Chapter 42
After finally falling back asleep, Annie dreamed of Detective Bryant again. It was an unsettling dream.
They were searching for a map, looking through piles of papers and books. The map was a life-and-death matter.
“Don’t worry,” he said more than once in the dream.
When the alarm buzzed and she opened her eyes, she was surprised by the light. Her dream was set in a dark and dusty place. A cave? A basement? Her arm reached across the bed and hit the alarm. Okay, shake it off, she told herself. It’s time to get up and get breakfast going for the boys.
“Late night, huh?” Mike said when she entered the kitchen. He was sitting at the table, drinking coffee and eating toast. He’d make himself breakfast, but make the boys breakfast without being asked? Well, that never occurred to him.
She grunted, reached for a cup, and poured herself some coffee. She sat down at the table. “I stopped by to see Beatrice last night. I had quite a day.”
Obviously not paying any attention, he lowered his newspaper. “What did you say?”
She looked at him and rolled her eyes. “Never mind,” she said and smiled. “I should just keep my mouth shut until I have at least one cup of coffee, especially when you’re reading the paper.”
She saw movement out of the window on her front porch. It was Sheila in her bright red jogging suit, her hair needing to be brushed, and her lipstick smeared. Annie opened the door.
“Good morning, Sheila. What’s up?”
“Vera has the baby,” she said.
“What baby?”
“Sarah’s baby. They found it on her porch last night. Someone took it from the hospital. And they don’t know if they put the baby on her porch specifically or if the person who took the baby became scared when they saw the police.”
“The police?” Mike said, coming up behind Annie.
“Yes,” Sheila replied. “Someone stole the baby from the hospital, and the police were out last night looking for it.”
Mike looked at Annie, eyebrows lifted.
“No,” Annie said. “I didn’t know anything about this one. My eventful day had nothing to do with this incident. I was visiting Mary, then interviewed Rebecca’s mother, stopped by Sheila’s, then went to visit Beatrice. I was out late, but I don’t recall seeing any police.”
“Oh no, you wouldn’t,” Sheila said. “This was at three in the morning. Can you believe it? If you want to see the baby, you should go on over there. She’s got to take it back this morning.”
“At three I was waking up from a nightmare,” Annie said.
“You too? Vera had a doozy last night about dancing on a stage that was a book. Or something. See you,” Sheila said and started to leave. “Come to think of it, I had a strange dream, too. It just came back to me. I’ll tell you about it later.”
That was weird. That three women all had strange dreams last night. Was there a full moon?
Mike sighed.
Annie cringed.
“We agreed that this job would be perfect because it was freelance and wouldn’t take too much of your time. Damn, Annie,” Mike said.
“I know, Mike. But it comes in fits and spurts, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to gauge it.” Annie paused. “I’ll go over after I get the boys off.”
“Oh,” Sheila said. “Of course. And here’s some muffins DeeAnn sent over.”
“You’ve seen DeeAnn already today?”
“Oh yes,” Sheila replied. “And I bought you this to look at.” She walked in the house and placed a cloth bag on their kitchen table, just as Sam was making his way to the table. “Good morning,” Sheila said to him. “Muffins?”
He smiled sleepily and reached for a muffin.
“Chocolate raspberry,” Sheila said and smiled.
“Miss you, Mommy,” Sam said, attaching himself to Annie and pulling on her already divided heart. Mike’s eyes connected with hers—she knew what he was thinking.
“What’s in the bag?” Ben said as he tumbled in, looking over the muffins.
Sheila handed him one. “And this is for your mama.”
“What is it?” Annie said, reaching into the bag.
“It’s Cookie’s scrapbook,” Sheila said. “We gave up our investigation. It led to nothing.”
“Oh, I’ll look at it later,” Annie said. The next thing she knew, Mike was kissing her good-bye, the boys were yammering for juice, and Sheila was gone—back to her daily run around the neighborhood, though Annie wondered how much running she actually got done between muffin stops and delivering news and scrapbooks.
Suddenly it was just her and her chocolate-smeared boys.
“Chocolate for breakfast?” she said and smiled.
“I think we should have it every day,” Sam said.
“Me too,” Ben said.
“Don’t get used to it. Tomorrow it’s back to eggs or oatmeal.”
Later, after the boys left for school and she emerged from the shower, feeling like she could face the day, she spotted the bag on her table. What was so special about the scrapbook? she wondered, and glanced at the clock. She better get moving if she was going to meet the baby.