The Sweet Dreams Bake Shop (A Sweet Cove Mystery Book 1) (7 page)

“I’ll get it,” Lisa called.

“Um, I’d like Angie to make it,” Mrs. Abbott said. She saw the annoyance in Lisa’s eyes and told her, “No offense, Lisa. But the one Angie made for me the other day, well, it was something special. I hadn’t felt so good for ages.”

Angie smiled. “Well, thanks Mrs. Abbott, but I don’t think it was because I prepared the drink that it made you feel so good. We all use the same ingredients whenever we make the beverages. I don’t do anything special, but I’d be glad to make it for you, if you like.”

Mrs. Abbott beamed. “Oh, would you? Thank you so much, Angie.”

“I’ll ring it up then,” Lisa said sullenly. She straightened her apron and scowled at Mrs. Abbott. After giving the woman her change, Lisa grabbed a container of dirty dishes and stomped into the back room to load them into the dishwasher.

As Angie moved down the counter to prepare the drink for the older woman, Tom grinned. “Angie must have a magic touch.”

Angie rolled her eyes at him. She mixed the ingredients in a blender, poured the liquid into a take-out cup, and snapped the lid on. Mrs. Abbott was gleeful when Angie handed the drink to her.

Jenna leaned forward to speak to Angie. “What’s up with Lisa? She seems so grumpy and out of sorts. You’d think she’d be glad that a customer wants you to prepare a drink, then she doesn’t have to do it.”

Angie glanced around to see where Lisa was. She lowered her voice. “I know she’s been very upset over the professor’s death. But I noticed a change in her ever since she found out that I’m going to inherit Professor Linden’s house. She’s been acting different, sort of cold and abrupt with me.”

“Why would she care if you inherited the house?” Tom asked.

Angie shrugged. “A touch of jealousy? It’s understandable. You know, like when someone wins the lottery, people get jealous.”

Jenna mused. “Maybe she thinks you’ll sell the Victorian and live off the money. She might be worried that you’ll close the bake shop and won’t re-open it and she’ll lose her job.”

“But the bake shop is closing in a few weeks and I don’t have a new spot to move to yet,” Angie said. “She knows all this. She has retirement income from her teaching job. I don’t think she needs the money. She just wants to work to keep busy.”

“Who knows?” Tom drained his coffee cup. “She’s probably upset over the murder. She lives alone. The killer is still at large. She’s probably nervous about that.”

“Well, I hope she feels better soon.” Angie wiped down the counter. “I don’t like to see her unhappy.”

When Angie closed the bake shop for the day, she and Jenna took a bike ride around town and then headed down to Robin’s Point, the southernmost end of Sweet Cove where the road followed beside the coastal beaches and cliffs. The point reached out into the sea and years ago, the girls’ grandmother owned a small cottage nestled in the dunes next to two other cottages that had been there for over a hundred years. The four sisters and their mother spent many weekends and several weeks each summer staying at Nana’s place.

The town of Sweet Cove had rented the land to the cottage owners and, over the years, the lease passed from owner to owner until the town decided that when the most recent leases were up, the cottage owners could purchase their parcels or the town would kick them off the land. The cost of the land was astronomical and the girls’ grandmother had no way of buying the property. She decided it would be too costly to buy another parcel of land somewhere else and move the cottage there, so she planned to sell her little house to Sweet Cove for ten thousand dollars. Shortly after the sale went through, the girls’ grandmother passed away. Her death was labeled “natural causes” but the family was sure it was from a broken heart.

The town sold the land to the Williams brothers’ father, the cottages were knocked down, and ten years later, the Williams brothers constructed a hotel on the point. The architectural design of the resort was in keeping with the quaint flavor of Sweet Cove and the brothers set aside a piece of land on which they created a small public park with access paths down to the town-owned beaches. The brothers hired a management team for the hotel and left the area to oversee other projects in different parts of the country.

Angie had never seen or met the brothers until just the other day. She wondered why they were back. It couldn’t be only to buy and refurbish the small building that housed her bake shop.

When the girls reached the park on the point, Jenna and Angie pulled their bikes off the path and sat down on a bench to look out over the Atlantic.

“It’s pretty here, but….” Jenna started.

“I know.” Angie brushed back a piece of hair that had fallen out of her ponytail. “It will never be the same. We had so much fun here with Nana.”

“Let’s walk over to the spot.” Jenna stood up.

Angie nodded. They left their bikes in the sand and walked along the path. Their nana’s former parcel of land now straddled between a section of the park and part of the resort’s property. The girls stood on the spot where the cottage used to be and watched the gulls swooping over the rocky coastline. Blue waves crashed against the rocks.

“At least the area where the cottage once stood is open space and not covered over by that thing.” Jenna waved her hand towards the resort building. “We can always come and sit where the cottage used to be.”

Angie could feel a tingling under her skin as though a low-voltage electric current was running through her body. Every time she visited the place where Nana’s cottage used to be, she experienced the same sensation. “Do you feel funny when you stand here?”

Jenna shrugged. “How do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I feel … like something humming through me.”

“You mean like emotions? Longing for the past?” Jenna asked.

Angie said, “Yeah. That must be it. I just get a funny feeling when I come back here.”

Jenna put her arm through Angie’s. They sat on the ground and reminisced about their childhood summers spent on the point and chuckled about silly things they had done.

Jenna breathed out a big sigh. “Everything changes, I guess.”

“That’s for sure,” Angie said, her voice tinged with sadness.

They sat for a few more minutes admiring the view when they heard footsteps approaching behind them. They turned to see Josh Williams coming towards them.

“I thought it was you.” He smiled at Angie. “It’s a beautiful day.”

“Oh. Hi.” Angie stood up. Even though she found Josh attractive, Angie wasn’t thrilled to see him. It was his and his brother’s fault that she was losing her livelihood by not renewing her bake shop’s lease. He seemed interested in her, but she knew she could be misinterpreting his intentions. It was kind of a weird and awkward situation. “We’re out for a bike ride and stopped for a break. This is my sister, Jenna.”

Jenna stood up and shook hands with Josh.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Josh gave Jenna a pleasant smile and then turned back to Angie. “Would you like to come in to the resort? Have a drink or something to eat?”

“Um, no. But, thanks.” Angie was surprised that Josh was inviting them to have a drink with him. “We’ll be getting back on the bikes in a minute. We haven’t finished our ride.”

“We’ve recently upgraded the resort restaurants. I think they came out great. Maybe you can come by another time. I think you’ll like the changes.” Josh smiled at Angie. “I’d like your opinion.”

Angie’s cheeks tinged with pink from Josh’s attention. Despite her attraction to him, she couldn’t help shake the feeling that he was almost an enemy. She wondered why Josh would want her opinion. “Well, we’ve never been inside the resort so we don’t know what it looked like before.”

“You’ve never been inside?” Josh looked disappointed. “Why, not?

“I….” Angie started to speak but didn’t really have an answer.

Jenna said, “We’ve sort of avoided the resort. Our nana owned one of the original cottages that used to be here on the point. Nana couldn’t afford to buy the land, so the town took over her house. Then everything got sold to your family. We used to spend summers here with our nana.” She shrugged.

“I’m sorry.” Josh seemed sincerely saddened. “It must be hard for you to see the changes.”

Angie watched Josh. She was wary of him. Their two families seemed to be at odds. She knew the Williams family wasn’t to blame for her nana losing her cottage, but they profited from it and, years later, they were kicking her bake shop out of the building they recently purchased. It seemed that the people in Angie’s family were always the ones on the losing end of things. Now the Williams brothers were trying to get their hands on the Victorian. Maybe she was wrong, but money and financial gain seemed to be the overriding motivator in that family. A flood of annoyance shot through her body.
They won’t get the Victorian from us, no matter how hard they try.
Angie attempted to tamp down her feelings, but she was prickling with the injustice of things.

She looked straight at Josh. “We missed you last night.”

Josh looked puzzled. “Last night?”

“Your brother paid us a visit. I wondered why you weren’t with him.”

“Davis visited you? Where?”

“At the Victorian,” Angie said.

Josh shook his head. “I didn’t know he was going to see you. What did he want?”

Angie cocked her head to one side and raised her eyebrows.
I bet you know what he wanted.
She put a smile on her face. “Is this the good cop, bad cop routine?”

Josh’s forehead scrunched in confusion. “What do you mean?”

Angie said, “You know, one brother plays the bad guy and the other one is the good guy. The good guy gets the victim on his side. Then they both go in for the kill.”

Josh’s facial muscles tensed and his eyes narrowed. “What did Davis say to you last night?”

“Maybe you should ask him.” Angie picked her bike helmet off the ground and Jenna did the same. “You might want to ask him why he didn’t tell you what he was up to.” Angie started to walk away, but thought of something and stopped. “Your brother was talking to Professor Linden a few minutes before she died. On her porch. Were you there with them as well?”

“What? He was? Are you sure?”

“That’s what I heard.” Angie wondered if Josh was trustworthy. She wondered if he was playing her, pretending he didn’t know what Davis was up to. Thoughts flashed through Angie’s mind.
Why wouldn’t Davis have told Josh that he was making an offer for the Victorian? What was Davis talking to Professor Linden about? Was he pressuring her to sell? Could Davis Williams have poisoned the professor?

“Maybe you need to have a chat with your brother,” Angie said over her shoulder as she and Jenna headed off to their bikes.

Because Professor Linden had no living relatives, she had requested in her will that her body be cremated and buried in a nearby cemetery, and that no formal service should be held. Angie thought it would be important to arrange a gathering of the professor’s friends and acquaintances for an informal remembrance reception. She decided that she would host it at the Victorian providing tea, coffee, cold drinks, hot and cold appetizers, and desserts, and that she would invite all of the bake shop’s regular customers as well as people the professor knew from town organizations.

When Angie was planning the event, she talked to Tom about it at the bake shop one morning. Tom said, “You know, Angie, the professor’s killer may very well show up at the reception. Do you want him in your house? Do you want to take that chance?”

“I thought that might happen,” Angie told him. “I intend to be vigilant, watching and listening as I act as host. I wouldn’t mind if you were on the lookout too for anything that might seem off.”

“I’ll keep my eyes and ears open.” Tom winked at Angie. “Chief Martin might decide to hire us on as detectives.”

“He could do worse,” Angie said, smiling.

The day of the reception was warm and sunny and the girls opened the windows to allow a fresh, light breeze to enter the living room and dining room spaces. Ellie and Courtney had come to Sweet Cove for the weekend so all four sisters were on hand to help with the remembrance gathering.

The living room opened to a glassed-in sunroom and there was plenty of room for people to stand, sit and mingle in the first floor rooms and on the wraparound porch. Angie put out an incredible spread of miniature quiches, savory meatballs in gravy, scalloped potatoes, French bread pizza slices, and a number of different dessert treats. She also created a parfait bar for people to make their own ice cream sundaes with fresh whipped cream and assorted toppings, including the professor’s favorite hot fudge sauce from the bake shop.

A few people offered to say a few words telling about the professor’s generosity with her time and money to improve and care for the town of Sweet Cove. A framed picture of Professor Linden and a glass vase containing a variety of spring flowers had been placed on a side table. More people than Angie expected congregated in the house to mingle, chat and share reminiscences.

Angie and her sisters moved about the rooms tending to the needs of the guests. When Angie turned around, she saw Josh Williams walking towards her. She had the urge to run away from him, but it was obvious that she had seen him and to try to avoid Josh would have been rude, so she gave him a slight smile and a nod of the head.

Josh’s eyes held Angie’s as he stepped close to her. “It was very kind of you to have a remembrance for Professor Linden.” Even though Angie was trying to be wary of Josh, she couldn’t deny the spark of attraction between them.

“Oh, it was the least I could do.” Warmth spread through Angie’s body from being so close to Josh. She could smell the fresh scent of his soap. “I’m glad there’s such a large turnout.”

Josh lowered his voice. “I spoke to my brother about what you told me the other day. It turns out, Davis wanted to buy the Victorian and the reason he hadn’t spoken to me about it was because he hoped to purchase it for me as a gift.”

“A gift?” Angie’s eyes widened in surprise.