Let the cookies dry thoroughly. Once dry, they will keep just fine in a loosely covered container until it’s time to serve them.

Hannah’s Note: There’s a photo of the Mini Cheeseburger Cookies on Jo Fluke’s Web site. The address is: www.MurderSheBaked.com, and the photo is on the “Recipe” page.

Chapter Eight

Morning came much too early for Hannah. She was experiencing the loveliest dream, all about frothy milkshakes in peach, strawberry, blueberry, and lemon, dancing Viennese waltzes with dozens of handsome chocolate-dipped biscotti. It was a wedding, or perhaps it was a book launch party. She really couldn’t tell which. The guests, in formal clothing, were chatting merrily, eagerly waiting their turn to capture their favorite refreshment as it dipped and whirled past. Of course she knew it was a dream. Milkshakes couldn’t dance, with or without chocolate-covered biscotti, but the beauty of dreams was that they were impervious to logic.

“Weird,” Hannah mumbled, opening her eyes. But once she’d glanced at her radio alarm, she realized that it wasn’t as strange as it had seemed at first. Instead of pushing the button for alarm, she’d hit the button for wakeup music, and the local classical music station was playing Strauss.

Hannah reached out to shut off the alarm before electronic beeping rudely interrupted “The Blue Danube Waltz.” At least she tried to reach out to shut it off, but a bolt of pain that had her gasping for breath shot up from her wrist and found a home in her shoulder.

“Must have slept wrong,” Hannah mumbled, turning on her side and attempting to reach out with her other arm. But that arm hurt almost as much as the first one had! Was she having a heart attack? What were the symptoms? Pain…yes, one of the symptoms was pain. She remembered Hank Olson, the bartender at the municipal liquor store, telling them about the symptoms of his heart attack. She definitely had shooting pains going up both arms, but if she recalled Hank’s description correctly, his arm pains had reached all the way to the center of his chest, squeezing and constricting like a steel band.

Not a heart attack, then. Her chest felt fine, not squeezed at all, and she wasn’t light-headed, sweaty, or nauseated. But something was definitely wrong. Every time she moved, she hurt. Had she contracted some dreadful disease that would render her paralyzed and helpless in her bed?