Jessica Beck - Donut Shop 18 - Dangerous Dough (8 page)

“If it were me,
it would already be a lost cause,” Jake said with a smile.
 
“Thanks again, Dot.
 
For everything.”

“It was my pleasure,”
she said as she started for the door.

“Hang on a
second,” I said as I grabbed my coat.
 
“I’ll walk you out.”

“That’s not
necessary, Suzanne,” Momma said.

“No, but I want
to do it anyway,” I replied.
 
Did
she look a little pleased that I’d forced the issue?
 
Once we were both outside and were
walking to her car, I said, “That was truly a spectacular gesture, Momma.”

She looked up at
me and grinned.
 
“Did you honestly
expect anything less from me?”

I had to
laugh.
 
“From you?
 
Not a chance.
 
I can’t thank you enough for this.
 
It means everything to me.
 
Have a good night.”

“You, too.”

After my mother
was gone, I glanced at the land that was now mine—mine and my husband’s, I
corrected myself—and then I looked at the cottage.
 
It was the only place in the world where
I’d ever truly felt at home, and now I owned it.
 
The emotions were so powerful that I
wasn’t sure how long it would take me to come to grips with them.
 
This, above all else, was my mother’s
ultimate seal of approval.
 
After
all, she hadn’t made the gesture, or even hinted at it, when I’d married
Max.
 
She knew as well as I did that
this time it was different.

This time I’d
done it right.

“That was absolutely
delicious,” Jake said as he pushed his dessert plate away from him.
 
“Your mother is the supreme pie maker in
the universe.”

“Don’t I know
it,” I said as I started to gather up the dirty dishes.
 
Despite my best intentions, I’d broken
down and had a piece myself.
 
There
was no way that I was going to be able to sit there and watch Jake enjoying
some without joining him.
 
Maybe I’d
start walking to work again.
 
That
might help me keep my weight down.
 
I knew that wasn’t the ultimate solution, though.
 
We’d both walked plenty on our
honeymoon, but I’d still managed to gain three pounds while we’d been away.
 
At least I didn’t have any chocolate
croissants to tempt me in April Springs.

“Do you need any help
with the dishes?
 
The reason I ask
is that I’d like to make a few phone calls on behalf of your investigation if
you don’t.”

I grinned at
him.
 
“Wow, what a tricky way of
getting out of a chore.”

“Hey, I can go
either way.
 
It’s your call,” he
said, answering my smile with one of his own.

“Go on and make
your phone calls.
 
I’ll take care of
these tonight.”
 
His look of
satisfaction plummeted when I added, “You can do them tomorrow night.”

“Fair enough,” he
said a little ruefully.
 
“I think
I’ll step out onto the porch, if you don’t mind.”

“I’ll be here
when you’re through,” I said.
 
I
didn’t even feel bad about assigning the dishes to him tomorrow.
 
I knew that I’d probably do them then as
well, but he didn’t have to know that.

As I was putting
the last plate on the drying rack, Jake walked back in with a frown on his
face.

“Is something
wrong?” I asked him.

“That didn’t go
as smoothly as I’d hoped,” he said.

“Who exactly did
you call?”

“I pulled a few
strings that Simpson doesn’t know about,” Jake answered.

“Was that
wise?
 
You don’t want to go out of
your way to aggravate him.”

“Oh, I don’t have
to make any special effort to do that.
 
It just seems to come naturally.”

“What did you find
out?” I asked him as I drained the water in the sink.

“It appears that
there’s been more going on in Granite Meadows than first meets the eye.
 
My former boss recently assigned a team
to investigate the police force there for corruption.”

“When did all of
this happen?”

“About a month
ago,” he said.

“So then Alex
Tyler could have been a subject of the investigation,” I answered heavily.

“It’s entirely
possible,” Jake said.
 
“Suzanne, I
don’t want you and Grace to go there alone after hearing this, at least not to
talk to anyone on the police force.
 
This may be a little beyond the scope of your investigation.”

“Do you think it
might be true?
 
I never really cared
for Alex, but I never dreamed that he was dirty.”

“He might not
have been,” Jake said, scolding me, “and until we have solid evidence
otherwise, the man is innocent until proven guilty.
 
Understood?”

I didn’t care for
my husband’s tone of voice, but I could certainly understand it.
 
“Sorry.
 
I didn’t mean to jump to any
conclusions.”

My contriteness
hit home with him.
 
“Suzanne, I’m
the one who’s sorry.
 
I shouldn’t
have snapped at you.
 
It’s just that
I hate assuming anything bad when it comes to a cop’s honor and integrity.”

“Hey, you were
right and I was wrong.”

“Care to repeat
that into my microphone?” he asked with a grin as he held a pretend one forward.

“Not a
chance.
 
So, what do we do about
this new twist?
 
Do we just drop
that part of the investigation and let the state police worry about it?”

“I’m not sure
yet,” Jake said.
 
“I’d really like
to sleep on it before I give you an answer.”

I stifled a
yawn.
 
“That’s not a bad idea.
 
Speaking of sleeping, I have to get up
pretty early tomorrow morning.”

“Bedtime it is,
then,” Jake said as he stretched for a moment.

I put a hand on
his chest.
 
“Hang on there,
mister.
 
I know that you keep
regular business hours.
 
There’s no
way that you need to keep my sleep schedule.
 
You can’t.
 
It will wear you out in no time.
 
Just because I’m going to sleep doesn’t mean
that you have to.
 
I have a decent
library here, and there’s always television if you get tired of reading.”

“I never get
tired of reading,” Jake said. “Nonetheless, at least for tonight, I’m going to
sleep when you do.
 
Okay?”

“Okay, as long as
you don’t make a habit of it,” I said with a grin.

“I’m not making
any promises,” he said, smiling back at me.

To my surprise, I
had no trouble bouncing out of bed the next morning at an hour that most folks
considered the middle of the night.
 
Even though I’d partially adapted my sleeping schedule to what many
people considered normal over the past ten days, there had always been
something in me that had been dying to get back to my old routine.
 
I kissed Jake’s cheek, half expecting
him to wake up as I got up, but he just muttered something and fell right back
asleep in our bed.

And to be honest,
I wasn’t all that unhappy about it.
 
I liked my morning rituals, all accomplished while most of the world
around me slept.
 
There was
something about the solitude of it all that gave me peace knowing that while I
worked, the folks I’d be feeding soon were home and safely asleep.
 
Driving down the street toward Donut
Hearts, I found myself reveling in the darkness.
 
Soon I’d have the lights on inside,
coffee brewing in the pot, and donut batter mixing, but for now, for that
moment, I had the night all to myself.

Chapter 9

“Hey there,” Emma
said later that morning when she finally came for her shift.
 
I’d been there for some time prepping
things for the day, and while I’d loved my solitude, it felt good being back
with her in the donut shop kitchen again.

“How did it feel
to sleep in?” I asked her as I put the finishing touches on the last of my cake
dough batters.
 
Working in the donut
shop was really two distinct jobs, no matter what most folks believed.
 
The cake donuts were all done with
batters, varying the ingredients until we had a nice range of the old-fashioned
type of donuts ready to sell.
 
After
they were fried and iced, it was time to start on the second stage of our day
and make the raised donuts so many of my customers loved.
 
I’d been tempted on more than one
occasion to skip making one type or the other over the years, but in the end, I
couldn’t bring myself to do it.
 
Such was the lot of the donutmaker, a mantle I’d gladly taken on.

She laughed happily,
a sound I’d missed lately.
 
“Only
you could think that getting up at three in the morning qualifies as sleeping
in.
 
How are the cake donuts
doing?
 
Do you need any help with
anything?”

“Emma, I could
make most of these recipes in my sleep.
 
When I lost my recipe book to that fire, it felt pretty tragic to me at
the time, but mostly it was from the sentimental value.
 
That’s not discounting how lucky I felt
when I found out that your mother had made a copy for herself surreptitiously.”

“Then I’ll leave
you to it and get started setting up the front,” Emma replied as she ducked
back out of the kitchen.
 
I continued
to drop different rings of batter into the hot oil, flipping them, retrieving
them, and then icing them as she set things up for our day out front.
 
When I’d finished the cake donuts, I
went out and joined her.
 
“How’s it
going out here?”

“We’re all set,” Emma
replied as she finished cleaning the glass on the last of the display
cases.
 
“Are the cake donuts
finished?”

“They’re ready to
rack, and you can get started on your first round of dishes.”

“I’m raring to go,”
she said with a smile.
 
“I enjoyed
running this place while you were gone, but I can’t wait to go back to my own
little world.
 
When you’re here, all
I care about is seeing the bottom of that sink after the last of the dirty
racks and pans are all washed.”

“Then let’s get
to it.”

As Emma worked on
the massive pile of dirty racks, pans, utensils, and mixing bowls I’d created
earlier, I started measuring out the flour, water, and yeast to get my raised
donuts going.
 
It was always a race
to see if I’d finish before or after she did, but today it was no contest, even
with the head start I’d had.
 
That
girl flew through those dishes in a flash, and she had a full two minutes to
wait for me until the dough was ready to go through its first proofing stage.

“Wow, you were really
quick today,” I said as I washed my hands in the big sink she’d so recently
finished with.
 
“I thought you might
lose a step or two, given that you had a late start.”

“No, ma’am.
 
You know me; I’m always on my game,” she
replied.
 
“I know it’s getting
really chilly, but I’d still love to go outside for our break.”

“You don’t have
to convince me.
 
I’m looking forward
to the brisk air.
 
Maybe it will
help wake me the rest of the way up,” I said as I stifled a yawn.
 
“It’s always a little tough shifting my
hours back after I’ve been off, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any easier as
the months and years go by.”

“Well, you can’t
blame old age for it, because I have problems when I do it, too,” Emma said as
we walked out front together, bundled up in our own warm jackets.

“Who said
anything about old age?” I asked her with a grin.

“Nobody.
 
No one said anything about that at all,”
she said, doing her best to keep a straight face.

It lasted three
seconds before we both started laughing.

“I’ve missed you,
Suzanne,” Emma said as I unlocked the front door.

“Right back at
you, kiddo,” I answered.

“Is that snow?” I
asked as I held a hand out into the night.
 
“It can’t be.
 
It’s way too
early for that.”

“Tell that to the
sky,” Emma said as she reached out and caught a flake on her tongue.

“I wonder how
much we’ll get?”

“Hang on a
second,” Emma said, and then she pulled out her phone and tapped a few
buttons.
 
“It’s not supposed to
accumulate.
 
As a matter of fact, it
will likely all be gone by dawn.”

“That’s pretty
amazing,” I said.

“Not really,”
Emma answered.
 
“There’s just not
that much moisture in the system to get much more than a few flurries.”

“I’m not talking
about the snow, I mean the fact that you can access that kind of information
with your cellphone.”

“Yes, this
century is truly amazing,” Emma said with a grin as she put her phone back into
her pocket.
 
“There are all kinds of
New Age gizmos folks from your time never had.”

“You know what I
mean.
 
Or maybe you don’t.
 
When I was growing up, the only way your
folks had to get in touch with you was to yell out the back door.
 
In the summer, we were often gone from
breakfast until it was time for dinner that night, and nobody gave it a second
thought.
 
Now if someone doesn’t
answer a text message within thirty seconds, everyone panics.”

“It has its
pluses and minuses,” Emma said.
 
“Listen, there’s something I’d like to talk to you about.
 
I’m really sorry I dragged the donut
shop into this murder investigation.”

“Emma, don’t ever
apologize for that.
 
You had every
right in the world not to go out with Alex Tyler, and you can’t hold yourself
responsible for the way he reacted to your rejection.”

“That’s what my
mother keeps telling me, too.
 
Honestly, I know in my head that you’re right, but I can’t help
wondering how things might have worked out differently if I’d just said yes.”

“You’ll drive
yourself crazy thinking like that,” I said.
 
“How could you possibly know that
someone would use a cup of our coffee to poison the man after you turned him
down for a date?”

“I understand
that there’s no way I could have known that,” she agreed.
 
“Still, it doesn’t make it any easier to
accept.
 
Have you had any luck so
far in your investigation?”

“We’ve just
gotten started,” I said.
 
“There are
a few factors that are making this case more difficult for us than anything
Grace and I have ever tackled before.”

“I still can’t
believe that Grace is helping you,” Emma said as the snow continued to fall,
though it had eased up considerably since we’d come outside.

“Why shouldn’t she?
 
We almost always work together.”

“Maybe so, but that
was before you got married to a hunky ex-state policeman,” Emma reminded me.

“Jake’s working
for the mayor as an independent investigator on the case,” I said.
 
“There are some tasks that he can’t do
that Grace and I can, though.”

“That’s hard to
believe,” Emma said, and then she quickly slapped a hand over her mouth.
 
“I didn’t mean that the way it must have
sounded.”

“No worries, Emma.
 
I fully realize that there are a great
many things that Jake can do that Grace and I can’t, but there are at least a
few jobs that no one else can do as well as we can, either.”

“I’m dying to
hear an example or two,” Emma said.

“Well, for
starters, Grace and I usually know the people involved, so that gives us an
edge from the start.
 
Then there’s
the fact that we aren’t intimidating, so a lot of people drop their guards
around us.
 
It’s a lot different
talking to a couple of nosy women than it is a police officer, in whatever form
he might take.”

“I never really
thought about it that way before.”
 

Emma chewed on
her thumbnail for a moment, and I knew from experience that there was something
else on her mind.
 
“Is there
something you want to talk to me about?” I asked her.

“No.
 
I’m fine.”

“Emma, you know
that you can discuss anything with me, and I mean anything.”

“Usually you are
right, but this is different,” she said.
 
“It’s about Alex’s murder.
 
Dad found out something last night, and he’s holding it back from
Jake.
 
Suzanne, I’m torn between
loyalty to my dad and the way I feel about you.
 
It’s not fair what he’s doing, but I’m
not sure that gives me the right to disclose his secrets.”

“Emma, you
shouldn’t tell me anything that you’re not comfortable sharing,” I said after a
moment’s thought.

“Do you think
Jake would feel the same way about it as you do?”

“Not a chance,” I
answered with a smile.
 
“If I’m sure
of anything, it’s that Jake would urge your father to share anything he
uncovered with the police at the soonest possible instant.”

“That’s what I
was afraid of.
 
Do you think Jake
will lock my dad up if he finds out he’s holding something back?”

“I don’t know,” I
answered.

Emma actually
looked a little disappointed at my response.
 
“Emma, do you
want
your father to go to jail?”

“For protecting a
source?
 
Are you kidding me?
 
He’d be in heaven if that happened!
 
Jake would be doing him a huge favor if
he locked him up for that.”

It was an
interesting way of looking at things, that was for sure.
 
“I don’t even know how to respond to
that.”

“You don’t have
to,” Emma said as she rubbed her hands together.
 
“Would you have any interest in cutting
our break short and making a little hot cocoa?”

I stood and
clapped my hands together.
 
I’d
neglected to bring my gloves or my heavy coat, so I was chilled pretty
thoroughly by then as well.
 
“That
sounds like an excellent idea.”

As we moved back
inside, Emma said, “Thanks, Suzanne.”

“For what, cutting
our break short?
 
It sounds good to
me, too.”

“No, I’m talking
about not pressing me about what Dad is hiding from everyone.”

“That’s on his
conscience and yours, not mine,” I said with a grin.

“I’m not exactly
thrilled with you putting it that way,” Emma said with a wry smile of her own.

“That’s what it
all boils down to in the end, though, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so,”
she said.

As we made our
special blend of hot chocolate together, I kept having the feeling that Emma
was about to divulge the information she was keeping from me, but I didn’t
press her. I knew that she had to make up her own mind, and nudging her would
only make her that much more reluctant to share it with me.
 
If I bided my time, though, there was a
decent chance that she’d eventually tell me.

At least that was
what I hoped would happen.

But until that
time came, there were donuts to make, a shop to open, and folks to serve; it
was plenty enough to occupy our thoughts and time until Emma decided to share
with me, or not.