Cupcakes and Conspiracies

by Katherine Hayton

  Holly closed her eyes and swallowed as a hint of her earlier terror came back to her. The certainty that she was going to die had flooded over her, drowning her in the knowledge.

  Her eyes flicked open again.

  “How long do I have to stay here? I want to go home.”

  “The doctor will be around soon to explain it all to you.” Dale looked over his shoulder, as though they might be standing right behind him. “I’m not sure how much to tell you. I wasn’t tracking things too well after they brought you in.”

  “Where’s Crystal?”

  Dale gave a small, sheepish laugh. “I told her to go home and take care of herself. That there was no chance you’d wake up tonight.”

  Holly chuckled. “I’m beginning to doubt your abilities, policeman.”

  She raised her hand to swipe back a stray curl and saw the IV sticking out the back of her hand.

  “I think that’s just fluids,” Dale said, interpreting her worried gaze. “They do have you on painkillers, but they put those straight into your arm.”

  “I wish they’d put some more in there,” Holly said. She wriggled her butt again, trying to get comfortable. It set off a series of twinges. A quickfire shot of pain in a dozen different directions.

  “The call button should be down the side of your bed,” Dale said. He stood up to move around and pressed his hand against the sheets until he found it. “Bingo!”

  He held a white tube aloft with a cord running out the base and a red button on the top.

  “Do you want me to do the honors?” Dale raised an eyebrow, his thumb poised and ready.

  “Go on, then.”

  The delight that played across his features was worth it, long before the nurse arrived to see what was wrong. A call was put in for the doctor, and a few minutes later a woman in a long, white coat walked in.

  “Hi there. I’m Doctor Carmichael. How’re you feeling?”

  Now that the doctor was standing there, Holly felt bashful. Like she shouldn’t trouble anybody. When she hesitated, Dale sprang in to fill the gap.

  “She’s been complaining of pain.”

  Holly shot him a look full of daggers. “I haven’t been ‘complaining,’” she insisted. “I just mentioned it in passing.”

  While the doctor ducked her head down—to Holly’s chagrin it looked like the woman was hiding a chuckle—Holly listed all the things that hurt. It was a long list.

  Once some new mediation had been sorted, Dale took his leave.

  “Some of us have work in the morning,” he said, bending over to kiss her on the forehead.

  “Oh!” Holly struggled upright again. “I forgot about work!”

  Dale shook his head. “You’re not going anywhere, not tomorrow. Just lie there and get a good night’s sleep. Matthewson reviewed his previous ban on Crystal going into the bakery, so you don’t have to worry.”

  “What? Why’s that?”

  “We may be a bustling wee township,” Dale explained. “But no one in their right mind believes that we’ve got two people attempting murder at the same time. Crystal had a solid alibi for yesterday.”

  As Holly fell asleep that night, the scented memory of her sister’s baking filled her nostrils, making her smile.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I’ll just hang around in the back. You won’t even know I’m here,” Holly said. She’d snuck in through the back door of the bakery, leaving the house a scant ten minutes after Crystal had. Another day of best rest would do her head in.

  “I swear, I can help out by listening to the timers and pulling the trays out of the oven. Nothing more.” Holly turned her smile up a few watts. “Won’t that be of help?”

  “The whole reason I set the timers is so that I can hear them from front of house.” Crystal was standing with her hands planted on her hips, a stern expression beaming from her face. “I’ve been dealing with this bakery solo for a while now. If I needed your help, I’d ask for it!”

  “Then I’ll serve out on the counter,” Holly said. “Just during the busy times. I know it gets far too flustering at mid-morning.” She strained to read the clock on the wall—a mild concussion had played havoc with her eyesight.

  “Go home. Now!” Crystal pointed at the door. “And shouldn’t you be wearing your neck brace if you’re out walking?”

  “The doctor said not to wear it for more than a couple of hours each day, and only when it hurts. Otherwise, my neck muscles will atrophy, and it’ll take longer to heal.”

  “I don’t understand how you can remember that lecture verbatim but still have trouble with the sentence, ‘Go home!’”

  “There’s nothing to do at home.”

  “Vacuum, if you’re so bored. Dust. Polish the silver.”

  “There’s nothing interesting to do at home,” Holly amended. “I’m not built for housework. Simon used to say that my eyes were impervious to dust.”

  “Am I interrupting?”

  Humphrey stood at the door between the shopfront and the bakery. He raised his hand up to the wall and tapped, “Knock, knock.”

  If the scowl that Crystal had been directing at Holly was enough to melt steel, the look she shot at Humphrey contained enough heat that Holly was surprised he didn’t explode.

  “Did you want something?” Crystal asked through gritted teeth.

  “I’m sorry.” Humphrey looked from Crystal to Holly, belatedly reading the temperature of the room. “Did I come at a bad time?”

  “It’s always a bad time when you’re around,” Crystal muttered. Her voice was quiet but pitched loud enough that Humphrey caught every word. His face turned pale.

  “What can we do for you?” Holly asked. She limped over to shake Humphrey’s hand in greeting, her ankle still healing from being sprained in the accident. “Were you here for the monthly accounts?”

  “I’ll come back later,” Humphrey said, shaking his head. “My mistake. I thought the shop was empty.”

  He turned tail and ran across out of the bakery, the front door slamming behind him.

  “Whatever did he mean?” Holly asked. “Why would he come in if he thought the shop was empty?”

  “Who knows? Who cares?” Crystal answered. “I can’t stand that man.”

  “Really?” Holly gave a small laugh. “You hide it so well.”

  Crystal gave a small, tight smile and Holly pressed forward, sensing weakness.

  “If I’m out the back, you can always send Humphrey through to see me if he comes back.”

  “Fine.” Crystal held her hands up in surrender. “Do what you want. Bake against medical advice. Go dancing. Whatever. Just don’t blame me if you end up back in the hospital.”

  “I won’t,” Holly said. “And I’m quite certain that I received no medical advice warning me against baking. You’re hallucinating.”

  “I wish.” Crystal stomped through to the shop counter.

  “I’m just trying to help,” Holly called after her. “There’s no need to thank me.”

  Her dad’s recipe book was lying on a high shelf, and she stretched up, snagging it by the corner. After winning the battle to come back to work, Holly wanted to try something more adventurous than the chocolate or vanilla that she had embedded in her memory.

  Flipping the pages, she soon realized her mistake. The old book didn’t contain the recipes at all. It was the same ledger that she’d mistakenly handed to Esmerelda.

  “Do you have Dad’s recipe book?” she called out to Crystal.

  “It should be back there, somewhere.” Crystal popped her head around the corner, finger already pointing. “Nothing too surprising,” she warned. When Holly plastered innocence across her face, Crystal shook her head. “I mean it. I know you.”

  “Fine.” Holly held her hands up. “Don’t worry about it. Plain chocolate and vanilla it is.”

  “You only need to pick one,” Crystal said, disappearing back into the shop. “I baked up enough batches of each late last night that one more will d
o us nicely.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Holly considered adding a salute, then thought better of it. Crystal’s patience appeared to have been tried and found wanting.

  With a beautiful batch of vanilla rising in the oven, Holly sat down to watch them. Her mind flicked back to what Crystal had said on the first day Holly arrived back in town. This was the best bit. Sitting and watching the mix turn into a cake that she knew would taste fantastic.

  When the tops were baked golden, Holly’s attention turned back to the hand-written ledger on the bench. She picked it up and leafed through, from the back to the front this time. The first surprise was that the handwriting at the end was Crystal’s hand. The second, the entries were right up to date.

  In the middle of the ledger, there was a gap that stretched for a decade. That fitted with the general appearance. Not shabby, but certainly old and well-used. Holly wasn’t sure, but the hand-written figures stopped at the approximate point that her father had begun to earn enough that he retained Humphrey’s services.

  In May this year, her father had resumed the meticulous hand-written entries. When his handwriting disappeared, Crystal had picked them up with only a few days’ gap.

  Crystal. Who hated numbers with a passion and had trouble calculating what the final expense would be at the supermarket. A woman who’d never balanced a checkbook in her life, even though checks had been the primary form of payment in their twenties and also scattered into their thirties.

  The effort it must cost her sister to record all these logs seemed inconceivable, especially since they had a perfectly good accountant doing the same thing.

  The oven dinged, and Holly jumped, feeling like she’d been caught out doing something she shouldn’t. After pulling the tray from the oven, her neck gave a vicious twinge. No complaining, though. Holly didn’t want to risk being sent home for real.

  If she stayed home alone again, that would just give her more time to think.

  While the cupcakes cooled, Holly picked up the ledger again. The neat columns of figures disturbed her in some way she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Instead, she picked at it, flicking through the pages and hoping that her brain would find something new to put her mind at rest.

  “Hey,” Crystal called out from the doorway, “since you’ve decided to force your presence on me, do you think you could watch out front while I make the deliveries?”

  The words swept through Holly’s mind with a sense of déjà vu. She thought back to the previous week, on her first day here.

  “Only if you promise not to be distracted by drover’s and their sheep,” Holly said, walking through and selecting a clean apron. “If you have anything like the delay you did last time, I’m calling the police.”

  “I promise.” Crystal leaned over and kissed Holly on the cheek. The unexpected gesture caused Holly to flush, as though it was the touch of a boyfriend rather than her sister.

  “I should also thank you. Even if I think you should still be resting up, I do appreciate your help. It’ll be tough to go back to doing this alone.”

  Holly didn’t want to ruin the moment by reminding her sister that they’d need to sell up.

  Time enough for that, once Holly felt truly well again.

  “Howdy, stranger. How’re you feeling?”

  Meggie’s smiling face was the most welcome sight that Holly had spied that day.

  “Come in,” she said, beckoning her friend over to their table. “What have you been up to?”

  “Same old, same old. Nothing as exciting as falling down cliffs with handsome officers to my rescue.”

  “Oh, dear,” Holly said, taking a seat. “I’ve just remembered that I was meant to shout you out to dinner. That’s the second time I’ve been waylaid. You must be thinking that I’ll never come through.”

  Meggie laughed and shook her head. “You may not remember it, but you already shouted me dinner.” When Holly looked nonplussed, she explained, “I came to visit you in the hospital, but you were sleeping. Since you didn’t need your evening meal, Dale and I helped ourselves to it.” Meggie rolled her eyes. “It was either that or resort to the vending machines.”

  “Well, I’m glad that’s sorted then. What feast did I end up gifting you?”

  “Unidentifiable meat in gravy, an egg sandwich on wholemeal bread, some beans, and a lovely jello cup.”

  “Mm. You make it sound so tempting.”

  “Three courses including dessert. I’d say you shouldn’t have, but I do love extravagance when it comes to cooking.”

  They laughed and sipped their coffees, Holly enjoying the feeling of relaxation that always accompanied talking to Meggie.

  A few minutes into their conversation, however, a woman burst into the shop. Her hair was falling down from a bun at the back of her head—the strands as wild as her wide eyes.

  “I need help.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Holly jumped to her feet, nerves on immediate high-alert. “What? What is it?”

  The woman stared at the cupcakes on display, then looked over the courtyard at the café. “I tried there”—the woman pointed—“but she couldn’t help me, and I’m growing desperate.”

  A tear began to trickle down the woman’s cheek, and she sniffed. When she opened her mouth to speak, a sob caught in her throat again.

  “Oh, please. Sit down. You look like you’re about to collapse!”

  Holly guided the woman to the table. At the doorway, she’d looked to be in the same age bracket as Esmerelda. When she came closer, Holly realized that the woman probably wasn’t more than a year or two older than herself.

  “I’ll fetch you a cup of coffee and a cupcake,” Meggie said. “You sit down, too. It’s only been a few days since you were in the hospital, remember?”

  “Nobody leaves me alone long enough to forget,” Holly mock-grumbled. She kept one eye fixed on the woman, hoping that their banter would put her at ease. The panic in her gaze was started to ebb away, leaving behind a face that was pallid and stunned.

  “Now. What’s your name?”

  The woman put a hand up to her throat, gently pulling at the loose skin hanging down there. “My name is Wendy Tahoe.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Wendy. I’m Holly and the woman fetching you coffee is Meggie. Can you tell me what you need help with?”

  Holly expected something drastic, life-threatening, or horrifying to come out of the woman’s mouth. Instead, Wendy swallowed hard and said, “I need a cake for my daughter’s wedding.”

  Over Wendy’s shoulder, Holly saw Meggie walking toward the table, laden with cups and cakes. Meggie crossed her eyes and Holly had to bite down on the inside of her cheek to stop from laughing. Although the matter didn’t seem important to her, it was evident by Wendy’s disarray that it meant the world to her.

  “You realize that we only do cupcakes here?” Holly said. “We wouldn’t be able to produce a tiered wedding cake. We don’t have the ovens or the baking items on hand to do that.”

  “Cupcakes should be fine,” Meggie said when Wendy looked crestfallen. “I attended a wedding a couple of years back—Allan’s girl—and they had a pile of cupcakes making up the wedding cake. It was on a great stand, and everyone got to pick the flavor that they liked.”

  She set the cups and plates down on the table. “Just a moment. I think I’ve got a photo still stored on my phone. I never bother to clean it out.”

  After a sip of her coffee, some of the color returned to Wendy’s face. Without the panic pulling it into a rictus of horror, Holly realized that the woman was attractive. The steel-gray hair pulled back into a bun made her look like a teacher or a librarian. The sort who mightn’t be above putting a naughty boy over her knee.

  “Here we go.” Meggie handed the phone over. “You can just flick it to the right to keep seeing the photographs. I took about a dozen. Either I was very impressed or the wine had gone straight to my head!”

  Wendy nodded as she flicked through the photogr
aphs. After a few minutes’ perusal, she handed it back with a smile. “How did the couple cut the cake?”

  Meggie laughed. “They had a chocolate cupcake this big”—she demonstrated with her hands—“and both of them held the knife while they cut through it. It was the most darling thing I’d ever seen.” She pulled the phone closer and flicked through the photographs. “You know, I think I took so many shots because I fancied it for my own wedding. Not that it seems I’ll strike it lucky there!”

  “Did people laugh?” Wendy asked. Her lower lip wobbled slightly until she gripped it between her teeth to still it.

  “Of course, no one laughed. Not meanly, anyway. Everyone thought it looked spectacular and it stopped all that fussing by the women about how they only wanted a small slice. Everyone got the same size piece. Perfect.” Meggie clapped her hands together.

  “And could you do something like that?” Wendy looked at Holly while pointing to the phone.

  Holly pulled the photographs close and studied them with a thoughtful frown. “The cupcakes are a given. You tell us how many you need, and we’ll be able to provide them, no problem.” She tapped on the screen, highlighting the curved stand. “I think that the hotel in town has something similar to this in their dining room.”

  Meggie leaned over to check again and nodded. “I think you’re right.”

  “I can ask the chef there if he’s happy to let us borrow it. If not, we might have to call around a few places to find something suitable.” Holly looked back at Wendy with a nod. “I’m sure that we can pull a similar look together. If your daughter is happy with that?”

  For a moment, Holly thought that Wendy was going to cry. Her shoulders shook, and she fished a worn handkerchief out of her pocket. But her eyes stayed dry. “You don’t know how much of a relief that would be,” Wendy said. “My daughter had it all lined up with a fancy shop. She’d done tastings and paid the deposit and everything. The owner called up this morning and said that they weren’t going to be able to fulfill the order. No excuse, no nothing. Just ‘We’ll refund you the money,’ and then they slammed the phone down.”