TABLE OF CONTENTS
Killer Cheesecake Tart
Prologue
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
Killer
Cheesecake
Tart
A Pies and Pages Cozy Mystery
Book Ten
BY
Carolyn Q. Hunter
Copyright 2018 Summer Prescott Books
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Killer
Cheesecake
Tart
A Pies and Pages Cozy Mystery
Book Ten
Prologue
* * *
“Have that ad to me by this afternoon, or you’re fired.” Vera Blackwell slammed down her home office phone, fuming so hard that she wondered if steam was coming out of her ears. She’d asked for the printed invitations for the annual Mother’s Day Wine and Cheese party days ago. Her estate’s chosen graphic design artist was quickly falling behind and would be losing a client if this type of unacceptable behavior continued. It was already Tuesday, and Mother’s Day was that coming Sunday, and none of those invites had been delivered.
What did she have to do to get some halfway decent customer service around here? In her opinion, the city of Culver’s Hood was quickly running down the drain and into the sewer. The once homey—and classy—town was quickly being invaded by big corporate business, fast food chains, and all manner of entitled and wild twenty-somethings.
Additionally, while she owned and ran a very small winery on her estate grounds, it seemed that the downtown area was being inundated with all manner of start-up breweries. No one was drinking wine anymore, it seemed, at least not the small batch specialty wine she made.
All the younger generation wanted was a stiff, dark beer.
She wrinkled her nose distastefully at the very thought of the bitter brew. In her estimation, beer was for a lower minded type of individual, someone who didn’t care for quality or experience in their alcohol.
Sighing, she lifted her pink flower-patterned teacup to her lips and took a sip, allowing the sweet chamomile flavors to calm her racing heart. She had hoped to rekindle interest among the more refined women of Culver’s Hood in the true essence and beauty that was a fine wine—and the annual Mother’s Day event was just the ticket.
However, if no one showed up for the annual wine and cheese party because of one stupid blunder by a young graphic designer, she would never forgive that folly. She would make sure the girl never got another commission again from anyone.
Never mind her history with the young woman. Some mistakes were just not worthy of redemption.
Spinning in her antique leather and wood chair, she peered out the large cathedral style window behind the desk. The estate gardens were beautiful this time of year, perfect for hosting. The grape vines she cultivated for the wine were simply incorporated into the aesthetic design, growing up trellises along the old manor walls and over wooden archways throughout the garden. Nothing said Mother’s Day quite like fresh spring flowers and a glass of wine on the veranda—and no children.
Mothers already had to deal with their kids—young and adult alike—every day of the year. The Mother’s Day Wine and Cheese party was intended as a pure escape. Finishing off her tea and turning back to her desk, Vera couldn’t help but feel that sometimes the young people she employed were like her children, more so than her embarrassment of a son, and needed a firm hand and discipline.
Sometimes, when things didn’t work out properly, you just needed to let them go and flounder on their own. She’d spent her life assisting others, giving out opportunities. Now, reaching nearly eighty, she was done with all that.
Charity work had proven to be overrated and unrewarding.
Setting down the teacup, she scanned the typed list of items that needed to be finished before the event. Hitting a button on her phone console, she called upon her personal live-in secretary.
Within seconds, the young woman with blonde hair kept up by an elegant hair stick and wearing a sleek black pencil skirt stepped through the large oak door. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Sarah, did you call that pie shop in town and schedule them to cater dessert for the event?”
“Yes, ma’am, I did.”
“And did you give them the specifications I require?” she inquired. “The necessity for all the desserts to be cheese themed in some way, nothing too heavy that would distract from the wine, and for all the colors to be in pink and white?”
“Indeed, I did, Mrs. Blackwell.”
She nodded, satisfied with that answer. “Good. At least someone around here is competent.”
Sarah allowed herself a wide smile, clasping her hands gratefully for the praise. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Just make sure this event goes off without a hitch, do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” she nodded.
“I can’t have any more slip-ups from anyone, especially not you. Keep in mind that just because you’ve worked for me for nearly ten years doesn’t mean I offer special favors if this gets screwed up.”
The smile faded away as quickly as it had come up. “U-understood, Ma’am.”
“No stuttering, please.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” she agreed, stepping out into the hall.
Vera sighed. She didn’t necessarily like having to talk to the people she hired that way, but a firm hand was often the only way to get what you wanted—no matter what history you had with them or how much you liked them. In a world of class and business, there simply was no room for favoritism.
“Also, Ma’am, this was left for you this morning,” Sarah announced, coming back into the room with a shiny pink and white gift-wrapped package in her hands.
“A package? Why
didn’t you bring it in immediately when it arrived?”
“You were on the phone, Ma’am, and I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“What if it’s important, Sarah? Next time just bring it in.”
“I understand, Ma’am.”
“Good, now bring it here and then get back to work.”
“Right away,” the young secretary agreed, rushing over and setting the present on the desk before heading out and shutting the door behind herself.
Pushing her teacup and the to-do list aside, Vera pulled the seemingly professionally wrapped package toward herself. The wrapping paper glimmered in the sunlight from the window, and the pink ribbon offset the paper beautifully.
Clearly, someone had some taste—but who could it be from?
Looking all along the box, Vera couldn’t find a single note, tag, or any other clue to indicate who had sent it. Could it be possible, even at her age, she still managed the attention of a secret admirer?
Smirking to herself, she pulled on the ribbon and let it fall delicately to the table. Unfolding the paper, she found a white box underneath and lifted the lid. Peering inside, her brow furrowed in confusion and her smile dissolving into concern.
A single note, printed out as if on a typewriter, stared back up at her. It read, “I thought you loved me.” Picking the note out of the box, Vera saw that there was one final surprise hidden along the satin interior.
A clay model train, molded as if by the hands of a child, sat broken in two pieces.
Chapter 1
* * *
“Is that tart ready to come out of the fridge?” Bert called from the upstairs apartment above her combination bookstore and pie shop. She was looking at herself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door, adjusting her dress here and there so it looked perfect.
“Yeah, it seems to have set nicely,” Shiv, Bert’s only employee, called from below in the shop’s kitchen.
“Thank heavens for that,” Bert sighed, making sure her long gray hair was pinned up nicely. It didn’t look professional but would have to be good enough.
Ever since the store had opened nearly a year earlier, Bert had been blown away by the sheer growth of her popularity as a gourmet pie maker. While she was no stranger to the attention her pies often garnered—having baked pies for years for church functions and even won many state fair competitions—she wasn’t prepared for how quickly the word had spread about her store.
People came in for the pie and stayed for the books and ambiance. The whole place was done up to appear like an Edwardian era shop, right down to the brick walls, the food displays, and the decorative brick oven. Earthy colors and wood paneling added to aesthetic, drawing in fans of culinary delights and good reads alike.
Pies and Pages was quickly becoming a household name in the small Nebraska based city of Culver’s Hood.
However, Bert had never expected to be asked to cater such high-end events as Vera Blackwell’s annual Mother’s Day Wine and Cheese party. While Bert realized she wasn’t considered a guest of the event, being asked to cater—and be there at all—was a rush of blood to the head.
She knew for a fact that the women attending would be decked out in the most expensive and elegant dresses available to them, and their hair would be styled by the very best professionals.
Bert, on the other hand, didn’t have the extra resources for such extravagance. Instead, she was trying her very best to look up to par on her own merits. Looking at herself in the mirror now, she could feel her heart falling.
While Shiv had helped with the hair and make-up, it still didn’t look perfect enough. Bert was never one to worry about wrinkles or a little extra weight here and there, but today she was acutely aware herself how nothing seemed to fall in the right place.
Would Vera or the other women care about how she looked, or would they look through her as if she were invisible—just another one of the many employees who helped make the Mother’s Day event possible?
Sighing, she pulled on the cap sleeves of the baby blue dress, wondering if they looked too tight on her arms. Maybe she should have picked something else to wear completely and forgone a dress.
She shook her head, thinking all this work was wasted on this catering gig. If she were getting ready for a date with her sometimes boyfriend Harry Mannor, she would feel like a princess. Harry, while exuding a gruff and hardened exterior of a police detective, was really an old softy underneath. She could just see him blushing at how beautiful she looked coming down the stairs from her apartment into the bakery.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t getting dressed up for a date. She was getting dressed up to cater a party for some of the most well-to-do people in Culver’s Hood—all of them aging mothers who managed to keep up their appearance somehow.
Slumping her shoulders, she groaned wearily.
Having no biological children of her own, she was glad to have something to do that Sunday. However, she hadn’t predicted how high her stress levels would be that morning.
She was concerned that her blood pressure would be going off the charts. She could hear her doctor in the back of her mind scolding her for not taking better care to regulate her stress levels and therefore manage its potentially harmful symptoms.
There wasn’t time to fret and worry about all that now, however. She had to get the tarts loaded into the car and head to the opposite side of town where all the city’s most prolific and wealthy residents lived.
If the rumors held true, Vera was a perfectionist and was known to fire people over the most minor of slip-ups. That bit of gossip was odd, considering the woman’s open contributions to charitable events and her presence in the community throughout the years.
Bert assumed that you couldn’t be as wealthy or successful as Vera without being a little harsh here and there—but perhaps underneath all that professionalism, there was a layer of kindness about her.
At least, Bert hoped it was true. She’d never met Vera in person, having only interacted with the secretary in preparation for the event. Today, she would stand face to face with Vera as she served delicious slices of rosewater cheesecake tart with pink chocolate roses.
Huffing with a hint of disappointment, she decided she couldn’t stare at herself any longer in the mirror without only making her image worse. Giving a brief shake of her head, she walked out of the apartment and down the long wooden staircase into the shop below.
She rubbed her hands together in a nervous motion as she came into the open kitchen.
“I just pulled them out and they look beautiful,” Shiv praised, motioning to the baking sheets full of tarts. The thin, crumbly puff pastry crust twinkled from the sugar along the edges while the cream cheese filling, infused with rose water, glistened. The kicker, however, was the delicately formed white chocolate roses, dyed a delicate pink, that Bert had spent way more hours crafting one by one then she had ever anticipated.
“Looks like they’re in good shape,” Bert agreed with a smile, looking her companion up and down and admiring her simple beauty. Wearing a light blue polka dot dress with a matching ribbon holding back her velvet black hair, Shiv looked a sight for sore eyes.
“You look amazing, Bert,” she praised in return, seeing the admiration in her employer’s eyes.
Bert strained to keep from scoffing or making a face. “Don’t flatter me. I look like a mess.”
“Hardly,” Shiv countered. “You are a refined and classy woman if I’ve ever seen one.”
“Just wait until we get to that estate. You’ll change your mind,” Bert said.
“Doubtful,” Shiv chuckled, being as kind as could be.
Bert tilted her head to one side, feeling more than blessed to have Shiv as a friend and employee. She secretly wished she could bring Gabriel, a young man who was like a son to her, to the event as well. However, seeing as he was a local pastor, he was busy serving his congregation on that celebrated day.
Picking up one of the chilled trays, Ber
t headed for the front door. “Come on. Let’s get these going.”
Chapter 2
* * *
Bert had driven past the Blackwell estate before, made up of a magnificent garden and a stone castle-esque manor house that was older than the city itself, but had never been past the front gates. However, she’d never seen the building or surrounding estate up close before.
As they drove through the open gates and down the cobblestone lane to the front of the house, Bert couldn’t help but sit in quiet awe of just how large the building was. It wasn’t the only building around either. A large garage that used to be a carriage house sat off to one side while a garden cottage sat on the other. The front of the house had carved stone statues built into the walls, and Victorian style water fountains sat on either side of the large entrance.
It was almost appalling to think that Vera lived there completely alone, except for maybe some hired help.
Bert wasn’t sure if there were live-in staff or if that was even a thing anymore. She wasn’t even in the house yet, and none of the other guests had arrived, and she was beginning to feel completely out of place.
Pulling up in the circle driveway, Bert noticed a young woman with stark black hair and ruby red lipstick standing on the porch. She looked like she’d just stepped out of nineteen-fifties England. Parking, Bert opened her car door and stepped out.
“Mrs. Bertha Hannah, I presume?” the young woman asked, coming down the steps.
“At your service,” Bert said with a smile.
“I’m Sarah Ikerson.”
“Ah, yes. The secretary, correct?”
“Yes. We spoke on the phone.”
Bert stepped forward and shook the woman’s hand. “A pleasure. This is my assistant, Shiv.”
“Glad you could come,” Sarah said, shaking her hand and putting on a very plastic looking smile. “If you don’t mind, ladies, we’ll have you park your vehicle in the carriage house. Afterward, you can begin to set up in the garden behind the house. That’s where the party will take place.”
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