Sweets Shop Cozy Mysteries Boxset

by Maisy Morgan

  Mary smiled. “I thought I recognized you. I’m Mary, and this is my grandson, Tripp.”

  “Josephine Smit,” she said. “I saw you planting some flowers in your shop windows. I should have stopped by to check out the shop.”

  “You should have,” Tripp said with a smirk.

  “You’ve got yourself a little cheerleader, huh?” Josephine asked.

  “He’s my official marketing rep,” Mary said with a laugh.

  The long line moved up slightly, but they continued having casual conversation with Josephine about the shop in Brooks, and near the end of the conversation Josephine seemed adamant to visit. Eventually the line dwindled, and only Josephine stood in front of them, and she scurried over to the only teller currently working behind the counter. The others had trickled off to work on getting the place closed up now that the line had dwindled down a bit. “Afternoon, Ms. Josephine,” the young teller said in a familiar sort of way.

  “Hey, Eddie,” Josephine said placing her purse on the counter. “I haven’t seen you in my salon in a while.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been buzzing my hair myself these days,” he said as he worked out her transaction.

  “Well, that’s better than you telling me you’ve started to go to a barber or some nonsense,” Josephine said with a laugh.

  “Eh,” he said. “Maybe, but it sure would be cheaper.” Josephine laughed just as the door opened. Eddie grumbled. “I meant to lock that.”

  But before Eddie could finish with what he had to say about getting bank customers in after closing time, he made a startled jump. Mary turned her head just in time to see three masked individuals had entered into the building. There were two men and a woman, and they all had guns. “Nobody moves!” the first man’s voice roared.

  Mary grabbed Tripp and pulled him closer to her.

  “On the ground!” the woman shouted, and she shot her gun up at a light fixture.

  You have got to be kidding me, Mary thought as she, Tripp, and Josephine were shoved up against a far wall and told to sit down. Eddie and a second teller were forced to sit with them while the third victim, a woman who looked like she was going to vomit due to fear, was forced behind the counter to get them their money. Mary thought it was going to all be over rather quickly when one of the robbers, the smaller man watching the door, groaned loudly. “Cops! That’s faster than we expected! Dang it, now they’ve got us cornered in here!”

  Mary heard the other man cuss under his breath, and she got the horrible suspicion that they were going to be there for a while.

  Chapter Four

  Mary sat on the floor with one arm around Tripp who was absolutely shaken by the sudden presence of the men in masks. To her left was Josephine who sat staring blankly off into space as though in complete denial about her current predicament. On the other side of Tripp was the teller Eddie and a second teller whom Mary did not know. The third teller was still in the vault with the burliest of the two male robbers. The woman was the one standing over them with her gun pointed at Eddie specifically, and he looked like he was going to fall out due to terror.

  “Hurry up in there, would ya?” the woman standing over them shouted towards the vault.

  “Yeah, because we’re getting out of here real soon with six cop cars sitting out front,” the larger man snarled, pushing the now crying teller out of the vault, her arms loaded down with money and various goods from the lockboxes that she was told to put into a black duffle bag. “Go get more, and don’t stop,” the man told her as he waved his gun in her face to get her to hurry back into the vault. “Work quick, sweetie!” he called after her, and Mary watched the sobbing woman go in and out of the vault until the bag was completely full. The man wanted to make sure the bag stayed in his sight at all times, so he wouldn’t allow her to carry it into the vault.

  The larger man, the one who by now seemed to be the one in charge, came over to the smaller man watching the door and demanded his duffle bag. He then tossed it to the woman teller demanding for her to put it on the counter and continue filling it up where he could watch and make sure she didn’t put anything inside that could be used to track them. Once all three of the duffel bags were full, the large man told the woman to go sit with everyone else, and she did so fervently. The male teller, Eddie, put his arm out and allowed both of his female coworkers to sit close.

  “What are we gonna do?” the man by the door kept asking as he constantly switched his weight from one foot to the other fighting the urge to start pacing.

  “Would you relax?” the larger man snarled.

  “Yeah, cuz he’s gonna relax when we got six cop cars sitting right out front,” the woman said. “I thought you clocked their response time?”

  “I did!” the larger man snarled. “I made five calls in the area this whole month, and they hadn’t ever gone that fast!”

  The minutes continued ticking by, and eventually a phone from behind the counter rang. The woman went and answered it, leaving the brooding boss to linger over the now-hostages. “Hello?” the woman spoke into the phone in a casual tone. “Yeah, I’m one of them. What’s it to you?” she questioned. “Oh, boy, a cop? Yeah, I figured that much.”

  Tripp peered out from under Mary’s arm for a second, but Mary pulled him back into her like she believed any sort of movement might land them with a bullet in their head. The bigger man spun around looking towards the woman who was talking on the phone. She was going on as if she was chatting it up with an old boyfriend. “Give me that!” he snapped. “Now go watch them,” he demanded as he snatched the phone from her.

  The woman flounced back over to the group of hostages, but she seemed very uninterested in them. Mary felt something touch her fingertips, and she looked down to see that Tripp had been texting Preston from her phone and that Preston had responded by telling Tripp to give the phone to her. Mary glared at him, but a small part of her was glad to see that Preston had informed them that he was one of the officers posted out front. Leaning her head slightly to the right, Mary could see out the window the one patrol car that did not look quite like the others as it was a Coweta County car and not a Fayette County car. After Tripp had started texting him, Preston had headed straight there as he had not been too far from the Fayette-Coweta line. She stared for a moment at the previous message Preston had typed out, “Give the phone to Mary” before responding.

  Give the phone to Mary

  Preston, its Mary

  Is everyone all right?

  So far. 3 customers including Tripp and me. 3 tellers

  How many guns?

  3 guns—2 guys and a woman. Wearing masks. Big guy seems to be in charge

  Have they hurt anyone?

  No – definitely seem willing

  You sure there are just three?

  I’m sure

  You got names of the hostages?

  Josephine Smit-customer. Eddie Williams and 2 women–tellers

  Be careful, but can you find out the names of the other two employees?

  Hold on

  Mary carefully slid the phone under her leg not wanting any of the lovely folks with guns to see that she had it out and was using it. She whispered to Eddie to find out the names of the women next to him. He looked surprised that she would dare talk at this moment, but he answered, “Martha Sox and Anne Jones,” he whispered.

  Martha Sox and Anne Jones

  Okay. Hide the phone and keep your head down

  Mary did as she was told. The large man in the mask had long since hung up on the police after shouting off a few demands when the phone started to ring again. He snatched it up, and he told the woman to keep her gun pointed at the hostages while he was busy talking. “What? No way am I about to do that,” the man grumbled for a minute. “Yeah, there’s a kid in here,” he paused. “Hold on.” He sat the receiver down and looked out. “Which one of you is Martha Sox?” he snapped.

  Martha looked mortified. “M-me?” she said.

  The man grumbled, picked th
e phone back up, and put it to his ear. “Yeah, she’s in here, why?” he asked. There was a long pause before he said. “Fine, we’ll do that. We got four more in here with us, so don’t try nothing stupid!” He slammed the phone down. “Jacob, go outside,” he said. “Take the kid with you and switch him out for a bag. They’re bringing us food and water.”

  Tripp looked at Mary with fear in his eyes and gripped her. “Preston’s got this,” she whispered, and he allowed the younger man to jerk him up off the ground.

  Tripp had this look on his face that told Mary he felt like he was betraying her by leaving, but she muttered, “Go now!” in a low but stern voice.

  The smaller of the men, whose name Mary now knew, dragged Tripp out the front door and returned a few moments later with a bag. “They want Martha if we want the water,” he said.

  “I know,” the bigger man said. “She’s lucky she’s got diabetes or some crap like that.”

  Martha had an expression that seemed to indicate that this was the first time in her life she was ever thankful for her diabetes as she too was allowed to leave. Mary received a picture a few minutes later of Tripp and Martha sitting on the hood of Preston’s patrol car with the caption, “Safe.” She breathed a sigh of relief and just before she put her phone back, Josephine let out a sneeze.

  The sneeze caused the woman to whip her head back just fast enough to catch Mary putting away her phone. The woman came over, yanked it out of Mary’s hands just as she finished texting Preston that she knew one of the robbers was named Jacob. “Crap!” the woman shouted and she pointed her gun right at Mary.

  “Don’t!” Josephine yelped, looking rather guilty that her random sneeze had gotten Mary busted.

  Mary’s heart was pounding so hard that she thought it would burst clear out of her chest. “She sent a cop Jacob’s name!” the woman wailed while showing the larger man the phone.

  “What!” the thinner man who had been guarding the door and watching the police dutifully since the start of this harrowing adventure, broke from his spot. He jolted over to Mary and pulled her up on her feet.

  “Leave her alone!” Eddie dared to say, and the woman robber shot him right in the foot.

  The phone immediately started ringing, and glancing out the window Mary could see a cop poking his head through for a moment before ducking down. They had used the watchman’s momentary choice to leave his post as an opportunity to move forward. Jacob at last jerked off his mask so he could look dead at Mary. “You stupid old lady. I should shoot you right in the face!” he shouted over Eddie’s wailing.

  Mary thought of Tripp. She thought about everything he had already been through in the past year, and the thought of leaving him alone now made her sick. “Please,” she started to say with his gun now pointed right in her face.

  “Put your mask back on you idiot!” the larger man shouted.

  Suddenly the windows busted open, and there were two men in swat uniforms on either side. Jacob, who had a gun right at Mary’s neck was shot immediately. The woman raised her gun, and she too was shot and went down. The third man, however, was suddenly gone. How he had managed to slip out, Mary had no idea. However, the next few moments were ones filled with a tremendous amount of anxiety as a few more members of the SWAT team came bombarding into the building. They were yelling at the two that had somehow managed to let a man slip out with only one exit. The two who had entered the building looked absolutely baffled by this, but the group quickly ceased their shouts to hurry to check on Mary, Eddie, Josephine, and Anne and then escort them out of the building. Eddie was brought out on a stretcher, but he was in surprisingly good spirits for someone who had been shot.

  The two robbers, the smaller man whose name she had learned was Jacob as well as the woman, were brought out in body bags. The whole avenue and shopping center where the small satellite bank was located was roped off while police and SWAT team members both searched the surrounding area for the third robber. Not only had he somehow managed to slip past two SWAT officers but also nearly two dozen policemen posted outside along with all the onlookers who had gathered on the other side of the police tape. Amazingly, not one witness had seen the third robber get away.

  Overall, Mary had spent a total of four hours at the bank between standing in line and sitting as a hostage. It was certainly not the sort of evening she was hoping to have had. Tripp sprinted to her when she exited alongside Josephine and Anne, who both had family outside waiting for them. Tripp nearly pushed Mary over with his assault-like hug, and it made Mary feel rather warm to see such an excited level of affection. “Tripp, are you all right?”

  “Me?” he questioned. “I wasn’t the one inside when guns started going off!”

  “Everything turned out just fine,” Mary assured him. “Eddie, the teller, he’s going to be fine. I heard the paramedic say the bullet barely got him. Did you get the shooters identified?” Mary asked Preston as he walked up behind Tripp.

  “Yeah. Jacob Price and Savannah Bright.”

  “Are they okay?” Mary asked hesitantly.

  “No,” Preston said. “They pointed their weapons right at swat. They’re gone.”

  Mary sighed. “Well, at least apart from a bullet graze on Eddie’s foot no one else was seriously hurt.”

  Preston smiled. “I’ll follow you two home. I’m not really supposed to be here. This is outside of my jurisdiction by a long shot, but when I told them my umm…”

  “You told them your girlfriend was inside didn’t you,” Tripp said somewhat giddily.

  Preston’s face turned red. “Well, I believe I said my friend and her grandson. Let’s just say I told them that I knew you two very well and we are very close to each other.”

  “He totally called you his girlfriend,” Tripp said, and Mary gave him a warning smack on the arm.

  “As I was saying, I’m going to follow you two home,” he said. “I’m sure after an evening like the one you just had you’re going to want to go home and rest.”

  “No way,” Tripp said suddenly. “You and Grandma are supposed to have a date tonight in, like, half an hour.”

  “Tripp, you cannot possibly expect Preston and I to go off on a date tonight,” Mary said.

  “I know you’re wanting to cancel because of me now,” Tripp said. “But Draco and Hannah are expecting me at Hannah’s tonight, and I can’t wait to see the look on Draco’s face when I tell him what went down.”

  Mary shook her head. “Fine then,” she said and then smiled at Preston. “If you’re still up for it, that is.”

  Preston smiled. “Of course. Come on, let’s get the kiddo to his playdate.”

  “It’s not a playdate!” Tripp snapped. “I’m fourteen!”

  “Sure, kid,” Preston said, glad to have tripped him up a bit after having been the one embarrassed only a moment ago.

  Mary used the drive back to Brooks to fuss over Tripp a bit after their adventure that evening. Halfway to Brooks she realized that she had never deposited the cash at the bank. With a groan she simply muttered, “What a wasted trip.”

  Chapter Five

  Mary smiled as Preston quickly picked up the check on their date. “My treat of course,” he said.

  “Well, aren’t you such a gentleman?” she teased.

  “I know it’s been a long day,” he said. “I really can’t believe you agreed to go out to dinner after everything that happened. Today was crazy. I’ve never seen anything like that around here before.”

  “I can’t believe I agreed to it either, but after Tripp insisted, I figured, why not? Plus, since I knew he was all right, I figured a night out might do both of us good. He really was looking forward to spending time with Hannah and Draco,” Mary said. “If I had to guess, it is probably Hannah more so than Draco.”

  “He seems pretty into her, huh?” Preston asked with a smirk.

  “Oh, without a doubt,” Mary said laughing. “He would probably never admit it.”

  “So…” Preston said lookin
g a bit anxious, “I wanted to see, since we’ve gotten through dinner rather quickly tonight, if you would like to come by my place. I made a cheesecake.”

  Mary studied his face for a moment, making sure this was not some sort of off color inuendo she was missing, but she smiled upon realizing that it was an innocent invitation. She accepted, and after leaving the restaurant, they headed back into Brooks and into a small neighborhood on a dirt road that was Preston’s home. “Glad you agreed to come by,” he said, smiling. “I’ve been wanting you to meet Buck.”

  “Buck?” Mary questioned. “I didn’t realize you had a roommate.”

  He laughed. “I suppose you could say that. Buck is my dog.”

  Mary also laughed with Preston as they got out of the car. She half expected a lot of barking when they entered his quaint little house, but all was quiet. He led her to the little kitchen where he pulled out the cheesecake he had promised, and cut them each a slice before placing the pieces on separate plates. “It’s probably nothing compared to those key lime pies you made,” he said. “But I do know my way around the kitchen.”

  The two of them went and sat down on the couch, and Preston popped in a movie since Cindy was not expecting Mary to come pick up Tripp for at least another hour and a half. “So, where is Buck?” Mary asked as she took her first bite of cheesecake and smiled approvingly. Preston laughed and then pointed towards a corner of the room. She jumped a bit as she had not even noticed the old, graying German Shepherd in the corner sitting upright and staring them down. “Oh, wow, he almost gave me a heart attack,” she muttered.