Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder (Hannah Swensen #1)(101)

Candy nodded quickly. “You want me to fill the basket almost all the way to the top with grounds?”

“That’d be perfect. Thanks, Candy.” Hannah slipped into her coat and pulled on her gloves. “I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

Hannah and Norman made their exit. They stopped outside the door, and by unspoken agreement they waited until they heard Candy lock the door behind them. Then they hurried to Norman’s car and climbed in, shivering.

“I’ll get the heater going right away,” Norman promised, firing up the engine and turning the heater to high.

Hannah shivered as he backed up the car. She shivered some more as he drove out of the parking lot and down the alley. But when Norman stopped at the end of the alley, she realized that she’d stopped shivering. As a matter of fact, she had to slip off her gloves and unzip her parka a bit because she was too warm. Norman’s heater was pouring out waves of hot air that felt positively tropical.

One glance at the windshield and Hannah was even more impressed. Instead of the patches of frost that clung to the inside of her windshield for the first five or six miles of winter driving, Norman’s windshield was already picture window clear and they’d been driving less than a block!

Just to make sure, Hannah reached out to touch one of the buttons on the radio. It was warm instead of icy cold. “I love it,” she breathed.

“You love what?”

“Your heater. If I knew how to hook it up, I’d steal it and put it in my truck.”

“But then I’d freeze. Maybe we’d better work out a compromise that’ll make both of us happy.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“I could drive you to work every morning and back home every night. Then both of us would stay warm.”

Hannah had a feeling she knew what was coming, but she decided she’d bite anyway. “But you live in town, and I live out of town. Would you really be willing to make two round trips a day?”

“I’d only have to make one round trip if I stayed at your condo.” Norman gave her a grin that looked positively devilish, and then he waggled his eyebrows up and down to add to the illusion.

Hannah laughed at his antics. “Only in your dreams, Norman!” she retorted. But she had to admit that Norman’s compromise did have a certain appeal that wasn’t entirely due to the cold winter weather.





MERRY BERRY COOKIES




Don’t preheat the oven yet—this cookie dough has to chill before baking.

1 ? cups melted butter (3 sticks, ? pound)

2 cups white (granulated) sugar

? cup melted raspberry, blackberry, strawberry, or any berry jam (I used Knott’s seedless raspberry)

2 beaten eggs

? teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

4 cups flour (pack it down in the cup—don’t sift it)

1/3 cup white (granulated) sugar for later

1/3 cup berry jam for later



Melt the butter in a large microwave-safe bowl. Add the white sugar and mix it in thoroughly. Let the bowl sit on the counter while you do the next step.



Melt the jam in the microwave or in a saucepan over low heat. Once it’s the consistency of syrup, mix it in with the butter and sugar.



Add the eggs, baking soda, and salt, stirring after each addition.



Add the flour and mix thoroughly. Cover the bowl and refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours. (Overnight’s even better.)



When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.



Roll the chilled dough into small walnut-sized balls with your hands. Put 1/3 cup white sugar in a small bowl and roll the balls in it. Place them on a greased standard-sized cookie sheet, 12 cookies to a sheet. Flatten the dough balls with a greased spatula. Make a small indentation with your thumb or index finger in the center of each cookie. Fill the indentation with a small bit of jam (about 1/8 teaspoon.)



Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes at 350 degrees F. Let them cool for 2 minutes on the cookie sheet, and then transfer them to a wire rack to finish cooling.



These cookies freeze well. Roll them up in foil, put them in a freezer bag, and be sneaky about how you label them or the kids will find them and eat them frozen.



Yield: 8 to 10 dozen, depending on cookie size.





Chapter Four




Perhaps a more imaginative person could have seen mythical figures in the irregular swatches of plaster on her bedroom ceiling, but Hannah wasn’t in the mood. She also wasn’t keen on counting sheep, reciting her times tables all the way through the dreaded sevens, or mentally cataloguing her cookie recipes. Her never-fail sleep aid, reading the statutes of the Winnetka County Health Board, hadn’t even made her eyelids heavy, and there was no way she was going to take any over-the-counter remedies when she had to get up in less than five hours.

Hannah switched on the light, causing her bedmate to blink and then stare at her with startled yellow eyes. She’d been tired when Norman had left, so tired that she’d barely been able to get ready for bed and climb under the covers. The pillow had been perfectly supportive, cradling her head just so, and the quilt had formed a warm and comforting cocoon. Moishe had purred softly beside her, actually letting her cuddle him close for ten seconds or so before he’d padded down to sleep on her feet, and the rhythmic whoosh of warm air from the heat vents had been positively soporific. Unfortunately, it had all gone downhill from there.