Eclair and present dange.., p.24
Éclair and Present Danger, page 24
“I know my daughter. I know how protective she is of me . . . and of us. I also know she has an issue with jealousy.”
“I don’t know what that has to do with me.” She stepped back and watched his hand fall back to his side.
“One of the mothers connected to her dance class picked up her daughter a little early the other night.”
“Okay . . .”
“Apparently this woman must have seen the two of us at Beans and commented about it to Caroline. She asked me about it on the ride home from class, and I told her about you. She’s pretty good about reading my body language, and I guess she figured it out.”
“Figured what out?” she asked.
“That I like you. A lot.”
It was everything her heart wanted to hear, yet nothing her head was prepared to deal with at that moment. Trying to steady her breath against the thumping in her chest was hard enough.
Fortunately, Jay kept talking, buying her time to try and figure out her feelings. “Unfortunately, Caroline hasn’t seen me get excited about anyone other than her until now. So she’s not exactly happy about this.”
“Which is why we need to leave it alone.” She hated to say the words as much as she hated to hear them, but that didn’t make them any less true.
“I’m allowed to have a life, Winnie. I’m allowed to see where this could go with us. I just need you to give it a chance. Give me and my daughter a chance. I think she’ll come around.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“I think she will.”
“And if she doesn’t?” Winnie repeated, her voice cracking.
He reached out, encased her hand with his, and squeezed so gently she actually swore she could feel her heart melt. “I think she will.”
She opened her mouth to ask her question one more time, but closed it when she saw the hope reflected in his blue green eyes.
Hope for them . . .
“I—I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll let me walk you to your car now, and that we can spend a little time together this weekend—dinner, a movie, a walk in the park, whatever you want.”
She knew she should protest if for no other reason than a need to protect her own heart from being hurt, but she couldn’t make herself say no. Instead, she simply nodded and followed Jay (and Lovey) back out into the hall.
Slowly, they (with Lovey stowed away beneath the stretcher) made their way down the hall, into the elevator, and, eventually, out to the parking lot. When they reached the ambulance, Jay helped her load the stretcher into the back and Lovey into the passenger seat. “So,” he said, closing Lovey’s door, “can I call you tonight?”
“If you want to—”
“Hey Winnie! See you on Serenity Lane . . .”
She glanced toward the back of the ambulance just in time to see Lance wave and continue on his path toward the parking lot’s exit. Turning back to Jay, she used Lance’s drive-by to slow her heart rate and collect her thoughts. “Have you met Lance Reed yet?”
Jay drew back. “As in the new addition to the history department?”
“Yes. He’s my neighbor.”
“Driving that?”
“He just got it a few days ago.” She led the way around the back end of the ambulance and over to her door. “Makes me wish I paid better attention in my history classes,” she joked.
“What do you mean?”
“People who bake desserts for a living can’t afford a car like that.”
“People who teach can’t, either.”
She opened her door but remained standing next to Jay. “Unless they teach history.”
His laugh encircled her like a pair of warm arms. “Trust me, Winnie. Working here didn’t pay for a car like that.”
Her cell phone vibrated inside the front pocket of her jeans, and she pulled it out. The caller ID screen listed an unfamiliar name. “Excuse me one second, Jay.” Then, holding the device to her ear, she took the call. “Hello, this is Winnie.”
“Winnie? This is Chuck. Chuck Rogers. I work with Greg, and I met you the other day when you came to look at one of our ambulances, and then again at the school.”
And for a while, I thought you murdered my friend . . .
“Yes. Hi,” she said, instead. “What can I do for you?”
“Greg called me today and told me you had some questions about a rare coin?”
Aware of Jay’s nearness, she did her best to keep her voice as light as possible. “Yes.”
“I’m assuming it’s about Bart Wagner’s gold double eagle?”
Caught off guard, she simply repeated the same “yes.”
“That thing was worth a fortune. But Bart had no intention of ever selling it. The memory and its tie to his late father meant more than any amount of money. I understood that. I feel the same way about my dad’s old trains.”
She mulled over his comments only to find a question pushing to the forefront of her thoughts. “Do you know if anyone in your club took a special interest in Bart’s coin?”
“We’ve all known him for years. And while the history behind it was unbelievably cool, it wasn’t anything new, you know? I mean, we knew the story already. Had for ages. That’s probably why we were all so excited when we got a new member last month. First new member in something like five years, I think.”
“New member?” she echoed.
“New member, new set of ears . . .”
“I don’t understand.”
“Everyone in that club has seen my baseball card collection a million times. Everyone in that club has heard one another’s stories a million times. A new member means a new set of ears.”
“Ahhh.” She held the phone closer to her ear in an effort to try and drown out the chatter of a half dozen or so students walking through the parking lot. “Chuck? Do you happen to know this new member’s name?”
“Sure I do. It’s Lance—Lance Reed. Guy is a total history buff and super smart. Moved to town a month or so ago to teach at the community college.”
Chapter 32
Looking back, she wasn’t entirely sure how she got out of the parking lot without running anyone over. Or how, exactly, she left things with Jay. But there were no dents in her car, and she vaguely remembered saying something about Bart, his coin, and justice being served. For now, that would have to do.
Especially considering the way everything about Lance as Bart’s killer rang true.
Collector or not, a man who taught history would know—probably better than anyone else—just how rare Bart’s coin had been. And, according to Jay, community college history professors didn’t pull in the salary needed to buy the kind of sports car Lance was driving around town.
Then again, less than twenty-four hours earlier, she’d been convinced Chuck was the killer . . .
Pulling over onto the road’s gravel shoulder, Winnie retrieved her phone from Lovey’s seat and dialed Bridget’s number.
“Hello?”
“Bridget, it’s me. Winnie.” She saw Lovey stir but kept her focus on the woman in her ear. “I need to ask you something.”
“My feet are feeling much better today, thank you. I soaked them in Epsom salt last night and that seemed to do the trick.”
“I didn’t know your feet were hurting.”
“Oh? I was sure I’d told you. Then again, maybe that was Cornelia I mentioned it to . . .”
Stifling the groan she felt building in her throat, she did her best to proceed with caution. “Bridget, I really have to ask you something. Something unrelated to your feet.”
“Go ahead, dear.”
“It’s about Lance.”
She closed her eyes against her next-door neighbor’s answering squeal—a sound not much different than one Renee would make under the same circumstances. “Has he asked you out?”
“No!”
Bridget sniffed at Winnie’s rebuke and then grew silent.
Removing the phone from its holding spot against her cheek, Winnie checked the connection. Still there . . . “I’m sorry if I sound a bit short, but—”
“Parker and I—we just worry about you, dear. We want you to find someone as special as you are. If that’s Lance, then that’s wonderful.”
If she weren’t trying to put a face on Bart’s killer, she’d probably find their conversation amusing, but she was and so she didn’t. “Bridget, please! I just need to double-check my memory from that day.”
“What day?”
“The day Bart was murdered.” She wrapped her free hand around the steering wheel and braced herself. “Do you remember when I got home from work? It was my last day at the bakery, and I was feeling a little blue.”
“I remember. But things have really turned around, haven’t they? Your Dessert Squad is the talk of the town—no small thanks to me and my article, of course.”
“Yes, of course. And thank you again for that.” She stopped, took a breath, and glanced over at Lovey happily licking her hindquarters. “While we were on the porch, before I found Bart’s body, you and Mr. Nelson were telling me about the incident with Ava, remember?”
She heard a frustrated sigh in her ear. “Yes. And Parker kept cutting me off, telling you all the best parts of the story.”
“I’m calling you, aren’t I?” she reminded.
“That’s just because Parker doesn’t hear the phone when it rings.”
She considered protesting if for no other reason than to stroke the elderly woman’s ego, but it was pointless. Besides, it didn’t matter. Not now, anyway. Instead, she cut to the chase. “Bridget, what did you say about Bart before Ava ran through Ethel’s flower bed that day—or, rather, the previous day?”
“I don’t remember telling you anything.”
“You did,” she insisted. “It was about Bart and his frame of mind just before Ava set him off . . .”
“I don’t know. I—wait. Yes. Bart had looked so happy. He was even smiling for the first time since Ethel passed.”
She needed more to make her case. But she wanted to hear it from Bridget’s mouth rather than in her own head where it could be mixed with an entirely different memory. “Do you remember why he was so happy?”
“I wasn’t privy to what actually went on, of course, but I suspect that young man had just told a joke that struck Bart’s funny bone.”
“Young man?”
“Lance. I saw them step out onto Bart’s porch together, and Bart was smiling.” Winnie heard a few odd noises and surmised that Bridget was shifting the phone from one hand to the other. Sure enough, the woman’s voice resumed its normal strength. “Or was until that little girl decided to run through that flowerbed.”
“So Lance had been inside Bart’s house?”
“He had indeed. Why do you ask?”
Ignoring the woman’s question, she tossed out one last one of her own. “Do you happen to know whether Lance was around that next morning? The morning that Bart was murdered?”
“That was a Tuesday, yes?”
“Yes. Tues—” The day disappeared from her lips as a memory from another conversation took center stage in her thoughts. A conversation and a voice that was suddenly as clear as the soft purr coming from the passenger seat . . .
I’ve got an eight A.M. class every day except Tuesday . . .
She sucked in her breath, the reality of what was sitting in her lap simply too hard to ignore. The only question that remained was what to do with the information.
Did she go to the police or did she go straight to—
“Thanks, Bridget. I’ve got to go.” She disconnected the line, tossed the phone onto the seat next to Lovey, and pulled back onto the road, her destination clear. “You better believe you’ll see me on Serenity Lane, Lance . . .”
Ten minutes later, she piloted the ambulance into Lance’s driveway and cut the engine. “Well, we got him, Lovey.”
Lovey popped her head up and blinked.
“You stay right here, okay? I won’t be long.” Then, realizing the cat wasn’t going to answer, she stepped out of the vehicle and headed up to the house. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was going to say when he answered the door, but she’d figure it out. Bart had deserved better. If nothing else, she’d be sure to tell Lance that . . .
She half walked, half jogged her way up to the door and knocked, her anger rising with each answering step she heard. When the footsteps stopped, the door swung open.
“Oh. Hey. Winnie. This is a nice surprise. Come on in. I was just about to fix a snack of some sort. Do you like nachos?”
She supposed she nodded, but she wasn’t sure. She did know that she accepted his invitation and stepped into his hallway—a decision she couldn’t help but second-guess as she heard the click of the door over her shoulder.
Still, she owed this moment to Bart.
And Ethel.
“C’mon, we can talk in the kitchen while I pull everything together.” He led the way toward the kitchen at the end of the hallway, stopping every few feet to wave at a different aspect of his new place. “I’ve put an offer in on this house. To buy it outright. The second it goes through, I’m gonna gut this place and start all over. New walls, new floors, new furniture, new windows, new everything.”
“Sounds expensive.” She didn’t bother to look at the rooms they passed. They didn’t matter. There would be no gutting, no buying, no changing of anything. Except maybe the color Lance was wearing . . .
“It will be. But I’ve got it covered.” When they reached the kitchen, he gestured her toward a chair and then ripped open a bag of nacho chips he’d already placed on the counter. “Do you like your cheese with or without a zip?”
“Either is fine.” She sifted through a pile of travel brochures on the table and held up one pertaining to Greece. “You like to travel?”
He shook the chips onto a plate and then popped a bowl of cheese into the microwave for forty seconds. As the cheese heated, he leaned against the nearest counter and smiled at Winnie. “I’m about to find out as soon as the current semester is over.”
“So you’re going to keep teaching?” she asked, returning the brochure to the pile. “Even though you don’t have to?”
“I’d teach history if I was the richest person in the world.”
She considered his answer, swiveling her body to face him as she did. “In the world might be a stretch, but I’d say that seven and a half million probably solidifies you as the richest person in Silver Lake. Maybe even the whole county.”
If she’d been thinking beyond her own need to call Lance out, she’d have taken advantage of his momentary shock to run for the front door, but, since she wasn’t, she was ill prepared when he lunged forward, his face contorted with rage.
She did manage to struggle to her feet, but not without knocking over her chair.
“You little witch!” He reared his arm back to strike her, but somehow she managed to step out of his reach and alter his balance enough so she had time to think.
Glancing around wildly, she tried to assess her best route to freedom.
Jump over the chair and make a break for the front door, or find a way to get around him to the back door . . .
She was just about to take the second option when she spied Mr. Nelson peeking around the door’s drab curtain panel, the index finger of his non-cane-holding hand poised in front of his lips. If she went that way, she’d put her friend in danger.
No.
Lance recovered his balance and lunged at her again, his sudden and menacing movements so frightening she shrieked in terror.
“Scream all you want, Winnie. No one in this neighborhood of hearing aids and walkers will be coming to your rescue anytime—”
The sound of glass shattering in the front hall made them both jump. Before either of them could process what was happening, an arm reached through the glass, unlocked the door, and shoved it open.
“Jay!” She tried to run toward him but was stopped mid-step by Lance—his left arm wrapped around her neck, his right arm wielding a kitchen knife angled toward her throat.
“Take one more step and I swear I’ll—”
The threat changed into a groan as Lance took a blow to the side of the face and stumbled backward, confused. Before Winnie could think, before she could even scream, Jay was past her and on top of Lance. Beside them stood Mr. Nelson and his hand-carved wooden cane.
“Walkers, canes—either way they get the job done.” Mr. Nelson poked his cane in the middle of Lance’s back and then pulled Winnie in for a tight hug. “You’re safe now, Winnie Girl.”
Chapter 33
She sat on the top step of the porch and smiled out at her friends standing or sitting around the yard in groups of two and three. News of Lance’s arrest in the murder of Bart Wagner had spread up and down Serenity Lane like wildfire. In fact, the disgraced teacher’s ride up the street in the back of a patrol car had been quite an event.
Today, though, was about something different.
Today was about coming together to celebrate Bart Wagner’s life.
It was, as Bridget had said the previous night, a chance to heal and to put the Serenity back in Serenity Lane.
Now, as she sat mere inches away from a semi-purring Lovey (okay, maybe not purring, exactly), Winnie had to admit she needed this kind of peace and calm every bit as much as her friends did.
To her left, Chuck and a scooter-riding Harold Jenkins were deep in conversation. She wasn’t close enough to hear what they were saying, but considering Chuck was holding a sleeve of baseball cards and Harold was actually paying attention (rather than winking and blinking at Cornelia Wright), she figured baseball was a safe guess.
Off to her right, Renee (dressed in a pair of formfitting jeans and matching stilettos) was laughing at something Mark had just said. Winnie had called Bart and Ethel’s son once she’d gotten back to the house after the debacle with Lance—the man’s heartfelt gratitude in response to news of an arrest in his father’s death still making an occasional loop through her thoughts.
Mark was a little rough around the edges, but he seemed determined to make a go of his dream—a dream his father had wanted for him every bit as much as he wanted it for himself.
