A DEADLY DANISH
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BEACHFRONT BAKERY:
A DEADLY DANISH
(A Beachfront Bakery Cozy Mystery —Book Four)
FIONA GRACE
Fiona Grace
Debut author Fiona Grace is author of the LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY series, comprising nine books; of the TUSCAN VINEYARD COZY MYSTERY series, comprising seven books; of the DUBIOUS WITCH COZY MYSTERY series, comprising three; of the BEACHFRONT BAKERY COZY MYSTERY series, comprising six books; and of the CATS AND DOGS COZY MYSTERY series, comprising nine books.
MURDER IN THE MANOR (A Lacey Doyle Cozy Mystery—Book 1), AGED FOR MURDER (A Tuscan Vineyard Cozy Mystery—Book 1), SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF MURDER (A Dubious Witch Cozy Mystery—Book 1), BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A KILLER CUPCAKE (A Beachfront Bakery Cozy Mystery—Book 1), and A VILLA IN SICILY: OLIVE OIL AND MURDER (A Cats and Dogs Cozy Mystery—Book 1) are each available as a free download on Kobo!
Fiona would love to hear from you, so please visit www.fionagraceauthor.com to receive free ebooks, hear the latest news, and stay in touch.
Copyright © 2021 by Fiona Grace. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright Piyawat Nandeenopparit used under license from Shutterstock.com.
BOOKS BY FIONA GRACE
LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY
MURDER IN THE MANOR (Book#1)
DEATH AND A DOG (Book #2)
CRIME IN THE CAFE (Book #3)
VEXED ON A VISIT (Book #4)
KILLED WITH A KISS (Book #5)
PERISHED BY A PAINTING (Book #6)
SILENCED BY A SPELL (Book #7)
FRAMED BY A FORGERY (Book #8)
CATASTROPHE IN A CLOISTER (Book #9)
TUSCAN VINEYARD COZY MYSTERY
AGED FOR MURDER (Book #1)
AGED FOR DEATH (Book #2)
AGED FOR MAYHEM (Book #3)
AGED FOR SEDUCTION (Book #4)
AGED FOR VENGEANCE (Book #5)
AGED FOR ACRIMONY (Book #6)
AGED FOR MALICE (Book #7)
DUBIOUS WITCH COZY MYSTERY
SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF MURDER (Book #1)
SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF CRIME (Book #2)
SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF DEATH (Book #3)
BEACHFRONT BAKERY COZY MYSTERY
BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A KILLER CUPCAKE (Book #1)
BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A MURDEROUS MACARON (Book #2)
BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A PERILOUS CAKE POP (Book #3)
BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A DEADLY DANISH (Book #4)
BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A TREACHEROUS TART (Book #5)
BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A CALAMITOUS COOKIE (Book #6)
CATS AND DOGS COZY MYSTERY
A VILLA IN SICILY: OLIVE OIL AND MURDER (Book #1)
A VILLA IN SICILY: FIGS AND A CADAVER (Book #2)
A VILLA IN SICILY: VINO AND DEATH (Book #3)
A VILLA IN SICILY: CAPERS AND CALAMITY (Book #4)
A VILLA IN SICILY: ORANGE GROVES AND VENGEANCE (Book #5)
A VILLA IN SICILY: CANNOLI AND A CASUALTY (Book #6)
A VILLA IN SICILY: SPAGHETTI AND SUSPICION (Book #7)
A VILLA IN SICILY: LEMONS AND A PREDICAMENT (Book #8)
A VILLA IN SICILY: GELATO AND A VENDETTA (Book #9)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
“Ali!” came Piper’s voice through the big steel kitchen doors of the bakery. “We’re all out of choco chip cookies!”
“One batch of choco chip cookies coming right up!” Ali yelled back.
Moving swiftly, Ali abandoned the bowl of cupcake frosting she’d been mixing and glided through the kitchen to the cookie making station.
She’d gotten this down to a fine art now. Like an octopus with eight tentacles, she snatched up all the ingredients off the shelves and dumped them onto the steel countertop. Then, flicking her long, thick, blonde braid behind her shoulder, she got stuck in mixing up the new batch.
It was a busy day in Allison Sweet’s bakery, Seaside Sweets. Ever since she’d launched her new product line—a range of cookies—busy had become the new normal. The cookies were going down a storm with the locals and tourists at Willow Bay’s boardwalk, and Ali and her assistant Piper were busier than ever.
Through the connecting doors to the main shop floor, Ali could hear the hubbub of customers. The store must be packed by the sounds of it. She smiled with pride as she worked.
The uptick in business had set Ali’s ambition into overdrive. She’d already drafted up a plan for the bakery’s next venture—Danishes—and was just waiting for a lull in the customers to share her plans with Piper. But that lull just never seemed to come.
Just then, the shrill ring-ring of the store telephone reached her ear drums. A second later, Ali heard Piper yell out, “It’s Teddy!”
At the sound of her brother’s name, Ali’s heart instantly warmed. Her aspiring actor of a big brother was not only her best friend, but her surrogate father figure, having assumed the man of the house role the moment their father Richard walked out on them.
But when Ali realized Teddy had called the store phone rather than her cell, her feelings of comfort were instantly replaced with anguish. Teddy knew he was only supposed to call the store phone in an emergency. Something bad must have happened.
Ali’s heart rate spiked with panic. She hurriedly wiped her flour-ey hands on her apron and rushed through the connecting swing doors to the counter, where her pretty blonde assistant had the phone wedged between her ear and shoulder.
To Ali’s surprise, Piper was chatting happily away into the phone while simultaneously punching a customer’s order into the pay machine. There couldn’t be much of an emergency if Teddy and Piper were chatting away happily, Ali realized, relaxing immediately. Her thespian brother was probably using the term “emergency” liberally. He did have a flair for the dramatic, after all.
“That’ll be fifteen dollars, please,” Piper said to the customer as Ali drew up beside her.
Ali held her hand out for the phone, and Piper simultaneously took
the money from the customer while passing the phone to Ali, and then the two women twirled almost like a ballet in the small space behind the counter so that Piper could reach the till.
Ali, her hand held over the speaker of the phone, said to Piper, “Can you finish the cookies?”
“On it,” Piper said, shutting the till drawer with a ting, before ducking beneath the telephone’s curly cable and disappearing through the kitchen doors.
The customer she’d been serving took her box of goodies and moved away. In her place appeared a young woman with shiny brown hair tied into a high bun. She stepped up to the counter.
Ali didn’t want to keep her drama-prone brother waiting on the line, but serving her customer had to take precedence. So she kept her hand cupped over the speaker—ignoring the vision of her strawberry blonde brother tapping his foot impatiently that appeared in her mind’s eye—and addressed the woman. “Welcome to Seaside Sweets. What can I get you today?”
“Two rainbow cupcakes for the kids, please,” the brunette replied.
For the first time, Ali spotted two shy looking girls in matching pink dresses standing partly obscured behind the customer. They were super cute, and Ali found herself instinctively grinning.
“Do you guys want rainbow sprinkles?” she asked them directly.
She always chose to interact with the kids whenever the opportunity presented itself. She could still remember that surge of pride and triumph she herself felt as a young person—often with the patient encouragement of her father—when she was given the responsibility to speak to servers and clerks. She wanted to make sure every kid’s experience at her bakery was as enjoyable as possible.
These two girls, however, seemed extremely shy. They were both clinging to the waistband of the woman’s jeans, peeping out from either side.
But when the woman looked encouragingly down at them, they both nodded shyly at Ali.
“Two rainbow cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles coming right up!” Ali told them with a friendly grin.
Serving kids special rainbow frosted cupcakes was one of the biggest joys of Ali’s job. She loved to see the smiles on their faces and the excitement in their eyes when they were presented with their tasty cupcakes.
She shoved the phone between her shoulder and ear and got to work scooping rainbow frosting onto the first cupcake base.
She’d intended to serve the woman and her daughters first and deal with Teddy after, but with the phone now against her ear, she discovered that her impatient brother was speaking. In fact, he was repeating over and over in a bored and frustrated voice; “Ali? Ali-ali-ali-ali-ali?”
Not stopping what she was doing, Ali spoke in a hushed voice into the speaker. “Yes, Teddy?”
“Uh! Finally!” her brother cried in her ear. “What on earth is going on there?”
“Well, I’m busy running a business,” Ali stated quietly, in the dry tone she and Teddy often spoke to one another in. “You do know you rang the store phone, don’t you?”
“I had no choice,” Teddy replied, haughtily. “You were ignoring my calls.”
“I wasn’t ignoring them,” Ali replied. She tried to negotiate scooping the frosting while keeping the phone in place between her ear and shoulder. It was easier said than done. “I missed them. Because I am at work.”
“Way to state the obvious,” Teddy said sarcastically.
Ail glanced out across the bakery floor to see that every one of the rustic wooden tables was filled up with customers. Luckily there was no line forming behind the brunette waiting at the counter. Once she’d served the woman and her adorably shy daughters, she’d be able to give Teddy the undivided attention he so clearly craved.
“Teddy-bear, can I call you back?” she said, raising her shoulder even more as the phone slipped a couple of millimeters. “I’m just serving a customer, and then I’ll be free.”
“No! It took me ten attempts to get ahold of you! I absolutely refuse to have Piper as some kind of go-between PA between me and my sister! This is an emergency!”
Ali rolled her eyes. She adored Teddy but he really was a drama-queen sometimes. Piper was her assistant, not her PA, and it was ridiculous to suggest otherwise. But Teddy’s head, as always, was stuck firmly in Hollywood land…
“You know I wouldn’t expect you to answer my calls if you were on set,” Ali hissed in an exasperated tone.
“Will you just listen?” Teddy replied with insistence.
As she began to sprinkle the sparkly bits of candy onto the frosting, Ali cast a furtive glance toward the waiting woman. She was waiting patiently with her daughters and didn’t appear to be annoyed that Ali’s attention was divided.
“Fine,” she hissed, quietly into the phone. “Since I don’t appear to have a choice in the matter, what is it? What’s the emergency? What’s so important you felt the need to ring me multiple times and interrupt me at work?”
Ali’s irritation made her hand shake and rainbow sprinkles began to cascade from the steel scoop onto the floor. For the first time, the woman at the counter frowned at her.
Ali felt immediately awful. She was messing up the order now. Serving her customers with anything less than perfect simply would not do. Each and every one of them had made her dream bakery a success, and they deserved the best. Teddy’s “emergency” would simply have to wait.
Through the phone against her ear, Ali heard Teddy take a deep breath in preparation for a monologue. But before he had a chance to begin, she placed the receiver down on the counter and started all over again.
This time, she scooped the frosting onto the cupcakes with the artistic flourish of a painter at their canvass, swirling perfect peaks like two rainbow mountains. Then she sprinkled the sparkly candy so beautifully all around the peaks that they looked as if they’d been transformed into rainbow snow-covered mountains.
Satisfied, Ali turned around and presented the cupcakes with a flourish across the counter. “Ta da!”
The two young girls’ eyes immediately widened with delight at the sight of the pretty, sparkly, rainbow cupcakes. The taller of the two let go of her mother’s jeans and reached up eagerly, taking her cupcake from Ali.
“Wow!” she cried, her voice now bold and confident.
The younger one went through the same instantaneous transformation as her sister. All signs of shyness seemed to melt away in an instant as she darted out from behind the protective safety of her mother and grabbed the other cupcake.
“Look Amber!” she yelled excitedly to her sister. “They’re sparkly!”
Ali grinned. “Amber?” she asked the older one. “Is that your name?”
Though the girl’s gaze was utterly transfixed on her cupcake, she nodded. “I’m Amber. That’s Georgia.”
Ali smiled. “My mom’s name is Georgia,” she said, remembering with a jolt of anxious dread how her mother was due to visit her bakery, for the first time, that very weekend. It was likely to be a very stressful and fraught two days. Georgia Sweet had made it very known that she disapproved of Ali’s dream to open a bakery. She’d prefer her to still be working in the stuffy, fancy restaurant of Eclair’s, suffering through rude customers and a boss on the verge of a breakdown.
“What do you two say?” the woman prompted the girls.
“Thank you!” they said in unison sing-song-ey voices.
With a big, grateful smile, the woman handed a ten-dollar bill across the counter.
Ali took it and went over to the clackity old till machine. She punched the sale in—the buttons stiff beneath her fingers—and the drawer sprang open with a ping. Ali scooped the change out of the tray and went back to the woman.
“Thank you!” the woman exclaimed, taking the change.
“Come back soon!” Ali replied.
She waved goodbye, and the girls waved in return. Then they all turned and left the bakery.
What a lovely bunch, Ali thought as she watched them exit through the glass door onto the sunny Willow Bay boardwalk.
Suddenly, she remembered Teddy was still waiting on the line, and quickly grasped up the phone from where she’d abandoned it. As she put it to her ear, she heard Teddy’s voice.
“Ali?” he was saying. “Ali? Are you okay? Did you faint? Are you there? Shall I call an ambulance? Ali? Ali?”
“I’m fine!” Ali interrupted. “I was just serving a customer. What did you say?”
“You mean you weren’t even listening to me?” Teddy cried, sounding incredulous.
“I’m sorry!” Ali exclaimed. “I’m listening now. What’s going on?”
As she heard Teddy take a deep breath in her ear, she noticed the rusty till drawer hadn’t closed properly. She went over and pushed against it with her hip, as Teddy’s firm, deliberate voice spoke in her ear.
“I think I’ve found Dad.”
And just like that, the world went silent.
The chatter of the customers in the store and all the hubbub around her melted away. The till drawer she’d been in the midst of pushing closed, shut with a ding that sounded as loud in Ali’s mind as a gong.
Suddenly, nothing felt real. Even the peppermint green checkerboard tiles beneath Ali’s feet began to swirl.
“Y—you…,” she stammered, clutching the phone more tightly. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I think I’ve found Dad.”
The telephone in Ali’s hand became slippery with sweat. She was now gripping it so hard her knuckles had turned white. She grabbed the countertop to steady herself, feeling suddenly unsteady on her own legs.
“Excuse me!” a voice cooed. “Can I get a black filter coffee please?”
Ali glanced over her shoulder to see a man in a gray suit waiting at the counter. She’d been so wrapped up in her own moment she hadn’t even heard the bell over the door tinkle, nor seen the man approach. It took her mind several moments to remember where she was and what she was supposed to be doing.
“Sorry. Yes. Of course,” she mumbled in a stunned-sounding voice to the man.