Page 35 of Promise Me This Christmas
“Your father and I wanted to support the cause.Unfortunately, one of our water pipes burst last night, so Dad had to deal with that.”
“You drove on your own?”
“Son, the roads are good and I’m perfectly capable.And any excuse to see this one, right?”She held out her arms and Robin happily went to her.“Hi, my precious one.”Mary Beth kissed his cheek.“Would you like a wee bite of brownie?”
Chapter Nine
“No!”Amy andChet had been working the room, surreptitiously removing brownies from the trays, when Amy noticed Mary Beth offer a nibble of the treat to Robin.She pushed past the guests in her way and snatched the brownie out of Mary Beth’s hands.
“What?”Mary Beth asked.“I thought he was allowed special treats in small quantities?”
“This treat is a little too special,” Amy said, dropping it into the teapot in her left hand.
Mary Beth looked into the teapot, which was almost full of brownies.“What in the world are you doing?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Amy whispered.Larkin and her grandmother were looking at her as if she was crazy, but she couldn’t help that.She sought Chet out in the crowd, and he gave her a thumbs-up.All the brownies had been removed.What they didn’t know was how many had already been eaten by their guests.Thank goodness everyone in the room—except for Robin—was an adult.
She tilted her head toward the foyer and Chet nodded back.She worked her way through the crowd, offering only tense smiles to the people who tried to draw her into a conversation.When she reached her husband, she was close to crying.“How could this have happened?I helped the Carrigans unload all their food.There were no brownies.”
Chet’s mouth was set in a grim line.“Someone added them to the platters after they were already on the tables.I have no idea who would pull such a stunt.”
“Me either.”Her mind balked at the possibility that anyone in this room was capable of such an underhanded and potentially dangerous move.She would worry about that later.“The worst thing is we have no idea how much weed is in each brownie.Do you know how quickly the drug takes effect?”
“Not right away.I just checked online and generally the high takes a few hours and can last up to twenty-four.”
“Oh no,” she groaned.“What should we do?”
“I’m going to stay here by the door.As guests leave, I’ll ask if they had any of the brownies and if so, how many.Then I’ll warn them about the weed and suggest they get medical attention right away if they feel any ill effects.”
“Oh gosh, I hope no one had more than one or two.”Amy chewed at her lower lip.“I wonder what our legal exposure is on this?”
“Bag the brownies.We should take them to the sheriff.Maybe he can have them analyzed and find out how much THC each one contains.”
“Do you think he’ll be able to figure out who did this?”
“It seems doubtful.But I’ll ask the guests if they noticed anyone adding the brownies to the plates.Maybe we’ll get lucky, and someone will have seen something.”
“Okay.”Amy took the two brownie-laden teapots and made her way to the kitchen.Chet talked about getting lucky, but if they really were lucky this wouldn’t have happened in the first place.
In the pantry she pulled out a heavy-duty plastic bag and emptied the first teapot’s contents into it.She was in the process of emptying the second teapot when the pantry door opened.Larkin looked in, her expression serious.
“What’s going on, Amy?Those brownies weren’t on the trays at the beginning of the event.”
Amy didn’t know what to say.She was all too aware that Larkin had been commissioned to write a story about Bramble House for the local paper.Was this latest mishap, along with the others, about to become public knowledge?
What option did she have, though, but to tell the truth?
“You’re right, Larkin, the brownies weren’t on the trays.Chet happened to taste one—thank goodness—and suspected they’d been laced with weed.We don’t know who put the brownies out or how much weed they contain.That’s why we removed them.”She fastened the zip closure on the bag and held it up.“We’re going to take these to the Sheriff’s Office.”
“What about your guests?Shouldn’t they be warned?”
“Chet is going to explain the situation to them as they leave.”Lord only knew how they would take the news.Some might decide to rescind their donations to the rodeo school.Chet would be devastated if that happened.“We just hope no one ate more than one or two of the brownies.”
“There were only two on each plate.So I doubt anyone gorged on them,” Larkin said.
“Thank goodness for that.I’m impressed you noticed.Both that the brownies weren’t there at the beginning of the event and that there were only two on each plate.”
“I’m trained to be observant.Besides, everything on those plates was so delicate and carefully curated, whereas brownies are more of an everyday treat.To me they just stood out as not quite belonging.”
