Not for the first time, Holly cursed the thieving accountant who’d placed them in this situation. It was a pity that he’d only be jailed, rather than being forced to work for nothing until he paid every one of his victim’s back.
Holly had invested all her money from selling her portion of the business, and proceeds from the half of the house she’d once shared with her soon-to-be ex-husband, but it was still a close call. They could always put a mortgage on the house again, but neither sister relished the thought of putting their necks back into that noose when they’d so recently pulled them out.
With nothing more exciting planned for the evening, Holly began to work through the figures from Susan once again.
Chapter Three
The next morning, Holly was beginning to think that her friend wasn’t joining her for their usual coffee when Meggie blew in through the door on a wave of freezing air.
“Thank goodness,” Holly exclaimed, turning the heating up a notch. “I thought that you’d gotten tied up at the hairdressers.”
“Nope, not me.” Meggie gave her a hug, then sat down at the bakery’s one and only table. “I only start this early because it gives me a perfect excuse to drop by here and enjoy your company. This time of year, nobody likes to make morning appointments just to do their hair.”
“Well, I’m happy that I’ve given you a reason to get out of bed early. I’d hate to think of you sleeping in.”
Meggie laughed and shifted in her chair as Holly brought over their cakes and coffees. “I checked out your new digs over the road,” she said when Holly finally sat down.
“You did?” Inhaling in surprise, Holly nearly choked on the mouthful of cupcake she’d just bitten into. “I don’t even remember telling you we were investigating it as an option.”
Meggie laughed and tapped the side of her nose. “You know how my older ladies like to have a gossip while they’re getting their curls set. If you want to keep something a secret, I’m afraid that you came home to the wrong town.”
When Meggie stopped talking to take a leisurely sip of coffee, Holly nearly burst with impatience. “Well? Go on and tell me. What’s happening over there?”
“A party, by all accounts. I had to hunt down your sister in the restaurant. Apparently, she’d left the cakes on the bench ‘to cool.’” Meggie put air quotes around the words and rolled her eyes. “She invited me to stay for a meal, but I got one look at that chef’s face, and decided against it.”
Holly laughed. “Yes. We met Zach yesterday, and it seems that he has a few issues with regulating his mood.”
“You can say that again.” Meggie took another small bite and sipped at her drink. “He didn’t seem in as bad a mood as I’ve struck him before, though. Either he’s putting on an effort to impress your sister, or he was having an excellent morning.”
“Was Susan over there?” Holly didn’t bother to explain who she meant. Although she’d been back in town long enough to know half the people in town by sight and a quarter by name, Meggie had been there long enough to know everybody.
“Yeah, she was there, along with a couple that I didn’t recognize. The waitress girl who works there part time had sat down, too. As I said, a real party.”
“There was a bit of a run-in between Zach and a couple at the pools yesterday,” Holly said. “I guess those are the two you didn’t recognize. A German couple.”
Meggie nodded. “That sounds about right. I didn’t stay for very long, but they definitely had strong accents.”
Holly wrinkled her nose, about to be naughty but not willing to stop herself. “It’s a lot worse when they’re shouting at the top of their lungs.”
Meggie’s eyes grew wide with curiosity. “What on earth were they shouting about?”
And Holly’s story abruptly went flat. She shrugged. “Actually, I don’t know. I was over the road and only walked out when their voices got loud enough to be of concern. Susan was with me, showing me the property, and she made Zach apologize and invite them over for a meal today.”
“They’re brave.” Meggie shook her head. “If a chef was in a mood with me, I don’t think I’d willingly allow him to cook and serve me food.” She screwed up her face as though tasting something dreadful. “I can only imagine the terrible things that an angry chef could do to your meal.”
Holly pulled her chin in close to her chest. “Ugh. I hadn’t thought of that. I wonder if I should go across and warn Crystal?”
“I wouldn’t bother. She’d probably be halfway through whatever he was serving by now.” Meggie crossed her eyes again and laughed. “Better not to tell her at this point.”
“Fair enough.” Holly finished the last of her cupcake and cleared the table.
“The front of that place over the road is pretty small,” Meggie said. “Do you think there’ll be room for a table?”
“If I have to knock out a wall to get it in there,” Holly said, “then I’ll do that, rather than miss a morning coffee with my best friend.”
Meggie was glowing pink with pleasure when Holly ushered her back out into the frozen air.
Just before lunchtime, Holly saw Ben from the tavern next door out in the courtyard and beckoned him inside.
“Could you handle things in here for a few minutes?” she asked him. “I just want to check with my sister over the road and see that everything’s all right.”
As always, Ben was eager to help out. If only his eagerness had been met with a fair dose of common sense and calmness in the face of pressure, he would be the perfect employee. Still, dashing out for a few minutes wouldn’t allow him much time to come to harm.
“Yoo-hoo,” Holly called out as she walked in through the door. There was no sign of her sister in the shop, though a few cooling batches of cupcakes on the counter, alongside notes jotting down different times, indicated she wasn’t far away. Holly followed the sound of voices outside and around the corner, back into the neighboring restaurant.
“Meggie told me I might find you here,” Holly said, helping herself to a seat next to her sister.
Crystal beamed at her. “You should stay. Zach is a fabulous cook.”
“I’m sure he is,” Holly said, her stomach rumbling at just the thought, “but I need to get back and check on things. How is the experiment going?”
“Good. I’ve got all the information I need noted down.” Crystal opened her mouth in a big yawn. “Though I think I’ve now officially spent more time in here than next door.”
Zach pushed through the door from the kitchen with the back of his shoulder, still facing away until the platter in his hands had cleared the door. Then he turned and brought over a massive bowl to the table.
“Oh, that smells incredible,” Holly said with deep envy. She squeezed Crystal’s knee. “If there’s any left at the end, promise you’ll bring me a doggy bag.”
“I’ll make one up for you now,” Zach offered. His kind gesture and warm smile made him appear a completely different man than the one Holly had met the day before. “I’ve got polystyrene cups in the kitchen. I’ll just be a moment.”
He was gone before Holly could politely demure the request, something for which she was very grateful.
The German man stood up and nodded, excusing himself to the bathroom. His girlfriend’s eyes followed him to the door, then she turned back to the table with a smile. “So, you are from next door too, yes?”
Given the woman’s stilted English, Holly didn’t feel up to a long explanation, so she agreed. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Your cupcakes are lovely, yes? We should have them for dessert?”
“What a good idea,” Crystal said, standing. “Come on, let’s get some for the table.”
She hauled on Holly’s arm, and she stood to follow her sister to the door when Zach came back into the room. His eyes flashed with the same fire that she’d seen yesterday.
“You’re not leaving.”
“I am,” Holly said, untangling herself from her sister�
�s grip. “But Crystal is just heading next door to fetch some cupcakes as a thank you and dessert.”
The fire in Zach’s eyes retreated a little. He gave a short nod and handed over a small container. “Be careful with that, it’s hot.”
Holly held up her hands, inside thick gloves. “Don’t worry, I came prepared.”
Susan pushed through the back door from the restaurant, following in Zach’s footsteps. “Hey, there,” she said with a small wave. “I hope your sister’s convinced you of the benefits of moving next door.”
Holly gave a small nod. “I’m sure she’ll have lots to tell me at the end of the day. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to the old shop before my soup goes cold.”
She lifted up the cup with a nod of thanks to Zach and walked out of the restaurant. Just in time, too, as she held the door open for Crystal to carry back in a tray of cupcakes, newly decorated.
“I’ve left one on the counter for you, too,” Crystal said as she passed by. “I think we’ll be finishing up here soon—the restaurant has to be open to the public by midday—and then I’ll come over to catch you up.”
By the time Holly got back to the bakery, Ben was dealing with a small crowd of customers, trying to beat the lunchtime crush. With a pang of regret, Holly put her soup down in the back room before picking up an apron and joining him.
They worked efficiently in tandem, the panic clearing from Ben’s face as the crowd grew smaller. When the shop was down to two waiting customers, Holly sent him back to his own place of work, giving him the cupcake Crystal had left out for him as a thank you.
Holly was just about to pick up the soup and see if it had managed to retain any warmth when she saw the flashing lights of an ambulance across the road.
Fear catapulted into her chest, drawing it tight, as another matching vehicle pulled alongside the first. Pulling her apron off, Holly walked to the door, her hands anxiously working the top button of her blouse.
“What’s happening over there?” Mrs. Hendrickson, Ben’s mother, called out from the tavern. “Do you think there’s been an injury at the pools?”
Holly just shook her head, her eyes widening as she recognized Susan being wheeled out on a stretcher. When a second one followed a moment later with Zach, adrenaline spiked through her bloodstream, and Holly started across the road, running full-tilt despite the lingering patches of frost on the asphalt.
“What’s happened?” Holly called out to the paramedic as she approached. “Was there an accident?”
The paramedic didn’t turn away from his patient and Holly ran past him, bursting into the shop and calling out for her sister with the last of her breath.
Crystal wasn’t in the shop. Holly saw that in an instant and increased her speed again to go flying out the back door and over to the restaurant.
“What’s happened?” she called out again as she saw another paramedic and stretcher heading out, this time bearing the German tourist, his face twisted with pain.
“Crystal!”
With panic raging through her system, Holly pushed through the doors and fell to her knees next to a limp woman’s figure. In her haste, she pumped into a fourth medic, working on the woman. “Stay back,” he ordered, pointing Holly toward the door.
She ignored him, duck walking on her knees until she could see the woman’s face. With a sob of gratitude, Holly recognized it as the German woman. When the paramedic barked an order at her again, she struggled to her feet and retreated back toward the door.
Where is Crystal?
Since she wasn’t next door and she wasn’t in the restaurant, it stood to reason that Crystal must be in the kitchen. Holly shuffled toward the connecting door, having to place one hand on the wall for support. Her heart was beating so hard that lights pulsed through her vision.
What could have happened for so many people to need an ambulance all at once?
Holly reached the door and tried to take a deep breath. Her lungs were frozen in place, barely accepting oxygen at all. With a gasp, Holly pushed open the door, terrified of what might be lying in wait on the other side.
Chapter Four
For a second, Holly’s body was shaking so much that she couldn’t focus. The floor appeared clear in front of her, so she stepped forward, letting go of the door so that it swung back into place.
As soon as she could, Holly reached out for the bench to steady herself. The blood was thumping through her eardrums with such a loud beat, that she could barely hear any other noise. The call of the paramedic in the next room sounded like it was a football field distant.
“Crystal?” Holly wanted to shout, but her voice came out in a hoarse whisper. Her throat hurt, even when she swallowed it was like all the muscles were clenched in a Charley Horse. “Crystal?”
There was a knife on the counter to her right-hand side, and Holly grabbed it. Until she knew what had happened here, it seemed safer to have something to defend herself with. Two steps farther on, it clattered down to the floor as her hand spasmed. Holly cried out and jerked backward just in time to avoid it hitting her foot. By the time it came to a standstill, she was shaking so badly that she didn’t try to pick it up again.
“Crystal?” Holly whispered again. The fear was so large inside of her that there was no room for anything else. Her vision began to cloud into dark shadows, and her mind refused to engage. One foot in front of the other, Holly stumbled forward, filled with dread.
A foot lay on the ground in front of her. The rest of the body was hidden around the corner, but as soon as Holly saw that, she knew.
It was Crystal.
Holly dropped to her knees, unable to force her legs to carry her any farther forward. All of her willpower was sapped away by the sight of that one, unmoving foot.
Then it twitched.
Like a flood, Holly’s senses came rushing back and galvanized her into standing again. The lights flicked up to full brightness, her hearing cranked up the volume until Holly was overwhelmed with sound.
“Crystal!” This time when Holly opened her mouth to shout, everything worked in harmony. The foot twitched again, curling up so that it was almost out of sight.
Holly staggered to the corner and dropped to her knees again. Crystal’s face was pressed against the floor, her hands to either side as though they’d been held out to break her fall.
Through tears, Holly saw the blonde hairs beside Crystal’s mouth puff out in a small breath. She leaned over, clearing away the strands so they wouldn’t block her sister’s airways.
“Help,” Holly called out, turning so that she faced back toward the door. “I need some help in here!”
When she looked back down at Crystal, there was a tiny frown on her forehead. Her sister’s eyes flickered open then shut again, almost immediately.
“Crystal, it’s okay. Help is coming.”
Holly searched down the length of her sister, trying to see where the injury was. There weren’t any blood stains or spatters to highlight a wound. “What happened? Crystal, what happened?”
Her sister’s eyes blinked and opened again in tiny slits. “The soup,” she managed to say, jerking her hands toward her throat before they fell limply to the floor again. “He poisoned the soup.”
There was no room for Holly in the ambulance that returned to the scene to take the second load of patients to medical help. The surgery center was the nearest thing that Hanmer Springs had to a hospital. With only two beds, it wasn’t prepared for the flood of injuries through its doors.
Holly held onto Crystal’s hand as the paramedics loaded her onto a stretcher. She walked beside it as they wheeled her outside, only letting go when they pushed her into the back of the ambulance.
“I’ll give you a lift,” Meggie said. She’d arrived sometime during the kerfuffle, but Holly’s mind still wasn’t tracking well, so she couldn’t remember when. Even though the center was in easy walking distance, Holly was glad for the offer. As soon as she lost touch with Crystal’s h
and, her legs began to shake like jelly.
“Let’s get you to the car before you fall down,” Meggie said. The gentle voice prompted tears to well up in Holly’s eyes, but she sniffed them back. If she let them, her emotions would overwhelm her to the point she wouldn’t be able to think. It was clear that someone had just tried to murder Crystal. Holly didn’t want to sit uselessly crying if she could have been helping to bring justice to the attempted murderer.
But first, she had to ensure that Crystal would be safe.
“I overheard one of the paramedics say it didn’t seem as bad as he’d first thought.”
Meggie’s words were obviously meant to comfort, but all Holly wondered was what the paramedic had been expecting. A bloodbath? A bunch of the living dead? Not as bad as something genuinely terrible could still be pretty horrible.
Although Meggie talked to her non-stop in the waiting room, Holly barely heard a word her friend said. She nodded and said “uh-huh” when it seemed warranted, but the individual words flew in one ear and out the other.
All that Holly could focus on was her sister.
Finally, when it seemed that the rest of her life would be spent in a state of suspended dismay in the waiting room, a nurse came through to say that Holly could visit her sister. She could only stay a few minutes, Crystal’s body had been through an ordeal, but Holly didn’t mind. All she wanted was to touch her sister and know that she was still in the land of the living. Give her that, and the waiting room didn’t seem nearly so bad.
“Hey, sis,” Holly whispered as she sat down next to Crystal. With the regular beds overflowing, her sister had been relegated to a hastily assembled cot-bed.
Holly would have been indignant, except she immediately understood that it meant the doctors didn’t think her sister was as badly hurt as the others. What looked like a curse was actually a blessing.
Crystal didn’t answer, she was sound asleep, but it was enough for Holly to sit by her side and hold her hand. The few precious minutes ticked by far too quickly for her liking, but she didn’t raise a fuss when the nurse came to tell her that time was up.
The Sweet Baked Mystery Series - Books 1-6 Page 45