Cut out cookie, p.23
Cut Out Cookie, page 23
After stepping out the back door onto the porch, Erin took a deep breath of the warm, sweet air. Even though she had grown up in the northeast, moving to Tennessee had been like coming home. She had only vague memories of the times she had visited Clementine before her parents’ deaths, “helped” her aunt in what had then been her tearoom, and dug around in the garden or thrown rocks into the river. But the smell of the plants and flowers growing around her and the wind blowing over the lakes was unique. It took her right back to her childhood, confirming that Bald Eagle Falls, Tennessee would always be her home no matter where she lived.
She wandered into the woods beyond her fence, following the animal trails that had become familiar to her since she had returned home. She didn’t know the woods nearly as well as Adele, the woman she employed as a groundskeeper in exchange for her use of the summer cottage and a small salary. And she wouldn’t be comfortable walking around it late at night by herself like Adele did. But there was plenty of daylight left before she started worrying about that.
She could feel the tensions of the day and any stress over upcoming events or promotions or worries about employee scheduling or short supplies on flours that she needed falling away. Her muscles relaxed and she breathed more deeply. It was a good idea to take more time to enjoy the nature around her.
Erin could hear a crow cawing loudly nearby and wondered whether it was Skye, Adele’s crow. He wasn’t exactly Adele's pet, but he came to her for food and companionship, and sometimes when Erin was out in her yard, she would feed him a few peanuts or some other treat.
The crow’s voice mixed with another loud bird. A magpie, Erin decided, listening to it. Both were scavengers and were probably fighting over some tasty morsel dropped by a passerby or the remains of a fox kill. The path she was taking would bring her closer to them. For a moment, she hesitated and considered taking a branch off in another direction to avoid disrupting them. But she was curious about what they were fighting over. If it were Skye, then he wouldn’t leave just because Erin showed up. He knew her and would just ignore her unless she had a treat for him.
In a moment, she could see them both. The crow on the ground, his wings flapping, making himself big, and the magpie dive-bombing from above. Erin got closer. She probably didn’t want to see exactly what they were fighting over. Scavenging birds weren’t exactly known for eating fresh fruit or flowers.
She crept a little closer, her eyes on the ground, trying to discern any objects in the shadows of the trees. Late in the day, the shadows were long and it was hard to make out the shapes in the foliage. Tree stumps, litter, whatever it was the birds were squawking over so excitedly.
Erin let out a soft cry when she got close enough to make out the shape of an animal in the undergrowth. And not something dead; it was still alive. She hurried closer, shooing the birds away.
“Get out of here! Go on! Get out!”
She leaned down to peer under the bush and found herself looking into the round green eyes of a kitten.
CHAPTER 2
The kitten was not as young as Orange Blossom had been when she had found him, barely old enough to have left his mother. This cat was probably half-grown, but terribly thin, his coat patchy and bloody in places where the birds had attacked him.
“Oh, look at you.” She knew that he would be too skittish for her to just reach down and pick him up. Even if he was hurt, he would still try to leap away, avoiding her. “There, little one. Are you okay? Where did you come from?”
There were feral cats around town, of course, though with both traffic and predators to deal with, they did not have long lifespans. And there were barn cats from nearby farms, and many people in Bald Eagle Falls didn’t believe in keeping their cats indoors where they were safe, but insisted that a cat needed to roam outside. Erin looked around for something that would help her catch the cat so that Doc Edmunds could see to its injuries.
Terry had caught Marshmallow—when he had been feral—by throwing his coat over him. Erin had layered a loose blouse over a sleeveless t-shirt. Not being able to think of any other solution, she unbuttoned the blouse and took it off, moving very slowly and, she hoped, in a non-threatening way. The cat continued to watch her with big, round eyes, perhaps unsure whether she had actually seen him or not. Or maybe just hoping that she would walk away and leave him alone to lick his wounds.
Erin threw her blouse over the cat, and miraculously, it actually covered him. Erin had never been the best at sports. But she had never played any sport that involved throwing clothing, either. She shuffled a bit closer and bent over to pick up the cat inside the shirt, wrapping it tightly around him so that he would be still and she could transport him, as she had seen others do.
As soon as her hands closed around him, he slithered out from under the shirt, darting away and hiding behind a tree to watch whether she would pursue him or not. She could see his sides heaving and quivering.
“Poor thing. Just let me catch you, and I’ll take you somewhere they’ll make you feel much better.”
He didn’t look disposed to do as she said. Erin could hear Skye—if it was Skye— cawing high overhead. Disappointed that she had chased him away from the potentially tasty morsel?
Erin looked around for help. If Adele was nearby, or another neighbor, maybe the two of them together would be able to trap the cat.
A few feet away, she saw a boot. And was it a pile of clothes? Or the shape of someone sleeping on the ground?
Adele had previously mentioned that someone had been sleeping in the woods, as she had found areas where the grass and vegetation were still crushed down from someone being there for an extended length of time. After all that had transpired, Erin had assumed that the person in the woods had been Theresa, watching Vic and those she interacted with from a distance before making her move. Theresa and Vic had been a couple before Vic's gender transition and Theresa had decided she wanted to renew their relationship. But Vic was not interested in Theresa, and as was often the case with crazy Theresa, things went quickly from bad to worse.
But that was in the past. Vic was fine. All of Erin’s friends associated with Vic were safe and well, and Theresa had failed in her aims, foiled by someone who had been watching her as she watched Vic.
Erin shifted her stance and shuffled sideways a bit, not towards the cat, but in the direction of the dark shape with the boots to get a better look.
She would not confront someone who was sleeping in the woods by herself. She would get Terry or Adele with her shotgun to back her up. She had no desire to face an angry vagrant on her own.
It was starting to get darker, the sun setting over the horizon. That made it harder to make everything out. But she knew something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong with what she saw.
Erin fumbled for her phone. It took several attempts to get it out of the small purse she had brought with her, slung diagonally across her body. For some reason, her fingers felt numb and fat and weren’t working the way they were supposed to.
When she was baking, her hands flew, she was so familiar with the processes of stirring, rolling, shaping, and all of the other things she did automatically while she was preparing the goods for sale at Auntie Clem’s Bakery that sometimes she just watched her fingers, surprised that they knew what they were supposed to do and moved so automatically and gracefully. But that wasn’t the case as she clumsily separated her phone from the purse and tapped at the screen, trying to unlock it multiple times and then unsure what to press when she finally got past the lock screen.
Her sluggish brain fed her the instructions. Tap the phone icon. Find Terry’s face in her favorites list. Tap on it a couple of times until the phone figured out she wanted to call him and tried to make the connection. She stared at the phone, waiting for something to happen. It was a few moments before she realized that he had answered but that she hadn’t put the phone up to her ear to answer or pressed the speaker button. She lifted the phone to her face.
“Terry?”
“Erin? Is everything okay?” His tone was light, but with just a hint of concern. He knew only too well that as idyllic as everything might appear to be in Bald Eagle Falls, things didn’t always go as expected and there were dangerous people or circumstances to contend with. Or maybe he was just worried that Erin might have chopped the tip of a finger off while getting a bedtime snack or had forgotten that he was on shift and was expecting him home.
“Umm… no. I guess not. There’s something in the woods.”
“In the woods?” his concern raised his tone another notch higher. “What is in the woods? Where are you?”
“I just went for a walk. And I stopped because I saw Skye and a magpie fighting over something, and then I saw that it was a little cat.”
“A cat.” He blew his breath out in relief. “You had me scared for a minute there. Don’t tell me that you’re adopting another stray.”
“No… I didn’t see… there is something else here. I saw the boots, and then I smelled something, and…”
“Boots?” he echoed, trying to make sense of her babbling. “What did you smell? Is there a fire? Some homeless person camping out back there?”
“No… it’s… well, maybe he was camping here. But he wasn’t. And there’s no fire. It’s okay.”
“He? Who is there? Do you need me to send someone on his way?”
“I need you. And… I don’t know who else. Everyone, I guess.” They didn’t have a very large police department. Something like this would require all hands on deck. “You see… it's a body.”
On the Slab Pie, Book #18 of the Auntie Clem’s Bakery series by P.D. Workman can be purchased at pdworkman.com
ALSO BY P.D. WORKMAN
FIND MORE BOOKS AT PDWORKMAN.COM
* * *
MYSTERY/SUSPENSE:
* * *
Auntie Clem’s Bakery
Gluten-Free Murder
Dairy-Free Death
Allergen-Free Assignation
Witch-Free Halloween (Halloween Short)
Dog-Free Dinner (Christmas Short)
Stirring Up Murder
Brewing Death
Coup de Glace
Sour Cherry Turnover
Apple-achian Treasure
Vegan Baked Alaska
Muffins Masks Murder
Tai Chi and Chai Tea
Santa Shortbread
Cold as Ice Cream
Changing Fortune Cookies
Hot on the Trail Mix
Fateful Plateful
Cut Out Cookie (Coming Soon)
On the Slab Pie (Coming Soon)
Recipes from Auntie Clem's Bakery
* * *
Reg Rawlins, Psychic Detective
What the Cat Knew
A Psychic with Catitude
A Catastrophic Theft
Night of Nine Tails
Telepathy of Gardens
Delusions of the Past
Fairy Blade Unmade
Web of Nightmares
A Whisker's Breadth
Skunk Man Swamp
Magic Ain't A Game
Without Foresight
Careful of Thy Wishes
Time to Your Elf
Undiscovered Tomb
Missing Powers (Coming Soon)
Thrice Spared (Coming Soon)
* * *
Zachary Goldman Mysteries
She Wore Mourning
His Hands Were Quiet
She Was Dying Anyway
He Was Walking Alone
They Thought He was Safe
He Was Not There
Her Work Was Everything
She Told a Lie
He Never Forgot
She Was At Risk
He Drowned in Memory (Coming Soon)
Their Walls Were Empty (Coming Soon)
They Came for Him (Coming Soon)
* * *
Kenzie Kirsch Medical Thrillers
Unlawful Harvest
Doctored Death
Dosed to Death
Gentle Angel
* * *
Parks Pat Mysteries
Out with the Sunset
Long Climb to the Top
Dark Water Under the Bridge
Immersed in the View
Skimming Over the Lake
Hazard of the Hills
* * *
High-Tech Crime Solvers Series
Virtually Harmless
* * *
Cowritten with D. D. VanDyke
California Corwin P. I. Mystery Series
The Girl in the Morgue
* * *
Stand Alone Suspense Novels
Looking Over Your Shoulder
Lion Within
Pursued by the Past
In the Tick of Time
Loose the Dogs
* * *
YOUNG ADULT FICTION:
* * *
Medical Kidnap Files:
Mito
EDS
Proxy
Toxo
Pain
Fail (Coming Soon)
* * *
Between the Cracks:
Ruby
June and Justin
Michelle
Chloe
Ronnie
June, Into the Light
* * *
Tamara’s Teardrops:
Tattooed Teardrops
Two Teardrops
Tortured Teardrops
Vanishing Teardrops
* * *
Breaking the Pattern:
Henry
Sandy
Bobby
* * *
Stand Alone YA novels
Stand Alone
Don’t Forget Steven
Those Who Believe
Cynthia has a Secret
Questing for a Dream
Darkness before the Dream (prequel story)
Once Brothers
Intersexion
Making Her Mark
Endless Change
Gem, Himself, Alone
* * *
AND MORE AT PDWORKMAN.COM
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Award-winning and USA Today bestselling author P.D. (Pamela) Workman writes riveting mystery/suspense and young adult books dealing with mental illness, addiction, abuse, and other real-life issues. For as long as she can remember, the blank page has held an incredible allure and from a very young age she was trying to write her own books.
* * *
Workman wrote her first complete novel at the age of twelve and continued to write as a hobby for many years. She started publishing in 2013. She has won several literary awards from Library Services for Youth in Custody for her young adult fiction. She currently has over 80 published titles and can be found at pdworkman.com.
* * *
Born and raised in Alberta, Workman has been married for over 25 years and has one son.
Please visit P.D. Workman at pdworkman.com to see what else she is working on, to join her mailing list, and to link to her social networks.
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P.D. Workman, Cut Out Cookie
