Spooky Sweet

by Connie Shelton

  154

  Spooky Sweet

  Samantha Sweet Mysteries, Book 11

  Copyright © 2016 Connie Shelton

  “Shelton continues to combine suspenseful storytelling with sensitive portrayals of complex family relationships.” —Booklist

  “...a wonderful, easy flow that draws in the reader.”

  —Amazon 5-Star review

  “As for me, I enjoy mysteries infused with a little touch of magic and a dream that anything is possible.” —Amazon 5-Star review

  “Connie Shelton gets better with every book she writes.”

  --Midwest Book Review

  Spooky Sweet

  Smashwords Edition

  Published by Secret Staircase Books at Smashwords

  Copyright © 2016 Connie Shelton

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of information contained in this book we assume no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, omissions, or any inconsistency herein. Any slights of people, places or organizations are unintentional.

  Book layout and design by Secret Staircase Books

  Cover illustrations © Katrina Brown and © John BigL

  Cupcake illustration © Basheeradesign

  First trade paperback edition: October, 2016

  First e-book edition: October, 2016

  In memory of Evelyn Chip Carney-Wheeler,

  a dear Samantha Sweet fan with whom I corresponded often,

  gone much too soon. You are missed by many.

  Chapter 1

  Eleven ghosts glared at Samantha Sweet, their hollow oval eyes black against ethereal white faces. She took a step back and stared at them, tweaking their expressions a little before adding details to the twelfth.

  “Those are adorable!” Jennifer Baca said, peeking at the cupcakes over Sam’s shoulder. “Let me know when I can put them out front. The kids—”

  The ringing telephone interrupted Jen and she picked up the extension on Sam’s desk.

  “Sweet’s Sweets, a bakery of magical delights,” she said. “Oh, yes, Mr. Bookman. She’s right here.” She held up the receiver and raised her eyebrows.

  Sam edged between the two stainless steel worktables that now crowded her shop’s kitchen. One table held Halloween cupcakes, cookies and two wedding cakes; the other was filled edge-to-edge with the handmade chocolates Bookman was undoubtedly calling about. In a short time, he had become her most important client.

  Six weeks ago she had created a masterpiece box of chocolates for Stan Bookman’s wife’s birthday. When a customer says ‘price is no object’ you know he wants you to go all-out. The chocolates were such a hit that Bookman immediately offered Sam a lucrative contract to provide them to his travel agency, Book It Travel. Book It handled private jet charters and ultra-swank vacations for celebrities and corporate moguls, the type of people who spent lavishly, demanded perfection, and thought nothing of sky’s-the-limit spending. Little did Sam realize the tremendous amount of extra work would begin almost immediately, so she’d had no chance to plan the logistics.

  “Mr. Bookman!” she said, putting a smile in her voice.

  “Samantha, I must say you outdid yourself with the order for the Pinetop Oil folks. The corporate wives are over the moon for your work. Do you think you could whip up something extra delectable for the CEO’s autumn soiree? It’s eighty people for a posh Halloween costume party. The wife would like a cake—in her words, quirky but elegant—and some little party favors, boxes of your chocolates. If you can have everything ready by, say, Friday morning I’ll have it picked up and we’ll fly the treats up to Aspen ourselves. What do you think?”

  Sam looked at the overloaded tables and her decorator, Becky Harper. Perspiration dotted her forehead as she struggled to place the top tier on a wedding cake. Sam shook her head, trying to tell Becky to wait for assistance.

  “The dessert budget is four thousand,” Bookman said.

  Dollars? Yikes! “I’m sure we could do it for that, but—”

  “Excellent! I’ll send my driver over to pick it up Friday around nine. As usual, just mail me your invoice.”

  The line went dead and Sam felt as if the floor was about to tilt.

  “Did I actually accept another huge order?” she croaked, her throat feeling like sandpaper. “One that has to be finished in five days?”

  She looked around at her crew. Becky had moved to piping garlands on another wedding cake, leaving the first one waiting for its top tier. She sent a wan smile toward Sam, a look that meant she hadn’t a spare moment to devote to anything new.

  Julio Ortiz, the baker, was moving as efficiently as he could, considering his workspace had shrunk by half when they brought in the second worktable. At the moment he was dumping flour into the huge Hobart mixer. Sam had lost track of which orders he was working on. At this point she had to trust everyone to explicitly follow instructions on the written order forms.

  Jen spoke up: “I didn’t exactly hear you accept the order but Mr. Bookman thinks you did.”

  Sam took a deep breath. Clearly, the business needed more employees and to accommodate them would require more space. The four thousand dollars from this order would definitely help move things in that direction. She picked up a pad of order forms, quickly jotting down the few details Bookman had provided.

  “Jen, I need a cake design—swanky Halloween costume party for eighty. Quirky but elegant were the customer’s words. Sketch us a working design, please?” The front doorbells tinkled and multiple voices came from the front room beyond the divider curtain. “As fast as possible, but don’t neglect anyone.”

  Jen took the order form for the cake and hurried to the sales room with a smile on her face.

  Sam turned to Becky and helped place the top tier on the wedding cake which stood more than three feet above the table top. Together, they transferred it to a wheeled cart and Sam got it into the huge walk-in fridge. By the time she returned, the empty table space was filled with layers for two birthday cakes. Yeah, they needed additional help right away.

  Sam appraised her own work-in-progress, fifty boxes that went into Book It Travel’s Comfort Food Package aboard each of the chartered planes. Each small satin-covered box contained six exquisite handmade chocolates, all made by Sam, all containing her special, secret ingredients.

  Right now the various-flavored chocolates sat on racks and the boxes stood in a pile at the end of the table. Sam touched a couple of the candies gingerly, making certain the glossy chocolate had properly set up before she began to handle them. Satisfied, she began tucking the assorted flavors into their cozy nests. If Becky and Jen weren’t already occupied, one could place the lids and the other would tie on the satin ribbons and the whole job would be done in twenty minutes. As it was, Sam worked as quickly as possible and chafed at the sheer number of other tasks needing her attention at the moment.

  Like it or not, she was going to need assistance from the magical wooden box. She’d tried for a year not to call upon its powers but for the past month she’d felt as if she were drowning in oceans of work and she needed the extra energy. Bookman’s contract, profitable as it might be, wasn’t something they could handle on their own and there had simply been no time to plan and gear up for the extra wo
rkload. Tonight—no matter what else was going on—she simply had to sit down, devise a business plan and outline the steps to get herself above the waves before the whole thing consumed her like a tsunami.

  The front door bells registered in the back of her mind but it wasn’t until she heard a familiar voice speaking to Jen that she realized her husband had stopped by. Beau stepped into the kitchen a half-minute later, took in the sight and sent a sympathetic smile Sam’s direction.

  “I guess this means lunch is out of the question,” he said, walking to her side and planting a kiss on top of her head.

  She continued to box up the chocolates, with only a quick smile his direction. “I seriously doubt I’ll even get a sandwich at my desk today. Sorry. You wouldn’t happen to feel like delivering a wedding cake for me this afternoon?”

  He gave her shoulder a squeeze but shook his head. “Even if I had any clue how to handle those delicate cakes, I don’t think I’m exactly dressed for it.”

  True. What bride wants her cake brought to the reception by the county sheriff in full uniform? Plus, Sam didn’t dare let the bakery van leave just yet. Once the chocolates were finished she needed to get them out to the airport. She would have to plan a route so she could take the cake at the same time. While driving along, she could work out the details in her head for which flavors and shapes to make for Bookman’s Halloween party favors.

  Actually, the cream satin-covered boxes she currently had her hands on might work just fine. Instead of the shop’s signature purple ribbon, she would find orange and black ones to fit the party theme. The picture was forming in her mind when she realized Beau had said something to her.

  “Sorry, sweetheart, what did you ask me?” Her cell phone vibrated and chirped at the far end of the worktable.

  “Never mind. Shall I get that for you?” Beau asked. “Looks like it’s Rupert.”

  She nodded while her hands continued to pluck up the chocolates and place them into their boxes.

  “Hey, Rupert,” Beau said. “Yeah, it’s me. She’s up to her neck in chocolate candy right now. Unfortunately, it’s not as sexy as it sounds.”

  He chuckled at something Sam’s friend said in return.

  “Oh, really? Sure. Yeah, I can be there in about ten, fifteen minutes.” He clicked off the call. “Hm. Interesting. Turns out he was going to ask you if he should call me anyway.”

  Sam looked up from her work. “Really? Trouble of some kind?”

  “I don’t know. He said something about finding some money.”

  “Well, most people wouldn’t call that a problem, would they? Rupert doesn’t exactly need extra, but who knows?”

  Rupert Penrick had been a friend of Sam’s for more than a decade. A large man who always wore soft pants and tunics, and more often than not had a flowing scarf in some flamboyant color draped around his neck, Rupert was a writer. Ostensibly, his works covered the art community in northern New Mexico and included profiles of the many famous artists who had lived in the area over the years. However, his real income came from a wildly successful set of steamy romance novels written under the pen name Victoria DeVane. Sam was the only one, other than his New York editor, who knew the author’s true identity.

  “I guess I better check out whatever it is Rupert wants to report,” Beau said, hitching his bulky leather belt—filled with handcuffs, radio receiver, mace canister and sidearm—a little more firmly on his hip. “Anything else I can do for you, darlin’?”

  “Enlarge this kitchen by another thousand square feet and send me six helpers?”

  He sent her a look that said he genuinely wished he could do it.

  “I’m kidding. Well, almost kidding. I do need to figure out something, but it’s not your problem to deal with.”

  He gave her another kiss. “Before I see Rupert, I’ll stop by that deli on Torres Street and have them bring you guys some lunch. How’s that?”

  “And now you know why I love this guy so much,” Sam announced to the others.

  Chapter 2

  Beau knew the café where Rupert Penrick would be waiting. Charlotte’s Place was one of those hole-in-the-wall eateries no tourist would probably ever discover, but the parking lot was usually packed and the tables filled. As far as Beau knew, no one named Charlotte had ever actually been associated with it. The owner was a porky man in his sixties who occupied the back corner table a good part of the time, keeping his piggy little eyes on the help and, apparently, consuming at least one daily plateful of the huevos rancheros for which they were locally famous.

  Most of the time, Bubba Boudreaux hunched over a super-size coffee mug cradled in his hands while he smiled hugely at the town’s influential politicians and businessmen and ignored the rest. Beau apparently ranked—today, anyway—because Bubba personally hustled toward him the minute he walked in the door.

  “Sheriff, thank goodness you’re here.” It came out as yaw he-ah. “We seem to have a little misunderstandin’ on our hands.”

  “Hello, Bubba.” Beau glanced beyond the proprietor’s shoulder.

  Rupert was waving from one of the booths along the west wall and Beau walked toward him.

  Sam’s friend stood, drawing himself to his full height, which easily topped Bubba’s by a good ten inches. The café owner did his best to outclass the writer, but with his tubby body and hunched shoulders he couldn’t quite pull it off. He aimed another smarmy smile toward Beau.

  “There is no misunderstanding,” Rupert said. “It’s a matter of claim to some found-property. A kid was sitting at this booth when I arrived. I was in the midst of my scrambled eggs, over in that booth—” He pointed to a spot two tables away. “—when the kid left. I noticed he’d left a bag of some sort, so I told R.G. to try to catch him.”

  Roy Greene, R.G. to everyone in the café, stood behind the cash register trying to look busy and stay uninvolved. Beau signaled him over.

  Rupert continued. “Unfortunately, the youngster had simply vanished. R.G. brought the bag back and I suggested we look inside to see if we could identify the owner.”

  From the seat behind him, Rupert lifted a black duffle bag by the handles and placed it on the table, gesturing to Beau that he should take a look. Beau pulled the long zipper and spread open the edges of the bag, revealing several dozen neatly banded packets of cash.

  “Unless that bag belongs to Benjamin Franklin, I don’t see anyone else’s name in there,” Rupert said with a smug look toward Bubba.

  “Sheriff, that’s a lost-and-found item and it was found in my rest’rant. By all rights, it now belongs to me.” Bubba had edged his way to Beau’s left side where he could easily get his hands on the bag.

  “Not so fast, Bubba. This is going to require a few more questions than for a lost pair of sunglasses. I’ll be placing it for safekeeping in the county’s evidence locker. This money is missing from somewhere and there will be a full investigation before it leaves my custody. Got that?”

  Bubba backed away two steps, his eyes still on the bag. “Well, of course, Sheriff. Ah wouldn’t have it any other way. Long as you make note it was found abandoned on my property.”

  “So noted,” Beau said. He tilted his head toward Bubba’s table at the back. “You probably don’t want your eggs getting cold now, do you? I need to talk to the other employees and see what everyone else knows.”

  Even Bubba couldn’t ignore the dismissal. He slunk away, pausing at the coffee machine to top off his big mug.

  “R.G., how you doing?” Beau asked, setting the bag in the far corner of the booth bench, sliding in beside it, and gesturing for the slim, dark-haired waiter to sit across from him. Roy fiddled with the wrapper from a straw, pressing it flat, curling it around his index finger and rolling it out again.

  Rupert, apparently satisfied Bubba wasn’t immediately getting his hands on the money, resumed his seat at the neighboring booth although his plate had been cleared. He picked up his half-empty tea mug.

  “So, R.G., tell me about t
his kid who was sitting here,” Beau said, pulling his small notebook and a pen from his shirt pocket. “Did you recognize him? Take his order? Serve his meal?”

  “No, sir, Sheriff. That was Sandy.”

  Beau smiled across the table. “Roy, no need to be formal with me. I coached your kid in Little League—wasn’t it about three or four years ago? Just call me Beau, okay?”

  He watched the other man relax a little, flicking the paper straw-wrapper aside.

  “Sandy’s run to the store now to pick up fresh tortillas for the lunch crowd. Claudine’s the other waitress today, but she had the tables over on Bubba’s side of the room.”

  “Okay, I’ll talk to Sandy later. Can you tell me anything about the customer—give me a description? Was it really a kid?”

  “Well, not a child but yeah, a young guy. Early teens, I’d guess. Dressed all in black with one of them long coats … I don’t know what they’re called. Had shaggy-looking hair sticking out from under a black knit cap. I was working the register and refilling the coffee machine during the time he was here. Didn’t really get a close look.”

  “You didn’t speak to him and he didn’t speak to you?”

  R.G. shook his head.

  “You didn’t notice whether he was the one who carried the bag in?”

  “Huh-uh. Guess I assumed he did ’cause we would have surely noticed the bag when the previous customer left. I mean, I’m pretty sure we would’ve. I suppose it could have been on the floor though, up against the wall.”

  Beau could tell R.G., for all his wanting to be helpful, really didn’t have anything to add. He thanked the man and told him to feel free to call if he thought of anything else. Claudine came over next, a friendly Hispanic woman in her thirties who had waited on Beau and Sam here many times. As R.G. predicted, she’d been busy and hadn’t even noticed the lone, black-clad customer or the bag until Bubba rushed from his table to see what was going on and aroused everyone’s curiosity.