The Sweet Baked Mystery Series - Books 1-6

by Katherine Hayton

  “That’s ridiculous!” Holly said, indignation making her voice shake. “All it will take is a hair follicle test to show you’re clean. They’ll have to change their tune then.”

  “It won’t matter,” Crystal cried out. Tears began to slip down her cheeks, turning to streaks of silver in the cold fluorescent light. “Once they’ve put me in that box in their minds, nobody’s going to change their opinion. You should have seen the way the sergeant looked at me when he asked about it. No matter what I said, he wrote me off as guilty.”

  “Who would even tell him something like that?” Holly demanded. “Until last week, even I didn’t know.”

  Crystal shook her head. “The only person I ever told was Derek. As far as I know, he only told his dad.”

  “I’m sure that Derek wouldn’t tell them.”

  “I’m not,” Crystal said, sadness overwhelming her voice so that it emerged as a whisper. “He probably believes that I killed his dad.”

  “No, he doesn’t. He told me that he didn’t think you had anything to do with it at all.”

  As Holly said the words, she thought of Derek’s face as he stood in the lounge of his home. Sitting alone for hours, staring at the liquor cabinet on the wall.

  No. Holly didn’t believe for a moment that Derek thought Crystal had done it. Instead, another option crept into her mind.

  When she got home, the first thing Holly would do is give Derek a call.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Did you tell the police that Crystal used heroin?”

  Holly had tried to think of fancy ways to tiptoe around the subject, but she was too angry for any finesse.

  “What? No! I haven’t talked to the police at all since the first day!”

  “I find that hard to believe,” Holly said. She didn’t want to aim a baseless accusation at him, but with no other possibilities for the culprit, she also didn’t want to let him slink away. “The only person she ever told that story to was you. I’m her sister, and I only knew about it because your dad let loose with it outside our house, that day. Who else did you tell, if you didn’t tell the police?”

  “Nobody.” Derek’s breath altered to quick pants, he was obviously distressed. “The only person I ever repeated that to was Dad, and that was when I tried to make him see that Crystal knew what I’d been through.”

  Derek broke off for a second, sounding like he covered the phone with his hand. When he came back on the line, Holly could tell that he’d been crying. “I swear on my life, that’s the only time I shared her story. After the mess I made of that, I’d never have told anyone else.”

  Everything in his voice screamed at Holly that Derek was telling the truth. But believing him left her with nowhere to go.

  “How could someone know that, then? Who would go to the police with something that mean?”

  “Maybe Crystal had told that story before,” Derek suggested. His voice was hesitant, as though expecting at any moment that Holly would attack again. “She’s been in recovery a long time, and when you start to offer up the shameful parts of your life, sometimes it’s hard to keep track.”

  Holly accepted the answer. She didn’t really believe it, but since it wasn’t Derek’s fault, she couldn’t heap a dismissal of his suggestion on top of her accusations.

  “Perhaps you’re right. I’m sorry for yelling at you.”

  Derek sounded calmer when he answered, “That’s okay. If I thought you’d told on Crystal to someone, I’d have been yelling at you, too!”

  After saying goodbye and hanging up the phone, Holly ran a hand through her hair. It felt like tangled threads were lying about every place. Each time she grabbed hold of one to follow it to the logical end, it instead led to another messy knot. No amount of unpicking had yet worked. Holly began to despair that she’d ever find the picture hiding behind that pattern.

  Patterns!

  She pulled out her phone again, looking at the notebook photos. A lot of the pictures cut off on one side or another. Perhaps there was something in the margins that explained the system better. Something that she couldn’t see.

  Mittens would need feeding soon, anyway. Would it really hurt anybody if Holly took another look at the original? Remembering the lights going out earlier, she grabbed a flashlight from under the sink and walked out the door.

  Due to her late arrival, Mittens was once again ecstatic to see her. Holly had designated his care to Crystal for the night she’d been in the hospital.

  Given her sister’s faint animosity to all felines, Holly had been glad to pick up the task again as soon as she could get out of bed.

  Now the cat wound through her legs. The figure eight was easy to predict once Holly grew accustomed to it, and she no longer felt in danger of tripping. Food down, she ceased to exist to the small cat and took the chance to walk upstairs.

  The lights were on, thank goodness. Even with a flashlight, it wasn’t a situation Holly relished. Just walking around the stranger's house, knowing she was going places that its owner wouldn’t want her to, was bad enough.

  On the other hand, if she found information that traced back to the real killer, perhaps Brian Masters wouldn’t be averse to her sneaking around at all.

  Cheered by the thought, Holly boldly walked into his bedroom, crossing straight to his bedside table. The notebook wasn’t there.

  Thinking it may have been her clumsiness, placing it too close to the edge, Holly ducked her head down and searched under the table, then under the bed.

  Nothing. The notebook wasn’t gone by accident. Someone had taken it away deliberately.

  Holly frowned as she thought of the person most likely to do that. Humphrey had keys to this place, had been inside it just a week before. Why on earth would he want that notebook? As far as Holly could see, it wasn’t for keeping track of accounts at all. There would be no other legitimate use for the accountant to take it away.

  Running downstairs again, Holly pulled out her phone. The answer to her question must surely lie inside these pictures. If only she could work out the other symbols, she might understand its worth.

  Mittens was still occupied with his bowl, so Holly sat one room away, staring at the photographs. She went through to the kitchen to fetch some scrap paper, picking it up out of a memo cube by the phone.

  The card hands she knew, so Holly quickly reproduced one page of those with their real symbols. The values to the side she also wrote out, adding a dollar sign after a short moment of consideration. She couldn’t imagine another use for the figures apart from that.

  There was just one more symbol on each page to decipher. A pyramid. A shield. A tube with lines across. A house.

  After staring for a few minutes, Holly decided that the pyramid wasn’t that at all. There was a wavy line a third of the way down from the top. A snowy mountain? That seemed a better bet. It also looked vaguely familiar.

  Heading back to the kitchen, Holly searched in the cabinets under the phone, trying to find a yellow pages. When she came up empty-handed, she moved through to the dining room, then the lounge. She finally struck gold in the woodpile next to the log burner. It wasn’t this years’ version—that must still be tucked in away elsewhere in the house—but it wouldn’t matter for her purposes.

  Holly flicked through the business pages, not reading the listings but letting her eyes relax and scan the pages for signs and logos instead. When she found the entry she’d been looking for, Holly could have kicked herself.

  Alice’s café. She remembered the symbol from the badge that the woman always wore. The bakery shop looked straight over to that same business logo on the sign above it every single day. Why Holly hadn’t recognized it straight away, she didn’t know.

  After writing Alice’s name down next to the symbol, Holly stared at the remaining assortment with fresh eyes. Occupations. Businesses. If one was Alice’s then who did the others represent?

  The shield. Not a shield after all, but a badge. Holly felt her heart sink into
her stomach as her mind pulled that one together. The dexterity with shuffling cards—the computer monitor always clearing to show a poker game.

  Holly wrote in the name PC Dale Raggorn next to the badge.

  Two down, two to go.

  The tube with intersecting lines could be piping, or it could be money. A bank manager? A financier? Holly shook her head and let it go. The last symbol was a house. That one she also realized she knew. Real estate. The picture had been drawn in with more care because it referred to the man doing the drawing.

  Brian Masters.

  And if Mr. Masters was the link here, then the financier must go to Humphrey. The same person who was trusted with Brian Masters’ house keys was the final name in the game.

  Alice. Dale. Humphrey. Brian.

  The money next to the cards against Brian’s name was on the right and on the other three were to the left. Holly didn’t remember much from her economics class at high school before Excel took over the world. She could remember one thing, though.

  Credits on the right. Debits on the left. Alice, Dale, and Humphrey all owed Brian Masters money.

  A lot of money.

  This late at night, it felt wrong to be out alone. Even though the two restaurants next to the bakery were still in full swing—serving a lot more alcohol than meals judging by the volume—the dark night felt oppressive. Clouds overhead blocked the usual clear view of the stars, and the moon had faded away to a tiny sliver.

  The light from the restaurants shone brightly out the front, onto the courtyard and the street, but when Holly ducked around to the back of the bakery, it was a different story. With the afterglow of brightness hanging in her vision, she navigated the keys into the lock by touch only. The tip juddered around several times before finally slotting home.

  It was only once indoors that Holly remembered her flashlight. Doh! She flicked the beam on, not wanting to turn the main lights on in case revelers tried to enter, seeking a late night snack. The ledger was on the bench, right where she’d left it. Holly stepped forward, about to pick it up, when she heard a key turning in the front door.

  Who on earth could that be?

  Holly switched off the flashlight and ducked in behind the side oven, peeking around the edge to keep an eye on the door.

  It couldn’t be Crystal. Had she passed on the keys to Ben next door at some point? Given he watched over the premises for them so often, it made some sense.

  Still, there was no reason for anybody to be in here this late at night.

  Each breath sounded loud in the still bakery. Holly switched to breathing in and out through her nose. While waiting, she turned the flashlight around in her hand. If she had to strike out at an intruder with it, they’d now get the end, heavy with batteries.

  Cabinets were opened and closed. Holly even heard the sound of the serving tray door sliding across.

  A cupcake thief? They were about to get a nasty surprise if they were. Holly stood up and tiptoed closer, raising the makeshift weapon up, ready to strike. Just as she reached the door, her hip bumped against the counter. Whoever was in the shop, turned and ran for the door.

  Holly yelled and gave chase, but in the darkness, she didn’t see the low drawer pulled out to its full length. Her foot snagged under it, and she went sprawling. The flashlight flew out of her hand, the bulb breaking on impact. Her chin hit the floor and snapped her mouth closed so quickly that she bit a chunk of the inside of one cheek.

  With the air driven from her lungs, Holly lay on the floor for a couple of seconds, before the urge to give chase reasserted itself. She got to her feet, limping where the drawer had snagged against her lower leg. By the time she got to the door, whoever had been inside the bakery was gone.

  Chapter Twenty

  “I told you,” Holly said, losing patience. “I didn’t see who it was. Whoever it was had a set of keys and they didn’t have any business being here at this time of night.”

  “We’ll check with Crystal to see who else might have a set,” PC Raggorn said. “But if you surprised whoever it was by storming around from out the back, they might have run away just because you scared the living daylights out of them.”

  “They were in my shop, rifling through my drawers after ten o’clock at night.” The words were difficult to get out, Holly’s teeth were gritted together so hard. “If they had genuine business here, they would have turned on the light!”

  “You didn’t.”

  Dale looked so cheerful saying the words that Holly could have strangled him.

  “I own the shop. I don’t have to turn on the lights.”

  “Well, once Crystal gives us a list of names, I’m sure we’ll rapidly chase down the culprit.” Dale snorted. “It’s probably your accountant or that weird guy who looks after the shop some days. They’ll be at home, trembling with fear after their close encounter.”

  “They should tremble with fear,” Holly muttered, then she frowned. “Why would Humphrey have a key?”

  “I don’t know that he does,” Dale said and sighed. “It was just a suggestion. I don’t know whether he does or not.”

  Holly waved her hand at him impatiently. “That’s not what I’m saying. He’s an accountant. Why would he need the key to this place at all?”

  “Because he runs the real estate portion of Brian Masters’ business.” Dale frowned at her. “You should know that, surely. He comes around at least once a month to do a formal inspection and make sure that no damage has occurred.”

  “Once a month?” Holly was flabbergasted.

  “What? Isn’t that the way they do things back in the city?”

  “It’s not the way they do things anywhere, far as I know.”

  The PC shrugged and put his notebook away in his chest pocket. Holly wanted to ask him something else, but she was scared to. To hold him there a minute longer, she inquired about progress on the car accident instead.

  “Nothing new has happened since you asked me a couple of hours ago,” Dale said with a grin. “Look, I know you’re worried about your sister, and it looks like you’ve bruised the heck out of your shin, but try not to worry. By this time tomorrow, you’ll have a reasonable explanation.”

  He turned to go, and Holly took a deep breath, summoning her courage. “How much money did you owe Brian Masters?”

  Dale stopped in his tracks, turning back to her with a wary expression on his face. “What do you mean?”

  In for a penny…

  “I have some notes that show that you, Humphrey, and Alice all owed Brian Masters a significant amount of money. Thousands. Maybe tens of thousands.”

  A thunderstorm started up behind Dale’s brow, sweeping across his face in a gathering force. “I don’t owe Brian Masters anything,” he said slowly, pausing for emphasis between every word.

  A pulse started to beat high up in Holly’s throat. She swallowed, the action stuck halfway through with the dryness of her mouth and the tightening of her muscles.

  “Who ran us off the road, Dale?” Holly paused for a second, seeing his eyes flick from side to side with the change in tack. “Or should I say, who ran YOU off the road? You see, I don’t think that whoever did that even knew I was in the car.”

  “Don’t be silly. You were sitting right beside me in the passenger seat. Or are you suggesting our attacker was blind, too?”

  “I’d bent down,” Holly said, thinking back to ensure she had her memory of that day in the right order. She frowned in concentration. “I leaned forward to pick up that silly daisy chain. It was just out of reach of my fingertips, and I had to keep reaching out, getting lower and lower. I would have been out of sight.”

  Dale’s face cleared as he came to a decision. “If you want to make some kind of accusation toward me, or report a fact you think relevant to Brian Masters’ attempted murder case, then you should come down to the station and file a formal report. Do you want to do that?”

  Holly did. She desperately wanted to do that and have someone smarter
and more experienced in these things pull her random string of facts together. But what evidence could be shown?

  Some photographs that Holly shouldn’t have, from a notebook that had gone missing. Arbitrary conclusions she’d drawn about symbols that could perhaps be explained another way.

  “Go home, Holly.” Dale’s voice was kind. That she’d laid out her accusation and he still treated her nicely, told Holly that she must be headed down the wrong track.

  She wanted to cry. Even more, she wanted someone to fold her into their arms and hug her, telling her that everything would be all right. Even if it wouldn’t, for a moment Holly was prepared to suspend her disbelief just so she could have a moment of calm.

  There was no one to do that, though. Holly’s husband had quit that job. This man in front of her might once have applied for the position, but not now. Holly wiped a tired tear away with one finger.

  “Go home.”

  Yes. That sounded like a perfect place to be.

  It didn’t take long for Holly to realize that the figures recorded in the ledger, and those found in the regular accounts provided by Humphrey were completely different things. She stared at the differences, comparing them to the amounts that he owed Masters, judging by the notebook photos.

  Even with the total he seemed to be filtering out of their business under the guise of expenses that Holly suspected weren’t true, the numbers didn’t add up. Not to anywhere near enough.

  Time to put in a call to her friends.

  Even though it was now after eleven at night, Meggie answered her call. The initial panic of someone fearful that a call that late could only be bad tidings, faded into relief that it wasn’t anything like that. As Holly explained herself more thoroughly, it transformed again, into doubt.

  “I’ve had Humphrey doing my accounts since I first opened,” Meggie insisted. “If he were fiddling the books, then I wouldn’t have just gone downhill in the last few years.”