Page 312 of Love Bites

CHAPTER25

Sunday, July 22nd

I dragged my sorry ass out of bed the next afternoon feeling like I’d spent the last ten hours tumbling around in a clothes dryer. Every muscle ached; my throat was scratchy, skin too tight, hair frazzled, eyes dry, ears clanging, and forehead bruised and pounding from when I’d fallen head-first out of my chair.

A splash of cold water didn’t cut it, so I tossed back a couple of aspirin and crawled into the shower, shuddering to life under a freezing spray. After standing in front of my closet for several minutes, I grabbed a sleeveless dark-green denim dress with copper snaps that ran the length of it, ending at my shins, and slipped on my favorite cowboy boots. I scrounged through my underwear drawer and found a pair of terry-cloth wristbands from my racquetball days of old to cover my bandaged rope burns. Brushing my curls hurt too much, so I shoved a couple of hair combs into the rat’s nest and called it good.

The smell of fresh-baked brownies lured me downstairs and reeled me into the kitchen. Aunt Zoe stood at the sink washing the brownie pan.

“Morning,” I mumbled as I stumbled across the linoleum. Halfway to the coffee maker, I noticed Aunt Zoe had company.

“‘Bout time you rolled out of bed, Wonder Woman!” Harvey hollered.

I cringed and poured myself a tumbler of black brain juice. My head hurt too much to handle the sound of Harvey’s voice, especially when he had the volume cranked up.

“Nice wristbands, Chris Evert.” He kicked out the chair next to him as I approached. Always the gentleman. “Hey, your eyebrows are back.”

Not really. His eyesight just wasn’t so good. I’d penciled in the scorched parts after camouflaging my head bruise with cover-up.

Avoiding his gaze, I dropped into the chair and gulped down half of the cold, bitter dregs. Aunt Zoe slid a plate of brownies under my nose. I grunted my thanks. Maybe warm chocolate would soften the effects of Harvey’s crusty personality.

Harvey stole a brownie from my plate. “Coop called for you this morning?”

“What does Detective Cooper want?”

Aunt Zoe pulled out the chair across from me. “He has a few more questions for you.”

Hadn’t we talked enough last night at the hospital while I was being checked out for smoke inhalation and having my wrists wrapped? I’d told him my story three times already. Did he think a few hours of sleep would change the ending?

“I’ll call him on the way to work. Can I borrow your cell phone today?” I asked Aunt Zoe. “Mine’s under the weather.”

“Sure, but you’re not going into the office today, are you?” Aunt Zoe frowned at me over her glass of iced tea. “Not after all you went through last night.”

I nodded, swallowing some brownie. “I don’t have time to play victim. I have a house to sell.” Neither rain, snow, sleet, nor psychotic murderers could keep me from trying to save my job. Besides, I wanted to see Doc. With luck, I’d find him in his office.

Harvey wiped his hands on the napkin Aunt Zoe handed him. “Coop says they found where that nut job stored the bodies.”

I raised one brow, which was all I could manage at the moment.

“He said something about chunks of hair and scalp in the root cellar,” Harvey snatched another brownie, “and a bad smell.”

Grimacing, I dropped the rest of my brownie on my plate.

“Coop also mentioned that they found evidence of several big bags of rock salt in what’s left of the basement. He figures Hessler was gutting and stuffing the bodies with the salt, then packing them in it to dry out the corpses.”

“Packing them? Where? Like a barrel?”

“Cooper thinks Hessler used the tub. It’s one of the few things that survived the fire.”

The crystal! My hands grew clammy. Holy frickin’ moly, I bet that was rock salt I’d found in Wolfgang’s bathroom that day I was searching for Addy upstairs. That would explain why the crystal disappeared after being through a wash cycle.

“Maybe we should talk about this later,” Aunt Zoe suggested.

“That’s okay,” I said and sat back in my chair. “Keeping quiet now won’t change what happened. Besides, it’s better coming from you two than Detective Cooper.”

“You sure you’re up to it?” Aunt Zoe searched my face.

“Sure, she is,” Harvey answered for me. “She’s no shrinking Violet.”

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