Changing Fortune Cookies Read online

  Erin was about to ask why the police would call Mary Lou if she didn’t report Joshua missing, but then bit back her response.

  If they found Josh’s body, Mary Lou meant. If they found him injured or dead, Mary Lou would be the one they called and she would want to be close at hand. Erin tried to blink back tears and not let the lump in her throat change her voice.

  “Yeah. If he’s in Whitewater, we’ll find him.”

  If he were in Whitewater.

  If he were alive.

  If someone hadn’t kidnapped him and hidden him away somewhere.

  Erin managed to borrow Officer Terry Piper’s truck without giving away that she was running over to Whitewater to see if she could find a missing teenager. There had been a couple of awkward pauses during the call. Like he knew that Erin was keeping something from him. Like he was trying to figure out how to ask her what was really going on but was afraid to ask.

  Or maybe she just imagined it.

  “He said it’s fine,” Erin told Vic. “He and K9 are just out on foot patrol, and he’ll either walk home or get Stayner to drop him, depending on how he’s feeling at the end of his shift.”

  “He’s been doing better lately,” Vic contributed. “It’s nice to see him looking bright-eyed again.”

  It had been a difficult few months, a hard recovery after Terry had been attacked, hit over the head, and choked out. The damage went a lot deeper than she had expected. Nothing like TV cop shows where people got knocked out all the time and seemed to go on with barely even a headache or moment of vertigo. Things had been much worse for Terry.

  But he had seemed to be doing better the last few days. She could only hope that he would continue to feel good and not relapse back into migraines, insomnia, and nightmares. And the irritability and mood issues.

  “We’d better head out pretty quickly,” Erin suggested. “If we’re going to look for Josh and try to get our most urgent errands done, we can’t waste any time.”

  “Yep,” Vic agreed. “We’ll be quick as two winks. Do you want me to make some sandwiches so we don’t have to stop for lunch later?”

  “Good idea. I’ll check the animals’ bowls”—she had two pets at home, Orange Blossom the cat and Marshmallow the rabbit—“Then, why don’t I walk over and get the truck while you make the sandwiches. I’ll make sure it’s gassed up, and then we’ll head out.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Vic agreed. She shook her head and tsked. “Poor Mary Lou. If we end up finding Joshua and this was just some kind of joke or ill-conceived teen prank, I’ll whup that boy myself.”

  Erin had seen Vic’s father try to beat her. He did not approve of her being transgender or getting together with a man from a rival clan—and she knew that Vic was only blowing hot air. There was no way she could do the same to another teen, no matter what he had done.

  “I don’t think it is a prank,” Erin said. “I can’t see Joshua doing something like this. He loves his mom and he knows all the stuff that she’s been through. He wouldn’t do something that might hurt her more just as a prank.”

  “No. I don’t think so,” Vic agreed. “Okay. I’ll see you in twenty minutes or so.”

  After checking the food and water dishes, Erin grabbed her purse and headed over to the police department at a brisk walk.

  Erin didn’t run into anyone who slowed her down on her way to the Town Hall, so she was able to get Terry’s truck and top off the gas tank in the allotted time. She picked Vic up at the house, and they were on their way to Whitewater.

  Erin didn’t want to keep going over the same ground when they hadn’t found out anything yet. They could speculate all day long on where Joshua had gone or why he had disappeared, but they wouldn’t know until they’d had some time to turn up some clues. Erin looked around for other things to talk about as she drove the highway. She didn’t want to admit how anxious she was about being followed again, and she wouldn’t be calmed just by listening to the radio. She needed something that took enough of her attention that she wouldn’t constantly be thinking about the cars and trucks on the highway behind her.

  It was a busy highway, not like the secondary road she’d been on the day that she’d been forced into the ditch. Nothing was going to happen to her out in the open where everybody could see.

  “I did a few trials of recipes for the fortune cookies,” she told Vic. “A few other people have done gluten-free fortune cookies. Mostly based around tapioca starch or cornstarch. They are pretty simple, actually. Just a matter of rolling or pressing them, cutting them into a circle, and then folding them while they’re still warm. Then they get crispy when they cool.”

  “I always wondered how they baked them with paper inside,” Vic laughed. “Because you would either have to bake them at a really low temperature, or the paper would light on fire. And I’d never even seen a scorched fortune.”

  Erin smiled and nodded. “I always wondered too. It’s a bit of a letdown to realize that they insert the fortune and fold the cookie after they are baked. Removes some of the mystique.”

  “Won’t it be great for the Chinese restaurant to offer gluten-free fortune cookies for their clientele? It’s such a nice touch. I can’t wait to see Peter Foster try his first gluten-free fortune cookie.”

  Erin was determined to keep her smile from fading, so she kept it firmly in place even though it made her sad that Mrs. Foster had decided Peter would not be visiting the bakery in person any time soon. Like Mary Lou, she was upset with Erin for mentioning Peter’s name during a police investigation, resulting in Peter being interviewed by the police. Not just once, but twice.

  It wasn’t Erin’s fault that he’d been a witness in both cases. He’d told her key clues that had led to her figuring out what had happened, but which also led to his being questioned.

  It wasn’t like he’d been a suspect, like Joshua. It was understood right from the start that the little boy had only been a witness, and one who didn’t even realize what it was he had seen.

  “I thought we should do some kind of care basket for Mrs. Foster,” Erin said, changing the subject. “She’ll be having that baby any day now, and it would be nice if she didn’t have to be on her feet coming around to the bakery for a couple of weeks. We could take or deliver her the things that she normally comes around for… bread, muffins, after-school snacks…”

  “What a great idea,” Vic enthused. “You’re always coming up with such creative plans.”

  “You don’t think she would be offended, do you? Thinking that I was saying she wasn’t capable of looking after her own family, or that I was just trying to get closer and interfere with things…”

  “Of course not. It’s a lovely thing to do. No one could find fault with you for helping a customer out during a challenging time.”

  “Okay.” Erin wasn’t always sure. People did seem to find fault with her for the littlest things. Even when she was doing something she thought people would approve of, doing something nice for someone just to be nice, they would criticize or put some kind of negative spin on things.

  “Don’t worry about the old gossips,” Vic said, reading her mind. “Some people are negative no matter what. You’re not going to change that. You have to just ignore them and live your life.”

  Erin nodded. “Yeah. I will. I just feel sometimes like I missed out on a bunch of etiquette lessons because of the way I was raised. There are all of these little rules that I never picked up on.”

  “That’s just the south for you. And small-town living. There are a bunch of special rules. But you can never do them all, so you have to just develop a thick skin about the rest of them.”

  Chapter 3

  Welcome to Whitewater Junction.

  Erin slowed as she approached the town limits sign. She had not expected to be returning to Whitewater any time soon. She had thought that when the contest was over and she had returned to Bald Eagle Falls, it would be the last time she’d be there for a few years. It wasn’t exactly
the center of civilization. It was the opposite way from the city, so she would always be traveling away from it. There were no tourist sites and, with everything that had happened during the contest, she had been glad to see it in her rearview mirror.

  But now they were back again.

  “Where should we go?” Erin asked. “The hotel?”

  “I suppose… if Joshua intended to stay here, he would have to book a room, right?”

  “I don’t know… it just seems like such a bizarre idea, him coming back here on his own and staying by himself. Would they let a minor book a room by himself? Wouldn’t they want an adult’s signature on the register and some kind of guarantee that he wasn’t going to have wild parties and mess things up?”

  “If he had his own credit card, I don’t know if they would ask how old he is.”

  “You had to show your driver’s license, didn’t you?”

  Erin thought back. “I don’t even remember. There was so much going on. I think that with the contest having booked all of the rooms, I didn’t have to do anything but claim one.”

  Vic considered. “Yeah, maybe. I know when I first left home… there weren’t a lot of places that I could have stayed. But I didn’t have a credit card or any money, really.”

  “Most of these places don’t let you stay for free,” Erin agreed, smiling slightly.

  “No, for some reason, they don’t.”

  Erin pulled the truck carefully into the parking lot of the hotel away from the other vehicles so that no one would open their doors into it and mess up the paintwork. It wasn’t like it was pristine anymore. Terry had driven over plenty of gravel roads and got other chips and scuffs on it. But Erin didn’t want to contribute any damage. They walked into the lobby.

  There were promotional signs up from the cooking contest. Actually, it had been a ‘cooling’ contest, using carbon dioxide to make fizzy drinks and ice cream treats—a very unique idea.

  There were two big boards on easels displaying the three winners’ faces in each of the classifications and the large cash prizes they had received. Eugene Bath, the man who had won the grand prize in the beverages section, Bella Proust, one of Erin’s part-time employees below him, followed by a woman named Louisa David, who had received Clayton’s third-place position when he had been arrested. And on the board for the ice cream winners, Doc Edmunds in first place, followed by two people Erin didn’t know, Deidre Robinson and Hannah Clark.

  Erin recognized the girl at the registration desk. They had spoken to each other several times during the cooking contest.

  “Anita, hi.” Erin smiled at her. “Long time, no see!”

  “Erin Price. What are you doing back here so soon? Do you need a room?”

  “No, I’m just here to see Joshua Cox. What floor is he on?”

  “I didn’t think there was anyone from the contest still here,” Anita mused, tapping on her keyboard and squinting at the computer screen. “Joshua Cox… hmm… how is that spelled?”

  “C-O-X.” Erin had a sinking feeling. Of course it wasn’t going to be that easy, but she had hoped.

  “No, I don’t see anyone by that name still registered here…” Anita tapped something else into her search parameters. “In fact, I don’t see any registrations in that name at all. Would it have been under the name of one of the sponsors or someone else?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Erin admitted. “Is there somewhere else he might have stayed? This is the only hotel, right?”

  “Yeah, unfortunately. There are a couple of B&B’s or holiday rental places. I don’t know, did he tell you he was going to be staying here?”

  “Maybe I misunderstood,” Erin said. She brandished her phone. “I’ll give him a call.”

  “Okay. Let me know if you need anything else.” Anita went back to answering phones and doing other work. Erin grimaced at Vic and they headed back toward the truck.

  “Where else?” Vic asked. “Should we just drive around? It doesn’t seem like we’re very likely to turn him up that way.”

  “We might as well check B&B’s. We’re here anyway. And maybe… I don’t know. The tourist center. Chamber of Commerce. The library. Anywhere else he might have gone if he was doing more research here.”

  “But why would he stay here? He’d already turned in his article for the paper.”

  “But he could have been researching something further. Maybe… he ran across something he thought was suspicious or interesting and wanted to do some more research.”

  “Like what? I think we pretty much got everything the first time around. Theft, murder, corruption. Do you think there was something else?”

  “Well… no… I don’t know what else he would be investigating. Maybe just more background, a more in-depth article on Beryl and what she had done. Or something about Clayton and his family.”

  “Yeah… Clayton’s family.” Vic thought about that. “I didn’t really think about the fact that he must have family around here.”

  “If the reason he did what he did was because of the way his family had been taken advantage of, then he must have someone around here.”

  “He could be the last of the line, and that’s why he thought it was all up to him to do something about it.”

  “But if he’s a member of one of the old mountain families here, then he’s related to everyone else. Not closely, maybe, but cousins, second cousins…”

  “Yeah. How about the library, then? Josh might have gone there. They must have some genealogical records, histories of the local families.”

  That sounded like a good idea to Erin. She had not spent a lot of time in the library when she had been there, just stopping in to look at a few recipe books and get away from the crowds. The librarian had seemed friendly enough.

  The library was quiet, just a couple of people reading or browsing through shelves. Nothing like the bustle that Erin had seen at big-city libraries. It was a cozy little place. That had attracted her when she had been trying to get away from the contest for a few minutes and to sort things out in her mind.

  The librarian working at the computer at the circulation desk looked up when they walked in and smiled an invitation. Vic and Erin approached.

  “We’re looking for a friend,” Erin said when they got close. “I think he might have stopped in here to do some research. A teen boy from Bald Eagle Falls…?”

  “Oh… what was his name? James?”

  “Joshua.”

  “Joshua.” She nodded. “Yes, he was here a couple of weeks ago. While the contest was on. A budding young reporter.”

  “Yeah.” Erin was relieved. It hadn’t occurred to her until she walked in that she didn’t have a picture to show the woman. How were they supposed to find Joshua without a picture of him? “Is he around today? Or yesterday?”

  “With everything shutting down, it’s been mighty quiet. He hasn’t been around. I assume he went back to Bald Eagle Falls.” She raised her brows. Obviously, Joshua would go back home after the contest was over. Why would he stay?

  “Well, he’s not back, that’s why we’re looking for him. Do you know… where else he might have been going? Did he say that he had some other research he needed to do…?”

  “I haven’t seen him lately, I’m sorry. I think everyone is done with that now. All of the excitement… it turned out to be kind of an embarrassment. The contest was supposed to generate so many tourism dollars for the town, lots of positive publicity that would last even after it was over… but all of the negative press has not been good for us. I don’t see it being much benefit, to tell the truth. You can bet the town council will think twice before approving something like that again.”

  Erin rubbed the back of her neck. She wasn’t sure why she felt guilty. Her role in the contest had been completely innocent. Chef Kirschoff was a friend, he’d asked her to be a judge, and she’d agreed. Everything had happened so quickly after that.

  Erin hadn’t been responsible for anything that had happened, of cou
rse. She had helped identify Beryl’s killer. But she felt like she’d been the cause of the problems in Whitewater instead of just an innocent bystander.

  “Yeah, it’s too bad the way everything blew up—turned out,” she corrected quickly. Her face heated. She avoided looking at Vic, who she knew would be trying not to laugh. “We just thought… Joshua was going to do a follow-up story. Or maybe some background on Beryl or on… you know, Clayton… and I figured he would come back here.”

  The librarian shook her head. “No, sorry. I can’t help you there.”

  “Can you think of where else he might have gone? If he wanted to get some background on Beryl’s or Clayton’s families?”

  “We have a section on histories of the old Whitewater families.” The librarian looked toward the shelves where they were situated. “I would expect him to come here. Aside from that… maybe an amateur genealogist in town. Or if he knew one of the older people, who might remember some of the history that wouldn’t be in the books.”

  “Can you think of who he might go to?”

  She shook her head.

  “Does Clayton have any kinfolk around here?” Vic suggested.

  “Some distant cousins, maybe. The Hinchey line has pretty much died out. Times are difficult. People move their families into urban centers where they can get jobs and get into good schools. And the kids don’t come back here.”

  “He doesn’t have any grandparents? Great aunts?”

  “No.” The librarian shook her head slowly. “No one who comes to mind.”

  Perhaps that was the reason that Beryl had thought she could get away with stealing from the old families. She figured there would be no one left to complain.

  “Well… thank you for your time,” Erin told the librarian, disappointed.