Poisoned Prose (A Books by the Bay Mystery) (21 page)

“Oh, no. Not you,” she whispered angrily. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The man with the smug smile was not only a top executive at one of the nation’s most successful television networks and a partner at this lending firm, he was also her biological father. She stared at the familiar and completely foreign face belonging to Charles Wade, twin brother of Willie Wade, the man who’d raised Olivia until the day he abandoned her in a fog-shrouded dinghy and sailed away to lead a different life.

“I told you to never come back to Oyster Bay,” she growled at her biological father’s photo. “What are you going to do with a bookstore?”

Olivia hadn’t planned on contacting Charles Wade ever again, but now she knew that she’d have to break her own vow. She wanted to see that Through the Wardrobe not only remained open, but also became a successful independent bookshop, no matter the cost. She needed to do this for Flynn.

“I’ll deal with you later,” she promised her father’s grinning image and then closed the website so she wouldn’t have to look at him anymore. “I have something much more important to do.”

Checking her watch, Olivia swore and slid the deck door open. “Come on, Haviland. Rawlings will be here any second. His shift was over ten minutes ago!”

Together, she and Haviland hurried down to the beach. Despite her discovery that her father was the new owner of Flynn’s building, Olivia’s mood was still buoyant. Nothing could put a damper on this day.

Humming, she set up the umbrella and folding chair Rawlings had placed in the same spot a week ago. She then unfolded a second chair and positioned it next to the first.

While she worked, Haviland raced through the surf. He swam a little and then bounded out of the water, barking at the gulls flying overhead. Olivia knelt in the damp sand close to the edge of the waves and carefully arranged shells until they formed letters.

When she heard the sound of Rawlings’ car engine, she stood up, dusted sand from her legs, and took a seat under the umbrella.

“Go get him, Haviland.”

Issuing a final bark to the gulls, the poodle charged over the dunes and disappeared from view. Several minutes later, Olivia could hear Rawlings’ voice as he spoke to Haviland.

And then he was there, smiling down at her, his pond-green eyes glinting with gold. “Ah, you’ve found a mermaid.” He directed his words to Haviland. “Well done, boy. I couldn’t have asked for a more wonderful surprise.”

“You left a pretty big surprise for me under this umbrella,” she said softly, smiling up at him. “You also asked me a question. And I’m ready to give you an answer.”

Rawlings seemed to steel himself for her reply. “Should I have a seat?”

Shaking her head, Olivia pointed at the water. “It’s down there.”

Rawlings hesitated for a moment and then walked toward the ocean. When he reached the collection of shells, he stopped. He stood motionless for a heartbeat and then swung back around to face her.

He didn’t say anything. He merely opened his arms in invitation.

Laughing joyfully, Olivia ran into them. Rawlings embraced her, spinning her round and round until they ended up dancing through the seashells, which Olivia had used to spell out a single word.

The clams, scallops, lightning whelks, sand dollars, and moon snail shells had spoken Olivia’s answer on her behalf.

And the answer was “Yes.”

Dear Reader,

Thank you for spending time with Olivia Limoges, the Bayside Book Writers, and the other colorful characters of Oyster Bay, North Carolina.

Now I’d like to invite you to visit another unusual and intriguing small town. Havenwood, the fictional hamlet featured in my Charmed Pie Shoppe mysteries, is located in an isolated region of northwest Georgia. Home to heroine Ella Mae LeFaye, a pastry chef with an uncanny ability to enchant her food, Havenwood is filled with quaint shops, delightful eateries, and a host of magical residents.

To whet your appetite, please enjoy a chapter from the forthcoming Charmed Pie Shoppe mystery,
Pecan Pies and Homicides
.
Happy reading,
Ellery Adams

“D
o I have icicles hanging from my beard?” asked a small elderly man as Ella Mae LeFaye ushered him into her pie shop. She tried to shut the door quickly against the cold, but a breath of winter stole inside. The other customers hunched their shoulders and shivered as the brisk air snaked under the collars of their heaviest sweaters. Cradling their coffee cups, they launched into a fresh round of complaints about the record lows northwest Georgia had been experiencing for the past three weeks.

“Don’t get your scarves in a knot, folks. I’m comin’ around with coffee as fast as I can!” announced a middle-aged woman with nut-brown hair and the sharp chin and high cheekbones of a pixie. She filled half a dozen mugs and then intercepted Ella Mae on her way to the kitchen. “You’ve gotta warm these people up. And you know I’m not referrin’ to the thermostat. What’s in the oven? Somethin’ real special, I hope.”

Ella Mae gestured at the chalkboard menu mounted behind the counter. “Lots of health-conscious dishes. It’s the beginning of January, Reba. The whole town is on a diet. Except for you. You’re in perfect shape, as always.”

“Don’t try to butter me up. And I know what the specials are. I’m a waitress, for cryin’ out loud. You’ve got a fine list of hot dishes written on that blackboard. Cheesy quiches and meat and potato pies. Warm berry cobblers and molten chocolate tarts. But where’s the
heat
?” Reba put her hands on her hips. “I know you’ve been feelin’ wrung out lately, but these folks need somethin’
more
.” She shot a quick glance around the room and then lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “It’ll do you good to give them a dose of magic. You haven’t used any in weeks.”

Ella Mae pivoted to look at her customers. As a whole, their faces were pale and wan. The Charmed Pie Shoppe was normally an animated place, full of conversation and laughter, but today it felt lifeless and dull. Ella Mae’s gaze swept over the room and she couldn’t help but notice the empty tables. A few months ago, there wouldn’t have been a vacant seat in the place. Frowning, Ella Mae was about to turn away when her eyes fell on the elderly gentleman she’d let into the pie shop. He was clutching the lapels of his wool coat with the thin fingers of one hand and reaching for his coffee cup with the other. His lips had a bluish cast and his scraggly beard did nothing to hide the gauntness of his cheeks. At that moment, he looked up and caught Ella Mae staring. In his pale blue eyes she imagined too many long and lonely winter nights and wondered if he spent most of his evenings sitting in front of a fire, dreaming of springtime and warm memories. Though she couldn’t recall his name, Ella Mae knew that the old man lived a solitary life in a crude cabin off the mountain road. The fact that he’d driven to town in this weather made Ella Mae realize that he must be desperate for a homemade meal and a little companionship.

The old man lowered his face so that it hovered above his mug. He closed his eyes as the steam flooded over his wrinkled skin and Ella Mae could see the slightest loosening of his shoulders. She turned back to Reba. “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll bring him a summer day. I’ll give him heat and the drone of insects and the sound of fish splashing in the lake. I’ll remind him that he belongs to this community—that he matters. I’ll make him smile from the inside out,” she promised, and pushed through the swing doors into the kitchen.

Ella Mae had just begun to comb the shelves of dry goods in search of a particular ingredient when Reba entered the room. She perched on a stool and pulled a red licorice stick from her apron pocket. “What do you have up your sleeve? A little cayenne pepper? Some dried jalapeños? Curry?”

“Red Hots,” Ella Mae said, dragging a step stool in front of the shelves. She climbed to the top step and reached for a plastic tub of bright red candy. “There you are.”

“That old man’s dentures don’t stand a chance,” Reba muttered.

“Don’t worry about his or anyone else’s dental work. I’m going to bake them into a pie. An apple pie,” Ella Mae said, jumping off the stepladder. “Trust me.”

Reba put a hand over her heart. “With my life. Always.” She popped the rest of her licorice stick into her mouth, plated two orders of spinach and mushroom quiche with a side of field greens, and left the kitchen, humming as she walked.

Ella Mae peeled, cored, and sliced apples. While she worked, her mind began to wander.

“Hot,” she murmured as her knife flashed side to side and up and down, chopping the apples into bite-sized pieces. The word automatically called forth an image of Hugh Dylan, the man she’d been in love with since high school. She could practically feel his muscular arms sliding around her back, pulling her in for a deep kiss. “No. That is not the kind of heat I need to generate. I need something with a PG rating.”

Adding the cinnamon Red Hots and a tablespoon of lemon juice to a saucepan, Ella Mae cooked the mixture on low heat. As the candies melted, her thoughts drifted back to her childhood, to a steamy July afternoon on the banks of Lake Havenwood. She remembered how her mother and her three aunts, Verena, Sissy, and Dee, were stretched out on picnic blankets. The four beautiful sisters sipped Tab soda and gossiped while they sunbathed. Ella Mae’s mother, who wore a polka dot bikini and a wide-brimmed straw sunhat, looked every inch the movie star to her gangly, freckled daughter.

“Mom,” Ella Mae whispered, jerking the wooden spoon out of the saucepan. “I can’t think about her. If I do, all of my customers will be sad. I need to find a memory that can’t be tainted by my present problems. Something innocent and sweet.”

Removing the pan from the heat, Ella Mae poured honey and a pinch of cinnamon into the mixture and began to stir it with slow, deliberate strokes. The aroma of the honey made her think of the bees that gathered around the raspberry bushes along Skipper Drive during the peak of summer. Suddenly, she was a teenager again. It was another humid day. This one was in August, and Ella Mae was older than she’d been in the memory involving her mother and aunts, though she was still gangly and freckled.

In this memory, she was fifteen. School would be starting soon. Determined to savor every last moment of freedom, Ella Mae had ridden to the swimming hole with a towel and a transistor radio in her bike basket. She wore a cherry-red swimsuit under a Bee Gees T-shirt and her favorite pair of cutoffs and felt completely carefree.

Because a street fair was being held downtown, the other kids of Havenwood were unlikely to be at the swimming hole that day. And when Ella Mae dumped her bike at the top of the dirt path and raced down through the dense trees to the water, she saw that she had the popular hangout spot all to herself. Shucking her shirt and shorts, she climbed to an outcrop of rock and dove off, a blur of long limbs and a tangle of whiskey-colored hair rocketing toward the cool water.

Once the dust and sweat had been washed away and she’d grown tired of floating on her back and gazing up at the circle of trees, Ella Mae climbed out of the swimming hole and found a flat boulder to sit on. Dragonflies flitted through the air and she could feel the heat from the warm stone soaking into her skin. She lay back against its smooth surface, feeling every muscle in her body relax. She rested like this until the sun had dried the last drops of water from her skin and she felt the stirrings of hunger.

Ella Mae got up to gather wild raspberries from the nearby bushes. When her hands were brimming with berries, she brought them back to the flat stone and ate them one by one, relishing each sweet and slightly tart bite. When she couldn’t eat anymore, she leaned back on the stone again and sang
How Deep is Your Love
at the top of her lungs. She didn’t care that she was off-key or that the echoes of her song startled a pair of whip-poor-wills from their nest in a pile of leaves. She shouted an apology to them as they rose into the clear sky, flying higher and higher until they were tiny pencil dots on a canvas of endless blue.

Years later, Ella Mae now stood in her pie shop’s kitchen and remembered every moment of that perfect summer afternoon. Holding on to that feeling of warmth and utter contentment, she scooped up a handful of apple pieces and loosely arranged them in a pan lined with her homemade piecrust.

Smiling, she poured the melted candy mixture on top of the apples and then dropped tiny squares of butter over the fruit filling. After weaving a lattice top crust, Ella Mae brushed the dough with a beaten egg yolk and then sprinkled it with finishing sugar and put it in the oven.

She was cutting a ham, wild rice, and caramelized onion tart into generous wedges when Reba reappeared. “Perfect. I’ve got six folks waitin’ on that tart.” She raised her nose and gave the air a sniff. “You did it! I don’t even have to taste the pie to know that it’ll light a fire inside your customers—like they’ve gone and swallowed a pack of sparklers. The magic is thick as a cloud around you. You’re gettin’ real strong, Ella Mae.”

“What good has magic ever brought me?” Ella Mae demanded with a surprising flash of anger. “Being enchanted has robbed me of my mother, forced me to keep secrets from the man I love, and has made me terrified to hire another waitress to help out around here.”

Reba made a strangled sound in the back of her throat. “We learned somethin’ about checkin’ references more carefully, didn’t we! But we still need an extra pair of hands. The two of us can’t run this place from dawn to dusk. I could ask around. See if any of our kind are lookin’ for a part-time job.”

Ella Mae shook her head. “Hiring someone to take the position as a way of paying homage to my family won’t work. It was my mother who sacrificed herself to keep all of us safe, not me. I don’t want people doing me favors because she was brave and selfless.” She finished adding garnishes to the tart orders. “No, I need to hire a waitress from outside Havenwood, though finding someone interested in moving to an isolated mountain town in the middle of winter to serve pie isn’t going to be easy. If I’d held interviews when this place was packed, when it was hip and fun, then it would have been more of a draw. But now? I hear people whispering that The Charmed Pie Shoppe won’t see its first anniversary. Maybe they’re right. We have smaller and smaller crowds every week.”

“My tips have been mighty lousy too,” Reba complained. “I keep tellin’ you that it’s time to snap out of it. I know Christmas was awful rough without your mama, but you’re not alone. You’ve got me and your aunts and your best friend, Suzy. And you’ve got sweet Chewy and that beautiful fireman. Your louse of a husband is now officially an ex-husband, so you and Hugh are free to do all sorts of things together.” She fanned herself with her order pad. “Lord help me, but I’d better think about somethin’ else or I may just spontaneously combust.”

Grinning, Ella Mae grabbed a handful of flour and tossed it at Reba. “Don’t you have customers to serve? What about that old man?”

“His name’s Mr. Crump,” Reba said. “And he’s takin’ his sweet time over lunch. I don’t think he has much to go home to.”

Glancing at her watch, Ella Mae inhaled a breath of cinnamon, baking apples, and buttery dough. “Whatever you do, don’t let him leave. I made this pie specifically for him. Just keep topping off his coffee.”

“The poor guy’s gonna float away,” Reba mumbled. After placing the ham and onion tarts on a tray, she made room for a slice of cranberry and almond pie and a pear crumble drizzled in warm cardamom vanilla custard and left the kitchen.

Ella Mae stared at the empty cooling racks next to the oven and thought that not so long ago they’d been loaded with pies and tarts. Last autumn, Ella Mae had barely been able to keep up with the in-house and take-out orders. She’d had to turn down catering requests because she was too busy baking and serving half the town on a daily basis. She drove around Havenwood in her retired U.S. Mail Jeep, waving at friends and neighbors like a homecoming queen. Everyone recognized her raspberry-pink truck. One of Aunt Dee’s artist friends had transformed the white Jeep, painting a luscious cherry pie on the driver’s side door and a peach pie with a lattice crust on the passenger side. Silver stars shot across the hood and the name, location, and phone number of the pie shop had been painted in a butter-yellow font across both side panels.

“This is the most beautiful car I’ve ever seen!” Ella Mae had exclaimed when Dee revealed the transformed mail truck. But now the Jeep was encrusted with dirt and needed an oil change. Like everything else in Ella Mae’s life, the lovely truck was showing signs of neglect.

Until I can find a way to free my mother, nothing else matters
, Ella Mae thought. For the thousandth time, her mind returned to the moment in which her mother had sacrificed herself to renew the magic of Havenwood’s sacred grove. Adelaide LeFaye had spread her arms and leaned against the rough bark of the shriveled and dying ash tree. In the space of a few horrible and spellbinding seconds, the tree and Ella Mae’s mother had merged. Instantly, the grove’s power had been restored and everyone had celebrated. Everyone but those close to Adelaide. In the beginning, Ella Mae had been able to communicate with her mother, but with each passing day, she became less and less human. Eventually, she would forget that she had a daughter.

The oven timer beeped, jarring Ella Mae from her maudlin reverie. The Red Hot apple pie was done baking. Grabbing a pair of pot holders, Ella Mae opened the oven door and a blast of cinnamon-spiced air rushed out to greet her. Unlike the sharp, wintry wind that had snuck inside the shop with Mr. Crump, this was a warm and gentle caress.

Without waiting for the pie to cool, Ella Mae cut a large wedge and plated it. Pushing through the kitchen’s swing door, she carried the dessert to Mr. Crump and set it before him. “This is on the house,” she said, smiling. “When you mentioned having icicles hanging from your beard I felt inspired to bake you something special. I promise that it’ll only take one bite to transport you to a place of sunshine and birdsong.” With that, Ella Mae moved behind the counter and began to assemble take-out boxes that she didn’t need. From the corner of her eye, she watched Mr. Crump study the pie warily. Eventually, he lifted a forkful to his mouth.