Baked Books (The Donut Mysteries Book 30) 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

  Recipes

  Other Books by Jessica Beck

  JESSICA BECK

  THE DONUT MYSTERIES, BOOK 30

  BAKED BOOKS

  Donut Mystery #30 Baked Books

  Copyright © 2017 by Jessica Beck All rights reserved.

  First Edition: March 2017

  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 30th 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 all of you, my dear and cherished readers, from A to Z,

  Thanks from the bottom of my Donut Heart for coming along for the ride!

  There’s a new bookstore opening up across the street from Suzanne’s donut shop, and when a group of mystery writers descends on April Springs for a panel on murder and mayhem in the book world, is it any wonder that homicide is soon on the menu at Donut Hearts?

  Chapter 1

  The darkly lit space in the back of the town’s brand-new bookstore, The Last Page, had recently been painted a soft shade of yellow, but the hastily made sign on the door proclaimed that it was, at least for the moment, the Green Room. That had more to do with the visiting authors who’d come to town for the grand opening than it did the actual color of the walls. Inside the cozy area were four rigid chairs, a small table, and a cart strewn with cookies, assorted pieces of fruit, two bottled waters, and a few remaining treats supplied by Donut Hearts, the town’s favorite donut supplier.

  There was one other thing in the room as well, though the way it lay crumpled on the floor in one corner made it hard to see at first in the dim light of the space.

  Was it a pile of discarded tarps from the painter’s recent visit, or perhaps even a prop for the mystery-writing panel given not so long ago?

  No, on closer examination, this was clearly no prop.

  It was a body, and judging by its deathly stillness, a real-life murder had occurred once more in the sleepy little town of April Springs, North Carolina.

  “Suzanne, are the donuts for my grand opening celebration ready yet?” Paige Hill asked me the second she walked into Donut Hearts just before eleven a.m. Paige was a slight, wispy blonde, almost elfin in appearance; somewhere in her late twenties, she had a resting face that always seemed to look pensive, not that it mattered at the moment. The young woman was clearly stressed about her new business venture opening, and I was going to do my best not to add to her already high level of anxiety.

  “Paige, I won’t make them until later this afternoon so they’ll be fresh for the party, but I’ve got the final sample we worked up in back,” I said. “Give me one second and I’ll go grab it.” Since eleven was our normal closing time at the donut shop, I locked the front door before going in the back to retrieve the promised goody. My shop had undergone a major makeover fairly recently, and though the events that had happened during the remodel had been rather tragic, I loved the results. On my way back past her, I asked, “Would you like something to nibble on while you’re waiting, or perhaps some coffee?”

  “Thanks anyway, but I couldn’t eat a bite, and I’m hopped up on caffeine as it is.”

  “Too much coffee will do that to you,” I said agreeably.

  “It’s not that. I bought a gallon of Trish’s sweet tea from the Boxcar Grill this morning, and I’ve been sipping from it all morning. I swear, I can almost feel my teeth rotting as we speak, and my nerves are jangling more than a high school janitor’s key chain.”

  I grabbed a bottle of water for her from the fridge and handed it to her. “Take it. It’s on the house. Maybe you should get off the hard stuff while you still can.”

  Paige took the offering gratefully, and after a large gulp of water, she smiled at me. “Everyone here is so nice. I’m so glad I decided to open my bookshop in April Springs.”

  “I’m sure your aunt would be happy that you did,” I said. Paige’s late aunt, Naomi Bussbottom, had been a fixture in town for years; some thought she’d found the fountain of youth the way she’d remained so sprightly well into her nineties. Forgoing the usual methods of demise of her compatriots, Naomi had perished in a small plane crash, which she’d happened to be piloting herself just after getting her flying license. Paige had shown up for the funeral as Naomi’s last living relative, and she’d shocked us all by taking her inheritance and opening a bookstore in one of Momma’s empty buildings on Springs Drive across the road from Donut Hearts.

  “You know, I wanted to call it Bussbottom Books, but calmer heads prevailed in the end,” she said with a grin. “Aunt Nam loved her last name. Did you know that all three of her husbands demanded that she take their last names, but she refused every last one of them? It always gave her such great pleasure to inform people of it upon first meeting them.”

  “Your aunt was something special, all right,” I said, remembering my many encounters with her over the years that always managed to leave me smiling. “Now, let me grab that sample donut so I can get your final notes on it.”

  I slipped in back, where my lone employee—who also happened to be one of my very best friends, Emma Blake—was finishing up the last batch of dirty dishes. “Paige is here to see the final version of the donut,” I said with a smile.

  “Oh, goody. I’ve got to see her reaction for myself,” Emma said with a grin as she threw the towel she’d been using down on the counter.

  I grabbed the sample donut and plated it before taking it out to the bookstore owner.

  “She’s going to love it. Suzanne, you’ve outdone yourself this time,” Emma said happily.

  “I appreciate your willingness to come back into the shop in three hours to make a new batch of donuts with me for the grand opening celebration,” I told her.

  “I’m more than happy to do it. I don’t have any classes today, and Barton is working on a new dish for the hospital menu. He gets absolutely obsessed when he’s concocting something. If I didn’t know any
better, I’d think the two of you were related.”

  Young Barton Gleason was a culinary master who just happened to work at the local hospital cafeteria, amazing visitors and patients alike with his stunning skills. He’d been all set to move to Charlotte when Emma had caught his attention, and he’d suddenly decided to stay in April Springs at the last minute, much to all of our delight. Barton was one of the good ones, and I had high hopes that he and Emma would work out. “Because of his culinary genius or his sparkling personality and rapier-like wit?” I asked her.

  “Sure, let’s say all of that is true and leave it at that,” Emma said with a laugh.

  My assistant and I walked out front, and we presented Paige with the donut, making sure that the little candied dagger was plunged deeply enough into the raspberry-filled donut to produce a suitable amount of dark-red ooze on the top around the blade.

  Paige’s face lit up when she saw it. “It’s perfect! Where on earth did you find that tiny little dagger, Suzanne?”

  “It’s amazing what kind of confections you can order online these days,” I said. “Are you sure it’s not just a little too…”

  “Gruesome?” Emma supplied. “Ghastly? Murderous?”

  “You haven’t met many mystery writers, have you?” Paige asked us both with a grin. “The audience and the panel members will all love these treats, and I’m betting they will be the talk of the grand opening.”

  “How did you manage to get four well-known mystery writers to show up in April Springs for your opening, anyway?” Emma asked. “Brad Winslow has got a pretty big following, but the other three aren’t exactly rookies.”

  Paige frowned for a moment before speaking. “What can I say? I got lucky. They had a break in their schedule on their publisher’s book tour, and they graciously agreed to come here without much notice.”

  There was clearly more to the story than that, but Paige was just as obviously reluctant to share it, so I didn’t press her. “Well, however you managed it, I’m certain that it will be amazing.”

  “I hope so. I’d hate to think that I’m wasting Auntie Nam’s money on all of this.”

  “I’m curious. Why did you call her Nam?” I asked her.

  “It’s simple enough. I couldn’t say Naomi when I was a child, and of course, my quirky aunt was delighted with the new moniker. She was my great-aunt, actually. I hope she’d be proud of what I’ve done with her money. I’d like it to serve as her legacy.”

  “I’m sure she’d be honored,” I said. “Now, back to business. If you approve the donut in its final form, Emma and I will start our production run at two, so the treats will be ready by five at the latest. When should we bring them over to the bookstore?”

  “Please, come over whenever they’re finished. I can give you both the two-cent tour before we open to the general public.”

  “It all sounds wonderful,” I said. “I can’t believe we’re finally getting our own bookstore in town. It’s a pretty incredible thing you’re doing.”

  “I’m just going to be selling books. You two are the ones doing incredible things,” Paige said as she admired the donut we’d created just for her. The young woman had a way of making Emma and me both feel as though we were the most important part of her celebration. When she smiled, it had a way of lighting up the room, and I was glad she’d decided to become a member of our community.

  After Paige was gone, I asked Emma, “What are your plans between now and when we meet back here later?”

  “I’m going to head home, take a shower, and then grab a nap, though maybe not in that particular order.” Emma laughed. She sniffed her hair, and then she grinned at me. “Do you ever get tired of smelling like donuts all of the time?”

  “I used to, but Jake loves it, so who am I to disagree?”

  “How’s he enjoying Raleigh?” she asked me.

  “He claims to be homesick, but I can hear some of the delight in his voice about feeling useful again, even though he tries hard to disguise it.”

  “How long is he going to be gone?”

  I shrugged. “That remains to be seen.” Terry Hanlan, an old colleague of his with the state police, had gotten himself into a sticky situation with his personal life, and he’d called on Jake for help. It was a favor we’d both been more than happy for him to grant, since Terry had once saved my husband’s life while they’d both been on the job. I didn’t get a straight answer on what the two of them were up to at the moment, only that Terry had taken two weeks’ vacation time to resolve a personal crisis and that he’d needed Jake’s help. I’d most likely get the whole story when my husband came back, but for now, I was living by myself again. At least Grace was in town. Jake had only been gone three days, but Grace and I had already gotten back into our old habits of palling around just as we had when we’d both been single. Her boyfriend, Police Chief Stephen Grant, was tied up with a case of his own, a mysterious hit and run on the edge of town, which left us both free to do pretty much whatever we pleased.

  “I know that must be tough on you. So, what are you going to do with your free time?”

  “Actually, I was thinking about catching up on our inventory here,” I said as I looked around. “But your idea sounds a lot better than mine. I believe I’ll go back to the cottage and take a nap, myself.”

  “And the shower,” Emma added. “Don’t forget the shower.”

  I laughed at her as we finished our closing ritual for the day. Ten minutes later, we were walking out of Donut Hearts together.

  “I’ll see you soon,” I said.

  “You bet,” Emma replied.

  I headed back to the cottage I’d once shared with my mother and now my current husband and decided that Emma had indeed conceived of a perfect plan.

  If I could manage it, I was going to try to get both a shower and a nap before I had to go back to Donut Hearts and start the entire process of making new donuts all over again.

  Chapter 2

  “I can’t believe we’re finally finished,” Emma said as she rinsed the last rack. Even she sounded a little weary from the double session, and she was a great deal younger than I was. “Is it just me, or was this like the longest day ever?”

  “It’s been rough,” I said, “but at least the donuts turned out beautifully.”

  “Should we stab them now?” Emma asked me as she lofted a tiny confectioner’s butcher knife no more than two inches long over one of the filled donuts.

  “Let’s wait so all of the raspberry filling doesn’t ooze out before the celebration,” I said. Without the daggers and the subsequent graphic gore, the donuts seemed a little plain, so I could understand Emma’s desire to make them complete.

  “Okay, but I want to stab a few of them myself when it’s time,” she said.

  “Wow, I didn’t realize you had such a wicked streak in you.” I laughed. “What did a donut ever do to you?”

  “You have to admit that it’s got to be satisfying plunging the dagger in,” Emma answered. “I think we should offer more oozing donuts at the shop than we do now.”

  “Even one would be more than we sell right now,” I said with a laugh. “Are you talking about special treats for Halloween?”

  “Sure, why not then, too?” she asked with an evil grin.

  “Well, we can’t very well make them for Valentine’s Day,” I reminded her.

  “I don’t know, we could always offer little powdered cherry donuts with cupid’s arrows stuck into them. They could be really cute.”

  “How would we explain them to our customers? If we put them out without some kind of clarification, it would look as though a tiny archer had gotten loose in Donut Hearts and started shooting up our offerings, slaughtering donuts left and right.”

  After frowning for a moment, Emma said, “Maybe you’re right. I still th
ink we should at least make some for Halloween. After all, it was your idea.”

  I knew she was trying to influence me by crediting me with coming up with the original idea, but I wasn’t that gullible. “Talk to me about it again in September and we’ll see.”

  “Sure thing, boss,” Emma said with a grin. After putting the last bowl away, she asked, “How are we getting these to the bookstore? We’re not jamming them into the back of your Jeep, are we?”

  “No, I don’t think they’d make the trip, no matter how short it might be. I figured we’d just use the carts we have and roll them back and forth. After all, the bookstore is just across the street. It should only take us two trips if we pack them right.”

  “Sounds good to me,” she said.

  We were just wheeling the first load of donuts out the front door when we heard a commotion across the street directly in front of the bookstore. Two men were having an argument, and it was loud enough for us to hear every word of it. They were so caught up in their confrontation that they didn’t even notice that Emma and I were standing there listening to every word they exchanged.

  “What’s going on, Suzanne?” Emma asked me softly. “Do you know either one of them?”

  “No, they’re both strangers to me.”

  One of the men was tall and stately, with flowing brown hair and piercing gray eyes. The other was at least twenty years older, and though his hair may have been dark earlier in his life, it was mostly gray now. He was quite portly, and his cheeks were red, though I doubted it was from the slight chill in the air.

  “Brad, I’m telling you for the last time, stop trying to make the rest of us look bad on stage. We’re not going to put up with it anymore.”