into the car and sped away.
I hope so, thought Sam as she walked back into the warm, fragrant building. A customer like that could provide a real boost to the business. She glanced at the decimated supply of pastries. However . . . now she had to hustle to be ready for the rest of her patrons.
“Rearrange everything so it doesn’t look so skimpy,” she told Jen. “I’m going to whip up some more muffins and scones real quick.”
When the doors officially opened thirty minutes later, four dozen muffins were awaiting, still warm and Sam was just pulling blueberry-almond scones from the oven. She’d also mixed up the secret recipe for her amaretto cheesecake so it would have time to bake and cool for the after-lunch crowd.
The next few hours disappeared, as Sam continued to mix and bake. She whipped up buttercream icing and decorated four trays of Halloween cookies and two dozen cupcakes for the holiday, now less than a week away. They brightened the display cases and quickly disappeared as parents remembered commitments to their kids’ classrooms.
At some point the delivery of supplies arrived and Sam worked like a stevedore to unload and stow the new ingredients. It was such a joy to actually have places for everything and to see her new shelves fully stocked—far better than the old days when every corner of her kitchen would be piled with sacks of flour and tubs of butter and shortening.
“You ought to take a break sometime, you know.” Jen appeared at the doorway, brushing her hands on her apron. “You were really tired yesterday. Don’t want to wear yourself out in the first two days.” She smiled to let Sam know she wasn’t being preachy.
“I know.” Sam peeked into the sales area. All the cases looked full and appealing. She’d put a few finishing touches on the design for candidate Tafoya’s victory cake, and had even begun sketching out ideas for her own gala cake. It wouldn’t do for a pastry shop to hold a grand opening without a spectacular cake of their own.
“What time is it, anyway?” she asked Jen.
“After four.” The younger woman was clearly amazed at how much her boss had produced in a day but the front door chime saved Sam from having to come up with an explanation.
“Yoohoo, it’s me again.” Elena Tafoya breezed in, much more relaxed now, dressed in a different outfit that managed to be both casual and chic.
Sam grabbed up the drawings of the celebration cake and walked out to greet her.
“You’ve been busy,” Elena remarked, turning in place to admire the shop.
Sam looked down at her apron and noticed smudges of orange frosting. “Sorry.” She whipped off the apron and folded it so the marks didn’t show.
“No apology, Samantha. The place is absolutely magical! I can only guess how much work this must be.”
You probably can’t, thought Sam, but she smiled at the compliment. “Do you have time for a cup of coffee and maybe some cheesecake? I was just about to take a break myself.”
“Thank you, Sam. That would be lovely.” Sam felt a rush of compassion toward the woman who seemed so grateful for the small act of kindness.
While they sat at a table with their desserts, Sam spread out the design ideas for the victory cake. Elena made a couple of suggestions, clearly things that her husband might pick out. Sam wondered—was Elena Tafoya truly happy with money and prestige? Or was she simply rushing through her days, living to please an overly- particular man?
Before she left, Elena bought a half-dozen Halloween cookies, “for my neighbor’s kids.” Sam detected a note of sadness but Elena made no further comment.
She shook off the feeling when Elena left the shop.
Jennifer locked up and left at five, as Sam was finishing the last of the cleanup in the kitchen. When she totaled her register she was thrilled to see that they’d had a second great day. Maybe this venture would be a success after all.
She hung her baker’s jacket on a hook in the storage area and headed for the van, finding herself thinking of Beau. Throughout the day, their discussion of the dead private investigator kept coming back to her.
Since Paseo Montano was on her way home . . . on an impulse she made a couple of turns and cruised slowly down the street where the investigator’s office was. She didn’t know the exact address but it was a short road, and when she spotted Beau’s cruiser on the right, she pulled in beside it.
“Hey there,” she said, tapping on the door and opening it at the same time.
“How did you know I was just thinking about you?” he asked, looking up with a warm smile.
“Maybe because I was just thinking about you too?” She walked in and allowed herself to enjoy his embrace. “Want some help?”
“You have the energy to dig through dusty old files after putting in a long day at the bakery?”
“Sure.” Amazingly, she did. “What needs to be done?”
He gestured around the small room, obviously a one-man operation. There was a desk with a swivel chair behind it and two client chairs in front. A credenza behind the desk held a fax machine. Fenton’s framed license hung on the wall above it, along with a dated photo of a suited man presenting some kind of award to a tall, slim police officer.
“Fenton?” she asked, indicating the photo.
Beau nodded. “I think that was the governor of Arizona back in the seventies. Fenton served on the Flagstaff PD.”
Two four-drawer locking file cabinets stood to one side, with a coffee maker and the usual setup with creamer and sugar packets nearby. Everything was clean and well organized.
“His files are the same way,” Beau said, commenting on the neatness of it all. “I’ve just started looking through them. The warrant only allows me to gather information pertaining to Cheryl Adams, since that’s where his coat was located, or to a direct threat on his life. We can’t sit here reading about other people’s dirty little secrets, for our own enjoyment.”
“Well, dang. That would have been the fun part.” She squeezed his hand.
“Take a drawer, any drawer.” He handed her a pair of latex gloves.
“I assume you’ve already looked under ‘Adams’ and would have mentioned if you’d found anything with her name on it.”
“Right. Didn’t find anything.”
“Cheryl’s maiden name was Tercel. She might have used that if she hired Fenton for something.” Sam reached for the file drawer labeled T-Z.
“Check it out while I finish going through the desk.” He sat in the swivel chair and continued to pull items out, mostly pens and notepads and other office supplies.
Sam riffled her fingers through the manila folders. Each was labeled with a name, neatly printed by hand in block letters. Although the files varied in thickness, all were crisp and neat, as if he made up a new folder if one should become battered or began to slump down in its prescribed position.
Taos, Tafoya, Tapia, Tewa . . . “I’m not finding a Tercel in here,” Sam told him.
But Tafoya grabbed her attention. Carlos Tafoya, the label said. The gubernatorial candidate. What would he have hired Fenton for? Her fingers twitched at the edge of the folder.
“Sam?”
She jerked back.
“You weren’t about to pull a folder out of there, were you?”
“Nope.” She pushed the drawer closed, just to prove it.
“Anyway, look at this.” He was holding up a leather-bound book, about the size of a small ledger. “The whole thing is written in code.”
Chapter 12
Sam looked at the ledger’s pages. Beau was right. The columns were filled with letters and numbers. But they weren’t words and they weren’t dollar amounts, at least not in the normal two-decimal-place format.
“What do you suppose they mean?” she asked.
