“I can print out more if you need them.”

“Let’s hope I do. Hold on just a second.” Hannah opened the cash register and drew out the manila envelope with his mother’s loan papers inside. “Here, Norman. This is for you.”

“For me?” Norman looked puzzled as she handed it to him.

“It’s something I came across the other night. Just open it when you get back to the office. There’s a note inside explaining everything.”

Hannah breathed a deep sigh of relief as they all left together. She had work to do and it didn’t have anything to do with baking, selling, or serving cookies. She grabbed the print she’d taken from Norman and headed off to the back room to tell Lisa that she was going take her up on her offer to stay until closing. She had people to see, calls to make, and if she got lucky, she might be able to solve Bill’s double-homicide case before Monday morning.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Hannah pushed open her condo door and caught a flash of orange out of the corner of her eye. Moishe had just jumped down from his perch on the top of the television set and he looked about as guilty as a cat could look. She glanced at the screen and realized that a nature program was on—one that was running footage of a flock of flamingos flapping their bright pink wings.

“Those birds are four times your size, Moishe.” Hannah gave him a scratch under the chin to let him know that she wasn’t angry. When she’d unlocked the door, her fierce feline hunter had been in the process of hanging over the top of the set to bat at the birds with his paw.

Once she’d switched off the enticing flamingos and hung up her jacket, Hannah walked out to the kitchen to fill Moishe’s food bowl. Of course it was empty. It was always empty. Moishe’s favorite activities when she was gone were eating and napping.

There were three messages on her answer machine. The first was from her downstairs neighbor, Sue Plotnik, asking if she could serve cookies at her Mommy and Me class next week. Hannah penciled it in on her kitchen calendar; she’d transfer it to the one at The Cookie Jar when she went in on Monday. Then she listened to her second message. It was from a man who identified himself as Robert Collins from Hideaway Resorts, who invited her to a complimentary dinner for prospective timeshare investors at a hotel in Minneapolis. Hannah didn’t bother to write down his toll-free number.

The third message made Hannah perk up her ears. It was from Bill and he told her that he just wanted to keep her up to speed. The manager from Compacts Unlimited had contacted him this morning. Since she still didn’t have the printout, she’d called all their other car lots and one of them had handled a rental for a customer with a Lake Eden address. Boyd Watson had rented a black compact from their St. Paul lot on Tuesday.