“My recipe book’s in the back of that drawer,” Vicky said.

  “Get it,” Brittany ordered.

  Vicky opened a drawer and crouched down. The shelf was full of pots and frying pans. No way would Vicky keep papers in there.

  It was up to me to distract Brittany while Vicky searched for whatever she was after. “Why did you kill Jim Cole?” I asked.

  “I didn’t mean to kill him. I didn’t even know him. He should have minded his own business, but he wouldn’t do that. He saw me trying to find a way into your house. He scared the daylights out of me when he snuck up behind me and asked what I was doing. I told him it was none of his business.” Her voice began to rise. “It wasn’t! He was a dirty old man, creeping around in the dark, trying to look in the windows. I told him to get lost, and he laughed at me. He called me a silly little girl and told me to run along.”

  “It’s in here somewhere.” Pot lids clattered as Vicky shoved them aside. “I hid the book when I realized someone was trying to get it.”

  Brittany stepped to one side, so she could look directly at my face. She was no longer watching Vicky. She didn’t relax her grip on the knife, though. I tried not to glance in the direction of Mark’s knives—too far away, and Brittany stood between me and them. She’d be on me before I could grab one.

  “He started to get mad, told me to be quiet.” Brittany wanted me to believe what she was telling me. “He pushed me and I fell. He didn’t even check to see if I was okay. He was just going to walk away, expecting me to do what he said. That wasn’t going to happen.”

  The sound of their argument must be what Vicky and I heard shortly before Mark’s car pulled up to the house. What our nervous, too-alert nerves told us was a ghostly moan had been either Jim hushing Brittany or her falling to the ground when he pushed her.

  “He laughed again and turned his back on me. I had to stop him from telling you what I was doing. So I picked up a rock and hit him.” For the first time, Brittany’s voice faltered. “I … I didn’t mean to kill him. I wasn’t going to kill him, but I wasn’t going to let some stupid old man laugh at me and ruin my plan.”

  “I understand,” I said in what I hoped was a calm, reasonable tone of voice. “He was not a nice person.”

  “I would have called for help—I would have. I was going to. I got out my phone, but I heard a car, and a few minutes later I heard Mark coming out of the house. He went around the other side. I hid and waited until he came out of the trees at the back, and he saw the old man. He crouched over the guy, and then he called for help. So it was okay for me to leave, right? I didn’t want to get involved. I’d parked my car on the street, so I cut through the trees and hopped over the fence. I went straight home. I heard the next day that he’d died. The old guy. I was sorry about that, but it wasn’t my fault. He had a heart attack or something.”

  “I understand,” I said. And I did understand. Nothing would ever be Brittany’s fault.

  Vicky rose up in one long, swift graceful movement, a cast iron frying pan clutched in both hands. She swung the frying pan at Brittany’s head. Brittany was facing me, but she must have read something on my face. She whirled around and saw the pan coming just in time. She lifted her left arm to protect herself as she jumped out of the way. The frying pan struck her arm, but not hard enough to disable her. She fell against the counter, but she managed to keep her grip on the knife in her right hand. She screamed and slashed wildly in the air. She was between me and the knife block, but the path to the hallway was clear.

  “Forget her. Let’s go!” Vicky grabbed my arm and dragged me after her. Together, we flew down the hallway. The front door stood open, the black-and-white-checked tiles in the entranceway slick with rainwater.

  Unfortunately, Vicky and Mark hadn’t furnished this part of the house yet. Nothing like a solid candlestick or sturdy lamp I could wield as a weapon. I tried to grab for my purse, but Vicky still had a firm grip on my arm, and she pulled me out the door. We tumbled down the steps, into the driving rain and the howling wind and the pool of yellow light cast by the lamp above the door.

  Inside the house, Brittany yelled for us to come back. “I’m not going to hurt you! All I want is those recipes. I’ll mention you in the acknowledgements in my book.”

  “You could have just given her your file,” I said to Vicky.

  “How naive can you be? She isn’t going to let us live, Merry. Brittany wants to be the baking queen. Only room for one baking queen around here.” We started to sprint down the driveway, but Vicky stopped short with a yelp of pain. She swore heartily and staggered against me. I looked down. She was in her bare feet, and the driveway was made of rough, sharp-edged gravel.

  “This way.” I ran to the grassy verge and slipped behind an oak tree that had likely been planted when the house was first built. Vicky limped after me, her face twisted in pain. We crouched down, and I dared to take a peek around the tree.

  Brittany stood on the steps. She was dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt, and her long black hair streamed around her. Her face was twisted in rage and frustration, and her dark eyes blazed fire. Drops of water dripped through the holes and cracks in the porch roof and fell on her head and shoulders. Her knife was clenched firmly in one hand. As I watched, she rotated the other shoulder. She winced, feeling the result of the contact with Vicky’s frying pan. To my intense disappointment, the arm was still usable, and she pulled her phone out of her pocket and switched on the flashlight app.

  I cursed. My own phone was in my purse, which was on the floor in Vicky’s foyer.

  Brittany came cautiously down the steps. She shone her light on the ground in front of her, and took a few steps forward.

  “We have to get to the street,” Vicky whispered.

  I studied the ground around us. Broken twigs; rotten, split wood; dead and brutally sharp pine needles; tough weeds; stray pieces of gravel; jagged-edged rocks; random bits of roof tiles or plywood window coverings that had flown off in storms over the years. Even glimmers of glass, likely from bottles left when kids partied on the property.

  “You won’t be able to make it on those bare feet,” I said. “Stay here. Stay quiet. I’ll make a run for it.”

  “It’s me she’s after now,” Vicky said.

  “I’ll distract her. If she follows me, get to the house. Lock the door and call 911.”

  “I can’t—”

  “You can,” I said. I’ve seen enough movies and TV shows to know how to distract a pursuer. I crouched down, trying to keep as much of myself behind the tree as possible. I held my breath as a wave of light passed over the ground in front of us. It moved on.

  “You shouldn’t try to hide from me,” Brittany said. “I don’t want to kill you, Vicky, but I will if you keep playing games. Actually, maybe I will kill you. Then I can go into the house and take as much time as I need to search for your recipe book. I know what it looks like, see. I saw it on the desk when you interviewed me that time. You should have given me the job. All I wanted was to learn to bake like you. Later, when I thought about it, I decided I didn’t mind not getting the job. I don’t need you. You might be content to live here, in this little backwoods town where you grew up. But not me. I’m going to make it in the world.”

  Brittany’s words washed over me; her light continued to play across the tangled bushes and tough vines. I patted the ground around me and came in contact with a stone about the size of a golf ball. It would do. I gripped it, balancing the weight. Vicky’s aunt Marjorie hadn’t been the only one who’d played softball for Rudolph High. I’d been the pitcher on the team. Not a particularly good pitcher, but that hadn’t much mattered as we hadn’t been a very good team. Except, of course, for Vicky, who regularly hit home runs and caught flyballs in midfield. I took a breath, straightened up, pulled my right arm back, and threw the stone across the driveway with all the strength I could muster. It crashed into the bushes, making a satisfying amount of noise as it did so. Brittany’s light swung away, and she ran across the driveway.

  I also ran. I didn’t worry about making noise as I crashed through bushes, shoving aside grasping branches, tripping over rocks. I called for help as I went.

  The beam of light followed me. I heard Brittany shouting and the sound of splashing water as she ran through puddles forming on the driveway.

  I’d gone about twenty yards when I reached what had once been a rose garden surrounded by a boxwood hedge. The hedge was overgrown, the rose bushes nothing but sharp thorns and choking vines. I wouldn’t be able to push my way through them fast enough. The hedge disappeared into the darkness to my left; the driveway lay to my right. I didn’t know how far the rose garden extended or if I’d be able to find my way off the property from there. I considered hiding in the darkness, hoping Vicky had been able to reach the house and a phone.

  The beam of light touched the edges of the hedge. It swept to the left, back and forth, up and down. Searching, probing.

  I was out of time. I had to get back onto the driveway, where I could run flat out to the street and then to the nearest house, and hope I could move faster than Brittany.

  I broke out of the concealing safety of bushes and trees and hit the open driveway. In the darkness, I couldn’t see when I stepped onto the wet gravel ,and I hit it too hard. My feet slipped out from under me, and I crashed to the ground with an involuntary cry. I landed, hard, on my back. My head shook and my teeth rattled. I stared up into a sky full of reaching branches. Water dripped onto my face.

  Twigs snapped, branches were pushed aside, and I knew I had to move.

  I got to my feet as quickly as I could. Fortunately, nothing seemed to be broken. The light reached the edges of the driveway. And then it went out.

  I breathed. My heart pounded. I could see absolutely nothing. The sudden appearance and disappearance of even that bit of light had destroyed what night vision I might have been able to attain.

  Then again, if I couldn’t see, neither could Brittany.

  I slowed, trying to hurry without making any noise. I knew she was behind me, her own footsteps crunching gravel and splashing through puddles, the gasping of her breath.

  Lights came into sight. Light from the new carriage lanterns, recently installed, casting a warm glow onto the ground around them. Beyond them the powerful streetlights and a row of houses.

  I’d make it. I was in front of Brittany, and I’d soon reach the street. It wasn’t too late. People would still be up. Hopefully, a car would be coming down the road, bringing people home from a night out. Vicky would have called 911. I listened for sirens but heard nothing.

  All was quiet. No one out walking their dogs or enjoying a late night stroll. Not in this rain.

  The gates were closed. My heart sunk as I realized that by the time I got the gates open, with all the noise that entailed, she’d be on me.

  I turned around. Brittany Pettigrew stood a few yards away, staring at me without expression. The knife was still in one hand. A long, thick branch lay on the ground about a foot in front of me. I didn’t dare bend over to grab for it.

  “I haven’t done anything to you,” I said. “Ever. Vicky will have made it back to the house. She’ll have called for help.”

  Brittany said nothing, she simply swung the knife back and forth, back and forth.

  I felt behind me. My hand fumbled for the latch to the gate. Instead, it found the branch looped over the top, the one I’d seen earlier. I thanked my lucky stars I hadn’t removed it and tossed it aside. I closed my fingers around it. It was slick with rain, but I held on tight and lifted it away from the gate.

  A thin, sodden twig against a kitchen knife. It wouldn’t be much of a fight, but I’d do what I could.

  “Let it go, Brittany,” came a voice out of the darkness. “You’ve lost.”

  Vicky stepped forward. She’d put on a pair of flip-flops, likely the first shoes that came to hand.

  Brittany swung around. “No. No. I can’t. I won’t. I told everyone I’m going to be a big TV star and have my own baking show. No one believed me, but I’ll show them. I’ll show them all.

  “I’ve called the police. They’re on their way. Put down the knife, and we’ll go up to the house and wait for them, why don’t we? We’re getting wet out here.”

  Brittany screamed. She charged at Vicky, lifting the knife high. I also screamed as I threw the only weapon I had—a twig. It hit Brittany in the back of the neck, and she yelped as she staggered and swatted at it with her free hand.

  Vicky moved in, trying to grab for the knife hand, but Brittany dodged out of the way. Vicky danced backward, taking herself out of range. Brittany’s attention no longer on me, I swooped down and snatched the substantially larger branch off the ground. Brittany and Vicky faced each other. Vicky’s hands were up. Brittany took a step toward her. Vicky stepped back. I gripped my branch in both hands. If I whacked Brittany over the head, the branch would be as likely to snap in half as do any damage, so instead I went in low. She was totally focused on Vicky now, leaving me forgotten. I shoved the branch between Brittany’s legs and twisted, hard, putting most of the force on her right knee. She screamed and collapsed.

  Vicky placed one foot on the enraged woman’s knife arm and said, “Don’t you dare move.”

  And then I heard it. Sirens coming our way.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “I’ve seen some strange excuses for murder in my time,” Detective Diane Simmonds said, “but never over a recipe for mince tarts.”

  “It wasn’t the recipes,” I said. “Jim Cole mocked Brittany. She didn’t like that. She didn’t intend to kill him, but having killed once and apparently gotten away with it, I’ve no doubt she would have killed us—Vicky and me—for the recipes.”

  “Why?” Alan asked. “Why were they so important to her? I mean … yeah, Vicky’s a great baker, but so are a lot of people.”

  “A simple matter of pure entitlement,” I said. “Her aunt Janice told us Brittany was feted as the prettiest girl at school; that her father indulged her in everything, largely because of her looks, and her mother pretended not to notice. That sort of attention has got to do a number on one’s head. When she left high school, she was just another moderately pretty small-town girl with no particular talent and no work ethic. Her longtime boyfriend dumped her as soon as he went into the wider world. I suspect she took the job at her aunt’s café because it was the easiest thing to do while she waited for fame and fortune to come her way. It’s possible she did some baking at home—indulgent fathers like that sort of thing from pretty daughters. At a guess, I’d say she saw some TV cooking show and decided that would be her route to the life she believed she deserved. Starting with a job as a pastry chef at Victoria’s Bake Shoppe. And then, she couldn’t even get that.”

  “Because I wasn’t hiring a pastry chef,” Vicky said. “Ironically, I would have taught her some of my techniques and practices if she’d come to work for me and showed enthusiasm and interest. But she wasn’t prepared to put in the time.”

  “As we saw when we were at the Muddle Harbor Café, she considered waitressing and bussing to be beneath her.”

  “As for the other matter,” Mark said, “do you believe what she said about Cole? That it was an accident, and she intended to call 911, and then I showed up, so she left it to me to do that?”

  “Doesn’t matter what she said,” Simmonds said. “She’s more than welcome to claim it was an accident in court. But she didn’t call for assistance. She didn’t come forward to tell us what she knew. She allowed another person—several other people in fact—to fall under suspicion for murder. At a considerable waste of police time and resources, I might add.”

  We were in the kitchen of my apartment. The teapot had been refreshed several times, and bottles of beer brought out of the fridge. Vicky and I had changed out of our wet clothes and were wrapped in sweaters and thick blankets against the cold that seemed to have penetrated into our very bones. Ranger bounced around the apartment, sniffing everyone and begging them to play. Mattie sat next to Simmonds, staring up at her with adoration; Sandbanks had immediately fallen asleep.

  While Vicky had kept an eye—and a foot—on Brittany, I ran to the gate. I struggled to get it open with my shaking hands and frantic breathing, but then the police were all around me, streaming onto the property, with their powerful flashlights and strong voices, and once again sirens and flashing lights disturbed the peace of Lakeside Drive.

  Mark arrived home from work as the police were hauling Brittany to her feet and bagging the knife. He’d watched in disbelief as she, screaming accusations and still demanding Vicky hand over the recipes, was taken away. He immediately called Alan, who likely broke a good number of speed limits getting there.

  Detective Simmonds drove up moments later to see the four of us standing in a circle as the rain fell, and Vicky and I briefly related what had happened. The medics wanted to take Vicky to the hospital to have her feet treated, but she refused on the grounds that she didn’t want to miss any part of what I had to say. Instead, Mark called Michelle, Vicky’s mom, who was an ER nurse, and asked her to come around. The medics decided that would do.

  Simmonds hadn’t allowed us back into Cole House. Vicky protested, loudly and firmly, that Sandbanks couldn’t be left, so an officer was dispatched to get the old dog.

  Roused from his nap, he sniffed eagerly at the boots of all the new arrivals. Vicky fell to her knees and wrapped the big furry body in a hug.

  “We might need to get ourselves a new guard dog.” Mark laid his hand lightly against Vicky’s back. He closed his eyes, and I knew he was thinking of how close he’d come to losing her.

  Vicky let out a yelp of pain as she put pressure on her feet, and Mark hurried to help her. “I’m glad Sandbanks slept through it all,” she said. “He would have wanted to say hi, and Brittany might have turned her anger on him.”