It was just one of those nights. One of those nights where no matter how hard you try you just cannot get to sleep. Where you brain is running a million miles an hour – thinking about the next days to-do list, everything you didn’t get done that day, finances, babies, health, your marriage, and all things that could possibly keep you up late worrying. The thing that was most prominent on my mind that night? Sarah.
There was just so much about mine and Galigani’s conversation with Sarah that bothered me. For one, she had been so blindsided by Bill’s betrayal. That was probably what pestered me the most about it – she hadn’t really expected. Sure, she had had her suspicions, but it was clear a part of her was expecting for Galigani and I to tell her she had just been being paranoid. That her suspicions were incorrect. But, that’s not what happened. She was shocked. And, the first thing that Sarah said she noticed that was off? Bill stopped talking to her about everything which eventually led into him keeping more and more secrets.
I glanced over beside me where Jim was fast asleep. His nose was scrunched up slightly, his face pressing into his pillow. So… relaxed. Yet, here I was trying my hardest not to have a complete and total panic attack over one single decision of his to just not tell me something. And, he was acting like it was nothing. Like had hadn’t just planted some seed in my head.
Deciding that there was just no way I was going to get any sleep that night, I slipped out of bed. I have never been the type of person who enjoys wasting time. If I wasn’t getting any sleep or legitimate rest, I wasn’t just going to stare up into the dark at my bedroom ceiling. I was going to get some work done. I headed down the hall and dipped into our home office, sitting down at our desk and pulling out my laptop. Despite Jim’s reservations about his incident about Cassandra, I knew I had to look into it. Cassandra was one of the victims, and she had been the one to hire me for the case to begin with. Even though I most certainly didn’t suspect my husband’s involvement, I still needed to stay caught up with the police. I needed to know what happened whether Jim wanted to tell me or not.
I felt a little funny going behind his back, but I would need to talk to Cassandra about the incident as well as about Morgan. She was the deceased victims boss, after all. I had managed to get the woman’s email before she had gotten sick, but I didn’t have a phone number. Email would have to do for the time being. I sent a quick email to Cassandra, asking her if there was an appropriate time we could get together to chat and that I had some questions regarding the case she had hired me to solve.
After spending only a few minutes lost on the internet to kill time, Cassandra responded. At first, I was surprised to get such a prompt response at four in the morning, but I quickly noted in her email that she was staying in the hospital still. The woman was probably just as wide awake as I was at the moment. I had been in the hospital my fair share of times, and I was never able to sleep there. She was probably just sitting and playing on her phone when my email had popped up, I figured. She told me I could come by the hospital anytime because the doctor said she probably wouldn’t be dismissed until late afternoon the following day. I sent another email, asking if she was going to be up much longer. When she responded that she wasn’t planning on sleeping anytime soon, I decided to make use of the wee hours of the night that I had found myself wide awake during.
Just as I was about to close my laptop to start getting ready for a quick trip to the hospital, I noted Cassandra’s sign off. “Come by anytime – Cassandra Sanders,” she had written, and alarms started going off in my head.
“Cassandra Sanders…” I said under my breath. I hadn’t realized what her full name was. Frankly, I had thought it was cookies. There was something familiar about the name. “Cassandra Sanders,” I said again. I closed my laptop and stood up, concentrating for a moment. I headed over to a bookshelf and plucked one of Jim’s old high school yearbooks off one of the higher shelves. After just a few moments of flipping through the book, I found the Junior’s Top Dogs page – basically all those best laughs, most likely to succeed – those sorts of awards. And, there was Cassandra Sanders standing next to my Jim – “Cutest Couple.”
I was livid. And, it was definitely her. There was no denying that hair of hers. My blood started to boil. Not only did Jim keep the fact that he had had the police called on him a secret – but he had failed to mention that the bakery belonged to his high school girlfriend! I had never met her, obviously, and Jim really didn’t talk about her too much. He had mentioned dating a Cassandra girl back in the day, but I didn’t realize she lived in town. That she was the one making me those brownies he oh-so willingly kept running out to get me. Why wouldn’t he tell me this? Unless, he thought he had something to hide?
I was definitely going to the hospital to speak to her now. I left Jim a note stating that I hadn’t been able to sleep and was going to take care of something work related. I was vague in my note, but I figured there was a good chance he could guess who I was heading off to talk to. He probably wouldn’t be thrilled to wake up to that note, but I didn’t care. I needed answers not just for work but for my own mind. I set Laurie’s monitor next to Jim’s nightstand before getting dressed and heading out.
My phone buzzed on my way out the door, and I spied a text message from Cassandra with her hospital information so that I would know what room to find her in. Good. Once I got in my car, I went ahead and texted Kenny to come over as soon as he was up just in case I was late getting home. I didn’t want to make Jim late for work watching Laurie. I texted Cassandra that I was on the way and sat my phone in my passenger’s seat. My mind was still all over the place. I was literally on my way to talk to my husband’s high school girlfriend – an old girlfriend he had failed to mention he had obviously been talking to. Jim never kept secrets from me. I didn’t like it one bit. Why hadn’t he said anything to me?
I’m pretty sure I was white-knuckling my steering wheel the entire way to the hospital. I was mad at Jim. Mostly hurt. And, I kept thinking about Sarah. About how blindsided she had been. And, Domingo’s stupid play was in my head too. The cheating husband. The PI. All of it was just rolling around in my head – toying with my perception of my husband.
My phone beeped again when I arrived in the parking lot at the hospital. It was an email from Galigani. The police report for Morgan had been sent his way by his buddy at the local station, and he had been kind enough to forward it to me. I liked that he was willing to call his contact for me, but I knew I was eventually going to have to make some of my own. I needed to start being nicer to the police if I was ever going to get stuff like this for myself when I branched out and started my own firm. I read through the report. Morgan had been poisoned via chloroform. The chloroform had been in some brownie’s that Cassandra’s shop had made – the ones coated in bright orange icing. Good thing it wasn’t the purple icing, I thought. Either way, I had had some sort of aversion to the purple brownies that night, so it’s not like I would have been poisoned. That stuff made it in the trash can quick.
But, I was glad I had gotten that email from Galigani. That way, I had some information before I started interviewing people. I headed into the hospital, and eventually I found my way to Cassandra’s room. She was sitting up in bed, hooked up to an IV. She looked like she felt okay, thankfully. Probably just waiting for some of the chloroform to get out of her system. “Kate,” she said and smiled at me. “How is the case going?”
“Slowly,” I said. “I do know that Morgan was having an affair with a married man. Do you know anything about that?”
“I knew she was dating a guy named Bill,” Cassandra said as I made my way over. I pulled up a chair beside her hospital bed and pulled out the notebook I had snagged from the house so that I could take notes.
“That would be him,” I said.
“Yeah, he seemed kind of… sketchy,” Cassandra said. “But, I only met him once or twice. He would swing by the bakery every once in a while, and drop off some lunch for her. He picked her up for a date once. He seemed a little old for her, but she kind of was into that. She wanted a sugar daddy type thing.”
“So, obviously I’m looking into Bill. But, he was nowhere near the theater when Morgan was killed,” I said.
“Yeah,” Cassandra said. “But, according to the police, someone poisoned some of my brownies. I know Morgan and I both ate some. Bill doesn’t have a key to the bakery or anything, but maybe he could have… I don’t know…”
“Would Morgan have let him into the back?” I asked.
“I guess she could have,” Cassandra said. “But, I don’t know why she would have. I don’t let anyone into the back where we do the baking who isn’t a baker. Our cashiers aren’t even allowed back there, and Morgan had been working there for a while. She knew the rules.”
Cassandra had brought up the poisoned brownies, so it didn’t seem like she was trying to hide anything. She could have very easily lied to me just then to keep herself or her employees out from under my nose. It would be a lot easier on her if someone had been poisoned at the theater rather than them bringing poisoned brownies there. This would open up a can of worms – there could be a lawsuit against her business. That’s probably why she hired me, I thought – realizing she probably was worried about how this would affect her business if the culprit wasn’t caught.
“I need to ask about the incident between you and my husband,” I said, changing subjects. I once again decided to feel her out. Not let her know what I already knew just to see if she would be honest with me.
She rolled her eyes. “It was stupid, really.”
“I need to hear your side of things,” I said. “And, frankly, I want to make sure I can clear my husband as a suspect, as you can imagine that’s a high priority for me.”
“I suppose I can understand that,” she said with a huff. “Well, if I’m being honest, I’m not sure if Jim told you, but we dated briefly way back in high school.”
“Yeah, he told me,” I said even though he didn’t.
“Well, Jim had come in a few times getting those brownies for you,” Cassandra said. “He didn’t recognize me at first. It was probably about the second or third time, and I finally said something to him. Just told him who I was, thought we would have a good laugh about it – maybe chat about old times and see what each other had been up to since high school. That sort of thing. Well, he looks me up and down and makes this asinine comment about he had obviously moved up.”
I frowned. “Oh?”
“Yeah,” she said, a very annoyed pout on her face. “And, frankly, I didn’t care for what he said to me. I thought it was just so rude. I mean, you’re beautiful Kate, but you don’t say that to an ex-girlfriend. Especially when you had left on good terms, you know? It was just so mean and spiteful, and I probably overreacted. I snapped at him, he snapped back, and it just sort of escalated into shouting, and I finally just called the police to end it.”
I really didn’t want to believe a word she had just said to me. I couldn’t imagine Jim making a comment like that to someone. He was just so… sweet. She must have guessed that I didn’t believe her because she sat upright and looked at me. “It surprised me too,” she said. “Like I said, we dated back in high school. He was always so sweet. He was nice to women. Nice to everybody. To hear that come out of his mouth about me, well, it set me off. And, honestly, I’m sorry for my part in it. I overreacted, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt my feelings.”
I still wasn’t sure. I couldn’t imagine Jim smirking at a woman and telling her he had moved up – judging some woman he dated back in the day after she had been supposedly sweet as can be to him. But, I tried not to let her know that. “Well, I’m very sorry to hear that,” I said. “But, thank you for talkig with me. Is there anything else you can tell me about Morgan that might would lead me into the right direction?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Cassandra admitted. “She kept to herself. We weren’t particularly close. She came into work and then headed off. She dated a lot, though. Bill was just the latest of older men she dated. I couldn’t tell you their names, though. Like I said, she wanted to find herself a sugar daddy. She didn’t like to work, but she was willing to do it until she found what she wanted in a guy. A guy with deep pockets.”
“Thank you, Cassandra,” I said. I rose from my seat. I was very frustrated, but I tried my best not to show it. Cassandra thanked me again for looking into the case for her. She expressed her sympathy for what happened to Morgan, and she admitted she was very worried about her business after having an employee killed by someone putting brownie’s in the food. She gave me a list of employees and anyone who would have access to the bakery for one reason or another.
I headed out, my mind swimming once again. The fact that Jim didn’t tell me Cassandra was his ex-girlfriend was really bothering me. And, honestly, she was pretty. I was… pregnant with baby’s number two and three. Laurie had certainly changed the way I looked – and this pregnancy was only going to do that even more so. Was Jim still attracted to me? Had he been coming down to the bakery to fantasize about an ex-girlfriend? Was there something even more going on than that? I really didn’t like to think about it. It was making sick. Why wouldn’t Jim talk to me? Was Jim… was Jim cheating on me?