Connie Shelton - Sweet's Sweets - The Second Samantha Sweet Mystery

Sam passed all this along to Beau, for whatever little help it might provide.

Meanwhile, Troy and crew had nearly finished hauling out the smaller junk and the rooms felt much larger and more open with their minimal furnishings. Sam directed the men to remove a few more things then noted their hours so she would know how much to reimburse Darryl for their time, and sent them on their way.

Until Beau gave the all-clear, she couldn’t really apply cleansers or vacuum up possible trace evidence or get a whole lot further along toward completing the cleanup. With work at a standstill, she updated her sign-in sheet, posted the required USDA notices out in the yard, secured the doors and windows, and placed the keys in a lockbox on the front doorknob.

The small tasks kept her hands occupied, but she couldn’t clear her head of all the questions that ricocheted around in there. Was Cheryl Adams one of those sad cases—single mother, four kids with four different fathers? Was the blood on the coat hers? Maybe the man who’d once lived here, the owner of those battered boots, had been abusive toward Adams and she’d done something to him? Or, heaven forbid, maybe he’d injured one of her children and wrapped the little body in the old coat as he removed it from the house.

No matter how much she puzzled over it, Sam found no answers and the questions only became more and more disturbing.

Suddenly free of her newest break-in job, Sam reveled in the idea that a whole evening loomed ahead—time that she could spend on her shop. She left a voice mail message telling Kelly where she would be, stopped at the first fast-food place with a drive-up and came away with a bag of greasy, meaty goodness that she would call dinner.

The alley behind her new shop was quiet and she parked the Silverado beside her new back door. Ivan Petrenko’s vehicle sat behind the bookstore. While it was comforting to know that there were others nearby, she hoped to avoid any interruptions to her evening’s work. She reached across the passenger seat for her fast-food sack and the mid-weight jacket she’d shed as the day warmed up. And under the jacket, her secret weapon.

Sam wasn’t sure what possessed her to bring the magical wooden box with her today. Before this week she’d avoided taking advantage of its powers. Was it the vivid dream in which the old bruja , Bertha Martinez, had appeared and encouraged her to use the box to her advantage? Or was it the fact that the recent workload had left her feeling overwhelmed, in need of any little help she could get? Sam brushed aside her nagging doubts and grabbed it up.

Indoors, she switched on the lights. The retail space echoed with a satisfying emptiness. Sam had made more headway yesterday than she’d thought. The front of the shop contained only the nicest of the display cases, the ones she planned to keep, and the back room needed just a bit more clearing before she would be able to start bringing in her own fixtures. She wiped off a space on an old table and set her dinner and the wooden box there.

Closing her eyes, she placed her hands on the box. As the warm glow began to spread up her arms she breathed contentedly. Alone in her own space, secure with the doors locked against the rest of the world, Sam fixed the vision of her finished pastry shop in her head. What if the box’s powers went far beyond anything she could imagine, as the vision of Bertha Martinez had suggested? What if she were to open her eyes and the shop would be there, real and finished, ready to open for customers? What if . . .

The tingle in Sam’s arms became intense. Her heart raced as if jolted by electricity. She yanked her hands away from the box.

Her eyes popped open and she stared around the storeroom. Everything was as before. Thank god. What would she have done had her vision actually manifested itself? The very idea scared her. Thrilled her. She couldn’t be sure which.

She stood up and shook her hands to relieve the prickling sensation.

Delving into the sack she grabbed two fries and gobbled them. The cheeseburger disappeared in a few bites. She couldn’t remember having lunch and there’d been only a slice of pumpkin bread for breakfast. That explained it. No wonder she’d been lightheaded, allowing her imagination to go all vivid on her. Crazy.

She wiped her hands on the napkin from the bag and tossed the wrappers into a trash bag. Furniture polish—that will make me feel better.

She went to work on the display cases in the sales room. The wood immediately began to gleam with new luster and the glass shone brilliantly. She’d been half worried that the old furnishings would be too battered and worn to do her any good, but they were turning out beautifully. She pushed them into the positions where she’d envisioned them. Nice.

The old hardwood floors didn’t seem nearly as scarred as she’d first thought. Just having the lights on made all the difference, she decided. She swept, mopped and applied a good coat of paste wax. The electric buffer that she’d left here yesterday made quick work of that task and when it was finished Sam stood back, gazing out at her showroom.

Really, with the addition of tables and chairs, a cash register and a few more odds and ends, she could begin making sales right away. She smiled at her handiwork.

Scarcely two hours had passed but Sam didn’t want to dwell upon the fact that she was obviously working under the influence of the box’s magic. She turned to the second room, the one that would be her kitchen. With the power of invincibility behind her she began shoving everything she didn’t plan to keep—every box, every old rickety shelf unit, every tacky bit of detritus that the old tenant had left behind—toward the back door. It made a good-sized stack but she piled it all up. Then she opened the back door and began heaving all the junk into the dumpster in the alley.

One by one, the trashy items became history. Sam didn’t give herself the chance to think about how her joints were going to feel in the morning, or the luxury of saying that she ought to quit and tackle it again tomorrow. She simply worked like a robot—reach, lift, turn, throw. And soon the big stack became a small stack and quickly even the small stack was gone. She gave a sigh and took a deep breath of the crisp night air.

Ivan’s vehicle was gone now. It must be after eight o’clock.

Sam still felt like she had energy to spare. Secretly glad that no one had stopped by to interrupt, she went back inside and began cleaning the floors in the back room. These were sealed concrete and the cleanup went quickly, as she filled and refilled her mop bucket, washing all traces of the former dust and grime down the drain in the little porcelain sink in one corner. Soon, stainless fixtures would replace the old ones. She assembled bakery racks in her new storage area, readying it for the stores of supplies and tools she now kept crowded into her meager service porch at home.

Stepping back, she surveyed the now-open work space. Last month when Sam first had the idea that this location would become hers, she’d come by with the landlord and measured the entire area. When the reality of having money in the bank finally sank in, she’d ordered custom fixtures from a commercial kitchen outfitter in Albuquerque and Darryl’s cabinetry man was making the rest of what she needed—a back counter for the sales area, window display shelves and special racks for cakes and other pastries.

She laughed aloud. What fun this was turning out to be!

Chapter 6

The luxury of sleeping late would no longer be a regular thing, Sam was beginning to realize. She awoke to a gray dawn, knowing that a million tasks awaited, but she rolled over and tugged the comforter up over her shoulders. Dimly, from the rest of the house, came the sounds of Kelly rising and showering and making her way to the kitchen. Sam ignored it all, telling herself that just thirty more minutes of sleep wouldn’t hurt anything.