If you can stir the mixture smooth, you’re done. If you can’t stir it smooth, return the bowl to the microwave and heat on HIGH in 30-second intervals followed by 1 minute standing time, until you can stir it smooth.
To frost your White Chocolate Brownies, simply pour the frosting over the top of your brownies, using the heat-resistant rubber spatula to smooth the frosting into the corners.
Let the frosted brownies cool to room temperature until the frosting is “set”. Then cover with a sheet of foil and store them in a cool place.
When you’re ready to serve, cut the White Chocolate Brownies into brownie-size pieces. They are rich so serve them with icy cold glasses of milk or cups of strong coffee.
Lisa’s Note: We always make these brownies and Double Fudge Brownies for Valentine’s Day. We like to decorate these with maraschino cherries cut in half lengthwise. We cut them BEFORE we make the frosting so that we’re ready to push them into the frosting before it “sets”.
Chapter Eleven
“Hannah!”
The call came at five o’clock, just as Hannah, Lisa, and Michelle were preparing to mix up the cookie dough for the following day. “Yes, Ross,” she answered, motioning to Mike, who was sitting at the work station with them.
“Did you get the money?”
“No,” Hannah answered quickly. “The bank doesn’t carry that much cash on hand, but Doug said you could write a check to your wife so that she could deposit it and the bank would honor it immediately.”
“I can’t do that,” Ross said, and his words were clipped. “I can’t believe you could be that stupid, Hannah!” Ross gave a laugh that was both derisive and humorless. “Did you and Doug really believe that I’d fall for something like that?”
Hannah was so angry, she came very close to losing it and giving Ross a piece of her mind. How dare he call her stupid! She wasn’t the stupid one. He was for thinking that she’d fall for his lies again.
And then Mike reached out to squeeze her shoulder and she gave a reluctant nod. She knew she had to go along with Doug and Mike’s plan so she repeated one of her great-grandmother Elsa’s favorite sayings to herself. You’ll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. It took a moment or two, but it worked and that was when she realized that she should react as if she were the injured party, the tearful wronged woman who was still in love with the man she’d thought was her husband, the woman who would do anything to have him back. “But . . . Ross,” she did her best to sound upset, which wasn’t difficult, and heartbroken, which was. Ross was a rat and she knew she was better off without him.
She took a deep breath and managed to put a little quaver in her voice when she continued. “You told me that you needed to give that money to your wife so that she would get a divorce. And then you said you loved me and when the divorce was final, you’d marry me all over again. Did you mean it, Ross? Or were you . . . lying to me?”
“Of course I meant it, Cookie. I’d never lie to you. You have to believe that. But I can’t write a check to my wife.”
“Why not?” Hannah felt Mike’s hand pat her back. He obviously approved of the effort she was making.
“Because she doesn’t have a checking account. No, Cookie. You have to get that money somehow. Go see Doug again and tell him that it won’t work for me to write a check and I need that money now.”
He was beginning to sound desperate again and Hannah knew that she had to be careful. “I . . . I could do that, but it won’t work. The bank doesn’t keep that much cash on hand and Doug has to request the cash. Doug told me that the earliest it could be delivered by armored truck would be right before the bank opened on Monday.”
There was a long silence while Hannah held her breath and then Ross sighed.
“All right. Just be there when the bank opens and you can get it for me.”
“I’ll be at The Cookie Jar on Monday morning,” Hannah said quickly, “and I could do that, but there’s another little problem.”
“What’s that?”
Ross sounded suspicious again and Hannah knew she needed to be very careful. “Doug can’t release the cash to me unless you sign off on the withdrawal slip.”
“Are you sure?”
“That’s what he said. And he also said that it wouldn’t take more than a minute or two because he’d have the slip all ready for you to sign. And once you sign off, you can call me to tell me to go to the bank. Then you can drive out to our condo, I can pick up the money, and we can meet there.”
“Are you sure you can’t convince Doug to give you the money without my signature?”
“Well . . . I can meet with him again, but I really don’t think he’ll go for it. He told me that it was a banking regulation and Doug’s a real stickler for protocol like that.”
“All right.” Ross didn’t sound happy and he sighed again. “We’ll do it Doug’s way.”
“Oh, good!” Hannah hoped she sounded absolutely delighted. “Just call me Monday morning right after you go to the bank. Then I can get the money and meet you at our condo. You can meet me there, can’t you, Ross?”
“Of course I can, darling. It’ll give us a chance to be together again before I take the money to my wife. All I need is the key to that storage unit and the money. That’s very, very important to me, Cookie. And remember . . . I love you even more than life itself.”
Hannah was trying to decide what she could say to Ross’s declaration of love when the line went dead. Ross had disconnected the call. She shut off her phone and turned to Mike. “Did you get it?” she asked, knowing that he’d planned to trace the call.
“Yes, but it won’t do us any good. He was in transit.”
“You mean on the road, driving?”
“Yes, he’s miles away from Lake Eden now.”
“Do you know which way he was going?”
Mike nodded. “South, toward Minneapolis. He was just passing through Anoka when he hung up.”
Hannah gave a relieved sigh. “At least he’s not coming here!”
“No, he’s not . . . at least not now. We’d better plan out what to do about Monday morning, Hannah. I’m going home with you for the night, just in case he decides to come back here.” Mike turned to Lonnie. “We’ll both go home with Hannah. I wouldn’t put it past Ross to come to her condo to stay there until Monday morning.”
Hannah looked at Mike in surprise. “But why would Ross do that?”
Mike gave a little smile. “Number one, to intimidate you just in case you changed your mind. Number two, your condo complex is isolated.” Mike ticked off the point on his fingers. “Number three, he’s bound to have a different car by now, and none of the residents will recognize it parked in the visitor’s lot. Number four, he could even have changed his appearance, bleached his hair, dressed in clothing he didn’t normally wear, things like that. And number five, he might think that you got the money from Doug already and you’re keeping it until Monday so that we can set a trap for him.”
Hannah’s eyes widened in shock and surprise. “But I thought I’d convinced Ross that I still loved him and I wanted to help him get the money so that I could marry him again!”
“Look, Hannah,” Mike slipped an arm around her shoulders. “For you, that was an Academy Award performance. But don’t forget that Ross knows you pretty well. And he knows that he hurt you deeply and you’re not the type of woman to simply sit there and take it. He may suspect that you’re trying to trap him. And if he does, he may come to the condo to confront you again and scare you into submission. There’s no way we’ll leave you alone tonight and take the chance that Ross might come there to hurt you.”