Джанет Кантрелл - Fat Cat Takes The Cake

Mike and Patrice’s mother—Mike’s Aunt Betsy—hung back near their booth. Chase couldn’t look at Mike after that first glance.

“Say, I don’t think I’ve apologized enough for making trouble for Anna,” Patrice said, oblivious to the tension that stretched between Chase and Mike. She turned to Eddie. “Who’s your friend? Have we met?”

“This is Eddie Heath.” Chase tried for a smile, but her expression was probably too thin and tight to qualify. “He has a health bar not far away.”

“How nice.” Patrice shook Eddie’s hand. Chase hoped he wouldn’t be missing a watch or a ring later tonight. “See you around.”

“Who was that?” Eddie asked after they had left. “Wasn’t that the vet over there?”

“Yes, that’s Dr. Ramos. Patrice is his cousin. I know her through him.”

Eddie told a story about his first pet, a squirrel that had fallen from a tree. It hadn’t worked out. As soon as the squirrel reached adulthood, it went crazy trying to claw its way out of the cage, until Eddie let it loose in his yard.

“I thought it would remember me and I could hand-feed it nuts after that, but it never came back. I couldn’t tell it from any of the other squirrels.”

After the beer mugs arrived—these served gracefully without sloshing, not at all the way Bart had done—she started in on her mission. She picked up the beer list, having noticed it gave her a great jumping-off point.

“See this?” She pointed to the verbiage at the bottom, asking the patrons if they wanted to be added to the mailing list. “Do you think anyone does that?”

Eddie shrugged. “No idea.”

“I sometimes give my e-mail address to things like this, but I use a different one. One that I reserve just for promotional stuff. In fact, I’m thinking of getting a third address for business. Do you have a separate e-mail for your business?”

“Nope. Only the one. I use it for everything. But I only give it to people I want to get e-mail from.”

Dead end on that road. She took a swig of her ale. “Wow, this is good.”

“That it is. I’ve never had it here. I’ll have to remember it.”

Her next topic would be anything Eddie had done that might be worthy of blackmail. Now how was she going to approach that?

“Are you going to want another beer?” he asked.

A kernel of a thought formed. “I think I’ll stick with having only this one, since I had a beer earlier.” Now she was going into new territory with him, making up lies. “I had a bad experience with drinking too much beer once. Years ago. Did some awfully dumb things.”

“You have to be careful. A beer or two may be healthy, but being drunk isn’t.”

“Haven’t you ever done anything you’d rather not have anyone know about?” She watched him carefully.

“Can’t think of anything that bad.”

“Anything that would get you, say, blackmailed?”

“Definitely not anything like that.” He chuckled.

She didn’t think he was lying. But his name was H and he was hunky and hulky. Was she totally wrong? Was she not going to be able to help Julie at all?

She must have looked defeated, because Eddie asked if something was wrong.

“No, but I have to get going soon.”

“We just got here.” He frowned. “Why did you ask me to meet anyway?”

She glanced up into the corner. “Oh, I wanted to see you. Touch base.”

“Because it’s been so long since you’ve seen me?” His sarcasm was understandable. She was making a mess of things now.

She thought of something he would believe. “I did want to see you, but I have a stomachache. Julie and I had pizza earlier and—”

“Pizza? Commercial pizza? That stuff is poison. No wonder you feel bad. Should I drive you home?”

“No, no. I’m sure I can make it. And I’d love to finish this delicious ale.” That was true. She would have to come back another day and get a glass of raspberry ale she could drink in peace. With Mike, preferably, if he ever spoke to her again. “But I think I’d better go home and lie down.”

“No, don’t lie down. At least prop your head up. Do you have a recliner?”

She shook her head. “I can lie on the couch with a bunch of pillows.”

“That would be the best thing for you.”

She chattered while she fished for some bills from her purse. “People I know keep turning up tonight. I thought it was strange, but Bart Fender was working in the pizza place.”

“Lots of high school teachers have second jobs. They don’t get paid much.” He reached across the table and put his hand on hers. The unwanted spark was still there. His touch went straight to her innards. She had a wild desire to grab both his hands, to kiss him, to . . .

“I’ll get it,” he said. “You go home and rest. Come by tomorrow and I’ll give you something that will help if you don’t feel better. It might take some time for that toxin to get out of your body.”

“I have to work, but thanks. I’ll probably be better soon.”

She fled before he could offer to drop by with a health drink for her tonight.

THIRTY-FOUR

It was snowing hard when Chase came out of the Amble Inn. She trudged across the parking lot, horizontal crystals stinging her face. She shielded her face with her forearm, since she hadn’t taken the time to wrap her scarf over her nose and cheeks. After she got inside her little Ford, though, and had caught her breath, she took the trouble to protect her face. She was going to have to get out and scrape her windows. After turning the ignition on and aiming the heat full blast at the windows, she got out and started scraping. Luckily, the new snow was a mere dusting, lying over a very thin layer of ice, so it all came off easily.

Back in the car, the inside had reached a toasty temperature. She dialed the heat down slightly and set out. It soon became apparent that the storm was just getting started. It worsened by the mile. As she drove through the almost whiteout conditions, she wished she had taken Eddie up on his offer to drive her home. She had driven through storms like this before, but had never liked it.

The traffic moved like a row of metal snails down the unplowed streets. There had been about two-and-a-half feet on the ground already and it might send them into record-setting territory. That was confirmed when she turned on the radio and heard the dire predictions. Maybe she wouldn’t be working tomorrow, after all. If no one could get to the Bar None, workers or patrons, she could nestle upstairs with Quincy and stay warm and dry.

Once she made it home. If she made it home.

The car in front of her slewed as the brake lights flashed through the white haze. The rear end swung to the left. The driver didn’t know how to correct the sliding and turned right, making the skid worse and spinning the car around.

Chase carefully applied her brakes, trying to stop before she hit it and also trying to avoid skidding herself.

The car kept spinning and swung into the oncoming lane where it clipped a truck. Both of them careened to the other side of the road, away from Chase’s car with a sickening thunk of metal on metal. Those poor people, she thought, but was glad she was unscathed.

She pulled into an empty parking lot to recover from the fright. Taking several deep breaths, her mind wandered to everything that had happened that night.

Bart, working at the pizza place. He wasn’t truculent at first. Had speaking about Dillon’s coma upset him? Maybe. Or . . .

What had they been saying when he delivered their drinks? That’s when he had started steaming. Panic iced the nape of Chase’s neck, even though it was muffled in her warm scarf. They’d been talking about the e-mail, hunkyb.

Emergency vehicles, lights flashing and sirens wailing, sped past on their way to the accident she had just witnessed.