the curtains fall back in place. First of all, I didn't have time to wave at Santa when there was a madman loose in my house. And second, if I waved, a knife or a dog would have been in my hand. Neither seemed particularly sane. So now I wasn’t just missing out on relaxing during the first snowfall of the year with a cup of hot chocolate. I was also missing Santa gracing my neighborhood. Noah was ruining everything. God, I hated my stupid husband.
"Noah!" I called. This was ridiculous. "I know you're in here! Come out!" I walked back into the hall. My eyes glanced up at the attic for just a second. No way in hell was I going up there. It was the only place in the house that was creepier than the basement. As far as I was concerned, if he was up there, he could stay there. It was his. Squatter's rights galore.
But if he was anywhere else in the house, I was going to find him. Snuggle Muffins and I searched the other upstairs rooms quickly. Noah was nowhere in sight. Then we walked downstairs and proceeded to turn on all the lights in the house. Every single one. We were lit up more than any of the over-decorated houses in our neighborhood. We checked all the rooms we hadn't yet, including the small downstairs bathroom and even the hall closet. Noah wasn't nestled behind the toilet or the winter coats. He was nowhere to be found at all. But when we went back into the kitchen, there was an opened jar of peanut butter on the counter and a piece of bread sitting on a plate. No peanut butter had made its way onto the bread.
I breathed a sigh of relief. All Noah was doing was showering and making sandwiches. He wasn't doing anything menacing. It really didn't seem like he intended to hurt me. At least, I hoped. I'd certainly given him plenty of opportunities to jump out and stab me. Yet, I was still standing. I just had a few things to clean up, thanks to his sloppiness.
I lifted the bread and smiled despite the mess. Noah was hungry. The power was back in my hands. The only food he'd had all day was cold bacon. I knew how to get him out of wherever he was hiding. I pulled the weed out of the utensil drawer. It was time to bake Noah a special treat to lure him out. If there was one thing I was good at, it was baking. All proper housewives were.
Chapter 19
Sunday
It was good that I had a recipe or else I would have made the pot brownies all wrong. It seemed logical to just substitute weed in place of some of the flour. But apparently I had to make weed butter to integrate the drug more seamlessly. After a few clicks on Pinterest I came to the best weed butter recipe.
The siren growing louder outside was making it hard to concentrate. Or maybe it was the fact that my phone was shaking in my hands. Or that I kept glancing up every two seconds to see if Noah was about to murder me. It really felt like he was somewhere in the kitchen, even though I'd already double-checked every hiding place, pantry included.
Focus. The article wanted me to make the weed butter in a Crockpot. Were they kidding? There had to be a faster method than this. I didn't want to spend the rest of the night waiting to trap Noah. It was bad enough that it felt like he was watching me right this second.
I turned around, but it was just Snuggle Muffins staring into the hall. For some reason that was even creepier. I knew that Snuggle Muffins knew where Noah was. The staring-into-the-void thing he had going on wasn’t fooling anyone. But I didn't know how to make him show me. "Are you excited about seeing Santa on the fire truck, Snuggle Muffins?"
He didn't turn toward my voice.
"Snuggle Muffins?" The little hairs on the back of my neck rose and I glanced out the back door again. God, I was going to have a heart attack and die if I didn't find Noah soon. Screw the Crockpot method. Besides, if I did that, my whole house would smell like a weed factory. The last thing I needed was for Detective Torres to stop by tomorrow and smell pot in the air.
I