and a modem and I can work anywhere.”
Though Hannah was certainly no expert, she knew something about on-line stock trading. Dick Laughlin, a former stockbroker in Minneapolis, had written a series of articles about it for the Lake Eden Journal. “But isn’t day-trading risky?”
“Only if you don’t know what you’re doing. You ought to try it. I could give you some tips.”
“Not me. I don’t have any money to spare. Everything I have is tied up in The Cookie Jar.”
“But you don’t need a lot of venture capital to get started. And you can always borrow the money and pay it back when your stock hits.”
“Is that what you did?”
“No. I took the proceeds from my closeout sale and put every cent in Redlines. They’re the hottest new Internet provider. When it peaked yesterday morning, I sold.”
“And you made money?”
“I tripled my original investment, and it was more than enough to pay off my creditors. I put the rest of my profits in some other hot stocks, and they were way up at closing yesterday. I’ve got a system, Hannah. I figure that by the time I leave for Denver, I’ll be worth close to a million.”
The doubts in Hannah’s mind grew by leaps and bounds. Dick Laughlin had called day-trading the newest form of gambling, and he’d warned of the consequences of investing borrowed money. Greg thought he had a system, and he’d been lucky once, but what if that system failed? Hannah was reminded of the spots on late-night television that advertised a sure-fire system for winning at blackjack. She figured that if a gambler really had a winning system, he wouldn’t need to peddle books he’d written about it.
“I’ve got to run, Hannah. I want to be on-line when the market opens in New York. Sorry about that snowball.”
Greg waved as he headed around the side of the building, and Hannah waved back. Then she walked down the stairs to the underground parking structure, feeling very uneasy. It was just as Dick had written in his articles. Some day-traders did make money playing the market, but there were others who guessed wrong and lost. At least Greg had paid off his creditors and he was only gambling with his profits.
Hannah went to the strip of outlets that ran along the garage wall and unplugged the cord that fed electricity to her head-bolt heater. She wound the cord around her front bumper, unlocked the door to her candy-apple red Suburban with “THE COOKIE JAR” lettered in gold on both sides, and climbed in behind the wheel.
The interior of her truck was frigid. Hannah was careful to breathe through her nose so she wouldn’t fog up the inside of the windshield as she started the engine and backed out of her parking space. She drove up the ramp to ground level, flicked on her headlights, and took the winding street that led out of the complex. Her tires swished through the snow that had fallen during the night, as she broke trail for the other residents who would follow her tracks in an hour or two. Her truck was the only vehicle moving, and everything was dark and quiet. It was always like this on winter mornings, and Hannah often felt as if she were the sole survivor in a frozen wasteland.
As she approached Old Lake Road, she spotted headlights and flashing blue lights in the distance. Her sense of isolation vanished with a roar as a county snowplow lumbered by. Hannah drove forward over the bank of packed snow and chunks of ice that the huge blade had left in its wake, and eased out onto Old Lake Road to follow the snowplow to town.
It was slow going, but Hannah didn’t mind. As she drove, she thought about the great job of snow removal the state of Minnesota accomplished. Snowplow drivers were on call during the winter months, and at the first sign of a heavy snowfall, they were dispatched. Most other states didn’t begin plowing until the snowstorm was over. By then, the snow had accumulated in deep drifts and it was more difficult to clear.
When she reached the town limits, Hannah turned off and let the snowplow carry on alone. She stepped on the gas, traveled another few blocks at well over the twenty-five-mile-per-hour limit, and detoured past the Lake Eden Community Center to see if the Winter Carnival committee had hung their advertising banner last night.
“Nice,” Hannah commented as her headlights illuminated the blue banner. It had been ordered from the same company that manufactured the sweatshirts, and Mayor Bascomb had kicked in the extra money to exceed the ten-word maximum. The bright blue banner, strung up between two lampposts on opposite sides of the street, sported brilliant white snowflake letters proclaiming, “LAKE EDEN WELCOMES YOU TO THE WINTER CARNIVAL.”
Wondering just how much extra money the mayor had paid from his own pocket, Hannah turned down Fourth Street, the block that housed her cookie shop and bakery. Though none of the neighboring businesses opened until nine, it seemed that everyone was out early. Yellow light spilled from the plate glass window of the Cut ’n Curl, Lake Eden’s beauty shop, and Hannah spotted Bertie Straub bending over the shampoo chair, her hands suds-deep in a customer’s hair. Bertie always charged double to come in early, and someone had paid dearly for a shampoo and set.
The New York Barbershop, next to the Cut ’n Curl, was also busy. A man Hannah couldn’t recognize behind a face full of lather was getting an early morning shave. Hannah waved at the barber, Gus York, who had taken over his father’s barbershop and added “New” to the name. The summer tourists who came in for haircuts assumed that Gus had been a barber in New York City, and they flocked to fill the row of chairs that lined the wall.
A surprised look crossed Hannah’s face as she turned her attention to the shop just south of The Cookie Jar, the site of the Ezekiel Jordan House. The plate glass windows were covered with brown paper to discourage curious eyes, but there was a light on inside. Carrie must have collected Delores shortly after their early-morning conversation and they were already working.
Her shop was next, and Hannah’s eyebrows shot up even further as she drove past. Her partner, Lisa Herman, had also come in early, and she was decorating the windows with a border of white snowflakes.
“Hi, Lisa,” Hannah called out as she breezed in the back door a few moments later. “The windows look great.”
“Thanks, Hannah.” Lisa came through the swinging restaurant-style door with a smile on her face. Her petite form was swaddled in a baker’s apron that had been hiked up in the middle and knotted in place with the apron strings.
“What are you doing here so early?” Hannah asked, hanging her parka on a hook by the back door. “Now that you’re a partner, you can’t earn overtime.”
Lisa laughed. “I know, but I like to come in early. It’s easy to get the baking done when there aren’t any customers.”
“You finished the baking?” Hannah’s eyes widened in surprise as Lisa nodded. She’d mixed up twenty batches of cookie dough before they left for the night. If Lisa had baked them all, she must have come in at four in the morning!
“I love to bake. You know that, Hannah. And it was a good thing I came in early, because your sister called a couple of minutes ago. She said she tried your place, but she must have just missed you.”
“Oh?” Hannah headed for the sink to wash her hands. “What did Andrea want?”
“She said to tell you that Janie Burkholtz is in town.”
“I haven’t seen Janie since Andrea’s wedding.” Hannah smiled as she lathered her hands. It would be good to see Janie again. Andrea and Janie had
