The Emma Wild Mysteries: Complete Holiday Collection Books 1-4 (Cozy Romantic Mysteries with Recipes)

by Lin, Harper

  “Hello?”

  There was the sound of strong wind.

  “Stay out of it,” said a muffled voice. “You and your little sidekick. Stay out of it, Emma Wild. Or off with your head.”

  Click.

  The caller hung up.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “What’s the matter?” Mirabelle asked with concern.

  I must’ve had a horrified expression on my face. I told them about the phone call.

  “Did it sound like a man or a woman?” asked Aaron.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It was muffled, like someone put a piece of cloth over the speaker to disguise their voice.”

  “Someone knows you’re investigating,” Mirabelle said. “And I wonder what they meant by little sidekick. Are they talking about me?”

  “It could be me,” Aaron said. “I have been doing some snooping around here and asking people a lot of questions. It’s hard to be inconspicuous in this town. It’s so much easier to be a reporter in a big city.”

  “Oh God,” I said. “I hope I’m not putting you guys in danger.”

  “You have to call the police,” Mirabelle said. “Maybe we can still trace the call.”

  I took a deep breath. “Right.”

  Even though calling Sterling was the last thing I wanted to do, I did need his help.

  Sterling answered on the first ring. I explained the situation and he sighed.

  “So you have been involved,” he said. “Emma, this is serious. You can’t be poking around with a dangerous murderer on the loose.”

  “I know, but I need your help in tracing this call. Can you get your guys on it? Just five minutes ago. This person called my house.”

  “Okay,” Sterling said. “But please stop investigating.”

  “Sterling, doesn’t this prove that the murderer is still out there? Doesn’t this show that it’s not Cherry?”

  “Emma, I don’t know. It could just be a prank. We’re doing a DNA test on Cherry’s knife set that she took home with her. We’ll find out soon if it’s her or not.”

  “Are you investigating other leads at least?” I asked.

  “Emma, that’s police business. Please just stay out of it.”

  Funny, he sounded like the caller.

  “Just please call me back as soon as you hear where that call was made from.”

  “Okay,” Sterling said.

  I hung up. Now that I thought about it, Sterling and I didn’t make a good team. He was too stubborn, never open to exploring the whole picture. He stuck to the obvious; he was more logical.

  “I hope he does it,” I muttered to Mirabelle.

  “Well we can’t let one threat stop us,” Aaron said. “Now we still have to figure out why Lena was giving Demi all this money.”

  “Was it a bribe?” Mirabelle wondered.

  “What do we know about Demi?” Aaron asked.

  Mirabelle shrugged. “She’s a stay-at-home mom. Three sons, so that keeps her real busy. Her husband’s a sports teacher at the high school.”

  “Now what would her motive be?” Aaron asked.

  “Maybe she was blackmailing Lena for something,” I said. “And this year, Lena didn’t want to pay and they got into a struggle.”

  “But Demi wasn’t even second place,” said Aaron. “She wouldn’t even have the title.”

  “Unless she was simply upset about losing,” said Mirabelle. “But why would have Lena have paid her off in the past?”

  “Maybe Demi really needed the money for something and Lena wanted to help her out,” I said.

  “But I didn’t think they liked each other,” Mirabelle said. “They were a couple of years older than me in high school, but even then I was aware that they had some sort of rivalry going, starting when they fought over the same boy and when Demi got to be Valedictorian and Lena didn’t.”

  “Where would she be now?” I asked.

  “At home, probably,” Mirabelle said. “Or picking up the boys, or running errands. Shall we go pay her a visit and get to the bottom of this?”

  “Sure,” I said. “If the three of us go, it won’t be so dangerous, especially since the kids are around. She can’t harm us then.”

  Just then, the phone rang again on the home phone. I feared it would be the mysterious caller again, but there was a familiar number on the display.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Emma.” It was Sterling, calling from the office. “One of our guys traced the call.”

  “Oh, great! That was quick.”

  “It was from a phone booth on Foxmore Street, just across from the elementary school.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “If you run into any more problems, let me know. But please, I’m begging you, stay out of danger. I doubt you’d find much at this phone booth anyway. Do you need security? We can send some security guards.”

  “Oh, I’ll be fine. But thanks for your concern.”

  “Emma…”

  “Thanks Sterling, I appreciate the information.

  I hung up again and told Aaron and Mirabelle this new bit of information.

  “Why that street?” I asked.

  “There’s not a lot of phone booths in town,” Mirabelle said. “At least, not a lot of working ones. They’re mainly for decoration now that everyone’s on cell phones.”

  “But is it near any of our suspects’ homes?”

  We took out a map and matched it with the addresses of our three suspects. Cherry lived ten blocks away. Larson lived thirteen blocks away, on the opposite side of town. Demi lived seven blocks away.”

  “But her sons go to that school,” Mirabelle pointed out. “Maybe she was on her way to pick them up and found it convenient to make a quick phone call.”

  “That’s plausible.”

  “Why don’t we go check it out,” Aaron said. “Take a look, and then go question Demi.”

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  When we opened the front door to go outside, there was a small box on the Welcome mat.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “God, I hope it’s not a bomb,” said Mirabelle.

  Aaron’s chest puffed up. “I’ll inspect it, ladies.”

  It was a simple small white box and a small envelop was on top. We held our breath as he lifted the lid—

  “It’s just a cupcake,” said Aaron.

  It was a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting and little red sprinkles on top in the shape of hearts. The cupcake liner was pink, with little hearts printed on them to match. A heart shaped plastic sign was shoved on top that said “Be Mine” in white letters.

  I took the note from Aaron’s hand and began to open the envelop.

  “Let’s see, what it says. Roses are red, violets are blue, Eat me quickly, and guess who?”

  “Is this a clue?” Mirabelle asked. “I mean, I can’t tell if this is a from a secret admirer or a death threat.”

  “What if the cupcake is poisoned?” Aaron asked. “We’ll have to get it tested.”

  “It must be from this caller,” I said. “He said ‘off with your head’, and this cupcake makes a reference to Alice in Wonderland too.”

  “Plus, it’s a cupcake,” said Mirabelle. “The first round of the contest involved cupcakes.”

  “Although none of the top four made a red velvet,” said Aaron.

  “It looks like the murderer is playing a sick, twisted game with me,” I said. “I’m certainly not eating it.”

  “Let’s take it to the police,” Mirabelle said.

  “Fine,” I said. “But please, can you do it? I don’t think I can talk to Sterling again today?”

  Aaron looked at me the way reporters did when they thought they had a scoop. “Why? Is he an ex-boyfriend?”

  “Let’s just stick to the case,” Mirabelle gave him a warning look. Then she turned to me. “Okay, I’ll drop it off at the station and ask them to get it tested. Let’s go. It’s after 3:30pm. Demi should have picked up the ki
ds and went home already.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Mirabelle came out of the police station empty handed.

  “They’ll do it,” she told us once she was in the car. “They’ll test it for poison. That Sandra didn’t look too happy to be interrupted however. Not sure what they’re doing exactly. They think this is a nuisance. She made a quip about not having time to look into the stalkers of local celebrities.”

  “Local celebrity?” I said. “I’m internationally famous.”

  “Who is Sandra?” asked Aaron. “Does she work at the station?”

  “Just another useless detective,” Mirabelle said.

  “She’s not important,” I said. “Let’s focus on our next task. Demi is our prime suspect right now.”

  We drove off in Mirabelle’s Mini Cooper to Foxmore Street to check out the phone booth first. When we got there, there was a commotion coming from the elementary school across the street.

  A soccer game was taking place in the field.

  “You think Demi’s there?” I wondered out loud.

  “Probably,” Mirabelle said.

  “We’re in the public,” Aaron said. “Even better to approach her here.”

  “It could’ve been her then,” I said. “She could’ve just slipped out from the game and made the call. It would’ve been so easy for her.”

  “True,” Mirabelle said.

  We looked at the phone booth. There was nothing inside, no clues, but we looked around at the neighbourhood.

  “I’m not sure if anybody would have witnessed who the caller was from their windows,” I said. “I suppose we can ask around. But let’s talk to Demi first.”

  We searched for Demi in the stands. She was sitting in the middle of the three rows next to two blonde boys. One was around ten and the other was around five.

  Mirabelle went down the steps to where she was and spoke to her. Demi looked back at Aaron and me with a grim expression. She stood up, then leaned down to speak to her eldest boy before she followed Mirabelle up to where we were standing. The higher stands were empty and we could talk freely.

  “You wanted to talk?” Demi asked.

  She looked nervous.

  “Yes,” I said. “We’ve been looking into the death of Lena.”

  Demi nodded. “I figured you would. Do you suspect that I did it or something?”

  I looked deeply into her eyes. “Should we suspect you?”

  She sighed. “I’m such an obvious suspect. Everyone knows that Lena and I were rivals. But I would never kill her.”

  “So, do you mind telling us why Lena was paying you the value of the vacations that she won every year at the baking contest?”

  Her eyes grew wide. “You know about that?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Now please answer the question.”

  “Okay, fine. It’s so embarrassing, but Lena was helping me out. Not out of the goodness of her heart, of course. The budget for my husband’s sports program was getting cut. Salaries were slashed. Lena knew that if she offered me some money, I would intentionally lose just by a margin in the baking contests so that she could come out the winner.”

  “What?” Mirabelle exclaimed.

  “Yes. She knew that I was the better baker, but she wanted the title. And she knew how desperate I was. We were even going to the food shelter at one point. Once, she saw us coming out of there with two bags of food. I mean, I have three boys. They grow so fast, and we have to pay the mortgage. Sometimes I bake cakes on the side to make money that way, but with three boys, I don’t have time, so I just took her money, and lost in the contest. At that time, I was so stressed that I didn’t know about the contest, so I didn’t care too much. Besides, being second best didn’t seem that bad.”

  “Why does she want to win so badly?” I asked.

  “She wanted a book deal,” Lena said. “A publisher in Toronto was interested when she approached them after her second win, but they told her they’d draw up a contract only if she won the third contest here in a row. Then that would give her a platform as a three-time baking contest winner in a cozy small town. Otherwise, she would just be a nobody. Who would give a book deal to a nobody?”

  “That’s all she wanted?” Mirabelle asked.

  Lena nodded. “Now, I don’t know who killed her, but Lena was very competitive. She did what she could to sabotage the other contestants.”

  “Why didn’t you come forward?” I asked. “To help the police.”

  “I didn’t know what to do. They did have evidence against Cherry, so I figured I’d just let the police do their job. Plus, I was scared. I didn’t want them to think that I had something to do with her murder, with this whole money mess.”

  “You said she tried to sabotage the others?” I asked.

  “I don’t have proof of that,” Lena said. “But Lena was complaining that she was afraid of Cherry overtaking her. Larson she was less scared of, because she knew his capabilities, but Cherry was young and innovative. She was a threat to Lena, so she definitely must’ve done something to sabotage Cherry if she came last.”

  “Wow,” said Mirabelle.

  “So that’s why I thought maybe Cherry found out and they had a fight over it. Cherry stabbed Lena and ran. The police got her and I thought the case was over.”

  “Do you?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” Demi said, on the verge of tears.

  “But you feel guilty.”

  She nodded. “I know how mean and difficult Lena can be. If I’d only warned the other contestants, than maybe Lena wouldn’t be so hated and dead by now.”

  “Honestly, we’re not so sure that Cherry did it,” Mirabelle said. “But Lena had her hairpins.”

  A thought came to me. “Maybe she picked up the pins and used it to damage Cherry’s equipment. Didn’t one of you say that her egg beater had malfunctioned?”

  Aaron nodded. “I wonder if Lena stuck a hairpin in it to make it malfunction.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past Lena,” said Demi. “It sounds like something she would do. After all, it would be Cherry’s hairpin, so it wouldn’t be traced back to her.”

  “I still don’t think it could be Cherry,” said Mirabelle. “Once someone at the cafe accidentally spilled hot coffee on her pants, and Cherry was the one apologizing. She’s not the type to snap.”