Killer Caramel Cookies: Book 1 in the Killer Cookie Series

by Patti Benning

  “Should we split up?” Reid asked.

  “Have you ever seen a horror movie?” she asked. “That’s always a bad idea.”

  He held his hands up in mock defeat, then gestured for her to take the lead. She did, choosing a direction at random. She figured that her friend probably hadn’t been too near the main building when she screamed, or else the receptionist would have heard her and gone to investigate. That meant that Val had to be somewhere outside, probably nearer to the back fence.

  Their search was a tense one, none of them sure what they were going to find. Each time they rounded a corner, Lilah found herself dreading finding her friend dead. There was still a murderer on the loose, after all.

  When they finally found her, it was almost as bad as Lilah had been fearing. Val was slouched against a stack of boards, her head drooping down and bleeding from a cut on her forehead. Reid rushed forward to take her pulse.

  “She’s alive,” he said. Lilah felt her knees go weak with relief.

  “What happened?” Greg asked, looking around. “Did something fall on her?”

  At that moment, they heard the sound of an electric engine coming from behind another stack of wood and moving their way.

  “We’ve got to move her,” Lilah hissed. “It wasn’t an accident. Someone did this to her, and now they’re coming back.”

  “You aren’t supposed to move someone with a head wound,” Reid replied, his voice low. “It could hurt her more.” He crouched down next to the unconscious woman and touched her shoulder gently, attempting to wake her.

  “Hurry. Whoever it is, is getting closer.”

  It was too late. One of the lumberyard’s electric forklifts rounded the corner. Lilah backed up, eyes darting from her friend to the machine that was rolling ominously towards them.

  “Stay behind me,” Reid said, standing up and moving in front of her protectively. Not in the mood to argue, she did as she was told. Greg shifted beside her, his eyes wide with fear. She could tell that he wanted to run. In fact, she thought he was on the verge of sprinting away when a frown suddenly creased his forehead. He narrowed his eyes.

  “Mom?”

  The forklift trundled to a halt a few yards away from them. Lilah watched in shock as Marie Motts poked her head out the side.

  “Greg? What are you doing here?”

  “I think you’re the one that needs to answer that question, Mrs. Motts,” Reid said in a firm voice.

  “Ma, what’s going on?”

  Marie hesitated, then got fully out of the forklift. She approached them hesitantly, her eyes darting from her son to Val’s unconscious body, then back again. “I — I was just shopping for some materials. Your father wanted to rebuild the gazebo.”

  “Val said she was with a customer,” Lilah said, finding her courage. The older woman didn’t seem so frightening now that she was out of the forklift. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

  “No! I was all the way on the other side of the yard —”

  “You’ve got blood on your shirt, Ma,” Greg said, his face pale as he took in the truth. “Don’t lie to me. Why did you hurt Val?”

  “I… I…” The older woman looked crestfallen. “I was trying to protect you. My boy… That horrid woman was saying you murdered Ellen.”

  “That’s not true,” Lilah said. “Teri is the one that killed Ellen. I was just telling Val that Greg was innocent.”

  “Wait, you thought I killed the woman I loved?” Greg asked, his expression horrified.

  “No. Well, sort of. But not really. We can talk about it later,” she promised. “Right now we need to get Val to the hospital.”

  “Teri didn’t do it either,” he said, frowning at her. “She can’t have. She was talking to the local news crew the whole time we were setting up, including after Ellen didn’t come back from the shop. I remember, because they were right across from us, and I saw her showing them some pictures. I thought it was odd.” His frown deepened. “Ma, you hit Val over the head and knocked her out, almost killed her. The police said Ellen died from a blow to the skull. You left right after you sent Ellen to the store, claiming you had to use the bathroom. Where did you really go?”

  All eyes fell on the older woman. Lilah drew the connection, and gasped. Ellen had died from an injury just like Val’s. Not only that, but she had died in the very store that Marie Motts had worked at for years. And if what Greg was saying was true, then she had no alibi for the time of Ellen’s murder.

  “Greg dear, you don’t want to know, really, do you?” Marie asked timidly. “You said you felt free, not having to deal with that woman any more. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “No. I want the truth.” Greg stepped forward. His hands were shaking as he stared at his mother in disbelief. “Did you kill Ellen, Ma? I want the truth.”

  The older woman’s gaze flicked to the left and right, looking for a way out. Her mouth opened and closed as she struggled to find words. At last, her eyes landed on her son, and she fell to her knees.

  “I did it,” she admitted in a small voice. “I killed her. Greg, I did it for you. She was horrible to you, and I saw how much you were suffering. I knew you would never leave her on your own — she had you convinced that you couldn’t do better. I didn’t plan on doing it. I just meant to scare her a little. I followed her into the store after I asked her to go pick up more coffee filters for the booth. I was going to lock her in, make her miss her chance to get in front of the news crew’s cameras; that was the whole reason that she agreed to help out in the first place, you know. She thought it would look good if the crews saw her involved with the festival.”

  “Why did you do it?” her son asked, his voice hoarse.

  “Because she started talking about you, saying horrible things! She was just muttering to herself, talking about how she was sick of hearing all about that toy store you dreamed of, and how you were lucky you made good money, or else she would leave you in a heartbeat. I couldn’t stand it. I grabbed one of the cast iron pans we had on sale and just hit her with it, as hard as I could. I wasn’t thinking, and before I knew it, she was laying on the floor in front of me. Not moving. Dead.”

  The older woman broke down into sobs. Greg took a step back from her, a look of complete and utter disgust on his face. Lilah felt like she had to throw up. This was worse than she had ever imagined. She looked to Reid, to see how he was taking it, and saw that he had his phone out. Out of all of them, he was the only one who had kept it together enough to call 911.

  “The ambulance will be here soon,” he said. “The operator heard everything. They’re sending a car to pick up Mrs. Motts as well.”

  Lilah nodded, then closed her eyes, grateful that he had had the presence of mind to make the call. She couldn’t look at Greg, whose face was twisted with disbelief, and she didn’t want to so much as glance at Marie. Instead, she crouched down next to Val and took her friend’s limp hand in her own.

  “It’s okay,” she told her. “Help will be here soon. Just hold on, Val. Hold on.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “I can’t believe I missed all of that.”

  “Trust me. I wish I hadn’t been there. You’re a lot better off without those horrible memories,” Lilah said.

  She watched her friend carefully. Val had been released from the hospital only yesterday. To celebrate her recovery, Margie had offered to pay for a meal for all of them at the diner. She had, of course, invited Reid along. The handsome business man was currently sitting across from Lilah, though his eyes, too, were on Valerie.

  “That’s quite the bruise she gave you,” he said. “I’m surprised they let you out already.”

  “I’m hard-headed,” Val said. “It must not be just a turn of phrase in my case.”

  Lilah smiled. If her friend was joking already, then she really must be feeling all right.

  “There’s just one thing I’m still curious about,” the other woman continued. “Teri. What in the world was she doing with a
ll of those photos of Ellen?”

  “Why don’t we ask her?” Margie said, turning to look across the diner where the woman in question was sitting alone, looking dejected.

  They waved Teri over. She came reluctantly, looking confused and embarrassed at all of the ruckus. Reid got up and squeezed into the booth next to Lilah, so Teri would have more space across from them.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, glancing at each of them in turn, her expression wary.

  “I found this in your booth the other day,” Lilah said, deciding that being straightforward was the best way to go. She pulled the now somewhat crumpled folder out of her purse and handed it to the other woman.

  “Ah.” Teri took the folder, embarrassment causing her cheeks to flame. “I guess you want to know why I have all of this stuff?”

  All four of them nodded.

  “Right. Well, first let me say I’m not proud of it. A couple of weeks ago, Ellen and I tried out for the same part in a hairspray commercial. I thought I had the part in the bag. Ellen always lost out to me. But then she got the part. It was horrible, I was so embarrassed, and to make matters worse, she kept taunting me about it. When I heard she was coming back to town for the festival, I convinced her assistant to forward me her schedule. I followed her around and took a bunch of pictures of her. I kept all of the worst ones. That day in the salon, that was golden. Then, when the news crew came to report on the Arts and Crafts Festival, I gave them a bunch of the pictures and told them what a terrible person she was. The media loves embarrassing stuff like that, you know? I figured she could do with some bad publicity. But then, after she died, I felt terrible. I kept looking back over everything I had done, wondering how on earth I could have been so petty.” Teri shook her head sadly. “Like I said, I’m not proud of it.”

  Val snorted, but quickly covered it up by faking a cough. “Don’t beat yourself up too much. She would have done the same to you in a heartbeat, and we all know it.”

  “Yeah. I suppose you’re right.” Teri gave them a small smile. “I feel better telling you guys all of that. It felt like some horrible secret I was doomed to carry around forever.”

  “Trust me, compared to what we thought, it’s nothing,” Val said seriously. “Lilah here was convinced that you were the killer.”

  It was Lilah’s turn to blush. “Yeah. Um, sorry about that. I went through a phase where I thought I wanted to be a private investigator, and I started trying to solve the case of Ellen’s death. It turns out I’m about as good at detective work as I was at being a hairdresser.”

  “So in other words, terrible. Unless we want a terrible dye job, then you’re our girl,” her friend said with a grin.

  “That about sums it up,” Lilah said, laughing. She felt more lighthearted than she had since she got fired from the hair salon. “I think for now I’ll stick to waitressing and helping Margie out with her cookies. Everything else I try seems to end in disaster, and I’ve had enough of those… for this week, at least.”