Raspberry Danish Murder (Hannah Swensen #22)(16)

“I’m glad you enjoyed your breakfast,” Michelle told him. “How about another cup of coffee?”

“That’d be great!” Mike held out his mug. “And then I want to talk to both of you about something serious.”

Hannah felt her pulse begin to quicken. This was the moment she’d dreaded. Was Mike about to bring up the horrid suspicion that had occurred to her during the night?

“What is it, Mike?” she asked after Michelle had filled his coffee cup and returned to the table.

“Doc called me this morning. P.K. ingested a lethal dose of a drug that constricted his striated muscles.”

Michelle gasped. “The heart contains striated muscles, doesn’t it?”

“You’re probably right. Doc said that in layman’s terms, P.K. had a fatal heart attack caused by the drug he ingested.”

Hannah swallowed hard. “From the candy he ate?”

“Doc said it was likely, but he doesn’t know for sure yet. P.K. didn’t take any cookies with him when he went back to work, did he?”

“No. We gave him a Raspberry Danish, but we know that he hadn’t eaten it yet. We saw it on the video he sent to Michelle, and it was still in the original packaging.”

“But he ate cookies with you before that?”

“Yes,” Hannah answered. “When he borrowed Ross’s car, he ate some Cherry Chocolate Bar Cookies, but so did Mother, Michelle, and I.”

Mike made a note in the small notebook he always carried in his pocket. “What time did he eat your cookies?”

“I don’t remember, but I know it was before Michelle left for her rehearsal at the school.” Hannah stopped speaking and began to frown. “You don’t think our cookies were drugged, do you?”

“No. I’m just getting a timeline here. Doc told me that the drug would have worked within an hour or two so it couldn’t have been in your bar cookies.”

Hannah took a deep breath and blurted out the nightmarish thought that had plagued her sleep. “Do you think the drugs were in the candy that was in Ross’s desk?”

“Yes.”

Michelle reached out for Hannah’s hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. And then she asked the question that was uppermost in Hannah’s mind. “Do you think that the drugged candy was meant for P.K.?”

“I don’t know yet.” Mike glanced at his watch. “KCOW’s offices open in twenty minutes. I’m going out there now to talk to the office staff when they come in. We confiscated the candy last night and Doc’s running tests in his lab, but I need to find out when and how that candy got into Ross’s desk.”

“And then you’ll know if P.K. was the intended victim,” Michelle said, drawing the obvious conclusion.

“Maybe, but maybe not. It all depends on when and how the candy got there.”

Hannah swallowed hard. “What if you can’t pin it down? What if the candy was there before P.K. moved into Ross’s office?”

“I think you already know the answer to that,” Mike told her, and then he reached out to pat her shoulder. “Sorry, Hannah.”

Hannah somehow managed to maintain her composure. Whatever happened, she couldn’t avoid reality. “If you can’t pin down the timing on the candy, you’ll have to run two murder investigations, one for P.K. and one for . . .” Hannah stopped for a second to collect herself. “And one for Ross, just in case he was the intended victim.”

“Exactly right. I’m sorry I can’t tell you that it wasn’t intended for Ross.”

Hannah gave a little nod. “So am I. If it was, do you think that could be why Ross disappeared without a trace?”

“It’s certainly a possibility, especially if someone knew what was going to happen and warned Ross that his life was in danger.”

Hannah swallowed hard. “P.K. told us that Ross got a phone call right before he told P.K. that he had to leave, that it was a family emergency.”

“That constitutes a family emergency in my book. And if Ross was afraid that you or your family could be in danger too, it could explain why he didn’t tell you where he was going.”





MIXED BERRY MUFFINS




Preheat oven to 375 degrees F., rack in the middle position.





The Muffin Batter:



? cup white (granulated) sugar

? cup salted butter (1 stick, 4 ounces, ? pound), softened

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 teaspoons baking powder

? teaspoon baking soda

? teaspoon ground cinnamon

? teaspoon salt

? cup whole milk

2 cups all-purpose flour (pack it down when you measure it)

1 cup quick-cooking oats (I used Quaker Quick 1-Minute)





The Fruit:



1 and ? cups frozen mixed berries

teaspoon ground nutmeg

teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 cup all-purpose flour

cup brown sugar (pack it down in the cup when you measure it)





Prepare your muffin pan by spraying the cups with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray or lining the cups with double cupcake papers. This batch will make 12 to 18 muffins so you will need 12 to 18 muffin cups.