The Baker's Wife (21 page)

Diane looked at Coach. He was crushing his foot in his own hands, and his fingers were red and sticky. He groaned softly. Geoff was kneeling over him with wads of dish towels trying to stop the bleeding.

Jack steadied himself with a long breath. “You”—he indicated the girl—“go into the storage room.” She ran in. “And you, Ed, and the cook, before I shove her into the oven myself.” They obeyed.

Diane fidgeted beside the rear door, waiting for him to tell her what to do, fearing what he might say. She had stood this close to group altercations before. Cat-claw fights in kitchens and dining rooms, minus the firearms, happened at the women's facility now and then. She knew what was required to get out of the scuffle without being tossed onto some hard surface or sharp corner; it wasn't unlike surviving in a pack of dogs: Stand aside. Don't make eye contact. Be quiet. Obey the alpha.

She kept her eyes low, on the oozing pool of blood under Coach's foot. Jack was watching her. If he thought she might fall against the door and blow them all up, he had nothing to worry about. She took a step away from the crash bar.

“Geoff,” he said without releasing Diane from his gaze. “Where's my wife?”

“I don't know.” Geoff's voice was as always: level, patient.

“You don't know because she's dead and the vultures have carried her off in pieces?”

“I'll go into the Mojave without water to help you find her, Jack. You don't have to hold a gun to my head, and you certainly don't have to shoot someone who's not involved.”

“Sentimental but untrue.”

“I haven't seen Julie since the kids' graduation in June.”

“Where's
your
wife?”

When Geoff didn't reply right away, Diane glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He was standing, and there was a black stain on the hem of his blue apron. “Hurting her won't tell you what happened to Julie,” he finally said.

“I'm not going to hurt her. At least not in the way you mean. Where is she?”

“At home with the flu.”

“Ms. Hall, I have a job for you. And I need you to follow my instructions very carefully. I hear you're searching for a way to wash someone else's blood off your hands, is that true?”

Diane nodded once, just enough for him to see. He knew about Donna, about the phone. He knew it all.

“Twenty-five years behind bars can't make a person clean. But I can save you from getting any dirtier. Don't run away now, hear? Because if you run, the blood of these five people will drown your soul.”

The people in the storeroom were listening. Now they would know the truth, before she had the chance to do her penance and make her case: Diane Hall had murdered her twin sister and returned to the scene of the crime. What was it to Jack to add five more people to her list of kills?

Jack said, “Geoff, give the lady the keys to your truck.”

Geoff fished them out of his pocket and tossed them to her. Jack pointed to the rear door. “Go get Audrey.”

“Okay.” Her trembling body twisted toward the door and leaned into it before she remembered Jack's warning. But the door latch was already released by the time she caught herself and jerked her palms off the chrome.

“Not yet!” Jack yelled. Diane gasped and froze. She waited for the world to explode.

A rush of cool air slapped her cheeks and a furry cat darted in between her ankles, mewing thanks for letting it in. The door boomed shut again.

“Wait for directions next time.” The cat sauntered over to the empty wood bin by the stove. Diane feared Jack might shoot it. “If I hadn't anticipated your stupidity, I might have actually armed the door before you left, and then where would we be? Directions, Ms. Hall, directions. Let's go over them now.”

CHAPTER 19

Divine connection. This was the term Audrey had given to the strange experiences that sometimes threw her (and her bread) onto the painful paths other people had to walk.

The last time it happened, she was removing a pan of water she'd placed in the oven to create steam. Her elbow struck the counter and the pan sloshed its contents down the front of her thighs, creating instant blisters that stuck to her jeans when she undressed. Her bread that day had gone to the family of Cody Ryan, a firefighter whose legs had been pinned under a collapsed burning wall. His wife sat with him at the hospital while Audrey sat with the couple's five anxious children for three days, feeding them and reassuring them and helping them with homework.

She let the youngest ones sit on her lap, the pain of that pressure on her burns reminding her not to take their own pain for granted. No one but Geoff, she believed, would understand her willingness to do this and agree with her that it was important, not unhealthy or somehow twisted.

In every situation the identity of the person Audrey needed to reach out to became clear within an hour or two. This was the main reason why Audrey didn't think, even after Geoff suggested it, that her fiery fever and the stabbing pains in her belly had anything to do with someone else.

She feared an infection from the cuts on her wrist, some disease carried into her by Julie's blood. The possibility filled her night with red nightmares.

Diane woke her at six thirty Tuesday morning. She slammed the front door of the house and came in yelling Audrey's name. At the startling sounds of invasion Audrey jerked up in bed, then braced herself on her elbow.

“Audrey!” The bedroom door hit the wall and bounced off the stopper as Diane came through it, shouting as if Audrey were on the other side of the ocean.

“Audrey! Get up. Get dressed.” Diane started yanking open Geoff's dresser drawers. “Where are your clothes?”

In
her
drawers, but Audrey was still dressed from yesterday's journey into the mountains. “What are you doing in my house?”

Diane jerked around with one of Geoff's sweatshirts in her fist. She saw Audrey needed only her shoes, dropped the sweatshirt, and leaned forward to grip Audrey's good wrist. She pulled, and her weighty strength lifted Audrey out of bed, straining at the armpit.

“Jack is holding a gun to your husband's head. He wants us to find Juliet.”

Audrey's head was an overinflated balloon. She heard
find
Juliet
. She squinted and exhaled hard, as if that might let off some of the pressure. “Who's Juliet?”

“Julie. Jack's wife.”

Which was when Audrey finally heard the words
gun
and
your husband
.

“We have six hours.”

Audrey's car had no gas in it; the tank was drained after her ride up to King's Riches, but Geoff's truck was idling in the driveway with the driver's-side door open, as Diane had left it.

Audrey grabbed a can of ginger ale from the fridge on her way out in case the nausea returned. The fear, and then the cold fog slapping her face when she rushed out the door, improved her physical symptoms immensely. Her temperature was still high. A vise tightened down on her head, front to back, and sent a drill straight down through the top of her skull. It was not enough to prevent her from reaching the truck and sliding onto the driver's seat. Diane leaped in on the other side.

They slammed the doors and looked at each other.

“Are you okay to drive?” Diane asked. “I don't have a license. I only had one for a year before I went to jail, and the drive over here was almost as scary as Jack shooting that man in the foot, but I'll do it if I have to. I mean, I did it, and I got here.”

“I don't know where to go,” Audrey said. “Jack shot someone?”

“The man from Juliet's school? I saw him last week once. I think he was one of your son's coaches.”

“Her name is Julie. Are Geoff and Ed hurt?”

“When we were kids, she went by Juliet. And no, they're fine. Were fine. When I left.”

“You know Julie? Wait—yes, you know her. Story for another time.” Audrey placed her hands on the steering wheel and concentrated on the horn. “I need to focus, make a plan.” She closed her eyes, envisioning the narrative that had poured out while she pulled on her shoes. “Jack came into the bakery, armed the doors, blew one up, and put everyone in the storage room. Why did he shoot the coach?”

“Because Estrella threw some hot pans at him.”

“Are the police there? Besides him?”

“I don't know. I don't know if anyone got a call off. He didn't seem to care if they did. I didn't . . . I didn't think to drive to the station myself. I was so worried about whether I'd be able to find you. The street was kind of familiar, but it's been so long, and the fog . . . Jack made your husband give me his car keys, and Geoff drew me a map. It could have gone so badly if I didn't follow Geoff's directions right on.”

Diane rattled on while Audrey picked up her phone from the console between the bucket seats and called 9-1-1. She identified herself as the owner of a bakery where there was a hostage situation and learned authorities were aware of it. She told them she was with a witness who might have information they needed.

The dispatcher got her location and instructed her to stay on the line while she located the officer in charge of the situation. The sun was cresting in Audrey's rearview mirror, and she had a moment of panic. “Did Jack tell you I'm not supposed to talk to the police? Did he give you rules about what I can and can't do?”

“No. Really, nothing like that seemed important to him.”

“You're sure? Tell me his exact words.”

“He said, ‘Tell his wife'—he meant Geoff, and you, it was clear—‘Tell his wife that I expect her to bring mine to me by twelve thirty. Then maybe we'll all go out to lunch.' ”

“And if I don't bring her in time?”

A man's voice came over the line. “Mrs. Bofinger?”

“Captain Wilson?” The man had interviewed her more than once.

“Yes, ma'am. It seems things have escalated.”

“I don't know firsthand.”

“Have you had any contact with anyone inside the bakery?”

“No. I just learned—”

“Who's your witness?”

“Diane Hall.”

“Oh yes, it seems we've all met before. Put her on the line, please.”

Audrey handed over the phone, put the car in gear, and backed out of the driveway into the terrible visibility. The truck crawled, Audrey's shoulders tense and taut, like they were the day she and Ed ran over the scooter. This time, she dared not go faster than her eyes could register information.

She listened to Diane's side of the conversation: Jack plus five people inside, back in the storeroom, maybe the kitchen. One man wounded so far. Doors barricaded with some kind of explosive. A demand that Audrey produce Juliet—Julie Mansfield. Until his wife appeared, he wouldn't be talking to anyone.

“Can I talk with him?” Audrey said when she heard this.

Diane shook her head and said to the phone, “When she has Julie, she's supposed to knock five times on the kitchen's rear door.”

“I can't talk with Jack?” Audrey repeated.

Diane shook her head again. “The captain wants us to come to the bakery,” Diane told Audrey, still holding the phone to her ear.

“What's Jack going to do if we can't find her?”

“I didn't ask. He didn't say. I think he believes you'll just bring her, or her body. I think he really believes that. How long will it take us to get there?”

“In this weather? I hope no more than fifteen minutes.”

Diane relayed the information and closed the phone.

Oh, Father, how am I going to do this?
How would she react if Jack hurt her husband or her son? The ache in her head and in her lower abdomen became agitated.
Focus, focus. Focus on what you're
going to do to avoid ever having to answer that question
.

She said to Diane, “How'd you get out?”

“The back door.”