Fudgement Day (Chocolate Cozy Mystery Book 3)

by Wendy Meadows

  Olivia scrambled her keys out of her pocket and inserted them into the lock. “Never a dull moment in Chester.”

  “You can say that again,” Jake replied and flipped the card over. “What do you think it means?”

  Olivia shrugged. “Nothing important. I think it’s a poor attempt at advertising.”

  Jake moved back a few paces, still holding the card. He scanned the front doors of all the buildings in the street. “Nobody else has got them. I don’t know, Olivia. This seems kind of weird. Why would this Madame Mystery woman stick a tarot card to your door?”

  “I have no idea,” Olivia said, “but I’m not too concerned about it. This has nothing to do with the case or my shop.”

  Jake handed her the card, the wrinkles around his eyes more pronounced than usual. “If you say so.”

  “You think I should be worried?”

  “Not worried, no. I think you should check it out. Find out who this Madame Mystery is,” he said and twiddled his fingers with the word ‘mystery.’

  Olivia studied the image of Strength and wriggled her lips from one side to the other.

  “Anyway,” Jake said, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets, “I’d better get home. Get some sleep before we carry on our investigation tomorrow.”

  Olivia waved to him. “Goodnight,” she said, without shifting focus from the card. Why would this turn up on her door now? Could it have something to do with the strange symbols they’d found on the stump near the Horn house?

  “Right, well, see you soon,” Jake said. His footsteps scraped off down the road.

  Olivia lifted the card and blinked at it. “Bye,” she said and dropped it into her pocket. But Jake was already gone.

  Shoot, she’d been rude. She hadn’t even thanked him for dinner, though they had split it. Olivia unlocked the front door of the store and stepped into the darkness. She shut it behind herself and locked up again, then traipsed toward the stairs in the corner, the tarot card weighing heavily on her mind.

  “This is ridiculous,” she said. “It’s just a card. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  Olivia hurried up the stairs and unlocked the gate that separated her home from the store. She clanked down the handle of her front door, and it swung inward. Dodger leaped to his paws and barked twice. “Shush, shush,” Olivia whispered and patted him on his head. She led the way to her bedroom, her mind turning over the questions, the signs and the strange symbolism of the tarot card.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Olivia stomped up the front stairs of the Horn house, the end of Dodger’s leash wrapped around her hand. Alvira hurried along beside her.

  “What if he gets angry?” Alvira asked. “And threatens to call the police?”

  “Then I’ll have a lot of explaining to do to Detective Keane. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Olivia said. She couldn’t let fear of doing the wrong thing prevent her from investigating this case.

  It wasn’t just her name and chocolate shop on the line. Her son’s involvement had driven home the importance of this. They halted in front of the door, and Alvira hit the pearly knob beside it. A bell sounded inside, and then… silence.

  “Maybe he’s not here,” Alvira said.

  It was highly likely. Chester might’ve been a sleepy town, but the businessmen certainly kept normal hours. The only trouble with that was Olivia had already called the offices of Mr. Ever-important Horn, and he wasn’t in.

  That left two options. One, a mystery location or the second, his home.

  The trees that surrounded the house stood silent. A trickle of sweat formed down Olivia’s spine. Dodger let out a bark.

  “Hush, dear,” Olivia said and patted his head.

  The temperature had warmed ever so slightly, but her breath fogged regardless. Olivia balled up her first and rapped on the front door. “Mr. Horn?”

  “Garage is closed. Can’t see if his car is in there or not,” Alvira said. She’d become an investigating staple for Olivia. It was lovely to have a friend along, as a witness and as a support.

  Olivia knocked again, hard enough to rattle the wood this time.

  “All right!” a man yelled from inside. “I’m coming. For heaven’s sake. Can’t get a minute of peace in my own home. Ridiculous.” The latch clunked back, and Mr. Horn appeared, decked out in suit and tie.

  “Going somewhere, Mr. Horn? We wouldn’t want to get in your way,” Olivia said.

  Dodger growled, his hackles rising.

  “Actually—”

  “I wanted to thank you for inviting me to dinner at your home.” Olivia handed the leash to Alvira. “And express my condolences for what happened after that.”

  “Yes, that’s—uh, that’s fine,” Mr. Horn blustered.

  “I’m sure you’re devastated.” She scanned him for any signs of prolonged sorrow. The man showed none. He wasn’t pale or drawn, and he didn’t look any different from the night she’d had dinner at their home.

  She couldn’t read too much into that, but it still wasn’t a great sign.

  “Yes, well, all the more reason for me to—uh, close the door. Be alone, you know?”

  “Although you didn’t seem that impressed with your son,” Olivia said.

  Alvira took a couple steps back, but Dodger refused to follow. Alvira wasn’t good with awkward situations. Dodger sat still at Olivia’s side, the leash taut and tugging on his collar so that his tag jingled.

  “Were you impressed with your son?” Olivia persisted.

  “What’s that got to do with you?” Horn asked.

  “I’m a concerned citizen and friend. I know that the fight you and Jason had before his death didn’t look good. It certainly didn’t look good to the police, either,” Olivia said. “In fact, Detective Keane questioned me quite extensively about it.”

  “H-he did?” Horn asked. The mustachioed patriarch trembled on the spot. It was the last thing Olivia would’ve expected. This was a high-powered executive, after all. “Wait here.” He slammed the door shut and footsteps hurried away from it.

  “What on earth was that about?” Alvira asked and moved closer again.

  “I have no idea, but I’m pretty sure we’re about to find out.”

  Olivia whistled under her breath and checked her watch. She’d promised Dodgy a walk, and that was done, but there was also a staff meeting to get to back to in the store. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the luxury of ‘one thing at a time.’ It was everything all at once, scattered here and there. Olivia needed a shovel to pick up the pieces.

  The front door clunked open. “Here,” Mr. Horn said and handed her a note.

  “What’s this?”

  You’d better watch your back, kid. I’m not playing around. Stay away, or things are going to get real bad for you, real fast.

  Olivia looked up at Horn. “Are you threatening me?”

  “Hilarious,” Horn said. “I found that in Jason’s room this morning. I stayed home to pack up his things.” He bowed his head. “No parent should have to do this.”

  Olivia couldn’t imagine what it felt like, and she didn’t want to. Sebastian might’ve been out of the house, but he’d never be out of her heart. She could still picture him in his little swimming costume on one of their beach trips, giggling and playing in the sand.

  “I don’t know who sent the note,” Horn said, “but whoever it was followed through.”

  Olivia grappled her cellphone out of her purse, then snapped a couple photos of the note; Jake could give her his opinion on it later. She put her phone away. “You need to take this to Detective Keane at once.”

  Mr. Horn took the note and folded it in half. He tucked it into his breast pocket and didn’t meet Olivia’s gaze. He seemed broken, but it could’ve been an act. Ugh, that was a harsh thought. Olivia had to consider every possibility.

  “I hope you find peace, Mr. Horn. I’m doing what I can to deal with what happened,” Olivia said.

  “Why do you need to deal with it?
It wasn’t your kid who died. It isn’t your home that’s broken.” Horn shut the door in their faces again, but this time he drew the latch.

  Olivia puffed out her cheeks. “Guess that’s that.”

  “At least you got another lead,” Alvira replied.

  “I guess you could say that. I won’t know for sure until I get Jake’s opinion. I mean, Jason was a college kid. I’m sure there was rivalry out there. This could’ve been to do with sports or school.” They walked down the front stairs together and toward the road.

  “Why would he bring the note home?” Alvira asked. “That doesn’t make any sense. If I got a note like that about something as silly as sport or school, I’d throw it away.”

  “Since when is school silly?”

  “You know what I mean.” Alvira laughed. Dodger barked and turned in a circle, tail set to permanent wag mode.

  “You might be onto something there,” Olivia said. And if the note hadn’t come home with Jason, that meant that he’d received it in Chester. But who’d sent it?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Olivia traipsed up the stairs to her apartment, exhaustion secreted beneath her heavy lids. Gosh, what a day.

  After the chat with Mr. Horn, she’d had no free time whatsoever. They’d come back to the shop and launched into a chocolate-making frenzy, followed by hours of serving customers, a staff meeting, and then there’d been that chocolate explosion in the kitchen.

  That had taken another hour to clean. Alberta had promised to follow the recipe to the tee in the future—the poor woman had resembled a chocolate snowman after the incident. It wasn’t the first time trouble had bubbled over in the Block-a-Choc Shoppe’s kitchen.

  Finally, Olivia had a second alone to contemplate that strange letter.

  Who’d sent it? And why had they needed to threaten Jason in the first place?

  Olivia yawned and unlocked the gate that separated the store from her home. She shuffled into the hall, then clicked it shut behind her. Dodger barked and sprinted down the hall toward her, claws skittering on the wood.

  “All right, all right,” Olivia said, and fluffed the fur in the center of his head. It stood on end in a punk-rock style Mohawk. “Gorgeous. Very in vogue, Dodgy.”

  “Olivia!” Alphonsine darted out of her bedroom. Her French accent hadn’t faded in the past few months, but her English had improved a lot. “Olivia, I found something,” she said.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Alphonsine sucked in a breath, then presented a handful of pictures. “I find them in my closet, at the back, behind all of my shoes. They were not there before this weekend. No. Impossible.”

  Olivia frowned and took the pictures. She rifled through the images. Her stomach tried a slow crawl into her legs. “What on earth?”

  A shot of Kerry Walter grinning from ear to ear, the sun behind her. Another picture of Kerry sitting beneath the trees with the Horn residence in the background. And another of Kerry at the “bus bench.” It had to have been taken on the same day Olivia had spoken to her about her relationship with Jason.

  “Alphonsine, what? Where?”

  “This is how I feel,” Alphonsine said and pointed at Olivia’s expression. “I do not understand. I clean out my cupboards on Friday. No pictures. Just shoes.”

  “And today?”

  “I get chocolate from the incident on my shoes, and I decide, okay, I clean them. Oui? So I clean all the rest, too.”

  “And then you found these.” Olivia kept flipping through them, though she’d already absorbed all the information she’d get.

  Someone had come to her home and hidden these pictures in her son’s old room. Shivers ran down Olivia’s arms. “Thank you, Alph,” she said. “If you find anything else like this, please let me know.”

  “Oui. I will,” Alphonsine said. She hesitated a moment, then hurried back to her room. She entered it but left the door open behind her.

  “Oh, heavens,” Olivia whispered. She walked to her bedroom and entered it, an ache already pounding between her eyes. This was bad. This was terrible, in fact.

  No one except Olivia and Alphonsine had the key to the upstairs gate and front door. Except for one person. Her son. Sebastian had the key to get into their home, and he always would, since he was welcome anytime.

  And to make matters oh-so-much worse, Sebastian’s favorite hiding spot as a kid had been the shoe closet. The back of it, to be exact, where he’d pried loose one of the boards to conceal his old tin box. He’d put his toys and marbles and favorite collector’s items in there. The photos had to belong to her son. It was the only explanation that made any sense.

  “Why?” Olivia asked. She plonked down on her bed and didn’t switch on her bedside lamp. The pictures fuzzed out in the settling dusk. She couldn’t make out Kerry’s smile now, only her silhouette.

  Olivia wouldn’t believe that her son had anything to do with Jason’s murder. She’d raised Sebastian, and gosh, she knew that child as well as she knew herself, and neither of them had the capacity for murder. This was damning evidence, though. Her son had clearly had a crush on Kerry, and Kerry had been in a relationship with Jason. Had the boys fought over her? Had things gotten out of hand and…?

  “No.” Olivia finally clicked on her light. “Definitely not.”

  The murder at the Horn house had been premeditated, not a crime of passion. The lights had been cut at a specific time. Sebastian wouldn’t plan a murder over a girl. He had gumption and plans for his future.

  But a kernel of doubt had settled in the back of Olivia’s mind. Regardless of what she believed, she had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Sebastian hadn’t harmed his best friend.

  Dodger huffed and settled on his paws in the corner, wagging his tail a few swipes as he shut his eyes. The images of Kerry had wiped Olivia’s exhaustion clean. She didn’t need to sleep. She needed a mug of coffee and Mr. Jake Morgan’s help on this one.

  She rose from the bed and slipped the pictures into the front pocket of her apron. Time to get to work.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Steam rose from their coffee cups and curled through the air. It didn’t last long in the chilly weather. Olivia hadn’t put on the heating in the store just yet.

  Jake Morgan lifted his mug and gulped down coffee. “I hope this is worth it,” he said.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Olivia placed the letter Sebastian had written her on the tabletop next to the plate of caramel fudge drops. Sebastian wrote letters to her longhand every month from college. It was a tradition they’d started after he’d gone to visit his aunt out in Texas, and they’d continued it to the present day. They both felt that handwritten letters held a personal touch.

  “What’s this?” Jake asked and gestured to the page.

  “Personal correspondence.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning it’s a letter from Sebastian to me. It’s dated about a month before he came home for the break,” Olivia said.

  “And you’ve brought me here to read it?” Jake’s brow wrinkled.

  “Gosh, you’re full of it when you want to be,” Olivia said and popped a drop into her mouth. She let the sweetness soothe her. Everything that had happened in the past few days had set her on edge. She didn’t want to take it out on her only help right now.

  “Sheesh,” he said. He ate a drop, too, and didn’t give any further comments.

  That helped relax her even more.

  “I went over to the Horn residence today.”

  “More sneaking around in the haunted woods?” Jake asked.

  “Who said they were haunted?”

  He waved the question away.

  “And no, I didn’t head into the woods. But I did speak with Mr. Horn himself.”

  Jake nudged his cup aside and narrowed his eyes. “You spoke to him? Did he explode and report you to Detective Keane?”

  “Surprisingly, no.” Perhaps Horn’s calm reaction was itself a reason to be suspicious.
The man hadn’t exactly been temperate the last time she’d seen him. “He showed me a note.”

  “What type of note?”

  “The kind that’s written on paper,” Olivia replied. She whipped out her cell, unlocked the screen, then clicked through to the pictures. Alvira had managed to teach her a thing or two about the darn smartphones.

  She placed the phone on the table, facing Mr. Morgan.

  Jake picked it up and examined the image. He flipped through her pictures and the expressive frown deepened. “Interesting.”

  “And I found these in Sebastian’s room,” Olivia said, and she brought the pictures out from her apron pocket. She placed them on the other side of the plate of chocolates. “They’re all pictures of Kerry.”

  “And Kerry was in a relationship with Jason.” Jake looked up from the phone. His gaze danced across the items that’d been laid out before him. “You’re worried this is evidence against Sebastian. That it will lead the detective to him.”

  “He’s already on their radar, Rog,” Olivia said.

  “What if—”

  “Don’t say it,” Olivia said instantly. She could almost smell his intent from across the table. “Don’t even suggest that my son had anything to do with his friend’s murder.”

  “I’m not saying he did. Just that things aren’t looking great right now,” Jake said. “And where there’s smoke there’s fire.”

  “Thank you,” Olivia said. “I had no idea how suspicious this was.” She couldn’t keep the caustic tone from slipping out. “Ugh, sorry, Jake, I know you’re just trying to help. This is stressful, to say the least.”

  “I know.” He put down the phone then reached across the table and brushed his fingertips over the back of her hand.

  Olivia jerked back. The moment broke, and Jake cleared his throat and fumbled with his collar.

  “I need to compare the two handwriting samples,” Olivia said. “The threatening note and the letter that Sebby sent me from college. That way I can eliminate him, at least in my own mind.” That kernel of doubt prodded at her constantly.