Beachfront Bakery 02 - A Murderous Macaron

by Fiona Grace

  “Probably,” Ali said, adding silently to herself that beggars can’t be choosers. “But that’s a small sacrifice to make to avoid being evicted.”

  Piper was silent for a moment. “I don’t know, Ali. I don’t want to ruin anything with your friend, and make you look bad. You know what I’m like. How long it takes me to learn. What if I mess up and swap the salt and sugar again like I did yesterday?”

  A visual image appeared in Ali’s mind eye, of the man spitting out his salty macaron yesterday morning, and the subsequent discovery of the entire ruined batch. She felt bad for Piper. Her self-esteem was extremely low, and the blow of the store closing would likely be yet another hit to her confidence.

  “You won’t,” Ali said. “I promise. Head to Best Hot Dogs, okay, and say that Ali sent you. You’ve got this.”

  “Okay,” Piper said. “Thanks, Ali. I hope this all works out soon.”

  “Me too,” Ali replied.

  The call ended, and Ali let out a large exhale of emotion. She felt terrible for the hassle she was causing Piper. Part of her even regretted her original job offer those weeks back in the truck stop diner. She’d thought she was helping Piper out, playing the savior. But instead she’d landed her right in it. Teddy had been right. His eyes across the table had warned Ali not to make such a rash decision. Except, turned out it hadn’t been because Piper was bad for business, but because Ali was bad for Piper…

  A terrible feeling of lead dropped into Ali’s stomach. She’d promised to train Piper. To help her get on her feet. Instead, she’d set her up for failure. She’d given her the responsibility on the busy macaron launch day of preparing all the ingredients unsupervised, when she should have put her on till duty instead. It wasn’t like the macarons were particularly straightforward either. Thanks to all the different flavors, each one had a finickity set of unique ingredients.

  As the call percolated in her mind, Ali thought again of the unfortunate salt mishap the day earlier. The customer had been furious, not just because the macarons he’d paid for tasted foul, but because he had high blood pressure and eating salt was genuinely dangerous for him. The whole thing had been an accident, but what if actual harm had come to the man?

  Suddenly, a terrible thought hit Ali. Piper had botched one batch of macarons that day in a way that could have seriously harmed someone. Was it possible that she’d botched the next batch as well? And that the second time around, her bumbling employee’s accident had killed a man?

  Ali began to wrack her brains, thinking it through. The salt and sugar were easy to mix up because they had similar packaging. But anything she had in the bakery with toxic potential—oven cleaner, bleach for the rest room—were very easily identifiable by their packaging, and were locked away in a completely different part of the kitchen.

  But the various macaron flavors needed very careful preparation. In particular, the lilac macaron, which contained rhubarb. Ali, as a chef, knew very well that rhubarb leaves were toxic and could potentially cause kidney failure, seizures, or even fatality in a person highly sensitive to them. She’d passed this information on to Piper, but if the girl could forget to take butter out of the fridge and swap sugar and salt, then what were the chances she’d forgotten that crucial piece of information as well? And if Brandon had been one of those people with a sensitivity to rhubarb, then …

  Ali’s heart lurched with fear.

  Had Piper accidentally killed Brandon Lennox?

  Ali desperately wished she could go back to the bakery and see for herself whether Piper mixed up or mishandled any ingredients, but there was just no way. Her bakery was a crime scene, her ingredients evidence turned over to the lab.

  When the toxicology report came back, would it show that Piper had made a terrible, fatal mistake? And if she had, would Ali be liable for it? She was her supervisor, after all. It was her responsibility to ensure safety standards were met in her kitchen. If Piper had killed someone by accident, surely Ali herself would also be facing charges.

  Just then, a knock on the door startled Ali from her anxious, gnawing ruminations.

  She glanced nervously over at it. She never got unannounced visitors to her home. Everyone she knew, knew she spent all her waking hours at the bakery. She’d never even gotten so much as a door to door salesman or religious missionary. And she was quite confident it wouldn’t be either Seth or Nate professing their love to her.

  Whoever was on the other side, Ali had no doubt, would not be a welcome visitor…

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Ali crossed her small open-plan living room with a foreboding sense of trepidation. She mentally prepared herself to see Detective Elton and Detective Callahan on the doorstep. She even heard the husky voice of the female detective in her head, saying, “Ali Sweet, we are arresting you on suspicion of wrongful death…”

  She took a deep breath and opened the door.

  Bright sunlight streamed in, making Ali squint against the glare. The backlit figure on the doorstep was in silhouette, their features obscured. But Ali didn’t need to see their face to immediately recognize who it was.

  “Delaney?” she cried, reaching for her friend and wrapping her in an embrace of utter relief. “Boy, am I happy to see you!”

  “Good to see you too,” came Delaney’s somewhat bemused voice in her ear, mixing with the buzzing beat of her workout music. “You okay?”

  Ali released her. “I am now,” she said, breathlessly. “But what are you doing here?”

  Delaney removed her ear buds. “I’m here for our morning coffee date,” she said simply.

  Ali was always pleased to see Delaney, but at this moment she was struck by just how incredibly kind and thoughtful her new friend really was. Ali couldn’t think of a single person back in LA who’d show up for her like this, and she was filled with gratitude to have found such an amazing friend in her new town.

  “I figured we’d be having it here instead of at the bakery,” Delaney continued. “Since it’s a crime scene and all.” She hesitated. “Or am I intruding?”

  “Never!” Ali exclaimed, pulling the door even wider as a gesture of invitation. “You’re never intruding. Get your booty in here!”

  Delaney chuckled and trotted inside, bouncing on the toes of her sneakers.

  “Oh hey, is that my shirt?” Delaney asked, pointing at the mustard yellow silk dress Ali had slung over the back of a dining chair last night.

  “Yes,” Ali said, feeling a spike of guilt for having taken liberties with her friend’s clothes (albeit at Teddy’s insistence). Then, remembering how it would now smell of perfume, she hurriedly added, “I still need to wash it!”

  Too late. Delaney had already picked up the shirt-dress and began shoving it into her deceptively spacious fanny pack.

  “Don’t worry about that,” Delaney said, with an air of flippancy, before pausing, frowning, and sniffing the air.

  Ali tensed. She expected her friend to ask her why exactly it now smelled of date-night perfume. But before she did, she was distracted by something else.

  “Oh cool—what’s all this?” she said, heading for the kitchenette.

  Delaney was always on the go, always on the move, and Ali found it hard to keep up with her sometimes. She could be a bit of a whirlwind.

  Ali realized it was the doughy Willow Bay boardwalk creation that had distracted her friend.

  “I’m doing a crime scene reenactment,” she explained.

  She was struck by sudden inspiration. Delaney had had a unique vantage point during Brandon’s boardwalk rampage. She might have seen something, some evidence that exonerated Piper somehow. Ali felt suddenly buoyed knowing she had someone to bounce ideas off of.

  She raced to Delaney’s side. “This is Brandon, you see,” she said, picking up the dough man with the B etched into his chest.

  “And this is me,” Delaney said, pointing at the gangly figure lying on the paper entitled Little Bits of This and That. She chuckled. “Looks like you’ve put
me on a calorie-restricted diet.”

  Ali smirked. She poured Delaney a coffee from the pot, then poured one for herself. This was unlike any coffee morning they’d ever shared.

  “I was trying to figure out Brandon’s movements along the boardwalk,” she said, as she handed Delaney her steaming mug. “So far, I know he traveled this direction and stopped in at Best Hot Dogs and the donut kiosk.”

  Delaney studied the map, sipping the coffee. She pulled a little grimace. “Why doesn’t this taste as nice as the stuff you sell at the bakery?”

  “Because it’s not made from expensive, small batch, organically grown Peruvian whole beans,” Ali explained. “And if I don’t solve this murder quickly, we can both kiss goodbye ever drinking expensive, small batch, organically grown Peruvian whole bean coffee again.”

  “Well, that’s motivation if ever I heard it,” Delaney quipped. She put her coffee down and clapped her hands, rubbing them together. “Let’s get to it!”

  The threat of losing her favorite coffee forever seemed to invigorate Delaney. Ali, too, felt a sense of renewed vigor now that she had an extra brain to help.

  “Did you see him go into any stores?” Ali asked. “Before he passed Bookworms?”

  Delaney shook her head. “It was only when he passed my window that I even noticed him. Who knows what he was up to during this bit of the boardwalk.” She waved her hands over the section of boardwalk closest to her. “Still, I presume he went in a couple of places, if past experience is anything to go by.”

  Ali looked over at her friend, frowning with curiosity. “Past experience? What do you mean?”

  Delaney was still staring intently at the dough map. “Well, in the past, Brandon would visit at least a dozen stores. So if he was following his usual protocol, he may well have visited a bunch on this side of the boardwalk before I spotted him. Or, perhaps because he knew how unwelcome he was around these parts, he decided to keep his trip brief this time.” She punctuated her statement with a shrug, then took a sip of coffee.

  Ali stared at her, blinking with astonishment at what she’d just heard. Brandon had been to the boardwalk before?

  Delaney must’ve spotted her friend staring at her out of the corner of her eye, because she swiveled her head to face her. “You do know Brandon’s been to Willow Bay before, don’t you?” she asked.

  Ali slowly shook her head. She was astonished. She absolutely did not know this bit of information. It seemed like a very crucial piece of the puzzle. If Brandon had visited Willow Bay before, he certainly could have already made enemies on the boardwalk, someone who he pissed off, who’d been biding their time to exact their revenge…

  “No. I didn’t,” she said. “When Miriyam did her little incognito spy visit to my store and told me the rumors about Brandon, I just assumed she knew him from the internet. You mean to say she knows him through personal experience?” Ali was still struggling to wrap her head around this revelation. “How many times has he been to Willow Bay?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” Delaney said. “Definitely last summer, and the summer before at the least. I think possibly even one or two other times before then but he wasn’t doing the whole jackass routine back then so was more easily forgettable. That’s why I called you that morning to warn you. I figured since it was your first time, you should get a heads-up.”

  “Thanks,” Ali murmured, breathlessly.

  She was of course grateful that Delaney had been looking out for her, but the omission of just how familiar a figure Brandon was to the boardwalk in the first place was throwing her. She’d thought Brandon’s visit was some kind of once in a lifetime moment, some rare celebrity event, rather than some annual, routine thing. She wasn’t sure how significant that was, if at all, but it certainly required a recalibration of her thoughts.

  Suddenly, Delaney gasped and put a hand to her mouth. Ali, who was already on high alert, startled.

  “What?” Ali asked, her heart slamming into her chest.

  “I just realized I completely forgot to warn Seth!” Delaney exclaimed. “The hot dog guy. He’s new to the boardwalk, too. And it was his first day! Oh no, that poor guy.”

  At the mention of the handsome Seth, Ali felt a squirming in her stomach. So far, she’d dodged the conversation. She still felt bad for having agreed to the date in the first place since a man had only just died in her store, and Detective Elton’s disapproval had only added to her guilt and shame. But Delaney was her friend. Since when did she keep secrets from her?

  “Delaney, I went on a date with Seth,” Ali blurted, feeling her cheeks warm. “Last night. And I wore your shirt. That’s why it smelled of perfume.”

  Delaney’s blue eyes widened. She looked blindsided. “Whoa, Ali, hold up! You went on a date? Last night?”

  Ali floundered. She didn’t want Delaney’s disapproval added on top of her own. “It was … a bad idea, I know. I guess he smooth talked me into it and I was stressed and in need of a supportive ear and—”

  Delaney started to chuckle. “Ali, I’m not interrogating you!” she said. “I’m happy for you!”

  Ali stopped her defensive explanation and regarded her friend. “You are?”

  “Yes!” Delaney cried. “You’ve been moping about Nate for weeks.”

  “Oh,” Ali said, sheepishly. “So you’re not mad about the timing?”

  “Not at all,” Delaney said. “You shouldn’t put your life on hold just because of one hurdle. Especially not when it pertains to affairs of the heart.”

  “And you’re not annoyed I wore your shirt?” Ali added.

  Delaney laughed even more heartily. “Why would I be annoyed? Oh, Ali. You’re such a dope. Tell me, what did you pair it with?”

  “Nothing. I wore it as a dress.”

  “Ali, you little hussy!” Delaney teased, shaking her head. “So, like, Seth blew his lid at Brandon and then managed to turn as cool as a cucumber to take you on a date?”

  Ali frowned, perplexed. “Wait. What?”

  “After the live stream,” Delaney explained. “I mean, I don’t want to condone the way he went off like he did, and I’m not surprised, ’cause the last thing anyone wants is to be harassed on their first day. But to go from that furious to cool chill date guy so quickly?” She whistled. “That’s quite the achievement!”

  Ali felt her brow furrow even deeper. “Delaney, what are you talking about?”

  Delaney shot her a concerned expression. “Seth didn’t tell you about his fight with Brandon?”

  Ali felt her stomach drop. She looked at her boardwalk dough model, to the spot where she remembered seeing Brandon being propelled out of someone’s store. She put her finger on the piece of paper for Seth’s hot dog place, and inched it a little farther along the display. She was hit by the terrible realization that the store she’d witnessed Brandon being forcibly removed from had been Seth’s all along. She hadn’t put two and two together before. But there was no denying it now.

  “All Seth told me was that he visited,” Ali murmured, her eyes glued to the model with mounting dread. “He didn’t say anything about losing his cool…”

  Why would he omit such a crucial piece of their encounter? Ali wondered fretfully. He’d gone as far as to show her the live stream video, in which Brandon had made vulgar motions with a hot dog sausage. But he hadn’t said anything about physically ejecting the guy from his restaurant! All the while, he knew Ali herself was panicking herself about having the finger of suspicion pointed her way. She’d confessed to him that she was the pâtissier from the rumors. That whole time Seth had acted like the supportive, friendly guy, when he must’ve known there was just as much reason to suspect him as her!

  She recalled how confident he’d sounded when she’d told him she wasn’t the killer. He’d accepted it like he was never in any doubt. Had his confidence come from the knowledge that he was the killer?

  Then another horrible feeling hit Ali. Was the date a ruse? Was that why he’d pushed so hard f
or it? Was he just trying to blindside her? Distract her?

  Ali glanced at her friend, feeling a full-blown panic ready to erupt any minute. “Do you think Seth…killed…” Her voice trailed away.

  Delaney bit her lip. “I really hope not.”

  “The video’s online,” Ali said. “I never watched the whole thing.”

  Delaney nodded and removed her cell phone from her fanny pack. She had a jogger’s app running on her screen, currently paused to show she was on her eighth kilometer of the day. If Ali had been in a better frame of mind, she would have made a wisecrack about it. But she was so overcome with fear that Seth had had a hand in Brandon’s death that she remained entirely mute.

  Delaney swiped the screen and went online. She found Brandon’s YouTube channel and clicked on the livestream video Ali had been shown by Seth. They pressed their heads together and watched as the scene played out.

  The first part of the video Ali had already seen: Brandon ordering his hot dog and then playing inappropriately with it while his cameraman chuckled away. But what happened next was new. And very revealing indeed…

  Seth’s young staff member, Carys, the girl with the glossy brown ponytail and visor, looked mortified as Brandon waggled the sausage at her. Then suddenly, Seth came striding out from behind the counter. “GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE, YOU LITTLE JERK!” he yelled.

  The camera became very shaky, but Ali was still able to see Seth roughly grab a guffawing Brandon by the shirt and yank him away from the counter, before frog marching him through the dining area and shoving him out into the street.

  Ali gasped. It had looked bad enough from where she’d witnessed it through the bakery window, but up close it looked even worse. She glanced at Delaney, her mouth agape.

  Delaney raised her blonde brows. “Doesn’t look great…”

  Ali paced away, her heart fluttering, her mind in a swirl. If she’d not gotten so embarrassed when Seth showed her the video first time around, would he have taken his phone back off her before his incriminating meltdown? Or was he counting on her feeling too awkward by the rude content to carry on watching? Ali’s pale skin revealed her blushes easily, and Seth already knew she was an anxious ditherer from her rambling verbal vomit during their first meeting.