“I just happened by. Thought it was strange to see Clementine’s door hanging open. Didn’t recognize the car.”
“Well, thank you for looking into it.” Erin waited until he stepped out onto the sidewalk and then followed, pulling the door shut behind her. He watched as she locked it again. “You see? I have the keys.”
“Where did this detective find you?”
“Maine.”
“Is that where you’re from?”
“I’m from a lot of places. Now I’m looking at settling back down here.”
Erin looked at the German Shepherd, doing the doggie equivalent of standing at attention.
“I’ve never heard of a small town like this having a K9 unit.”
“Well,” he looked down at the dog, chewing on his words, “this is the extent of our K9 contingent.”
“He looks… very well-trained. What’s his name?”
“K9.”
Erin cracked a smile. “Seriously?”
He kept a serious face, nodding once.
“Okay. Well, again, thank you for checking in on my store, Officer…?”
“Terry Piper.”
“Erin Price.” Erin offered her hand and this time Piper took it, giving her hand a brief squeeze as if he were afraid of crushing it.
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Price. Or is it missus?”
“It’s Miss.”
“Keep safe. Give us a call if you need anything.” He produced a business card with a blue and yellow crest on it. “We don’t exactly have 9-1-1 service but there’s always someone on call.”
Erin nodded her thanks. “I’ll keep it handy. A lot of crime in Bald Eagle Falls?”
“No. It’s a sleepy little town. Not too much excitement. Rowdy teenagers. Some of the drug trade trickling down from the city. The occasional domestic.”
“Not a lot of break-and-enters?” she teased.
He didn’t look amused. “You can’t be too careful. Where are you headed now? There’s a motel down the way…”
“No. I got the house too. I’ll be staying there.”
“You can’t sleep there tonight. Won’t be any water or power.”
“They’ve been turned on. Thanks for your concern.”
He looked for something else to say, then apparently couldn’t find anything, so he nodded and walked down the sidewalk with his faithful companion.
Erin kept one eye on the GPS and the other on her rearview mirror to see if Officer Piper had any ideas about hopping into his car and following her home to make sure that she was properly situated. But apparently, he couldn’t think of any laws she had broken and he never appeared behind her. Clementine’s house was only a few blocks away. Erin parked on the street in front of it and took it in. It was a pretty little house with white siding and green shutters, roof peaks, and accents. The living room had big windows to let in the light and a window up at the top peak hinted at an attic bedroom or study. Beside and behind the house, beyond the fence line, were shimmering green, dense woods.
Erin got out of the car and grabbed her suitcase before walking up to the heavy paneled door and inserting her key in the lock. This one didn’t stick, but turned smoothly like it was welcoming her home. Erin lugged her suitcase into the front entryway and closed and locked the door behind her. No point in inviting more visitors. She really didn’t want to have to deal with anyone else until morning.
The AC was on, so the house wasn’t stifling like the shop had been. Erin hadn’t been sure what to expect. Burgener, the lawyer, had informed her that the house was furnished, but she hadn’t known what kind of state it would be in. But it was neat and tidy. Furnished, but not cluttered. There were a couple of magazines on the coffee table in the living room that were months old, but other than that, Clementine might have just left it a few days before. Or still be in the other room just awaiting Erin’s arrival.
She wasn’t a believer in ghosts or restless spirits, but Clementine’s smell and flavor still clung to the place.
Erin left her suitcase at the door and explored the house slowly. Living room, small dining room, kitchen, Clementine’s bedroom, a guest room, and what Erin thought she might call a sewing room. There was fabric, rolls of wrapping paper, partially finished crafts, and post-bound books of genealogy, painstakingly written in longhand.
There were pull-down steps to the attic. If there had only been a ladder, Erin probably wouldn’t have explored any further, but the stairs were well-made and modern and raised her hopes that the attic had been properly developed and wasn’t just a storage space full of boxes, bags, cobwebs, and dust.
She mounted the stairs. At the top, there was enough light from below to find a light switch. Erin switched it on and had a look around.
It was a beautiful, bright room. Erin knew she was going to be spending a lot of her free time up there. White paneling and built-in cabinetry, soft, natural-looking lighting; it consisted of a reading nook, a writing desk, a comfy-looking couch, and various other touches that would make it a paradisiacal oasis at the end of a tiring day of baking.
Or driving.
After exploring the attic, Erin shut off the light, descended, and pushed the stairs up until the counterbalance took over and raised them to snick softly into place in the ceiling.
Erin returned to the kitchen for a glass of water, not looking forward to the fact that she was going to have to go out and pick up groceries if she wanted anything to eat. She found a sticky note on the fridge on notepaper preprinted with the lawyer’s logo and phone number.
Welcome home. You’ll find some basic supplies in the fridge. JRB
Erin opened the fridge door and sighed. Milk, juice, eggs, bagels, jam, and some precut fruit and vegetable packs. That and the coffee maker on the counter would do just fine. If James Burgener had been there, she would have hugged him.
A quick snack and then she would be off to the guest room for some shut-eye. Ghosts or not, she wasn’t going to be sleeping in the master bedroom until she had made it her own.
Never one to let moss grow, Erin set to work immediately the next morning. She found a sort of a general store which carried both the small appliances she needed and painting supplies. With the back seats folded down, she filled the cargo area of the Challenger with as much as it would hold. She went back to the shop, opened the windows, and prepped the walls to start painting. Best to get a fresh coat of paint on before installing anything new.
“Knock, knock?”
Erin was startled out of her thoughts. She yanked the earbuds out of her ears and turned to face the woman who was trying to get her attention.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said, giving her a tentative smile. She had a pleasant face; a middle-aged woman with ash blond hair. Either she had the perfect figure, or her clothes were hand-tailored. “I didn’t want to startle you, but you were pretty engrossed…”
Erin wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “Yeah. A little caught up in my music and my work.”
“My name is Mary Lou Cox. I heard a rumor that you were here. So, I just had to come over and extend a good old Bald Eagle Falls welcome.”
“Erin Price. I, uh… Clementine was my aunt.”
“Well, if you’re kin to Clementine, you’re kin to half the mountain. Welcome home.”
Erin nodded awkwardly. “Thank you. That’s very kind of you.”
“So…” Mary Lou took a look around the kitchen. “A fresh coat of paint and then I hear you’re opening up Clementine’s Tea Room again? I’ll tell you, this town has surely missed the tea room.”
“Uh. No. I’m not reopening the tea room.” Erin enjoyed a cup of tea at the end of the day as much as anyone, but she was much more interested in baking. The groove she got into while painting was nothing compared with the nirvana she would achieve while baking. “I’m opening a specialty bakery.”
Mary Lou patted her hair. “We already have a bakery in Bald Eagle Falls.”
Erin ran the roller down the wal
l, watching carefully for seams or drips.
“I’m sure the town can support more than one bakery.”
“But we already have The Bake Shoppe. We don’t need another bakery.”
Erin gave her a determined smile. “I’m opening a bakery.”
“Angela Plaint owns The Bake Shoppe and does a really nice business, I’m not sure any of us would go to another bakery. It wouldn’t be a very loyal thing to do.”
“You could go to The Bake Shoppe for… whatever Angela Plaint is best at and then come to my bakery for gluten-free muffins.”
“Gluten-free?” Mary Lou echoed.
“I assume you don’t already have a gluten-free bakery.”
“No, we do not. If you want that kind of baking, you have to drive into the city.”
“Well, now you’ll be able to get them in town.”
“There aren’t that many people that want that gluten-free stuff in Bald Eagle Falls. I don’t see how you could make a living off it.”
“We’ll just have to see. I do other specialty baking as well. Dairy-free, allergy-free, vegan.”
“We don’t have a lot of those kind of people here. We like our meat. Whoever put meat in muffins anyway?”
Erin studied Mary Lou for a moment, trying to divine whether she was teasing or being sarcastic. “You might not put meat in a muffin, but you would probably put eggs and dairy.”
“And you could make it without all those things? Who would eat such a thing? It would be like eating cardboard.”
“Not when I make it.”
“I guess we’ll just have to see,” Mary Lou said. “I sure don’t cotton to the idea of you trying to take Angela’s business.”
“I guess we’ll just have to see,” Erin echoed.
Mary Lou was the first the citizen of Bald Eagle Falls to express her opinion and welcome Erin to town, but she wasn’t the last. Next came Melissa Lee, a woman with curly dark hair and a wide, even smile. And then Gema Reed, with her long, steel gray locks and a girlish complexion.
Erin did her best to explain to them that she wasn’t there to horn in on Angela’s business and take money out of her pocket, but to offer a new service that hadn’t previously been available. But it was like talking to the wall. Or yelling at an avalanche. It didn’t stop them from dumping advice all over her, while smiling and telling her she was welcome in town.
She didn’t feel welcome.
At least Terry Piper did not show up with his K9 to give his input on the matter.
It was a long day and Erin never did meet Angela, her competition. The end of the day, the walls were freshly painted. Everything looked fresh and new. Exhausted though she was, Erin spent a few more minutes in the tiny office, going through the papers and plans in the folders she had brought with her from Maine.
Then she locked everything up tight and headed back home.
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Meet Erin Price, Reg’s foster sister in the Auntie Clem’s Bakery series! Gluten-Free Murder is available at your favorite online stores and pdworkman.com now!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
For as long as P.D. Workman can remember, the blank page has held an incredible allure. After a number of false starts, she finally wrote her first complete novel at the age of twelve. It was full of fantastic ideas. It was the spring board for many stories over the next few years. Then, forty-some novels later, P.D. Workman finally decided to start publishing. Lots more are on the way!
P.D. Workman is a devout wife and a mother of one, born and raised in Alberta, Canada. She is a homeschooler and an Executive Assistant. She has a passion for art and nature, creative cooking for special diets, and running. She loves to read, to listen to audio books, and to share books out loud with her family. She is a technology geek with a love for all kinds of gadgets and tools to make her writing and work easier and more fun. In person, she is far less well-spoken than on the written page and tends to be shy and reserved with all but those closest to her.
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Please visit P.D. Workman at pdworkman.com to see what else she is working on, to join her mailing list, and to link to her social networks.
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