Killer Shortbread by Tom Soule, Rick Tales Read Free Book Online

Chapter One
     
                  It was as if time had stopped. There wasn’t any wind going through the trees; the crowd behind the caution tape was paused with their jaws hanging open. The police moved around me as if in slow motion, their voices far away and muffled and their sirens unable to pierce the fog. I was briefly aware of someone trying to get my attention, but I couldn’t break out of the growing mantra in my head that had closed in on me. I couldn’t get the world moving again. I tried to breathe, only to find that the air was far too thick, and I collapsed onto the floor, heaving. Panic flashed across my vision in reds and blues and blacks, and I rolled into the fetal position, clutching my head in hands that felt far too fragile. And all the while, the mantra grew, until it was the only thing I could hear or feel or see. My entire world became five, pulsing words: My little boy is gone my little boy is gone my little boy is gone my little boy is gone …
                  “Maisie? Maisie, breathe, okay?”
                  I squirmed away from the hands that had grabbed hold of my arms, my breathing escalating.
                  “Listen to me, honey. You have to breathe. Can you do that for me?”
                  I nodded, my eyes squeezed shut, and my entire body shuddered as I took in a shaky breath. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in…
                  Slowly, I opened my eyes, and my best friend, Charlotte, smiled down at me. She stroked my head as the mantra began to slow down, and I eventually uncurled myself and sat up. I could feel tears gathering at the edges of my eyes, and I looked at Charlotte desperately.
                  “He’s gone, Charlie,” I whispered, covering my mouth with my hand. “Someone took him. I was gone only ten minutes. Who would take him?”
                  “Shhh, sweetie…” I sank into her arms, and she wiped the tears off my cheeks. “We’re going to find Derek, but crying over it isn’t going to help, okay? The police already have an Amber alert out for him. Whoever took him can’t have gone far.”
                  I nodded and pulled myself up, wiping away my tears and snot with the back of my hand. She was right. I wasn’t helping anyone by lying here, least of all Derek.
                  Wobbling a bit, I stood up and looked around. There were police cars all over the street in front of my little bakery, and a crowd had already started to gather behind the caution tape. A sudden flash of anger whipped through me, and I clenched my fists to stop the tears. Little kids stood on their fathers' shoulders as if this were an attraction. As if my little Derek’s kidnapping were a great movie. They looked like they were going to break out the popcorn.
                  I stepped forward, fully intent on screaming at them for their complete lack of sympathy, for their ungraciousness, when a police officer stepped in front of me so I couldn’t go any further. I scowled, and he smiled apologetically.
                  “I know how awful they’re being. But they’re just curious. They don’t mean any harm.” He took me by the arm and gently led me away and into my shop.
                  “Damn right, they’re being awful,” I muttered, but I let him bring me next to the big bay window on the left-hand side.
                  He pulled out a chair for me and I slowly lowered myself into it, looking around as if I didn’t even recognize the place. And I almost didn’t. I mean, I knew the wooden tables and chairs with the plaid tablecloths, I knew the display cases with all my breads and cakes and pastries, I knew the deep brown cupboards and the pictures of cupcakes that Charlotte had helped me paint on them, but it all looked wrong. Emptier, somehow. Physically nothing had changed, but it