The Sweet Baked Mystery Series - Books 1-6

by Katherine Hayton

  Amber stared to her right side as though the blank wall held all the answers in the universe. “Everything caught up with me when I was lying in that hospital bed. I couldn’t believe the terrible things that I’d done.”

  Holly didn’t know if the muffled bang outside was her imagination or the police attempting an entry. She coughed immediately, to cover the sound.

  “Maybe you should talk to a lawyer about that,” she said, catching Amber’s eyes and holding them with her straightforward gaze. “In cases like yours, there are all sorts of mitigating factors.”

  Amber met her gaze for another minute, then her eyes swept away, and she raised up the hand with the scalpel still clutched in the sweaty fist. “I don’t think so.”

  “No!” Holly shouted, launching herself forward at the woman. “Don’t do that. Please!”

  Amber fought back against her. “Why do you care? I’m nothing to you!”

  Holly struggled to hold onto Amber’s hands, the blade glinting in the light pouring through the shop window. Even with the treat of danger to herself, she uncovered a more profound truth.

  “I lost my mother when I was a teenager,” Holly said, panting between words as she continued to fight Amber for control of the scalpel. “I lost my father less than a year ago, and my husband tossed me out soon after that. I even managed to lose my boyfriend the other day.”

  Amber twisted away, pulling one arm free to pummel Holly on the shoulder. Holly refused to relinquish her grip, gritting her teeth and bearing down as she forced the hand with the blade clutched in it down to the floor.

  “I’ve lost so many people that I love, that I’m not prepared to give up my half-sister, as well.”

  Amber’s hand spasmed and her body jerked in surprise.

  “I may only have met you,” Holly continued, finally getting the hand flat on the floor and plucking the scalpel out to send it flying across to hit the far wall. “But I’m not giving up on you yet, and I don’t think you should, either.”

  As Holly relaxed her grip and turned to face her half-sister again, the police broke through into the bakery and stamped across the floor.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Sit down, for goodness sake,” Crystal instructed her sister. “You’re shaking like a leaf.”

  “I’d rather keep busy,” Holly insisted, picking up the mop and pushing it across the floor. Without the addition of soapy water, it was less effective than usual.

  Crystal snorted and pulled the instrument out of her hands, pointing to the chair. “Sit! I’m serious.”

  Holly obeyed the instruction, her legs close to giving way. After the police had taken Amber away to the station cells, Holly had insisted that she was perfectly fine—she didn’t need to visit the hospital. The delayed reaction had set in soon after.

  “Why don’t you just head on home?” Crystal wrung out the mop and started in on a second run over the floor. “It’s not as though we’ve got customers beating our door down.”

  “I don’t really want to be alone at the moment,” Holly whispered in a moment of raw honesty. Alone meant she’d have nothing to distract her from listening to her thoughts. Nothing to see that would be more interesting than the play-by-play repeat inside her head.

  “Are you okay?” Aidan stood in the doorway, his body still halfway outside. “I heard what happened.”

  “How did you hear?” Holly asked between teeth that had started to chatter in the most ridiculous fashion. It wasn’t that cold. They should stay still and do what she told them.

  “Well, actually we saw you being hauled past and the police yelling for everyone to stay indoors.” Aidan swung his arm around to point at the far away Supermarket. “I ignored them and hung out over there since they wouldn’t let anyone closer. Matthewson just walked by to give us the all-clear.”

  Crystal frowned. “It’s been a while.”

  “I think he forgot,” Aidan said. “And I didn’t want to come barging in here if they were collecting evidence or something.” He turned back to Holly, sweeping his eyes across her face. “Are you okay? You look dreadful.”

  A host of indignant retorts sprang up behind Holly’s closed mouth, but she couldn’t speak them over the trembling of her lips.

  “No,” Crystal answered for her. “I don’t think she’s all right at all. Take her out of here, would you?”

  Aidan hooked a hand under Holly’s arm to support her out of the chair, but she batted it away. “No,” she said, needing to take a deep breath afterward, the word had come out on such a gush. “We’re broken up.”

  “Are we?” Aidan said, his voice full of surprise.

  Crystal’s head turned, eyebrows raised. “Is that true?”

  “I mean…” Aidan hesitated between words. “I know that I let myself get out of hand the other day.” He hung his head forward, his cheeks flushing red with shame. “My cousin already dragged me over the coals for being an idiot. But I didn’t think…”

  Now, his lower lip was trembling. Holly stared at him in confusion. “You spent ten minutes in a public place telling me I betrayed you. What else did you mean?”

  “Betrayed you!” Crystal blushed. “Sorry. I’ll let you two talk in private. Don’t get too loud, though,” she warned. “I’m just going out the back.”

  As she walked through into the kitchen, Holly laughed. Crystal had tilted her head so far back toward them, it would be a miracle if she didn’t overhear every word.

  “I’m sorry about what happened last week.” Aidan frowned. “Not what happened,” he corrected. “What I did. My emotions got all riled up, and I let them come flooding out instead of thinking them over.” He sighed. “It didn’t help that a big, muscular mechanic was standing by the table, looking all manly in comparison.”

  “In comparison to what?” Holly asked, confused. “To me?”

  Aidan shuffled his feet, staring down at the floor as though hoping a giant sinkhole would appear to gobble him up. “No. Compared to me. I’m sorry. I mucked up that evening, and now I’m mucking up my apology.”

  He tilted his head back, closing his eyes for a second. “You weren’t to know this, but Esmerelda and I had a spate of trouble with Joan—sorry, Elvira—skipping school last year. It got so bad that the school rang to find out if we’d unenrolled her, they hadn’t seen her in so long.”

  Holly shifted in her seat. “I know,” she admitted. “Elvira came and told me.”

  “She did?” Aidan stared down at her in surprise, then shook his head. “She must trust you a lot more than I thought. We don’t really talk about that time, much. Her mother was very ill, and none of us really knew what we were doing. I’ve been terrified that Elvira will slip through the cracks between what we should be doing for her and what we actually are. I guess that came out in a rush of misplaced anger.”

  “I should have told you about bumping into her,” Holly said, uncomfortable about letting Aidan take all the blame. “Or, if not you, I should have let Esmerelda know. I suppose I’m not used to caring for children. When I saw her and her friends out of class, I just thought of how it felt when I skipped school.” Holly smiled and shook her head. “I guess I’m not good at this adulting at all.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Aidan said with a teasing lilt in his voice. “You’re absolutely terrible at being an adult. I, on the other hand, just scream at my girlfriend in public places.”

  Holly started to giggle, the happiness in sharing a memory painting over the awfulness of experiencing it the first time.

  “I don’t want to break up with you,” Aidan burst out. “If you’ll just let me try, I’m sure I can make it up to you. I promise I’ll take things slowly.”

  Holly thought back to all their dates, each ending with a chaste kiss on the cheek. Even though her legs were still shaking, she stood, holding the edge of the table, just in case. “Aidan, I swear that if we move any slower, we’ll be walking backward.” Holly leaned forward, letting go of the support of the table to link her arms beh
ind the back of Aidan’s neck. She stepped forward, her body slotting into his as though they were designed as a matching set.

  “How about you let me set the pace for a while?” Holly suggested. She pulled his head down toward her as she angled her own face up, meeting in the middle with a kiss—for once on the lips. A spark shot through her, pleasantly tingling down the length of her spine.

  “That sounds like a good idea,” Aidan whispered when she came up for breath.

  “If it doesn’t work out, then we can always just travel back to Hanmer alone,” Holly said, getting out of the car. “It’s not as though we’ve contracted to have her on a permanent basis. The courts have both locations as her bail addresses. As long as we keep them informed, it’s no skin off their nose.”

  The courts had granted their step-sister bail, accepting that with no priors and the alleged criminal activity having been confined to a specific purpose, she posed little threat to the public. Considering that Sophie—who’d suffered most at Amber’s hands, after Steven Willoughby—supported her application had also gone a long way in the court’s eyes.

  Holly didn’t think that under the same circumstances, she’d have been as quick to offer her forgiveness. Where others might see the generosity as being simple or foolish, Holly admired the strength of spirit that allowed Sophie to open up her heart and let go of past injustices.

  Oddly enough, the short stint away from his mother seemed to forced Matthew into an attitude of more independence. Although Holly would never say the circumstances amounted to a good thing, when they’d visited him—shortly before coming here—it had been a refreshing surprise to see he no longer hid behind his mother’s skirts.

  “What if she stabs me to death in the middle of the night?” Crystal stared at her sister out of wide eyes. “I like to think the best of people, but I’m not sure that’s wise in these circumstances.”

  “So far, the only person she’s stabbed is herself.” Holly slammed the car door shut and turned up the short front path. “If you’re that anxious, though, just hop over to Alec’s for a few nights, and I’ll take the chances.”

  Crystal blushed at the mention. Despite her horror when Holly tried to set her up with the pleasant mechanic, when Alec had dropped by a few nights later to see if Crystal might be partial to a bite out, she’d agreed with such haste that if their mother had still been alive, she would have muttered about being unseemly. Since then, they’d spent a great deal of their free time together. So much so that Holly felt her own relationship was stalling in comparison.

  Eyes on your own page, she had to remind herself.

  “Are you sure about this?” Crystal asked again as Holly stood poised to knock. “We don’t know Amber at all, except by the trail of bad things she’s done. If you want to turn around and leave now, nobody will think less of you.”

  Holly shook her head. The burst of affection that she’d felt toward Amber as she struggled to save her life recurred now, though at a dim echo of how it had felt initially. Still, she wanted a familial connection. If Amber turned out to be as horrible as her deeds appeared to make her, then that could be dealt with in its own time.

  For now, there was only the hope that here lay another part of their family. A piece that didn’t appear welcoming on the surface but might yet hold rewards.

  “I’m sure,” Holly said and knocked.

  Chapter One

  Holly Waterston pulled the collar of her coat up to cover her nose. Too late. It had already turned bright red in response to the crisp frost.

  “Hurry up,” Crystal called back to her. “I’m freezing.”

  “So am I,” Holly grumbled under her breath, but tried to increase her speed. She was terrified of the ice layering the sidewalk outside the bakery. Even though their destination was just over the road and a block down, at the rate she was traveling, it might take another fifteen minutes.

  “Go on ahead,” Holly called back to Crystal. “Get the place warmed up for me.”

  Her sister must have been cold because she took off straight away, nodding in agreement. Usually, Crystal would still have waited, muttering invectives all the while.

  The frost formed delicate white patterns over the dark tarmac and Holly aimed her foot at a dull patch, hoping that would mean less ice. Although she loved the cold—loved snow and the slender icicles that formed on the end of pine tree branches on these cold winter mornings—she’d never developed the knack of dealing with it. Her sense of balance wasn’t good enough to navigate a snowfield or an ice-skating rink. Now, even the short stretch of road between her and the Hanmer Springs resort might do her in.

  “Quick, quick,” Holly panted as she finally made it to the door of the shop a few minutes later. “Give me any heaters or hot beverages you have on hand.”

  Susan, the realtor, turned to her and laughed. “Oh, dear. You look like you had a fight with a snowman and lost.”

  “I feel like it, too.”

  “The heating’s on, but it might take a bit longer before it warms up,” Crystal said. “Come through the back and run your hands under some warm water. That did the trick for me.”

  “Yeah, sorry about the heat,” Susan said, following the two of them through to the kitchen. “I meant to be here a lot earlier, but my daughter insisted that she was going to school dressed in a tutu and ballet slippers.”

  Holly laughed as she held her hands under streaming water that barely qualified as warm but was the hottest her red hands could stand. “I remember occasions like that as a child. Did she throw the obligatory tantrum when you insisted on her changing?”

  “Pete stuck her outside on the back lawn for five minutes.” Susan seemed caught halfway between amusement and worry. “He thought that would change her mind, but Melinda just got more determined. Sometimes, I think my husband doesn’t understand our daughter at all.”

  “What convinced her in the end?” Crystal asked.

  Holly laughed and added, “Presuming that she didn’t actually arrive at school in her ballet outfit.”

  “I bribed her.” Susan shook her head, the gleaming strands of her dark chestnut bob trailing across her face until she hitched them safely back behind an ear. “I always thought that I’d have a knack for mothering, but when it comes down to it, I don’t have a clue. Now, I have to take her out to the old cemetery by the Inglewood Manor. She loves that old place. I don’t know why.”

  “My boyfriend likes to do gravestone rubbings out there,” Holly said. “It’s a beautiful place. I can understand the attraction.”

  Tears welled in Susan’s dark blue eyes. “I can’t help feeling that I’m raising a monster.”

  At that, Crystal burst into a wave of merry laughter. “Oh, yeah. A monster who haunts cemetery’s in her tutu. I can just imagine the future headlines.”

  “I think I’ve got feeling again.” Holly turned off the taps and wiped her hands. “How about you show us the attractions of this place?”

  Crystal grabbed her sister’s arm to hold her back while Susan brightened and started to point out the lovely features. The shop was a lot newer than the current bakery and—best of all—was located right inside the complex that housed the Hot Springs. Since that was the biggest tourist attraction going, the increase in foot traffic would be exponential.

  Unfortunately, so was the rent.

  “I don’t know how your mission to find new businesses for us to deliver to turned into us inspecting a new shop.” Crystal spoke in a voice low enough that Susan didn’t seem to notice.

  Holly also thought that the realtor was probably professional enough to let her clients chatter amongst themselves without interruption. ‘Let them talk themselves into it,’ had been one of her dad’s favorite phrases when it came to doing business. He’d been talking about cupcake purchases, of course, but the same principle applied.

  “It’s a good location, and it’ll be snapped up in an instant.” Holly ran her finger along the bench. Smooth wood, none of the dents and acc
idental chips of age. No matter how much they polished and cleaned their current place, it would never be this new again. “Besides, if we can get enough impulse purchases coming through, we mightn’t have to depend on deliveries at all.”

  “Or we’ll end up with both and be run ragged.”

  Holly shrugged. “I hardly think that counts as a crisis. We can always employ somebody else if the need is there.”

  “Now, here is the serving window.” Susan lifted up a sliding door mounted halfway along the bench. “You can pop anything through there when it’s ready.”

  “Just a moment.,” Holly ran through to the other side to see the hands waving through. “Isn’t that so much better than just walking through a door?”

  Crystal rolled her eyes. “Yeah, magic. Are the ovens hot or cold?”

  The realtor stopped mid-sentence and turned around with a puzzled frown. “Excuse me?”

  For a moment, Susan appeared so concerned that Crystal reached out a hand to touch her forearm. “I just mean, do they bake hotter than the temperature dial or colder. Are they quick or slow?”

  The extra information didn’t take away Susan’s confusion. Holly shot a quick smile at her sister, before opening up the cupboards nearest her. An old plastic bottle of rat poison sat in the recesses of the top shelf. Holly’s gaze immediately dropped to the floor, scanning it for the tell-tale droppings. Nada.

  “Depending on the make and model, oven’s can differ in temperature and cooking times,” Crystal said, trying to find a simpler explanation. “Oh, like your microwave. The packets always give you a certain wattage that their cooking times are based on?”

  This time, Susan nodded. “Right, I get you. And if they’re more powerful they cook quicker.” Then she shook her head. “I don’t know. Give me a moment, though, and I’ll check in the restaurant next door. Zach’s been here for long enough that he’ll be able to tell you, I’m sure.”