Sweet Somethings (Samantha Sweet Mysteries) (6 page)

“I’ll come in at night and help
with it,” Becky pleaded. “Anything at all. I feel so awful.”

Sam faced her and put her hands on
Becky’s shoulders. “It’s not your fault. I should have fixed that shelf a long
time ago. And I shouldn’t have started stacking the chocolates there. I could
have found a safer place.”

Tears spilled down her assistant’s
face.

“Listen—it’s fine. I’ve really got
the recipe down pat now so I can remake them in a lot less time. Do not worry!
I mean it.”

Julio set down his wrench and gave
the leg of the shelf a couple of good tugs. Sam went to his side and the two of
them set the shelving unit upright. She gripped both sides of it and shook it.
The thing felt solid but she agreed with Julio’s suggestion that they should fasten
it to the wall. He rummaged through her toolbox and came up with enough sturdy
bolts to do the job.

“Okay, back to work,” Sam said.
“What else needs to be finished this afternoon?”

Becky pointed to a princess-themed
birthday cake she’d been working on when the need for the glitter arose. She
assured Sam that she felt steady enough to finish it. Jen went back to the
front displays, and Sam began sorting through the boxes for clean, unbroken pueblo
chocolates.

It would be far simpler to sell
them from a bulk tray and bag them for the customers rather than boxing them in
charming sets of four and six as she’d done earlier. She glanced at the clock.
Tonight was as good a time as any; once the shop closed she would sneak back
and work on them.

“Don’t forget all these posters,”
Jen said later, as she set the bank bag on Sam’s desk. She tilted her head
toward a large box that Sam hadn’t noticed earlier, what with the demands of
reorganizing the contents of the downed shelf.

Carinda had, as per the plan,
counted out some posters to place around town but had left the majority to be
divided and distributed by Sam, since most of the committee members were her
friends. She’d figured on twenty posters per person. Sam pulled a few off the
stack and asked Jen to place two in the front windows of Sweet’s Sweets and
take twenty to Riki’s dog grooming shop for distribution. She would see that
Kelly took a share of them too. And she could drop by Rupert’s place on her way
home and leave a batch with him. Only forty or fifty to go—goody.

She carried the box out to her
van, figuring she would ask everyone she came across to take a few. Beau might
even be able to put them in the public areas around the sheriff’s department
and the county courthouse. With less than a week to go, they really needed to
get these things posted soon around town.

Feeling a little lucky that
neither Kelly nor Rupert were home when she got to their places, Sam left the
posters where they would be found—in the kitchen at Kelly’s and on a small tea
table on Rupert’s covered front porch. She got back into her van and drove away,
wishing she was merely going home to crawl into bed early.

Unfortunately, her list of tasks
was way too long and she didn’t dare put off redoing the chocolates. The
upcoming week could only get more crazy with each passing day.

She had no sooner pulled into the
driveway than her phone sent out a trill that meant a text message from Beau:
Traffic accident
call—don’t wait dinner
.

Poor deluded husband—as if there
would have been any dinner tonight anyway. She replied with a chipper tone,
saying it was okay, she would catch up on some things at work. She parked
beside the big log house where both dogs met her with such enthusiasm that she
wished she really was going to stay home with them. She scooped food into their
bowls and went upstairs in search of her magic energy fix.

The carved wooden box sat near the
sink in the large master bathroom, right where she had left it. The sight of it
reminded her that she really had meant to get back to the hospital to check on
Sarah Williams. With luck, maybe her previous visit had helped Sarah improve to
the point where she would soon go home. She picked up the box and closed her
eyes, sending positive messages out to her friend as the warmth of the wood permeated
her hands. The box’s energy traveled up her arms; the moment her hands began to
feel too hot she set it on the vanity top.

Shaking her arms to dispel the
tingle, she made her plan—stop by the hospital to see Sarah, then back to the
bakery to work on chocolates.

* *
*

The parking lot at Holy Cross was
packed with early evening visitors. Sam cruised through it twice and ended up
parking on the street a half-block away. Inside, people hovered around the
doorways of rooms that were too small to accommodate the large families who believed
lots of bedside company was the cure for anything. The space around Sarah’s
room at the end of the hall was noticeably quiet. Sam peered inside to find the
bed empty. Oh, no. She spun around to see a nurse walking toward her.

“Sarah Williams? Where is she?”
Hoping like crazy she’d gone home.

“I’m afraid Ms. Williams slipped
into a coma this afternoon. We’ve moved her to ICU.” Seeing Sam’s stricken
expression, the nurse gave directions. Sam made her way to the wing with the
glass-fronted rooms full of beeping equipment.

Marc Williams stood looking down
at Sarah, who seemed even smaller and more defenseless than ever. Sam walked
in, ignoring a nurse at the desk who seemed ready to ask questions.

“It happened pretty suddenly while
I was gone to get some lunch,” Marc told her. “There is some bleeding in the
brain and the doctors are deciding when to do surgery.”

“Can I hold her hand for a
minute?” she asked with a lump in her throat.

“I’m sure that would be all
right.” He moved aside and Sam stepped to the side of the bed that had fewer
wires and tubes.

She took Sarah’s hand and willed
some of her excess energy through the connection between them.
Please get better, Sarah. Please come back.
It seemed selfish to end the thought by begging for the story of the other
wooden box, the one in Ireland, but the idea did flash through her head for a
split second.

Sarah stirred slightly but didn’t
blink or make a sound. After a couple of minutes Sam set her hand gently down
on the blanket. She gave Marc her phone number and asked him to call if there
was any change.

All the way to her shop, Sam
thought of Sarah. They’d grown close during their work on the committee,
laughing at Carinda’s hysterics. Already she was missing Sarah’s contributions
to the meetings. And, she’d learned a lot about the wooden box and its previous
owner from the older woman, but there was still so much more. What Sam knew
must be only a fraction of the artifact’s history; plus, the second box still
intrigued her. She’d had the chance to hold it briefly, when she and Beau
honeymooned in Ireland last year. She’d gotten no reaction from that one,
nothing like she experienced every time she picked up hers. But still . . .
there were so many unknowns. Her uncle Terry had promised to tell her the
story—then he died. Now Sarah, who had hinted that Bertha might have said more
about it. If Sarah died now, without saying anything more, did it mean that the
second box carried some kind of curse? Something that prevented its secrets
from being revealed?

No! Sam shook her head to clear
this line of thought. Granted, Uncle Terry had owned and handled the other box,
but she had learned nothing to suggest that either Bertha or Sarah ever
actually came in contact with it. She had to stop this thinking and put her
energy into something practical, such as replacing the ruined chocolates.

She parked behind the shop and let
herself into the quiet kitchen. Her supply of dark cacao was running low and
she had to do some quick adjustments to the recipe. How much simpler this would
be if Bobul, that oddball chocolatier, were to show up and take over. The large
man in the heavy brown coat, with his bag of mysterious ingredients and tools,
always made the entire chocolate-making process seem so effortless.

She pulled out her largest kettle,
feeling brave about tackling one large batch rather than making smaller ones as
she’d been doing. She carefully weighed the sugar and butter and began stirring
the mixture over a low flame on the stovetop.

Within minutes the familiar
motions of stirring and watching the ingredients blend calmed her. She sent her
remaining energy through the handle of the spoon and into the bubbling pot. The
chocolate took on a creamy quality the moment she added pinches of those little
powders Bobul had given her. Whatever was in those pouches, it was
the
thing that made her chocolates
special, gave them qualities unlike any other. When the mixture was perfect she
poured it out for tempering, working automatically and quickly.

Filling the pueblo molds didn’t
use nearly all of the dark mixture, so she pulled out every other mold she
owned. Any shape that didn’t specifically scream ‘Christmas’ got put to use, as
Sam turned out flowers, stars, shells and generic shapes. She placed the molds
on trays in the cooling racks and looked around, feeling the last of her
residual energy drain away.

The chocolate-coated kettle sat in
the sink; sticky spoons and spatulas lay about, but it was only ten o’clock.
She had fully expected to work through the night. She gathered the tools and
dumped them all into the large pot, squirted detergent on top and filled the
thing with hot water. The actual scrubbing could wait until morning, she
decided, turning out the lights and locking the back door.

The ranch looked so good, the
porch light glowing softly to welcome her home, the dogs sitting expectantly on
the porch unable to settle down until their ‘pack’ was complete. She pulled the
van into her normal spot and greeted Ranger and Nellie, who herded her toward
the front door. Beau greeted them and led Sam to the kitchen where he brewed a
cup of her favorite tea.

“Long day, huh?”

“I swear that eighty percent of my
day goes toward this dumb festival right now. One more week and I plan to give myself
an extra day or two off.”

His eyes wandered upward. “You
must have been tired when you stopped in earlier. You forgot your phone. I
think you have a few messages.”

“Oh, god. Not tonight.”

Upstairs, she found the phone on
the bed where she had changed shoes at some point in the afternoon. No way was
she going to make calls this late at night, and she knew better than to listen
to the voicemail messages because something on there would surely rob her of
her sleep. Better to find out in the morning. She turned off the ringer and
stowed the phone deep inside her pack before heading to the shower.

By five a.m. Sam had brewed coffee
when Beau came downstairs, ready for his day in uniform.

“Well, the Flower People have
started to show up,” he said, pouring the hot brew into his favorite mug.

“Oh, honey, last night I was so
tired I completely forgot to ask how your day went. I’m sorry.” Sam put her
arms around him. “How’s it going with them?”

“As of dusk yesterday, there were
two old converted school buses, painted blue, with about a dozen occupants.
They passed me on the road and I watched them turn off at Mulvane’s place.”

“Maybe you’ll get lucky and that’s
all there will be.”

He snorted. “I really doubt that
but I will try to hold on to your positive attitude.”

“And meanwhile I bet you are
cruising by there all day long to keep an eye on things.”

“The old ‘trust but verify’?
Except in this case I have very little trust.” He seemed restless. “Can I take
you out to breakfast?”

Sam thought of the eight voicemail
messages she was avoiding, all from festival committee members. “Absolutely.
Anything to delay leaping into the fray.”

“How about that little burrito place
out by the ski valley turnoff? You can ride with me and then I’ll bring you
back here to get your van.”

“And this choice would have
nothing to do with the fact that we’ll drive right by Mulvane’s place on the
way.”

“Okay, you got me.” He plucked his
Stetson off the bentwood rack near the front door.

Sam stuffed her phone into her
pocket, leaving her backpack and the folder of festival notes on the kitchen
table.

Beau steered down their long
driveway in the department cruiser and made a right turn at the road, away from
town. A quarter mile farther, the narrow lane leading to the neighboring ranch
showed fresh tracks in the dusty earth. Two rural mailboxes sat on posts near
the turnoff, one being Mulvane’s and the other belonging to Max Rodriguez whose
land was accessed by this same dirt road. Beau made the turn, moving slowly.

The Mulvane house, a faux-adobe
structure, sat beyond a wide green metal gate of the county-issue variety,
accessed by a skinny driveway that led directly to the attached garage. In the
opposite direction, following the fence line, new tracks went westbound. A
fallow dirt field now sported four buses.

“Looks like more of them arrived
after dark,” Beau commented.

Sam noticed two campfires where
women in long skirts hunkered down to stir something in pots. Three naked
children ran by, shrieking at each other, undeterred by the chill in the
morning air. A bearded man outside one of the buses ran his fingers through
long hair, stretched mightily, and turned his back on Beau’s SUV.

Beau drove past the encampment and
used a wide spot in the lane beyond Mulvane’s house to turn around.

“I count at least twenty people
now,” he said as they passed the buses again.

Sam kept quiet but before they
reached the highway a small procession led by a battered VW van met them
head-on. She felt Beau’s tension edge up three notches.

Chapter
6