Crunchy Christmas Murder: Killer Cookie Cozy Mysteries, Book 4

by Patti Benning

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CRUNCHY CHRISTMAS MURDER

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Crunchy

  Christmas

  Murder

  Book Four

  in

  Killer Cookie

  Cozy Mysteries

  By

  Patti Benning

  Copyright 2016 Summer Prescott Books

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  **This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons, living or dead, places of business, or situations past or present, is completely unintentional.

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  CRUNCHY CHRISTMAS

  MURDER

  Book Four in Killer Cookie Cozy Mysteries

  CHAPTER ONE

  * * *

  Lilah Fallon signed her name on the final line with a flourish and put the pen down. She gazed at her signature, then looked across the table to the real estate agent.

  “What now?” she asked. Her heart pounding as if she had just run a mile instead of scribbling her name at the bottom of a few pages.

  “We’ll review everything, and plan on closing in a couple of days,” the agent said. She was a younger woman, with a brusque and businesslike manner. “If nothing comes up, you will be able to pick up the keys on Friday.”

  “Thank you so much,” Lilah said. “Should I wait for your call, or check in tomorrow and see how things are going?”

  “I’ll give you a call to set up a time and place to meet to hand over the keys.” She stood up, sliding the papers into her briefcase and snapping it firmly shut before straightening her shirt. “Is there anything else you have questions about?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Lilah said, trying to straighten out her thoughts. It was hard to focus on anything other than the fact that she had just signed off on the building that would eventually become her very own cookie shop.

  “If there’s nothing else, expect my call before Thursday. Have a nice evening.”

  The real estate agent left the coffee shop, tossing her empty cup in the garbage bin on the way out. Lilah sat in her seat for a few minutes longer, drinking the rest of her own espresso while she let it sink in. She had bought the store. This was really happening. It was a big step — huge — and a little bit terrifying. There was a lot on the line for this cookie shop, and she wasn’t the only one who had taken a risk. One of her closest friends, Margie Hatch, had loaned her the money to get started, and she was determined to pay her back as soon as possible.

  “Lilah Fallon, small business owner,” she said to herself, trying it out. It sounded a lot better to her ears than Lilah Fallon, waitress. Not that she minded her job at the diner. In fact, she enjoyed it quite a lot. It just wasn’t what she wanted to do for the rest of her life.

  If she was being honest with herself, she wasn’t quite sure that owning a cookie shop was what she wanted to do for the rest of her life, either. She thought it was, but then just a few months ago, she had thought being a hair stylist was her ideal career. She already knew that she enjoyed baking, but what about the business side of it all? Would it be as stressful and fast paced as her job at her father’s company had been? She didn’t want to get burned out again after a few years.

  “Where is all this worrying coming from?” she said aloud, trying to snap herself out of the anxiety that had suddenly gripped her. “This is what I want to do with my life for now, and if I change my mind twenty years down the road, well, that isn’t the end of the world.”

  She got up and dumped the empty coffee cup in the trash before shrugging on her light jacket and shouldering her purse. She could worry later. Right now, it was time to celebrate.

  Margie Hatch was not only her friend and business partner, but also her neighbor. Lilah had had no idea how lucky she was getting when she rented the little yellow house a couple of years ago when she had first moved to the small town of Vista, Alabama. Margie had been there for her through so much, that Lilah sometimes wondered where she would be without her.

  She pulled the car into her gravel driveway and looked fondly at the little house. It wasn’t much; one bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen, a breakfast nook, and a living room, with no basement or garage, but she didn’t mind. It was a cozy house, and had everything she needed to feel at home.

  Sitting in the windowsill watching her was an orange tabby cat. Oscar had been with her for six years; she had adopted him from the pound when he was just a little kitten. He always greeted her at the door, along with her beagle, Winnie. She knew that she would have to go in and say a quick hello to them before she walked over to Margie’s house; Oscar would never forgive her if she ignored him.

  One of the things that she had always loved about her friend’s house was the warm, vanilla scent that her kitchen had soaked up from decades of baking. For the first time, she noticed a similar scent in her own kitchen when she walked through the door. It was one of the many subtle signs of how much her life had gradually changed over the years, and it filled her with happiness.

  “Hey, you two,” she said as the dog and cat came around the corner to greet her. She fished a pair of treats out of the owl-shaped cookie jar on the counter for them, then bent down to give each a quick pet. They wouldn’t be happy when she left again so quickly, but she wouldn’t be far, and she planned to spend some quality time on the couch with them this evening with a glass of wine and a good movie.

  She changed quickly into something more comfortable, and left just a few minutes later, heading across her yard to Margie’s house. Her friend pulled the door open as she walked up the porch steps.

  “I saw you pull in,” the older woman explained. “How did it go?”

  “I signed,” Lilah replied, a gr
in spreading across her face. “I should have the keys by Thursday.”

  “Oh, Lilah.” Margie wrapped her in a hug, her own face split into a happy smile. “I’m so happy for you.”

  “It hardly feels real. I’m still in shock. After everything that happened over the past few weeks, I didn’t think I would end up being able to get that place.”

  The old sandwich shop that Lilah had fallen so in love with had gotten tied up in a fatal family feud shortly after it first came on the market. Knowing that it might be a long time before things got settled, she had looked at a few other buildings around town, but none of them had felt as right as the little sandwich shop on Main Street. She still felt a shiver of disbelieving joy when she remembered getting the call from the real estate agent, telling her that the shop was back on the market.

  “How is everything else going?” Margie asked as the two of them walked into the house together.

  Lilah knew that she was asking about the rest of the many small tasks that had to be done before she could open the doors of the cookie shop for the first time. The amount of work that went into opening even a small business with no employees was astounding.

  “Well, I finished registering as an LLC, and I’ve got the identification number that I’ll need for taxes. All that’s really left to do is to get the kitchen inspected, but that has to wait until everything is set up,” she told her friend. “The shop should be able to open by Christmas, as long as nothing else comes up.”

  The two women chatted for another few minutes as they worked on lunch together. Lilah had a feeling that the older woman appreciated having company in the kitchen almost as much as Lilah appreciated the good, home cooked meal that was the result. Her son, daughter in law, and three grandchildren had left not long after Thanksgiving, and the older woman’s house had seemed unusually quiet since then.

  Lunch was baked chicken breasts with a creamy Alfredo sauce, topped with bacon bits and fresh Parmesan cheese. Lilah was put in charge of the salad, and as she rinsed off the organic lettuce in the sink, her mind wandered helplessly. She didn’t even have the keys yet, but she was already coming up with designs and color schemes for the cookie shop. She would run everything by Margie first, of course. She wanted her friend to be as involved in the store as possible. After all, she was the one that had made all of this possible…

  “Lilah, dear, you usually only have to pump that three or four times.”

  Her friend’s voice interrupted her thoughts, and she looked down to realize that she had been drying the lettuce in the salad spinner for far longer than was necessary. Embarrassed, she let the contraption spin to a stop before taking out the leaves.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’m just too excited. I don’t know how I’m going to make it until Thursday. I’m going to be so scatterbrained at work this afternoon; I’ll probably forget to turn the fryer off and burn the diner down.”

  “Oh, Randall has insurance on that thing through the roof. He’d probably thank you if you did.”

  Laughing, Lilah returned to the salad that she was supposed to be making. She tried to push her excitement — and apprehension — to the back of her mind for the time being. Thursday would come soon enough, and once she got the keys she would be lucky to have even a few moments of free time between all of the renovations and inspections that would have to be done before the shop could finally open. She wanted to do her best to appreciate these last few days before she took the plunge into the world of being a small business owner.

  CHAPTER TWO

  * * *

  “Two eggs sunny side up, bacon, and hash browns,” Lilah said, setting the plate down in front of her customer. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

  “Just a coffee refill. Thanks.” The man was a burly trucker from out of state; a common type of customer at the little diner, which was located just off of the state highway. Vista was a small town, but it got a lot of through traffic, which formed most of the diner’s customer base. That was another reason why she was so glad that she had been able to buy the old sandwich shop; its location on Main Street was just perfect.

  “I’ll be right back with that,” she told him, offering him a bright smile that she hoped would earn her an extra couple of dollars on the tip.

  It was Thursday, and in just three hours she had her meeting with the real estate agent to pick up the keys to the sandwich shop. Time seemed to be inching by painfully slowly that morning; no matter how long she made herself wait before glancing at the clock, only a few minutes would have passed. Still, she was glad to be able to spend the morning working instead of waiting at home. She had never been the patient type. At least an extra shift at the diner gave her something to do besides pace and check her phone for updates every couple of seconds.

  After refilling her customer’s coffee, she returned to the kitchen where Randall was cooking an omelet for his own late breakfast. Randall Price was the diner’s owner, and only full time cook. He worked at the restaurant seven days a week, and had only been gone a handful of times in the years that Lilah had worked there.

  “Do you have a final day for me yet?” he asked without looking at her, his eyes focused on his omelet as he carefully folded it in half.

  “Not yet,” she said, taking a seat at one of the ancient bar stools along the back wall. “I’ll be able to give you an answer after the cookie shop has been open for a week or two.”

  “You aren’t usually this cautious,” he said, maneuvering the overstuffed omelet onto a plate. “I can’t count the number of times you’ve quit here for a new job just minutes after you got hired.”

  He didn’t mention all of the times she had returned, begging for her job back, just weeks later, for which she was grateful. “This just feels… different. I want to make sure I’m doing things right,” she said.

  “Maybe this time it’s different because you’re treating it differently,” he suggested slyly. “You have more control over your life than you think, Lilah.”

  She was still trying to figure out a good answer to that when she heard the jingle from the front doors that announced another customer had come in for brunch. Leaving Russell, to enjoy his omelet in peace, she pushed through the swinging door between the kitchen and the dining area to find her best friend, Valerie Palmer, waiting to be seated. She didn’t recognize the woman standing next to her, but gave her a friendly nod anyway.

  “Hey, Val,” she said as she grabbed two menus from behind the counter. “Do you two need a booth, or do you just want to sit at the counter?”

  “We’ll take a booth,” her friend said. “Can you join us? I told Lydia about your cookie shop, and she wants to hear more. Her sister runs a similar shop in Montgomery; maybe you could call her and get some pointers.”

  “Lydia Lopez,” the other woman said, shaking Lilah’s hand. “My sister, Brigette, has a wonderful little store called Daydream Cookies and Cakes. She’s doing pretty well for herself, and would be happy to share her story with someone like you.”

  “I’d love to chat,” Lilah said. “Let’s sit at the booth in the corner. I’ll get your drink orders, then pop into the kitchen to tell Randall I’m taking my break. We aren’t that busy right now, so I don’t think he’ll mind.”

  A few minutes later the three of them were sitting at the booth, chatting together like old friends. A visit from Val turned out to be just what Lilah needed. Hearing about Lydia’s sister and her journey from being someone brand new to the business world to a successful store owner made the time go by more quickly, and helped Lilah feel more confident that what she was doing was right.

  “Here, I’ll give you Brigette’s business card,” Lydia said. “I’ll give her a call tonight and tell her about you. I think the two of you will hit it off. If you need help finding suppliers or anything, she’s your gal.”

  “Thanks,” Lilah said. She slid the card into her pocket, making a mental note to enter the woman’s contact information into her phone before she lost it. �
�So, what do you do, Lydia?”

  “Nothing as impressive as running a business,” the other woman said with a laugh. “I work part time at the florist. My husband, John, works at the machine shop and supports the both of us.” Lydia’s face fell. “That might change soon, though.”

  “What?” Val said, putting down her soda and turning to look at her friend. “What happened?”

  “He might get laid off,” Lydia said.

  “I didn’t know that,” Val replied. “I’m sorry. I thought the factory was doing well?”

  “It is; so well that they’re going to be getting a new machine that can do his job more quickly and more efficiently than he can.” She sighed and spun her glass slowly on the table. “I just heard about it an hour ago. He came home from work early, and was in a terrible mood. It turns out that he found out today that his boss, Mr. Townsend, was planning on letting a bunch of people go a few weeks after Christmas. I guess he saw a letter lying open on a desk, something that he wasn’t supposed to see. He didn’t really want to talk about it much, so I left him alone to cool down.”