Éclair and Present Danger (6 page)

“It's like I just said, dear. You need to be
authentic
.”

Before she could process the woman's words, Renee began to squeal. “Oooh . . . You know what this means, don't you, Winnie? You need to call Master Sergeant Hottie—stat.”

“For?” she prompted.

“I'll take this.” Bridget folded her arms across her chest in obvious exasperation. “To
assist
you with that authenticity I mentioned, of course.”

“D
on't you dare fall asleep, Winnie Johnson!”

Winnie tightened her grip on the phone and willed herself to focus on something other than the hint of warmth on her cheek from the waning sun. “I—I'm not falling asleep.”

“Liar. I just saw your head loll to the side like a rag doll.”

Straightening up on the bench, Winnie darted her gaze left to the empty sidewalk, straight ahead to the front window of Hudson Hardware, and then right to the all-too-familiar Easter egg blue compact car parked no more than a block away. “You
followed
me?”

“You're darn straight I did. If I didn't, you'd be fast asleep on that bench by now, and I'd be wondering why you stopped talking.” Renee rolled down the driver's side window and made what Winnie suspected was a not-so-nice face. “Besides, I know you. You're afraid he's going to bite.”

“Oh, stop it, Renee. Do I need to remind you I've owned my own bakery for the last two years?”

“And do I need to remind you that you haven't gone on a date in all that time, either?”

“I've dated!”

“Treating Mr. Nelson to a spaghetti dinner at Mario's doesn't qualify as a date, Winnie.”

“I'm going to tell him you said that.”

“Go ahead. It won't matter. I'm the only one he clips on those bow ties for and you know it.”

She had to laugh. It was either that or run into traffic (if there was any) . . . “I'm just here to gather information for the Dessert Squad, Renee. That's all.”

“But if he happened to ask you for a date during that process, you would go, right?”

Sinking against the wooden slats at her back, she tried to find the humor in the situation. Her efforts were futile. “Look, Renee, how about we make a deal? I don't try to analyze your feelings about the divorce, and you don't try to set me up on dates, okay?”

“I'm not trying to set you up on a date, Winnie. I'm just helping you with your new business. It's not my fault that in order to fully execute your plan to the best of your ability you need to spend some quality time with Master Sergeant Hottie.”

Master Sergeant Hottie . . .

She felt her eyes start to glaze over as, once again, her head dipped to the side.

“Don't you do it! I swear, I'll drag you into that station by the ear, if you do.”

She shifted to the shadier end of the bench and stared up at the sky. “You do realize I haven't slept since the night before last, yes?”

“Sleep is overrated, Winnie.”

“And in that time, I've inherited an ambulance and a cat that hates me . . . closed up shop on something I poured my heart and soul into for the past two years . . . baked a pie and delivered it to my friend, only to find his dead . . . um . . .”

Focus . . .

Focus . . .

Prying her droopy eyes open with her fingers, she tried to remember where they were. At a loss for an answer, she stepped onto an entirely different train of thought . . .

“Is it just me, or did you happen to notice how my eighty-year-old neighbor knew exactly who you were talking about when you referenced Master Sergeant Hottie this morning?”

“Of course she did, Winnie. Bridget is the one who coined the phrase.”

She looked back toward Renee's car. “You're kidding, right?”

“Nope. Used it in the first column she wrote after he moved to town. I'm shocked you didn't see it.”

“I've had bigger fish to fry the past few months, I guess.” Slowly, she leaned her head against the back of the bench, the memory of carrying the last box out of the bakery—almost exactly twenty-four hours earlier—still fresh in her thoughts. “I can't believe Delectable Delights is really gone.”

“The Emergency Dessert Squad is better. Much better.”

She watched a plane dart between clouds thousands of miles overhead, her mind shifting gears as she did. “Do you really think so, Renee?”

“Absolutely. It's genius, Winnie. The names, the concept, it's all there. You just need to put the cherry on top.”

“The cherry?”

“Go inside, Winnie. Greg will help you if you ask.”

Lifting her head from the bench, she turned her attention back to the car and the woman now pointing at the one-story brick building behind Winnie's bench. “You called him
Gre
g
.”

“Because it's the only way you'll go inside.”

“Am I really that transparent?”

“Yes.” Renee pointed again and then rolled up her
window. “I'm hanging up now, but I'm not leaving until I see you get off that bench and walk inside that station.”

“I won't bother calling your bluff, but—” She stopped at the click in her ear, removed the device from the side of her face, and returned it to the backpack purse next to her leg. There was no denying the excitement she'd felt coursing through her body as she'd brainstormed ideas throughout the night. No denying the excitement she'd felt when Renee had reacted to those ideas with such enthusiasm. The concept was there. Talking to Greg and getting inside a real ambulance could only help.

Winnie stood, hoisted the purse onto her shoulder, and stepped inside the rather nondescript building. A balding man looked up from behind a half wall separating the lobby area from the inner workings of the Silver Lake Ambulance Corps and smiled. “Good afternoon. Are you here for our EMT class?”

“No. I . . .” She took a deep breath and made herself step closer. “I was wondering if Greg Stevens might be in today?”

“Yeah, Greg's here. Got in about an hour ago. You want to talk to him?”

“If I could. If he's not busy. If he is, I could just come back another time.”

“Nah, he's not busy.” Bypassing the intercom system on the desk in front of him, the man whose name tag read “Stan” yelled, “Yo, boss. You've got company up here.”

She didn't need the framed mirror to her left to know her face was red. That just served as irrefutable proof.

A door behind Stan swung open, and Greg stepped out. “I guess you don't need that megaphone I was planning to buy for you—” He stopped, mid-step, his eyes widening as they came to rest on Winnie. “Oh. Wow. Hey.
Winnie
, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well this is a nice surprise.”

Stan leaned back in his chair, an amused expression
snaking its way across his face. “Should I leave you two kids alone?”

Ignoring his coworker, Greg emerged from behind the half wall to stand in front of Winnie. “You have a price?”

“A price?” she echoed.

“For the ambulance. That's why you're here, right?” A flash of something that looked a lot like embarrassment changed his eyes from a milk chocolate shade to one more befitting a darker, richer cocoa . . .

Focus . . .

Focus . . .

“You know what?” he said, changing gears. “How about we step outside for a minute? There's a bench out front we could sit on.”

She resisted the urge to share her familiarity with the bench and opted, instead, to simply nod.

“If you need me, Stan, I'm outside.”

“You got it, boss.”

She followed him back out to the sidewalk and over to the bench she'd vacated not more than five minutes earlier. A visual sweep of the street to her right showed no sign of Renee. Surprisingly, that didn't give her the relief she would have anticipated . . .

“By now, Stan is back in the lounge, making up all kinds of stories about the two of us. You do realize this, don't you?”

She made herself laugh despite the dread rising up in her throat. “Guys do that?”

“I'll let you in on a little secret, Winnie. Cops, firefighters, paramedics—they're worse than a group of middle school girls. In every way. Trust me on this.”

“You mentioned that yesterday when you came into the bakery.” Easing back against the bench, she forced herself to relax. “I'm sorry if my showing up here causes any problems for you. In fact, I even told Renee it was probably a bad idea.”

“Renee,” he repeated, his head nodding as he did. “That was the woman with the short blond hair in your bakery yesterday morning, right? The one that seemed to know more about me than even I do?”

“Yup. That's her. She's harmless, though. I swear.”

“Good to know.”

Their laughter died away, leaving them with a semi-awkward silence that had Winnie's face warming despite the sun's rapid descent behind the hardware store. Hiking his thigh onto the bench between them, Greg was the first to speak. “I'm sorry about your bakery. That really stinks.”

She felt the pain of her loss tickling at her heart and willed it away. “Mr. Nelson reminds everyone who walks by our house that you just need to find a little sun in your day and you'll be fine. And he's right.”

“Who's Mr. Nelson?”

“The man who lives in the apartment below mine. It's a two-family house—only he lives in his place alone, and I live in my place alone.” Feeling suddenly foolish about her over-the-top chattiness, she inhaled every ounce of courage she could muster and got to the point of her visit. “I'm not here to sell the ambulance.”

The slump to his shoulders was quick but still noticeable.

“I was considering it, I really was,” she rushed to explain. “But then I realized it just might be the ticket to getting my business up and running again.”

“I think you might be overestimating what you can get for it, Winnie. I mean, it's beautiful, don't get me wrong, but . . . it still needs work to restore it to its original condition.”

She, too, swiveled her body so that they were facing each other. “I know. That's why I'm here. I'm hoping you'll help me with the details.”

Lifting his hand off the back of the bench, Greg raked it across the top of his head, his minimal amount of hair undaunted by the motion. “I don't understand.”

“I'm thinking about taking my bakery on the road via the ambulance. I've got a name—the Emergency Dessert Squad—and I'm working on creating a menu to reflect that theme.”

“The Emergency Dessert Squad? Are you serious?”

She felt her own shoulders slump. “You think it's stupid?”

A smile like she'd never seen on a person's face before suddenly covered his, bringing with it the dimples she remembered from the previous day. “Are you kidding me? It's awesome!” He leaned the side of his body into the bench and propped his head against his hand. “You can't run the siren, though. That would be against the law.”

“No siren. Got it.”

“So how can I help?” he asked.

“Well, in order to really make this a success, I think I need to work the whole emergency rescue theme into my presentation.”

“You mean in more than just the name of your business and the name of your desserts?”

“Exactly.” She leaned forward, powered, no doubt, by the notion of getting her dream back on its feet in a new and more creative way. “So I was hoping that maybe you could let me see a real ambulance. And, if it's okay, maybe I could take notes and see how I might tweak my idea in the name of authenticity.”

“I think that can be arranged,” he said, letting his foot drop back down to the concrete.

She clapped her hands and then stood, her mind already racing ahead to the kinds of things she might see on her personal tour. “Fantastic. Thank you. Just name the day and time and I'll be here.”

“How about today? How about right now?”

“You can do that?” she asked, stunned.

“
I'm
not doing anything at the moment, are
you
?”

“No.”

“Then come on.” Touching his hand to the small of her back, he guided her around the bench and toward a different door than the one she'd used to access the station. “As long as we don't get any calls, you can look for as long as you'd like. Just know that if you do, Stan's jaws will be flapping for days to come.”

“S
o this is what we refer to as the bay, but it's really just a super big garage.” Greg flicked on a secondary overhead light and then gestured toward the lone ambulance in the center, the vehicle's predominately white exterior sparkling with the effects of a very recent waxing. “Now,
this
ambulance is quite a bit different than
your
ambulance, but you'll still get a good sense of what we bring along on a call.”

Winnie trailed him over to the back of the ambulance and then stepped to the side as he opened the back. “One big difference between the ambulance of today and the ambulance of the 1960s is that we can stand up inside this one. Or at least anyone smaller than I am can.”

Pulling her purse around to her side, she reached inside for a notebook and pen and flipped to a clean page. “How many people can fit inside the back of this thing?”

“Three. The person we're transporting, the paramedic or EMT, and, if necessary, a family member of the sick or injured party.”

She stopped writing long enough to point at the silver pole to the left of the empty gurney. “What's that?”

“A drip pole. In case we have to administer an IV en route to the hospital.” He hopped into the back of the ambulance and pulled out a bag with a clear liquid inside. “See this loop? It fits right here on the top of the pole. It hangs there while the fluid is administered into the patient's arm.”

“I couldn't have one of those in my ambulance, right? The patient transport area is way too short.”

Greg put the fluid bag back in the drawer and pulled the pole closer. “No, you could have one. You'd just have to collapse it down like you would with the gurney. Like this . . .” He wrapped his hands around the pole and twisted. Sure enough, the pole shrunk down in much the way a microphone stand could. “See?”

“Hmmm . . .”

He extended the pole once again, returned it to its original spot inside the ambulance, and then eyed her with obvious amusement. “I see your wheels turning.”

Flipping the page over, she sketched the pole and a tube running from a bag straight to the top of a piece of cinnamon cake. When she was done, she shifted the notebook over so Greg could see. “I'm thinking I could have a drip pole in the Dessert Squad, too. I wouldn't need it for all desserts, of course, but for those that should have a drizzle of icing—like maybe a cinnamon cake or a pastry puff of some sort—an IV pole could be a really fun way to add it when I'm making the delivery to the customer's door, don't you think?”

At his silence, she looked up, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “No good, huh?” she asked, dropping her gaze back to the primitive drawing in her hand.

“Actually, I think it's a pretty clever idea.” His smile opened wide, bringing with it such an intense dimple sighting she actually had to hang on to the ambulance's bumper for support. “Not something I would have thought of, but then again no one has ever accused me of being creative—”

“Oh, c'mon, boss, don't sell yourself short. You got Stan to shut his mouth last week by making up some disease he was in danger of contracting if he didn't.”

Greg's face reddened slightly, and Winnie turned to see who was speaking.

“Hey, I remember you!”

She racked her brain for a name to go with the five foot six red-haired man, but she came up empty. “I'm sorry, you look familiar but . . .”

“I'm Chuck. Chuck Rogers. I was one of the EMTs on the scene yesterday. How are you holding up today? I know that had to be quite a shock to your system.”

And then it clicked. Chuck had been the one who'd sat her down on Bart's front porch the previous evening and checked her vitals. She'd been so consumed by sadness and shock and fear over finding the elderly man's body that many of the peripheral details of what came next were fuzzy at best.

“Wait a minute.” Greg jumped down from the back of the ambulance and looked from Winnie to Chuck and back again. “You were the one who found that body last night, Winnie?”

She closed her eyes against the memory of Bart's sock-clad feet . . . Bart's spindly legs . . . Bart's navy blue shirt . . . and, finally, the navy blue throw pillow atop Bart's face—a memory that had risen to the surface of her thoughts many times over the past twenty-four hours only to be shoved to the side in favor of her sanity.

“Winnie?” She felt Greg's hand on her arm and willed herself to focus on that, instead. “Are you okay?”

Breathe in . . .

Breathe out . . .

Breathe in . . .

She looked down at the drawing of her IV icing bag and waited for the excitement over her new business idea to return and help deflect the horror of finding Bart's body.
But it didn't. “I thought I was,” she finally said. “But I think maybe I've just been fooling myself.”

He slid his hand behind her and gripped the back of her arm. “Why don't you come into the lounge with me and sit for a while. You're looking a little pale.”

Chuck closed the back of the ambulance and then flanked her on the other side for the walk across the bay. Thanks to the interior wall that provided a visual of the ambulance at all times, Winnie could see that the lounge held a large metal table, a few comfortable recliners across from a wall-mounted television set, a refrigerator, a sink, and a stove.

“Welcome to our home away from home,” Chuck said at the door before excusing himself to speak with Stan up front.

When he was gone, Greg ushered her over to the most intact-looking recliner and stayed at her side as she sat. “I'm sorry I wasn't on duty last night when all of this happened.”

Desperate to stop the trembling in her hands, Winnie tucked them underneath her thighs. “I don't know how you do what you do,” she whispered. “I—I wouldn't want to see someone like that ever again.”

“We all have our job to do, Winnie. But most of the time, we get to people before it's too late.
That's
why I do what I do.”

“I just don't understand why someone would hurt
anyone
, let alone an elderly man. I mean, what kind of threat could he have possibly been?”

Greg lowered himself onto the recliner closest to Winnie's and propped his elbows atop his thighs. “I wish I could answer that, Winnie. I really do. But sometimes the world just doesn't make any sense. All we can do now is let the police department do its job and hope their efforts lead to justice.”

“I hope so.” She pulled her right hand out and used it
to stop the sudden bounce in her legs. Why now? Why was Bart's death just now starting to bubble to the surface?

“Was this man a relative of yours?” Greg asked.

“No. He lives—I mean,
lived
—across the street from me, and he was my friend. He and his late wife, Ethel, were my friends.” Closing her eyes, she tried to block out her final memory of Ethel and the promise she'd made to the woman. Little did either of them know at the time that Winnie would only have to make six peach pies for Bart . . .

“Ahhh, I get it now,” Greg said. “You live on Serenity Lane.”

“Meaning?”

“What Renee said at your bakery yesterday morning makes sense now. You know, the part about the mutiny of old people. Serenity Lane is where the elderly in this town seem to live.”

“Which is why I
chose
to live on Serenity Lane in the first place. I've always been more comfortable with people in their seventies, eighties, and nineties.” She peered at him through parted lashes and then looked away, the intensity with which he studied her more than she could take at that moment. “Most people find that weird.”

“It's different, I'll give you that, but it's also kind of telling,” Greg mused.

Her gaze ricocheted off the blackened TV screen and back to Master Sergeant Hottie. “Telling? Of what?”

“Of the kind of person you must be.”

She felt the lump making its way up her throat and did her best to swallow it back down. “I don't understand.”

“So many people our age and younger seem to write older generations off. The fact that you don't speaks to a sort of patience and tolerance that isn't necessarily the norm, you know?”

“Patience and tolerance?” she echoed.

“Those are the best words I can think of right now.”

Unsure of what to make of his word choices, she hurried
to set the record straight. “My life is richer because of people like Ethel and Bart.”

“And obviously they feel the same. That
is
how you got your ambulance in the first place, yes?”

Her ambulance . . .

The reason she was there with Greg in the first place . . .

“Yes, the ambulance
and
the cat were left to me by another former neighbor, Gertrude Redenbacher. Only Gertrude died the way we're meant to die—of old age.”

He nodded and then brought his chin into his waiting hands. “So how's the cat? Lovey, right?”

“She hates me.”

“Oh, c'mon, she doesn't hate you. She's probably just trying to adjust to a new environment and a new face.”

“She has no problem with Mr. Nelson's face. Or Bridget's face. Or Renee's face. Or even your face yesterday,” she said. “Just mine.”

“Can't imagine why.”

There was something about his words, combined with the slight rasp to his voice, that sent a tingle up her spine and made her eternally grateful she hadn't brought Renee. If she had, those three words would have had Renee shopping for bridesmaid attire.

Unsure of what to say in response, Winnie stood and wandered around the lounge, her thoughts vacillating between her surroundings and the man still seated on the recliner watching her every move. She took in the pair of soda cans on opposite ends of the table with a stack of playing cards between them, the upside down paperback novel (a thriller) wedged into a corner of the tattered couch, the mug of coffee grounds (sans water) seemingly forgotten atop the single laminate counter along the far wall . . . “Don't mind the mess,” he said from over her shoulder. “I work with slobs.”

“You should see
my
place right now. It looks like a bomb went—” She stopped, mid-step, and pointed at a corkboard
on the other side of the room. “Why do you have a picture of Bart's house in here? Is that because of yesterday?”

“Bart's house?” he repeated as he, too, rose to his feet and joined her beside the tan-colored board with its brightly colored tacks and various flyers and business cards.

She removed the tack that held the picture in place and began to read the detailed description of the home she saw from her front porch every morning as she left for work and again every evening as she shared dessert and tales of her day with Mr. Nelson. Two lines into the flyer, she heard herself gasp. “Wait a minute. This says Bart's home is for sale! I—I don't understand. I just found him
yesterday
.”

“I don't know who put this here, but I can sure find out.” Greg opened the lounge door, poked his head into the bay, and whistled. “Chuck? Stan? Can you guys come in here for a minute? I want to ask you a quick question.” Within seconds, Chuck (the redhead) and Stan (the balding middle school girl) were standing beside the corkboard. Chuck gave a passing glance to the flyer Winnie handed him and then passed it to Stan. “Yeah, I know about this. Pinned it to the board myself yesterday afternoon. Still trying to decide if I want to—”

“Yesterday afternoon? As in
before
I saw you?” She heard the shrillness in her voice and worked to soften it as she saw Chuck nod and then exchange a confused glance with Stan. “Where did you get this?”

Stan handed the flyer back to Winnie. “A friend of mine stopped by as I was finishing up lunch and asked if he could run off a few flyers on our copier. He only ran off ten so it wasn't a big deal. When he was done, I offered to hang on to two here at the station to help get the word out. I pinned one to the bulletin board in the lobby for the public to see, and asked Chuck to put the other one in here in case any of the crew is looking to buy a new place.”

“But that house wasn't for sale!”

“According to Mark it was.” The jingle of a bell
somewhere outside the lounge had Stan gesturing toward the door from which he'd just come. “Oh, sorry, but I gotta get back to my desk. Duty calls.”

At Greg's reluctant nod, Stan headed back out of the lounge.

“Mark?” she said, whirling around to face Greg. “
Mark
? Who's Mark—”

And then she knew.

“Winnie?”

Mark Reilly. Ethel's son.

“Winnie?”

Had Bart conceded to the sale? Or was Mark proceeding ahead on his own despite the wishes of his stepfather?