upset her.”

“Seeing Mrs. Fresques was part of
the purpose for my trip north,” Jonathan said. “But Beau tells me the lady is
in poor health and maybe it’s not a good idea to be too frank with her.”

“I wouldn’t. I really don’t think
she knows a thing about Tito’s undercover work.”

Ernhart’s eyes scanned the room
constantly.

“Are we . . . Is it not good to
talk about this here?” she asked, lowering her voice.

“It would be best to wait,” he
said.

Their plates arrived just then,
and the agent picked up his hamburger. Before they’d gotten halfway through
their meal, Beau’s radio squawked.

“Sorry, looks like I need to get
back to the office. Since you all rode over here with me, I guess that means
we’re all leaving.” He signaled the waitress and asked for three carry-out
boxes.

While Beau placed a call with his
office door shut, a file open in front of him, Sam and Jonathan carried their
lunches to the interrogation room.

“So, now that we’re in a secure
place, can you tell me more about Tito Fresques’s involvement with the DEA?”
she asked.

“I’m just now learning a lot of
it myself,” Jonathan admitted as he picked up his half-finished burger. “Tito
apparently did some undercover work in the Navy. From the start, the electrician
training was a cover. He got out, DEA recruited him, got Bellworth to hire him.
He was fluent in Spanish, blended well, knew how to handle himself in covert
operations.”

“And his family never had a clue
about this?”

“Few do. Even if a guy can readily
admit to his wife that he works for one of these agencies, there is
never
any
work discussed at home. The job at Bellworth provided Tito with what he
needed—a way to fit into a middle class neighborhood, a way to let his family
see a paycheck from a legitimate source.”

“You said there’s new information
now?” Sam picked up a French fry that had already lost its crisp.

“Well, finding his body changed
everything. Wells told me they were pretty sure something had happened to him,
but assumed it was back then, when he first disappeared. Now that we know he
was on the run for eight years . . . well, our two agencies are piecing it
together.”

“Have you come up with what
started the whole chain of events—why he vanished that weekend in August all
those years ago?”

“There’s either a mole within the
agency, somebody who gave him up to the bad guys, or there’s a bad guy out
there who pinpointed him. I’m working on that.”

Sam abandoned her tepid meal. “A
strange thing happened to me last night,” she said. “I haven’t even told Beau
about this.”

She recounted the encounter in
the alley, the man who practically raced by her, dropping the name Panther as
he went.

“And you say this was the same
day Rick Wells talked to you?”

It was. Sam had not put the two
events together.

Ernhart got quiet for a minute or
two, but when Sam tried to push for more information he stayed silent.

“There’s still the other
situation,” she said. “Tito’s mother is dying—cancer. The doctors are surprised
she’s lasted this long already. When she goes, it leaves Tito’s young daughter
Jolie all alone.”

“That’s tough. Maybe the
grandmother has made provisions, named someone in her will?”

“I don’t think so. I asked once.
It seemed that she’d not yet made a will, a superstition that taking care of
paperwork would hasten her death. She didn’t want to die until she knew Tito
was coming home.”

“And now he is.”

Sadly, that was true.

“Let me ask again,” Sam said.
“See what I can find out. Meanwhile, if there’s anything at all in his
employment records, the name of anyone that might have been close enough to
take this on, could you . . .?”

“I’ll let you know.”

Sam closed the lid on the takeout
box and looked around for a trash can but there wasn’t one in the interrogation
room. She picked up the remains of Ernhart’s lunch as well, and opened the door
to the squad room.

Beau’s new deputy, Waters, nearly
bumped into her. “Oh, you startled me!”

“Sorry.” He stared at the carpet.

“Did you need something?” Sam
asked.

“No, just looking for the
sheriff.” He shuffled toward the closed door to Beau’s office.

Sam watched him walk away.
Strange guy.

Sam tossed away the lunch
containers and saw that Beau’s door was still closed. Waters had vanished into
some other part of the building. She pecked at Beau’s window with her
fingernail and gave him a tiny wave. No point in waiting around his office; she
still had a complex cake to finish this afternoon.

Back at the bakery, she tinted
fondant to the exact color of terra cotta, rolled it and fitted it to the sides
of the cake layers, eyeing the flower pot shape critically. When she finally
had it to her liking, she sprinkled crushed chocolate cookies over the top to
represent dirt, then looked over the assortment of flowers Becky had worked on
all morning.

Brilliant yellow daffodils, red
tulips, pink and white stargazer lilies, pansies with bright purple and gold
faces . . . she began arranging them as if they were fresh flowers.

“Did you make some extra
greenery?” she asked Becky. “I think this needs a little something more.”

Her assistant pulled a tray from
the fridge. “I thought about that. How about these? I did some broad leaves and
a few that are more delicate.”

“Oh, those ferns are nice.” Sam
picked them up by their wooden-pick stems and placed them among the colorful
blossoms.

“Sam?” Jen stuck her head through
the opening in the curtain. “It’s almost three and I think I saw the customer
for that flower—oh, wow . . . that is gorgeous!”

“Think she’ll like it?”