Tide and Punishment

by Bree Baker

  Wyatt offered a sad smile. “You’ll figure this out.”

  I puffed a sigh of doubt into my bangs. “You’re the first person who hasn’t told me to leave it alone.”

  He laughed. “Would it matter if I had?”

  “No,” I admitted, “but I appreciate the support.”

  He looked up at me from beneath his thick lashes and offered an impish smile. “Anytime. Returning the favor.”

  I nodded. I’d followed him everywhere on tour. Believed he could win it all every time.

  Wyatt dropped a twenty on the counter and stretched onto his feet. “Thanks for lunch. It was amazing as usual, but it’s time for me to chase the mustangs.”

  I took the twenty to the register to make change, but before I could ring him up, he tipped his hat and was gone.

  Chapter Six

  The afternoon moved slowly once the lunch guests cleared. I worked on editing my new holiday cookie-making video, never quite satisfied with the results but knowing it was as good as it would get.

  When the seashell wind chimes and jingle bells sounded just after four, I was so thankful for the excuse to walk away from my laptop, I was prepared to offer whoever had come into the café a free meal.

  Lanita, Mr. and Mrs. Waters’s niece, bustled inside with a shiver and a smile. “I’m so glad you’re open. There aren’t any carts or cars parked outside, so I wasn’t sure.”

  I lifted one palm. “Everyone seems to be shopping. They’re probably eating in town. Closer to the action.”

  “True,” she agreed.

  I hurried into position behind the counter and beamed. “The good news is, you’ve got me all to yourself and I’m itching to serve. What can I get you?”

  “Cookies,” she said, stripping off her black wool pea coat and matching scarf. “I have three separate orders to place, plus a personal, soul-deep need for more of your peppermint fudge.”

  “Perfect!” I grabbed a knife and went after the fudge first. “I can help with all of that.”

  “I need separate bills for each order,” she said, sliding a rumpled sheet of paper in my direction. Three sets of random holiday cookie names were written on the lines.

  I stared blankly at the sheet. On another day, I might not have been so surprised, but on the heels of Fran’s crisis, the threat-gnome, and Wyatt, the list caught me off guard. “These aren’t for you and the Waters?”

  “No. They’re afternoon Pick-Me-Ups,” she said. “I told you, Charmers are loving the idea of deliveries instead of braving the cold. I’ve been driving around town all morning, picking up packages, delivering lunches, taking people from here to there. Your only cabbie is swamped, so I’m making myself useful.”

  “Ingenuity at its finest,” I said. “Impressive.” I hadn’t given any thought to how all the shoppers I’d seen had gotten into town when the number of cars and golf carts on the road had been so few.

  I delivered Lanita’s fudge first, then took the lists to my cookie bins to fulfill the other orders while she recorded the details in her glittery pink notebook. “There you go,” I said a few minutes later, setting the bags before her, each with a receipt stapled to the top. “Your fudge is on the house.”

  “Thanks!” She dug in her purse for a wallet, then handed me a thin stack of cash. Her phone buzzed and she turned it over with a smile. “College friends,” she said. “I took pictures of the snowy beach last night, and my roommates are going crazy.”

  I returned the change from her orders before peeking at the photo on her phone. The beach had been beautiful this morning, but the photos she’d taken last night were completely enchanting. The combination of snow, sand, and frothy white waves under moonlight was downright surreal. “These are fantastic,” I said. “May I?”

  She handed the phone to me, and I scrolled through the images. “You have a real talent.” I still cut off half my head in selfies.

  Lanita smiled. “Thanks, but I can’t take the credit. Mother Nature did all the work for me.” She polished off the last bite of her peppermint fudge and fluttered her eyelids. “Amazing.”

  “Oh!” I hurried to the pile of holiday cards waiting to go out with the morning mail, then ferried a small red envelope back to her. “This is for your aunt. Would you mind delivering it for me? It’s a thank-you for the peppermint stick.”

  She tucked the envelope into her pocket. “No problem. She’ll love it, and we can call it a trade for the fudge.”

  I laughed, then bagged another piece for the road while she bundled up. Her phone caught my attention again, and something about the images she’d shown me niggled in my mind. “Were you outside taking those pictures when Mayor Dunfree was killed?”

  “Mm-hmm.” She zipped her coat and settled a large messenger bag across her body. Three white takeout bags poked through the open top. “I heard him angry-whispering at someone when I went out, so I headed the other way to give them privacy. I’d assumed he was arguing with his wife, but people are saying he was on the phone.”

  I’d heard that too. “Mrs. Dunfree told Grady she’d walked to the golf cart alone while her husband took a phone call. Can you remember anything else?”

  Lanita frowned. “Not really. The next thing I knew, I heard a woman scream, and I ran back from the beach. I caught sight of you as I reached the top of the hill. You were already telling people to stay back. Help was on the way. I couldn’t believe it was the mayor on the ground when it was a woman who’d screamed.”

  “My aunt screamed when she saw him,” I said.

  Lanita sighed. “Everything happened so fast. I went inside to tell my aunt and uncle what was happening, and by the time we came back out, the night was flooded with emergency lights.”

  I couldn’t argue with her assessment of the timeline. Things had unfolded quickly.

  I chewed my lip as a new thought came to mind. “I wonder who he was talking to,” I said quietly. What if Mrs. Dunfree was lying about the call? Or what if she’d taken advantage of her husband’s distraction?

  “Who knows,” she said. “My mom says he was a total misogynist. When I was applying to colleges, she told me about the mayor here, who refused to be a reference for her when she was being considered for Stanford. Stanford,” she repeated for emphasis. “Mom worked at the town hall with him all through high school, but he wouldn’t write a simple reference. He told her she should be realistic. She was going to quit her future job to stay home with the kids eventually, so why take the seat away from a man who’d use the training all his life?” Lanita looked ill. “Can you even imagine someone saying that to you?”

  “No,” I said honestly.

  “Needless to say,” Lanita said, “we aren’t big Dunfree supporters in my family.”

  “Understandable,” I said, drumming my fingers on the counter. Real grudges were hard to let go. I tried to imagine Mayor Dunfree outside, pacing in the shadows, engrossed in a heated call. Had his misogyny persisted? Had someone called him out on it? “Could the mayor have been so wrapped up in the argument that he never saw the killer coming? Could the person on the phone be the same one who killed him?” Maybe calling the mayor was a tricky way to make him think the caller was somewhere else, when in truth he or she was right behind him with my porch gnome!

  Lanita looked at her watch. “I don’t know, and this sounds like it’s about to get interesting, but I’ve got to deliver these orders. Will you keep me posted if you find any answers?”

  I nodded in agreement, but I didn’t mean it. As I knew well, people who got caught up in amateur investigations often got hurt, and I liked Lanita. Plus, her aunt and uncle would never forgive me if anything bad happened to her. “Drive safely,” I said, fumbling for my cell phone.

  Grady hadn’t said anything about Mayor Dunfree’s cell phone when I had spoken to him earlier. Had he found it? Did he know who the mayor had been talking to that n
ight? I dialed Grady and waited impatiently for the call to connect.

  “Hays,” Grady answered.

  “Hey, it’s Everly,” I said dumbly. I’d rushed into dialing without making a plan to explain why I was so interested in the mayor’s last phone call. “I was just wondering if you happened to find Mayor Dunfree’s cell phone last night.” I closed my eyes and waited.

  “No,” Grady said slowly. “Why? Did you?”

  My lids sprang open. “No, but I was just going out to feed the birds in the garden and thought I’d take a look by the light of day for you.”

  “My guys were there at dawn. The phone’s not there.”

  “Okay,” I said sweetly. “I just thought if someone accidentally kicked it out of sight or if it was buried in snow during all the commotion, I might see it while I was out there.”

  Grady sighed. “Please don’t look for it. If you come across a cell phone in the garden, give me a call, but don’t get involved in this intentionally. I’ll come by and take another look after I finish my interviews.”

  “Sounds good,” I told him. “I guess I’ll just feed the birds then.”

  “Uh-huh,” he groaned.

  I imagined him pinching the bridge of his nose or popping antacids.

  “Have you had a chance to talk to Fran?” he asked.

  “Not yet.” I grabbed my coat and a bag of birdseed from the foyer closet. “I’m sure Blessed Bee has been swamped, so I’m inviting her and Aunt Clara over for dinner.”

  “Great. I’ll be there when I can.”

  I headed for the front door with a smile on my lips. “Sounds good.” I disconnected and dashed into my gardens to search for a cell phone. I kicked tiny windblown drifts of snow and checked along the ground under every bush, shrub, and frozen plant. Grady was right, there was no phone to be found, and that could only mean one thing.

  The killer had taken it with him.

  A blade of fear cut through my bravado, and I ran back toward the house, flinging birdseed over the snow as I fled. I paused briefly to fill the feeder near the gate, then took the porch steps two at a time.

  I jerked to a stop behind the counter and pressed my palms to my knees, then sucked in deep, calming breaths. I really was out of shape, and an enormous chicken.

  When I righted myself, my open laptop stared back at me. Speaking of chicken, I thought. The video I’d been editing was paused on the screen. All I had to do was press a button and the video would be added to my website under the Holiday How-To tab I’d created especially for videos just like it.

  I’d spent hours in early November selecting the perfect cookie recipe, my grandma’s delectable Seven-Layer Bars, the right mixing bowls, red and green with mitten and stocking stencils, an apron with the word Believe embroidered over the chest and the backdrop of my beloved café, complete with bright ocean views beyond the windows. I’d spent time each night creating the script, perfecting the lighting, and performing countless dry runs until I was sure I was ready to record. Now, it was time to show the world all my hard work, but I couldn’t convince myself to post the video.

  People online were mean, and I didn’t have room for negativity in my life. I was making something good and positive for myself. Why would I jeopardize it by giving haters a chance to see me baking and leave nasty comments? If I deleted the comments, I’d look like a baby. If I left them, the negativity could influence other people’s opinions of my café and products.

  Maybe I’d set it up so comments weren’t allowed.

  What would that say about me?

  I shut the laptop.

  I had too many other things to do at the moment. There wasn’t time to press the button anyway. I dialed my aunts instead.

  “Thanks for calling Blessed Bee, where we’re buzzing for the holidays,” Aunt Clara answered.

  “Hey,” I said. “Are you busy?”

  “Never too busy for you,” she cooed. “Did you have a chance to tell Detective Hays about my missing gnomes? I’ve been thinking about what you said all day, and you’re right. We should’ve called him right away.”

  “I did, and he’s looking into it,” I said. “While he and I were talking, I realized I have a few questions for Aunt Fran, and Grady said I should ask them. Any chance you guys are free for dinner?”

  “I think so,” Aunt Clara said. “Just a minute.” A scraping sound swept through the receiver, muffling the white noise of shoppers and holiday music on her end of the line. “Fran?” Aunt Clara’s familiar, albeit muted, voice warbled. “Everly wants to know if we’re free for dinner.”

  There was a loud scuffling sound through the receiver, and I pulled it away from my ear.

  “Hello?” Aunt Fran yelled.

  “Hi.” I cringed. “You’re really loud.”

  “We’re sharing the phone, darling,” Clara clarified. “We’re making sure you can hear us both.”

  I shook my head at the empty café. “Push the speaker option instead. You don’t have to yell.”

  They broke into a side conversation about whether or not the phone had a speaker button.

  I waited. Some days I wished I had a sister to grow old with, and other days I was thankful not to. I wasn’t sure which sort of day this was. “Hello?” I asked. “Dinner?”

  “We’re free,” Aunt Fran said, only slightly quieter and probably still not on speaker. “Did you talk to Detective Hays?”

  “She did,” Aunt Clara hissed. “She already told us that.”

  Fran grunted. “She hasn’t told me. I just got here.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “See you at seven?”

  This was definitely one of the days I could get onboard with growing old alone.

  “We’ll be there,” Aunt Fran confirmed. “Can I bring anything?”

  I looked around my café and smiled. “I’ve got dinner covered, but can you bring the name of someone who might’ve had a beef with the mayor lately?”

  “Ha,” Aunt Fran said. “I’ll bring a list.”

  Chapter Seven

  I watched the day slip away as I served the dinner crowd and prepared for my aunts to arrive. Blessed Bee closed promptly at seven each night, which gave me plenty of time to wrap things up at Sun, Sand, and Tea while I prepped our private meal. The logistics would be especially simple because I planned to use café leftovers as side dishes and hors d’oeuvres.

  Choosing the main dish was trickier. I flipped through multiple Swan family cookbooks in search of inspiration before landing on the perfect dish. In honor of the cold snap, which hadn’t let up the way the weather channel predicted, I decided on my grandma’s favorite: chicken potpie. I browned the chicken between bouts of serving and cleaning up after guests, then mixed the ingredients and poured everything into a glass baking dish. I kicked it up a notch with fat cubes of my best sourdough bread and smiled at the pretty results. I slid the dish into the oven, already set at 350 degrees and waited for the rich, buttery scents of the hundred-year-old recipe to fill my lungs, café, and heart.

  Not surprisingly, business ground to a halt at half-past six. There wasn’t much to do at the seaside after dark this time of year. In town, however, most restaurants and shops would be going strong for another couple of hours. My thoughts wandered in the stillness, and my gaze drifted to the night beyond my windows. Outside the patio doors, a silver moon rose over the water, its rippled image fluttering on the dark surface below. The view was enchanting, distracting, and darn near magical. I considered going onto the deck to be closer to it. I wanted to breathe in the crisp sea air.

  Unfortunately, I had work to do.

  I reopened my laptop and stared at the how-to video, still waiting for me to add it to my website. Not quite ready to push the button, I opened a new window and brought up the Town Charmer blog. Maybe there was an update, and I could use the information to guide my questions for Aun
t Fran tonight.

  The new feature article showcased menus for the upcoming Holiday Shuffle. Was it strange that our mayor had been murdered, but the annual progressive dinner was the top news story on our gossip site? Maybe. It could have been that the annual shuffle was more current and pressing, but I suspected the blogger simply hadn’t gotten any new material.

  I poured a jar of tea and settled in to review the available menus. First, I chose my path for the night based on what was being served and where, then I focused on what would be served at the other cocktails and hors d’oeuvres locations. Whatever I served needed to blow everyone else’s selections away. The bottom line of the article was both bold and underlined. Anyone who didn’t submit their menus immediately would be removed from the list of stops.

  Jeez. No pressure or anything. It wasn’t as if I didn’t have a business to run, my great-aunt’s name to clear, and a how-to-bake video to upload.

  I left a comment to assure everyone I was just having trouble choosing what to make after reading all their incredible selections, and I promised to get my menu together as soon as possible.

  The pressure left me slouching against the counter. Whatever I made had to be perfect. I wasn’t just another home on the list of stops that night, I was a café owner. I needed to make an impression that would bring people back to Sun, Sand, and Tea. The food had to be an example of my abilities. A showcase. Especially for those who would be stopping in for the first time. If I didn’t impress, the negative word of mouth could ruin me.

  The wind chimes and jingle bells sounded again, and I checked the little clock on my laptop. It was already after seven. Closing time. I heaved a sigh of relief as I realized the new arrivals had to be my aunts.