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“Yeah. Yeah, that’s gotta be really hard,” I said, but my mind was already turning. “Thank you for the heads up.”
“No problem. I’ll get you penciled in though, make sure everyone’s aware that you’ll be bringing in a precious little baby Monday morning. You have a Merry Christmas, sweetheart.”
“Thanks, and you too,” I said. “But before I let you go, would you be able to do me a favor?”
“Sure thing. What do you need?”
“Could you pass my number along to Emily?” My heart hammered a bit faster. “I just—well, I’d hate to see you guys get bought out by some big corporation or something. I could probably save my patients and myself a little money if I bought the place myself. Just, you know. If that’s what they decide to do.”
A quiet gasp. “Really? Is that really something you’d be interested in?”
A few of the vets I had stayed in contact with from school had done something similar. Either they bought a small crematorium or they started up their office with their own cremation services from day one. It wasn’t an area I’d ever particularly wanted to explore. I chose to be a vet to help animals live. Not to get rid of their bodies once they died.
But my yard was becoming a cemetery. I needed direct access to an incinerator.
Especially if Gwen was going to kill again.
6
GWEN
Colleen settled in behind her desk while Junie led me to the coffee table next to a few folding chairs. She kneeled in front of the table and opened her backpack. Junie dug around in it, pulled out a few textbooks, followed by a couple of folders. When she made it to the bottom, she lifted a small red box with a plastic screen.
As she set it on the coffee table, she explained, “We got some cookies to take home and decorate with our family. But I need help cutting the bag of icing. My teacher said to make sure the cut is really tiny or it will all come out in a big lump. You know how to do that, right?”
I sat in the fold-up chair beside her, squinting through the strip of plastic for a better view of the sugar cookies inside. “Yeah, I think I can help.”
“Cool.” Beaming, she lifted the lid and passed me a cookie. “Do you want to do this one? It kind of looks like Honey.”
Stenciled onto the pastry was a cartoon puppy in a Santa hat. It didn’t look exactly like Honey, but with the pointed ears, I could see the resemblance. “Sure, kiddo. Thank you.”
Smile wide, she handed me four miniature piping bags. One white, one red, one green, and one beige. From her pencil box, she passed me a pair of scissors. Considering the crayon on the edge, using these to cut a piping bag probably wasn’t the most hygienic. They weren’t going up for sale at the bakery, though. What did it matter?
“Are you sure you want me to open all of these?” I snipped the end of the white bag. “You don’t want to do them later with Mommy?”
“I still have”—she flipped through her stack of cookies in the paper box, counting to herself—“six more cookies, and pink, blue, purple, and yellow icing. I’ve got plenty to do later.”
Chuckling, I clipped the edges off the red, green, and beige bags. “Alright. If you insist.”
“Plus, I want you to give that to Honey. It doesn’t have chocolate, so she’s allowed a little taste, isn’t she?” Green bag in hand, she laid a cookie in the shape of a Christmas tree on the coffee table. “I think she’ll like it.”
No matter my exhaustion, my heart warmed. With the beige piping bag in hand, I began outlining the dog’s face. “Yeah, I think a little taste won’t hurt her.”
“Good.” Junie shot me a grin. “Oh, and look at this one.” She dug around in her cookie box and came out with another. This one was round, with a butterfly outlined through the center. “Can you tell what it is?”
I tried following the outline of the dog’s face to start, then filling in the center with the icing. But this was more of a buttercream consistency, and my method worked better with royal icing. No matter how hard I tried, this cookie was going to be a mess. “Hmm, a tree ornament?”
“Me and Mommy call them Christmas bulbs.” Giggling, she set the cookie back into the box and returned to her Christmas tree. “Guess who I’m giving that one to.”
If anyone looked at the cookie I decorated, they wouldn’t believe that I made my living decorating pastries. This was just a sugar cookie with a big brown blob in the middle.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Who?”
“Delilah. She loves butterflies.”
My breath hitched. For the last couple hours, in the chaos of Angela’s wake, then in the pleasant chaos of decorating cookies with a little kid, I’d almost forgotten.
Evidently, Simone hadn’t gotten the chance to tell her yet.
