Sticks & Scones Read Online Free PDF Page A

both of us stayed there while Tom was gone. Staying there, Michaela had kindly suggested, might even make my upcoming castle catering jobs easier for all concerned. But it was far too early to call the Hydes. And I didn’t know how impromptu Michaela Kirovsky’s invitation had been. Maybe the Hydes didn’t want their caterer underfoot. Their caterer and her
son
, I reminded myself.
    What would Tom want us to do? I had no idea. I had stayed in the home of clients before, when my ex-husband had been making threats, and before our house had a security system. But those clients had been relatives of Marla’s. Working for Eliot and Sukie Hyde was purely a business arrangement.
    Without enthusiasm, I made a decision: I’d just have to pack up my son, myself, and all the food, drive to the castle gates, and give the Hydes a ring from my cellular. If they said they wouldn’t have us, then I’d have to come up with another plan.
    As Deputy Wyatt sent out a newly arrived pair of deputies to canvass my neighbors, the video team arrived. I went upstairs to pack a few things and asked Archtodo the same. My son announced that the first thing we had to do was find someone to take care of Jake and Scout. I called Bill’s wife, Trudy—their lights were all on, so I knew she was up—and made arrangements for our pets. It would only be until I could come up with a repair plan, I assured Trudy, trying to sound confident and also apologetic, for calling at this hour. But she was wideawake and glad to help. In fact, it seemed as if all the folks on our street were up. They were either entertaining neighbors in their kitchens, clomping up and down the icy sidewalk, or sipping coffee on the curbs while exchanging theories on the shooting. The incident at our home had turned into a predawn block party. Welcome to the mountains.
    I tossed my pj’s, toothbrush, and a work outfit into a suitcase, then reentered the kitchen just as Wyatt finished interviewing the canvassing team. The deputy’s face pinched in dismay when I asked if any of my neighbors had seen anything. One woman—the wife of one of the gun-toters—had reported hearing something moving on the ice-slickened street. After the gunshot, she’d glanced out her window and made out someone bundled into a bulky coat hustling away from our house. Judging from the person’s muscular build and swaggering stride, she thought the figure was that of a man. The person she’d glimpsed, she insisted, had had a rifle tucked expertly under his arm.
    “We’ll keep working on it,” Wyatt reassured me, in a kindly voice. “By the way, I called Captain Lambert. Since the department employs your husband, and this may be connected to an official inquiry, we’ll handle finding a janitorial service to clean up the glass and an electrician to redo your security system. The department will have the window replaced, too,” he added.
    I thanked him and, trying to smile, asked if bulletproof glass was available.
    Wyatt’s reply was humorless. “We’ll look into that. And Mrs. Schulz? We’ll need to know where you’re heading.”
    “I’m going to show up a little early at a client’s house….I have a booking today at Hyde Chapel, by the estate,” I replied. Wyatt copied the Hydes’ number from my client directory. “If that doesn’t work out, I’ll give you a call—”
    “
The
Hydes?” Wyatt asked suspiciously. “They live in that big castle up on the hill?
Poltergeist Palace?”
    “I’ve heard it called that,” I said. “But I don’t truck in ghosts.”
    He frowned. “The chapel you’re working at is that one down by Cottonwood Creek where people used to have weddings? Looks like a little cathedral?”
    “The Hydes gave the chapel to Saint Luke’s,” I told him, “but they’re still involved in running the place. I’m …just starting to work for them,” I added, wondering at Wyatt’s sudden interest. My paranoia engine must have been in overdrive, though, because