The Sweet Baked Mystery Series - Books 1-6 Read online

  “But how did they do it?” Holly asked. “Did Alice prepare the cake?”

  “Oh!” Matthewson stood up from the table suddenly. “That reminds me. One moment.”

  He jogged back out to the car to fetch something off the back seat. Bringing it back inside, Holly saw it was her father’s recipe book.

  “It seems that Humphrey lifted this from your store one day, thinking it was some kind of ledger. With these recipes in hand, he was able to have Alice cook up a cupcake to the exact same directions as your bakery, so nobody could easily tell the difference.”

  Crystal’s face transformed into a dance of fury. “You can add stealing industry secrets to those charges then. How dare they? It took my father a lifetime to perfect these recipes.”

  Crystal snatched the book and held it to her chest as though it was a baby, rocking it to and fro.

  “Why were you and Dad keeping the ledgers?” Holly asked her sister. “Did you already suspect Humphrey of wrongdoing?”

  “Dad didn’t tell me, but I found the book one day when I was trying to search for this one.” Crystal put the recipe book down on the table and patted it. “After he died, I tried to figure out what was going on. I couldn’t square the figures away with the accounts that Humphrey gave me each month to sign off, so I kept it going.”

  “Is that what you were going to tell me?”

  Crystal frowned, and Holly jogged her memory. “Before my accident, you hinted that you suspected Humphrey of wrongdoing but wouldn’t say more until you were sure.” Holly paused for a moment. “I really wish you had confided in me.”

  “Like you confided in me about the notebooks in Brian Masters’ house?”

  They glared at each other for a moment, then Holly’s lip twitched. “You’re so stubborn,” she said.

  “You’re such a child,” Crystal said, poking her tongue out. They both burst into giggles.

  Sergeant Matthewson stared from one to the other, a puzzled expression on his face. After waiting so long to hear the truth, Holly now couldn’t stop her merriment bubbling up long enough to listen to him.

  Finally, when to carry on one moment more would have been ridiculous, Holly sat bolt upright. “Oh, goodness. I’ve forgotten to give Meggie a ring and tell her that you were here. She’ll kill me.”

  Hunching her shoulder over for privacy, Holly quickly made the call.

  “Meggie will be here in five minutes.”

  “That long?” Crystal said, looking at her watch.

  Meggie must have run the whole way, judging by her arrival ninety seconds before time and the way she could barely catch her breath.

  “I don’t want to miss a minute of it!” she said between pants. “What’s he told you so far?”

  Matthewson gave her a quick rundown to catch her up.

  “Who planted the empty packet in the bakery?’ Meggie demanded. “That misdirection should be worth an extra charge, at least.”

  “Dale admits to placing that in the bakery.”

  “What about the box from our trash? Where did that disappear to?” Crystal asked.

  The sergeant looked surprised. “Oh, that. We never told you. Derek thought that after the argument with his dad on the street, it might look suspicious if you had those in your rubbish, so he stole them to protect you.”

  “Derek!” Holly looked over at Crystal, who shrugged.

  “One day, I’ll tell that boy that he nearly gave me a heart attack by doing that.” Crystal shook her head. “Seriously, when you looked in the trash, and it was empty, I started to think that I must have done it and just blocked the whole crime out.”

  “Don’t be too hard on the lad,” Holly said. “He nearly sent you skipping around the bend to crazy town, but it was with the best of intentions.”

  “Well, at least wait until his dad’s recovered,” the sergeant said. “Apparently, his father is awake and aware this morning, for the first time since.”

  “Really?” Crystal clapped her hands. “That’s such good news. It would have been devastating for him, otherwise.”

  “We’ll have a good few questions regarding Brian Masters’ business affairs when he’s back on his feet, but yes, it is good news. Lucky, too.” He glanced at Holly. “If you and Meggie hadn’t called in that tip when you did, we never would have caught up with him. Although we’ll probably never be able to prove it, there was a bottle of peanut oil in a container of wet wipes. We think that he might have been taking another shot at dispatching his debt.”

  “That’s awful!”

  “People do some terrible things when they’re desperate,” Sergeant Matthewson agreed.

  “What about the accounts?” Crystal asked. “Now that you know he’s been fiddling them, does that mean we get back the money he stole?”

  The sergeant shrugged, but his face told another story. Gone. All the money that Humphrey had siphoned off to pay his gambling debts would be gone.

  “Why did you arrest my sister?” Holly asked. “You said at the time you had new information. Where did that come from?”

  Matthewson sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “It came straight out of the lying mouth of Humphrey Wilkins. He told us about your fight with Brain Masters on the street, about your drug habit and how close your business was to being repossessed and the two of you kicked out on the street.”

  “And you believed him?” Meggie said, jabbing her finger accusingly at the sergeant’s chest.

  “He believed it because it’s true,” Crystal said. “Maybe not in the way that the toerag spun it, but everything he told you checked out. That he was the cause of the worst of it was the only thing he omitted.”

  The sergeant shook his head. “I can’t believe how easily I let him fool me. Not to mention, how I didn’t spot Dale and his bad habits. He was right under my nose.”

  “Sometimes, that’s a difficult place to see clearly.” Holly shifted in her chair. “He fooled me too and nearly got me killed.”

  A flash of the terror she’d felt as the car plummeted down the hill recurred, and Holly shivered. “At least everything is sorted now. We can get back to picking up the pieces and getting on with things.”

  “I hope that the press doesn’t make too much of a field day out of this. Full disclosure I’m okay with, but if they play it up for too long, the whole township will suffer.”

  At that, Holly laughed.

  “What?” Matthewson squinted at her.

  “There’s hundreds of more horrible things happening around the world right now, than this mess of a conspiracy. Sure, it’s a big deal for Hanmer Springs, and the odd tourist might think twice, but I just don’t think it’s going to be the lead story anywhere. Not unless the whole world takes a hiatus on horribleness.”

  Holly stretched and got up from her seat to fetch a fresh cup of coffee. With it warming her hands she turned around, leaning her back against the bench.

  “The problem is that it’s so lovely here, anything like this seems far worse than it would in the real world. Believe me, that’s a good thing!”

  “I hope you’re right then,” Matthewson said, taking her movement as a cue to leave. “I’ll keep you updated with anything that affects you. Otherwise, it’s back to normal as quickly as we can manage.”

  After he left, Crystal looked downcast, tracing her finger along a curiously dark line in the stained wood of the table. “I’m glad to be out of prison, but that’s not going to help much with the bakery. We’re still financed up to the hilt, and it’ll take forever to work our way out from under the debt.”

  Meggie’s shoulders slumped. “Don’t remind me. I was really hoping when we turned up to Humphrey’s last night, he’d have a stack of cash on him that we could divvy up and return to its rightful owners. I can’t believe that it’s all just gone. Even when we tracked down the culprit, it leaves us both in just as bad a state.”

  “I suppose that means that selling the house and the bakery is back on the table?” Crystal asked, looking
at Holly.

  Holly frowned down at what was left in her cup. “Maybe.” She shrugged. “It’s not a decision that we need to make today. Since we’ve excused ourselves from our duties, what did you feel like doing? Did you ever make it onto that hike the other day?”

  At the suggestion, Crystal feigned a collapse on the table. “You’re joking? You want me to traipse into a forest for hours on this little sleep?”

  “I’m going to the pools,” Meggie said. “If we’re both going bankrupt and losing everything, I want one last day to remember how spectacular this town felt when I first arrived.”

  She clapped her hands together. “So, for today, I’m a tourist. Impress me.”

  “I still haven’t made it to the pools,” Holly mused. “And I’ve been living just a few streets away for weeks. That’s absolutely unforgivable!”

  “Well, fetch your togs then, lovey. We’ll make a day of it.”

  Holly went to fetch her swimsuit, calling back over her shoulder. “Or fall asleep in the warm water in ten minutes flat!”

  When the three of them relaxed in the hottest pool, it turned out Holly won that bet.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Holly and Crystal were both in the back of the bakery the next day when a tentative tap came on the front door. A female voice called out in case of a misunderstanding, “Knock, knock.”

  Holly walked out into the shop, pulling on a fresh pair of gloves. The last had been covered with a thick layer of ganache where she’d tried to flatten out the edge of a cupcake determined to be lopsided. Licking off the remains wasn’t the best advertisement for hygiene.

  “Wendy! Good to see you.”

  “I hope I’m not intruding,” the woman said in a shy voice. “I just got a fright yesterday when I saw the shop was closed. I wanted to stop by and check that everything was okay.”

  “Of course, you’re not intruding. Anytime you want to stop by, you’re most welcome, whether you’re buying anything or not.” Holly waved her to the table in the corner. “We had a few tasks to sort out with the police and far too little sleep, that’s all.”

  “That’s a nasty business,” Wendy frowned. “I don’t like to think of all that going on in a family that my Sheila is about to join.”

  “On the other hand,” Holly said. “You could look on it as that poor, unfortunate Derek getting to add to your lovely family, instead.”

  “Speaking of which”—Wendy reached into her bag—“I’ve got the approximate numbers for the wedding. I’m not sure how many flavors of cakes or things you have but I thought you’d be able to sort that end out for me.”

  “Of course.” Holly picked up the folded note that Wendy slid across to her and opened it up. She kept her expression very still, just nodding. When she felt confident she could speak, Holly said, “That looks fine. I’ll just check with Crystal. She’s out the back baking at the moment.”

  On shaky legs, Holly scampered into the rear of the bakery and leaned against the wall. “Look at this,” she said, holding the note out with a shaking hand.

  “What is it?” Crystal asked, taking it from her. “Is this the amount of money that Humphrey owes us?”

  “No,” Holly squeaked. “It’s the number of guests coming to Derek and Sheila’s wedding. These are the cupcakes that we need to make.”

  Crystal stared at the paper in disbelief. “No,” she said finally. “You’ve got that wrong. Is she still out there?”

  Holly nodded.

  “I’ll go and check with her. Watch the oven for a moment.”

  Holly knelt down in front of the oven, watching the cakes inside start their slow creep up the tin walls as they expanded in the hot air.

  “Okay.” Crystal returned and sagged against the wall. “You’re right. They’ve invited two thousand guests to a wedding.”

  Crystal reached a hand up to her forehead. “I think I’m running a fever in panic already.”

  “How do they even know that many people? This wedding must be costing her a fortune. Oh, no!” Holly raised a hand up to her mouth.

  “What? What’s the matter?”

  “Meggie offered to do the wedding party’s hair and makeup for half price. I wonder how many that will be?”

  Crystal’s look of horror started to dissipate. She pulled a notepad toward her and began to make the calculations.

  “Right. We’ll need to start baking around the clock three days out, so we’ll start with the long-keeper varieties and freeze them if we need to. Then we do the shortest-term flavors on the night before.”

  She quickly totted up a few columns and passed it over to Holly to check. The figures looked right. “That’ll do it. We’ll have to keep our fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong in the meantime.”

  “We can’t afford it,” Crystal said bluntly. “What with the losses we’ve already taken, even if we sold the business and the house now, we might still end up owing money. We can’t add the amount of ingredients we’d need to the order. I’m scared to death that the electricity company is going to renege on our current agreement and the power will go off at any minute.”

  “I’ll take care of that,” Holly said. She twisted the folded paper between her fingertips, solidifying the decision that she’d been making from the first moment she pulled back into town.

  “I want to move here permanently.”

  “That’s lovely,” Crystal said. “But I don’t understand how that helps us out, right now.”

  “I have a partnership share in a legal business and half the proceeds from a house that we get offers on every week, even though it’s not on the market. When I invest that all in the business, then we’ll be operating from profit. Even if it takes a while for those sales to come through, the bank will be happy to offer bridging finance when they see how much it’s worth.”

  The relief at saying it caught Holly by surprise. She’d been thinking that cutting off the road that could lead her back to her old life would hurt, or even plunge her down into sadness.

  It didn’t. All Holly felt was the hope for the future filling up her heart.

  What was it that Dale had told her the other night? “Go home, Holly.”

  Well, here she was. Home.

  Chapter One

  Holly Waterston loaded the last tray of cupcakes into the back of her car and wiped her hands together. “Finally!” she said, taking a step back and putting her hands on her hips.

  Although the bakery van was better built for the purpose of transport, there’d been no way to fit everything they needed for the wedding today into just one vehicle. With a bit of quick ingenuity and chicken wire, Crystal and Holly had transformed the back of her sedan into a multi-level cupcake mover. So long as she drove carefully out to Inglefield Manor, they’d make it in one piece.

  Crystal pulled up alongside the sedan, the bakery van broadcasting their logo to everyone who passed by—Sweet Baked Treats. “Ready to go?”

  Holly nodded. “Lead the way. I’ll be right on your tail.”

  The words were true as Holly got into the car and nosed out into the road but soon turned into a lie. A change of lights struck at the wrong moment, and her sister pulled away. With so many folks from town joining the wedding party, soon a multitude of other cars thronged between them.

  “No worries,” Holly muttered to herself as the light changed to green. Although she didn’t know precisely where she was meant to go, the procession of vehicles should all be headed out to the same event. Since there wasn’t any danger of losing track of all the cars, then she should be fine.

  The day had started out with a bright blue sky. Puffy clouds overhead had added a touch of picturesque beauty to the scene. Now, as Holly held her breath and drove over the one-lane bridge out of town while squinting her eyes shut, the clouds joined together to form a canopy of gray.

  The weather forecast on the news the night before hadn’t mentioned any rainfall. However, that was the problem in living in such a narrow country with seas to eit
her side. The weather was unpredictable—storms sometimes rising up out of nowhere as a light breeze became twisted into a rage of thunder and lightning.

  The first spots of rain appeared on Holly’s windscreen as she passed the marker for the Inglewood Manor. No amount of wishing would make for a fine day now.

  As Holly nudged the vehicle along the driveway—no more than gravel on hardened dirt—she lowered the speed to a crawl. Any dip or pothole could cause injury that wouldn’t be fixed in time for the reception.

  Already, she and Crystal had a mountain of work ahead of them with deadlines as tight as a waist-training corset. Neither of them trusted the final decorations on the cupcakes to the vagaries of the roads surrounding Hanmer Springs. Although the main layer of frosting was in place, there were sprinkles and chocolate curls and fresh-cut strawberries to be applied for the finishing touches.

  If they were dealing with a typical wedding, that wouldn’t be an issue. With the impressive guest list that the mother-of-the-bride, Wendy, had offered up, it would be a very close shave.

  The cars in front of her pulled into a parking lot, and Holly breathed a sigh of relief. It soon changed to a cry of frustration as she mounted the rise to see a church in front of her.

  Beautiful and stately, the building appeared to have been fashioned out of stone blocks back when Hanmer Springs was first settled. At least one hundred years old, maybe more. A perfect venue for a wedding. The stained-glass windows glinted even in the overcast sky.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t the reception hall.

  Muttering under her breath, Holly eased the sedan to a stop and reached for her mobile.

  No dial tone. Brilliant.

  The time margins for her and Crystal to get the job finished squeezed tighter. No longer a corset, more like a noose.