“Nope,” said Sarah brightly. “I made mine much more exciting, until Jack told me he only wanted the true bits. Bo—” she dragged out the o sound “—ring.”
Jack had a word with his policemen while we waited to be given the all clear to leave.
“That’s it. You can go home now,” Jack told us.
I was just about to agree when Sarah interrupted.
“What? No way! Tell us what you found!”
Jack looked startled. He wasn’t used to people like Sarah. Though to be fair, I was just about the only person who was used to her.
“As a matter of policy, we don’t comment on ongoing inv—”
Sarah jabbed him in the chest with a finger. “Blah, blah, blah. Come on. What did you find? Fingerprints? Hairs? A bone?”
“Eh? A bone?” said Jack in a fluster. “No, none of that. Look, we wouldn’t usually say, but since you’re so interested, I’ll tell you.” He paused for dramatic effect. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” said Sarah in disappointment.
“What do you mean nothing?” I asked. “The place has been turned upside down.”
Jack nodded. “It has, but nothing valuable has been taken. The television, her computer, her jewelry—it’s all still here. It must have been kids.”
“Kids?” I leaned back against the wall, thinking. “I bet kids brazen enough to break into a murder house would also be brazen enough to steal some of the valuables, don’t you?”
“Maybe they were just curious,” said Sarah with the kind of tone that made you wonder whether she had let herself into buildings out of curiosity in the past.
“Well, the fact remains that the valuables are still here,” said Jack. “Although the place is trashed, nothing seems to have gone missing since last time we were here.”
“When was that?” I asked.
“Oh… let me see. We had forensics in for a day…” he tapped his chin thoughtfully, “I’d say, about four days after the murder? It was a couple of days before that memorial service.”
“I wonder…” I began.
“What?” asked Sarah and Jack in unison.
“What if something valuable was taken, but we just don’t know what it was? Not jewelry or gold or electronics. Something else.”
“Like what?” asked Jack.
“Such as?” asked Sarah.
I shrugged.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m just thinking out loud. Come on, Sarah, we’ve got to get back to the shop, we have an appointment at four, remember?”
“Do we?” asked Sarah. “Oh right, I remember!” she said brightly.
“Have a good afternoon, Jack.”
“Thanks for not arresting us!” said Sarah with a wave. “Come on,” she said, grabbing my hand and dragging me toward the front door. “Let’s see what other mischief we can find today!”
It was with an apologetic look over my shoulder that I left Jack, a bewildered look on his face, as I was dragged away by my employee.
The afternoon had not been a complete waste of time, however. I had a suspicion as to who had broken into the house, and what it was they had taken.
Chapter 18
The next morning, I went down into my shop bright and early. I cleaned and tidied and readied the displays, and at nine o’clock on the dot, I unlocked the doors and welcomed a new day.
For an hour, I waited semi-patiently for Sarah to arrive.
Ding!
As she stepped in, I took one of the coffees out of her hand and held the door open.
“Do you mind watching the shop for a while, Sarah? I’ve got something to do.”
She blinked at me with sleepy eyes.
“Sure,” she said with a yawn and wave. “Have fun on your date.”
“Date? I’m not going on a date. I’m following up on something from yesterday. I’ll tell you about it later.”
I left shaking my head. One day, Sarah and I would be on the same page, but it didn’t seem like it was today.
I walked slowly, sipping the coffee through the little hole in the plastic lid and thinking about what I was going to say to Randi when I got to her candy shop. Should I be firm and direct? Friendly and roundabout? Mean and loud?
“Aria Whitmore!”
The voice was right in my ear. I jumped back, startled.
A dozen feet in front of me was one of the scariest people I knew.
Hazel Crane.
She was a witch of the dark arts and I did my best to avoid her. Unfortunately, I had repeatedly failed at avoiding her recently, and now it looked like she’d trapped me again.
She peered at me with her young-looking old woman’s eyes. Her true age was impossible to guess by sight alone because she used so much magic to disguise her appearance. With Mom, it was pure vanity, but with Hazel Crane something darker was always afoot. I think she liked to maintain a youthful demeanor to catch people off guard. She managed to catch me off guard just about every time I spoke to her.
Hazel was of a similar height to me, but what was most remarkable about her was her strangely tanned skin. Not because the skin itself looked odd, but because it was in stark contrast to what looked to be naturally red hair. The two didn’t normally go together.
“Don’t project your voice in my ear like that,” I told her, thin-lipped. “It’s rude.”
“You don’t know what rude is, Aria Whitmore. Rude is being an ungrateful little witch.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Can I help you with anything, Hazel?”
“You, help me?” she dropped her head back and cackled entirely too loudly. While witches do have a right to cackle, there’s a time and a place for everything and people were beginning to stare.
“Well?”
Hazel dropped her head back down and in an instant, her face switched back from evil laughter to a stern schoolmarm expression.
“I know where you’re going.”
“Me too,” I said, stepping to the left and intending to walk by her if she didn’t get to the point or get lost soon. Hazel stepped to the left as well. Not after me, but at the exact same time as if she were my mirror image.
“Aria Whitmore and Annabelle Whitmore owe me, now.” While she spoke, she dropped her chin to her chest while her eyes rolled up high in the sockets to maintain eye contact with me.
“Is that so?” I wondered what exactly my mother had gotten herself into. I’d rather be in debt to any bank than to Hazel Crane—that was one thing I knew for sure. And now Hazel was saying I was in debt to her too.
“Oh yes, you do, you do, you do. And I know exactly how I want to be repaid, Aria Whitmore. Exactly how.”
Suppressing a shudder, I stepped to my right and was again simultaneously matched by Hazel. She raised her right hand. A second later, it flashed out, landing on top of mine in an instant, over my coffee cup, before I could even consider stepping away from her.
“There’s time for repayment, Aria Whitmore. Time indeed.”
I withdrew my hand, freeing it from her cold touch.
“You can pay me after you hear from your father.”
My brows drew together at that, but I forced a smirk onto my face. “Well, that’ll be a long time coming. I don’t know anything about the man.”
Hazel smiled like a tall red-headed snake. “Oh, you will, Aria Whitmore. Not long now. Soon you’ll know all about your father.”
I stepped back from her again but she seemed to mirror that move too, moving at the exact same speed forward as I went backward. I shook my head in her direction, my mind feeling fuzzy and confused. I wasn’t sure what was going on or what she was getting at.
“Don’t forget, Aria Whitmore. Don’t forget. You owe me.”
I tried to glare at her but with an alarming swiftness she’d moved toward me, lurching to the side at the last minute to avoid crashing into me.
I whipped my head around and peered over my shoulder to see Hazel serenely walking away from me at what appeared to be a leisurely
pace.
This time, I didn’t suppress the shudder that tore down my spine.
There was something about Hazel that was always off—something that didn’t sit right with me at all.
It was like half of her lived in this world and the other half in a strange, otherworldly dimension, jumping between them on a whim. Of course, Hazel worked hard to create her unsettling image; that’s the kind of witch she was. But magic-darn it if it didn’t work a little too well on me.
With some of the bounce drained from my step, I slowly carried on my walk, finishing the rest of the coffee along the way. A fair amount of the drink spilled out when I raised it to my lips, my trembling hands an aftereffect of talking to Hazel.
I kept replaying what she said to me in my mind. Obviously, she and Mom had worked out some kind of deal.
But why in magic’s name had my mother made a deal with Hazel Crane of all people? Mom must have gone to her to help reverse the effects of the spell, but at what cost? There was a fair amount of animosity between them and I had no doubt that Hazel wouldn’t have made any deal unless she thought she was getting the better end of it.
And according to Hazel, I’d been lumped in together with my mother in this deal too. Hazel thought I was in her debt as well.
When I arrived at Randi’s Candy Store, I felt older than when I’d left my shop just a few minutes before, and a whole lot wearier than I should have after such a relatively short walk.
My state of confusion wasn’t helped when I saw who was exiting the shop. It was Molly.
The same Molly who had been so adamantly against Sandra and her fudge. The same Molly we’d scared half to death the day before inside Sandra’s house. And what was Molly carrying? Why, if it wasn’t a bag of Randi’s ‘Sandra’ fudge.
“Hello, Molly,” I said by way of greeting. My tone was subdued because I still felt guilty for scaring her before, and Hazel had twisted my mind on its side and stomped on it for good measure.
Molly gave me a dark look before remembering her manners and offering me a polite, emotionless smile.
“Good morning, Aria,” she said with a curt nod.
“Is that… fudge?” I asked, pointing at the bag labeled FUDGE in her hands.
She looked at the bag as if reading the writing on it. Then she looked at me. “Yes, Aria. In the bag labeled ‘fudge’ is, indeed, fudge.”
Molly then unfolded the top of the bag, took out a piece, and dropped it in her mouth. After one chew, her manners made another valiant comeback and she reached out with the bag, offering it to me.
“No,” I said shaking my head. “I was just surprised. I didn’t think you liked fudge.”
She furrowed her brow. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
Was she serious?
“You didn’t like Sandra’s fudge,” I pointed out.
“Eh? I loved Sandra’s fudge. It was Sandra I didn’t like. Her, and her customers. I love fudge. I just hate everything that comes with it—the people, the traffic, the crime.” She was almost quaking as she went through her list of all the evils that came with the deadly fudge business.
“The crime?”
“Murder, for one!” she said, her tone dripping with disdain at my implied approval of the fudge business.
“It was only one murder,” I said before I realized how silly I sounded.
“Oh, I’ve heard about you and murders, Aria ‘Dead Bride in her Shop’ Whitmore. For some of us, though, murder is kind of a big deal.”
I nodded and opened and then closed my mouth. I’d made a right mess of this little chat and I didn’t think I could do anything but make it worse.
“Bye,” I finally offered meekly.
“Good day to you,” said Molly who promptly popped another couple of squares of fudge into her mouth and walked off chewing noisily.
Well, that was two bad conversations so far.
“Let’s see if we can make it a hat trick,” I said under my breath as I pushed open the door to Randi’s Candy Store.
Chapter 19
When I stepped inside, I had to stop and take a moment.
Although it wasn’t as busy as the day of the memorial, business certainly still seemed to be booming in Randi’s shop. There were at least half a dozen customers in there, and I could hear the telephone ringing in the background too.
“Not bad for a weekday morning,” I said to myself.
There were four people sitting down eating fudge, and at the counter there was one person being served and another waiting. Even from behind, I could see that the person waiting looked vaguely familiar to me—and then I remembered! It was the tourist I’d met at the memorial service. Her mop of curly hair was different from the hairstyles most of the women in town sported.
I stepped behind her, but as she was facing the other way, she of course couldn’t see me. I briefly considered tapping her on the shoulder for a chat, but after my last two conversations, I thought it best to leave it unless I was noticed.
And anyway, I needed a moment to plan what I was going to say to Randi. This was going to be serious stuff—an accusation of committing a crime!
The person at the front completed their order, and Lara Fischer stepped forward.
“I’ll take half a pound of rum and raisin, please!” said Lara.
Randi frowned and pursed her lips. “I’m sorry. We don’t have any rum raisin. Would you like to try the—”
Lara was already shaking her head before she interrupted Randi’s sales patter.
“But I heard it was the specialty?”
Randi shook her head again.
“Oh, no. I’m afraid not. That was Sandra’s specialty. I haven’t had Sandra’s rum raisin fudge in my shop since… well, it’s been a long time.”
Lara let out a sad sigh, and in that moment, I realized I’d been given an excellent opportunity to do a little digging. I stepped forward so I was right next to Lara as I posed my question.
“I thought you said Sandra gave you her recipes?” I asked with my best quizzical voice. I didn’t want to hammer Randi too hard yet.
“Sandra’s recipe?” said Randi as if stalling for time. “Yes. That’s right, she gave me one recipe. It was her base, but not all the variations. She kept them in a scrapbook and I couldn’t—” She cut herself off abruptly, but it was too late. I’d heard enough.
“You couldn’t find it?” I leaned in toward her to make our conversation semi-private. “When you broke into her house? Before the memorial?”
Randi shook her head angrily at me. Her eyes wide and dark, she glared at me and spoke in a very low tone, cold with anger.
“I did nothing of the sort. Maybe your mother stole the scrapbook when she killed Sandra!”
“My mother did not kill Sandra!” I yell-whispered at her. We were both furious at this point. I pressed my hands right up against the glass cover over the display as I treated her to my very meanest look.
“Well, maybe your stupid parrot took it! He ate enough free samples to KO a pig, and you didn’t even buy any!”
“My parrot? Stole a scrapbook? Are you out of your mind?” I had my hands up on the counter, and a lesser person than me would have reached over and grabbed her. She did have a point about Kiwi though. He loved fudge a bit too much. Was there any chance he had…
“Or that ditzy girl with the craft project. She kept harassing me for junk from Sandra.” Randi’s head was leaning right over the counter, dangerously close to mine and her cheeks had gone rosy red with anger.
“She’s not a…” I was going to say ditz, but had to adjust when I realized that actually, she was a ditz. “… girl, she’s a grown woman, and she was trying to do something nice for the deceased!”
“Well, I don’t think the deceased is going to care for a session of show and tell with a kindergarten art project.” Randi lowered her head and raised her eyebrows. “Unlike my memorial, which even the mayor attended.”
I narrowed my eyes and hissed, “You only did that t
o make money!”
Randi made a point of looking around the shop. “It worked, didn’t it?”
“Unbelievable!” I slapped the counter. I was so annoyed by her I wanted to really lay into her, but I didn’t have anything left to say. “You give fudge a bad name!”
“Here,” said Randi, reaching under the counter and bringing out a box of fudge. “Take this.”
“What is it?”
“It’s the last box of fudge you’ll ever get from me. You’re banned!”
Never one to pass up a free snack, no matter how ungenerously it was given, I snatched the box out of her hand.
“Good day!” I said loudly, spinning around on my heels.
“Good day to you!” screeched Randi even louder.
Everyone in the shop was watching me as I walked out, my final box of Randi’s fudge clasped against my chest.
“Do you have any strawberries and cream…?” was the last thing I heard as I stormed out of the fudge emporium.
When I got back to the shop, Sarah was standing behind the counter and Kiwi was perched on top of it. He immediately spied the box I was still carrying. I’d been tempted to throw it away while I was walking back, but reason had prevailed.
“Fudge!” screeched Kiwi as soon as I entered.
“Hi, Aria! How’d it go? We’ve been having a blast here.”
“Disastrously,” I said with a sigh.
I opened the box of fudge and placed it on top of the counter. “Make it last, Kiwi. That’s the last you’ll get.”
His eyes blazed with panic at me, but he couldn’t speak in front of Sarah. Luckily, her thought processes and those of my familiar were in tune.
“Why? Is Randi’s shop closing down?”
“No. In fact, it’s busier than ever.”
“Did she jack her prices up? I bet she could, for that fudge.”
“No. I’ve been banned. And so have you, I expect. And Kiwi.”
“What happened?”
I let out a long, disappointed breath. “Today has really not been my day.” I went and slumped down in one of the armchairs. “I had a chat with Randi, and it didn’t go well.”
In Hot Fudge And Cold Blood Page 12