The first chapter of Fairmont Finds #3! Raw and unedited, just for you =)
***Snip Begins***
CHAPTER 1
Some days can only be improved by deep fried dough.
Or creamy icing atop deliciously moist cake.
This was one of those days. And since Helen was my best friend in White Sage, she’d offered up herself on the sacrificial alter of empty calories and a prolonged sugar high and agreed to accompany me at this ridiculously early hour.
It didn’t hurt that she could eat like a teenage boy and not gain weight, but I knew she was here for me and not the baked goods. Well, she was here mostly for me.
Catie’s Cupcakery didn’t officially open until nine, but everyone knew that Catie started baking as early as five and never later than five-thirty. At six-thirty, she was guaranteed to not only be there, but also to have at least a few batches out of the oven, cooling, waiting for icing.
“Oh, my,” Helen muttered from the passenger seat of my Grand Cherokee.
I knew that tone. That was the tone my dear friend assumed when she recognized an impending event of some importance. I hesitated to use the word crisis.
I was typically good in a crisis. I’d raised two children, and during that time had encountered my fair share of them.
But I wasn’t up to it. Not today.
We were approaching Sally’s Sandwich Shoppe, just two stores from our end destination, Catie’s Cupcakery.
I didn’t have time for a crisis. I needed sugary treats, and I needed them now. Not that the world revolved around my needs…but it was a nice thought for a few seconds.
I’d just pulled even with Sally’s store front, when Helen yelled, “Stop!”
Not stopping when a passenger you trust demands it would be foolish. I’d used up most of my allowance for foolish when I’d lingered overlong in a failing marriage, so I stopped as soon as I knew we wouldn’t be rear ended.
“Back up. We need to turn down Bluebonnet Lane.”
Bluebonnet Lane was a small side street that led to a neighborhood but also to the Cupcakery’s rear parking. I’d passed Bluebonnet without slowing, because I preferred the store front parking at Sally’s and Catie’s over their shared parking behind the stores.
“Is your back bothering you?” Because back pain was a very good reason Helen would want to turn down Bluebonnet Lane. The back entrance of Catie’s shop had no steps, unlike the front.
She made a disgusted sound, as if the very thought that she’d be laid low by something so trivial was unthinkable. “Just back up and turn.”
Instead of checking my rearview mirror for irate drivers—I had just stopped without apparent reason in the middle of the street—I turned my whole body to look over my shoulder. Not a soul was behind us.
No irate drivers…but in my backseat was one very agitated German Shorthaired Pointer. I wasn’t backing up, because backing up was a very bad idea.
I knew what that vibrating tail and intense focus indicated, and I wanted no part of it.
“No. I am not turning down Bluebonnet. We’re calling the police.” I didn’t usually call Chief Charleston when I was in a pinch, but desperate times…
“You mean the sheriff.” She corrected me with a placid expression.
Helen knew exactly why I didn’t want to call the sheriff, aka Luke McCord, aka my something complicated, aka not my boyfriend.
“I didn’t mean the sheriff. I meant Chief Charleston.” And now someone was behind me. Since this was small town central Texas, that somebody didn’t honk the horn of their massive truck. They waited patiently for me to sort myself out…while I was stopped in the middle of the street. Bless White Sage residents and their very un-Austin-like driving behavior.
I waved for the driver of the truck to pass me, and a very polite farmer (I assumed based on the mud on the truck and the driver’s John Deere ball cap) lifted his hand in a pleasant wave as he passed us.
When I didn’t immediately back up, Helen said, “We’re not calling Luke or Bubba Charleston. Not until you turn down Bluebonnet and see what has Fairmont in a tizzy.”
A “woof” and the scrabbling sound of claws on the interior of my door followed.
If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that dog spoke English.
I shouldn’t turn down Bluebonnet Lane. I didn’t want to, but I also didn’t see a sound alternative. If I did call the Chief, what would I say? “Fairmont was acting oddly. Can you please come and investigate, because I don’t want to find a dead body?”
Another dead body.
There really wasn’t a choice. I needed to follow my dog’s nose and see if something untoward awaited us. Something untoward. Now there was a nice euphemism for a corpse. I shrugged my shoulders in an attempt to release some of the tension that had gathered there.
Maybe there was a squirrel. Fairmont had a special love-hate relationship with squirrels. And if a particularly cheeky squirrel had taunted him, he could get agitated.
Probably not this agitated—Fairmont was such a gentleman, the very best of dogs—but I held out hope.
Or wallowed in denial.
Whichever.
And I wouldn’t get emotional over how wonderful Fairmont was. How much he meant to me. What an important part of my life he’d become.
My eyes burned, and that was not how one approached a potential crisis. I inhaled a cleansing breath, tucked away my feelings for the dog who had become such an integral part of my life, and focused on the squirrel angle.
I stuck with my sassy squirrel hypothesis as I backed up a few more feet and then turned down Bluebonnet Lane.
I tossed it around as a very real possibility as I drove a short distance on Bluebonnet Lane with an excitedly vibrating dog in the back.
And I even clung to it as I turned into the shared back parking lot of Catie’s Cupcakery and Sally’s Sandwich Shoppe.
Reality snuck in with a stray thought: Why did it have to be Sally and Catie’s parking lot?
But then the barking started, and with the sharp, repetitive barks, the tenuous illusion I’d created of capering squirrels was shattered.
As calmly as I could, I parked. I ignored Fairmont’s excited woofs until I’d safely engaged the emergency brake. Then I turned around in my seat and called him. Once I had hold of his collar, he quieted.
That’s when Helen spoke, confirming what I already knew to be true.
“There’s a body here somewhere. The question now is, do we wait in the car and call Luke? Or do we let Fairmont find it and then call Luke?”
Nowhere in that equation was the option of calling Chief Charleston.
And as frustrated as I was right now with Luke—or my relationship with Luke…or the dynamics of my relationship with Luke—I also wanted his big, comforting, capable presence here. Right now. Before either one of us left this car.
“Helen Granger, don’t you dare open that door.” I pulled my phone out of its handsfree cradle.
“So, we’re calling Luke?”
I didn’t answer, but I did call Luke.
He picked up on the first ring. “Thank goodness. I wasn’t sure when I’d hear from you after last—”
“I think Fairmont just found a body.” I bit my lip.
“Are you safe?” he asked.
And I hated that my heart went pitter patter over the fact that the very first question he asked was whether I was safe. Silly, because that was probably just basic law enforcement training.
“I’m safe. Helen’s with me. We’re in my car, parked behind—”
Oh. Oh, no. A cold wave washed over me, and my vision narrowed. I was parked behind Sally’s place. Sally, who was Annie’s mom, my friend, but most importantly, Luke’s sister.
“Zella?” Luke’s voice, firm and calm came across the line. “Where are you?”
I tried to speak, but a frog stole my voice. I cleared my throat, thinking as I did, formulating words. The right words. “Luke, I’m sorry. I’m gonna call you right back. Helen and I are safe. I’ll call you right back.”
And I hung up on him as he protested.
I shared a quick glance with Helen, who—clever woman—understood immediately. We both got out of the car at the same time. I pointed to the entrance of the parking lot.
Not that many cars would be in the area at six in the morning, but I wanted to be sure that Fairmont and I were safe.
Once she placed herself in a position to redirect any cars headed into the lot and I made certain that my cell phone was in the back pocket of my jeans, I opened the rear hatch and attached Fairmont’s leash. He didn’t seem to mind that my hands shook.
A week ago, I’d started lifting him out of the back of the SUV after he’d tweaked his elbow. He was better now, but I was glad I’d kept the habit. Holding an armful of warm dog settled my nerves a little. I set him carefully on the ground, held his collar, and then let out the leash slowly as he pulled on it. My hope was that he’d remember I was still attached and not drag me willy-nilly across the pavement.
It seemed to work. Moving at a steady trot but no more, he made a beeline for the dumpster that Sally, Catie, and one other business shared. He circled it, then jumped up and put his paws on it. He lingered just long enough for me to see that there was trash and only trash inside, then continued on past it and into the alley behind the parking lot.
I jogged behind him, not minding my footing as well as I should, because I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I stumbled once, then again, but never feel to my knees.
I was terrified of what he’d discover. Who he’d discover.
And not in a general sense, though having happened upon more than one dead person certainly hadn’t made me immune to the horror of it.
I’d never seen the body of someone I cared for outside of a funeral home. And I very much wanted this poor person, whoever they might be, to be a stranger.
Someone unknown.
Someone I didn’t care for.
Not Luke’s sister.
I gasped for breath. He would be devastated.
Fairmont and I followed the alley for a short distance—perhaps the length of one or two shops, then crossed it.
Fairmont slowed to examine some scrubby vegetation, then he darted for some overgrown shrubs.
And barked.
I’d swear my heart stopped with the sound, and when it started beating again, it fluttered like a frantic, trapped bird as Fairmont’s barks continued to sound in the otherwise quiet morning air.
I had to look. I had to know who he’d found. And I had to keep Fairmont away, just in case… The word murder fluttered through my mind and then escaped, because I was reeling in Fairmont, hushing him, kneeling, looking—
“Oh, Catie. No. No.”
Fingers trembling, I dialed Luke.
“Where are you?”
“I found Catie Smithart. She’s dead, Luke.”
With more patience than I would have had in the situation, he repeated, “Where are you?”
“Uh,” I looked up, because I hadn’t a clue. “A dentist’s office. The one that’s across the alley from Catie and Sally’s parking lot. That’s where I parked. Helen’s still there.”
I recognized the sound of his work SUV starting as he replied, “I’m on my way.”
***End of Snip***
Fairmont Finds a Baker is available for preorder now! Releasing June 24, 2020.
