Red Velvet Cupcake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #16)(14)

“And she’s not on oxygen so at least she’s breathing all right,” Andrea added. “I’m going to see if I can find Lonnie and Rick. I saw them around here a couple of minutes ago. Maybe they’ll tell me something.”

After the ambulance pulled away carrying Barbara, the party began to break up. Lisa packed the remainder of their cupcakes in a box and brought them to the table where Hannah was sitting with Norman and Delores.

“What shall I do with these?” she asked Hannah.

“Give them to Roger. He paid for them. And if he doesn’t want them, take them back to the coffee shop. I think they’ll freeze and we can donate them to the next charity event.”

“Do you need a ride home?” Norman asked Delores.

“No, but thank you, dear. I drove and I’m going to run out to the hospital to see if I can find out more about Barbara’s condition.”

“Will you call me and let me know?” Hannah asked her.

“Of course I will.” Delores pushed back her chair and stood up. “How late will you be awake?”

“Late. And if I’m asleep the answer phone will get it and I’ll play your message in the morning.”

“Do you want to wait for Andrea?” Norman asked her after Delores had left.

“Not really. I think I just want to go home and cuddle up with Moishe on the couch.”

“How about me?”

Hannah gave him a grin. “Sure. You can cuddle up with Moishe, too.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant.”

“I know,” Hannah told him. And then she smiled.

Morning came early, much too early to suit Hannah. When the sky began to lighten slightly outside her bedroom window, her eyes fluttered open. It took her a moment, but then she remembered that it was Sunday, the one day of the week when she didn’t have to go to work. If she wanted, and she did want, she could roll over, pull the blanket back up, and go back to sleep. She was in the process of doing just that when the phone on her bedside table rang.

Out of pure instinct Hannah reached out to answer it. “Hello,” she said groggily.

“Hannah!”

The voice was weak, but Hannah recognized it immediately. She’d heard it only last night. “Barbara?”

“Yes. Come see me, Hannah. I need you.”

For one brief moment, Hannah thought she’d fallen asleep again and the phone conversation was a dream. She blinked several times and sat up in bed, pinching herself to make sure that she was awake. “Are you all right, Barbara?”

“He tried to kill me!”

“Who?”

But there was no answer except a soft click. “Barbara? Are you still there?” Hannah felt a moment’s panic. “Talk to me.”

But it was too late. The phone line was dead, leaving Hannah wide awake and shaking. Unless someone was playing a very cruel joke, Barbara was alive and she’d just said that someone had tried to murder her!

It didn’t take a genius to realize that there would be no further sleep for her this morning. Hannah reached for her slippers and pulled them on. Had the telephone actually rung? Had she actually heard Barbara’s voice say that someone had tried to kill her? Or had she only dreamed the whole thing?

“Did the phone ring?” she asked Moishe, who was stretched out on his feather pillow, staring at her. But Moishe was no help as a reality check. His expression remained perfectly neutral.

Hannah glanced over at the phone. It had been centered on her night table when she’d gone to bed, but now it was crooked. She’d reached for it at some point during the night, but had she actually answered it? And had she really talked to Barbara?

As she pondered the question, a dreadful possibility occurred to her. Her Great-Grandma Elsa used to say that people who knew they were going to die and had something important they needed to say, sometimes hung on to life just long enough to say it. Had Barbara called Hannah because she needed to say that it was no accident, that someone had tried to kill her by pushing her off the roof to the garden below? And had she died before she could say who’d pushed her?

Hannah knew that there was only one way to find out. She had to call the hospital. But hospitals didn’t give out that kind of information over the phone. She had to figure out a way to trick whoever answered into telling her if Barbara was still alive.

Her mind wasn’t working well yet, and Hannah knew it. What she needed was a mug of strong Swedish Plasma. Of course the coffee wasn’t ready. She hadn’t bothered to set the timer last night since she’d planned on sleeping late.

Uncertain whether she could do something as complicated as making coffee without having coffee first, Hannah padded down the carpeted hallway to the kitchen. When she got there she flicked on the bank of excruciatingly bright fluorescent lights and somehow managed to fill the basket of the coffee maker with coffee, pour in the water, and turn it on manually.

Perhaps she dozed a bit while she sat at the kitchen table waiting for the life-giving brew to be ready. She just wasn’t sure, but her neck felt a bit stiff when she glanced up at the clock. Fifteen minutes had passed. A second glance, this one at the coffee pot, confirmed that the green light was on. The world simply did not work right without coffee and now she could have it.

The promise of fresh coffee lured her to her feet and moments later, she was back at the table with a full mug of the magic elixir that transformed her from a zombie into a human being. She took one sip, then another and another, draining half the mug before she reached for the phone to dial the hospital.