Oops.
I stepped inside, greeted by the familiar scents of incense, lavender, and sage. But despite all its familiarity, the space felt different somehow. It was probably all in my head, but I swear the place seemed to be missing Elwood.
At least it looked like no one was in here.
But I should check the cash register to see if an enterprising thief had taken advantage of my mistake. A moment later, I let out a relieved sigh. The money was still in there.Good.
I tapped my fingers against the countertop. I should stay here, right? Work. Make sure Elwood’s customers knew the shop was still open, no matter what rumors they’d undoubtedly heard by now. Except I hated the idea of being cooped up in here all day, waiting for news, trying to be pleasant to strangers when I had better things to do.
Nope. That wasn’t happening.
Elwood needed help. He didn’t kill anyone. I knew he didn’t. And sure, Gideon seemed convinced too, but seeing how easily that sheriff had bent to Leon’s demands was troubling. If the sheriff couldn’t think for himself, someone else needed to do the thinking for him.
That someone was going to have to be me.
Because who else was there? People had lives to live, businesses to run, and all that. Whereas I had nothing but time… and who knew? Being a stranger in town might work to my advantage.
Yes, that was what I needed to do.
I grabbed a piece of paper from the tray on the printer—honestly, I was surprised Elwood even owned a printer—and wrote in large letters across the white page,closed due to unforeseen circumstances. If there weren’t rumors going about town before, there would be after this went up in the window. But it couldn’t be helped.
I taped my sign to the window in the door and turned the lock.
Now, I needed to get to work.
Or should I call my parents first? They were on a cruise in the middle of the ocean, but we’d connected a couple of times. They should be able to get a call. But what would I say? That Elwoodmay or may not be arrested? No, there was no sense in worrying them needlessly until I knew more.
I grabbed a bunch more paper and a few pens, then I went to the back of the store. The door to the stairwell was ajar. A shadow moved.
“Hey!” I shouted. I flung open the door and peered up the stairs that led to the apartment. No one was there.
Wonderful. Now I was seeing things too. That was just what I needed.
I yanked off my glasses and rubbed my eyes. I allowed myself a moment to quiet my racing heart. No longer than that, though. I couldn’t waste time. Didn’t they say that the first twenty-four hours were critical in a homicide investigation? Or was it the first forty-eight? Either way, there was a time crunch. I shoved my glasses back on my face. It was time to get to work.
Still, I trudged up the stairs with a little more apprehension than usual. And yes, okay, once I was in the apartment, I may have gone through each room thoroughly. Of course, nobody was lurking in the closet or under the bed.
Or if there was someone here, they were exceptionally good at hiding.
Where had that thought come from? Maybe I was still a little more unsettled from having seen a dead body this morning than I’d like to admit.
I dropped the paper and pens on Elwood’s kitchen counter. I’d come back to them in a minute. First, though, I needed supplies. I dug through the cupboards and found the ingredients for a simple spice cake. As soon as I had everything on the counter, the tension that’d been riding me for the last two days ebbed from that spot between my shoulders.Yes. This is what I needed.
Baking always helped me think.
For a while, when I was a teen, I’d even imagined one day I would become a baker. When I told my father my plans, he’d steered me in a different direction. He wanted me in a big corporate job, something that could finance big cars, big houses, and luxurious cruises around the world. I realized now, as an adult, those were his dreams. But at the time, his arguments had made sense.
So I went into marketing… only to specialize in social media marketing. I supposed that specialization wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d pursued a job as the head of a big advertising campaign for a gigantic multi-billion-dollar company, but that wasn’t what interested me. I wanted to help the mom-and-pop places, the start-up entrepreneurs, the underdogs. And to put it mildly, that wasn’t exactly what my father had in mind for my future.
At this point, I suspected Dad would be happier if I was a baker, since at least people realized they needed to pay for their bread. Unlike social media management, where half the time people often wanted to talk for half an hour, steal my ideas, and not hire me.
Yeah. I was still learning how to navigate that little pitfall.
But that didn’t matter right now. Right now, I needed to make a cake and figure out who killed Winston. I started by dumping the basics of flour and sugar into a large bowl. Then I considered what spices to add.
“Nutmeg for luck,” I whispered as I measured my ingredients. “Cloves for protection and divination. Ginger for courage. Cinnamon for swift action… huh. That almost sounds like a spell.”
Until this moment, I would’ve said it was a quirky little thing my grandfather had taught me when I was little. But was that true?
