by Agatha Frost
Gingerbread and Ghosts
Agatha Frost
Published by Pink Tree Publishing Limited in 2017
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © Pink Tree Publishing Limited.
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
For questions and comments about this book, please contact [email protected]
www.pinktreepublishing.com
www.agathafrost.com
Edited by Keri Lierman and Karen Sellers
Contents
About This Book
Newsletter Signup
Also by Agatha Frost
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Thank You!
Also by Agatha Frost
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About This Book
Released: December 12th 2017
Words: 48,500
Series: Book 10 - Peridale Cozy Café Mystery Series
Standalone: Yes
Cliff-hanger: No
Christmas falls on Peridale, but that does not mean café-owner and part-time sleuth, Julia South, can sit back and enjoy the festivities. When the opening night of the annual Christmas play ends with Julia's elderly gran, Dot, fatally shooting a man in front of the whole village, Julia's world is turned upside down. Did Dot plan to murder the man she has a secret past with or was she framed?
While juggling the slow process of adopting her foster daughter, her heavily pregnant sister's looming delivery date, and her detective inspector boyfriend seemingly keeping secrets, Julia must wade through the tangled history of the Peridale Amateur Dramatics Society if she wants to free Dot from prison before Christmas Day. With the walls of Julia's personal life closing in around her, and the cast and crew of the play not being all they seem, can she figure out the truth in time, or is it one case too many? The only thing guaranteed is that it promises to be a holiday season to remember...
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Also by Agatha Frost
The Scarlet Cove Seaside Series
Dead in the Water (Book 1) - OUT NOW
Castle on the Hill (Book 2) - OUT NOW
Stroke of Death (Book 3) - COMING EARLY 2018
The Peridale Cafe Series
Pancakes and Corpses (Book 1) - OUT NOW
Lemonade and Lies (Book 2) - OUT NOW
Doughnuts and Deception (Book 3) - OUT NOW
Chocolate Cake and Chaos (Book 4) - OUT NOW
Shortbread and Sorrow (Book 5) - OUT NOW!
Espresso and Evil (Book 6) - OUT NOW
Macarons and Mayhem (Book 7) - OUT NOW
Fruit Cake and Fear (Book 8) - OUT NOW
Birthday Cake and Bodies (Book 9) - OUT NOW
Gingerbread and Ghosts (Book 10) - OUT NOW
Cupcakes and Casualties (Book 11) - COMING EARLY 2018
The 11th Peridale Cafe book, Cupcakes and Casualties, is coming early 2018! Sign up to Agatha’s FREE newsletter to be notified of its release!
1
Sitting at the dining table in her small cottage as snow slowly drifted past the window, Julia South turned to the next page in the photo album. She smiled down at her mother and father on their wedding day as she slid the delicate photograph out of the plastic sleeve before turning it over. ‘Pearl and Brian South – Christmas Eve 1971’. They had only been eighteen when they married, but they looked as happy as two people in love could be on their wedding day. Her mother had worn a beautiful, simple white dress with a short train and lace sleeves, paired with a bouquet of white chrysanthemums and a veil in her curled dark hair. Standing in the snowy grounds of St. Peter’s Church, she was the definition of a beautiful English rose.
Julia slid the picture back into its sleeve before turning to the next page. Pearl smiled up at her again, eight years later and this time from a hospital bed, a small baby with an almost full head of dark hair in her arms. Even in a hospital gown with tired eyes, holding her newly born first daughter, she looked just as beautiful.
She flicked through a couple more pages until she landed on the next hospital picture. This time Julia was six, and it was baby Sue who was in their mother’s arms, their father on the other side of the bed, his pink shirt open at the chest, the back of his mullet hairstyle hitting his collar. She smiled to herself as she carefully turned to the next page.
“Julia?” Jessie cried from the kitchen. “I need your help! Everything’s going wrong!”
Julia forced herself out of the chair before placing the book back on the shelf with the rest of her family albums. She knocked back the last mouthful of her peppermint and liquorice tea before walking through to the kitchen. She stopped in her tracks when she saw what Jessie was wearing.
“Is that my dress?” Julia asked as she looked up and down the red summer dress hanging off Jessie’s slight frame.
“I borrowed it from your room,” Jessie said with a wave of her hands before she tucked her unusually straight and tangle-free hair behind her ears. “What am I going to do? Look at them! They’re not perfect!”
Julia looked down at the tray of still hot and undecorated gingerbread men. Some of them were a little misshapen, but they smelt delicious and well spiced. Julia suspected Jessie had taken the recipe from Julia’s mother’s handwritten recipe book. When she spotted it out of the corner of her eye under a bag of flour, it warmed her heart that the recipes had found their way to a new generation.
“It’s about the taste,” Julia said, tilting her head as she stared at the gingerbread men. “Once you decorate them, they’ll be beautiful.”
“They need to be perfect!” Jessie cried, her cheeks reddening as she leaned against the kitchen counter. “It’s not going to work.”
Julia hurried around the counter to rest both hands on Jessie’s shoulders. In the two weeks since the letter confirming the date for their first adoption meeting with Jessie’s social worker had landed on the doormat, Jessie had been a nervous wreck. Julia’s own nerves paled in comparison to Jessie’s, who had been compulsively cleaning every inch of the house as though The Queen herself was paying their cottage a royal visit.
“You just need to be yourself,” Julia said with a reassuring squeeze. “I’m sure it’s just a routine meeting. They’ll see how happy you are here, and that’s what’s most important to them.”
“You don’t know her like I do,” Jessie said, her voice strained. “Kim’s been my social worker since I was a kid. She hates me.”
“I don’t know how anyone could hate you,” Julia said with a wink. “You’re lovely.”
Jessie rolled her eyes as she shrugged Julia’s hands off. She grabbed an already prepared piping bag and started to outline the gingerbread men in white icing. As usual, her tongue p
oked out of the side of her mouth, but her hands were shaking.
“Relax,” Julia said, resting a hand on the piping bag. “Take your time. You’ve come a long way since that girl who lived on the streets. You couldn’t even bake a sponge cake, and in less than a year you’ve made a tray of gingerbread men on your own.” Julia stepped back and watched as Jessie slowed down her piping after taking a deep breath. “What can I do to help? Do you want me to mix up the next colour?”
“Fluff the cushions in the sitting room,” Jessie said quickly as she moved onto the next biscuit. “They keep deflating.”
Julia stopped herself from objecting and walked through to the sitting room, the intense scent of cinnamon and apple hitting her in the back of her throat from the half a dozen lit candles on the mantelpiece. She blew out three of them before starting on fluffing up the already plump cushions on the couch.
Jessie had polished every surface more than once and had vacuumed twice already that morning. Julia had been banned from entering the sitting room, and Jessie had even requested that Julia go into the village if she needed to use the bathroom, just in case the social worker needed to go.
As she puffed up the cushion on the armchair, she stared at the twinkling lights on the Christmas tree they had decorated together the night before. Christmas had always been a strange time of year for Julia, especially in the years she had lived in her cottage alone after leaving her ex-husband behind in the city. With her mother’s birthday being on Christmas Day, there was always an air of sadness that surrounded her whenever the festive period started; it was when she missed her the most.
This year, however, Julia had been kept so busy with her detective inspector boyfriend, Barker Brown, and Jessie living with her, she had barely noticed Christmas creeping up. It was not until she had woken up that morning and seen the Christmas tree standing proudly in front of the window that her mind had switched to her mother.
“You’re not doing it right!” Jessie cried as she hurried into the sitting room with the finished plate of gingerbread men on one of Julia’s best plates. “They need to be bigger. Why have you blown out the candles?”
Jessie placed the plate in the centre of the coffee table, which had been cleared of its usual baking magazines and remote controls, and had taken on a glossy shine Julia had never known it could. Jessie relit the candles before grabbing the cushion from Julia to frantically pull at the stuffing inside until it had blown up to twice its original size. She spent almost half a minute arranging it perfectly in the corner of the armchair.
“Should we light a fire?” Jessie asked, her eyes wide as she stared at the dark grate. “It will be inviting, right?”
The candles had sucked most of the oxygen out of the stuffy room, but Julia did not argue. While Jessie worked on re-fluffing the cushions Julia had already done, Julia stocked wood logs in the grate before padding scrunched up newspaper in the gaps. With an extended lighter, she lit the paper and stepped back as the amber fire licked the wood.
“Mowgli!” Jessie cried. “Get off!”
Mowgli, Julia’s grey Maine Coon, who had jumped up onto the sofa arm, scurried across, disrupting Jessie’s perfectly aligned cushions. His claws scratched against the wooden floorboards as he skidded into Julia’s room to hide under her bed.
“Look at the time!” Jessie said, her hands in her hair. “I haven’t even started on the pot of tea.”
“Jessie –”
“Don’t tell me to calm down!” Jessie cried, her pale cheeks darkening as her eyes, once again, widened. “This is important to me.”
Jessie stared into Julia’s eyes, her lashes flickering slightly as the reflection of the roaring fire shone in her black pupils. Julia pulled Jessie into a tight hug, and for a moment, all her stresses seemed to melt away, a mutual reminder of why they were going through the adoption process firing up between them. They had been together for ten months now, and they had changed each other’s lives in more ways than either of them could express.
“It will all be fine,” Julia reminded her again as she stroked the back of Jessie’s hair. “You have nothing to worry about.”
Jessie nodded as she pulled away, less tense than when she had gone into the hug. For all her brilliant, mature qualities, she was still just a scared seventeen-year-old girl looking for her place in the world.
“Tea,” Jessie said, clicking her fingers together.
She hurried off to the kitchen, leaving Julia alone in the sitting room. She turned to the mirror, the warm glow of the fire and candles washing against her pale skin. She did not know how her life had taken this turn, but she wanted the adoption more than she could explain to Jessie through words; it felt like it was what needed to happen. So much had changed since she had taken in Jessie off the streets after catching her stealing cakes from her café, and it felt like the adoption was exactly what they both needed.
As though knowing it was temporarily safe, Mowgli crept into the sitting room, but he immediately darted back under the bed when he heard a knock at the door. Silence fell on the cottage, the apprehension palpable in the cinnamon and apple tinted air.
Julia walked into the hallway as Jessie walked out of the kitchen with Julia’s best china teapot and cups on a silver tray, her hands shaking so much, the sound of rattling china filled the silence. They nodded at each other before Jessie hurried into the sitting room, leaving Julia to walk towards the front door, the shadow of Jessie’s social worker barely visible through the frosted windowpane. Catching Jessie’s anxiety, Julia adjusted her dark curls in the mirror and wondered if she should have put some makeup on. She swallowed deeply as she reminded herself none of that mattered. Taking a final breath, Julia pushed forward a smile before opening the door.
“Oh, dear!” the short woman cried as a stack of files fell from her arms and onto the snow-covered doorstep. “What a day!”
Julia stared down at the social worker, unsure of what she had been expecting, but knowing this was not it. The other social workers she had dealt with since taking in Jessie had been professionally dressed women, usually with ponytails or sharp bobs. Kim Drinkwater had been cut from a different cloth entirely. Her short dark hair had been parted in the middle with what looked like strong gel, and held back at the temples with small butterfly clips that Julia had not seen since the 1990s. She was wearing a bright yellow shirt, which seemed to have been incorrectly buttoned, a lime green cardigan with rolled up sleeves that appeared too long, a calf-length brown suede skirt, and clunky brown moccasins with long tassels on the front. A purple leather satchel looped over her shoulder to complete the look.
She darted down to scoop up the files before snapping up, her red-tinted lips forming into a grin, a healthy amount of that lipstick on her two large front teeth. Her bright blue eyes were intensified by the similarly coloured frosted eye shadow she had applied from lash to brow.
“You must be Julia,” she said, her voice sounding like it should belong to a small girl and not a forty-something-year-old woman. “It’s so lovely to finally meet the woman who can handle Jessika Rice.”
Julia accepted her hand unsurely with a nervous smile, her vocal cords suddenly frozen in place. She stepped aside to let Kim in, who immediately tripped over the doorframe, dropping the files onto Julia’s carpet.
“What am I like?” she cried with a girlish giggle. “My dad always said I was born with two left feet.”
She scooped up the papers again and crammed them back into the thick file before straightening up and dusting down her skirt. She turned to the mirror and dusted the melting snow from her hair, but she did not bother to check her teeth.
“It’s so lovely around here,” Kim exclaimed as she plodded down the hallway, her heavy shoes leaving behind snowy footprints. “Like something off a postcard.”
Julia hurried after her into the sitting room, where Jessie was sitting on the edge of the armchair, hands in her lap and her back completely stiff. Kim rounded the couch and planted herself i
n the middle, paying no attention to the perfectly aligned cushions. She dropped the thick file onto the table with a thud, causing the lid of the teapot to rattle. Without asking, she plucked a gingerbread man from the plate.
“Oh, how delicious,” she exclaimed through a full mouth as she spat crumbs down her yellow shirt. “Did you make these, Julia? I heard you were an excellent baker from the other girls. I’ve been on maternity leave for most of the year, and I can’t say I’ve missed dealing with this case. Thickest file we have at the office.”
“Jessie made them,” Julia said, hovering by the side of the couch, unsure if she should sit or stand. “Tea?”
“Wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Four sugars.”
“Four?” Julia asked, the number catching in her throat as she poured the black tea into one of the small cups.
“My dad always said I was born with a head full of sweet teeth,” she said with another girlish giggle as she reached for a second gingerbread man. “Where is Jessika, anyway? Late, I suppose? Or hiding? Or has she run away again? Honestly, Julia, you must be a saint because –”
Julia cleared her throat, rested a hand on Jessie’s shoulder, and jerked her head down. Kim looked up at Julia before drifting down to Jessie with a squint. She unclipped her bag and pulled out a pair of oversized pink glasses, which magnified her eyes to twice the size.
“Jessika?” Kim muttered with a disbelieving laugh. “Oh my days! Look at you! You almost look like a woman.”
