A Perilous Cake Pop

by Fiona Grace

  “Ali!” she exclaimed, concern sparkling in her ocean blue eyes. “Are you okay?”

  “Um — yes?” Ali replied, a little perplexed by her opening gambit. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

  “Well, you’ve read the review, haven’t you?” Delaney prompted.

  Ali thought of Arlo’s terrible, scathing words and felt her stomach sink all over again at the memory.

  “Yes…” she sighed, sadly. “I’ve read the review.”

  “And you’ve seen the comments?” Delaney added.

  Ali quirked her head to the side with curiosity. “The comments?”

  Delaney’s eyes widened with disbelief. “Oh, no, honey,” she said. “You haven’t seen them, have you?”

  Ali was growing more worried by the second. Her stomach started to churn. “No. Why? What do they say?”

  Delaney fished her phone out of her pocket. She already had the website where Arlo’s column was published open. She used her thumb to scroll down the page, then held it out to Ali. As Ali began scanning the top comment, Delaney bit her bottom lip tensely, only making Ali’s anguish worse.

  “Anyone else just see the fight between the author of this piece and the proprietor of Seaside Sweets?” the first comment read.

  “OMG - YES!” the second read.

  “Came here to say that!!” a third commented.

  “No. What. What happened?” A fourth read.

  Ali’s mouth went completely dry with astonishment. She scrolled down to discover the next comment had a photo attached, of her mid-yell at Arlo, and Seth in the background dashing toward them both to save the day.

  “The bakery woman was pissed!” the accompanying text read. “LOL! I’ve never seen anything so funny!”

  “How hot is her boyfriend, though? Anyone else or just me???”

  Ali looked back up at Delaney with complete astonishment. She knew the review would be terrible PR, but she’d not even considered how crazy she’d make herself look by retaliating. She was her own worst enemy.

  “What have I done?” she stammered.

  “It’ll be okay,” Delaney reassured her. “It’ll blow over. People just like drama. Are you okay though? He didn’t hurt you or anything?”

  “Only with his words,” Ali replied. Then she shook her head to get a grip. “I’m fine. No fists flew, though I kinda wish I’d slapped him.”

  Delaney looked concerned. She rubbed Ali’s shoulder. Then, in a change of tone, she added, “Did you read the bit about Seth being your boyfriend?”

  Ali rolled her eyes. “Delaney…”

  “What?” her friend teased. “It’s funny. Unless your date went bad, in which case it’s not funny at all.”

  “It didn’t go bad,” Ali replied. She pointed at the cell phone in Delaney's hand. “Until all that happened, it was actually going really well.”

  Delaney looked to be on the cusp of asking further probing questions but didn’t get the chance because Ali’s phone started to ring. She checked the display. It was her sister.

  Ali’s chest sank. Her sister never called for any good reason; it was only ever to berate her, or stick her nose in where it was not wanted with unsolicited “business” advice. She looked at Delaney with a look of trepidation.

  “It’s Hannah,” she said.

  Delaney pulled a face. “In which case, I’ll leave you to it. Call me if you need to chat, okay?”

  And with that, she pulled open the door and headed off into the bright sunshine.

  Heart pounding with anticipation, Ali shut the door after Delaney and answered the call.

  “What’s all this I hear about you wanting to find Dad?” came Hannah’s demanding voice in her ear.

  Ali tensed. Teddy must’ve called her after their disastrous breakfast to dish the dirt! If she was already mad at Teddy before, she was livid now. How dare he scurry off for support from Hannah of all people?

  “You spoke to Teddy, I take it,” Ali replied.

  “Yes,” Hannah snapped. “He’s in pieces. What were you thinking?”

  “In pieces over what?” Ali replied, testily. “I’m the wronged party.”

  “He’s in pieces because you want to find Dad! The man who abandoned us because he didn’t like the idea of having a gay son.”

  “That’s not why he left!” Ali refuted.

  “Teddy thinks it is.”

  “Yes, well Teddy’s wrong, okay?” Ali said, hearing the anger in her own voice and cringing. The truth was that none of them knew why Richard Sweet had left. Ali forced herself to calm down. “I didn’t even say I wanted to find Dad. All I said was that I’d found out something weird about him, and it didn’t feel right keeping it to myself.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the line.

  “What did you find out?” Hannah asked.

  “Dad wanted to open a vintage candy store in Willow Bay,” Ali said.

  Another pause.

  “Is that it?” Hannah asked, in a blunt, flat voice. She clearly was totally uninterested in the piece of information, just as Ali had suspected. Her big sister was already grown up, living on the east coast, and mentally checked out of the family by the time Richard Sweet completely left. She barely seemed to even notice he’d gone.

  “You can see how Teddy’s getting all theatrical about it,” Ali stated. “It’s not the big drama he seems to think it is. I’m not doing anything with this bit of info. I’m not even planning on doing anything. I just thought Teddy should know.”

  “Well,” Hannah said, sounding thoroughly displeased to have been dragged into the whole debacle. “What a stupid, childish mess you two have gotten yourselves into. Sometimes I’m surprised you didn’t go into acting like Teddy, since you clearly love the drama. Isn’t baking a bit dull for a drama queen?”

  Ali thought of the drama that had just unfolded on the streets between her and Arlo, and the continuing drama in the comments section of his column—not to mention the love triangle she’d accidentally found herself in—but of course was not about to signal Hannah to any of that and prove her right. To Hannah, she was going to be righteously indignant and attempt to save face.

  “I’m not a drama queen!” she exclaimed, before very dramatically ending the call.

  She stood there fuming, hands on hips, breathing heavily in and out of her nostrils like some kind of fire-breathing dragon. It was supposed to be her day off, her one chance in the week to recharge her batteries, but now she had been driven to a state of agitation.

  She needed a way to bring herself down from her furious state. An outlet. And there was only one surefire way Ali knew to calm down...Bake!

  CHAPTER NINE

  Feeling her very veins crackle with agitation, Ali stomped into the kitchen. Before she’d made it her profession, baking had always been her comfort activity. And even though she now spent the vast majority of her waking hours baking, it was no surprise that in a time of crisis, it would still be her go-to.

  She clattered around in the kitchen, pulling pots and pans and utensils from drawers and cupboards and dumping them noisily onto the work surface. By the time she’d collected everything she needed to bake, she could already feel the fury ebbing away. She surveyed all the ingredients in front of her and decided to make a cinnamon Danish. It had been a long, long time since she’d made her favorite breakfast food, a recipe she’d absolutely perfected while working under Milo Baptiste during her year apprenticeship in France. It had been one of the goodies she was most excited about bringing to Willow Bay, only to quickly discover there was very little demand for anything quite so high in carbohydrates. While parents were happy to buy their kids cupcakes, they’d never indulge for themselves. She’d found a good middle ground between her skillset and her customers’ demands with macaroons, but she still missed making French pastries just as she’d originally planned to sell.

  “No carbs, no carbs, no carbs,” she muttered to herself as she kneaded the dough. That was what she’d heard over and over ag
ain. “If only there was such a thing as a low carb Danish!”

  Ali halted, mid-knead, her fingers fully emerged in the dough, as the thought struck her. She’d never actually looked into it. Milo would never have indulged something like that — he was an absolute purist and had instilled the same values in Ali. But if there was one thing she’d learned since opening her own business, it was that she needed to be adaptable.

  Feeling a crackle of excitement, she quickly washed the dough from her hands and grabbed her laptop. She went online and typed in carb-free pastries.

  To her astonishment, she had hundreds and thousands of hits. There was a whole world of carb free cooking out there she’d never even known about! The recipes looked somewhat complicated, but certainly not impossible. With a surge of excitement, Ali wondered if perhaps there may be a way to bring her fancy French pastries to the boardwalk after all?

  Ali shifted her mind, grateful for the distraction. She wrote down a list of ingredients—most of which she already had at the bakery. The more recipes she found, the more enthused she became. There was a whole new world of baking for her to try, and she started to feel optimistic for the future, eager for the next new day to begin so she could get going.

  *

  At some point she must’ve fallen asleep at her computer screen, because suddenly her living room was bathed in dawn light and the sound of bird song.

  “Whoa,” Ali said, glancing about her with surprise.

  A moment later, her alarm began to blare. It was 5AM. Time for work.

  She washed and dressed for the day, then collected her list of ingredients and recipes, hoping she’d get a chance to set aside a bit of the morning to work on her carb-free pastries. Then she began the short walk to the bakery in the thin morning light.

  As Ali passed Nate’s house, she cast a guilty look toward it. Her plan to tell both men about the other had spectacularly failed. Both times she’d tried, something had interrupted her. But she shouldn’t make excuses for herself. At the end of the day, she had a responsibility, and it was her cowardice that had kept her quiet.

  A bark pulled her from her thoughts. She looked up, her heart lifting as she saw Scruff come bounding up to her side. As she fed him his breakfast bone, she thought again about Nate’s suggestion she should adopt him. Maybe tonight she’d let him into her apartment and see whether he stayed over?

  Scruff escorted her all the way to the bakery before bounding off along the boardwalk.

  “See you later, Lil’ Dude,” Ali called after him.

  She unlocked the door to the bakery and headed inside.

  Her first task of the day after the break was always to check how well Piper had cleaned up. Ali’s chef training had drummed hygiene into her like a military commander does with bed making. It was pretty much second nature to her. But for Piper, teaching the skills had been a bit of a battle. Her assistant just wasn’t committing it all to memory. And while Ali really didn’t enjoy taking such a hard stance with Piper, she accepted it was the only way she’d learn. If it worked for her, it could work for Piper.

  She went into the kitchen and checked everything over. The granite countertops were clean and free of crumbs. The big metal sinks were empty. The fridge was pristine, with all the refrigerated ingredients lined up neatly, their best before dates facing outward for ease.

  It appeared as if Piper had done a pretty good job of tidying the place up, Ali thought. That was until she spotted the trash bag peeping out from the kitchen trash can.

  She went over and peered inside. The bag was full of yesterday’s debris. Piper had forgotten to carry it out to the dumpster.

  Ali sucked her teeth with frustration. It wasn’t the worst mistake in the world, but it was the sort of sloppiness that might one day earn her a health violation if she didn’t nip it in the bud.

  She grabbed the bag and unlocked the back door to take it to the dumpster.

  The dumpster in the back alleyway was shared by Ali’s bakery and the two pizzeria joints either side of her, the only three stores in their alcove offshoot from the main boardwalk. It was a little spooky there, since it was rundown and in shadow, but Ali had journeyed out here a hundred times before and was used to it. Only this time, she felt a chill run down her spine.

  She froze on the spot, her hand tightening around the garbage bag and scanned the small area around her. Her eyes darted left and right, searching for any signs of movements. She knew Fat Tony’s cronies used the back alleyway sometimes—they’d accessed her kitchen that way once before—but no greasy haired, sharp suited mobsters emerged from the shadows. Scruff, on occasion, had been known to sleep back here, too—but her doggy pal had trotted off in the direction of the boardwalk and there was no way he’d’ have gotten back to this spot in the time it took her to carry the garbage out.

  “You’re being crazy,” Ali muttered to herself.

  She shook her head, trying to get rid of the feeling of disquiet. But as she approached the dumpster, the feeling only got stronger and stronger, making goosebumps race across her arms and the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. A hard lump formed in Ali’s throat, and she felt her heart begin pumping.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she murmured.

  Maybe her deceit with Seth and Nate was playing on her mind and coming out in this strange feeling of paranoia? Maybe it was the fight with Teddy—something that was rare between the siblings and extremely uncomfortable for Ali since it had not been resolved, and indeed worsened by him running to Hannah? Maybe it was Lavinia Leigh and her creepy predictions, or the terrible review Arlo had left on his website, and the way Ali had only made it worse by unleashing on him in broad daylight in front of masses of people? Maybe it was the fact she’d slept at her computer last night?

  Whatever it was, something had gotten right under her skin and rocked her foundation and sense of security in the world.

  It was at that very moment that Ali noticed the lid of the dumpster was not fully closed. It was sitting an inch open, as if something large inside was stopping it from resting fully flat. In the shadows of the gap, Ali spotted something dark and bulky, something peculiar looking that she immediately and instinctively knew did not belong there.

  Her throat went dry, and she tiptoed over to the dumpster. She swallowed hard, wincing with anticipation as she took a hold of the lid and heaved it back.

  Immediately, Ali’s gaze found the source of her horrible feelings. There, lying inside the dumpster, was a man. A dead man.

  Ali was staring down at the dead body of Arlo Hudson.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Trembling all over, Ali staggered back from the dumpster, almost tripping over her own feet in her haste to get away from the terrible sight of Arlo Hudson lying dead inside. But she was unable to tear her eyes from him, like a horror movie she couldn’t stop watching. She grasped behind her, blindly, desperately seeking out the back door, for something solid that could ground her. Her hand found the handle and she clung to it like a life-raft.

  A small bark sounded beside her, and she looked down to discover Scruff had followed her and was now looking at her with brown eyes of concern. It was almost as if he knew, astutely, that something terrible had happened.

  The sight of his face was enough to snap Ali into action. She dashed into the kitchen, grabbing the phone receiver off the wall and punching in 9-1-1. As she listened to the sharp trill of the dial tone, she stared through the open back door at the dumpster containing the lifeless body of Arlo Hudson, her mind swimming with disbelief.

  “Emergency services,” came an efficient, calm female voice in her ear. “What’s going on there?”

  The confidence in the responder’s tone immediately grounded Ali, and she found herself suddenly able to put all her thoughts coherently together.

  “I’ve found a body,” she stammered.

  The emergency responder on the other end of the line spoke with rapid efficiency. “Is the patient conscious?”

  “N
o.”

  “Breathing?”

  “No. He’s dead.”

  “Can you check for a pulse for me?”

  Ali grimaced, bile leaping into her throat at the thought of touching a clearly deceased person. “He’s blue,” she managed to say. “And I think it’s foul play. I don’t want to… contaminate the scene.”

  She flinched as she heard the words come from her mouth. It sounded very clinical and unemotional and while Ali knew the phrase had come to her thanks to watching far too many crime shows on TV, she wondered what the responder would think of her.

  On the other end of the line, there was a brief pause, as if the responder was digesting the information and working out the next appropriate steps.

  “Okay,” she said at last. “Help is on the way. The system’s showing your location as Willow Bay boardwalk. Is that correct?”

  “Yes. The bakery. Seaside Sweets.”

  “Okay. We have people en route. They’re one minute out. Are you safe, ma’am?”

  “What?” Ali asked. The question caught her off guard.

  “Are you safe?” the woman repeated, firmly.

  Safe?

  The word echoed in Ali’s mind. She’d not even considered the circumstances surrounding how Arlo had ended up dead in her dumpster. Or, more importantly, who had put him there… and where they were now. The only thing she’d been able to comprehend in her shock and panic was getting help. She’d not even considered her own safety. But now that she’d been asked about it directly, the reality was sinking in that she couldn’t actually answer the question in the affirmative.

  “I don’t know,” she stammered.

  “Help is on the way,” the woman repeated. “If you can get yourself to a safe place, do so now. You should see blue flashing lights and hear sirens any second.”

  At the same moment, Ali heard the distant blare of sirens coming from the surrounding hillsides, a noise that started small but quickly grew into a sharp, shrill, insistent scream.

  “I hear them,” she said, breathlessly into the telephone.