The Chocolate Spy

by Shannon L. Brown

  Jessica dialed the sheriff, and Clare immediately put her call through. After quickly explaining what was going on, Jessica told her to hurry to catch the criminals in the act. She started to hang up, but then brought the phone back to her ear and added, “Ask Tony where the secret passage is.”

  Seconds after she’d set the phone down, they were on their way out the escape hatch.

  As soon as they were both through, Sophie stopped, only a few steps down now. “Push the panel closed behind you, Jessica.”

  “If we do that, it’s going to be pitch-black in here. We didn’t bring a flashlight.”

  “I’m hoping it will buy us a little bit of time when they come into that room and we aren’t there.”

  “They’ll figure it out pretty quickly because there was a chair blocking the door and the chocolates are sitting on the desk.” At that moment, the doorknob rattled. Then someone pushed on the door. Jessica slammed the panel closed. “I guess if it buys us a few seconds, Sophie, it’s worth it. Walk as fast as you can without falling.”

  The two of them made their way down the stairs step-by-step, finally finding the level area at the bottom. They hurried along, Sophie rubbing her hand along the wall so she knew where she was.

  Jessica pointed toward the end of the walkway. “It’s brighter around the door than before.”

  Light clearly outlined the shape of the door, but before it had been impossible to see where it was. “You’re right. I wonder why.”

  Jessica reached up and turned the lock as she had before, and the door swung open.

  They found the big doors to the boathouse open wide and letting sunlight into the space.

  “Look at the rowboat, Sophie! They must be ready to escape.” Several black bags were stowed in the middle of the boat.

  Sophie pushed the door closed behind them and heard it click in place. “We need to hurry! Do we swim out of here?” She could hear voices shouting in the passageway.

  Jessica bent over to untie her shoes. “If we’re planning to get out of here, we’d better do it in a hurry. We only have seconds before they’re standing on the dock beside us, and they don’t sound happy.”

  Jessica now stood barefoot. Sophie kicked off her shoes, and both of them peeled off their outer clothes—leaving only their swimsuits on from earlier—and dove into the water.

  Sophie swam as fast as she could underwater, something she didn’t do as well as swimming on the surface, and hoped Jessica was swimming as fast or faster.

  When Sophie came up for air, she saw that there were four people standing on the dock now, three men and Mrs. Clayton, who no longer had a sweet expression on her face but was instead shouting, “Get them now!”

  As Sophie prepared to dive back under the water and swim for her life, Jessica bobbed up beside her. The two of them at the same moment dove again.

  She followed the stone piers that supported the boathouse and came up for air again at the outside edge of the boathouse. As she did, she heard the sound of a boat coming at them. Jessica came up for air right beside her.

  “If they’ve brought help in a boat, Jessica, we’re sunk.”

  Jessica nodded. Panting, she said, “We’re so close to getting away, but I have to breathe for a couple of minutes before I can go underwater again.”

  When a boat entered the boathouse, Sophie thought they’d lost the battle. Then she saw the best thing that she’d ever seen in her life: Sheriff Valeska standing on the bridge.

  The boat landed at the dock, and officers jumped off. They chased the criminals, who were now trying to make their escape back up the passageway. Sophie and Jessica swam back toward the dock, where the sheriff helped them out of the water.

  “Are you girls okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sophie said. “But we might not have been if you hadn’t arrived. What made you decide to come this way instead of going through the main doors into the chocolate factory?”

  The sheriff said, “Tony, you can come out now.”

  Tony stepped out from the boat’s cabin.

  “I called him as you said to do, Jessica. He insisted on coming along to show us the hidden door in here.”

  Tony jumped down from the boat onto the dock, where Jessica and Sophie high-fived him.

  Sophie said, “Thank you, Tony and Sheriff Valeska. If Jessica hadn’t noticed the phone sitting there, I think we might be toast.”

  The officers led the criminals back toward the boat, all of them handcuffed now including a mean-looking Mrs. Clayton who said, “I planned everything carefully. Salvatore Donadio was supposed to be too busy with that class to notice our activities. Then you kids signed up for it!”

  One man came out in handcuffs with the officer barely touching him, only holding on to the handcuffs themselves. Sophie could see why. The prisoner was covered in bubblegum from the top of his head all the way down to his ankles and shoes. She didn’t know how they’d ever get it out of his hair, and his clothes would have to be thrown away.

  “I thought that the criminal was going to be Kelsey at Buds & Blooms.”

  “Why did you think that, Sophie?” the sheriff asked.

  “She’s the only one who is able to sell the Sweet Bites Chocolates here in town—”

  “That isn’t any reason to suspect someone as a criminal.”

  Jessica said, “She’s been over here talking to her brother, and he didn’t seem happy about something.”

  “I don’t see him here though,” Sophie said.

  “Just in case,” the sheriff said, “we’ll bring him and his sister in to ask them some questions.”

  “You know, Sheriff, if she’s the only one selling the chocolates, she’s also the only one in town who would be receiving the chocolates with the gemstones inside.”

  “Which is the one piece of this that we don’t have. Any of those chocolates.”

  Sophie and Jessica looked at each other, grinning.

  When the sheriff saw that, she asked, “Do we?”

  Sophie nodded. “Yes, we do. There’s a box of the chocolates on the desk upstairs where this secret passage begins.”

  “Did you break them open, though, to see if they had the gemstones inside? That will make them questionable evidence.”

  “No, they have the same design on them though. And we’ve learned here at the chocolate factory that the design on top says what’s inside. The factory doesn’t make that kind of chocolate. It’s their milk chocolate with caramel inside. The only time we’ve ever seen the white chocolate lines on top is when we found the first one with the ruby. The whole box upstairs has those lines on them.”

  The sheriff gave a low whistle. “It sounds like you may have solved this whole mystery, girls. Do you want to hop on board and have us take you out of here by boat, or walk upstairs and go out the doors? Uncle Sal should be here by now. I called him when we were on our way.”

  “I think I’m ready to be out of the water,” Jessica said

  “I agree. I’ve always like to swim, but for a little while I think I’ll stay on land.” As they walked away, Sophie added, “And away from bubblegum.”

  They giggled as they went down the hallway and toward their exit from the building.

  Safe & Surprised

  A SHORT TIME LATER, Sophie and Jessica sat in the sheriff’s office with Uncle Sal and Sheriff Valeska. The girls had run home quickly for dry clothes, then returned as fast as they could. Neither of them wanted to miss a moment of this time when they would learn the whole story.

  “Have you found out anything else?” Sophie asked.

  The sheriff tapped her fingers on her desk. “We’ve learned that Mrs. Clayton isn’t who she said she was. Her fingerprints told us what we needed to know. She has masterminded crimes in the past, but there was never enough evidence to convict her and send her to prison.”

  “Does that mean there is enough evidence this time?”

  “Just her standing on that dock with those men, obviously trying to get the two
of you, would have been enough to bring her in. The box of chocolate with the gemstones though? That was the clincher. Her fingerprint is inside it, and there is a diamond or ruby in each piece. She’s going to go to prison for a very long time. She and all of her henchmen.”

  The sheriff continued. “The surprise was when one of her men said his only job had been to use the rowboat to pick up the package. He claims he wasn’t involved in everything else and hopes to get less punishment by telling what he knows. We finally learned about the boats you saw with the spyglass.”

  Sophie sat on the edge of her seat. “What did you find out, Sheriff?”

  “Remember that stolen car?”

  She, Jessica, and Uncle Sal nodded.

  Uncle Sal asked, “Did they steal it?”

  “No. They usually drove in with the gems but got afraid when they saw my roadblock. They thought I might be after them, so they cleverly used boats to get around it. The man was mad at Erma too because he was sure the police had learned something was wrong when she got greedy and stole the recipe.”

  “What about Kelsey and Kirk Newman?” Jessica asked. “I don’t know him, but she seems like a good person. I guess, though, that people can pretend to be nice. We thought Mrs. Clayton was a sweet lady. She reminded us of Mrs. Bowman at Bananas.”

  Kelsey and her brother walked into the sheriff’s office with one of the deputies right behind them.

  The deputy said, “We caught them on their way out of town.”

  With tears streaming down her face, Kelsey said, “I didn’t want to be involved in this. Kirk got into trouble, and I didn’t know what else to do but to follow Mrs. Clayton’s orders.”

  Kirk put his arm around his sister’s shoulders and pulled her against him for a hug. “It’s all my fault. I needed money and borrowed from one of the men at the factory. When they told me I would have to pay back twice as much, I didn’t know how I could ever do that.”

  Kelsey said, “I wish you’d told me, Kirk. Maybe we could have worked it out.”

  He went on to say, “They gave me another way out. They said chocolate goes well with flowers, so a flower shop would be a perfect place for them to use to send chocolates where they needed to go. They told me that my sister would have to help them, or I would have bigger problems. I didn’t understand what they were doing at first.”

  Still crying, Kelsey wiped her face with the back of her hand and looked at the sheriff. “Kirk told me what they wanted. I couldn’t let anything happen to him. We’re all each other has now. I never knew or even wanted to know what was in the boxes. I simply gave them to whoever asked for them at the shop.”

  Sheriff Valeska perked up in her chair. “You didn’t mail them? Someone came to pick up the boxes in person?”

  Kelsey pulled a chair from over by Clare’s desk, and sat down, leaning forward with her face in her hands. Her words were hard to hear as she spoke again. “Sometimes it would be weeks in between. I’d think they weren’t going to ask me again, but then a box would be delivered one day. Every time, a man wearing a black hat and a red sweater would come within a couple of hours and say, ‘I’m here for the chocolate delivery.’”

  “Was it always the same man?” The sheriff asked.

  “Yes. Always the same man. There’s something about him that seemed more than a little scary.”

  Sophie said, “Sheriff, since there’s a whole box of chocolates, maybe that means that the man is going to pick them up very soon.”

  “I’ve already considered that, Sophie. Kelsey, I think we’ll be able to have the charges against you lessened if you cooperate with us. You shouldn’t have helped the criminals, but you were trying to protect your younger brother. Will you go into your shop and wait for the man to arrive?”

  Kelsey let out a deep sigh. “I don’t have to go to prison?”

  The sheriff said, “I can’t promise anything, but I can put in a good word for you. I think that you might get off with probation.”

  Kelsey put her hand on her chest. “Do I have to be alone when that man comes? Like I said, he’s a little on the scary side.”

  “No. I’ll have my deputies, Fred and Hank, in the back room. When the man comes in, hand him the box and let him walk out the door, exactly as you would any other time. Don’t speak or act differently. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, I promise. What about Kirk, though?”

  “Kirk is young enough that he may be able to get off with a similar punishment, but that’s not for me to decide. He would have to be careful for a long time.”

  Kirk said, “I will never do anything like this again.”

  When the brother and sister had left the office accompanied by deputies, Sophie said, “I guess we can wait here until we find out what happened, right, Sheriff?”

  The sheriff stared at her. “Isn’t there anything you’d rather be doing?”

  Jessica laughed. “Are you kidding?”

  The sheriff’s phone rang, and she picked it up. As she listened to the caller, her eyes focused on Jessica. She said into the phone, “I’ll send her out.”

  Smiling widely, she told Jessica, “There’s someone you want to see outside, Jessica.”

  Jessica’s brow furrowed. “Me? Here in Pine Hill?” She stood.

  The sheriff said, “Yes, step outside the door.”

  Jessica headed toward the door, and Sophie followed her, curious to see what was going on. When they were outside, a car pulled into an open parking space up the street. A man stepped out of the driver’s side and a woman from the other side.

  Jessica yelled and started running towards them. She shouted, “Mom! Dad!”

  Sophie stood back and watched them.

  Jessica was crying. Her mother and dad stood beside her. Her mother kept hugging Jessica close.

  Finally, Jessica called to Sophie, “Come here.”

  Sophie walked over.

  “You haven’t seen my parents since you were little.”

  Sophie smiled at her aunt and uncle. “Jessica’s missed you, so I know she’s happy to see you.”

  “We had to come to make sure she was safe. There’s been a lot happening in Pine Hill.”

  Jessica made a snorting sound that was not at all her usual, ladylike thing to do. “So many things.”

  “I was surprised today when I called my sister and she said I’d find you at the sheriff’s office. Are you in trouble, Jessica?”

  “Not us, Mom. We do have more to tell you now.”

  “More? Another mystery?” Her mother looked from Jessica to Sophie.

  “Yes. There’s only one small piece of it left. Hopefully, that will be solved today.”

  “Have you seen Mom yet?” Sophie asked.

  “We just arrived.”

  “Let’s all go to Great Finds.”

  When Jessica’s parents turned toward their car, Jessica laughed. “We can walk there. Everything in Pine Hill is close enough to walk to.”

  At Great Finds, Mrs. Sandoval hugged her sister and brother-in-law the moment she saw them. Then she stood back and smiled. “We’re so glad you’re here! Come. Let me show you around.”

  Mrs. Sandoval showed everyone around her shop. She even opened the trapdoor in the floor in back to show them the opening to her basement. And she told about how Sophie had discovered it.

  Sophie smiled. “That was another mystery.”

  “It seems we arrived just in time to wrap this one up,” Jessica’s mother said.

  Mrs. Sandoval said, “This one hasn’t been dangerous though. Right, Sophie?”

  Sophie glanced away.

  “Has it, Sophie?” she asked again.

  Sophie looked up and at the other side of Great Finds. “Not really, Mom. Maybe not much. Not until today.”

  The ringing phone saved her from saying more. Mrs. Sandoval gave Sophie a look that said the conversation wasn’t over but reached for the phone. “Hello? . . . Yes, Mandy?” She hung up a couple of minutes later. Turning to her sister and broth
er-in-law, she said, “Our sheriff called to say that Sophie and Jessica have solved another mystery. And she asked if we’d like to learn how it all ended up.”

  “It only became sticky at the end, right, Sophie?”

  Sophie laughed.

  Mrs. Sandoval grabbed her purse, saying, “Let’s all go.” She flipped the sign on the door to “Closed. Be right back.” Then everyone filed out of the shop, and she locked the door.

  As they walked the short distance to the sheriff’s office, a helicopter flew overhead and dropped down to land in the area of the resort. Mr. P., or whatever his name really was, must be leaving now too.

  Sophie had one thing she needed to say to wrap up part of the mystery. “When we get home, Mom, we have something to show you about our house.”

  “Show me?”

  “Aunt April, you’ll be surprised, but in a good way. And it doesn’t involve chocolate.”

  Mrs. Sandoval shook her head. “Okay, girls. I’m curious.”

  Inside the sheriff’s office, they found Uncle Sal and Kelsey from Buds & Blooms.

  After everyone had been introduced and the situation explained to Jessica’s parents and Mrs. Sandoval, Sheriff Valeska said, “The man arrived at Buds & Blooms right on time. She handed him the chocolates and he left. We picked him up on the street, so this mystery is over.”

  Sophie said, “That’s great, Sheriff!”

  Uncle Sal said, “You two are welcome to come to the next chocolate class. I want to make it up to you since this one didn’t go quite as planned.”

  Sophie grinned. “I don’t know about you, Cousin, but I wouldn’t mind another chocolate lesson.”

  Jessica smiled at her parents. “That would be great. But my mom and dad are here now.”

  Uncle Sal said, “They’re welcome too.”

  Jessica’s mother reached over and took her daughter’s hand. “Chocolate? I’d love to come.”