Chocolate Cream Pie Murder (Hannah Swensen #24)(65)

If there are leftover Tortilla Snickerdoodle Cookies (and I’m willing to bet there won’t be!), store them in a cool, dry place. (Your refrigerator is cool, but it is NOT dry!)



Yield: 10 flour tortillas will make 6 dozen crunchy, sweet, and delightful little cookies. (Because I know that you will eat at least 8, before you serve them.)





Chapter Seventeen


Hannah and Norman hurried back to the kitchen of The Cookie Jar and the first thing Hannah did was look at the clock. It was twenty minutes before ten in the morning and the Lake Eden First Mercantile Bank opened at ten. If Ross was coming to the bank this morning, he was probably here in town already.

“I’ll be right back,” she told Mike and Norman. “I have to tell Lisa something.”

“And then you’ll tell us what was wrong with Carrie?” Mike asked her.

Hannah took a split second to consider it and then she decided to keep Carrie’s secret. “I would, but it’s personal,” she told them. “It’s something to do with her marriage.”

“But . . .” Norman looked worried. “It’s not something serious, is it?”

“Not at all. Carrie just wanted my advice about something and I gave it to her. That’s all.”

Norman began to smile and he turned to Mike. “Earl’s birthday is next week,” he told Mike. “Mother probably wanted advice on the surprise birthday party she’s going to throw for Earl.”

“Sorry. I can’t tell you yes or no,” Hannah hedged. “Just take my word for it. You really don’t need to know. If I thought either one of you did, I’d tell you.”

Once Hannah had rushed into the coffee shop to tell Lisa to notify her the moment Earl came in, she went back to the kitchen.

“He’s not in the coffee shop, is he?” Mike asked her as she came back.

“No. I asked and Lisa said she hadn’t seen him. Do you think he’ll show up at the bank?”

“Six of one, half-dozen of another,” Mike said with a shrug. “Do you think Ross believed Doug when Doug told him that you couldn’t withdraw money without his approval?”

“I don’t know. I thought I knew Ross really well, but I don’t. Actually, I’m not sure I could ever accurately predict his intentions. And if I could, I certainly can’t do it now!”

“I think he’ll show up at the bank,” Norman said, and Hannah noticed that he seemed very sure of that.

“What makes you say that?” she asked him.

“You said Ross sounded desperate to get his hands on that money. If you think about it, there’s no reason for him not to show up.”

“Other than the fact that I told him there were some people in town that wanted to punch him into oblivion,” Mike said. “And I told him that I couldn’t guarantee his safety if he came back to Lake Eden.”

“True,” Norman conceded. “But people like Ross always think they have an edge. He’s a classic egomaniac. He’s sure he’s smart enough to talk his way out of anything. And he’s convinced that he can make people like him again.”

Hannah turned to stare at Norman in surprise. He’d described Ross’s personality perfectly. Ross was an egomaniac.

“How do you know all that?” she asked Norman.

“From personal experience. My dad was like that. I discussed it with my mother after he died, and she said he was a master at blaming her for everything that went wrong in their lives and insisting that he never did anything wrong. My father was incapable of feeling guilt about anything.”

Hannah thought about the photos that Norman’s dad had taken of his patients and knew that Norman was right. Dr. Rhodes had probably felt no guilt for taking advantage of his patients.

Mike gave a little nod. “I’ve arrested criminals like that, even murderers, who believe that their victims deserved to die and by killing them, they were doing the right thing. People like that don’t have any sense of right or wrong. And anyone who encounters them finds them very frightening.”

Hannah gave a little shiver. She didn’t want to think that Ross was like that, but she couldn’t help having doubts. He must have known that he was already married when he’d proposed to her. And he hadn’t even mentioned it to her. He hadn’t said word one about it during the weeks leading up to their wedding when he’d told her things about his background and family. Were they all lies? Had Ross considered it perfectly all right to marry her when he was already married to someone else? Or was he hoping that he’d never get caught?

As she usually did when she needed to calm down, Hannah reached for the large loose-leaf recipe book at the work station. “I need to bake, guys,” she said to Mike and Norman. “I’m too nervous to just sit here and drink coffee, so I might as well be productive.”

The first thing Hannah did was turn to the new recipe section in the back of the book. When someone gave her a recipe or she came up with one of her own that she wanted to try, she encased them in plastic three-hole folders and put them in her recipe book.

“Which would you rather eat?” Hannah asked them, paging through the recipes she’d collected but hadn’t yet vetted. “I have one for Butterscotch and Chocolate Bar Cookies and another for Coconut Snow Cookies.”