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With that, Mindy picked up her coffee and strode out of the shop.
Sarah watched her leave, biting her lower lip as the door closed with a little gust of cold air. The woman’s blonde curls disappeared from view as she walked down the street, and Sarah couldn’t help thinking that, no matter what William had said, Mindy Harvey and Baking Fiend were not going to be good for business.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
The music in Colette’s headphones blared through her ears, and she threw her hands above her head, wiggling her butt as she danced around with the feather duster. She stopped for a moment to run the duster over the blinds before continuing on with her concert. She had spent the entire morning cleaning her cottage, and the gleaming floors and glistening windows smiled at her as she checked off the final thing on her to-do list.
When the final surface had been dusted, she set the feathery tool back in its place under the sink and plucked the earbuds out. The silence of her cottage greeted her, and she smiled, reveling in the feeling of a job well done.
A knock sounded at her front door, echoing off the walls and making her give a small jump and a squeak of surprise.
Her hand fluttered up to her chest as she made her way to the door, trying to steady her breathing. When she pulled it open, a man stood on the other side of it. He had sandy blond hair and round cheeks, and he wore a dark blue utility jumpsuit and boots. He must have read the look of confusion on her face, because he gave a light chuckle before introducing himself.
“Hello,” he said with a wide, friendly smile. “My name’s Ron. I’m with the extermination company you hired to spray for earwigs.”
“Ohhh!” Colette exclaimed as recognition and relief washed through her. “Right, yes! I think we should probably start with the main house.”
She leaned to look behind Ron at the house that lingered in the distance. None of the lights were on, and there was no smoke coming from the chimney. She knew that Zach had been spending most of his days away from the house. Doing what, she hadn’t the slightest idea. But she had seen him return primarily in the evening on most days, and she wondered if he was even home.
“I can start with the outside, if that helps,” Ron offered helpfully.
“Yes! Let’s do that.” She nodded at him before reaching behind her and grabbing a jacket off one of the hooks by the door.
They walked across the yard, their footsteps making tracks over the snow. Starting the night before, the air had begun to grow warmer. And as morning had faded into afternoon, the snow on the ground had begun to melt a bit, although it still blanketed the yard. She could hear the crunch of the snow beneath Ron’s feet as he followed closely behind her.
When she got to the front of the main house, she walked up to the door. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Ron unhook a hose connected to a pack on his back that she hadn’t previously noticed. He hummed a Christmas carol under his breath as he began spraying the edge of the house in small, sweeping movements.
Colette blew out a quick breath before raising her hand to knock on the door. She paused for a moment, listening for any sound of life from the other side, but none came. She chewed on the inside of her cheek as she lifted a fist and knocked again, but there was still no answer.
She threw a quick, hurried glance in Ron’s direction and then felt in her jacket pocket for the keys. Colette didn’t really want to enter the home without having cleared it with Zach first, or at the very least having given him a heads up. But the appointment time had come up so quickly, and she hadn’t seen him since she’d made it. And now she had no choice.
“We’ll be in and out in no time,” Colette reassured herself as she put the key in the lock and turned it.
She stepped across the threshold of the door and paused again, listening. There was a faint sound coming from the living room, like what she’d imagine an old-time quill scratching against parchment would sound like. Her brow furrowed with confusion as she took a few tentative steps through the hall toward the source of the noise.
The moment she turned the corner that led to the living room, her mouth popped open in shock and horror. Everything in the place was draped with large sheets that she didn’t recognize. There were canvases all over, many of them containing half-finished images of the town, the mountain, and some of the people in it.
Tubes of what appeared to be some type of paint laid strewn across the floor, and one of them seemed to have lost its cap entirely. Orange liquid oozed slowly onto the sheet below it. Small wooden pallets covered with globs of mixed paint laid at random intervals, seemingly discarded at random. And in the center of all the colorful chaos sat Zach.
His back was to her where he was seated on a stool before an easel and canvas, noise cancelling headphones secured firmly over his ears. He held a small spatula in his hand, and as Colette watched, he dipped the piece of metal into a glob of paint in the palette he held and brought it up to the canvas before him. He scraped the tool across the canvas, producing the sound that had caught Colette’s attention.
“Zach,” she said loudly, trying to alert him to her presence without startling him, but he was entirely lost in his own world.
She tried to say his name a few more times, each one a little bit louder than the last as worry bubbled up inside her. Everything about the space looked so different, and she glanced to the oozing tube of orange paint still on the floor. She couldn’t help but wonder if it would seep through the fabric.
Finally, giving up on calling his name, Colette strode across the room. The floorboards creaked under her weight, but still, that didn’t rouse him. When she got close enough, she reached out a hand and placed it on his shoulder.
Zach jumped, the spatula in his hand clattering to the floor and the clump of paint went flying across the white sheet below him.
“Wha—”
He whirled around to face her, tugging the headphones from atop his head. His eyes were wide, his cheeks flushed, and his mouth hung open. If she hadn’t been so worried about the paint that she had all but convinced herself was seeping through the sheet and onto the original hardwood floor below it, she likely would have laughed.
“I’m so sorry to bother you,” Colette said, trying her best to keep her voice even and not betray her worries about the room. “I tried knocking and saying your name.”
“Sorry. Headphones.” Zach pointed to the large set of headphones now dangling around his neck as his brows drew together. “What’s going on? Did something happen?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I just have an exterminator here to spray the house. He’s doing the outside now, and he’ll need access to the inside soon. And I thought you weren’t home, since you usually aren’t during the day, so I let myself in.”
