Page 83 of Hold Your Breath
“Nothing.” He seemed twitchier than normal, his eyes darting left and right. He must’ve decided to stay, because he took a step into the shop. When the door swung shut behind him, sleigh bells jangling, he jumped and whirled around, as if he’d heard gunshots.
“You okay, Jim?” she asked carefully.
“No.” He shook his head, hard enough that the oily strands of hair protruding from his deerstalker hat slapped against his hollow, stubbly cheeks. “I know too much. They’re after me.” He took a couple of backward steps away from the door, until his back bumped against the ornate shelf holding sweeteners and sprinkles.
“Hey,” she said gently, keeping her voice low and even. “You’re safe in here. Why don’t you sit at that corner table? You can put your back to the wall and watch through the front windows. I’ll get you something hot to drink and one of the pastries.” Although it was hard to tell under his thick layers of clothes, he looked thinner to her, his features sharpened to the point of gauntness.
“No.” He shot a look at the table she’d indicated and then back at the door. “I’d be trapped.”
“There’s no way anyone could sneak up on you,” she assured him. “You’d see them long before they made it to the door. If anyone’s headed this way, you can escape out the back before they see you.”
“They’ll be watching the back.” He shook his head again. “I just wanted to warn you.”
“No need.” Moving slowly and deliberately so she didn’t startle him, she reached into the pastry case and pulled out a cinnamon roll, wrapping it in waxed paper. It was the largest thing in the case, and she figured the nuts would provide some protein. She had a feeling that Jim wouldn’t stick around long enough for her to make him a sandwich. “The sheriff knows who my stalker is. You described him perfectly. It’s a guy I knew back in Connecticut who apparently went off the rails. Here.”
She held out the wrapped roll, and he hesitated, eyeing the pastry suspiciously.
“We bake them here,” she told him, roll still extended toward him, taking a guess at the reason behind his hesitation. “I know everything that goes into them. It’s safe.” She hadn’t actually supervised the baking of this particular roll, but she figured her small lie was for the greater good if it got him to eat something. When he finally reached for the roll, she bit back a grin of triumph.
“That’s not what I needed to tell you,” he said, closing his fingers around the roll. Then his gaze shot to the windows, and he swung around, knocking the pastry to the floor. “The back!” He stared at her, his eyes wild. “You promised I could go out the back!”
“This way.” Lifting the section of counter, she stood aside to let him pass. “Straight through the kitchen.”
He took off, and she heard a clang that she guessed was a baking sheet he’d knocked off the rack. With a sigh, she circled the counter to pick up the roll off the floor. Luckily, it had stayed wrapped, so she scooped it up and dropped it into a paper bag. With a marker, she wrote “Jim” on the bag, and then followed his path through the kitchen, although at a more sedate pace, retrieving the fallen baking sheet on her way.
When she heard the bells on the door jangle, she called, “Be right there.” Jim had left the back door open, so she stepped into the alley. No one was in sight, so she tucked the bag on a ledge outside the door, making sure his name showed, and then weighted the folded top of the bag down with a rock the size of her palm. After a final glance around the alley and parking lot didn’t reveal Smelly Jim, she pulled the door closed and headed to her waiting customer.
When she got a glimpse of who’d entered, she stifled a sigh, wishing she’d torn out of the shop on Jim’s heels. “Deputy Lawrence,” she said, trying to sound as welcoming as she could with gritted teeth. “What can I get you?”
His face was scrunched in a grimace. “What is that smell?”
“Oh, right.” Jim’s mental state had distracted her from his odor. “Sorry. Smelly Jim just visited.” She unlatched the window behind her and shoved it open as far as it would go. “He seems worse than usual—physically and mentally. Is there any way to get him some help?”
“You can call Field County Social Services,” Lawrence said, settling on the stool closest to the wall. It bugged her that his annoying ass was contaminating Callum’s usual seat. “He won’t thank you for it, though. Probably just hide from them.”
“Yeah.” Gazing past the deputy, lost in thought, she nodded. “He definitely doesn’t like any government types. Once he saw you coming, he flew out of here.”
He frowned. “I didn’t see him leave.”
“I let him go out the back.” Fingering a to-go cup hopefully, she asked, “Did you want a mocha?”
“You remembered.” He looked so smugly pleased by this that she wished she’d pretended she hadn’t. “Yes, please. And you shouldn’t play along with his delusions.”
With a shrug, she busied herself with making his drink to hide her annoyance. “No harm in letting him go out the back if that makes him feel safer.”
“You’re just encouraging his paranoia. If you agree with him that little green men are going to steal his brainwaves, it makes him believe it even more. You wannabe do-gooders…” He actually tsked.
Squeezing her eyes closed while she counted to five, Lou wondered how Lawrence managed to survive working with so many people who carried guns. His fellow deputies must be better, more patient people than she was. “So,” she said a little too loudly, “how’s the murder case going?”
When he fell uncharacteristically silent, she glanced over her shoulder at him. His pale skin hid none of the blush that reddened his face and neck. “I…uh, can’t share any information about that,” he finally said stiffly.
Rob must’ve torn him a new one. Lou got an odd satisfaction from the thought. “Okay,” she agreed easily, pressing a lid onto his cup and passing it to him. “Have you been on any other interesting calls lately?”
It was the wrong question to ask. By the time he’d finished his twenty-minute monologue, Lou had concluded that her definition of “interesting” was drastically different from Lawrence’s. She was also shaking from cold. In desperation, she closed and latched the window, hoping that the residual scent of Smelly Jim would help drive the deputy out of the shop.
Unfortunately, it took another fifteen minutes before his radio crackled to life and the dispatcher called out his unit number. When Lawrence made a face and reached for his shoulder mic to respond, Lou was so relieved that she almost did a little dance.
“Sorry,” he told her. “Got to go. Domestic dispute.”
