1 rounded Tablespoon salted butter, softened
Hannah’s 1st Note: If you can’t find food picks in your grocery store, you can buy them at a party store or a restaurant supply store. Most food picks look like toothpicks, but they have a colored cellophane decoration on one end and you’ve probably seen them used on cheese platters or on platters of little appetizers.
Prepare your pan by lining a cookie sheet with wax paper.
Use a wooden spoon or fork to mix the peanut butter with the ? cup softened butter in a medium-sized bowl.
Sprinkle the ? cup finely chopped salted peanuts on top and mix them in thoroughly.
Add the vanilla extract and mix that in.
Add the powdered sugar in half-cup increments, mixing well after each addition.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator for at least one hour so that the mixture will firm up. (Longer than one hour is fine, too.)
Using impeccably clean hands, roll pop-in-your-mouth-size balls from the peanut butter mixture.
Stick a food pick into each ball and place the completed balls on your prepared cookie sheet lined with wax paper.
Hannah’s 2nd Note: The food picks will make it easier for you to dip the balls in melted chocolate chips once they’ve firmed up in the refrigerator again.
Place the cookie sheet with your Chocolate-Covered Peanut Butter Candy in the freezer for at least 1 hour. (Overnight is even better.)
When your candy balls are frozen, prepare to melt your chocolate coating. Leave your candy balls in the freezer until your chocolate coating has melted and you are ready to dip them.
Place your 2 cups of chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl. Add the rounded Tablespoon of butter on top. (I used a 1-quart Pyrex measuring cup to do this.)
Heat the chocolate chips and butter on HIGH for 1 minute. Let them sit in the microwave for an additional minute and then stir to see if the chocolate chips are melted. If they’re not, continue to heat in 30-second increments followed by 30 seconds of standing time until you can stir them smooth.
Take the cookie sheet with the candy balls out of the freezer and set it on the counter. Using the food picks as handles, dip the balls, one by one, in the melted chocolate and then return them to the cookie sheet. Work quickly so that the balls do not soften.
Place the cookie sheet with the Chocolate-Covered Peanut Butter Candy in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours before serving.
When you’re ready to serve, remove the candy from the refrigerator, arrange the balls on a pretty plate or platter, and leave the food picks in place so that your guests can use them as a handle when they eat the candy.
Hannah’s 3rd Note: If you plan to serve these at a party, you can either leave the food picks in place or pull them out and use cake decorator frosting with a star tip to cover the hole with a pretty frosting rosette. Then, if you like, you can place the candy, rosette up, in fluted paper candy cups.
Yield: Approximately 3 dozen Chocolate-Covered Peanut Butter Candies. The quantity depends on the size of the candy balls.
Chapter Twenty-six
One week later, Hannah rolled down the window in her cookie truck as she drove out of town. She breathed deeply of the fresh, cold air and turned on the road that led around Eden Lake. She had an appointment in twenty minutes, and she both welcomed and dreaded it.
Unanswered questions rolled through her mind like a bowling ball on its way toward the pocket. She had facts, plenty of them, but they didn’t answer her questions.
They knew who’d killed Ross. It had been Tom Larchmont and he’d told Hannah exactly why he’d committed the crime. That much was known, but there were still irritating, niggling, frustrating questions to be answered.
Ross had been desperate for the money. Hannah would testify to that fact. But exactly why had Ross needed a hundred thousand dollars? It wasn’t to pay Tom and his investors back. Ross had already done that. There had to be another reason, a reason that Hannah had not yet discovered.
Then there was the matter of the locker key. She had looked. Michelle and Norman had looked. Mike had looked, and Mike’s team of detectives had looked, but no one had been able to find the storage locker that could be opened by the key that Hannah and Mike had found in Ross’s safe deposit box. Where was it? What was in it? Did it have anything to do with the reason Ross had so desperately needed the money?
Had Ross told the truth when he said that his wife needed the money to file for a divorce? Hannah needed to know. And did Ross’s wife have anything to do with her husband’s murder?
Hannah turned at the sign with an arrow that pointed toward Lake Eden Hospital. She drove down the snowy road, turned into the parking lot, and got out of her cookie truck. Her legs were shaking slightly as she got out of the truck and walked toward the hospital. She was early, but that was better than being late.
“Hi, Hannah,” Vonnie Blair, Doc Knight’s secretary, greeted her as she came in the door. “Doc sent me down to bring you to his office.”
“Thanks, Vonnie. Mother’s not here, is she?”
“Not today. Did you want to see any of the other Rainbow Ladies?”
“No, that’s all right. I couldn’t remember if this was her day to volunteer.”
Hannah breathed a sigh of relief as she followed Vonnie down the hallway. She’d deliberately chosen to see Doc on a day that her mother wasn’t scheduled to work.
“Hannah.” Doc stood up and came around his desk to give her a hug. “What can I do for you?”
“I need to ask you a couple of questions,” Hannah said, glancing at Vonnie.
“Of course. You can go on your break now, Vonnie. I’ll catch the phone while you’re gone.”
Once Vonnie had left and shut the office door behind her, Hannah gave Doc a thumbs-up. “Thanks, Doc. I was hoping you’d realize that I wanted a private conversation with you.”
“No problem. Or maybe it is. What’s wrong, honey?”
He’d called her honey. The unexpected endearment took Hannah by surprise and tears began to roll down her cheeks. She cleared her throat, took a deep breath, and blurted out the secret she’d been living with for weeks on end. “I’ve got to know the truth, Doc. I think that I may be pregnant.”