Chapter 17

AT 7:00 A.M. Monday morning, as I was heading out to the beach for a run/walk, I looked for Aunt Vera’s car. It wasn’t parked in the driveway. Had she contacted Cinnamon Pritchett and convinced her she was innocent, or was she playing footsie with her new boy toy?

Stop it, Jenna. That’s beneath you. But I was worried. About her health and her freedom, and, honestly, I didn’t want her heart to be broken again. I wanted her to find a man who treasured her, in all aspects. Was Nature Guy Greg the right guy? He was a man of great spiritual depth, and he’d dedicated his life to helping the environment. But what else did he have that he could offer my aunt? Was a good soul enough?

An hour later I arrived at work. To distract myself, I dove into the boxes of new cookbooks that had come in late Saturday. Not every one of them focused on Halloween. Already, we were stocking books for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Gift items were arriving, too. I had found the most charming three-by-three-inch rustic boxes with hand-painted sayings on them like The best things in life aren’t things and You are the shake to my bake. They made me smile. I was pretty certain my customers would love them, too. They would make great stocking stuffers. I was contemplating a holiday display of culinary mysteries, too, with a sign that said Stalking Stuffers. Would people get the play on words?

Around 10:00 A.M., Katie rolled a cooking cart into the shop. On it were bags of dark chocolate chips, sugar, butter, a salt shaker, and utensils. “Ready?” she said.

“For?”

“The candy-making class. Did you forget?”

“On Monday? With everything else we have to do?”

She nodded. “We have ten adults coming.”

“What are you conjuring up?”

“It was a tough decision. I had to choose between chocolate fudge, peanut butter pretzel bonbons, and chocolate brittle.”

“No candy corn?”

“Those are primarily kid treats.”

Huh, who knew? They were one of my favorite indulgences at this time of year. Did that mean I was a kid at heart?

Katie said, “I went with chocolate brittle. Sweets taste great with a dash of salt. Have you ever paired bacon and chocolate?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“Delish.” Katie anchored the cart using a foot brake, then helped me set up the chairs in a semicircle.

“Do I get to be your assistant?” I asked.

“If you aren’t scared of spitting sugar.”

“Moi? I’ll have you know I made sunflower seed brittle the other night at home. It spit and I didn’t get burned.” I polished my fingernails on the front of my shirt. “To quote Mark Twain: ‘Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.’”

Katie applauded. “I’m proud of you.” She withdrew a marble cutting board from the cabinet beneath the cooktop.

“What’s that for?” I asked.

“Spreading the candy out. We could do it on a metal baking sheet—”

“That’s what I used at home.”

“But marble cools candy much more quickly. It has thermodynamic properties that draw heat out of the sugar.”

“Ha. I learn something new every day.”

Minutes later, the class members started to arrive. One woman carried a glazed pot planted with herbs. She shoved it at me. “For you.”

“That was nice. You didn’t have to.”

“I didn’t. There’s a note attached.”

The message read: May a window close and a door open. Odd. Did whoever was sending the gifts hope that I would end my newfound relationship with Rhett and open my arms to him? Who was this anonymous wooer?

Tigger bumped my legs. Oof. I set the herbs on the sales counter and scooped up my kitten. “Fie, fie, knave. Do not frighten me so.” It was a feeble attempt at Shakespeare, but with all that was going on, including Aunt Vera’s whimsy, Pearl’s murder, and Katie’s possibly aggressive candy, how was I supposed to respond to some gift giver making secret advances on me? Needless to say, I was feeling emotional and vulnerable. I didn’t like secrets and rarely liked surprises.

I gave Tigger a quick kiss and nudged him back toward the stockroom. “That’s where you stay until after the class. Go on.” He obeyed. I squirted my hands with sanitizer lotion.

“Jenna, dear.” Helen Hammerstead, a pear-shaped woman with a doughy face, scuttled toward me. She held her pampered Havanese in her arms. “Do you mind if Ho-Ho attends the class?” She nodded to the dog. “I just couldn’t leave the house without my baby.” She rubbed noses with the dog. “No, I couldn’t. You know I couldn’t.” The dog licked her nose. She eyed me pleadingly.

I sighed. There was one drawback to offering cooking classes in the shop. Although we had gotten the okay from health regulators, we had to ensure that animals didn’t come anywhere near the food or preparations, ergo, the reason why I had banned Tigger from the proceedings.

“I’ll tuck Ho-Ho into my purse. He’s a nonallergenic, nonshedding breed,” Mrs. Hammerstead said. “Please, pretty please?”

I smiled. “I get it. You can’t bear to part with him now that’s he back.”

“Back from where?”

“The other night.”

Her face pinched into a frown. “Whatever are you talking about?”

“When he went missing from the veterinarian’s office.”

She gasped. “He went missing?”

“Yes, Emma tracked him down.” Was the woman daft?

Mrs. Hammerstead arched an eyebrow. “I never heard about this.” She lifted her dog, thumbs wedged beneath his forearms, and planted his face against hers. “Did you run off, you bad boy? Did you? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Yeah, like he can talk, I thought, but Mrs. H’s concern set my mind into gear. Had Emma kept the truth from her client to protect her reputation, or had she lied about looking for the Havanese to give herself an alibi? Pepper swore she saw Emma roaming Azure Park. She even knew Emma was wearing yellow. On the other hand, Pepper had been known to fabricate—all right, out-and-out lie—about events. The woman had a deep-seated need to be in the thick of things. But why lie this time? How would she have known what color sweater Emma had been wearing? Also, Emma claimed she saw Bingo practicing spells in her antique shop, which meant she had definitely been out and about, but was she roaming Crystal Cove at the precise time the murder occurred? I intended to find out.

I said, “Ho-Ho has to stay in your purse and no escaping, deal?”

Mrs. Hammerstead giggled in a hissy way, like hot foam oozing out of a coffee machine. “Of course, dear. Ho-Ho is a good doggie.” She lifted the pup again. “Yes, you are. Yes, you are.” She tucked the dog away, placed a tiny blanket over his back, and then cleaned her hands with a sanitizer wipe.

Before the class started, I slipped away to the stockroom and discreetly dialed the precinct.

“Crystal Cove Police Department, Deputy Appleby speaking.”

“Deputy, it’s Jenna Hart.”

He cleared his throat. “What’s up, Miss Hart?” I heard a chair squeak and a bit of a groan. Was Deputy Appleby sitting taller to talk to me? A curious notion swept through me. Weeks ago, he had suggested we go for coffee; at the time, I’d thought he was teasing me. Baiting me, even. Was it possible that the deputy was my secret admirer? I was pretty sure he would be better suited to someone a little more passive than I was.

I decided to skirt the prickly subject. “Is Chief Pritchett there?”

“She’s out.”

“May I leave a message? It might pertain to Pearl Thornton’s murder.”

“I can address your concerns.”

“I’m sure you could, but—”

“Jenna, speak.”

I recoiled. “No need to talk to me like a dog.”

“I wasn’t . . . I didn’t mean . . . Sorry, Jenna . . . Miss Hart. What’s on your mind?” His bumbling reinforced my concern that he might be my mysterious gift giver. Uh-oh. Talk about awkward.

“I’m skeptical about Emma Wright’s alibi.” As much as I liked Emma, I wanted Cinnamon to have someone other than my aunt on her radar. I explained about Emma’s client not knowing her dog had been at large.

Deputy Appleby snickered. “Not every babysitter blabs about the antics of a bratty child for fear of not being hired again.”

“True. Just call it intuition.”

“You? Intuitive?” He chuckled. “If you were intuitive—” He paused. Was he debating whether to ask me if I’d guessed who was sending me the tokens of affection?

I refused to give him the satisfaction. “You’ll make sure the chief gets that message?”

“You betcha.”

Talk about not making friends and influencing people. I didn’t care. If he was my secret admirer, he would have to work harder than leaving a few gifts outside the shop door—not to suggest that I would ever consider him a prospect. I imagined my last kiss with Rhett and the memory warmed me through and through. I could barely wait until tomorrow’s date.

Bailey hurried in with a cup of coffee from Latte Luck Café. Her hair looked windblown. Her eyes, which were the same color as her turquoise outfit and beads, glistened with fiery energy. “Let’s hear it for caffeine.” She took a sip of her coffee as she sidled behind the sales counter and settled onto a stool. “Nice crowd. Do you think they noticed the candy cookbook displays I set on the front table? They’re not all for Halloween. For example, The Sweet Book of Candymaking from the Simple to the Spectacular has all these fabulous tips on how to get started. There’s a whole chapter dedicated to caramels.”

The full title was The Sweet Book of Candymaking from the Simple to the Spectacular—How to Make Caramels, Fudge, Hard Candy, Fondant, Toffee, and More. A mouthful in any language.

“The other one I adore,” Bailey continued, “is Handcrafted Candy Bars: From-Scratch, All-Natural, Gloriously Grown-Up Confections. Get this chapter title: ‘Dream Bars: Healthier, Spicier, Sexier.’ Yum-yum. The book has been highly recommended by the owner of a culinary bookshop on the East Coast. It’s filled with recipes for all-time favorite candies. The dark chocolate–dipped almond-coconut bars look downright sinful.” She cocked her head. “So did the crowd browse?”

“Most went straight to their chairs, but I’ll make sure they view your wizardry afterward.”

“Oh, I almost forgot”—Bailey set her coffee aside—“I saw Trisha Thornton at Latte Luck. She was with her boyfriend. Boy, did they canoodle. They have no compunctions about kissing in public. Me? I had a boyfriend in college who nipped that practice in the bud. ‘No public displays of affection,’ he warned me repeatedly, and it has stuck with me.”

“What did he look like?”

“Raggedy. Gaunt face, big teeth. He was a genius. Also not my type. I’m so glad we ended that doomed affair.”

“Not your college boyfriend, you goon. Trisha’s guy.”

“Holey jeans, faded T-shirt, shaggy tired hair. Like a bear that had been awakened from a long winter’s nap. Anyway, I overheard them talking.”

“About?”

“Your aunt.”

“Vera?”

“Do you have another?”

I sneered. She knew I didn’t. My father had one sister. My mother had been an only child.

“He said, ‘Vera Hart has to be stopped,’ and Trisha said, ‘What’s she doing now?’ and he said, ‘Poking around at school. If she finds out—’ That’s when Trisha cut him off. I think she spotted me listening in. She said, ‘Don’t worry, she won’t.’”

“Won’t find out what?” I asked.

“Do I look like I know?”

“What if Trisha lied about being in the lab on the night her mother was murdered? What if someone can corroborate that the lab was empty? I’ve got to find out.”

“How—”

“Jenna!” Pepper dashed into the store and screeched to a halt short of the semicircle of chairs. Her face was flushed. She held her cell phone overhead and pressed a hand to her chest to catch her breath. “Jenna, come quick. It’s”—she gulped in air—“your aunt. She’s been in a car accident. She was rushed to the hospital.”