Chapter 8

The food shelter had long since closed, so I’d given the few remains of the day to the crew members who’d finally returned for their equipment. I needed to distract myself, so I pulled out all the cleaning supplies and gave each baking station a thorough scrub. I moved on to the refrigerator, then to the baking racks. Finally, I went into Olaya’s office and worked on the bread shop’s website. By the time I finished, it was nearly nine o’clock and pitch-black outside. Where had the time gone?

I knew Olaya would want an update on how the day went after she left. I also wanted to drive Mrs. Branford home. I stopped by my house to pick up Agatha, then turned around and headed back to Olaya’s for the second time that day. As I drove, Zula’s words circled in my head. It went right for him, did not swerve, did not try to stop.

The video Emmaline had found seemed to show the same thing. Which meant that if Ben died, it would be murder.

Cloud cover blanketed the night sky, tamping out any starlight. A shiver ran through me. It was too dark. I could hear the crashing of waves as I wound through town, but to my left, the Pacific Ocean was nothing but a dark expanse in the distance. The dark roads were unusually quiet. The townspeople were safe and sound in their homes.

From out of nowhere, blinding headlights appeared behind me. I peered through the glare in my rearview mirror to see a looming dark SUV. I pressed my foot on the gas. My crossover kicked into gear and jerked forward, putting distance between me and the menacing car. It didn’t work. The driver sped up right along with me, getting closer and closer. I considered my options. If I slammed on the brakes, the SUV would plow right into me. I could stay at my current speed and hope the other driver would decide to go around me. Or I could speed up again, outpacing him. I’d never felt vulnerable in my car, but I suddenly did. I imagined the front grill of the SUV as a growling mouth, the headlights as fiery eyes.

I shook my head, pushing those images away. It was just an obnoxious driver. I kept at my speed, wishing there were more cars on the road. A sedan came toward us on the opposite side of the street, passing us by. The SUV stayed close, but wasn’t on my tail.

The guy needed to learn some road boundaries.

A red light glowed in the distance. I tapped my brake pedal a few times, slowing incrementally. The car behind me fell back. I exhaled a sigh of relief as I pulled to a stop at the traffic signal, my eyes glued to the review mirror. The black SUV idled behind me. It was close, but not too close.

I tapped my fingers against the steering wheel, impatient for the light to change. A car came up beside me, stopping at the light. I looked over, but the driver looked straight ahead, not even giving a cursory glance in my direction.

It was a four-way intersection. Several cars drove through the green light, passing in front of me, but my focus was on the car behind me. “Come on,” I muttered, willing the light to change.

Behind me, Agatha shifted, then settled down again, snoring loudly.

The light turned green. I slammed my foot on the gas pedal and two-fisted the steering wheel. My car responded by jerking forward. My goal was to put distance between the two cars. In two seconds, though, he was right behind me again, closer than he’d been before.

“What’s wrong with you?” I flipped on my blinker and moved over. “Just pass me already,” I said, using my left hand to wave him ahead of me. The hit-and-run earlier had me spooked. I didn’t want any type of encounter with a car. Period.

Finally, the car moved to the left lane next to me. Now it seemed to be taking its sweet time, though, coming up alongside me slowly. Something wasn’t right. It kept a steady pace with me, moving up just enough that I couldn’t see inside any of the windows. All this time, I’d been thinking it was just an obnoxious driver, but now I wasn’t so sure.

I slowed, holding my breath to see what the other car would do. I’d been afraid that it would slow, too. I didn’t know what I’d do if it did—but instead, it finally sped up. The space between us grew and finally its taillights disappeared into the distance.

“Thank God,” I said, breathing out my relief. I pressed my foot on the gas pedal until I was up to speed, once again. One or two cars came and went, leaving me mostly alone on the road. “What was that about, Agatha?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder at my pug. She rode in the back seat, stretched out on her blanket with her front paws crossed over one another, totally oblivious to the encounter I’d just had.

This time when she heard her name, she opened her eyes and lifted her head slightly.

“That was disconcerting, wasn’t it?” I said to her, my heartbeat slowly returning to normal. I looked in the rearview mirror in time to see Agatha give me a slow blink.

My thoughts returned to the day’s events. I looked at Agatha’s reflection again. “Someone had a big gripe with Ben Nader to run him over,” I said to her. “If that’s what happened.”

Agatha’s bulbous eyes were at half-mast.

I continued, as if she’d responded by asking who could have had such a gripe.

“Good question. I didn’t know the man. He has at least one enemy.” I immediately thought of Sandra, who seemed to collect enemies like other people collected Starbucks stars.

Agatha gave a guttural growl of a sound, blinked again, then lowered her head on top of her legs.

“You’re right,” I said. “I’ll talk to Em about it. Maybe do a little digging myself . . . just to, you know, ease my mind.”

This time Agatha peered at me, not bothering to raise her head. “I’ll keep it to myself,” I told her, as if she’d issued a warning, telling me to be careful. Excluding Olaya and Mrs. Branford. And Miguel, of course. They were my A team.

Blinding light, reflected in my side and rearview mirrors, intruded into the darkness. Another car zoomed up behind me, riding my tail so closely that I thought it might plow right into me. My heartbeat ratcheted up again. Muscle memory. What the hell was going on? Who was in that car?

I sped up to put space between us. The car fell back for a few seconds. I started to exhale with relief when it sped up again, riding my bumper like the boxcar on a train.

“Hang on, Agatha,” I said as I jammed my foot on the gas pedal. The engine revved, caught, and my car shot forward with a jolt. The headlights behind me faded with the distance I put between our two cars. From the back seat, Agatha grumbled.

“Idiot driver,” I muttered under my breath. The words barely escaped my lips when an impact came from behind. Something hit my bumper, lurching my car forward. My body jerked, my head whipping back again. I kept my hands gripping the steering wheel. I searched the rearview mirror, frantically looking for the car that had careened into me. The street behind me was dark. Empty. I peered at my side mirror and drew in a sharp breath. A car had moved to my blind spot, its headlights off. I could just make out the front bumper. It was the black SUV.

Under normal circumstances, the people involved in a fender bender would pull over, exchange insurance information, and call the authorities, if needed. That was not happening now. There was no way I was stopping on this dark starless night on a deserted street with a car that had been tormenting me.

The black blob moved out of sight. I tried to calm down, but it didn’t work. My hands shook. My breath was ragged. I needed to pull over and calm down, but that wasn’t happening until I could lose the car and find a safe, well-lit place.

I merged right so I could take the next turn, but suddenly I was blinded by lights in my rearview again. The menacing SUV was directly behind me. My heart thrummed in my chest. I sped forward, swerving to get out of the way, but the car behind me was like a heat-seeking missile locked on me. I had to lose it. Were my driving skills good enough? God, I hoped so. I was close to Olaya’s but I couldn’t drive straight there. I needed a place to hide.

Crazy thoughts circled through my mind. Whoever was behind me seemed to have some sort of personal grudge. It did not feel random. But who would be targeting me . . . and why? Could it be related to Ben Nader’s hit-and-run? I quickly dismissed that idea. It didn’t make any sense. I didn’t know the man—had no connection to him beyond our brief reality TV interaction.

My opportunity to outmaneuver whoever was behind me came the next second. I veered into the left lane, not slowing down. I didn’t want to give the person any clue that I was about to try to make a wide and erratic right-hand turn. With one eye on the rearview mirror, and the other straight ahead, I raced forward. I was itching to get ready for the turn, but I made myself take a breath.

Wait.

Wait.

Wait.

Finally, at the last second, I jerked the wheel right. My tires skidded. “Hold on!” I told Agatha, as if she could understand and actually grip something to keep her from flying. I cursed under my breath for never getting one of those doggy seat belts for her. She rolled off her blanket, but righted herself before she plunged to the floor of the car. I checked the rearview mirror. My heart was in my throat, but there was no sign of the car that had been behind me. I didn’t take any chances, though. I took the next right, followed by a quick left, then another right. I came up to row of apartments and made a split second decision. I cranked the steering wheel and turned in. I slowed enough to follow the curves of the parking lot around and away from the street I’d been on. I pulled into a vacant spot, cut the engine and the lights, threw my arm back to give Agatha a reassuring pat, and tried to steady my jackhammering heartbeat.

I waited.

And waited.

All was quiet. No one had followed me into the apartment complex’s parking lot. No car appeared cutting a swath of light in the darkness.

Finally, I breathed again, dropping my forehead to the steering wheel. My whole body trembled, the adrenaline that had been surging through me seeping right back out again. Had I really lost the car? Had it really been after me, or was it just some crazy person who’d had one too many and decided to play a dangerous game of chicken?

This time, it took fifteen minutes for my breathing to return to some semblance of normal, and for my heart to slow to an almost regular beating pattern. I checked the time: 9:40. There should be cars on the road, but even if there were, what would that matter? If that car wanted to torment me—which it had done expertly—other cars on the road wouldn’t stop it. I made a decision. I’d take the back roads to Olaya’s. I did not want to get onto the main road again for fear of facing the dark SUV again.

By the time Agatha and I walked into Olaya’s house, I thought I had myself together, but Mrs. Branford took one look at me, jumped up from where she’d been cocooned on the couch, and raced over to me. “Ivy, what in world happened? You look like you’ve seen the ghost of Lady Macbeth.”

Only Penelope Branford would name a specific ghost in this situation.

“Someone hit my car,” I said, my voice shaking.

She guided me to the couch, where we sat side by side. “While you were in it?” she asked.

I nodded. “While I was driving.”

“You were in an accident? Just now?” She looked me over. “Are you okay, my dear?”

My head moved in a half nod, half shake as I tried to puzzle out what had actually happened. It had been intentional, right? I’d seen the same car twice—once when it had blinded me with its lights, and again when it plowed into my bumper. “Someone rammed into the back of my car.”

Mrs. Branford’s mouth collapsed into a wrinkled frown. “Just now?”

She was checking for understanding. This time I made my head simply nod. “I was heading here. A car came up behind me, flashed its brights, then rammed me.”

Mrs. Branford perched on the edge of the sofa, her cane propped on the floor between her legs. “On purpose.”

The more I pondered that question, the more convinced I was that it had not been a random act of violence. “On purpose,” I confirmed.

“But why?”

I proceeded to tell her about the hit-and-run that had nearly taken Ben Nader’s life earlier that afternoon.

Her snowy curls framed her face as she swiveled her head to look at me. “Will he be all right?”

I lifted my eyebrows in response. “I don’t know.”

“And you think it’s related to the car that hit you?”

I shook my head. “I can’t think of a reason why. I don’t know the guy.”

She put her gnarled hand on my knee. “Have you angered someone, Ivy? Taken a photograph you didn’t get permission for?”

I’d spent the rest of the slow, torturous drive to Olaya’s thinking about what kind of grudge anyone could have against me. A year ago, Laura, Miguel’s sister, might have crossed my mind, but we’d buried the hatchet, so to speak. Our history was in the past, and our future was all positive. I hadn’t made any other enemies—that I knew of, anyway.

“No and no. It had to be an accident,” I said, but saying the words aloud didn’t make it true.

Mrs. Branford’s mouth twisted into a puzzled frown. “You should talk to Sheriff Davis,” she said.

I’d considered it, and I probably would—eventually—but I didn’t want to commit to that quite yet, so I replied with a vague, “Maybe.”

Mrs. Branford wasn’t giving up that easily, though. “Not maybe. Definitely. You may not think you have an enemy, and you may not know who it is, but it seems you do, indeed, have one.” She wagged her finger at me. “You are to take no chances, do you hear me, Ivy?”

I couldn’t help but grin, despite myself. “I understand, Mrs. Branford.”

She heaved a put-upon sigh. “One of these days, you will call me Penelope—”

“Never—”

“Or Penny—”

“Uh-uh, I can’t do it.”

“Or at least Mrs. B.”

I stared at her, my mouth agape. “Mrs. B?”

She fluffed her snowy hair. “That is not my preferred choice, but it will do if you so choose.”

“I don’t so choose,” I said.

“Someday you will,” she said.

I shifted subjects. “How is Olaya?”

She cocked a gray eyebrow at me. “Answer this for me. Why can you call Olaya by her first name, but not me?”

“Because I met her as Olaya, but I met you as Mrs. Branford. I’m a creature of habit,” I said. I’d tried to call her Penelope and Penny, but calling Mrs. Branford anything other than Mrs. Branford was like trying to drop the Aunt or Uncle after a lifetime of that formality. It didn’t feel natural or right. “It would be like your students suddenly calling you by your first name. That would be weird, right?”

She narrowed her eyes, considering my explanation. “It is . . . unfamiliar.”

“Aha! So you’ve experienced that.”

“I have. Every once in a while, I see a former student. They’re all adults now, of course, and sometimes they try out my first name. It is always unfamiliar, but not necessarily bad.”

“You two need to go home now.”

Mrs. Branford and I turned at the sound of Olaya’s voice. She stood in the hallway, her wavy iron-gray hair sticking up on end, her cheeks flushed, and her skin pale. I jumped up and hurried over to her, placing the back of my hand against her forehead.

She shook her head. “I have no fever.”

I eyed her. She felt a little warm to me. “I don’t know about that.”

“I know,” she said, as if she had just this second accepted the fact that she was sick. “Pero, you can go home. Both of you. I can manage by myself.”

“Of course you can,” Mrs. Branford said, “but friends help one another.”

Olaya’s mouth lifted in the slightest hint of a smile. “Are we friends now, Penelope?”

“I think we are, yes,” Mrs. Branford said. “I mean, I’ve seen the best and the worst, and despite our past, I’ve moved on. I accept your friendship if you accept mine.”

I looked from one to the other—my favorite women in the entire world. They had a complicated history, but Mrs. Branford was saying aloud what I knew they both felt. Of course, I thought they’d already crossed this bridge, but what did I know. A man was involved in their shared past, and that always complicated things. Still, they were definitely, 100 percent, friends.

Olaya sighed. “Pues. Fine. If you insist, I accept your friendship.”

“Then sit down,” Mrs. Branford said.

Olaya didn’t budge. “Why?”

“We have something to tell you.”

Olaya looked at me, a slightly bemused expression on her face. “What do you have to tell me?”

Mrs. Branford drew in a breath, let it go, then said, “There’s been an accident.”

Olaya stared. “What are you talking about?”

I shot Mrs. Branford a reproachful look. Friends or not, Olaya was sick. She didn’t need to know right now. “It’s not important,” I said, instantly regretting the words and wishing I could take them back, because of course it was monumentally important to Ben Nader and to his friends and family.

Mrs. Branford, for her part, lifted her eyebrow again in a way that said She needs to know.

I sighed and nodded. “Ben Nader was hit by a car outside the bread shop today.”

Olaya placed her hand against the wall to steady herself. “What?”

“He was crossing the street, on the phone. He didn’t see it coming. He’s in the hospital.”

“He will recover?”

I didn’t have the answer to that, but my phone dinged with an incoming text, as if on cue. It was a text from Emmaline. Ben Nader in ICU. Swelling of the brain. Doctors putting him into a medically induced coma.

I read it aloud. Olaya’s knees seemed to buckle under her. I helped her to the couch where she sat, back erect, next to Mrs. Branford. I sat on the chair opposite them and filled her in with whatever other details I knew.

“It was not an accident?” she asked.

“The sheriff doesn’t think so,” I said.

She was silent for a minute, then propped her elbow on the arm of the couch and cupped her hand against her forehead. “I am sick.”

Mrs. Branford smirked. “An astute observation.”

Olaya ignored her and raised her eyes to me. “I cannot go to work tomorrow. Will you help, Ivy?”

“Of course,” I said immediately. “Just tell me what you need.”

* * *

What Olaya needed was for me to take her place beginning at four thirty in the morning. I would do anything for her. The woman had helped me grow in ways I hadn’t known I could—or that I’d needed. But when my alarm went off at four o’clock the next morning, my eyelids felt like lead and I would have given anything to sleep another two or three hours.

But a promise was a promise, and Olaya was the most independent woman I knew—right alongside Penelope Branford. She didn’t ask for much, and I felt that I owed her a lot. The bread shop was a Santa Sofia staple. It was closed on Sundays and Mondays—and on major holidays, of course—but other than that, Olaya never closed it for any reason. I wasn’t going to let her down.

Agatha was curled in a ball at my feet. I sat up in bed, rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and poked her with my toe. She gave a grumbly snort, raised her head just slightly, then lowered it again, closing her eyes and sinking back to sleep. “I don’t blame you,” I said, leaving her be while I got myself ready for the day. Just before I headed out, I tried to rouse her again, to no avail. She did not want to wake up. I scooped her up into my arms and carried her hefty body outside, putting her down in her favorite flowerbed. She groaned again, but circled around and took care of her business. Back inside, she jumped up onto the couch and settled into sleep again. “I’ll be back,” I said, giving her a head a little rub.

A short while later, I had let myself into Yeast of Eden’s kitchen, the list Olaya had dictated to me the night before on the stainless steel counter in front of me. Lucky for me, Olaya’s bread-baking philosophy was all about the long rise. That meant that much of the bread for the day’s offerings was already made and in the walk-in refrigerator, just waiting to be baked. The croissant dough had been filled with butter, folded, rolled out, folded, rolled out again until it was ready to be cut, shaped, and baked. I’d worry about making new dough for tomorrow later. Dinner rolls, baguettes, French loaves. The list went on and on. I set to it, working my way down the list. With each passing minute, I was more and more in awe of Olaya. How she did this day in and day out was astounding.

At five fifteen, the kitchen door leading to the outside parking lot opened. In walked a young man who looked to be in his twenties. His eyes were light in contrast to his black skin, and he wore an amiable smile that etched a tiny dot of a dimple into one cheek. His white chef’s shirt with three-quarter sleeves and buttons running up the right side strained against his rounded belly. His hair was shorn close to the scalp.

“You must be Ivy,” he said, walking right to me. My hands were elbow-deep, kneading a massive mound of dough. He bent his arm and bumped my elbow. His smile never waned. He was the kind of person, I realized, who was inherently happy and whose lips always curved upward. “And you must be Felix,” I said. “I can’t believe we’ve never met.”

Olaya had hired Felix Macron a few months prior to help her with the morning baking routine. She’d come to rely on him. Experiencing the work for the first time, I could see why she needed the help and I couldn’t believe she’d waited this long to bring someone else in. Based on the amount of bread she made throughout nearly every single day, I think she needed an entire team.

In that moment, I decided that I was going to increase the hours I worked at the bread shop. There was no way Olaya could keep up the pace she was going. She needed others to take some of the workload off her shoulders.

“My hours here have been pretty limited,” he said, “but that’s changing. I want to learn every last bit of what Olaya has to teach me.”

The dough I’d been working had transformed from a sticky mass to a soft ball. I set it aside and turned to Felix, giving him my full attention. “Olaya mentioned that. You’re always gone before I come in. So you’ll be staying longer now?”

“Five to noon,” he confirmed. “I don’t know how she’s managed all this time without more help,” he said, saying aloud what I’d just been thinking.

Felix moved to the sink and gave his hands a good scrubbing. “So, where are we?”

I breathed a sigh of relief that he was here and consulted my list. “Croissants are baking. Baguettes are formed. We need the wheat and rye breads next.” I followed his gaze to the empty bakery racks. “Or, you know, basically everything.”

“We’ll get it done.” He moved around the kitchen as if he owned it. He knew where everything was and got right to work, starting with the massive floor mixer, fitted with a giant dough hook. Before long, he had the ingredients added and formed a dough.

“You’re quick,” I said. Thank God, because I was not. The skill and speed needed to bake the vast quantities of bread that Olaya made on a daily basis far exceeded my abilities. Felix was a lifesaver.

“I grew up eating Yeast of Eden’s bread. It’s what made me want to run my own bakery. She’s been mentoring me since middle school.”

“You’re going to run your own shop one day?”

“You better believe it. But not here,” he added quickly. “I’d never compete with Olaya. I’ll go up the coast, or maybe down to L.A. Of course you have La Brea down there, and plenty of other artisan shops. I don’t know. I’ll figure it out when the time is right. I have too much to learn still. If it wasn’t for Olaya, I don’t know what I’d be doing. Not this, that’s for sure.”

“She has a habit of saving people,” I said.

He looked at me, his smile growing bigger. “You too?”

I realized that just like I knew next to nothing about him, he probably knew nothing about me. Olaya kept other people’s stories to herself. It was one of the many things I loved about her. “Me too.”

We worked in companionable silence for the next three hours, making our way through Olaya’s list of daily baking. By eight o’clock, the morning crew had clocked in, the coffee was made, and the bakery cases were filled with enough breads, croissants, rolls, and everything in between to open the doors. The regulars shuffled in, standing in line to get their cup of joe and their morning carbs.

After the rush died down, I left the front and rejoined Felix. Another of Olaya’s late-morning crew showed up. After another few hours, with Felix’s help, we’d finished the baking and had cleaned the kitchen. I tossed my apron into the laundry bin Olaya kept just outside her office, debating whether or not I should log on to the computer and spend some time working on the bread shop blog, go home to take a nap, or stop by Baptista’s Cantina and Grill to visit Miguel.

It wasn’t a hard decision. I was off to Baptista’s. “I’ll see you in the morning,” I told Felix, planning to be back. If Olaya was still sick, I’d fill in again. If she was better, I’d help out so hopefully she wouldn’t relapse.

He gave me a playful salute and said, “Okay. See you mañana, as Olaya says.”

“See you mañana.”

I was halfway to Miguel’s restaurant when my cell phone rang. I’d programmed in ringtones, so knew right away that it was Emmaline. “Hey,” I said after pressing the button on my car’s system that allowed the phone call to play through the speakers. We were a hands-free state, after all, and I wasn’t willing to get a five-hundred-dollar ticket for anyone.

“Hey. I have two things for you,” she said, cutting to the chase. She was a busy person with a busy job, and it was the middle of the workday. No time for chitchat.

“I’m all ears.”

“First, Billy and I set a date.”

It took a second for her words to register, and then I screeched. “Whaat! When?”

“Let’s go to dinner and I’ll fill you in. Baptista’s at six o’clock?”

Her demeanor changed instantly, her voice dropping to a low tenor and losing its happy tone. “Ben Nader. I’ve viewed the bystander video a dozen times. I’m convinced it wasn’t an accident.”

This sucked the joy over my brother and my best friend getting married right out of me. If it wasn’t an accident, it was attempted murder.

“Ivy?”

Em’s voice in the car brought me back to her. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“But here’s the thing. So far, the guy comes across as squeaky clean. He volunteers at the women’s shelter and doing handyman stuff. No traffic citations. He and his wife go to church every Sunday. He keeps to himself, donates to the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization. I have to assume that his philanthropy comes from a personal place. The Naders’ son and his fiancée died in a car accident ten years ago. They’d been in Europe. Ben and his wife, Tammy, have been raising their orphaned grandson ever since. Tammy, as you can imagine, is a mess. Doesn’t know how their grandson is going to handle it. She says the boy and Ben are very close.”

“The wife has an alibi for the time of the hit-and-run?” I asked. Possibly a little blunt, but I knew from Em that the spouse was always a likely suspect.

“She was home with the grandson. Phone records show that Ben was on the phone with her when he was hit.”

So she’d heard it all. I couldn’t even imagine what had gone through her mind. “Okay, and you have no other suspects?”

“None. According to everyone we’ve interviewed, he’s well-liked at work. We have nothing so far.”

I pulled into the restaurant parking lot. “What about the car?”

“Nothing new on that. We know the driver had on a baseball cap and sunglasses. He—or she—held a cell phone at the steering wheel, but it doesn’t look like it was in use. Video doesn’t show the license plate. Dark-colored sedan is the best we can do right now.”

“Can you tell if it’s a man or woman?” I asked.

“Nope. I’m telling you, Ivy. There are witnesses, but they haven’t given us anything useful. We have nothing.”

“Did you talk to Sandra Mays?” I asked as the woman’s face flashed in my mind. She was the type of person I could see attempting murder if it suited her in some way. I’d gathered that she and Ben had some sort of history. Did it go deeper than I’d imagined?

“Yeah, I interviewed her, for what it was worth. She’s a prima donna,” Em said. “Ben Nader’s current situation is definitely more about her than it is him or his family.”

I knew exactly what she meant. I could see the reality TV host wringing her hands and bemoaning the loss of her cameraman. He was the best . . . The station won’t be able to find anyone good enough to replace him . . . What will I do without him? He always made me look so good!

“I have to go,” Em said. “Keep your eyes and ears open for me, okay? See you tonight.”

“I will,” I told her, taking her request as a green light to ferret out whatever information I could. It was only after we hung up that I realized I hadn’t told Emmaline about my encounter with the SUV the night before.