Chewy Chocolate Chip Murder: A Cookie Lane Cozy Mystery - Book 1 (6 page)

“We shouldn’t be here,” Lacy said.
“This is definitely not allowed. What if we get caught?”

“Caught? Doing what?” Cat asked, then
pointed at the Walters residence. “It’s not like we’re trespassing. We’re just
hanging out in my car, having an adult conversation.”

“This adult conversation is giving me
an anxiety attack. Do you have a brown paper bag?” Lacy asked.

“Check the glove compartment,” Car
replied, then drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. She stared up at the
darkened residence and her heart pounded against the inside of her ribcage. It
beat out a pattern. “I’ll get to the bottom of this.”

“Huh?” Lacy asked, then rammed the
front of the bag into her face and inhaled.

“Nothing, don’t worry.” Catherine
leaned her forehead against her window. She couldn’t tear her gaze from the
house. This place had become an obsession for her.

The longer she looked, the more
convinced she became that this was it. That someone in there had hurt Beth. A
tear slid down her cheek and dropped to her lap.

Lacy dropped her bag. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Cat said. “I’m as fine as
I can be. I guess I haven’t taken the time to mourn yet. I just want to find
the person who did this, so badly.”

Lacy patted her on the shoulder.
“Everything will be okay, Cat. But, I dunno, did you ever think maybe that, ah,
never mind.”

“Think what?” Cat asked.

Lacy took a deep breath, then pressed
her lips together. “Okay, now don’t take this the wrong way, but it kinda seems
like you’re obsessed. And that obsession isn’t healthy. Maybe it’s your way of
dealing with what happened to Beth, or maybe the pressure of the bakery has
gotten to you, but –”

“No, Lace, I’m fine. I just want to
get to the bottom of this.”

“I didn’t expect to be sitting outside
a family’s house on a Sunday night, searching for a killer,” Lacy said. “That’s
all. Call me crazy, but this has escalated pretty quickly. It’s extreme.”

Cat nodded. She’d give her that. “I’m
extreme, Lace. You’ve known that since you started working with me. I think a
part of you is extreme too.”

“Which part? The anxiety-ridden one or
the serving cookies one?”

“No, the ‘bashing the coffee machine
because it won’t work’ part. Once you get past the anxiety and stuff, you’ll be
just as crazy as I am. Heaven forbid,” Catherine said.

But Lacy’s words echoed in her mind.
Was she right? She had snuck into a stranger’s house, eavesdropped on
conversations and been interrogated in the last week.

Beth’s death had sent her into a
spiral of some kind.

“Who’s that?” Lacy asked, and squeaked
forward in her seat.

A lone figure emerged from the
massive, white front door.

Catherine leaned forward in her seat
and squinted. “That’s either Kevin Walters or Joseph, his father.”

“What’s he doing?” Lacy asked.

“Now, who’s got the investigating
bug?” Cat said, and grinned.

The Walters man traipsed down the
front stairs, then hurried to an Audi convertible parked in the driveway. The
lights flashed once, and he disappeared into the leather interior.

“Oh boy, something’s happening, isn’t
it?” Lacy asked, and grabbed her paper bag.

The car started, and Walters reversed
out of the drive. He didn’t indicate, but turned sharply, then sped off down
the road.

“Follow that car!” Lacy yelled.

“That’s the spirit.” Catherine started
the engine, then roared after the Audi. Her Kia couldn’t keep up, but a series
of lucky turns – led by intuition – took them to the…

“Pier,” Lacy gasped, into the paper
bag. She lowered it and scrunched it up. “A Walters at the pier. What is going
on?”

Cat turned off the lights and sank low
in her seat. She couldn’t call Detective Bradshaw about this – he’d laugh in
her ear. People could go where they wanted, no matter the time of night.

“Keep your eyes open,” Catherine
whispered, then rolled down her window.

Muffled conversations drifted toward
them. The crash of waves drowned out the words, but two men stood on the end of
the pier.

“It’s done,” a man shouted. “What do
you want from me?”

Walters answered, something
indistinct, then turned and strode back down the pier.

“He’s coming back,” Lace said.

“Duck!”

The women sank lower and ducked toward
the gear stick. They knocked heads, and groaned, but didn’t sit up.

The Audi started up a second later,
then roared off down the road. Catherine counted to five, then sat up. “They’re
gone,” she said. “Both of them are gone.”

“Okay,” Lacy said, “I believe you,
now. The Walters family are definitely up to something.”

“And I intend on finding out exactly
what that is,” Cat replied. “But first, I gotta get home and feed Oreo. He’s
already super irritated I didn’t do my dance lesson this weekend.”

“Yeah, and there’s work tomorrow,”
Lacy said, then yawned. “I couldn’t be more tired.”

“I’ll take you home,” Cat said. “And
Lace, thanks for coming with me on this one. I know it’s strange for you.”

Lacy’s eyes glinted by the light of
the gibbous moon, which hovered above the waves. “I don’t know. I think it was
kinda fun.”

Lacy stood in front of the coffee
machine, her hands on her hips. “You,” she said, “Are my Everest.”

The line of customers in Cat’s Cookies
stretched to the front door, again. People filled the hardwood tables, chomping
down cookies, dipping them in cups of tea or sipping store bought bottled soda.

Smiles everywhere. Except for the guy
at the front of the line. His smile had vanished at the sight of Lacy’s ongoing
coffee war.

“I’m sorry,” Cat said, “our coffee
machine is currently out of order. But how about a Cheeky Choc Chip cookie?
It’ll quench your thirst for sugar, if not for caffeine.”

The young man in a suit and tie nodded
once. “Fine,” he said, then smoothed his burgundy tie. “I’ll just go down to
Starbucks for the coffee.” He paid, then swept his brown paper bag out the
door.

Catherine beckoned to Lacy. “Just put
the out of order sign up, Lace. There’s no point. We’ll have to get it fixed,
soon.”

“You can say that again, murderer,” a
man said, from the other side of the counter.

Catherine’s expression solidified. She
kept that customer-friendly smile in place and turned on the spot. “Well, hello
there, Kevin. How may I help you today?”

Rachel appeared beside her brother,
and shot Cat a quick smile, then swapped it out for a sullen pout.

“My sister insisted we come taste your
cookies. She says they’re the best,” Kevin replied, then eyed the array of
treats beneath the glass. “I don’t trust you haven’t put arsenic in them.”

“Has anyone ever told you,” Lacy said,
“that you talk like Gomez Addams from the Addams family?”

Rachel sniggered behind her hand.
Kevin gave his sister a look that could’ve withered a full pot of flowers in
bloom.

Catherine struggled to keep a grin
from her lips. “What would you like?”

The line in the store had extended.
People queued outside, now, and tapped away on their phones, hands up to shield
their eyes from the sun’s sharp, morning rays.

“May we have a box of Cheeky Choc
Chips, please?” Rach asked. Black makeup smeared at the corner of her lips.

“Of course,” Cat replied, then took
out one of the foldable cardboard boxes. She constructed it, then took the
tongs and delivered the delicious treats into their new home.

Kevin looked around the store’s
interior, his lips turned downward. “So, this is what a murderer does when
they’re not murdering.”

Events triggered in Cat’s mind. Chess
pieces on a board moved and placed. “It was you. It wasn’t your father on the
pier last night,” Cat said, “It was you.”

“What did you say?” Kevin asked, then
cleared his throat. He tried to back off, but it was too late. He’d already
gone pale as vanilla frosting on a choc nut cookie.

“You murdered Beth,” Catherine said.
He’d tried to accuse her to cover his tracks. He’d been absent at the memorial
service. Had met with a strange person on the pier. He’d probably heard that
his family had money issues, and he’d wanted to help.

It had to be him.

Catherine’s stomach turned. “I’m going
to call the cops.”

“Cat, wait,” Rachel said and darted
around the counter. She clamped her hand on Cat’s arm, then squeezed. “Wait a
second.”

“No, he did it. I’m sure.” Or was she?
Had the pressure to figure it out finally bubbled over, and this was the
result? Catherine placed the box of cookies on top of the counter.

“It wasn’t my brother,” Rachel said.

“How do you know? How can you possibly
be so sure?” Cat asked. He could’ve done it. He might’ve thought that Beth
hadn’t changed the will and that killing her would allow him to head off to
college again.

“Because he was at home that morning,”
Rachel replied. “We all were.”

Lacy stepped in front of the register
and took charge. Rachel led Catherine back toward the stairs in the corner.

“What? How?” Cat asked, then blinked
at the young woman. “How do you know that?”

“Mom makes us wake up at 5 AM each
morning because it’s good for us, or whatever. We were all eating breakfast,
together at 5 AM. We have surveillance cameras in the kitchen, too. The cops
know we were all home,” Rachel said.

So, that was why Cat was the main
suspect. Everyone else had an alibi, and she didn’t. “This isn’t good,” she
said. “I didn’t do this, and it’s starting to look more and more like I did.”

“I believe you. I know you didn’t do
it,” Rachel replied.

“Why?”

“Because Beth loved you. She spoke
about you all the time,” Rach said. “We used to watch Jeopardy on her sofa, and
talk about our lives. She always brought you up. She said the best decision she
ever made was –”

“Her house,” Cat said. “Rachel, you’re
a genius.”

“What? Why?” Rachel asked.

“I never thought to check out her
house!” Excitement thrilled through Catherine’s core. “I’ve got to get there.
Now.”

Rachel glanced at her brother, who
hovered near the counter, expression torn between disgust and fear.

“I’m coming with you.”

Catherine unhooked the key to Beth’s
back door from the secret spot the elderly woman had fastened it months ago.
She’d told Cat that any time she needed to get in, she could use the key.

This was the first time she’d needed
it.

Cat pulled on the screen door, and
Rachel held it open. She inserted the key into the lock, turned it, then let
them into Beth’s kitchen.

The scent of cookies and cream drifted
through the house. Beth’s special scent, cultivated from years of baking and
creating. She’d helped Cat learn about her craft. She’d inspired her and
laughed with her. Helped her set up the business.

Catherine swallowed the lump in her
throat and strode into the kitchen. She swept past the small, yellow table and
into the living room.

Beth’s widescreen TV put Cat’s to
shame. Rachel plopped down in an armchair and kicked her feet up on an Ottoman.
“So,” she said. “What now?”

“Now,” Cat replied, then glanced
around the room. “We investigate.”

“Yeah, but where? I mean, what exactly
do we look for?” Rach gripped a few strands of her pink hair and ran her
fingers down their lengths.

“I want to say, answers? But that
seems too simple.” Cat walked to the curtains, then tugged one aside. Light
flooded the interior, and Rach closed and eye to accommodate for the change.

Catherine turned in a circle, thoughts
rushing along in a similar pattern. Too fast, too much to think about. Her gaze
landed on the desk pushed against the flat side of the stairs.

“Laptop,” she said.

Rachel sat up straighter, though she
still didn’t get out of her seat.

“Of course, the laptop,” Cat
whispered. “Beth kept everything on this thing.”

“For an old lady, she was pretty tech
savvy,” Rach said, then grinned at the TV. “Do you know, she made me promise
not to watch Game of Thrones? She said it was too violent for my eyes.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Beth,”
Catherine replied. She hurried to the desk, then flipped the lid of the laptop.

It started up right away, and the CPU
hummed. Cat drew the chair back, then lowered herself into it and crossed her
legs. There had to be something on this thing. Anything that could give her a
clue about the case.

Desperation clasped her heart, and
squeezed. She breathed evenly. Shoot, she should’ve brought that brown paper
bag from the car.

The laptop sang a tune, and the
desktop appeared.

“Ew, is that windows?” Rachel asked.

“Now, is not the time for a techno
war,” Catherine replied. She tapped the mouse pad and scrolled over the icons
on the desktop. “Come on, come one. Oh, email!”

She double tapped, and Beth’s email
application opened.

“Ew, is that Mozilla Thunderbird?”

“What are you, an IT specialist?” Cat
asked.

“No, but I’m interested in it. Don’t
tell my parents though, they’ll have a conniption,” Rachel said, then yawned.
“I wish we’d brought some cookies with for this.”

“I didn’t know young folk used the
word ‘conniption’,” Cat said, and scrolled through the long list of emails. “I
thought it was all about uh, I don’t know. Hip lingo.”

Rachel groaned. “Young folks don’t say
conniption,” she replied, “but I do. I’m not like other people my age.”

“Thank goodness for that,” Cat said,
then stopped scrolling. “Wait a second. What’s this?”

“What?” Rachel asked.

“What college did you say your brother
went to?”

“College of Charleston,” Rach replied.
“He did a Biochemistry major, I think. Apparently, that’s the best thing to
take to get into medical school.”

Cat stared at the screen. Her jaw
dropped open.

“What’s wrong?” Rachel asked. “What
did you find?”

“Beth paid for your brother tuition
fees. In full.”

“For the semester?” Rach shifted
forward and dropped her feet off the sides of the Ottoman. 

“No,” Cat replied, “for every
semester.”

“Whoa,” Rachel replied. “I told you
she was a –”

Cat scrolled through the emails again,
trying to pick out more information. “A what? Rachel? She was what?”

“Hello, Miss Kelley.” Detective Jack Bradshaw’s
voice sent a spear through Cat’s chest.

Uh oh. This wouldn’t end well. It was
the second time in as many days he’d caught her trespassing. Cat swiveled in
her chair and looked at him. “Nice to see you, detective. I was just, uh,
sorting out some of Beth’s affairs?”

“Are you asking me? Or telling me?” Bradshaw
countered.

Rachel sat as straight as a stick,
hands pasted to her knees.

“I’m telling you?”

“Doesn’t sound like it,” he replied. Bradshaw
sighed, then massaged his forehead. “You two are the last people I expected to
find together. Or in this house.”

“We just wanted to prove that Cat
didn’t do it,” Rachel said.

Catherine pressed her finger to her
lips to shush her.

“We thought maybe there’d be something
in Beth’s house that would tell us who really did kill her and –”

“For heaven’s sake, Rachel,” Cat
hissed.

Bradshaw shook his head, and dropped
his hand to his side. “All right, ladies. Let’s get you out of here.”

“Are we under arrest?” Rachel asked
and jumped up. “Because I’m totally okay with that. Whatever gives my folks a
conniption, you know?”

“A conniption?” Bradshaw asked.

“Don’t ask,” Cat replied, then pointed
at Rachel. “You keep quiet. And you,” she said, and jabbed her finger in the
detective’s direction.

“Yeah?” He asked, and a smile tugged
his mouth upward at the corners. He straightened it again, then cleared his
throat.

“Nothing. Just, give me a break?”

“You’re definitely asking this time,” Bradshaw
replied. “But I didn’t hear the magic word.”

Catherine bit the inside of her cheek,
then let it go. “Please.”

“All right,” he said. “But I’m
breaking up this little party. Rachel, you go home. Your mom has called the
station three times to report you missing.”

“I bet she blamed me,” Cat whispered.

“She’s not wrong.” Rachel grinned and
hurried out of the room.

“And you,” Detective Bradshaw said.

Cat tensed up and rose from her chair.
She reached back and closed the lid of the laptop. “What?”

The detective pursed his lips. “You go
home and get some rest. You need it.” Then he turned and walked off.

Cat stared after him, mouth hanging
open. That’s been the second time he’d let her off the hook.