by Fiona Grace
“I mean I’m obviously somewhere,” Ali babbled nervously. “It’s just that I’m … in the middle of something.” She winced, hearing just how unconvincing she sounded.
“What can be more important than the investigation taking place at your store?” came Detective Elton’s monotone reply.
Before Ali had a chance to come up with another poor explanation, the restroom door opened, and a guest came inside. She smiled kindly at Ali, with a twinkle of acknowledgment in her eye—presumably she’d witnessed the “proposal.” Floating in through the door after her came the restaurant’s beautiful, romantic, piano music. A very clear rendition of “Wind Beneath My Wings.”
“Are you… on a date?” came Detective Elton’s incredulous voice in Ali’s ear.
“No,” Ali lied, even though the overly romantic music was a dead giveaway. No one exactly took colleagues for a business dinner at restaurants that used drippy love song piano covers as the soundtrack.
“A man is lying dead on the floor of your bakery,” Detective Elton continued, thinly, “and you’re on a date?”
Ali’s stomach dropped. She knew how bad that made her look. Indeed, she’d had a hard time reconciling the timing of the date herself, hence the whole “non-date” workaround. All she’d wanted was a moment of peace, a moment to take her mind off of her troubles. And look how spectacularly that had backfired.
“I’m not,” Ali countered, before spotting the business card from Jennifer Cliff lying in her open purse. “I’m at a business meeting!”
“Right,” Detective Elton said, sounding like she didn’t believe it for a second. “And when is this business meeting scheduled to end?”
“Oh, you know how these things go,” Ali said. “They can drag on.”
There was a pregnant pause. “If I don’t see you at your bakery in ten minutes, I’ll book you for obstructing the course of justice.” And with that, the line went dead.
“Dammit!” Ali cried at her reflection.
She flung her phone into her purse, snapped the clasps shut, and hurried back into the main restaurant. The meals had arrived, and Seth was sitting there looking a little lost.
And so handsome… Ali’s brain intrusively added, making what she was about to do all that bit harder.
“I’m really sorry, Seth,” she said quickly, as she hurried up to the table. “I have to leave.”
Seth’s face fell, his expression telling a story of confusion and concern. “What? Why? What happened?”
“The cops just called me,” Ali said. “I have to go and speak to them. I’m so sorry. Can we do this again some other time?”
Seth was on his feet. “Of course. Ali, do you need me to come with you?”
“I’ll be okay,” Ali said, speaking over her shoulder as she began inching in the direction of the exit, having to force herself to move as if Seth was some kind of magnet pulling her back to him. “Sorry again. And thanks! This was great. I’m sure it would’ve been the perfect first non-date ever, given time.”
She was nervously babbling again. The whole while, poor Seth just blinked at her, his eyebrows raised, his mouth downturned. Ali hurried for the exit before his big, brown, puppy dog eyes sucked her right back in all over again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ali hurried along the boardwalk in a panic. She cursed the fact she was wearing high heels and nothing more than a silky shirt!
She skidded to a halt outside her bakery. All the lights were on, and the blinds wide open, beaming a bright image of the place crawling with CSI agents for all and sundry to see. The place where Brandon had been lying was now empty, but several little number markers were left in his place. It looked bad.
Ali staggered inside. “What’s going on?” she asked.
Detective Elton swirled. “Miss Sweet. Hello. Sorry to interrupt your—” She paused as her eyes slid up and down Ali’s silky outfit. “—business meeting.” Her tone implied she was far from sorry. Ali’s cheeks grew hot with guilt.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“The coroner has determined what the paramedic suspected,” Detective Elton said. “The victim ingested poison.”
Just then, a suited CSI operative walked past carrying a paper bag of flour in a large plastic wallet. The word evidence was emblazoned across the front.
Ali felt her stomach plummet to her feet. “They’re confiscating my ingredients?”
“The toxicology report could take one to two weeks to determine exactly what the substance was, but in the meantime, your macaron was the last thing he ate.”
“Last, but by no means the only,” Ali contested. “He was eating up and down the boardwalk all day. Hell, he eats for a living! You do know that, don’t you?”
“Oh yes, we certainly do,” Detective Elton said, thinly. She gestured to the banquet-style table, where yet more so-called evidence was being tagged and bagged by the operatives. Amongst them was the small vlogging camera. The vlogging camera Ali had been spotted scrabbling around for under the body, no less.
“We’ve watched all the footage on there,” Detective Elton said. “Your macarons were the only thing he appeared to find distasteful.”
“I told you, that was a bit!” Ali tried to defend herself. “He’s a comedian. He was just pretending they tasted bad.”
Detective Elton, who seemed to not possess a sense of humor herself, was not impressed. “If he was joking, then why were you so upset about it?”
Ali felt her cheeks flame red. She knew how bad this looked for her, and any attempts to defend herself was backfiring spectacularly. There was no explanation she could give that would satisfactorily explain the evidence Detective Elton had seen so far.
And what would happen when the toxicology report came back? It wouldn’t exonerate her either!
Unless she found some kind of proof that someone else had been the one to poison Brandon Lennox, she was going to be Detective Elton’s prime suspect…
“Miss Sweet, I suggest you head home now and get some rest,” the detective said, as if reading her mind. “Because pretty soon, we’ll have plenty to talk about.”
*
The bakery door tinkled behind Ali as she stepped outside, dejected, into the warm Californian evening. She couldn’t believe she was mixed up in another murder.
Her feet were sore from running to the bakery, so she slid off her heels and carried them by the straps in one hand. She could walk home on the soft sand.
She headed for the beach. The moon was out, reflecting prettily on the ocean. If Ali hadn’t been called away from her date with Seth, would they have been strolling along here together, under a romantic full moon, about to share their first kiss? Or had his whole prawn linguine with extra garlic been a subtle sign he wasn’t interested? And if he was interested, how could she even be sure it was her he was interested in—she was dressed as Delaney, after all!
A wave of sadness crashed over Ali. The idea of turning up at Seth’s bakery tomorrow morning to bake some speculative macarons suddenly lost all of its appeal. Once Jennifer Cliff got wind of her bakery being closed down, she’d roll back on her offer anyway. Ali suddenly regretted writing Teddy that check so quickly. He was right about her tempting fate. She should’ve touched his wooden spoon sooner…
Her mind on her brother, Ali took out her cell and called him. He’d insisted on a post-date call anyway, claiming he wanted proof she hadn’t been murdered. How ironic, she thought.
She hit the dial button.
“Sooooo?” Teddy asked, as soon as he picked up the call. “Are you married now? Pregnant with twins?”
Ali couldn’t even find it in her to laugh at his joke. Instead, she felt tears well into her eyes. She sniffed. “Oh Teddy,” she said, her voice cracking.
“Ah. The date didn’t end well, I take it?”
Ali sniffed. “It’s not that. It’s Brandon. He was poisoned. Detective Elton thinks I was the one who killed him.”
“But didn’t you say h
e spit out all your macarons? And that it was all on film? I mean there’s literally irrefutable evidence that he didn’t even ingest your food!”
“The police don’t seem to see it that way,” Ali explained. “They seem to think he spit them out because he could taste the poison. And when I tried to explain he was acting, I just made myself look even more suspicious.”
“Oh, Ali,” Teddy said. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. But one thing I know for sure is I’m not going to take the fall for this. I’m going to investigate myself, find out who killed him, and clear my name.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Despite having nowhere to be, Ali’s body clock naturally woke her up at five a.m. Dawn was rising, turning her room pale blue in the early morning light.
Pale blue, she thought, wistfully, as she stared up at the ceiling. The color of my blueberry-flavored macarons…
She sighed heavily. It was painful to think of her bakery boarded up and closed down. It was her pride and joy. Her passion. Her hobby. She didn’t even know how to think without baking. It was such an important part of who she was.
Ali threw off the covers and stood. There was no point trying to get back to sleep. Besides, once this case was solved and she was in the clear, she’d go right back to baking again, so there was no point in messing with her body clock or throwing out her routine. The best thing to do was to keep on doing.
Still dressed in her camisole and shorts sleeping combo, Ali left her bedroom and padded across the dark carpet of the living area onto the gray linoleum floor of her kitchenette. There wasn’t much in the kitchenette besides a small shelf and some cupboards, and the island that divided it from the living space, but it didn’t matter because she’d never really needed to use it. She did most of her cooking at work.
She put the coffee machine on to brew and swept the floor as she waited, going through the exact same morning ritual she would if she’d just arrived at her bakery. The only difference was there was no Scruff hanging around for scraps, and there’d be no Delaney jogging in for a chat later. Not to mention no customers to provide her with an income to pay for everything…
Ali’s stomach churned. She couldn’t wait for the toxicology report. Two weeks was a long time to go without earning anything. Maybe she should take up Seth’s offer to share his kitchen and bake a trial batch of macarons for Jennifer Cliff at La Vie En Rose after all. But then she remembered Detective Elton and her crime scene operatives confiscating all her ingredients. She had nothing with which to make the macarons. The specialized ingredients weren’t sold in the local grocery store, and she wasn’t allowed to leave town to go and get more. She was stuck.
She checked her cupboards. She had flour. Eggs. Butter. Enough to make savory dough. So she did just that.
As she kneaded the dough, a Zen-like state overcame Ali. Her mind calmed. Her worries floated away into the background. Without even meaning to, Ali began twisting the dough into shapes, like a sculptor with clay. She made one dough figurine, then another, and before she’d even noticed what she was up to, she’d created the entire Willow Bay boardwalk and several people to occupy it.
She drew back, surprised at what her meditative state had created without her conscious awareness. Then an amused smile twitched at her lips. She knew exactly what her brain was telling her to do—use the dough construction as a visual representation to go over the events of the day of Brandon’s death. A crime scene reenactment, so to speak.
“Okay, brain,” Ali said aloud. “You win. I trust you.”
She swept her arm across the counter to push back the clutter and make space. She picked up the first doughy figurine and studied it.
“How did it all begin?” she mused aloud, looking at the dough person in her hand. It was a slightly gangly-looking thing, long-limbed like a catwalk model… “With Delaney!”
With a sudden surge of inspiration, Ali hurried into the living room in search of a notebook and pen. As she rifled through the dresser drawer, she thought back to the call she’d received from Delaney on the day of Brandon’s visit. Her friend had broken the news that the rumors were true. Brandon had, indeed, descended upon Willow Bay’s boardwalk with his entourage, Delaney had seen him with her own eyes passing by Bookworms. Ali and Piper had then finished up their macaron batch and headed into the front of the bakery to see if they could spot him. As Ali recalled it, he’d been right in the middle of being forcibly removed from a store.
“Aha!” Ali cried, pulling the notebook and pen from her drawer.
She hurried back to the kitchenette, scribbling excitedly. The first shop she listed was Little Bits of This and That.
When she made it back to the doughy representation of the boardwalk, she ripped the page from the notebook and laid it down in the spot where the store was located. On the next page, she hurriedly wrote Bookworms, before ripping it out and lying it in its corresponding position, then Seaside Sweets, placing the page down where her own store was located.
She stepped back, eyeballing the bizarre 3D map taking shape on her countertop.
She picked up the next dough figurine and used the end of her pen to etch the letter B onto its chest.
“So Brandon came from this direction,” she said, moving the visual representation of the deceased man along the boardwalk. She moved the figurine past Little Bits of This and That. “Delaney spotted him here, and called me.” She moved the figurine on to Bookworms. “And he was here by the time I answered”—she moved the figure onward—“and here when I saw him.”
She paused, frowning, trying to work out which store was in that location, the store Brandon had been chucked out of. She came up empty-handed. For some reason, she couldn’t picture which establishment should occupy that spot.
Ali had been hoping for a lightbulb moment, but none came. She twisted her lips with consternation and picked up the notebook again. She wrote Hot Dogs on the blank page.
“I know he went into Seth’s because I’ve seen the video,” she said, putting the page into place on the countertop. She wrote Donuts on the next page. “And at some point he visited the donut kiosk, because he and his camera guy were joking about how he’d licked ten donuts.” She grimaced, laying the page down. “What else happened?”
She stared at all the puzzle pieces, willing them to fit somehow, growing frustrated that the aha moment she’d been expecting was still eluding her. Sighing with defeat, she put her doughy Brandon figure in Seaside Sweets and dropped him on his side.
“He died,” she finished with a sad, heavy sigh.
Just then, Ali’s cell phone rang. She startled. She’d been so wrapped up in her reenactment, the real world had faded away.
She looked around for her phone, finding it squished behind a magazine and pepper mill that she’d shoved to the side to make space for her useless model, and glanced at the screen. Piper was calling her.
Odd, she thought. Piper doesn’t usually call…
She looked up at the clock on the kitchen wall and was surprised to see just how much time had passed while she’d been making and playing with the dough. It was almost time for Piper’s shift to begin.
She answered the call, confused as to why her employee was ringing her. “Piper, is everything okay?”
“I’m outside the bakery,” came Piper’s sweet southern-girl voice in her ear. “But it’s all closed up. Where are you?”
“I’m at home,” Ali replied, a little bemused. “The police closed the bakery.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Piper asked, in a small, hurt-sounding voice.
Ali frowned. Wasn’t it obvious? Piper had been there when Brandon had died! She’d seen the cops arrive, and the crime scene operatives!
“I thought you knew…” Ali replied, but her voice trailed off.
Maybe it was obvious to her that the bakery being a crime scene would cause it to close for longer than the time it took to remove the dead body off the floor, but Piper was young, di
tzy, and with significantly less worldly experience than Ali. She probably hadn’t watched anywhere near as many crime documentaries as Ali had, and she certainly didn’t have firsthand experience with a murder like Ali did.
“I’m sorry,” Ali said. “I should’ve called.”
“Are we closed all day?” Piper asked in her ear.
Ali felt awful. She’d made an assumption based on common sense, and now she had to break the terrible news to Piper that they were closed for the foreseeable future.
She softened her voice as much as she could. “Hon, we’re closed until the toxicology report comes back. Until we get the results back from Brandon’s blood test.”
“How long will that be?” Piper asked.
“Two weeks,” Ali revealed.
“Two weeks!” Piper exclaimed, her voice filled with panic.
“It’s only temporary,” Ali tried to reassure her. “Think of it as extra leave.”
“Paid leave?” Piper pressed.
“Errrm,” Ali said, thinking on her feet. “I’ll have to see how much of a financial hit the closure gives me. Of course I’ll pay you your wages if I can afford it, but I just lost a whole load of expensive stock on top of the profit I would’ve made from selling it. You understand, don’t you?”
“But I moved here for this job, Ali,” Piper replied. She sounded close to tears. “And I have rent to pay.”
Ali felt truly awful. “I do too,” she told her. “And I’m sure it will all work out fine in the end.”
Suddenly, Ali had a lightbulb moment. During their date, Seth had said he was hoping to hire someone soon to take over the vegetable prep because he was sick of smelling like onions.
“I have an idea!” she exclaimed. “I know a new restaurant that just opened up on the boardwalk. Hot dogs. The guy in there is a friend, so I could put in a word for you and get him to give you some temporary work?”
“Hot dogs?” Piper repeated, sounding unimpressed. “Won’t that make me smell like fried onions?”