Bakery Detectives Cozy Mystery Boxed Set: Books 7 - 9

by Stacey Alabaster

  "So, am I allowed to ask exactly what our intentions are here?" Kenneth asked, running his fingers along a shelf of non-fiction as he eyed them casually. "You don't really just want to get your membership reinstated, do you?"

  I shook my head. "You need three forms of I.D for that."

  Kenneth raised an eyebrow. "So, what are we doing here?"

  I glanced over at the borrow and returns desk. Like every other place in Belldale, the library was mostly deserted. Even though libraries are always quiet, this was conspicuously so, and the middle-aged woman with the jet black hair and cardigan behind the counter kept throwing us suspicious looks as we hid amongst the rows.

  "Here goes nothing."

  The librarian raised her head as we approached the counter. "Can I help you today?" she asked through a wide-mouthed, toothy smile. She was wearing dark lipstick that ran into the lines around her lips.

  I flashed her my friendliest smile. I was just there to ask about a book, after all. Nothing suspicious about that. "I was actually hoping that you could help me with a book inquiry?"

  "Yes, I can tell you if we have the book in and if we don't, what the expected return date is." She was trying to be friendly—and she was being friendly—but I could tell she was a little on edge. Did we not look like the kinds of people who would be in a library? I mean, maybe Kenneth didn't quite fit the profile of your typical library-goer, but I thought I did. Or maybe she was just suspicious of anyone who would be outside during both a thunderstorm and the tightest lockdown that Belldale had ever been on.

  If my phone had been working, I would have texted Pippa to ask for the name of the book, but I had to rely on my own memory.

  I had to think for a second, frowning as I tried to remember the name of the book that Pippa had borrowed. I'd only actually seen it the one time. It probably helped me look more casual as well, that I was struggling to remember it.

  "I think it was called, something like, Fifty Years Later...The Pumpkin Killer," I said, still frowning. I tried to ignore the look of surprise on Kenneth's face. And for his part, he quickly tried to hide it. Good, he was playing along. He was a quick learner. Good to know.

  I could have sworn there was a look of recognition on her face as I gave the librarian the title, but she played it cool enough.

  She looked at me heavily before she tapped the title into her computer database. "That book is currently borrowed out."

  Well, I knew that. Pippa had it at home. I was hoping she would be forthcoming with that information though if I asked for it. That meant that she might also tell me who had it before her, seven weeks earlier.

  "Can you tell me who has it?" I asked cheerfully, getting up on my tiptoes to try and see over the desk.

  She turned the screen away from me. "No, I certainly cannot give you that information. It's private, and unless you are the police, and unless you have a warrant, I keep our patrons’ borrowing habits private."

  Darn it.

  I knew it was useless, but I tried anyway. "What about the person who borrowed it before this current borrower? Can you tell me that name?"

  She gave me a cold, glassy stare. Nice try. "What makes you think I can give out that information?"

  "Please," I said, trying not to sound too desperate. And probably failing miserably. "It's important."

  She still didn't budge. I was starting to feel a little embarrassed there with Kenneth watching my incompetence. I'd been hoping to impress him with my sleuthing skills. Instead, I was just coming across as amateur and out of my depth.

  I tried another tactic on the librarian. "You probably can't tell me anyway. The computer program probably doesn't even store that kind of information. It looks pretty ancient to me."

  She quickly flashed the computer screen towards us to show us a brand new, state of the art system. "This stores everything," she said. "And it is a brand new system, just installed this year. Nice try, though."

  Without thinking, I leaned across the counter and tried to grab the computer screen again so I could see it. The librarian gripped my hand and wrestled with me until I let go. Kenneth was biting his lip, seemingly trying not to laugh while the librarian, fuming now, straightened her cardigan and tried to calm herself. She had turned red.

  "If you are going to cause a scene, I am going to have to ask you to leave. This is a library, after all."

  Great. Thrown out of an empty library.

  "Well, that was a giant waste of time," I muttered as we walked back out and onto the very slippery concrete pavement. "Sorry about that."

  "You don't need to apologize," Kenneth said with a grin. "It was interesting to see you at work. Or at least, this part of your work. I hope that you’re a better baker than you are a detective," he teased as we stepped into the rain before sprinting back to the safety of his apartment block.

  "I am, thankfully."

  Kenneth was still grinning as we walked back through his front door.

  "What are you so happy about?" I asked, thinking that maybe he was still making fun of me for failing so hard. "The operation wasn't exactly a success."

  "Maybe not completely, but I did manage to see something," Kenneth said, clearly very pleased with himself. "Maybe it's me who should be giving up the cake decorating to become a detective."

  I shook my head and crossed my arms. Boy, this guy sure did love to tease. Was it all just flirty banter? Or was there more to it? Or less? "Ah well, if you don't want to tell me, maybe I should just go," I teased back, moving towards the door like I was intending to leave. In that storm, though? As if. Plus, I didn't really want to go anywhere. I was enjoying myself.

  "I saw the initials of the person who last borrowed the book," he said with a glint in his eyes.

  Hope rose in my chest as I felt my eyes widen. "You're kidding. What did it read?"

  "P.R."

  My stomach sank a little. "That's just Pippa," I said. "She's got the book right now at home."

  "Pippa has the book?" Kenneth was momentarily distracted by this—it seemed to shock him a little—but he shook his head and regrouped. "Anyway. I also saw the initials of the person who borrowed it before her."

  Now my heart was beating faster again. "What were they?"

  "C.C.," he said.

  I was completely silent for a moment. C. C.

  "Rachael? You've gone a little white. Do those initials mean anything to you?"

  I blinked a few times. "I'm not sure," I murmured. "Maybe. Yes. I don't know."

  Carlton. Mrs. Carlton. I remembered the library card Pippa had spotted on her coffee table when we'd been there to question her.

  "I don't know her first name," I said out loud.

  "Don't know whose first name?" Kenneth frowned.

  "Mrs. Carlton," I murmured. "Oscar's next door neighbor." I sat down and told him what we'd found out about Mrs. Carlton, about her grudge against Oscar. "She did seem to really hate him."

  "It's gotta be her then, right?" Kenneth asked, sitting across from me. I could tell he was enjoying the whole detective, puzzle thing. Most people do. At least at the start. "We need to find out what her first name is."

  I shook my head. "It doesn't make sense, though," I said. "Even if she borrowed the book, even if her fist name begins with C, she isn't capable of hurting or carrying a grown man, let along hanging him upside down. You should see the woman. She's tiny. Frail."

  "Maybe someone related to her?"

  I shook my head. "I don't know."

  A 'C' on a computer screen wasn't much to go on. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, forgetting that it was dead for a second and thinking that I might try and look Mrs. Carlton up to figure out her first name. "Oh, right," I said, chucking it on the coffee table.

  Kenneth nodded towards my phone. "I've got the same model. There's a charger just down the hall in my study if you want to use it."

  "That would be great, actually," I said, jumping up. Even though I was still mad at Pippa after our fight, I still wanted to check
on her to make sure she was all right. Plus, I needed to tell her about this new discovery. Well, if you could actually call it that. I wasn't sure what it was yet.

  I passed a very strange looking room that was dark with a chill coming out of it. Is this his famous temperature control room? I wondered, peering into it and trying to spot any cakes sitting out on the tables, but it was too black to really see anything but shadows.

  I felt a cool breeze blow onto my face and jumped back, shivering. I was too jumpy. And it was too dark in there. Something about it gave me the creeps and I backed out, hurrying back down the hallway until I found Kenneth's office. It was bright and white and cheery, much like the majority of his apartment, creepy rooms aside.

  I spotted the charger in the corner and kneeled down to plug in my phone. It was so dead that it didn't even come to life immediately, just flashed with the icon saying I needed to plug in the charger. "Well, that's what I just did," I said out loud, plunking the phone back on the ground before I stood up and looked around. It was interesting being inside Kenneth's apartment unsupervised, even though he was at the other end of the hall. He had a very clean study, white surfaces with carefully tidied stacks of books and notebooks, and potted plants scattered around the place. All of them were well watered, fresh and green looking.

  He had a laptop sitting on the desk, a clean silver model with a blue screensaver on that had random words running across it, a 'Word of the Day' screensaver.

  Maybe I could quickly look up Mrs. Carlton's first name right now, I thought, walking over to the door and peering into the hallway to make sure that Kenneth was nowhere to be seen. I knew what I was doing was wrong. Why else would I be checking to see if the coast was clear? But I convinced myself that Kenneth wouldn't mind, that it was no big deal, before I ran my finger across the mouse pad.

  The screen saver disappeared and a browser window popped up. No password required.

  That was when I saw it on his computer screen.

  The browser was open to about ten different tabs, but all of them contained the same basic information, the fruits of the same search.

  "So this is the research he was talking about..." I murmured, my heart frozen.

  "Belldale Halloween Killer." "Pumpkin Killer, Belldale." There was news article after news article explaining all the gruesome details. Theories, first hand accounts, and forum discussion.

  There was one tab in particular that made my blood run cold. "What did the pumpkin killer do with his victims?"

  I was holding my breath, leaning over the desk to read it, and didn't hear Kenneth's footsteps enter the room until it was too late.

  He came up behind me and slammed the screen shut, causing me to jump a mile into the air, struggling to regain my breath. "What are you doing, Rachael?"

  Chapter 9

  I managed to run out of the study and race towards the kitchen/dining room. Kenneth must have been hot on my tail though, because as soon as I got there and turned around, he was right there.

  "Rachael? Why were you looking at my computer?"

  "I think I should go," I said, grabbing my coat and backing toward the door. It was still pouring outside, but I didn't care. I would rather take my chances and drown in the rain. I might end up with pneumonia, but at least I wouldn't wind up hanging upside-down from a tree with a pumpkin over my head.

  "You'll get soaking wet, Rachael." His tone was flat and cold as he came around behind me and blocked the way to the door. I tried to look around for another means of escape. I backed up against the door, but he leaned over me and pressed his hand against it, meaning there was no way it was going to budge. Outside, thunder cracked.

  "I saw what was on your screen," I said, shaking. "So don't you even try to get mad a me for snooping. You don't have any moral high ground here."

  Kenneth dropped his hand and stood back. "I'm sorry you saw that," he said quietly. "You shouldn't have been looking, though."

  I should have just grabbed the door handle and made a run for it, but I had to ask. Still trembling, I spoke. "Why were you looking at that stuff?"

  "I don't know why you are making such a big deal of it," Kenneth said.

  Yeah, right. Don't try and play innocent with me.

  I tried to hold my nerve.

  "Because, Kenneth. Anyone copying the Belldale Halloween Killer would need to know what he had done, wouldn't they? If they were going to copy him?" I straightened up and walked towards him, away from the door. Away from my one point of escape. We were four stories up and there would be no going out the window. "That's sort of the point of being a copycat killer, isn't it?"

  Kenneth looked like he was trying not to roll his eyes. "Yeah, and any copycat would have needed to do their research a little earlier than now, wouldn't they? Like, weeks ago. Not after the fact."

  Good point. "I don't know how long you've had those browser windows open for," I said feebly. Even though I knew it was a weak response.

  I was back to slowly backing away from him now, heading towards the door as I did up the buttons of my coat. "You acted like you didn't know anything about it, Kenneth. You told me you didn't believe it, that you hadn't read any of the stories. Seems like you're a pretty big expert to me."

  Kenneth let out a sigh of frustration and ran a finger through his strawberry blonde hair.

  "Okay, look, I was researching this guy, this ancient killer, are you happy now?"

  No, I wasn't happy at all. Not only did this raise my suspicions about Kenneth, big time, it made me realize that he hadn't been honest with me all along. He really DID believe there was something to all this superstition. So much for him being all levelheaded and oblivious? So much for him being coolheaded. I wasn't sure which outcome I would be more disappointed in: him being the killer, or him being just as paranoid as the rest of us.

  I tried to tell myself that, of course, him being the killer was the worst of the two options. But I wasn't entirely sure.

  "That's all it was, Rachael. Just curiosity."

  But I wasn't sure what to believe. There was panic pushing up in my chest and I needed to get out of there, but Kenneth walked back to the door and blocked my way again. I kept thinking about his temperature-controlled room. Maybe that was where I would wind up, in storage, until the pumpkin got placed over my head.

  "I still think I better go." I tried to push past him, but he stepped in front of the door again. "Please, get out of the way," I whispered.

  "Don't you want me to tell you what I discovered about this guy, Rachael?"

  Great. More amateur sleuths trying to put information in my head that I neither wanted nor needed.

  I shook my head, keeping it low. "Keep your information to yourself."

  "It could help you, Rachael. It doesn't seem like you've gotten very far on your own."

  The only thing that was going to help me was getting away from this guy. He was what I needed to get 'very far' from.

  "Thank you for your opinion on my detective skills, but I really need to go," I said firmly. "Get out of my way."

  "Pippa?" I called out, coming through the door. I had to shake myself like a dog and ran into the bathroom so I could use the hairdryer. Even though the storm had eased up a little during the thirty-minute walk home, I was still dripping wet. I pulled off my wet pants and pulled on a dry pair of jeans before starting to work on my hair. "Pippa?" I called out again, pausing the hair dryer for a second. "Are you still not talking to me? I've really got to tell you something." I started to walk towards her room, still drying my hair with a towel. "You're not going to believe this. Well, first you're going to want to kill me, but then you're not going to believe this!"

  I stopped in my tracks when I got to her door and saw that she wasn't in her bed. "Pippa?" I called out again, dropping the towel. I ran out the front and double-checked. Her car was in the driveway along with mine. It was pouring rain again. Where the heck had she gone? Surely she hadn't just gone for a walk in this weather? With a killer on the loos
e?

  There wasn't even a note left on the table or anything. The entire house was eerily still. I was starting to panic. What if someone had gotten to her? After all, Pippa did work at a bakery. What if all this time I'd been thinking that Kenneth was the next victim, when it had really been Pippa?

  I stopped when I felt my dead phone in my pocket and raced to get my charger from my room. It took a full five minutes before it came back to life and the screen filled with notifications.

  Twenty-five missed calls from Pippa. My heart stopped. She'd needed me and I'd been off on a date with Kenneth. Not even a date. A sleuthing mission. I'd been practically detective-cheating on her while she was being kidnapped by the Pumpkin Killer.

  I scrambled for a phone, almost dropping it with my trembling hands.

  There were a ton of texts from Pippa, but the most recent one stood out.

  "I'm in labor, Rachael. The ambulance is on its way."

  I stood outside the hospital room clutching the bouquet of flowers and the balloons I'd gotten from the gift shop. They seemed so trifling and insufficient. How could I ever apologize for not being there when she had needed me the most? How could I ever explain where I had been during that time? If the Belldale Halloween Murderer didn't get to me first, Pippa was going to kill me and string me upside down from a tree.

  She is going to be furious with me.

  I took a deep breath and stepped inside. "Pippa, I-I--"

  I stopped dead in my tracks, transfixed by the tiny pink baby in Pippa's arms. This wasn't about me. I didn't matter at all.

  When I saw the baby in Pippa's arms, and then the look on her face, I realized that being angry with me was the last thing on her mind. I was insignificant in that moment. Everything was.

  "This is Lolly," Pippa said, her eyes shining with tears of happiness and the widest grin I had ever seen spread across her face. "Short for Louise. But I am never going to call her that. She just looks like a Lolly, doesn't she?"