Doomed by Dessert

by CeCe Osgood

  Doomed

  by

  Dessert

  Witch Itch Cozy Mystery – Book One

  CeCe Osgood

  Copyright © 2018 by CeCe Osgood.

  All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, businesses, places, incidents & events are either the product of this author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance whatsoever to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Epilogue

  Hello from Cece Osgood

  Prologue

  Abby Little had always defied her last name. By the time she was twelve, she was already five-foot nine and a half and towering over her classmates which, of course, made her an easy target for their teasing and taunts.

  Every day the girls would crack jokes about "altitude sickness" while the boys snickered and called her "Everest."

  To compensate, Abby wore flip-flops or sneakers, and would always slouch whenever she was around her peers because, like most teens, she desperately wanted to fit in, to be normal and that meant looking like everyone else.

  But height wasn't her only problem. Her flaming red tresses also garnered far too much unwanted attention.

  When the teasing grew unbearable, Abby stuffed her hair into a knit cap, locked herself in her bedroom and vowed never to go to school again.

  Burt Little, her baffled father and a widower, sought help from the neighbor lady next door since she appeared to be in her late sixties yet didn't have a trace of gray in her coal black hair.

  One evening, the tiny lady arrived at the Little house carrying two brown paper bags and handed one to Burt. "This is for you, Mr. Little. I hope you like Tandoori chicken." Then she held up the second bag. "And this is for your daughter."

  At first, Abby refused to talk to the woman, but her soothing voice soon had the girl unlocking the door and removing the knit cap.

  Gazing up at the girl's mass of red hair, the nice lady said, "I have brought for you a henna from the Bombay Market. I myself use the color of black, but this dark brown is more fitting for you. We cannot do anything for your height, Abby Little, but for your hair, yes, we can hide its true color."

  And so, for the past two decades, dyeing her hair had become so routine Abby considered herself a brunette.

  But the true color of her hair wasn't her only secret. There was a bigger one locked away so deep inside of her it was as if it didn't exist.

  On her thirty-fifth birthday, she sensed something tick, tick, ticking inside of her, and she knew her life was about to change forever.

  Chapter One

  With a fury burning inside her like a gulp of pepper sauce, Abby Little punched the off button on her phone and sat fuming at the conversation she'd just had with her ex-husband. "Why do you have to be such a jerk, Charles? Why?"

  Of course, she already knew the answer. Wife number two, a toothpick thin twenty-four-year-old named Larissa. Charles always acted like a jerk when his young wife was around to hear him sniping at his ex.

  When the traffic light flicked from red to green, she steered her Volvo sedan toward Greenway park, her mind still on the conversation with Charles.

  In the custody arrangement for Jill, their teenager, Charles had two weekends a month, one entire month during summer, and they shared alternating holidays. This year, Jill would be with Abby for Thanksgiving and with Charles for Christmas.

  Now, he wanted to upend the plan. That was why he'd called her using his "I know best so be reasonable" voice.

  He and Larissa were moving to Florida soon, and Charles wanted Jill to come for Thanksgiving and stay through New Year's. "Jill will love being with us. I'm joining the Tallahassee Saddle Club and she'll have a horse available to her whenever she wants to go out for a jaunt."

  Jaunt. Oh please. Who says that? Abby gripped the steering wheel. "Sheesh. What a snob you've become, Charles."

  She imagined Jill out riding with them on a woodsy trail in Florida or lazing around the pool at their grandiose new house instead of spending a snowy Christmas with her, and the very idea sent another surge of anger through her.

  She banged her hand on the wheel. "My daughter will not be in that house with that women for that long."

  Suddenly her palm itched as if it had been stung by bees. "Ow!" she cried, jerking her hand off the wheel.

  Her eyes skipped from the road to her hand, and she gasped. In the center of the palm was a tiny spinning orb emitting blue sparks. "What the—"

  The blast of a horn from an oncoming car yanked her attention back to the road, and instinctively she twisted the wheel to the right.

  As the car slowed down, she glanced at her palm again. It was normal now. No sparks, no orb, nothing out of the ordinary.

  What was that? Her mind, whirling like a pinwheel, tried to come up with an answer.

  Her eyes scanned the dashboard then lifted to the windshield. "Aha," she yelped. There it was. A blemish in the glass where a rock had bounced up last week and hit. That had to be it.

  Somehow the scarred glass had caused a ray of sunshine to refract into a prism, or something like that. Despite a contrary thought—prisms aren't just blue—she decided it sounded plausible. It was either that, or her mind was playing tricks on her.

  She'd read stress could cause all sort of problems, physical and mental, and she had been under stress for almost two years now.

  It started with her father's health declining to the point where she'd ended up basically running his shop, Burt's Desserts.

  During that time, she discovered Charles was cheating with toothpick Larissa, and she filed for divorce. Shortly afterwards, her father passed away, and she inherited the shop.

  Now, she was working day and night to keep it going, but she had recently faced the fact that she might have to shut it down. The shop was losing money due to new competition with cheaper ingredients and lower prices.

  It made her heart ache since the shop had been her father's dream.

  She stole a sidelong glance at her palm. It looked fine now, perfectly fine. "No. It wasn't stress. It was the windshield. It had to be," she said to her reflection in the rearview mirror.

  The Volvo made a right into the parking area for Greenway Park's tennis center, and a smile wiggled into place when she saw Jill standing near the curb twirling a racquet and chatting with her instructor, Rita.

  A tap of the horn drew Jill's attention to the Volvo. The teen gave Rita a quick hug before bounding to the car with a wide grin on her face. The lesson must've gone well.

  "I'm starving," were the first words out of her daughter's mouth.

  "Well, that's a surprise," she deadpanned and wheeled the car away from the curb.

  Ever since the kid started playing tennis, she was eating anything and everything, which was a complete change from her previously finicky appetite. "How does pizza sound?"

  Jill scrunched up her nose. "Nah. Not today. Rita said a better diet
would make me stronger and faster on the court. How 'bout kabobs at Larry Tom's?"

  Abby glanced at her, amazed the kid was turning down pizza for a healthier option. Larry Tom's grilled chicken kabobs and Greek salad were the equivalent of her daughter asking for tofu and kale.

  Ten minutes later, they jay-walked across the street to Larry Tom's. "Will Alan be coming over tonight?" asked Jill.

  "Nope. He's busy catching up on paperwork."

  During the summer, Abby had started seeing Alan Durant, a nice-looking chiropractor with a zeal for earth tone suits, and the first man she'd dated since the divorce from Charles.

  Although she liked Alan, she doubted it would turn into anything too serious. Divorce had made her cautious and not so starry-eyed. "Me and fifty million other women," she mused to herself.

  Jill strode ahead, held the door open for her mom. Larry Tom's wasn't outrageously busy but there was still a line. They joined it.

  Larry Tom, once a boy band vocalist, always sang out the customer's name when an order was ready. A moment later, Abby heard him warble in a perfect falsetto, "Alannn. Two spicy kabob specials with extra lemon sauce."

  Alan?

  She craned her head to see if this Alan might be her Alan. He always ordered spicy kabobs with extra lemon sauce.

  Being five-nine and a half gave her an advantage over most of the people in line, except for one huge, wide-shouldered guy who could've been a linebacker for a pro team.

  Abby canted her head to the side and caught a glimpse of a slim, brown-haired man at the counter, his back to her.

  His posture told her it had to be Alan. She was about to call out when a petite brunette glided up and placed her hand on his arm and squeezed.

  Abby recognized the woman. It was Gina from the clinic. For a second, she wondered if this was a work thing, but then she saw the way Gina gazed up at him and knew it was definitely not a work thing. Alan was fooling around with his receptionist, his married receptionist.

  "Stay here," she whispered to Jill and quietly followed the couple as they made their way outside.

  On the sidewalk, she saw Gina tug his arm and lift her mouth for a kiss. He obliged.

  A spurt of anger, along with the bitter taste of betrayal, made Abby shout, "Alan!"

  He turned, saw her, and stammered, "Abby? I-I can explain." Alan stepped away from Gina. "It's not what you think."

  Gina's slugged his arm, and her eyes flew to Abby. "It's exactly what you think. He wants me, not you."

  Abby and Jill sat huddled in a booth at Purdy's Pizza finishing off a large supreme. After the Alan incident, they'd hustled out of Larry Tom's and sped over to the pizza joint for comfort food. "You okay?" Jill said.

  Abby nibbled on a slice. "Let's just eat."

  They did, in silence, until Jill sucked down the last drops of her root beer. "You ready, Momma?"

  "Yeah." Abby, still glum and gloomy, slid out of the booth while Jill tucked in the corners of the box to take the leftovers with them.

  In the car, Jill sat gazing out at the crescent moon as her mother drove on auto-pilot. Suddenly, her nostrils flared. "Momma." Jill turned to her. "I smell smoke."

  "What?" Abby touched the brake to slow down as she sniffed the air. She didn't smell anything but a whiff of the leftover pizza.

  Jill closed her eyes, inhaled and said, "Yes. It's definitely smoke and it's"—her eyes popped open and she gasped—"oh, no, Momma, it's coming from the shop."

  "That's not funny, Jill."

  "I'm serious. I smell smoke and I know, I just know, it's coming from the shop."

  "Jill, stop it."

  "Mother, I'm not kidding. The shop's on fire!"

  The alarm and earnestness in her daughter's voice resonated in her gut, and despite her mind searching for a logical, reasonable answer to this ridiculous outburst from her daughter, Abby stomped on the brakes, wheeled the car into a U-turn and sped in the opposite direction.

  They were two blocks away when her nose detected an acrid odor. Oh, please, no.

  The car sped toward the shop with Abby's heart thundering in her chest, and as she turned the corner, both she and Jill gasped. Angry orange flames were devouring Burt's Desserts.

  Chapter Two

  Sirens screamed as a fire engine and ladder truck blew by the Volvo.

  In seconds, the four yellow-helmeted firefighters had a long snaky gray hose hooked up to a hydrant and were doing their best to kill the blaze. Abby knew in her gut it was too late.

  With a mournful sigh, she let herself be dragged away as the roof and walls of Burt Little's beloved shop collapsed into blackened ruins.

  Arriving home, she fixed a cocktail, wiped her weary red-rimmed eyes and called Hilda, her only full-time employee. "Hilda," she sniffed as she swept a hand across her wet cheeks. "There was a fire. The shop's gone."

  Hilda gasped. "Oh, my word. What happened?"

  "I don't know. But it's gone. The building, the contents, everything. I'll call the insurance company in the morning and see what to do next. I guess we'll be closed for months. Oh, it was awful. It's all gone."

  Hilda consoled her with kind words and tried to be optimistic. "Remember, Abby, there's always a silver lining."

  Later that night, Abby poured herself another drink to help ease her dark mood and contemplated if the sentiment was true. Was there always a silver lining?

  She tried to imagine the good that could come from this awful event.

  Maybe with the insurance money, she could find a new location, one farther away from Sweets-To-Eat, the competition killing Burt's Desserts with its cheaper prices. "That would be a good thing."

  And maybe there would be enough money to buy energy-efficient appliances. The power bill had been outrageous this summer. "That's a silver lining for sure. Maybe everything will be okay," she said, walking upstairs and trying to ignore a niggling sense of dread.

  The next morning Abby waited on the phone. The agent at Nebraska Midway Insurance had put her on hold.

  Ten minutes earlier, she had heard from the building's owner who wasn't sure if he would rebuild or sell the lot as is. Since she had leased the space, her policy covered the shop's contents and the equipment. If she decided to find a new location, she'd likely have to get a loan for the deposit, plus a couple months' rent, utilities, and all the legal ins and outs of getting a food establishment licensed.

  The agent came back on the line. "Ms. Little, the policy for Burt's Desserts was cancelled due to a lack of payment."

  "What? What!" Abby shouted, her pulse shooting upward. "But I mailed the quarterly payment."

  "There is no record of it, Ms. Little," he said. "And a warning notice was sent to you informing you of the impending cancellation."

  "I never got any notice. And you're wrong. I paid it," she insisted. "I know I paid it." She didn't use online banking for the shop. Her father had distrusted the new-fangled cyberworld, especially when it came to finances and accounting, and when she became the legal owner, she'd kept the same system he'd used.

  "I'm afraid you are the one who is wrong," said the snippy agent. "The quarterly payment was not received, the notice was mailed, and your policy was cancelled." He gave her a perfunctory goodbye and hung up.

  Squeezing her eyes tight, Abby's mind swirled as it raced through time, searching for the fragment she needed. And, oh boy, there it was.

  She clearly could recall putting a stamp on the envelope, a self-sealing envelope. After getting the stamp on, she'd pulled the strip and sealed it.

  Another memory wavered then became vivid in her mind. Alan had slept over that night. Because the mail had already been delivered, he had offered to drop it at the post office.

  With a stricken look, she murmured, "No. Oh, no."

  Twenty minutes later, the Volvo squealed into a parking space in a lush landscaped lot next to a modern glass and stone three-story building. The Durant Chiropractic Clinic was on the third floor.

  She slammed the car door
and stormed into the lobby. The elevator had a "not in use" sign in front of it.

  Grousing at the ineptitude of every male in the universe, she turned away and was marching to the staircase when a guy, forty-something with a long graying ponytail and a black tank top, bumped into her.

  He glanced up from his phone and shuddered as if he'd been zapped by electricity. "Wow. That was intense," he said, gawking at her.

  Then his dark eyes seemed to glow with a strange greenish glint. "Well, buzz my bees. You're an enchanter, aren't ya?"

  Enchanter? Poor lame pickup line, buddy.

  "E-excuse me," she stammered and took a sidestep to move past him, but the weirdo toggled back and forth blocking her way.

  "Look, you don't have to hide it from me. I'm one too, even though the League almost didn't let me in."

  His lips spread into a churlish grin. "But they had to because of my grandma, the one on the maternal side, the side that counts."

  "Mister, I have no idea what you're talking about."

  The greenish glint in his eyes faded. "Oh, I get it. You don't know yet, do ya?" He waved his hand, indicating the space around them. "This is way different than it appears. There's so much more going on."

  He flexed his right arm, glanced down at the wolf tattoo on his bicep. "Ain't that right, Lobo."

  The wolf's amber eyes shifted to stare at Abby. Her mouth dropped as she stared back to stunned to speak.

  "Bye," the man said as he dashed away, leaving her standing there gaping.

  With her head spinning, she headed up the staircase, assuring herself she'd just seen some weirdo prank to make his tattoo move like.

  She had just reached the third-floor landing when an angry-looking golden blonde wearing glittery turquoise sunglasses almost crashed into her. "Watch out," Abby said, swerving to the right to avoid the collision.

  "You watch out!" the blonde snapped, picking up her pace to hurry down the stairs.

  Muttering "some people," Abby pushed through the doors and entered the clinic with waves of loathing shearing off of her so strongly they must have fiddled with Gina's antenna.