Chocolate Cream Pie Murder (Hannah Swensen #24)(76)

“Mike. And Doc. They wanted me to find Moishe and catch you when you got home. They said that under no circumstances was I supposed to let you go upstairs.”

“Here,” Hannah said, handing Moishe to Michelle. “Go with Mother and take Moishe with you. She can drive and you can hold Moishe. I’m going up there to see what’s happened.”

“But you can’t!” Delores said, trying to get in front of Hannah to block her way.

“The hell I can’t!” Hannah told her, pushing her mother out of the way. “Take Moishe to your place and keep him safe. I’m going upstairs and there’s nothing you can do to stop me!”

And with that said, Hannah muscled her way past her mother, Michelle, and Norman, and ran up the stairs to her home. Her heart was beating a rapid tattoo in her chest and she hoped she wasn’t about to have a heart attack. At this point, she didn’t give it more than a passing thought as she reached her door, unlocked it, and barreled inside. There was something terribly wrong and she needed to know what it was.

*

“Try to stop me and I’ll flatten you,” she said as Lonnie attempted to grab her arm. “Get out of my way!”

“You can’t come in here, Hannah!” Mike came racing down the hallway to intercept her.

“Oh yes, I can!” Hannah said, and there was pure steel in her voice. “It’s my house and you’re the intruder. Get out of my way or I’ll mow you down!”

With a strength borne of pure determination, Hannah muscled her way past Mike and opened her bedroom door. And that was when she saw it, the blood splattered on the wall and the carpet. She reeled on her feet, almost stumbling over the plate of Chocolate Cream Pie that had fallen on the floor. Her mind was filled with a kaleidoscope of images she could not immediately process. The overturned chair that had been sitting in the corner. The suitcase that was propped open on the bed table. The open closet with clothes and boxes strewn on the floor. And then the final, hideous image of the bed that had once been their bed, and the unspeakable violence that had been inflicted on the man she’d once thought was her husband. And then Hannah Louise Swensen did something she’d sworn she’d never do again in her lifetime. Her world closed in with dizzying speed and she fainted dead away.





Chapter Twenty-one


There was a horrid, pungent stench in the air and she had to get away from it. She turned her head this way and that, attempting to get away from it, but it seemed to follow her. It was sharp and astringent, taking her breath away. She coughed once. Twice. And a deep voice said, “She’s coming out of it now.”

Coming out of what? her rational mind asked, but she couldn’t seem to form the words out loud. It was as if the smell had taken away her voice and her body had ceased to function normally. Even the simple action of blinking her eyes seemed to be in slow motion.

“Huh,” she managed to force the sound from her throat, but it was more of a moan than a word. You need a question mark at the end, her rational mind told her. Hannah took another breath and tried to concentrate. And then, somehow, she managed to force out the sound again.

“Huh?” she heard herself say, and this time it sounded like a question. Atta girl! You did it! her rational mind praised her, and Hannah felt inordinately proud of herself.

“Huh?” she uttered the word again, doing her best to put some emotion in the very short word. “Huh?”

“You fainted, Hannah,” the same voice answered her, and this time she recognized it. The deep, comforting voice belonged to her stepfather, Doc Knight.

“Doc!” she forced out another word, and she drew a relieved breath. She still felt a little dizzy and muddle-headed, but being able to recognize Doc’s voice was encouraging.

“Sick?” she asked, struggling to sit up. And that’s when she realized that she was on her own sofa in her own living room, surrounded by Doc and several other people.

She turned her head slightly. Norman. And Mike. And there was Lonnie. “Wha . . . happened?” she asked them.

“You fainted from the shock,” Doc told her. “Norman and Lonnie carried you in here.”

“Moishe!” The word came out clearly and full of fear for her pet.

“Delores and Michelle took him to the penthouse,” Mike answered. “They called a couple of minutes ago to tell us that he was in the garden and he’d even eaten a couple of cat treats.”

Dimly, Hannah remembered hearing bells. Perhaps that had been the telephone and the reason she’d regained consciousness. But there had been some horrible smell and . . . Hannah began to smile. She’d only smelled that particular odor once before and now she knew what it was. “Smelling salts,” she said out loud.

“Yes, it’s terribly old-fashioned, but I always carry them in my bag,” Doc confessed. “Open your eyes wide, Hannah. I want to make sure you didn’t hurt yourself when you fell.”

Hannah opened her eyes all the way and let Doc shine his little flashlight in them. “I fell?”

“Yes,” Mike told her. “We caught you halfway down, but you hit your head on the side of the bed.”

“Oh!” Hannah could feel herself getting slightly dizzy again as she remembered why she’d been in the bedroom and what she’d seen. She didn’t want to ask the next question that occurred to her, but she had to know. “Is he . . . dead?”