Lye in Wait (24 page)

Other than that, nothing. Not a sound, not a movement.

In the kitchen the coffeemaker clock told me the time was two
thirty-eight. And I became aware of how urgently I needed to go
to the bathroom.

Great, Sophie Mae. Fall asleep on the couch, wake up because
you've got to pee, and manage to scare both yourself and the dog
in the process. No, living like this could not last long.

I used the downstairs bathroom, shut off all the lights, and
hoisted Brodie. I walked with him to the front window and looked
out at the white car again. Something shifted within the vehicle. Jerking back from the window, I hesitated, and then peeped
around the curtain again. Was that a head, or just the headrest on
top of the driver's seat? The steady rain softened the edges of everything, and I couldn't be sure. After staring at the motionless
car for five minutes with Brodie clasped against my chest, I moved
away, chiding myself for being an alarmist. With my bruised elbow
throbbing from those twenty-five pounds of corgi comfort, I carried Brodie to the stairs guided by the orange glow of the streetlight outside.

The nightlight in Erin's room showed her burrowed under the
covers. Meghan lay on top of the bedspread, curled around her
daughter. I got a quilt from the closet, and she half awoke when I
laid it over her. Mumbling her thanks, she went right back to sleep,
obviously not as nervous as yours truly.

Meghan and Erin had each other. I took Brodie to bed with
me.

AT SEVEN-THIRTY WEDNESDAY morning I woke to find Brodie
gone and the faint clatter of dishes drifting up the stairs. Reaching to throw off the covers, I gasped. Last night my hip and arm
had hurt, but this morning I felt pummeled all over. As I slid one
foot experimentally to the floor, dipping my toe into the day, so to
speak, sharp pain ran up my side where I'd twisted away from the
truck the day before.

With some effort I managed to sit up and take inventory. Besides the pulled muscle in my side, my elbow screamed when I rotated my arm. Not a something-is-ripped-or-broken sort of pain,
but a loud protest of recent abuse. My hip sported a purple-black
bruise extending from where low-rider jeans would sit to a third of
the way down my thigh. No wonder I'd been limping the night before. These were the major causes of my discomfort, but my entire
body seemed to want in on the act: every joint felt stiff; every bundle
of muscle objected to flexing of any kind; behind my forehead the beginnings of a headache thudded in time to my pulse; and overnight my eyelids seemed to have turned to sandpaper.

Last night I had intended to apply arnica salve to my various
painful parts, but between the stream of visitors and my falling
asleep on the sofa, I'd forgotten. Now I regretted the oversight.
Past experience with the little yellow flower's miraculous powers
had made a believer out of me. Used topically (and only topically),
it speeded the healing of bruises and muscle soreness to almost
half the usual time. Ingested, it was toxic unless in a prepackaged
homeopathic preparation.

I reached for my robe, then realized it still lay in an unwearable
heap on the laundry room floor. Pulling on sweats was more work
than I wanted, but I was cold so I didn't have much choice. After
easing my softest and cushiest pair over my tender limbs, I splashed
water on my face and doddered down to the kitchen, one step at a
time. At least my fears from the night before seemed paltry in the
daylight. I pasted a grin on my face and gimped in to breakfast.

Meghan stood in front of the sink, chewing on a piece of toast
and staring out the window. She had rare blue circles under her eyes.
Erin sat at the table, swinging her legs against the chair rung and
reading. A bowl of cereal sat to one side of the book. Soggy flakes
floated on the surface of the milk, and she hadn't touched her orange juice. I leaned over her shoulder to get a look at the book.

"Nancy Drew, huh? I used to read those."

Meghan snorted and rolled her eyes. I ignored her. Erin didn't
look up. She said, "Huh," and kept right on reading. I poured some
cereal and splashed milk on it. It tasted like sawdust. No wonder
Erin hadn't eaten hers.

"What is this stuff?" I asked.

No one answered. I turned the box so I could see the front.
Corn flakes. The way they tasted this morning I'd been sure
Meghan was trying to slip some healthy super-fiber experiment
by us.

The silence finally got to me. "Is anyone going to talk to me,
or do I have to sit here and have a conversation with myself?" Not
that I blamed them if they were mad at me.

"Well, Erin's not speaking to me right now, at least not if she
can help it. I guess you've been included, as well"

"Mommmm!" Erin almost sounded like a teenager, the word
was so angst-ridden.

"I'm sorry you have to stay at your friend's house for a while,"
I said.

"Oh, that's okay. I like it over there. We get to watch TV all we
want, and Zoe has a Playstation, and her mom gives us donuts for
snacks." She didn't look at her mom, but I could tell she was trying
to push her mother's buttons.

"Oh. Well. That's good, then," I said.

Meghan gave me a wry look. "Go load your backpack, and I'll
take you to school," she told Erin.

Sighing dramatically, Erin slid off the chair and walked toward
the stairs, still reading her book.

"Why's she mad at you?" I asked.

"She's not, really. She's mad at her father and her grandmother,
but they aren't around. I'm handy. Plus, I'm safe. She can be angry
with me and know I'll still love her just the same."

"Lucky kid."

"Yeah. Unless I kill her."

I laughed.

"Will you be here when I get back?" Meghan asked.

I nodded.

"I've canceled all my appointments for today. Starting tomorrow I'm treating everyone in-home for a while-the atmosphere
here is off, and I need my mindset to be right in order to give my
clients the relaxation they pay me for. Tonight I've got an infant
massage class over at the clinic."

"Okay. I'll be here when you get back from the school."
"

I might be a while. I have to talk with them about Richard.

And Grace. Besides the fact that I don't know what they're up to,
maybe it'll put them on high alert regarding Erin's safety in general." Stress leaked through the seams of Meghan's usual aplomb.

"That's fine," I said. "But I think Ambrose's overreacting a bit.
What happened to me yesterday was just someone taking advantage of an opportunity."

"Yeah, well, we don't know what kind of `opportunity' they
could decide to take advantage of next time."

"I'm ready," Erin said from the doorway.

"Let's get going, then." Meghan picked up Erin's duffel from
the hallway. "I'll drop this at Zoe's on my way back so you'll have
it when you go over there after school." She looked at me. "Sorry,
that's going to make me even later."

"That's okay. Stop worrying."

She shot me a glance that said to shut up, she'd worry if she
wanted to.

"Bye, Bug," I called. The door shut on Erin's farewell.

I dumped my cereal down the sink and heated a bowl of chili
from the night before in the microwave. Adding cheese and onions, I took it to my workroom, holding the hot bowl with a dish towel and working my way down the stairs. My body seemed to be
loosening up the more I moved around. Maybe I should go run
around the block.

Maybe not.

While I slurped chili I checked my website. Two more orders
since yesterday morning. I processed the buyers' credit cards, then
typed up packing lists and printed them out, taped together two
more shipping boxes, and gathered the merchandise to fill the new
orders. Now twenty boxes marched down the counter in a neat
row, waiting to be packed and weighed before I logged onto the
UPS website to complete the labels and prepay shipping. Then to
the UPS drop-off counter and they'd be on their way.

This process was simple but not fast. The last week had been
anything but run of the mill, and I'd lost a lot of work time. Winding Road bookwork had piled up, my inbox overflowed with unanswered e-mail, the Christmas bazaars loomed, and I hadn't even
begun to put together updated product pamphlets. The undone
tasks, myriad and insistent, buzzed at the edge of my attention as I
packed and invoiced and printed and labeled.

But Walter remained foremost in my mind. Why had someone
been creeping around in Walter's house the night Officer Owens
discovered me there? If they'd been looking for something, had
they found it? If they had, why would they set the fire? For that
matter, if they hadn't, why would they set the fire? Was the murderer the same person who burned down Walter's house, or could
we be dealing with two nutcases?

That thought accelerated the pounding in my head, which in
turn reminded me to find the arnica. I shut down the computer
and went into my storeroom. One shelf is devoted to products I custom-make for Meghan to use in her massage therapy or that we
use for ourselves.

I made the arnica salve by infusing olive oil with dried arnica
flowers, either by heating it gently or by letting it sit in a jar in the
dark for a month or so. Then I mixed the infused oil with melted
beeswax to create a cream. Since shelf life at home wasn't much
of an issue (and neither was liability), I didn't even bother with
adding antibacterial preservatives like grapefruit seed extract or
Vitamin E.

Of course, the one morning I needed a boatload of the stuff,
the tiny tin was almost empty. Rooting through an assortment of
jars and bottles, I located the Mason jar full of olive oil and arnica
flowers. That would do. Skip the beeswax step and just smear on
the infused oil. But when I opened the jar and sniffed, I decided a
little lavender oil would mask the dusty cooking-oil smell of the
contents, as well as add additional healing properties. I strained
and mixed until I had a bottle of concentrated arnica oil from
which the gentle scent of Lavandula angustifolia wafted.

On my way through the kitchen I put my bowl in the dishwasher and grabbed a Diet Coke out of the fridge. All my healthy
eating was going to hell in a handbasket, but that was the least
of my worries. I took a shower, hot then cold, and slathered on
the arnica oil. I dressed in faded cotton hiking pants and a longsleeved T-shirt, threw on a faded flannel shirt over the top like a
jacket. After struggling with my braid for a brief time, my elbow
finally won, and I gave up. The phone rang as I finished wrapping
a hair band around my ponytail, and I picked up the receiver in
the upstairs hallway.

"Hello?"

"Sophie Mae?"

"Yes?"

"Barr Ambrose here. I hope I didn't wake you up."

"Jeez, how long do you think I sleep in?"

"You looked pretty worn out last night."
"

I feel better this morning. What's up?" I asked.

"Can you come down to the station?"

"Oh, God. Now what?"

"I need you to file a formal report regarding the truck incident
yesterday, and then I want you to show me where it happened."

"Um, okay. Is this afternoon okay?"

"No sooner?"

"I'll try, I really will. It's just that my morning is pretty booked.
Unless this is another `come down here or I'll send a patrolman'
thing."

"No. I just want to get moving on this."

So did I. "How long do you think it will take?"

"Hour or so"

"Tell you what. I'll come over right now, so I won't be holding
you up." I'd make it back before Meghan came home. Probably.

"Really?" He sounded surprised. "Well, that'd be great. See you
in a little bit."

As I cradled the phone, I mentally kissed my morning good
bye. Between going over to the police station and following up
with Meghan about what Ambrose had told us the previous evening, the orders I'd been hoping to ship would have to wait. Maybe
I could do it all this afternoon.