Pastry Penalties Read online

  Table Of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Recipes

  Other Books by Jessica Beck

  JESSICA BECK

  THE DONUT MYSTERIES, BOOK 36

  PASTRY PENALTIES

  Donut Mystery #36 Pastry Penalties

  Copyright © 2018 by Jessica Beck All rights reserved.

  First Edition: April 2018

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Recipes included in this book are to be recreated at the reader’s own risk. The author is not responsible for any damage, medical or otherwise, created as a result of reproducing these recipes. It is the responsibility of the reader to ensure that none of the ingredients are detrimental to their health, and the author will not be held liable in any way for any problems that might arise from following the included recipes.

  The First Time Ever Published!

  The 36th Donut Mystery.

  Jessica Beck is the New York Times Bestselling Author of the Donut Mysteries, the Classic Diner Mysteries, the Ghost Cat Cozy Mysteries, and the Cast Iron Cooking Mysteries.

  For the genuine Emily,

  For being brave enough to follow her dreams

  When Emily Hargraves’s stuffed animals are kidnapped and ransomed, the police treat it as a joke, but when the apparent abductor ends up on the wrong end of a knife, things turn deadly serious in April Springs as Suzanne and Jake do their best to solve the murder before the killer has a chance to strike again.

  Chapter 1

  Even at first glance, it was obvious to the untrained eye that the crime scene had been carefully staged.

  After all, it wasn’t every day that a stuffed animal was found holding a murder weapon, with the victim lying just a few paces away.

  It was obviously someone’s sick idea of a joke, but the body on the bed was certainly no laughing matter.

  As Spots held the knife loosely on top of his hoof, his two best friends, Cow and Moose, looked on, and it didn’t take a great leap of imagination to believe that they were each aghast by what they saw.

  In some very real way, all three stuffed animals, much beloved by the town of April Springs, North Carolina, were involved in a murder that would end up shaking the town to its very core.

  Chapter 2

  Earlier That Day

  “Emily, are you okay?” I was working behind the counter of Donut Hearts when my friend walked in. The pretty young brunette looked as though she had just lost her best friend.

  As a matter of fact, I was soon to learn that she’d lost three of them.

  “Suzanne, I don’t know what to do.” Her voice had lost all hope and joy, which was really out of character for her.

  “Tell me what’s wrong. Was it Max? Did he hurt you?” Emily was engaged to my ex-husband, and I had to wonder if he hadn’t pulled the same kind of boneheaded thing with her that he had done with me. I’d caught him cheating with a hairdresser when we’d been married. He could call the late Darlene Higgins a stylist all he wanted to, but she was a hairdresser who wore her skirts too tight and her blouses cut too low when she’d been alive, something that hadn’t been lost on my husband’s wandering eye.

  “No. Max is an angel,” she said absently.

  I could agree to disagree on that particular point if I wanted to make a fuss about it, but I decided to let that one slide since Emily was clearly hurting. “Then what happened?”

  Instead of answering my question directly, she thrust a handwritten note out to me. I took it, glanced at it, and then I called in back to my assistant. “Emma, I need you out front.”

  Emma Blake came at a trot, clearly happy to be working with me again. Her fine red hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her freckles seemed to intensify more and more every day. Emma had taken a little time away from Donut Hearts to help her boyfriend, Barton Gleason, open a restaurant, and I’d worried that the temporary leave might become something more permanent, but she’d come back to me soon enough. When I’d asked her why, Emma had muttered something about being a little too close for comfort and about mixing business with pleasure, and I had left it at that, thrilled that she’d come back to the fold.

  “Hey, Emily. What’s going on?” She didn’t even have to see the note to realize that something was wrong. “Did Max cheat on you?”

  “Why does everyone keep asking me that?” Emily asked plaintively.

  Emma looked at me and shrugged.

  I chose not to respond to the question at all. “Can you give us a minute?” I asked Emma.

  My assistant and Emily were best friends, and Emma looked a little puzzled by my request. Ordinarily, Emily would have come by the donut shop to see her, not me.

  But clearly these weren’t ordinary circumstances.

  To her credit, Emma bounced back from the slight quickly. “Sure thing, Boss.”

  Emily nodded her thanks absently to Emma as I led her to a couch that was away from my other customers, at least for the moment. Foot traffic tended to ebb and flow during the last hour I was open for business, and if there was a pattern to my customers’ coming and going, I hadn’t been smart enough to recognize it yet.

  Once we were both seated, I looked again at the paper she’d handed me.

  IF YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR THREE BUDDYS AGAIN, PUT A HUNDRAD BUCKS IN THE TRASHCAN TONIGHT OUT BACK OR ELSE.

  Spelling errors notwithstanding, it was clearly the act of a juvenile mind. “Three buddys” was obvious enough. It could refer only to Cow, Spots, and Moose, the three stuffed animals Emily’s shop had been named for. They were much more than stuffed animals to her, though. Emily took great pride in displaying the three of them on a shelf of honor above the cash register, usually dressed in outlandish outfits, from togas to three-piece suits, Halloween costumes to Easter Bunny getups. They weren’t just the namesakes for her shop; they were family to her. “Did you call the police?” I asked her.

  “I tried. They just laughed at me.”

  I took a deep breath. “Are you telling me that Stephen Grant laughed at you?” I’d known our police chief since he’d been a rookie cop, and he was currently dating my best friend, Grace Gauge, but none of that would save him if I found out he wasn’t taking Emily’s problem seriously.

  “No, I never got that far. They’ve got a new woman answering 9-1-1 calls, and the second I got this note and realized that the guys were missing, I phoned right away.”

  I grabbed my cell phone and dialed a number that was first in my queue. The moment my h
usband answered, I said, “Jake, I need you at the donut shop on the double.”

  “What’s going on?” he asked me, the concern clear in his voice.

  “Someone stole Cow, Spots, and Moose and left Emily a ransom note.”

  Jake paused for a moment before answering, and I could just imagine my former state police investigator husband trying to figure out if I was pulling his leg or not. I decided to put that worry out of his mind. “This is the real deal, Jake. Emily is barely hanging on.”

  That got his attention. I know just how much my husband loves me, but that doesn’t mean he can’t light up when an attractive young woman smiles at him, and Emily was a particular favorite of his. “I’m on my way,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  I hung up and saw Emily looking expectantly at me. “Is he coming?”

  “He is on his way even as we speak,” I assured her, being careful not to touch the note any more than I had to. I doubted this criminal mastermind had his prints on file with the FBI, but why muddy the waters if I didn’t have to? “Don’t worry. He’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  Emily frowned for a moment, and I could see her façade start to crack a little more. “You probably think I’m being silly, but I can’t help it. Those three guys mean the world to me.”

  “I get it, Emily. You don’t have to explain it to me,” I said, patting her shoulder. “You grew up with them.”

  “The truth is, they were the only friends I had for a long time,” she said softly.

  I couldn’t imagine sweet Emily having any trouble making friends, but then again, I knew how hard it could be to make new pals. She’d embraced their presence so wholeheartedly that when I heard her talking to the three stuffed animals, I swore that I often expected them to answer!

  “Don’t worry. Jake will find them.”

  “I hope so. I really hope so,” she said as Jake appeared. We lived close to the shop, but he must have cut across the park at a dead trot to get there so quickly. I wasn’t even sure he could have driven there that fast. Tall and thin, Jake’s stride was tough for me to keep up with on my best day.

  He ran his hand over his short blond hair before he spoke. “How are you doing?” he asked Emily as he slid onto the couch between us.

  “I’m losing my mind with worry,” she said, her voice shaking a little as she spoke.

  “Let me see the note,” he said, his voice full of calm authority.

  “I’ve got it right here,” I said as I handed it to him by the edges.

  Jake pulled out a clear plastic evidence bag and carefully sealed the note inside. It didn’t surprise me that he had a clear bag with him, since he took them everywhere he went, just in case.

  My husband studied the block letters and the word choices before looking at her carefully. “Who under the age of eighteen has a grudge against you?” he asked her.

  “You know, it could be an adult,” I said.

  Jake frowned at me before turning back to Emily. “That’s true, but I think we’d be safe to assume that we’re dealing with a juvenile until we learn differently.”

  “It has to be Charlie Jefferson,” Emily said after a moment’s thought. “I caught him shoplifting last week, and I called the police. It was the third time I saw him trying to steal something, and I warned him what would happen if he kept it up. How did he get into the newsstand, though? I’m so careful about locking up the shop every night.”

  “Let’s find Charlie and ask him,” Jake said as he stood up.

  “All three of us?” I asked, eager to be invited. I loved seeing Jake work, even if it was just cracking an easy case like this appeared to be.

  “It’s fine with me, but ultimately it’s up to Emily,” Jake said with a shrug.

  “Please come with us, Suzanne, if you can get away from the shop.”

  “Just give me a second with Emma,” I replied. I approached my assistant, who was cleaning the counter in front of her with more focus than she normally used. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that she’d been eavesdropping on our conversation. I couldn’t really blame her. If our roles had been reversed, I’d have been doing the same thing myself. “Can you hold down the fort for a while?” I asked her.

  “Of course. Is she okay?” Emma asked as she glanced furtively at Emily.

  “She’s not at the moment, but I’m sure she’ll soon be. Don’t worry. Emily’s in good hands. I’m sure she’ll tell you all about it as soon as it’s over.”

  “If she doesn’t, I expect you to,” Emma said.

  “If I can. If I don’t make it back by closing, you know the drill.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said with a salute. With a more serious face, she added, “Suzanne, take good care of her, would you?”

  “I’ll do my best,” I said.

  I found Jake and Emily already outside. “Ready?” I asked them.

  “Sure, but we need a ride,” Jake said. “I hurried over here on foot, and Emily didn’t drive, either.”

  “The Jeep it is, then,” I said as I led them to my vehicle. Jake took the back seat, over Emily’s protestations. “Where do you suggest we start looking for Charlie?”

  “Unless I miss my guess, he’s in school right now,” Jake said.

  “Ordinarily you’d be right, but I’m betting he’s out running around town somewhere. Then again, he might even be at home,” I said.

  “How could you possibly know that?” Jake asked me.

  “I’ve had several kids coming into Donut Hearts this morning,” I said. “It’s supposedly some kind of a half teachers’ workday or something like that.”

  “Only half the teachers get off, too?” Emily asked.

  “No, I meant they only work half a day,” I said.

  “Oh,” she said, clearly distracted by her lost companions. “Do you think they are okay?” she asked Jake as she turned in her seat.

  “They’re fine. Charlie isn’t going to touch them until he gets his money,” Jake said with calm self-assurance.

  “I hope you’re right,” Emily said.

  Since no one made any suggestions as to where we should start looking for Charlie, I headed to the edge of town.

  Jake tapped my shoulder. “Don’t tell me you know where this kid lives.”

  “I’ve been here all my life,” I said. “As a matter of fact, his mother, Jasmine, and I went to high school together. She’s living in her parents’ old house.”

  “Wow, why did you even need me?” Jake asked a little lightheartedly.

  “For more reasons than I can even begin to list,” I said with a grin.

  We pulled up in front of Jasmine’s house five minutes later. After all, April Springs wasn’t really all that big. It was a cottage not much bigger than the one I lived in with Jake, but that was where the similarity ended. Our place was freshly painted and in good repair, our yard was neat and tidy. This house could have been the “before” picture in a dramatic house makeover show on television. Parts of the guttering hung down, while other sections sported a growing forest of weeds and trees. Weathered and broken shingles covered most of the roof, while three blue tarps covered other sections. The porch railing in front was hit or miss, and there was a washing machine on the front porch and a broken-down old truck in the yard that would clearly never run again.

  “Wow, how can anyone live like this?” Emily asked.

  “I doubt that I could,” I said as we got out and started up the broken concrete sidewalk to the front door.

  “Doubt? You just doubt? Does that mean that you’re not sure?” Jake asked. “You couldn’t stand it, and you know it.”

  “You couldn’t, either,” I retorted.

  “That’s true enough.” When we reached the front door, he turned to us and said, “Ladies, let me do the talking. I know how to handle situations like this.”

&n
bsp; “Jake, we aren’t raiding a crack den. It’s just a kid,” I reminded him.

  “Kids can be dangerous, too, and don’t forget it,” he said.

  “You’re armed, aren’t you?” I asked, knowing that as much as I hated to admit it, he was right. Craziness wasn’t just limited to adults, especially these days.

  He gestured down to his ankle holster. “We’re good to go.” Jake knocked on the front door, and I worried that it wouldn’t be able to stand up to his summons. It wasn’t that he was pounding that hard. It was just that the door, like the rest of the house, had seen better days.

  No one answered.

  “What should we do?” Emily asked.

  Jake replied by knocking again.

  There was still no response.

  “Is there a chance he’s in there and just won’t come to the door?” I asked softly. If I were in his position, I wasn’t sure that I’d answer our summons, either.

  “Of course there is,” Jake said softly. In a loud voice full of authority, he said, “Charlie, you need to come to the door immediately. You have six seconds.”

  I whispered to my husband, “What are we doing if he doesn’t make your deadline?”

  “There’s not much chance of that happening. If he’s in there, he’ll come out,” Jake said confidently.

  Six seconds passed, then twelve, and finally, a full minute.

  Jake frowned at the door, and then he reached out a hand and tried the doorknob.

  It turned easily in his hand.

  “Isn’t this breaking and entering?” Emily asked him.

  “Did you see me break anything?” Jake asked with a slight grin. “I haven’t taken a single step inside, so I’m not even entering.”

  “You know what she means,” I said.

  “It might come under the heading unlawful entry,” Jake corrected us as he looked around, being careful not to violate the threshold. He might not have been a cop anymore, but he still abided by the rules that had driven his professional life all those years. “Hello? Is anyone home?” he called out.