Chapter One
"The only problem with leaving four car lengths in front of
you is that four cars come in to fill up the space!" Hannah
Swensen complained to her sister Michelle, who was riding in
the passenger seat of her cookie truck. "I'm going forty. Do
you think that's too slow?"
"Absolutely not. It's nasty out there, and anybody who
drives faster than forty on a night like this is crazy."
"Or they come from other states and they don't know anything
about winter driving in Minnesota. I think I'll pull over as
far as I can and let that whole herd of cars behind me pass."
"Good idea."
Hannah signaled and moved over as far as she could to
encourage the other drivers to pass her. They probably
thought she was being too cautious, but a thin film of water
glistened on the asphalt surface of the highway, and the
temperature was dropping fast. The water would turn into
slick ice in a matter of minutes and there was no way Hannah
wanted to sail off into the ditch and land in the mud that
was just beginning to refreeze from the afternoon thaw.
Some people said that Minnesota had two seasons; Shovel and
Swat. Hannah knew that wasn't the case. The land of the
frozen north had four seasons—Fishing Season, Duck
Season, Deer Season, and Mud Season. This was the first
Thurs day in April and Lake Eden was having the worst Mud
Season on record. In the past three days, Earl Flensburg had
used his Winnetka County tow truck to pull eighteen vehicles
out of the muddy ditches. This number included Hannah's
cookie truck. Twice.
The current road conditions had been brought about by an
extremely snowy winter that had yielded a record number of
inches. Then, just last week, the days had turned warm with
temperatures approaching a positively balmy fifty degrees.
This unseasonably warm snap had melted the banks of hard-
packed snow that lined the sides of the roads and had turned
the shoulders into mud pits. To compound the problem the
nights, like tonight, were cold enough to refreeze the water
from the afternoon runoff, but the mud in the ditches took
much longer to refreeze. Hapless motorists on the highways
skidded on the icy film. If they were lucky, they simply
ended up in the ditch in need of a tow truck. If they were
unlucky, they sideswiped several other cars, resulting in
multiple injuries. Warnings about the hazardous road
conditions filled the KCOW-TV evening news, but some drivers
seemed perfectly oblivious. Until the weather evened out,
one way or the other, accidents on the highway would
continue to be more common than lost mittens.
Hannah gripped the wheel tightly. Road conditions would
improve once they turned onto the gravel road that led to
the Lake Eden Inn, but they still had over five miles to go
on asphalt that resembled nothing so much as an improperly
frozen hockey rink.
The two sisters rode in silence for several minutes and then
Hannah glanced over at her sister. There was a smile on
Michelle's face and Hannah assumed that she was thinking
about Lonnie Murphy, the youngest member of the Winnetka
County Sheriff's Department detective squad. They were on
their way to meet Lonnie and his cousin, Devin, at the Lake
Eden Inn. There they'd enjoy a preview of Sally and Dick
Laughlin's first-ever weekend jazz festival by listening to
the headliner band, the Cinnamon Roll Six, rehearse for
their performance the following night. When the rehearsal
was over, the Swensen sisters would help Sally serve
Hannah's Special Cinnamon Rolls to the small crowd that had
been invited to the musical sneak-peek.
The cinnamon rolls smelled wonderful and Hannah's stomach
growled. She hadn't taken time for lunch, and she did her
best to resist an almost overwhelming urge to reach in the
back and snag one for herself. Only the fact that she had to
keep both hands on the wheel kept her from indulging that
urge. They'd taken the sweet treats out of the oven at The
Cookie Jar less than thirty minutes ago, frosted them, and
covered the pans with foil. Then they'd secured them in the
back of the cookie truck and headed for the highway. Now the
interior was filled with the mouthwatering scents of warm
bread, cinnamon, and chocolate, and Hannah was getting more
ravenous by the minute.
Michelle gave a wistful sigh. "I don't know how much longer
I can hold out. Those rolls smell scrumptious."
"I was thinking the same thing myself. Maybe we should . . .
uh-oh!" Hannah stopped speaking abruptly as brake lights
began to flash on the roadway ahead. "Holy . . . !"
"Cow!" Michelle supplied, finishing the phrase with a much
more socially acceptable word than the one that Hannah had
been about to utter. "What's going on up there?"
"I don't know, but it looks like trouble. And we're not
sticking around to find out!" That said, Hannah reacted
almost instantaneously as she wrenched the wheel, pumped the
brakes, steered out of a skid, and managed to fishtail onto
the curvy access road that led to the Winnetka County rest
stop.
Hannah barreled past a speed limit sign that warned
motorists to slow to fifteen miles an hour. She knew she was
going much faster than that, but she didn't take her eyes
off the road to check as she muscled her truck around the
icy curves. When she reached the straightaway that ran past
the rest stop, she skidded on a patch of ice and came very
close to crashing into the faded Minnesota state map with
the red YOU ARE HERE arrow pointing to Lake Eden. Still
going well over the posted speed limit, her truck whizzed
past the metal picnic table and barely missed wiping out on
the corner of the concrete block restrooms.
They were deep in the pine forest now and the ice and snow
lay in patches on the road. Hannah, the taller of the two
sisters, felt her hair graze the top of the truck. For the
first time in her life, she was grateful for the masses of
curly red hair that cushioned her head. She was seriously
wondering how much more swerving and skidding her truck
could take before it shook apart, when they hit a pile of
snow that slowed them, and the cookie truck came to rest
scant inches from the massive trunk of a magnificent Norway
pine.
"We made it," Hannah said in a shaky voice, stating the
obvious.
"We did. I really don't know how you managed to get us here
in one piece."
"Neither do I." Hannah realized that she'd been holding her
breath and she took a deep gulp of air. And then, because
she felt decidedly lightheaded, she lowered the window for a
breath of fresh cold air.
Michelle did the same and then she turned to give her sister
an unsteady smile. "That could have been bad, but you turned
off just in time, and we . . ." Michelle stopped short and
leaned closer to the open window. She listened for a moment,
and then she frowned. "What's that?"
"More trouble," Hannah answered, listening to sounds of
metal striking metal with considerable force. "It's a good
thing we got off the highway when we did. It sounds like a
really bad accident."
"More than one accident. It's a chain reaction. They're
still crashing over there and it must be a massive pileup.
Do you think we should go back and try to help?"
"Yes, but first we need to call the sheriff's station. Do
you have your cell phone?"
"Right here." Michelle pulled it out of her pocket. "What do
you want me to say?"
"Tell them it's a multi-vehicle accident and to come out
here right away. There are bound to be injuries, so they
should put in a call for ambulances. Tell the dispatcher to
alert Doc Knight at the hospital so he can set up to receive
the accident victims."
"Got it," Michelle said, pressing numbers on her phone.
"I'm going to try to get turned around and drive up there."
"Okay. It's ringing now. I'll tell the dispatcher what's
happening."
As Michelle began to relay the information to the sheriff's
station, Hannah turned the truck around. This took several
minutes as the road was narrow, and they couldn't be of much
help if they wound up stuck in the ditch. Her window was
still down and she realized that the squeal of brakes and
loud crashes had stopped. With the exception of a car horn
that had stuck, the night was eerily silent. And then, just
as she was about to pull out onto the access road that
paralleled the highway, sirens wailed in the distance. Help
was coming, and from the sounds of the breaking glass and
impacts they'd heard only seconds before, it wasn't a moment
too soon.
Hannah and Michelle traveled forward on the access road,
grateful that they weren't in the path of the approaching
emergency vehicles. They spotted three squad cars, two
ambulances, and the Lake Eden fire truck. All had sirens
wailing and lights flashing as they approached the accident
scene.
"It's bad," Michelle said, as they got close enough to see
the twisted wreckage.
"I know. Look up there on the left about fifty feet ahead.
There's a bus upside down in the ditch. And there's so much
wreckage spread out on the road, I don't think the emergency
vehicles can get to it."
"You're right. They'll have to hike in and it's a ways.
Let's get as close as we can on the access road and walk in
through the ditch. I took a class in first aid and maybe I
can do something to help. At least we can try to get the bus
doors open so the passengers can get out."
Hannah drove forward until she was adjacent to the
overturned bus. Then both sisters got out of Hannah's cookie
truck and hurried down the steep, tree-lined bank.
"Careful," Hannah warned. "It could be muddy at the bottom
of the ditch."
Michelle reached the bottom first and turned back. "It's
still frozen. It must be because it doesn't get any sun with
all these trees."
The snow was deep at the bottom of the ditch and the two
sisters waded through it with some difficulty. Then they
started up the steep bank on the other side and made their
way toward the overturned bus.
"I don't hear anything," Michelle said as they got closer to
the bus. "Maybe everyone inside is okay and they're just
waiting for someone to come and help them get out."
Or maybe everyone inside is unconscious or dead, Hannah
thought, but she didn't say it. That was speculation on her
part, and there was no sense in upsetting Michelle until
they were able to get inside the bus and assess the
situation for themselves.
"It looks like a charter bus," Michelle commented as they
got closer. "There aren't any regular busses painted gold. I
wish I could read what it says on the side, but the letters
are upside down and backwards."
"It's the band bus."
"What band?"
"The Cinnamon Roll Six."
"How do you know that?"
"It says Cinnamon Roll Six on the side."
Michelle was silent for a moment, trying to make out the
letters. "You could be right. Can you actually read it, or
are you just guessing?"
"I can read it. I taught myself to read backwards and upside
down when you and Andrea were kids and I was helping you
with your homework."
"But why did you have to learn to read upside down and
backwards?"
"It was easier than getting up and walking around to read
over your shoulders." Hannah reached out to grab Michelle's
arm. "Careful of that pine branch. The bus snapped it off
and it's sticking up like a spear."
Another twenty feet and they had arrived at the back of the
bus. It was wedged between two trees and it had obviously
rammed into a third, even larger tree. From the wide swath
the bus had cut through the spirea and gooseberry bushes, it
had obviously rolled over and slid on its top to the place
where it was now lodged.
"We can't get in the passenger door," Michelle said, walking
around the bus. "It's blocked by those tree branches. Don't
most charter busses have an escape hatch cut into the top?"
"Yes, but the top of the bus is now the bottom, and it's
buried in several feet of snow. We'll have to get in through
the back door. Come on, Michelle. Let's go."
Both sisters headed around the bus, lifting pine branches as
they went. When they arrived at the rear, Hannah attempted
to open the door. "I can't get it open," she reported,
stepping back with a disappointed sigh. "The handle won't
budge."
"It must be locked from the inside."
"You're right. Let's see if anybody inside can hear us."
"Hello?" Michelle called out. "Are you okay in there?"
They waited a moment or two, but there was no answer. Hannah
stepped closer and yelled as loudly as she could.
"We need someone to open the back door. Can anyone get there
to unlock it?"
The only sounds they heard were the distant sirens of
emergency vehicles speeding to the accident site, and the
wind whistling through the pines. Inside the locked bus, all
was ominously silent.