Bevan’s expression turned to surprise and then to delight. “Really? That’s great!”
Holly shook her head and nodded across the table at Zach. “Not according to this fellow. If you’re serious about renting this shop, I think that you two should have a quiet word first.”
Holly stood and gestured for Bevan to take her chair. She moved back behind the counter, then decided to head further out the back.
“Who is that?” Elvira asked, casting a suspicious glance at the new arrival. “I recognize him from somewhere.”
While Holly filled her in, they moved in tandem together to decorate the latest batch of cupcakes. Working from memory, Holly and Crystal had already jotted down as many of the recipes as they could remember.
“Boss lady,” a nervous voice called out from the shop. Holly crossed her eyes at Elvira, then moved back through the door.
“What’s happened?”
“I just wanted to thank you for letting me know,” Bevan said, nodding vigorously. “It’s very kind of you. I don’t think I would’ve been as generous if the roles were reversed.”
“No worries,” Holly said. “I’d hate to see you across the road every day and know that I could’ve stopped you signing your business away.”
Bevan gave her a strained smile, and swallowed hard, sweat popping up on his brow.
“What is it?” Holly asked. The man seemed like he was about to be sick.
“I just—” Bevan stopped talking, and rubbed his hat across his forehead, mopping up the sweat. “You see, I thought you and your sister were going to steal the place away from me, see, and…”
Bevan trailed off again, closing his eyes and breathing rapidly.
“Do you need to sit down?” Holly asked. “What on earth’s the matter?”
“I lied to the police!”
Holly took a step back, trying to work out what was happening. “About what? About Susan?”
Bevan shook his head, looking more miserable with each passing second. “No. I lied about your sister. I said that I’d been outside the restaurant when all that lot who was poisoned were eating. I told the police that it must’ve been your sister’s cupcakes that did it.”
Holly frowned, trying to place the snippet of information with something she’d already been told. Then she snapped her fingers and pointed at Bevan. “The sergeant. When I first talked to him, he said that there was a witness who’d seen Kendra eating a bowl of soup but almost no cupcake, so it had to be the cake that made everyone sick.”
The delight at piecing together the information faded as Holly stared at Bevan. “That was you? The police blamed my sister for that. If I hadn’t given one of those same cupcakes to another person who wasn’t ill, that suspicion could’ve lasted for days.”
“I’m sorry.” Bevan hung his head even further forward. “That’s what I wanted to say to you. I’m sorry I tried to do you like that. It wasn’t personal or nothing. I just wanted the shop.”
Holly just shook her head, flabbergasted at the man’s cheek. “I can’t believe that you just lied to the police and thought nothing of it beyond a piece of real estate.” She gripped hold of the counter, her tiredness making the world dip and swing. “Did you even see anything?”
At that, Bevan appeared even more alarmed. “No,” he shouted, then bit his lip. “Well, yes. But it’s not much of anything, I don’t think.” He paused and then scratched behind his ear. “You don’t need to tell the police that I lied, do you. That could get me in trouble.”
“Of course, it could get you in trouble,” Holly burst out. “It’s a crime. They spent time and energy chasing up a false lead because of you.”
“Yeah.” Bevan glanced over to Zach for support and received a glare instead. “But it’s not like it hurt anybody. You were all already ill, see?”
“A man was murdered in the surgery center while the police were following up on whether or not the cupcakes had been poisoned,” Holly said coldly. Parts of her sentence were exaggerated, but the truth behind it remained the same. The time that the police had lost in lies might have been spent working out the facts and preventing that murder.
Zach suddenly spoke up from the table. “What did you mean when you said you’d seen something, but it was nothing?”
Bevan turned away from Holly with a smile of relief. “Just that I was looking in the restaurant at the time. I was peering in to see what you were all up to. See if Susan was coming around to my offer and all that.”
Holly stepped forward, her hand up to her throat. “You saw the restaurant as they were being poisoned? You know where everybody was?”
“Well, yeah.” Bevan turned back to Holly with a frown. “But it doesn’t do anybody any good, that. There’s no need to talk to the police now, it’s all water under the bridge.”
“Where was everybody, that you saw?” Zach asked.
“Well, you know mate. You were there.” Bevan stepped back from the two of them, almost walking into the wall. “All of you were at the window staring out at something.”
“That’s right!” Zach snapped his fingers. “We were checking out this man over the road. He’d been spying on our place for days. Weeks even.”
“Was everybody at the window?” Holly asked. She wanted to grab Bevan and shake him by the shoulders until he revealed everything he’d seen. Instead, she tried to step carefully, not wanting him to bolt.
“Well, all except that one woman. She was at the table, fiddling around with something in the ladle.”
“Fiddling how?” Holly asked, then retreated a step to make up for the enthusiasm in her voice.
“Like this,” Bevan said, twiddling his forefinger and thumb against each other. “Like she was adding seasoning or something to the broth.”
“Soup,” Zach said with a stern voice.
“Eh?”
“It wasn’t broth, it was soup.” He turned to Holly. “Bevan’s right. I remember that now, too. She had the full ladle of soup in one hand and was about to pour it into a bowl. I stopped her.”
“Stopped her. Why?”
Zach appeared a tad embarrassed. “Partly because I don’t like people touching my stuff, but also because I hadn’t put the sour cream in yet. It tastes better when it’s stirred all through the soup, rather than just dolloped out on top, like everyone else does it. I grabbed the ladle off her and stirred whatever was in there back into the soup, along with the cream.”
His face blanched with the realization while Bevan beamed merrily at the two of them. “See? Nothing to it. No need to inform the police at all.”
“You saw Susan dropping ‘seasoning’ into the soup just before everybody was poisoned and you don’t think it’s important enough to tell the police?” Despite the quietness of Holly’s voice, it held the attention of the two men.
Now, it was Bevan’s turn to blanch. He shook his head vigorously. Holly thought it was a denial of what he’d seen or its importance, then he said, “It wasn’t Susan.”
Holly glanced from Bevan to Zach. “But you said the woman.”
It was Zach who answered, “The German woman. Kendra. If I hadn’t grabbed the ladle off her, the poison would have all gone straight into her husband’s bowl.”
Chapter Eighteen
As Holly and Bevan supported Zach into the police station, Samuel was exiting the interview room. His face was still as colorful as a floral display, but his eyes could now open fully. He sank into a chair by the exit, staring glumly at the floor.
After a quick discussion at the front desk, Bevan and Holly retreated to the waiting chairs while Zach was escorted through to talk to Sergeant Matthewson.
“Are you feeling better?” Holly asked as she took a seat next to Samuel.
“I’ve healed enough for everything to start to hurt.”
Holly smiled in sympathy. It had been a while since her last accident—an unfortunate incident involving a car and a stomach-dropping fall off the side of a mountain road—but she remembered the s
tage Samuel was talking about clearly. The swelling might be uncomfortable, but when it started to recede, the pain was waiting to take its place.
“Do you need a lift home?” Holly asked. “I’m just staying here a few minutes to make sure Zach’s okay, then I’ve got to get back to the bakery. If you don’t mind hanging about, I can drop you home after work.”
“I’ve got my bike,” Samuel said.
Holly smiled at the apparent reluctance in his voice. “And I’ve got a bike rack.” She’d had one installed after spending an awkward ten minutes trying to force Elvira’s bent and battered bike into her back seat, month’s before. “It’ll be no trouble.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have made the offer.”
At that, Samuel returned her smile for the first time. “That sounds good, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to wait here. If you tell me a time you’ll be finished, I can walk over to your bakery then.”
In the same low voice, Holly asked, “Are you waiting to see Susan?”
Samuel nodded, then gave a short laugh. “I figure, that if she agrees to see me here, it’s not like she can change her mind and run away.”
“That sounds good. I’ll leave you to tell me how it goes with Zach and Bevan, then. We start to close up the bakery at five, so wander over any time around then.”
Holly said a quick goodbye to Bevan, then walked back to the bakery. It might have been her imagination, but to Holly, it appeared that Elvira looked disappointed at relinquishing control.
She and Crystal might have a successor to their bakery legacy after all.
Holly dropped Elvira off first, since she was closest, then turned the car for the long trek out to Samuel’s place. Once Elvira was out of the vehicle, the conversation died, leaving behind a companionable silence that Samuel was the first to break.
“They let Susan go.”
Holly nodded. She’d expected that once Bevan corrected his evidence, backed up with Zach’s restored memories, they wouldn’t have a reason to hold her any longer. “I’m glad they sorted it out for her quickly. She was terrified of being arrested.”
The silence began again, but this time Holly couldn’t stop herself. “Did you get a chance to see her?”
“Yeah. I visited with Susan briefly just before everyone decided they’d gotten everything wrong.” He shifted on the passenger seat and coughed. “I don’t know how much of what she said will still apply now the threat of incarceration isn’t hanging over her head.”
“I suppose there’s a certain degree of fun in finding that out,” Holly said, turning off the main road onto Zach’s hardened dirt track. Knowing what was coming, she gritted her teeth, but the roughness of the lane still managed to be worse than her recent memories.
“Did they arrest someone in your mom’s place?” Holly was coy around the edges of this subject, not wanting to anticipate anything the police might do if they wanted to take their time.
“They tried to.” Samuel laughed as she dipped the car over on his side, bracing a hand against the roof. “I thought this was bad enough on my bike.”
“What do you mean by tried?”
“The sergeant had the PC scurrying around, trying to find that German woman, but they didn’t locate her by the time I left. Her rental car wasn’t at the hotel, so they put out an alert on that and her passport.”
“I’m sure she won’t have gone far,” Holly said. The phrase was meant to be reassuring but squealed into the higher registers as a large pothole caught her unawares. “Goodness, this road is the worst. I can’t believe you manage this each day.”
“I won’t be for too much longer.” Samuel’s voice was full of regret. “The police have given me a warning for the attempted break-in at the surgery center, but they said that I can’t continue to stay out here. I’ve been given four weeks’ notice to vacate.”
“Is there somewhere cheap in town where you can stay instead?”
Samuel shrugged. “Not that I’ve found, and I don’t have a job to afford anything, even cheap.”
“Well, that’s your first step, then. What kind of job are you after?”
“Something without any people in it,” Samuel growled. “I do a lot better on my own.”
“Well, I don’t know of anything like that, but you should have a chat with Richard—did you meet him at the surgery?”
Samuel frowned and then nodded. “Yeah, I remember him.”
“He works at some kind of factory where they’re not expecting every employee to be a people-person. It’s not exactly what you’re after, but it might be a good start. Oh, thank goodness.”
Ahead of them, the old logger’s cabin finally pulled into view.
“If you stop where you did the other night, I’ll turn the car around.”
Holly edged closer to the cabin and pulled the car to a gentle stop. When she exited the door, she had to clutch hold of it for a moment to gain her footing. The drive had left her feeling seasick again.
“If you get a place in town, my car and I would be very grateful.” Holly gained her legs back enough to slam the door and move to the side of the road.
Samuel gave a bark of laughter as he switched sides. “You’re presuming that you’d be invited.”
Holly nodded. “I am. I expect to be welcome everywhere I go—that’s the blessing of being the cupcake lady.”
Samuel snorted with laughter as he set to work, edging the car back and forth in short, careful bursts so that it gradually turned the way it was needed.
Holly got out of Samuel’s way, moving back to the cottage, then shifting to move around the side as a gravel shower came too close. She had time to wonder what a brand-new car was doing off the side of the road back there, then a set of arms grabbed her around the waist and the throat.
“I need to get out of here,” Kendra called, her voice high and reedy. “You get your friend to rescue my car, and I’ll be on my way.”
“He won’t hear me.” Holly struggled against the hold around her neck, but Kendra just increased the pressure. With flashbacks to a terrifying encounter with her stepsister just a few months ago, Holly felt her mind filling to the brim with panic.
“I’ll take your car, then.” Kendra forced Holly forward a step, Samuel now visible again in the car, finishing up his skillful maneuver. “Order him to give me the keys.”
“It won’t make any difference. The police have a warrant out for your arrest. You won’t be able to leave the country.”
Kendra tightened the arm around Holly’s neck so that breathing became a struggle. One of Holly’s feet slipped on the loose gravel, and she hung, choking, for a second before she could get it back under her.
“You let me worry about that,” Kendra said. “I just need to get out of this place. Get him to turn the car around again. I’m going further up that way.”
“There’s nothing up there,” Holly protested, then winced. Why are you giving her helpful advice? Just shut your mouth!
“There’ll be another cabin. I need time to think. I’ll tie you up in this place, so you can’t go for help for a while, then I’ll leave, and you’ll never see me again.”
“Kendra—you said yourself you didn’t want to stay in this country. If you turn yourself into the police, you might be able to negotiate your prison sentence be served back home.”
“I’m not going to prison. You tell your friend to give me the car keys.”
While Kendra had been concentrating on her, Samuel appeared to have left the vehicle. He wasn’t in the driver’s seat any longer.
Please be calling the police, Holly prayed, then remembered that the mobile signals didn’t make it out this far.
They were on their own.
Holly closed her eyes, concentrating on the outline of Kendra’s arms against her. She couldn’t remember the flash of a blade or the cold metal of a gun, but that didn’t mean that Kendra wasn’t armed. Holly needed to be careful.
The forearm crushing her wind
pipe led to a hand that curled around Holly’s shoulder, strengthening the grip. She cast a quick glance down to that side, seeing fingers but no weapon crushed beneath their firm grasp.
Holly’s thick coat disguised the feel of the arm tugging around her waist. Slowly, she pushed up her coat sleeve and let her arm drop down to her right-hand side. It touched the bare skin of a hand. No weapon.
Holly drove her elbow back into Kendra’s stomach as hard as she could.
The woman gasped, holding on with the choke hold, but releasing her other hand to grasp at Holly’s shoulder. A knee crushed into her tailbone, the pain alone enough to drive Holly to her knees if it hadn’t been for the arm around her throat, increasing in pressure until she couldn’t breathe.
The edges of Holly’s vision turned to dark shadows. One ear popped and filled with a whine, similar to feedback. Panic flared in a star burst in Holly’s skull, and she scrabbled at the arm holding her, the one cutting off her air supply. Kendra’s fingers felt like they were carved from stone, immovable.
Holly tried to punch behind her, hitting nothing but thin air as she started to pass out and her arms fell uselessly down to her sides.
Chapter Nineteen
“And then Samuel came to my rescue,” Holly said, beaming at the man and reaching out to pinch his cheek.
Samuel ducked away, smiling. “A bit late, as it turned out. You face planted as soon as Kendra let you go.”
Holly turned to the mirror in the corner of her bed and examined her reflection. She and Samuel appeared like two peas in a pod now. The same bright yellow, purple, and green bruises spread in a mural across their faces.
“Well, I’m glad that someone was there to help you,” Aidan said, laying a kiss on her temple. It was one of the few spaces left with no additional colors blooming.
“To be fair, she wouldn’t have been in trouble if I wasn’t there, either.” Samuel seemed downcast for a moment. “I don’t know why I didn’t see her car when we rounded that last corner. I should have been able to give you ample warning.”
The Sweet Baked Mystery Series - Books 1-6 Page 56
