Bakery Detectives Cozy Mystery Boxed Set
Books 7 - 9
Stacey Alabaster
Fairfield Publishing
Contents
Copyright
Message to Readers
Catering and Kidnapping
The Pumpkin Killer
Wined, Dined and Dead
Thank You!
Copyright © 2017 Fairfield Publishing
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Catering and Kidnapping
Chapter 1
Children. It seemed like it was impossible to escape them these days.
"Aren't they so cute?" Pippa squealed as the batch of five-year-olds came running into the bakery, screaming like they were high on sugar, even though we hadn't served them anything yet. The birthday girl was a small little button of a thing, wearing purple fairy wings on her back and swinging a glittery wand around like it was a sword.
"Ah, yeah," I said, trying to sound convincing. "Very cute." To be honest, I'd never really gotten the whole 'kids' thing. I mean, I guess I could see the appeal on an objective level, you know, carrying on your gene pool and creating life, all that jazz. But I'd never really had the urge to do it myself. As for cute? I guess I could see how these little creatures were cute, again on an objective level, but all I could hear was the screaming and squealing, and all I could see was the mess. And like I said, the party hadn't even started yet.
There was already an overturned table.
"Aren't you so glad we started doing kids’ birthday parties?" Pippa asked, clapping her hands together with joy.
Pippa was the baby crazy one. Luckily too, since she was only a few months away from giving birth to her first. I was slowly but surely warming to the idea, though it was still strange for me to think of my wild and wacky best friend actually settling down and being a mother.
"Definitely," I said, and I meant it. Sort of. Kids’ birthday parties were lucrative, and we needed the money. Plus, I needed to get acclimated to them. Kids, that is. I hadn't had much exposure to them, so I needed some practice at interacting with them if I was going to be an aunt.
I started to move towards the group of hyperactive little fairies, but Pippa stopped me. "Oh, let me," she said. "I'm feeling rather maternal these days."
I nodded and let her go forth and greet the gang while I hung back behind the counter, putting together the cupcakes and sandwiches that we were going to serve if they ever actually settled down and wanted food.
Simona sidled up to me and whispered, "So you hate them too, then?"
She'd startled me and I jumped a little. "Who?" I asked, slightly confused.
"Kids," she whispered, nodding towards them. "I can't deal with them."
I laughed a little. "No, I don't hate them. I just don't know how to act around them, I guess."
Simona was staring at them like they were aliens invading her home planet. She was kind of standing behind me, using me as shield between herself and the creatures. "We never had to deal with them at Bakermatic." Simona's former place of employment. A large chain store, which definitely didn't cater kids’ birthdays or encourage people to linger. It was more the kind of place that shoved a hot coffee into your hands and pushed you out the door so they could get more customers through. But Bakermatic was gone now (or at least their Belldale branch was) and Simona was here.
"Why don't you go and wash some dishes in the back then?" I suggested. I'd meant it as a way to relieve her from having to deal with the children, but she seemed to take it as punishment, if the look on her face was anything to go by.
"Fine," she said, stalking off.
I looked back at Pippa, enjoying herself with the fairy princesses milling around her ankles, squealing and clinging to her, smudging chocolate fudge on her legs, and almost knocking her over in their enthusiasm.
She was going to be a natural.
The cleanup was going to take twice as long as an adult event, so we started cleaning while the kids were still there, docile and sleepy now that the sugar high had worn off, with some of them whining that they wanted to go home.
"Hey," Pippa said as she picked up some discarded giftwrap. "You okay, Rach?"
I nodded. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"Just wondering. I know all of this is a bit quieter than what you've been used to," she said, waving a hand around the room and dropping the giftwrap she'd just picked up.
"Quieter?" I asked, shocked. I could still hear the ringing in my ears from the noise the kids had made. My head was thumping.
Pippa laughed and retrieved the giftwrap for a second time. "Okay, maybe 'quieter' wasn't quite the right word. I just meant... Well, maybe this sort of stuff is boring to you now," she said quietly, looking at the ground.
I frowned. "Why do you say that, Pippa?"
She shrugged a little. "You know, kids, parties. It's not quite as exciting as solving mysteries, is it?"
I let out a loud laugh. Right, so that was what she meant. "Don't be silly," I said, waving dismissively. "This is more than enough to keep me entertained, believe me."
"So you're not bored?" Pippa asked.
I shook my head and laughed. "Bored? How could I possibly be bored, Pippa? I'm about to be an aunty. You and the baby have been more than enough to keep me preoccupied."
Okay, so I wasn’t technically going to be an aunt. Pippa and I weren't technically sisters. But I was going to fulfill the role of one. Pippa had already promised. And while her husband Marcello was still overseas, I was filling the role of support partner, helping Pippa shop for baby clothes, cribs, and strollers, and accompanying her on all her appointments and ultrasounds.
Besides, she didn't have any sisters of her own. I didn't either, for that matter. We were both only children, which might explain why we were so close. A little too close, some people said.
And as for being bored? Not a chance! Not only had I been too busy with baby preparations, I'd been so swamped at work I hadn't even had time to miss the murders that had preoccupied my mind for the last couple of years. Nor the spine-tingling thrill of solving them.
Well, okay, maybe I missed it a teeny, tiny bit. But don't tell Pippa that.
Besides, it was a good thing that there had been no murders in Belldale for a long time. I was hardly going to complain about that, was I? And especially not when there was so much real life going on. Pippa was growing up, and I had to grow up with her. It was time to settle down. Not chase mysteries.
"I'm bored!" one little girl screamed, stomping her feet and smashing a cupcake into the carpet as she went. I winced, and Pippa shot me an apologetic look, obviously feeling responsible in some way for the child, even though she wasn't.
"I think it might be time to draw this party to a close." I said quietly, wondering how I was going to politely ask the mother to leave. I decided to go over and check if she wanted anything else, or if the kids were still hungry. Give a gentle hint that we were ready for this party to win
d down.
Just as I was about to head over to where the children now rebelled, tired and cranky, the door jingled and I looked up hopefully, thinking it might be a parent here to pick up a child.
A man stumbled in, looking lost. He certainly didn't look like he belonged to a child's birthday party. He didn't even cast the kids so much as a sideways glance. He fixed his eyes first on Pippa, then saw her pregnant belly and shook his head a little.
I was the next victim of his steely glare. And it seemed like I was his target.
He was unshaven, with grey stubble on his chin and unruly hair that didn't match his clothes, which looked quite expensive, to my untrained eye at least.
His eyes were bleary and reddened around the edges. From lack of sleep or something else, I couldn't tell.
He walked toward the counter, slowly and calmly. A little too slowly and calmly. There was something creepy about the way he edged towards me.
Both Pippa and I took a little step back, huddled together behind the counter.
Pippa leaned across and whispered to me, the worry evident in her voice. "Should we ask him to leave? I don't know that it's really appropriate for him to be in here." The mother of the birthday girl was casting us furtive looks. Even though we hadn't shut down the entire bakery for her—there weren't enough guests at a small kid's party to justify it—there had only been a couple of other customers come in during that time, and none of them had looked like a homeless, deranged maniac.
I straightened up. "No. We should see what he wants first. We can't just tell a customer to leave, Pippa." Not when we needed the money.
But I think we both knew he wasn't there to buy a cake.
I didn't know what he was there for, but his eyes were fixed on me.
"Are you Rachael Robinson?" he asked. He was staring straight at me with his bloodshot eyes, and it made me nervous.
I looked at Pippa, not sure if I should answer honestly. Was this the kind of man I should be giving my real identity to?
He asked again, his voice frantic this time as his calm exterior broke. "Are you Rachael Robinson?" he demanded.
A little shaken and taken aback by the anger in his eyes, I decided to tell the truth. "Yes," I said. "That's me."
I wondered what I had done wrong. Clearly, I had done something to upset the guy. Maybe he owned a rival business. Maybe I'd sold him some stale cookies. Unlikely, but anything was possible.
"I'm sorry," he finally said, taking a deep breath. He no longer looked intimidating or even creepy. He looked like a broken man. I started to think that maybe his red eyes were from something else. He leaned against the counter and his head dropped forward, like he was completely out of strength.
For a moment or two, he couldn't speak. Pippa and I just stood there, shooting each other furtive looks. I saw Pippa instinctively reach down to place a hand protectively over her belly. I didn't think she was in any danger, but I could see her motherly instincts kicking in. This man might not have been dangerous, but something strange was going on.
He lifted his head. "Rachael," he said in a raspy voice. "I need your help."
"With...with a cake? Or some cookies?" I asked hopefully, keeping one eye on the nervous looking mother in the distance, cradling her child close to her chest.
He shook his head. "It's my daughter, Angel. Angel Styles. She's missing, Rachael. I need you to find her."
Chapter 2
It was a long, tension-filled drive home, and not just because Pippa and I had moved a mile out of town to downtown Belldale. It was the only suburb where we could afford to rent a three-bedroom house—a room for me, one for Pippa, and one to use as nursery for her baby.
"I just don't know, Rachael," Pippa finally said once we'd crossed the bridge that connected the two sides of Belldale.
I cleared my throat with an awkward cough as I navigated a difficult roundabout during peak hour. "What don't you know about?"
I stared straight ahead, but I could feel her eyes boring into my neck. "A kidnapping case!" she whispered angrily, as though speaking it too loudly was going to get us into trouble. And who knew, it might. We were sworn to strict secrecy. And Harrison Styles wasn't telling anyone else. He wasn't even telling the police.
"I haven't even said I'll take the case," I said, gripping the steering wheel. "It's not exactly my area of expertise."
Pippa sighed. "But you're going to. I saw you. I saw the way your face fell when he told you what had happened."
Harrison had waited for the kid's party to clear out before he'd unleashed the details on me. He'd asked Pippa to leave, but I'd said we were a package deal, at least as far as mysteries were concerned. And then I pointed out to him that I'd never actually solved a kidnapping before, just murders.
And I was nervous. In a way, there was far more at stake with a kidnapping. After all, the victim was still alive. And I was supposed to find her.
I tapped my fingers nervously on the steering wheel as I remembered the way Harrison Styles had stared at me. He didn't even need to use words—the terror and pain and worry were all right there in his eyes. He'd lost his daughter.
"Someone's taken her, Rachael,” he said. “And they're asking for a lot of money."
I'd kept my voice low. "And are you going to pay it?"
"It's more money than I have," he'd whispered desperately. "These people must be crazy to ask for this. Three million dollars?"
I'd gulped. I knew a little about the Styles family. I'd met Angel before, but I'd never met Harrison.
His ex-wife was Olive Styles, former local politician. I say ‘former’ because Olive was dead now. Killed. I'd been the one to solve her murder.
And for a while, Angel Styles had been my prime suspect. I couldn't believe she was now missing. Hadn't this family suffered enough?
Pippa was refusing to look at me, back in the car. So much for maturing, she was acting like a sulking child.
"Pippa, he needs my help...our help," I said.
"I knew it," she muttered. "I knew you were going to take the job." She had her hand over her belly, I noticed as I snuck a glance while still trying to navigate the traffic. Why had we moved so far away?
"I said I haven't decided."
"And I also knew that you were bored," she snapped, cutting me off. "I knew that you wanted a mystery to solve."
"Hey, it's not like I went looking for this! Harrison came to me, remember!" I had to take a few moments to calm down while I pulled the car onto our new street. It was long and paved with identical looking houses, though ours was a maroon color where most of the others were kind of a moldy green.
I got out of the car and Pippa followed me, still angry. At least in a larger house we wouldn't be under each other's feet if we got into a fight. But I spun around and looked at her, stopping in the hallway that was still littered with unpacked boxes. "You know, it was actually kind of flattering that Harrison Styles sought me out, Pippa! It means I must be doing a good job! I was kind of proud of myself for a second there! Until you decided to sulk about it."
She still had her arms wrapped around her bump. She looked away a little guiltily. "I know," she said quietly. Reluctantly. "It's just...the idea of a kidnapping makes me really nervous, Rachael."
My face dropped. "Oh. Right."
How could I have been so insensitive? Of course the idea of someone losing their child would make her feel anxious. Pippa hadn't even been able to watch a TV show where a child was in peril since she'd found out she was pregnant two months ago, let alone be confronted with it in real life.
I went a bit more gently on her. "You know Angel Styles is almost nineteen though, right? She's not a little kid."
Pippa nodded a little. "I still don't like it. I saw the anguish on Harrison Styles' face."
"So, isn't that all the more reason for us to help him?" I asked her.
Pippa looked up at me. "Do you really need my help?" She gestured at her bulging belly. "I'm not even sure I can be much help in this
condition."
"Of course I need your help, Pippa. More than ever. This case might end up needing a mother's touch and Angel doesn't have a mother anymore, remember? She's got no one. She needs us."
Pippa nodded and took a deep breath. "Okay then. I'm on board. Where do we start?"
Chapter 3
Now that we had an actual full-sized dining room and a large table, we could spread out and get to work. I still had the files on Angel from when her mom was murdered, so I grabbed them and spread them out. A photo of Angel, with her cropped black hair, and her friend Anna, with long blonde hair, spilled out of the file onto the table.
"Which one is Angel?" Pippa asked.
I frowned at her, confused. "Huh? You've met…"
Then I stopped dead in my tracks. It hadn't been Pippa investigating with me at the time. It had been another employee of mine: Chloe. The one who had ACTUALLY killed Angel's mother. Awkward.
I pointed to the tall skinny girl with the short, black bob. "That's Angel," I said.
"She's pretty," Pippa murmured. "Well, they both are."
Both Angel and Anna were very pretty, but there was something particularly striking about Angel with her black hair, bright blue eyes, and cherubic lips. Her appearance matched her name. She looked angelic.
"Who would want to hurt her?" I said quietly.
"Well, Harrison said they want money, right? He's rich."
"Yeah, but not that rich, he said." I picked up the photo. "They're asking for more than he's worth, so maybe it's not motivated by money at all."
"Well, what then?" Pippa asked.
I stared at the photo of Angel with her arm wrapped around Anna. "I'm not sure," I murmured. "But we have to find out. Before it's too late."
Bakery Detectives Cozy Mystery Boxed Set: Books 7 - 9 Page 1