The Missing Ingredient

by Diane Noble

  “Susannah,” she called. “Wait.”

  Susannah and Birdie turned. As Kate drew closer, she could see the tremor in her friend’s movement, the pallor of her skin.

  Kate gave her a hug. “Hey, are you all right?”

  Susannah shook her head. “I’m ready to walk if he pulls this again.”

  “You and me both,” Birdie sniffed.

  Kate glanced across the foyer toward the tearoom. “How about a cup of tea?”

  Susannah sighed deeply. “A good cup of tea does wonders for the spirit.”

  “Amen to that,” Birdie said. She gave the tearoom a longing gaze. “In fact, next to a big bowl of grits, I can’t think of anything I’d like better.”

  “Unless it would be to get rid of our producer,” Susannah said.

  Birdie laughed. “Like that could ever happen.”

  Chapter Six

  The women had just ordered a plateful of finger sandwiches when Kate heard the Taste crew and audience members vacating the studio and moving into the adjoining foyer.

  “That’s about the only thing Newt does right,” Susannah said. “He gives generous lunch breaks—usually a couple of hours.”

  Birdie snorted. “Only because he wants to get away from the studio himself. Self-serving motives.”

  A handful of network crew members drifted into the tearoom, but most headed for the hotel exit, probably to have lunch at the diner.

  Kate looked up as the third member of the celebrity-chef trio, Nicolette Pascal, came through the door with Daryl Gallagher. The resemblance, once she saw the two of them together, was striking.

  Susannah noticed Kate’s startled expression. “Mother and daughter.”

  “I was going to guess sisters,” Kate said in surprise.

  Birdie chuckled. “Let’s just say that one of the two keeps herself looking very young...and keeps a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon very happy. I’ll leave it to you to guess which one.”

  Though she didn’t know Nicolette or Daryl, Kate didn’t care for the dig or the gossip. Judging from Susannah’s expression, her friend didn’t either.

  The two women stopped by the table just as the waiter brought the tiered crystal plate of finger sandwiches.

  Nicolette’s smile was tight as she surveyed the three women, and Kate suspected it wasn’t caused by her numerous face-lifts. Her gaze beaded in on Susannah. “I hear things didn’t go well this morning.” Her voice held the hint of a French accent.

  “I thought the show went very well,” Susannah said, flushing. “Though I admit there was disagreement in the studio.”

  “You can say that again,” Daryl said sympathetically.

  “Constructive criticism can be a difficult pill to swallow,” Nicolette said, “even if it’s given for our benefit.”

  “I agreed with Susannah this time, Mother,” Daryl said. “Newt was completely out of line.”

  Nicolette tilted her head. “Really,” she said with a half smile. Then she added, strangely, “You have beautiful skin, Susannah.”

  Susannah frowned. “I do?”

  Nicolette nodded. “You’ll probably never have to have any work done, if you know what I mean.”

  “Well, thank you,” Susannah said.

  “When a person is overweight, they can be assured their wrinkles will be minimal. It’s especially nice in front of the camera.”

  “Mother!” Daryl looked stunned.

  Kate caught her breath at the dig. Susannah turned bright red, and Birdie gaped.

  “What did you say?” Birdie’s disbelief was evident in her tone. “I can’t believe what I just heard, especially considering I’m the one who—”

  Looking embarrassed by her mother’s words, Daryl held up a hand. “Ladies, I think my mother and I need to be seated. The hostess is glaring at us from her station.” Then she added, her gaze on Susannah, “If you’ll excuse us...” And the mother-daughter duo walked across the room to their own table.

  “Somebody needs to,” Birdie muttered once they were out of earshot. Then she reached across the table and patted Susannah’s hand. “Don’t let her rude remarks disturb you. She’s just envious of your ratings. It’s her feeble attempt to bring you down a notch.”

  “I’m not disturbed,” Susannah said. “I like myself the way I am.” She picked up her teacup and took a sip, studying the other two women above the rim of her cup. She placed it back in the saucer and sighed. “But I do have to admit this conflict is getting to me. I’m beginning to think maybe this place really is haunted. I don’t discount Newt Keller’s rudeness, but on the other hand, I’ve never seen such nettlesome behavior among the cast and crew. It’s as if there are gremlins running around here trying to tie us all in knots.”

  “Gremlins?” Birdie laughed. “The only gremlin around here is Newt. And he’s more of an ogre than a gremlin. Talk about the one who’s nettlesome, peevish, testy...Shall I go on?”

  Susannah chuckled. “I think we get the picture.”

  The women finished their tea and sandwiches, said their good-byes, then went their separate ways for the remainder of the lunch break—Susannah to her room to prepare for the afternoon taping, and Birdie to hers to rest.

  Kate drove home to fix lunch for Paul, only to find that he’d left a note saying he was having lunch at the diner with the other pastors in town to discuss the issue of ghosts.

  Kate wasn’t hungry, but she felt the need to mull things over, so she pulled out her mixer and the ingredients for her cranberry-walnut oatmeal cookies. There was nothing like baking to help connect the dots in a mystery. She was especially inspired after being around the network that morning.

  She turned on the mixer to cream the eggs and butter, frowning as she worked.

  Two mysteries were bothering her: First, the strange hauntings at the Hamilton Springs. Second, the reported mischief in Susannah’s studio kitchen.

  She added the sifted flour and turned on the mixer again. Her thoughts shifted from the Hamilton Springs ghost to, in her opinion, the more critical of the two mysteries: the sabotaging of her friend’s studio kitchen—and possibly her career.

  Who would do such a thing? And why?

  She ran through the list of possibilities...but none of the suspects or motives seemed plausible.

  After she finished adding the dry ingredients, she turned off the mixer. She poured in her secret ingredient—a capful of almond extract—then stirred in the dried cranberries and nuts.

  A quick glance at the clock told her she had just enough time to bake one sheet of cookies for Paul. She spooned the dough onto the sheet, placed it in the oven, and set the timer.

  Still pondering her very short list of suspects, Kate sighed and sat down at her oak dining table. Who stood to gain the most from the failure of Sumptuous Chocolates?

  One of the other chefs? If so, Nicolette Pascal and Birdie Birge were top suspects, at least until she could prove otherwise.

  Kate rubbed her forehead. She loved it when cookie baking brought a breakthrough in her mystery mullings. Unfortunately, she wasn’t having one of those days.

  Another idea hit her at the same moment the timer chimed. She pulled the cookie sheet out of the oven, turned off the heat, then trotted to Paul’s office and sat down in front of the computer. They didn’t have a high-speed Internet connection, so any research she did at home seemed to take forever. She preferred the computers at the library, which surfed the Web at lightning speed, as well as the company of her dear friend Livvy. But she was in a time crunch, and using a sluggish computer beat taking a detour to the library.

  She did a search for “Susannah Applebaum,” clicked on the first site, then sat back and waited...and waited...and waited as it loaded. Finally, the site was up. Susannah’s photograph was in the right-hand corner, with an article beneath it. Kate’s heart sank as she read.

  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Kate settled into her seat in the studio audience. Renee and Caroline and all the others were in their same seats.
>
  “Guess what we did,” Caroline said to Kate.

  Kate turned in her seat. “I can’t imagine...”

  “Eli drove a bunch of us down to the Mercantile to buy the ingredients for the chocolate drink.”

  Renee broke in. “Well, we bought what ingredients they had. It seems nobody’s ever asked for Mexican vanilla or powder of ancho and chipotle chilies before.”

  LuAnne laughed. “You could’ve knocked the clerk over with a feather when we told him it was for hot cocoa.”

  Renee sniffed. “A drink like that isn’t called cocoa.”

  “If it’s not cocoa, I’ll eat my hat,” Joe Tucker said, his voice booming from two rows back.

  “Get out the ketchup, then,” Renee sniffed. “Because Susannah herself called it Chocolaté Dos Mundos. She also referred to it as the champagne of all chocolate drinks. Never once did she call it cocoa.”

  Kisses, who was sitting on Renee’s lap, seemed agitated. He growled and kept his eyes on the doorway leading to the foyer.

  “There, there, Little Umpkins,” Renee soothed. “Settle down.”

  But Kisses wouldn’t settle.

  “You know,” Renee said, “about this ghost business...it’s said that animals have a sense of that kind of activity. Have you ever observed a cat watching something in the air that you can’t see?”

  Millie Lovelace overheard the conversation and leaned forward. “It’s true. I’ve seen it firsthand.”

  “There’ve been other times,” Renee said, “when I swear Little Umpkins sees things I can’t. It happens all the time at home, doesn’t it, Mama?”

  Caroline harrumphed. “He’s just watching a gnat do loopdeloops. There’s nothing ghostly about that.”

  Kate checked her watch and frowned. The taping was supposed to start at two o’clock sharp. It was now a quarter past, and there was no sign of Susannah. Or Newt Keller.

  No one onstage seemed too concerned. Daryl was her spirited self, chatting with audience members and crew as they set up for the shoot.

  Kate kept an eye out for anything unusual with the setup in the kitchen. Jack, the red-haired kid who dropped the boom mike earlier that day, had apparently been demoted from soundman to kitchen assistant. He joked with others in the crew as he placed the ingredients in bowls and set them on the counter. Utensils and saucepans from the morning segment had been washed and put away, and the kitchen looked spotless.

  Kate breathed a quick prayer for Susannah, hoping the afternoon taping would go much smoother than the morning session. When Kate had driven into the parking lot almost half an hour earlier, she’d noticed that Susannah’s little silver Miata was missing. At lunch, her friend had said she was going upstairs to rest.

  Where could she have gone?

  Kate checked her watch again: 2:31.

  Daryl paced in front of the soundstage, giving crew members directions, checking her watch, rearranging dishes and utensils, then checking her watch again. She was still all smiles, but Kate could almost feel the young woman’s agitation.

  At a quarter to three, Daryl called across the stage to Jack. “I need someone to go up to Newt’s room and let him know we’re waiting. Would you mind?”

  Jack turned red and swallowed hard. “Me?”

  “Yes, you. Please. And on your way up, check on Susannah. She usually runs late, but not this late.”

  Jack flew through the door less than ten minutes later. “He’s not there. Neither is she...Miss Applebaum, I mean. They’re both gone. I checked the parking lot. His Hummer’s missing. So’s her Miata.”

  Chapter Seven

  It was the strangest thing,” Kate said to Paul at dinner that night. She took a bite of his award-winning chili and closed her eyes, savoring the tastes slowly as she exhaled, just as Susannah had told her to do.

  “Is something wrong?”

  She opened her eyes and laughed. “Oh goodness, no. I’m just practicing becoming a foodie, savoring every hint of flavor.”

  He took a bite, chomping with relish. No slow savoring for her man. She loved him for it.

  “You were saying...” he prompted.

  “That Susannah and Newt Keller both disappeared.”

  “Could they have been together?”

  “Not likely. He has a bright yellow Hummer. And she drives a little silver Miata. Both vehicles were gone from the parking lot.”

  “It sounds like the morning was pretty rough sailing. Maybe they each chose to get away and clear their heads.”

  “That’s my feeling as well, but still, I can’t get over some of the threats the cast and crew made to Keller.” She sighed. “The man has a lot of enemies.”

  Paul frowned. “Aren’t you jumping to conclusions?”

  She smiled. “Borrowing trouble, as my mother used to say. You may be right; it seems that way...”

  “Why am I sensing a ‘but’ about to make an appearance?”

  “You know me well. I did an Internet search this afternoon—typed in Susannah’s name just to see what might come up.”

  “And?”

  “According to the article I read, there’s a lawsuit about to be filed against her. Someone got an advance copy of her book Chocolates to Die For and has accused her of plagiarism. Not formally, but the accuser put the charge out there for the public to see. ”

  Paul put down the piece of corn bread he was about to butter. “That’s not good news. Do you think the source is reliable?”

  “It wasn’t a blog. It was in the opinion section of an industry newsletter, Chef’s Corner International. And you won’t believe this: The writer said his source was someone within the Taste Network. But Susannah’s a master chocolatier. She’s even been inducted into the Chocolate Hall of Fame. I really don’t think she would stoop to copying someone else’s recipes.”

  “Plagiarism’s a pretty serious charge. Does it mean there will be a lawsuit?”

  “Nothing was said about formal charges.” Kate took another bite of chili. “It’s clear to me that someone doesn’t want that cookbook published. Why, I don’t know. Somehow it fits into the same category as the break-in at her home office and the studio-kitchen tampering.”

  Paul shot her a smile as he stood to clear their dishes from the table. “I’m hoping this means more cookies are on the way while you puzzle out this latest wrinkle. The ones you made this afternoon were the best yet.” He grabbed a plate of cranberry-walnut oatmeal cookies and brought it to the table.

  Kate chuckled. “Wait till I serve you Chocolaté Dos Mundos. Talk about chocolate to die for...”

  THE NEXT MORNING, Kate arrived at the hotel a few minutes before eight. The parking lot was full, though she suspected that most of the cars belonged to the studio audience rather than the hotel guests. Which brought her back to Sybil’s dispute with Newt Keller over capitalizing on the notoriety of the hotel as a premier site for ghost watching.

  Now that she could believe of the man. It didn’t surprise her that he wasn’t sympathetic to the hotel’s plight.

  She reached the hotel entrance and turned, realizing she hadn’t seen Keller’s bright yellow Hummer. She scanned the packed parking lot. That vehicle would stand out from the crowd.

  It wasn’t there.

  But Susannah’s Miata was. Kate let out a sigh of relief. Then she squinted as something caught her eye: caked, dried mud on the tires and wheel wells.

  Curious, she walked closer to the car and stooped down to get a better look. It was a kind of red clay she’d seen somewhere before. She pondered it for a moment but couldn’t remember where.

  The door to the Sumptuous Chocolates coach whooshed open, startling Kate. She stood so fast she almost lost her balance.

  All smiles, Susannah descended the steps, dressed just as she had been the day before—black slacks and a gleaming white chef’s jacket.

  “What a pleasant surprise to find you at my doorstep.” She walked over to where Kate stood by the Miata. Then she frowned as she followed Kate’s gaze to the
muddy tires. “You’re probably wondering where I disappeared to yesterday afternoon.”

  “Not just me. The audience, the crew...Everyone was worried.” She fell in step with Susannah as the two headed for the hotel entrance.

  “And I can only imagine what Newt had to say about the no-show.”

  There was something in Susannah’s expression that bothered Kate, but she couldn’t pin it down.

  “He wasn’t here either.”

  Susannah stopped in her tracks. “You’re kidding. Mr. Perfect actually missed a taping?” She chuckled. “I wish I’d known. I would have enjoyed my afternoon a lot more.” Again, the fleeting, indiscernible look.

  They reached the entrance, and Kate opened the door to let her friend enter the foyer.

  “He’ll probably still give me grief this morning. If not for missing the taping yesterday, he’ll conjure up something else.” She shook her head slowly, then stopped next to the entrance leading to the studio kitchen and risers. “Kate, there’s more going on in my life that I haven’t told you about. For one of the first times in my life, I’m feeling completely bumfuzzled.”

  “Bumfuzzled?”

  Susannah grinned. “My word for overwhelmed. I don’t feel quite so overwhelmed if I call it by a different name.” Her expression sobered. “I can’t tell you everything right now, but I promise I will as soon as I can. Seriously, Kate, I need your prayers.”

  “You have them, Suse.”

  “I remember how your family prayed together when we were kids. And I can see a peace and calm in you that I envy. Something tells me you spend a lot of time in prayer.”

  Kate started to say something, but Susannah held up a hand to continue. “All I’m saying is that someday maybe I’ll be able to pray again, but in the meantime, will you pray for me? I’ve never needed it more.”

  Kate gave her a hug. “You didn’t even need to ask.”

  Susannah smiled, then regaining her composure, hurried off toward Daryl, presumably to discuss the taping, and Kate headed up the risers to where her friends were already seated.

  Livvy adjusted her chair to make room for Kate to sit down. Renee moved hers slightly in the opposite direction, though Kisses, who’d been sitting in Kate’s seat, didn’t budge. A puff of Youth-Dew descended on them all as Renee stood to retrieve Kisses from his perch. He cast a doleful look at Kate as if she’d caused him personal injury by requiring him to move.