Cinnamon Roll Murder (Hannah Swensen, #15)(6)

“There,” Hannah answered, pointing upward at the driver still strapped in his seat above them.

For a moment neither sister said a word. They just stared at the driver, suspended by his seat belt, with one arm dangling down so far the fingers almost touched their heads. His mouth was open as if in surprise, and he appeared to be regarding them fixedly with his sightless eyes.

Michelle shivered, and then she turned to Hannah. “Lynnette’s right. He’s creepy,” she whispered.

“No argument here,” Hannah replied, taking Michelle’s arm and turning her around. “Let’s go.”

“But ... shouldn’t we check for a pulse?”

Hannah was about to point out that the driver’s neck was twisted at an impossible angle and no one could live with his neck turned halfway around like that, but Michelle looked shaken enough as it was. If Michelle wanted her to feel the dead driver’s wrist for a pulse, she’d do it.

She was about to reach up for the driver’s wrist to search for signs of life she knew weren’t there when Buddy hailed them from the back of the bus.

“Come on back! The paramedics just arrived!”





Chapter Three


“Is everybody okay back there?” Hannah asked as she turned onto the highway.

“We’re fine,” one of the wives responded. Hannah wasn’t sure which wife it was since there were two married couples riding in the back of her cookie truck. They were part of the group that Doc Knight’s interns had asked her to take to the hospital, since there were only a few vehicles available and the ambulances were transporting the more seriously injured.

Luckily, the two couples had escaped with minor scrapes and bruises. One of the husbands had a cut on his leg that might require a couple of stitches, and the other husband had suffered a blow to his head and would be watched for several hours for signs of a concussion. The wives had scrapes and bruises, but their injuries were minor. They had been on their way to the Tri-County Mall to see a movie when they’d come upon the accident and been unable to avoid becoming part of the massive pileup.

“How about you, Buddy?” Hannah asked. The keyboard player had the most serious injury in her little group of what Ben Matson, one of Doc’s interns, had called the “walking wounded”.

“I’m okay, except those cinnamon rolls are driving me crazy. Usually we stop somewhere on the road, but we were supposed to have dinner out at the Lake Eden Inn before our practice.”

“All he had was some of my vegetable chips,” Lynnette, the final member of Hannah’s group reported. She was completely uninjured, but she was riding along so that she could rejoin the rest of the band at the hospital.

“We were going to have dinner at the food court out at the mall,” one of the husbands told Hannah, “so we’re pretty hungry, too. How long until we get there?”

“No more than fifteen minutes. I have to make a quick stop to drop off the puppy, and then we’ll go straight to the hospital. We’ll get you all something to eat from the vending machines just as soon as we get there.”

“Forget the dog, just get us some food,” Buddy said, sounding more than a little petulant. “I want one of those cinnamon rolls right now.”

Hannah shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. The cinnamon rolls are part of an order that’s been bought and paid for. But I do have some cookies in the back. How about a couple of Triplet Chiplets?”

“What are those?” one of the wives asked.

“Cookies with three kinds of chips. These have white chocolate, semisweet chocolate, and milk chocolate chips.”

“Too bad that white chocolate’s not peanut butter chips,” Buddy complained.

Well it’s not, and there’s not a lot I can do about it at this late date, Hannah thought, but she snapped her mouth tightly shut and reminded herself that Buddy had been in an traumatic accident. It was true that his injury wasn’t life threatening, but he was probably afraid that his wrist was broken, and that might end his musical career.

“Try one. You’ll like them,” Michelle said, just as Hannah pulled into Lisa and Herb’s driveway. “Hannah’s going in with the puppy, but I’ll stay here and find all the extra cookies she has in the back. Then you can choose the ones you want to try.”



“Hannah! What are you doing... oh! How precious!” Lisa held out her arms to take the puppy.

It was precisely the reaction Hannah had been hoping for. She stepped into her business partner’s warm kitchen and put the puppy into Lisa’s waiting arms. “This poor little guy was on the band bus when it went into the ditch. He was part of that accident on the highway. Someone was holding him and he’s not hurt.”

“Thank goodness for that! I know all about the accident. Herb got a call about twenty minutes ago, and he left to go out there to help transport people to the hospital.” She looked down at the puppy with a concerned expression. “Are you sure he’s not hurt?”

“I’m sure. One of the paramedics checked him out. I think he’s really hungry though. The driver of the band bus found him shivering in the cold and stopped to pick him up. The wife of the bass player wrapped him in a blanket and held him. They were going to take him to a shelter.”