Thread and Buried by Janet Bolin Read Free Book Online

knowing that I’m temporarily incapacitated could cause folks to drive around like maniacs and
cause
police emergencies.”
    She looked so pathetic that I agreed I wouldn’t tell anyone she was in my apartment.
Unless you get worse, Vicki.
I put my fingers on her wrist. Her pulse felt strong.
    Her complexion gained the tiniest tinge of pink, and her ragged breathing became more rhythmical. Softly, I told her that if she wanted to change out of her uniform, she should look in the closet for the waffle weave summer bathrobes—embroidered, of course—that I’d hung there for guests. She didn’t respond. Maybe she’d wake up totally recovered in an hour or two and would be able to drive her cruiser home. She wasn’t going to like leaving it on Lake Street.
    Haylee and I tiptoed out of my guest room. I closed the door and let Sally and Tally out of my bedroom.
    Sally went straight to the guest room door, wagged her tail, and whimpered.
    “You can’t go in there, Sally,” I told her. “Chief Smallwood needs to rest.”
    Sally curled up next to the door. Haylee and I sat on my comfy couch and shared a pot of tea. Shortly before ten, we went upstairs to my shop for our appointment with Neil’s assistant. Tally came with us, but Sally, who seldom departed from Tally’s side, stayed beside Vicki’s room. I left the stairway door open so I would hear Vicki if she called, then unlocked the front door.
    “I hope we don’t all come down with the flu,” Haylee said.
    My sea glass chimes jangled and Cassie trudged in. She looked exhausted. She’d taken off her hairnet, but many of her curls were still flat while others sprouted like wild cartoon hair.
    I said to Haylee, “Maybe it’s food poisoning.” Although I had spent very little time around my mother recently, I’d listened to her carefully years ago when she’d still been a family physician. Like other doctors’ children, I probably thought I knew all about medicine and health.
    Cassie slapped a brand-new red notebook onto my cutting table. “Please don’t call it food poisoning,” she said. “Several people got sick at the picnic, including Neil. He helped me put everything away, but all of a sudden, he could barely stand. It
wasn’t
food poisoning, but even if it was, it did not come from La Bakery.” Despite her rather wonky logic, challenge sparked from her eyes. Tally had been standing in front of her, his tail held low but waving gently back and forth. He backed into his pen and stomped a nest, around and around, in his bed.
    I understood why Cassie might be upset. This sudden epidemic had occurred right after she’d become La Bakery’s manager, and she was probably afraid that people suspected her of causing the problem. “Tell Neil to get better quickly,” I said. “And don’t worry about food poisoning coming from La Bakery. Haylee and I gobbled every bit of your strawberry shortcake. We’re fine.”
    “Then, can I bring you each a couple dozen cookies, free, first thing Tuesday morning? If your customers like them, I can deliver them to your shops as often as you like until you tell me to stop.”
    Haylee and I both accepted the offer, but after Cassie dashed out, running her hand through her curls and probably making them more unruly, Haylee and I agreed that if Neil was sick, maybe we didn’t want his cookies until after he had completely recovered.
    “What did Vicki Smallwood and Neil eat that we didn’t?” Haylee asked.
    I straightened a bolt of lightweight mint green linen that my students and I liked to hem and embroider for tea towels. “Vicki had perch, asparagus salad, and strawberry shortcake on her dashboard. And she had an insulated cup of something as well. Coffee?”
    Haylee held up fingers, one for each food item. “You and I had perch and strawberry shortcake. We had canned drinks. And we didn’t have any of that asparagus salad.”
    I gnawed at my thumb. “Edna did.”
    Haylee hauled out her phone and punched in