“What I need,” I replied, “is a doughnut. About two dozen of them. I have some cooking to do.”
“What?”
“Doughnuts. I need to stop at Krispy Kreme and get two dozen doughnuts.”
“Won’t a cookie do?”
I eased away from him and turned on the shower. “Everyone was so sweet to me today; I’m going to make a bread pudding to take to them tomorrow. I have a recipe using Krispy Kreme doughnuts for the bread.”
He stood frozen, his taste buds already imagining the taste. “Maybe we should get four dozen, so you can make two. That way we’ll have one at home.”
“Sorry. I can’t work out right now, so I really have to watch what I eat. The temptation would be too much if there was a bread pudding sitting there calling to me.”
“I’m a cop. I can protect you from it. I’ll take it into custody.”
“I don’t feel up to making two,” I said as I stepped into the shower.
He raised his voice to be heard over the running water. “I’ll help.”
I smiled again at the plea in his voice. He shouldn’t have let me know he had such a sweet tooth; now I had him. I thought about torturing him by not letting him taste the pudding until tomorrow at the police station with everyone else, and that kept my mind off the problem of someone trying to kill me. It’s just mental dancing, but it works for me.
I heard his cell phone ring while I was rinsing the shampoo from my hair. It was a slow go, since my left arm wasn’t really in the game, but I was managing. I listened to him talking, though I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Finished, I turned off the water and hooked the towel off the top of the shower door, then began drying myself as best I could.
“Come on out and I’ll finish the job,” he said, so I stepped out. The first thing I noticed was that he had that grim expression again.
“What’s wrong?”
“That was MacInnes,” he said, taking the towel from me and gently wiping me down. “Bailey’s alibi checks out. Every bit of it. He was either at home with his wife, or at work, with only enough time allowed in between for him to make the drive there and back. According to MacInnes, Bailey’s wife has filed for divorce, so she isn’t inclined to lie for him. They’ll check further, but it looks as if he’s clean. Someone else is trying to kill you.”
Chapter Twenty-one
We were early getting to Mom and Dad’s, even though we stopped for the doughnuts and condensed milk I needed for the bread pudding. Wyatt had everything else at his house, including the size pans I needed. Yes, pans. Plural. We bought four-dozen glazed doughnuts. The smell of them made my mouth water, but I was strong and didn’t even open the box.
Dad opened the door, paused while he studied my face, then said, “What happened?” in a very quiet tone.
“I totaled my car,” I said, going to him for a hug; then I went on into the kitchen to face Mom. Behind me, I heard Dad and Wyatt carrying on a low-voiced conversation and I figured Wyatt was giving Dad the skinny.
In the end, I hadn’t tried to conceal the bruises. Well, I did have on a pair of long pants, a light-weave cotton with pink and white stripes, and a white T-shirt tied in a knot at my waist, because if I’d worn shorts that showed the bruises on my legs, someone would have thought Wyatt was beating me and I didn’t feel up to defending his honor. But I hadn’t put any concealer on the bruises under my eyes, because I figured any makeup would make a mess when Mom did whatever she was bound to do to my face.
She was standing with the freezer door open, staring inside. “I meant to do a roast,” she said without looking up when she heard me come in. I’m not certain she knew it was me and not Dad, but it didn’t matter. “But I’ve been fighting with that damn computer for so long I don’t have time now. What do you think about grilling-” She looked up and saw me, and her eyes went round. “Blair Mallory,” she said in an accusing tone, as if I’d done this to myself.
“Car accident,” I said, sitting down on one of the tall barstools at the eating bar. “My poor little car is totaled. Someone cut my brake line and I went through the stop sign into the traffic at that busy intersection just down from my house.”
“This has to stop,” she said, her voice tight and angry as she closed the freezer door and opened the refrigerator portion instead. “I thought the police caught the man who killed Nicole.”
“They did. He didn’t do it. He didn’t shoot at me, either; after he shot Nicole, he didn’t leave his house except to go to work. His wife alibied him, and since she’s found out he was cheating on her, she’s filed for divorce, so it isn’t as if she’s protecting him.”
Mom closed the refrigerator door without taking anything out, and opened the freezer door again. Mom is scarily efficient, so this dithering told me how upset she was. This time, she pulled out a package of frozen peas and wrapped them in a clean kitchen towel. “Hold this over the bruises,” she said, handing the peas to me. “What other damage do you have?”
“Just bruises. And I’m sore in every muscle. A car T-boned my car on the passenger side, so I took a huge jolt. The air bag hit me in the face and gave me a bloody nose.”
“Be glad you don’t wear glasses. Sally”-Sally Arledge is one of Mom’s closest friends-“drove her car into the side of the house, and when the air bag hit her, it broke her glasses and her nose.”
I couldn’t remember Sally driving into the side of her house, and I’m sure Mom would have told me. My sisters and I had all called her “Aunt Sally” when we were little, and they palled around together-Mom and the three of us, Sally and her five. That was quite a group when we all went somewhere. Sally had four boys, then a daughter. She’d named the four boys after the Gospels, but didn’t find any biblical girl’s name that she liked, so they were Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Tammy. Tammy always felt left out because she didn’t have a biblical name, so we’d called her Rizpah for a while, but she didn’t like that either. Personally, I thought Rizpah Arledge had a ring to it, but Tammy decided to go back to being Tammy and didn’t even have to have counseling.
“When did Sally drive into the house? You didn’t tell me about this.”
“Put the peas on your face,” she said, and I obediently tilted my head back and draped the bag of frozen peas over my face. It was big enough to cover my eyes, cheekbones, and nose, and, damn, it was cold. “As for why I didn’t tell you, it just happened on Saturday, while you were at the beach, and there hasn’t been an opportunity since then.”
Ah, the beach. I remembered it with longing. It was just a few short days ago, but then my only problem had been Wyatt. No one had been trying to kill me while I was at the beach. Maybe I should go back. Tiffany would like that. So would I, if no one would shoot me or tamper with my car while I was there.
“Did she hit the gas instead of the brake pedal?” I asked.