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Good thing she had bread loaves to shape; trying to bake cupcakes with all this anger would end in dense blobs of overworked batter. She could punch the bread dough and pretend it was Michael’s glowering face.
After a full day of happy customers, Deb was exhausted but restless. She’d tried to take her normal twenty minute nap after closing the front door, but memories of the brute George sent wouldn’t let her rest. She rose and worked with Jeff to clean the shop, started savory and sweet batches of bread dough, then decorated the cupcakes her decorator Joan couldn’t finish. After Jeff left, she checked her special orders, confirming she had nothing left tonight; the next evening, she’d be baking big layer cakes for a weekend wedding.
Deb stretched her fingers and jumped at the pounding from her back door. She had a buzzer; no one should knock. She yanked her cell phone from her apron pocket and trotted through the bakery, peering through the peephole. The same brutish man who’d confronted her the day before stood there, one hand thrust under his jacket at his waist. He might have a gun. He raised his other arm and pounded on her door again.
Deb took a deep breath and yelled. “Go away. I have nothing for you!”
“You owe us money. Open up, or I’m coming in!”
She moved away from the peephole, pressed the emergency button on her security panel and dialed 911.
“Marcus Dispatch, what’s the nature of your emergency?” At the same time, a man’s voice came from the speaker in her panel. “Do you need police response?”
“Help! There’s a man with a gun at the back door of my bakery and he’s threatening to break in. Please send the police, fast.” Her back door shook and thunderous bang sounded, followed by a ringing thwack. “I think he’s trying to shoot my door!”
“An officer is responding to your location. Please take shelter behind a locked door if possible and confirm your address for me.” The 911 operator’s voice was calm.
Deb entered the stairwell to her apartment, gave the 911 operator the address, and her name. The alarm company confirmed they’d requested response too, then hung up. She jumped again when a second double-bang sounded. She peered around the stairwell door into the bakery; bits of glass glinted, spread across her floor with a mangled bit of brass in the middle. “He shot the peephole!”
A siren wailed in the distance. The man outside yelled nasty names at her, then a car door slammed, and an engine rumbled then roared, fading as it sped away. A few seconds later, flashing red and blue lit the front of her bakery for a few moments, then the normal evening light returned as the officer’s car squealed around the corner to the back. A car door slammed.
“Deputy Miles has arrived at your location. Please remain indoors and away from windows while he searches the area. Other officers are responding. An officer will call this number when it’s safe to open the door. Do you understand?”
“Yes, thanks for your help. I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome. Hang tight, they’ll be with you momentarily. Take care.” The call disconnected and Deb slid down the wall to sit on the floor. Turning in George had been bad enough and she’d done that at the station with Sam at her side. Talking with police after a shooting would take forever. Not wanting to tie up her phone, she texted Sam. “Man threatened me, then shot my door. Cops are here. What do I tell them?”
Sam texted back immediately. “Nothing. Not one word. I’ll be there in ten minutes or less.”
Deb climbed to her feet, entered the bakery again and grabbed a broom to sweep up the shattered peephole. The debris sprayed at least ten feet inside the door all the way to one of her work tables; fortunately, she hadn’t been mixing batter or she’d have to throw away entire batches of dough. She’d have a lot of cleaning to do, though, because a piece of broken glass or plastic in a cupcake would be a death sentence for her shop. She sighed and grabbed a bucket of bleach water and a rag.
If she’d been looking through that peephole… At least cleaning would keep her from thinking about how close she’d been to getting shot.
Chapter 4
Michael answered his cell phone. “Hey Nic, what’s up?” After a good night’s sleep in his bed, he’d started a new job, rebuilding a decrepit deck. Yanking old planks and pulling nails had been a great workout and the perfect way to expend excess emotional energy. He would have stayed at Deb’s bakery last night—with an inflatable mattress rather than a hiking pad—but she hadn’t called him, Kim, or her friends about more problems. The bad guy must have gotten smart and left.
“You weren’t at Deb’s last night, right?”
His shoulders rose at the tension in Nic’s voice. “No. What happened?”
“Same guy who threatened her came back. Tried to shoot the lock—” they both snorted at the stupidity “—and then shot the peephole out.”
“Is she okay?” Shooting out a modern lock with a pistol wasn’t possible, but if she’d been looking through the tiny window, she could have lost an eye or even her life. She wasn’t stupid; she’d have run if someone pointed a gun at her, even through a metal-clad door.
“Yeah, she retreated to her stairwell after the first gunshot and called the cops. Kim says Deb’s furious. Guess the peephole shattered and she had to deep clean everything within twenty feet of the door.”
Michael’s fists clenched, the edges of his phone biting into his palm. “I should have been there.”
Nic snorted. “Why? We all figured the guy learned his lesson and left. I thought you staying that first night was overkill. Those kinds usually give up when they run into hard targets—they go for the weak or defenseless. We made it clear Deb wasn’t either.”
The muscles between his shoulders tightened, like a sniper was watching from a hideout. “Yeah, that’s what worries me. The guy must be more than some local drug dealer’s thug. I’m going to go talk to her later.”
“Kim says all Deb’s friends are upset, too. A bunch of them are ex-military and one of them is a security specialist, so I guess they’re insisting Deb make some changes and accept some help. There’s a meeting at the bakery at six. Can you make it? I’ve got a school thing for the kids.”
“Yeah, I got it. Tell Kim not to worry. I’m not leaving Deb alone again, but I need an inflatable mattress or a cot if I’m going to sleep in the bakery.” His broken body couldn’t handle another night on barely cushioned concrete.
“We’ve got an inflatable. I’ll drop it off this afternoon. Let me know how else I can help, and don’t say I don’t know what I’m doing. Being an Air Force RED HORSE member means going to some pretty lousy places and defending our equipment while we build the base, remember?”
