Chewy Chocolate Chip Murder: A Cookie Lane Cozy Mystery - Book 1 (2 page)

Cat stood outside the Walters
residence, grasping a folded cardboard box of Cheek Choc Chip cookies. The
two-story house glared down at her. The veiled windows disapproved of her
presence, and Catherine squared her shoulders

“This place is fancy,” Lacy said and
readjusted her black skirt and pillbox hat. “It’s like a mansion, not a house.”

An outside door opened on the upstairs
patio and a blonde woman, draped in pearls, stepped up to the railing. She
matched the house’s empty stare and sneered at them.

“Cat? Maybe we shouldn’t have come.
Given what they said about you, this isn’t exactly going to be a pleasant –”

“Beth was more our family than she was
theirs, Lace. We’re doing this. I wouldn’t miss her memorial service for the
world.” And if she discovered why the Walters family had accused her of murder
at the same time, all the better.

“Okay, I just know you’re angry, and
when you get mad, you can get a little boisterous.”

Catherine cleared her throat and
stepped onto the stone paved path which led to the sweeping front porch. “I’m
not angry. I’m enraged. There’s a minuscule difference.”

Lacy puffed her cheeks out.

“Relax, I promise I won’t do anything.
I outgrew temper tantrums at three,” she said and popped up a smile for her
young friend’s benefit. The first smile since she’d discovered Beth had passed.

No, she’d been murdered and whoever
had done it wanted it to seem like she was the culprit.

Catherine stepped onto the bottom
stair. Lacy joined her. They nodded to each other, then traversed the staircase
and halted in front of the door. It stood ajar, and a cool breeze wafted past
them.

“Candles,” Lacy said, and wriggled her
nose.

“Excuse me?”

“I smell candles,” Lace replied. She
had the nose of a blood hound.

Catherine moved across the threshold
and followed the sound of chatter, down a long wooden hall. Family portraits
lined the walls – images of four people: a surly day, that same pearl-bedecked
woman, a young boy and a girl who’d shifted away from the other three slightly.
Not exactly the image of a happy family.

“Here we go,” Cat said and turned into
the living room.

People milled around the space, eating
savory snacks and drinking cool sodas and pink lemonade. An image of Beth sat
on top of a Grand Piano in the corner – the photo had probably been taken years
ago, but Cat couldn’t reconcile the woman in the picture with the one she’d
come to love as a second mother.

The Walters had chosen a
straight-laced photograph. Beth had been anything but straight-laced. She’d
dyed her hair purple for heaven’s sake.

A few of the guests glanced up and
spotted her. They fell silent. That quiet spread across the room. People turned
and stared, narrowed their eyes, shook their heads.

“Told you,” Lacy whispered. “What did
I tell you?”

“Practice your breathing, Lace.”

Lacy sucked in air through her nose
and breathed gently out her mouth. She snorted a couple of times in between. A
few of the guests shifted their gazes to her, instead. That didn’t help Lacy’s
panic. Her breathing exercises turned into a mini-hyperventilation attack.

“What are those?” A woman asked,
behind them.

They turned on the spot – Lace
complexion colored a lovely shade of mauve – and blinked at the young, uh,
lady.

“They’re Choc Chip cookies from my
bakery,” Cat said. She didn’t want to be rude, but this girl’s hair and makeup
reminded her of something out of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The college student swept bright, pink
locks back from her forehead, and slouched against the wall beside the door.
Eyeshadow blackened her lids, and she’d smeared on dark lipstick to match it.

Lacy’s mauve color paled to a rosy
pink.

The chatter behind them swelled again
– no doubt she’d triggered a festival of gossip on arrival.

Cat stepped up to the girl, wearing a
tight grin. “I’m Catherine Kelley, but you can call me Cat. What’s your name?”

The woman didn’t extend a hand. “I’m
Rachel Walters.” She folded her arms and eyed the box of cookies in Cat’s
hands.

“You want one?” She asked, and popped
the lid, then held them out to the skinny, young lady bedecked in black
velvets. So, this was a member of the famed Walter’s family. She didn’t seem
that bad.

She probably hadn’t started that rumor
about Cat being the killer, though. Or had she?

Catherine jiggled the cookie box at
the girl.

“Thanks,” Rachel said and grinned. She
leaned in and snatched up a treat, then crunched it between her lips. “Mom’s
got me on this crazy diet ever since I got back from college.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. She wants me to be little miss
perfect you know? I am so not that kind of girl.”

Lacy took a cookie and inhaled it for
the sugar rush. She licked the crumbs off her fingers. “What are you studying?”
She asked.

“I’m, ugh, hate it. Pre-law.” Rachel
snorted and twirled a finger at her head. “Can you picture me as a lawyer? I
don’t think so.”

Catherine didn’t help herself to a
cookie. “So, you didn’t get on with your parents?”

“Nope. They’re all high society. Lame.
I swear, the only person who understood me in this entire family was Gramma
Beth,” Rachel said, then reached for another choc chip. “I can’t believe she’s
gone now.”

“You were close to her?” Catherine
asked. This was useful information. Maybe she could call that handsome and slightly
rude detective and give him a few leads for his case.

She couldn’t have the whole of
Charleston under the impression that she’d murdered the darling of the town.

“We were close since I got back from
college. She took me fishing a few times. It was weird. I’ve never been fishing
before,” Rachel said, between bites of cookie. “These are so good, by the way
–”

“Rachel,” a man snapped. He stepped
through the open arch which led into the living room, then smoothed his crisp,
black suit. “What are you doing?”

“Just what you told me, dad. Chilling.
Acting normal. That’s what you said, isn’t it?” Rachel narrowed her eyes at him
and pouted.

“Go to the bathroom and take off that
ridiculous makeup,” Mr. Walters said, then grabbed the half-eaten cookie from
her. He threw it back into the Cat’s Cookies box.

“Hey,” Cat said. “There’s no need to
be rude. She was just –”

“Now,” Walters said and pointed out of
the doorway.

Rachel shrugged and pressed her lips
into a thin, black line. “I’ll see ya around,” she whispered, then hurried from
the room.

“That was uncalled for,” Cat said.

“Your presence is uncalled for,” Mr.
Walters replied, and folded his arms. He stared down his nose at her. “You will
leave now.”

“Excuse me?”

“You will leave my premises now.
You’re not welcome here,” Walters growled.

“I –”

“If you don’t leave in the next five
seconds, I’m going to call the police.”

Cat stared at Mr. Walters, anger
burning through her mind. How dare he treat her like this? She’d come to pay
her respects to Beth. She’d –

“Five,” he said, and shifted on the
spot, distributing his weight, evenly. “Four.”

“All right, all right. Keep your
toupee on,” Cat replied. “Come on, Lace. Let’s get out of this coffin and into
the sun.”

“Coffin!” Mr. Walters gasped and
pressed his palm to his chest.

Cat didn’t give him a chance to strike
up another bout of reprimands. She tucked her arm through Lacy’s and led her
assistant down the hall and onto the front porch.

“What a horrible dude. And I think
you’re right about the hair piece. Nobody has hair that glossy,” Lacy said, and
turned her face to the sun. They stood on the sidewalk, in front of the white
Walter’s mansion.

Cat burned for answers. Shoot, she
pined for them. Walters was either convinced she’d hurt Beth, or didn’t want
her around for another reason. Keeping up appearances? Hiding something?

She had to know.

“No,” Lacy said, in a long drawn out
groan.

“What?”

She peered into Cat’s face. “You’ve
got that look again. You’ve got that look you get before you do something
crazy.”

“Not crazy. I’m just going to go back
in there and take a look around.”

Lacy buried her face in her palm.
“That’s the definition of crazy, I swear. He’ll catch you and then the cops
will come and then you’ll end up in jail. And I don’t have money for bail, Cat.
I have student loans to pay off. You can’t. Please, I –”

“Lacy, breathe. Just breathe.” Cat
grasped her forearm, unable to tear her gaze from the open front door. “Have I
ever let you down before?”

“No, but –”

“Have I ever gotten you into a sticky
situation that you couldn’t get out of?”

“There was the one time, with the
cookie dough and that group of kids at the charity event,” Lacy said.

Cat rolled her eyes. “You’ll never let
me forget that.”

“Oreo won’t either,” Lacy replied, and
started her hyperventilating again.

Cat released her friend’s arm, then
brushed off the modest black silk blouse and tailored pants she’d chosen for
the service. Music started up inside. A tune played on the piano.

“Is that… Hallelujah?” Lacy asked,
between breaths.

“Here,” Cat said, and shoved the box
of cookies into her hands. “I’ll be right back.”

“But –”

“Wait in the car and keep a low
profile.” Cat darted up the front path and onto the porch, then stepped into
the cool interior for the second time in the span of ten minutes.

Voices rose in a chorus in the living
room. Everyone was distracted.

Beth’s true murderer could be in that
room at this very moment, pretending to care about a woman who’d cared about
everyone and everything.

Cat balled her hands into fists, then
took off up the main flight of stairs. She hit the second floor landing and
glanced left and right. Her heart pounded against the inside of her ribcage and
she held her breath.

Footsteps stomped down the hall,
around the corner.

“Shoot,” Cat whispered, then rushed
into the room directly opposite the stairs. She squeaked the door shut behind
her, and pressed her ear to it. Silence. Apart from the rush of blood in her
head, of course.

Catherine forced out a sigh of relief,
then turned and pressed her back against the pale wood. Her eyes widened. Her
rush to find information of use had led her directly into…

“The study?”

Bookshelves lined the far wall,
stacked with dusty books, their spines faded by the sunlight which streamed through
an open window. Cars rushed by outside.

Cat walked to the shelves and narrowed
her eyes at the titles and author names. Shakespeare, Tolkien, Jordan,
Hemingway, Hiaasen. An eclectic mix of authors and books, but none of them had
been touched in ages.

Apparently, the Walters weren’t
readers.

“Wait, what’s that?” Cat muttered.

One of the books had a dust-free
spine. She slipped it out from the end of the row, then frowned at the plain,
leather cover. No title.

“Intriguing.” She flipped back the cover,
then slipped her fingers between the vellum pages. She opened the book on the
first page, then gasped.

Death. Death. Death. Death. Death.

The word scrawled across the pages in
black ink. Cat paged through it, and her stomach turned. Every single page
carried the words. Over and over again. Handwritten, scraped into the page at
some parts.

Cat closed it and gripped the journal
between her fingertips. They turned white from the pressure.

Whoever had written it, clearly had an
obsession. This was her first piece of solid evidence.

Music blared through the old TV set, a
tune to match the Venetian waltz.

Cat shook out her arms, then held them
in a stiff frame. She raised her head, lowered her shoulders, and stared at the
thick, fabric of her curtains.

“And, on the count of three, we’ll
begin,” the woman on the screen said.

Butterflies fluttered in Cat’s belly.
She’d bought the dance DVD ages ago, but she hadn’t mastered the Venetian
waltz. She hadn’t come close.

“One,” the woman said.

Oreo meandered through the living room
door and froze, mid-step. He flicked his tail once.

He hated it when she did dance
practice without him. Or maybe he hated it that she’d moved his favorite
armchair out of the way to provide more floor space.

“Two.”

Oreo meowed at her, then sat down and
gave her two flicks of the tail.

“Not now, Oreo, I’m trying to figure
this out.” The two things that calmed her after a stressful day were dance and
baking cookies. She’d already baked a ton of cookies to get rid of the memory
of reading that death book and speaking to Mr. Walters.

“Three.”

The music started fresh, and Cat
launched into the slow, sweeping steps of the waltz. She traveled and turned,
grinning at the invisible audience.

If someone glanced through her window,
now, they’d think she was a loon.

Oreo blinked up at her, then meowed
again.

“Give me a break, Oreo. You just had
your milk.” Cat changed direction and swept toward the TV, instead.

Another meow, louder this time.

Catherine stumbled and flung her arms
out. She caught the edge of the tiny bookshelf, and it wobbled. The
leather-bound journal dropped out and landed face down on the floorboards.

“Great,” Cat said. “Just what I wanted
to see, right now.”

Oreo meowed for the millionth time.

“Fine, fine, fine. What do you want,
kitty?” Catherine asked.

Oreo stopped wagging his tail,
immediately. He rose onto all fours then padded down the hall.

“Oreo?” Cat grabbed the remote and
paused her DVD. “Hey, what are you up to?”

He meowed back at her.

Catherine strode across the room, then
stopped beneath the lintel. “What’s gotten into you?”

Oreo stood at the gate which separated
her apartment from the top of the stairs which led right down into the bakery.
He paced across the entrance, then turned a circle on top of a slip of paper on
the polished wooden boards.

“What?” Catherine frowned, then
hurried to Oreo’s side. She bent and stroked his fur, smoothing the black fluff
back. She twirled his tail between her fingertips, and he purred and rubbed
against her shins.

She lifted the square of paper, then
opened it on its center fold.

You will pay, or you will die.

Cat gasped, and it shuddered through
her chest and down her arms. Her fingers trembled. She ran them across the
neatly inked words and read the text again. “Pay?” She asked. She had nothing
to pay off.

No debts or unpaid loads. Unless she
had to pay in another way. But for what?

Catherine rose, slowly, gaze glued to
the page. Oreo twirled between her legs, purring and meowing.

“I’m okay, Oreo. Thanks,” she said,
absently. She glanced down at the bottom of the stairs, but the bakery was
quiet.

She’d locked up the front and back
ages ago. Shoot, it was already past 9 PM.

Cold shivers ran up and down her
spine. Someone had been in her bakery because the note certainly hadn’t been on
the landing when she’d come up earlier.

“A break-in?” Catherine bit her bottom
lip, then grabbed the door handle and slammed her front door closed. She turned
the key in the lock, then slammed the bolt into place for good measure.

The clack of metal on metal didn’t
give her much comfort.

The person who’d left the message
could still be downstairs. “It’s a lure,” Cat said. “They want me to go
downstairs and check it out. They’ll probably try to overwhelm me if I do.”

Oreo meowed and sat down beside her
foot.

“Don’t worry, Oreo, I’m not going down
there. I’m impulsive, but even I have my limits.” Cat lifted the note and
examined the text again. That was it! The text.

She darted back down the hall and into
the living room. She ignored the dance instructor, frozen on the TV screen, and
snatched the creepy, fallen death journal from the floor.

She flipped it open, then placed the
letter on one of the pages and spread it open.

Catherine squinted and compared the
text. “Nope,” she whispered. “Not the same handwriting.” That didn’t tell her
much.

Catherine placed the book and the note
on top of her shelves, then paced back to the sofa. She sat down and folded her
hands in her lap. Oreo galloped through from the hall and leaped onto the sofa
cushions.

“No needle massages today, kitty,”
Catherine said. “I need to think.”

Beth was gone. A murderer was on the
loose, and the cops thought she’d committed the crime.

“That’s it,” she whispered. She
grabbed her cellphone off the sofa, then dialed a number she’d saved under
emergency contacts, two years ago.

“Charleston Police Department,” a man
said, on the other end of the line. His gruff voice didn’t instill much hope.

“Hi there, I need to speak with
Detective Jack Bradshaw. It’s in connection with the murder of Beth Walters.”

“Uh, just one moment please,” the
officer replied.

A shrill tune squeaked across the
line. Catherine held the phone away from her ear and stared at the journal on
top of the bookshelf.

“Hello?”

Cat placed the phone against her ear
again. “Detective Bradshaw? This is Cat Kelley. Someone just broke into my
house and left me a threatening message. I think it’s in connection with Beth’s
murder.”

The detective sniffed then cleared his
throat. “I’m on my way.”