A ghost of a smile, gone so quickly I wondered if I’d imagined it.
“So you came here to meet a date . . . ,” I prompted, already needing to find out who set her up, whom she was supposed to meet—a thread which might turn into nothing. Or everything. Puzzle pieces, puzzle pieces . . .
It was so great to have a live victim. I vastly preferred chitchat to meetings in the morgue. We needed to find out everything about her—who she was, where she lived. Her job. Her friends, her family, her boss. Her blind date. Her family physician, her minister, her book club. Her dry cleaner, her car wash, her Jiffy Lube. Her grocery store, her vacation plans, her pets. Same old, same old—but we were getting there. I knew it. I think the others did, too.
“And then—and then I was in here, calling 911 on my cell phone.”
I blinked. Surely not another woman who lost time. Of course, trauma could certainly account for her not remembering the actual attack.
“So you called for help . . .”
“And I waited.” Her big eyes were shiny, almost glassy. Shock, of course. She was either in it or getting there. “And then—then I could hear the police. And then you were knocking on the door.”
Nuts. A memory gap of at least forty-five minutes. Well, maybe there’d be something on her clothes, under her nails. Caught in her hair. In her purse. On her iPod. Anything. Puzzle pieces, puzzle pieces . . .
“Well, Ms. Carr, I’m going to ride along with you to the hospital. We’ll have a guard on your door 24/7.” I hated how overused those numbers were, except when it was the literal truth. Ms. Carr wouldn’t be blowing her nose unobserved for the next several days. “We’ll get you checked out, make sure you—you’re okay. Do you want me to call somebody?”
“No.”
Definitely distant. Pulling away from reality. Boy, could I relate.
“Ms. Carr?”
“Mmm?”
“We’ll get him.”
She blinked at me slowly, like an owl. “Promise?”
“Oh, yes.”
Her lips trembled and she was finally able to force out, “Thank God. Thank God for that.”
God? Prob’ly not. BOFFO, though. They’d do the trick.
We would, I mean.
Chapter Twenty-nine
The next morning I lurched out of bed (I woke up alone, thank goodness) and staggered to the bathroom. What with processing the scene, escorting Tracy Carr to the hospital, going back to the office and filing paperwork, I’d been home for only about—
I peeked at my watch and groaned. Three hours. Ugh. I badly wanted more sleep. Or at least a long, hot bath. Unfortunately, it was the second Tuesday of the month.
Oh—right. I forgot you didn’t know. Cathie and I have been having breakfast at the Eagan Perkins once a month for the last ten years. With her traveling schedule and my career, if we didn’t have a set place and time, whole months could go by without us hooking up. Thus, the second Tuesday of the month was inviolate unless it was something important, like arresting a killer or needing stitches, or really really bad menstrual cramps.
So imagine my surprise when I walked into the restaurant to find Patrick—and only Patrick—at our table.
“Eh?” I said.
“Articulate even at such an obscene hour,” the baker said, closing his magazine (People’s Most Fascinating People) with a brisk snap. “Marvelous.”
My, my. He certainly was a handsome one. I could see him from only the waist up, but he was wearing what I suspected was a designer suit. It didn’t have that boxy look that bespoke retail.
And that grin! Those eyes!
Get a grip, Cadence. Right, okeydoke. “Where’s Cathie?”
“Ah. The eternal question. Where is Cathie?”
I slid into the booth and resisted the urge to peek under the table to check out the rest of his suit.
“My darling little sister got a phone call yesterday evening—another one of her paintings sold, and the gallery owner wanted her downtown pronto to discuss another show.”
“Golly! That’s great.” Cathie was, among other things, a ridiculously talented artist. She made Picasso look like a kindergarten finger painter. Me personally, I always got a headache when I looked at her work too long, but it definitely appealed to certain groups. (Case in point, Adrienne.) I probably just wasn’t deep enough to really get her work; I’ll be the first to admit, me not know nothing ’bout art.
My favorite was a huge canvas, eight feet by six, liberally splashed with vibrant purple and blue, smeared with indigo, and splattered with red dots. She called it The Face of Love, whatever the heck that meant. To me it looked like a big old brightly colored mess. Which is why I caught bad guys and Cathie painted things like The Face of Love.
“Alas, she knew you were on scene—I assume that’s a nod to your crime fighting, and not that you’re an actress—and wanted to make sure you knew why she was so callously blowing off your monthly Perkins breakfast of runny eggs and burnt hash browns.”
“Crime fighters are actresses,” I said, “and the hash browns aren’t burnt. And thanks for the cupcakes.”
The cupcakes! I’d been toiling over paperwork last night when a messenger was cleared to my floor bearing a delivery for yours truly. It turned out to be half a dozen devil’s food cupcakes frosted with lush, creamy buttercream frosting, each a different pastel shade. They looked like Easter eggs and smelled like Godiva. I’d nearly swooned right into the pastry box. And had gobbled down four of the six before having to call a halt due to an encroaching sugar-induced fit of frenzy.
“ ’Twas nothing,” he said modestly, but looked pleased. “Cathie warned me you had hideous eating habits, that sometimes you skip meals for days in a row. I thought about sending you a salad, but where’s the fun? It’s salad.”
“They were great.” I was still puzzled—why would he send sweets to someone he’d just met? Well. He was probably just a very nice man. I reached for a menu I’d memorized almost a decade ago. “And my hash browns aren’t burnt, they’re crisped.”
“You say tomato, I say burnt. But back to our featured story: I, her trusty older brother, rode in on—”
“An SUV hybrid.”
“Yes, that’s—wait. How’d you know what I was driving?”
“Because I work for the government, silly. I know all kinds of things. Supersecret things.” (Also, Cathie had mentioned a few months back that her brother was getting downright smug about all the gas he didn’t have to buy.)
“Okay. Well, my SUV and I are here to treat the lady to breakfast. Any of the ladies,” he added.
“You really don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said kindly. “And I find it a little odd to be discussing family members—not to mention MPD and psychoses—with someone I’ve known less than twenty-four hours.”
“I bring that out in gorgeous blondes.”
I rolled my eyes—was it me, or was I hip deep in manure and still sinking? “I’m amazed Cathie told you anything.”
“What?”
“I’m amazed Cathie—”
“Sorry, ‘what’ in this case meant incredulity, not ‘speak up, I’m losing my hearing.’ Why?”
“What?”
“Is that ‘what’ a request for more information, or—”
I scowled at him. The conversation, which had been going on for only two minutes, was already exasperating me. Hmm. Guess they really were brother and sister.
“Didn’t you know, Cadence? Cathie talks about you all the time.”
“Nuh-uh!”
“Yuh-huh. You’re in every letter and e-mail and LiveJournal entry she ever sent me. She adores you. Didn’t you know that?”
“She does? How come? She’s the really talented one. She spends her days creating art out of nothing.”
“Whereas all you do is stop serial killers from racking up the body count. My, my, how do you live with the horror? It’s so odd when a woman has no idea how wonderful she is.”
And he reached across the ta
ble, picked up my right hand, and kissed the tips of my fingers.
Chapter Thirty
I yanked my hand back—gently, let’s not bruise Cathie’s brother just yet—and leaned back in the booth. I could feel my face getting red. I wasn’t sure how to feel at all. Or, rather, I was feeling everything at once.
I was embarrassed that a mysterious baker knew so much about me. I wasn’t exactly unthrilled that he was showing interest on short acquaintance. I was a little ticked at Cathie for her indiscretion while at the same time I was wildly flattered that she held me in such high esteem.
And the thing was, if Cathie hadn’t met me on the grounds of my childhood home, the institute, I never would have told anyone. But we formed a bond almost immediately, and best of all, she observed the antics of my sisters and never made me feel bad, or crazy. She knew my secrets before we needed training bras, as I knew hers. Secrets, that is. For all I knew, she still wore training bras. (Meow!)
I had told her about the girls long before I went anywhere near Quantico. But that didn’t mean I wanted her whole family in on my deeply personal emotional problems. Although I wouldn’t mind if Patrick wanted to kiss my fingertips again. That had been different. Heck, my hand was still tingling.
“Anyway,” Patrick continued cheerfully, “I jumped at the chance to finally meet you.”
I was amazed. “That’s why you came out here from Boston? Just to meet me?”
“No, I also needed to talk to a few new investors.”
“Investors?”
“Sure, for my business.” He laced his hands behind his head and talked to the ceiling. “I oversee about twenty thousand pastries a week, but I’d like to get a partner or two to help share the load.”
“Share the load?”
“Sure. We just acquired a competitor last month.”
“Who’s that?”
“Homemade Goodness.”
I gasped. “I love Homemade Goodness. They make the best . . .” Then I had it. Patrick was . . . Auntie Jane’s Cakes and Pies? “You’re Auntie Jane! Oh, gosh! You’re famous; I buy one of those things practically every week—say! That’s why you have a meeting—you’re probably going to talk to the head of another grocery chain and get a few thousand more cookies stocked each week.”
“Yeppers. But I’m not surprised Cathie didn’t tell you I was the head of a chain; she hates corporate America. So she introduces me as a baker. Which, of course, I am.”
This actually made sense. Cathie grew up with money, enough that she barely noticed if someone else was rich. It was very much in character for her to dismiss her brother’s vast personal fortune.
Is it just me, or do the people who don’t care about money hardly ever need it, while people who do care about it never get it? A puzzle for the ages.
“Well, that must be nice. Being your own boss and such.”
“Yeppers.”
Have I mentioned how difficult it was for me to find dates who wouldn’t care about my MPD? By the time I felt comfortable enough to explain, the date du jour either didn’t care, or was long gone, or had judged me. And don’t get me started on intraoffice dating—talk about a recipe for disaster!
It was both nice and nerve-racking to run into a fella who knew about my eccentricities from the get-go.
I told that to Auntie Jane, who grinned and replied, “You don’t scare me, Cadence Jones. I’ve lived with crazy, I’ve ridden with crazy, I’ve vacationed with crazy, I’ve visited crazy in various hospitals, I’ve sat in on therapy sessions with crazy. Frankly, I think women who don’t have major emotional disorders are really very dull.”
“Then you’re going to love me,” I said drily.
“Oh, I’m counting on it. Ah, the waitress cometh. Know what you want?”
“It’s a pretty long list. Oh, breakfast! Sure.”
I ordered my usual; Patrick, who apparently burned calories at the speed of light, ordered a tall pancake stack swimming in maple syrup.
“So. When can I meet the rest of the family?”
“Huh?”
“You know. Your family.”
“Uh. Well. Ahm.” I could feel myself getting decidedly nervous. I didn’t like to talk about my late parents. I didn’t like to talk about much at all from my years on institute property. “There’s, uh, not much to tell.”
“Oh, I’m sure that’s not true.”
“Let’s just eat our breakfast.”
“But it hasn’t arrived,” he pointed out.
“Let’s just eat, okay?”
“Cadence, if it seems like I’m prying, then I apologize. I’m just curious about you, that’s all. There’s nothing to—”
I raised my hands above my head and slammed both fists on the table, hard. “I do not want to talk—”
Chapter Thirty-one
Pillsbury Doughboy, now you see,
Now you see
Now you see
The wheels on the bus go round and round
All
Day
Long!
But Baker I like that you asked for me
That you wanted to see
See! See!
Me!
So I won’t hit you now, hit you now, hit you now
(But maybe later, Pillsbury! Yesyes!)
Here comes the waitress
With your syrup
Round and round
And I grab the syrup
Round and round
(Oh you look so funny, Pillsbury)
And now you’re laughing at me
Laughing at me
Laughing! At! Me!
(and not in a mean way or a nasty way no you’re laughing like a nice baker boy can you be nice will you be nice?)
The wheels on the bus go round and round,
Syrup!
In!
Your!
Hair!
Round and round.
The wheels on the syrup go round and round
And I
Like
Pillsbury!
Here comes the waitress
Round and round
Here comes the waitress
I don’t care and
And
It’s boring out here. It’s boring in the restaurant Boring here.
Shiro wants out
Oooh, Shiro is angry!
(s’okay, sweet sister, you can come out, I’m done for now)
Done for now.
Done for now.
Shiro can come out round and round
Alllll daaaaaay loooooong
(Good-bye! Good-bye, baker boy! Good-bye syrup! Good-bye, salt shaker! Good-bye! Good-bye!)
Chapter Thirty-two
“I certainly hope you are satisfied,” I said, leaning back and crossing my arms across my chest.
“Satisfied,” Patrick said, rubbing syrup out of his eyes, “is one way to put it.”
To my astonishment, he was smiling. I could think of no reason why. The stench of maple by-products was nearly eye-watering, half the restaurant was staring at us, and he was dabbing at his expensive suit with his napkin and mine. It was—I again tried not stare, and again failed.
“Well,” Patrick continued. Dab, dab. Smear. Blink. Rub, rub. “Your sister is certainly, uh, energetic.”
“You’re lucky to be alive, you stupid man.” One of the things I so disliked about Adrienne was her sheer unpredictability. She might kill, maim, or smear with syrup. Or all three. Or none of the three.
There was never any way to tell. Absolutely maddening, for Cadence as well as me. A creature guided entirely by passion, never logic. Revolting. “Do you require first aid?”
“No. Just a dry cleaner.”
I was equal parts disgusted, amazed, and relieved. He thought this was funny. Adrienne assaulting him with condiments was funny.
I tried to steady my breathing
(don’t think about the geese Daddy look out for the geese)
and realized I was clenching both fists. Consciousl
y relaxing, I glanced at the eight pink half-moons I’d gouged into my palms. (Or had that been Cadence?) “I trust you have learned your lesson.”
“Oh, sure. You bet. Let’s have dinner.”
Shocked, I forgot all about my palms as I snapped my head up. “What?”
“Is that a request for more information, or—”
“You cannot be serious.”
“Sure I am. Anywhere you want to go.”
“Have you learned nothing in the past fifteen minutes?”
“Sure I have. Pick you up at eight?”
“Which one of us?” I could actually feel my blood pressure climb. My eyes were all but bugging out of my head.
“Any of you, of course. All of you. You know why I’m still single at the ripe old age of thirty-four? Ice cream.”
“Ice cream,” I repeated robotically.
“Sure. That’s why Baskin-Robbins has thirty-one flavors. I don’t want vanilla or daiquiri ice or peach or rocky road all the time.” He grinned and knuckled away a tear of syrup. “You just might be the perfect girl—girls—for me. So, eight o’clock?”
Ugh. Socializing. Patrick was not in danger—except from his own stupidity—and neither was I. I had overstayed my welcome. Thus it was something of a relief to get the hell out of—
Chapter Thirty-three
“Good gosh! What happened to your suit?”
Patrick was—oh, yech! He was a disaster! (Who smelled terrific; suddenly I was craving French toast in the worst way.) His dark hair was shiny with syrup. His lapels shone stickily. He smelled like a sugaring party. He was smiling at me.
Smiling!
“Ah. You’re back. Shiro seemed a little uptight. She didn’t stay long. Was it something I said?”
“Oh God.” I covered my eyes. “You saw Shiro? Sorry. She’s not very sociable. I—”
“She’s a little tense,” he agreed, “but then, she’s got a lot to be tense about. Also, Adrienne felt my suit was missing that syrup touch that means so much.”
My hands went numb to the wrist (I evince stress in odd ways); then they fell into my lap, and I realized there were eight little nail marks imprinted on my palms. Her bad habit that I had to pay for.