Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder (Hannah Swensen #1)(6)

Hannah nodded. Andrea looked terribly upset. “Okay. Go tell Lisa to come up here and I’ll join you back in the bakery.”

The switch was accomplished quickly, and once she’d slipped back to the bakery, Hannah found her sister perched on a stool at the work island in the center of the room. Andrea was staring at the ovens as if she’d just encountered a hibernating grizzly, and Hannah was alarmed. “Is there something wrong with the ovens?”

“Not exactly. Lisa said that the timer’s about to go off and the cookies have to come out. You know I don’t bake, Hannah.”

“I’ll do it.” Hannah grinned as she handed her sister an individual carton of orange juice. Her sister would be more at home in a foreign country than she was in a kitchen. Andrea’s culinary efforts were always disasters. Until she’d gone back to work and hired someone to come in to cook the meals, the Todd family had eaten nothing but microwave dinners.

Hannah grabbed a pair of oven mitts and removed the trays from the ovens. She replaced them with the unbaked Oatmeal Raisin Crisps that Lisa had prepared and then she pulled up a second stool and joined her sister at the work island. “What’s wrong, Andrea?”

“It’s Tracey. Janice Cox just paged me from Kiddie Korner. She said Tracey’s telling all of her classmates that she saw Ron’s body.”

“That’s true—she did.”

“How could you, Hannah?” Andrea looked positively betrayed. “Tracey’s impressionable, just like me. It’s liable to scar her psyche for life!”

Hannah reached out and opened the carton of orange juice, slipping the little plastic straw inside. “Take a sip, Andrea. You look faint. And try to relax.”

“How can I relax when you exposed my daughter to a murder victim?”

“I didn’t expose her. Bill did. And all Tracey saw was the body bag. They were loading it into the coroner’s van when he took her over to the preschool.”

“Then she didn’t actually see Ron.”

“Not unless she has X-ray vision. You can ask Bill about it. He’s still out in the alley securing the crime scene.”

“I’ll talk to him later.” Andrea took a sip of her orange juice and a little color came back into her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Hannah. I should have known that you wouldn’t do anything to hurt Tracey. Sometimes I think that you’re a better mother to her than I am.”

Hannah bit her tongue. This wasn’t the time to give Andrea a lecture about how to raise her daughter. “Tracey loves you, Andrea.”

“I know, but motherhood doesn’t come naturally to me. That’s why I hired the best baby-sitters I could find and went to work. I thought that if I had a real career, it would make Bill and Tracey proud of me, but it’s just not working out the way I hoped it would.”

Hannah nodded, recognizing the real reason behind her sister’s unusual candor. “Your sale fell through?”

“Yes. He decided the property wasn’t right for him. And when I offered to show him some of my other listings, he wouldn’t even look. I really wanted that carpet, Hannah. It was gorgeous and it would have given my bedroom a whole new look.”

“Next time, Andrea.” Hannah gave her an encouraging smile. “You’re a good salesman.”

“Not good enough to convince Mr. Harris. I can usually spot a Looky-Lou a mile off, but I’m beginning to think that he was never serious about buying the old Peterson place.”

Hannah got up to hand her a Chocolate Chip Crunch that was still slightly warm from the oven. Andrea had always loved Chocolate Chip Crunches and Hannah made a mental note to remind Bill not to mention that Ron had been eating them right before he died. “Eat this, Andrea. You’ll feel better with a little chocolate in your system.”

“Maybe.” Andrea took a bite of the cookie and gave a small smile. “I just love these cookies, Hannah. Do you remember the first time you made them for me?”

“I remember,” Hannah answered with a smile. It had been a rainy day in September and Andrea had stayed after school for cheerleading tryouts. Since there’d never been a freshman cheerleader on the varsity squad, Hannah hadn’t held out much hope that Andrea would make it. So Hannah had rushed home from school to make chocolate chip oatmeal cookies for her sister, hoping to take the sting out of Andrea’s disappointment, but she hadn’t checked to make sure she had all the ingredients before she’d started to mix up the dough. The oatmeal canister had been empty and Hannah had crushed up some Corn Flakes as a substitute. The resulting cookies had been wonderful, Andrea had made the cheerleading squad, and she’d raved about Hannah’s Chocolate Chip Crunches ever since.

“I guess there was no real way of knowing that he was just window-shopping.” Andrea took another bite of her cookie and sighed. “He seemed like a real buyer. Even Al Percy thought so. I mean, we didn’t even have to solicit him. He came to us!”

Hannah realized that it might be good for Andrea to talk about her disappointment. “How long ago was that?”

“Three weeks ago on Tuesday. He said he really liked the house, that it had a sense of history about it. I took him inside and he was even more impressed.”

“But you couldn’t get him to make an offer?”

“No, he said he needed to work out some details first. I figured that it was just an excuse and I wrote him off. Sometimes people don’t like to say no and they give you some sort of lame excuse. I really didn’t think I’d hear from him again, but he called me last week and said he was still interested.”