Midnight Cravings

“I won’t.” She gave a polite smile and turned to leave the room. A minute later, she stepped into the muggy sunshine and walked purposefully out to the street. God knew where she was going to go once she got there, but she had the feeling that Dan might be watching her, smugly assuming she’d get lost, and she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her standing on the sidewalk wringing her hands and trying to figure out which way to go.

Luck was on her side. As soon as she reached the sidewalk she saw that the sign on the nearest cross street indicated it was Elm. So she kept on walking, as if she’d lived here all her life and knew just where to go.

When she was safely out of sight of the inn, she slowed her pace and looked around. The street was about twice as wide as the little suburban street she’d grown up on, and it was lined with tall, shady oaks. Enormous Victorian mansions faced out, looking for all the world as if they had been drawn by Walt Disney. As a matter of fact, the people looked like that, too. A couple of older women stood on either side of a garden fence, each wearing floppy hats and gardening gloves, talking and smiling and nodding to Josie as she passed.

It was hard to reconcile the fact that she’d been robbed, since she felt so completely safe walking through the streets alone. It was a feeling she wasn’t entirely familiar with, since part of her was always on alert when she walked in the city.

By contrast, the pace was so leisurely in this town that Josie actually felt as if her own heart rate had slowed to about half its usual pace, despite the urgency of getting her things back. Why bother to pound any faster? it probably thought. There’s nothing in Beldon to get excited about.

Where the houses stopped, a large, verdant stretch of woods started. In Manhattan, this kind of change signaled dangerous isolation, but in Beldon it was just a pleasant break before a lovely little row of storefronts with apartments over them. The shops all had elaborate colonial facades and were painted in vivid colors. The quaintness was so uniform that Josie wondered if there was a penalty for having a plain building.

That question was answered, though, when she got to the police station. It was a redbrick box, with nothing to distinguish it except a cement sign over the door that read, in block letters, Police Station.

Josie took a short, bolstering breath and opened the creaking wooden door to go inside. There were three empty desks, a single bookshelf with volumes with titles such as Beldon Police Report, April ’72—August ’73, and a plain, round clock with black hands that told her it had taken approximately seven minutes for her to walk there from the inn.

This was one small town.

“Hello?” Josie called out. “Is anyone here?”

There was a startled exclamation and the clanging of metal before a man called, “Hello? Who’s there?”

“No one you know,” Josie answered. “Just a visitor to the town. I’m looking for the chief of police.”

“Er, he’s not in.”

“Who are you?”

Long pause. “I’m…uh…Deputy Fife…er. No, Deputy Pfeiffer.”

“Well, could you come out and talk to me, Deputy Pfeiffer? I have a robbery to report.”

“Don’t sound like you’re from around here.”

“I’m not. Do I have to be from here to report a crime?” she asked, annoyed. What was it going to take to get someone to act responsibly around here? Or just to act?

“I’m a little…indisposed.”

She counted to five before saying, “Look, Deputy, I’m sure you’re very busy, but would it kill you to come out and have a word with me?”

A moment passed before he said, “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Another moment passed. “I’m locked in.”

“What?” She didn’t even bother to hide her astonishment.

“Well, uh, I was cleaning one of the cells and I let the door shut behind me.” A beat passed. “Can you let me out?”

“How?” Amazing. As if she didn’t already have enough to handle, now she had to free the police from jail. It was incredible. This was like a bad sitcom.

“I, uh, left the keys in there on the wall.”

She looked around at the walls. There was nothing on them except the clock, some FBI Wanted posters that looked to be several years old, and a Vargas Girl calendar that was, on closer inspection, from 1959.

“I don’t see any keys hanging on the wall,” she called.

“Must have left them in my desk, then,” the voice returned. “See the desk by the door? One with the pinup-girls calendar?”

“Yes.”

“Try the top drawer.”

She couldn’t believe she had to release the deputy from a jail cell before she could report her stolen bags. How in the world did she end up in this ridiculous town? Why wasn’t it rife with criminals, since the police were so inept?

If she weren’t an honest person she’d consider robbing a bank right about now.

In fact, if things with Page-turner didn’t work out after this weekend, she’d keep it in mind, she thought wryly.

“I’m looking,” she said, opening the drawer. There were some pens and pencils, a couple of paper clips bent out of shape, a pack of cinnamon gum, a set of handcuffs and a cracked black-and-white photo of a handsome young man in a police uniform, flanked by what appeared to be his proud parents.

Josie lingered on the picture for a moment, wondering who the man was and what his story was, then set it down.

“Find them?” the voice called from the back.

“Not yet.”

“Look in the back of the drawer.”

She pulled it out as far as it would go, then reached in. Sure enough, she snagged a set of keys on a large brass ring. “I think I found them,” she said, slamming the drawer shut just as the front door creaked open and Dan Duvall came in.

“Officer Duvall,” she said in a clipped voice, closing her hand around the cold set of keys. “I thought you were too busy to come into the station.”

For a moment he didn’t speak. He looked at her, then at the key ring in her hand. Then he asked, “What the hell are you doing going through my desk?”

Chapter Two

CHOCOLATE PUDDING

(from page 86 of The Way to a Man’s Heart by Beatrice Beaujold)

Chocolate makes you feel like you’re in love…or in lust. The better the chocolate, the better the lust….

1 cup sugar

¼ cup cornstarch

½ teaspoon salt