Having dispatched her second cookie, Olivia settled back to sip her coffee. “That fits with what Struts Marinksy told me. Charlie doesn’t seem to have any money, despite his inheritance.”
“Interesting,” Ellie said, checking her watch. “However, I’ve missed my voice lesson, and my classics reading group starts in half an hour. I need to pick up my copy of Sense and Sensibility on the way.” She unrolled her petite body from the sofa and shook out the wrinkles in her loosely draped outfit. “We can both keep an eye on Charlene’s safety, but there isn’t much else we can do. Jason said she refuses to talk to the sheriff.”
“I can at least mention to Del that someone might have blackened her eye,” Olivia said. “Even if she denies it, he should know.”
“You realize that Charlene will blame Jason for telling.”
“I’ll be discreet. After all, I’m not the only one who noticed the bruise.”
Since Spunky had been stuck in the apartment all day, Olivia took him out for a short, brisk walk before returning to The Gingerbread House. It was near closing time, and Maddie was the only one left in the store. Olivia could hear her singing snatches of tunes along with her iPod. Spunky had learned to open the kitchen door by running at it full speed and flinging his little body against it. Olivia heard Maddie’s squeak of surprise when Spunky tumbled inside.
Maddie poked her upper body through the door, held out a squirming dog, and said, “Does this belong to you?”
“Never saw it before in my life,” Olivia said.
“One day he’s going to break his tiny neck.” The instant Maddie plunked Spunky on the ground, he took off like a furry rocket and raced around the store. Watching the blur, Maddie said, “If he destroys any of our displays, I’ll break it for him, the little darling.”
Olivia laughed. “You would act just like Spunky if you’d been kept prisoner all day. How were sales?”
“Great! I will leave the counting to you, as always. You do the boring stuff, and I do the fun stuff. It works. And as resident gifted baker, I am about to tackle the cookies for Gwen and Herbie’s baby shower tomorrow evening. Yes, I know, I should have them all cut out, baked, and in the freezer ready for icing, but things got a bit hectic.” Maddie stuck her iPod buds in her ears and turned her back on Olivia. While Maddie gathered ingredients and equipment for the cookies, Olivia collected the day’s receipts and settled at her little kitchen desk. She’d hoped to talk with Maddie about Lucas’s proposal and Charlene’s response to their “harvest” cookie event, but she could tell the moment wasn’t right. Maddie hadn’t even brought up Charlene’s bruised eye. When Maddie closed the door, it couldn’t be blasted open with dynamite.
After a couple hours of dealing with numbers, Olivia was ready to call it quits for the day. Their sales had been good for a Tuesday, but not as impressive as most previous events, especially when she factored in the cost of all those cookies the customers had consumed.
“I’m beat,” Olivia said. “I’m going to bed early tonight.”
Spunky trotted over to her, but Maddie gave her a puzzled look and pulled her iPod buds from her ears. “You spoke?”
“I said I’m heading for bed. Are you planning to work all night?”
Maddie shook her head. “I’m actually tired, for once. I’ll clean up in here and turn out the lights.”
Olivia nestled her sleepy dog in one arm and closed the kitchen door behind her. With the store lights dimmed and the air conditioner on low, the light clink and dull shine of the cookie cutter mobiles reminded her of outdoor chimes. The store still smelled faintly of lime zest. At that moment, Olivia could not imagine leaving Chatterley Heights and moving back to Baltimore. The Gingerbread House had sneaked into her heart the way Spunky had as a puppy, the first time she’d held him.
Feeling expansive, Olivia decided to give her brother the Duesenberg cookie cutter he so coveted. Without turning up the lights, she wound through densely packed displays to the transportation mobile from which she’d hung the cutter. It wasn’t there. Unable to comprehend what she was seeing, Olivia reached toward the spot where it had hung, on the right side of the mobile. It had to be there. Gwen had chosen the tin baby rattle cutter as her prize. And Jason wouldn’t have taken the cutter on his own. Would he?
Maybe Maddie had given the Duesenberg to Jason. It would be like her to take pity on him because he hadn’t won the contest, even with her hints. Olivia poked her head into the kitchen and waved to get Maddie’s attention.
“Maddie, did you by any chance take that Duesenberg cookie cutter out of the transportation mobile?”
“Nope,” Maddie said. “Not my job.”
“It’s gone.”
“It can’t be.”
“Well, it is. Gone, absent, disappeared.”
“Livie, you don’t think Jason would . . . ?”
With a slow shake of her head, Olivia said, “I can’t believe that he would. It’s a valuable cutter, but Jason knows I’d let him have it free, or at least for next to nothing. Anyway, he seemed awfully focused on Charlene and her problems. It’s hard to imagine he’d even have thought about it. Well, I won’t worry about it tonight, and don’t you, either. It’ll turn up. Maybe it fell off and someone put it somewhere in the store. I’m sure we’ll find it in the light of day. You look baked to a crisp. How many days has it been since you slept?”
Maddie yawned and stretched. “I’m fine. I went to bed early Sunday night.”
“This is Tuesday evening. I’ll clean up. You go home and get some rest.”
For once, Maddie didn’t argue.
Chapter Seven
Olivia lay awake and listed her midsummer resolutions. First, buy a new bedroom air conditioner. Second, never read the Cookie Cutter Collectors Club’s latest Cookie Crumbs newsletter right before bed. Way too stimulating. She could read a thriller and still drift off, but looking at photos of vintage cutters made her want to run out and find an all-night flea market.
It didn’t help Olivia’s sleep problem that the temperature in her second-floor bedroom was in the mid-eighties with a dew point she could take a bath in. The Weather Channel had mentioned a storm nearby, possibly heading in their direction. It couldn’t arrive soon enough.
Olivia lay spread-eagle on her bed wearing only panties and a loose cotton T-shirt that reached to her mid-thighs. When she’d first moved into her apartment, she had talked herself out of replacing the old window air conditioner in her bedroom. After all, it might be noisy and slow but it still worked. Frugality was her lifetime habit, inheritance or no inheritance. But with the distractions of Maddie’s impromptu cookie event and Charlene’s dramatic appearance, she hadn’t remembered to turn the useless thing on until bedtime. The day’s heat had snaked through the myriad, inevitable cracks in the old house and slithered up the staircase, gaining strength as it curled into her bedroom.
“I’ve been lying here for hours,” Olivia muttered. She switched on the bedside lamp and checked her cell phone for the time. It was one a.m. “Okay, thirty-five minutes.”
Spunky’s tiny body stretched out flat at the foot of the bed, as far as possible from Olivia. When she spoke, he lifted his eyelids and dropped them shut in one smooth movement.
Olivia considered going to her kitchen and pouring herself a glass of wine. No, she had to open the store in the morning; she couldn’t afford to feel groggy. She’d finished her last library book. Music never helped her to sleep, and the only television was in her living room, where the air conditioner was even older and louder.
Olivia shifted sideways to a cooler place on the sheet. Forcing her eyes shut, she tried deep breathing, which her yoga-addicted mother insisted would relax her. It made her crabby. As if mirroring her mood, Spunky raised his head and growled. But he was looking toward the bedroom windows, not at Olivia. She sat up, listened, but heard only the racket made by the air conditioner.