Sweet's Sweets: The Second Samantha Sweet Mystery

time she gave up and headed for bed.

Darkness enveloped Sam and a stiff breeze howled upward, coming off the river at the bottom of the Rio Grande Gorge, carrying a sickly smell. She looked down and saw that she was wearing a dark green trench coat. She struggled vainly to shrug it off but the garment felt sticky. Her hands came away coated in blood.

Chapter 20

Sam woke from the dream in a sweat, although her bedroom felt freezing cold when she flung off the covers. She padded to the hall and checked the thermostat. It seemed all right and a quick touch on the baseboard register told her the heater was running just fine. A full moon lit the living room and kitchen, revealing dark lumps of furniture in all the right places. Sam gave it a glance and returned to her bedroom. Now, the temperature seemed fine.

On her dresser small dots of light winked in the darkness. Blue, red, green. They sparkled a few times and gradually blinked out. Odd. She’d never noticed the stones on the old wood box glowing, except for the times when Sam herself had picked up the object and held it. Had some unearthly spirit been in the room with her?

Goose flesh prickled at her bare arms.

The moon dimmed, throwing the room into complete darkness. A shiver coursed through her and she dashed for her bed. Silly, she told herself. A bad dream, a hot flash, a trick of the moonlight. It was cloudy outside. That accounted for the moon glowing brightly and then disappearing. There are no ghosts, no visiting spirits, no brujas. She repeated it twice more before she relaxed. Calm, perhaps, but not tranquil enough to fall asleep for a long time.

Sam stood behind the counter when the first of the customers came in the next morning.

“I don’t know what you put in those cookies yesterday,” said a young woman with a baby on her hip.

“What?”

“My five-year-old, Damon. I tell you, he was bouncing off the walls after school. All that Halloween candy. I didn’t want him to have more sweets but he got his cookie here and had half of it eaten before I could jump on him.”

Sam held her breath. Oh, shit, what kind of lawsuit was coming her way?

“He calmed right down. At dinner he ate all his veggies, went to bed without a fight . . . So could I get a dozen more of those cookies?”

Sam gave a nervous chuckle. “I really didn’t do anything special with them.”

“I don’t care. Whatever it was, it worked a miracle.” The woman pulled out her wallet and pointed to the display.

“I only have three left.”

“That’s fine—I’ll take them!”

Sam bagged the cookies and told the woman they were complimentary. The lady smiled widely and turned toward the door.

“I’ll definitely be back!” she said.

After the fourth parent who commented on remarkable changes in their kids behavior, Sam called a staff meeting. Becky and Jen looked at their boss with wide eyes.

“Did either of you put anything—”

“Sam, no!” Becky protested vehemently. “I have kids. I would never—”

Sam held up her hands. “I’m not accusing. I just can’t figure it out.”

“We used all our standard recipes,” Becky said. “Flour, sugar, butter . . . there was not one unusual ingredient in those cookies.”

“And the food coloring came from a bottle we’ve used before,” Sam mused, remembering that she’d tinted the frosting herself.

“I’m baffled,” Jen said. “But, hey, maybe it was something else. Maybe the kids just had a fun day at school.”

Sam didn’t believe for a second that a school Halloween party explained a streak of sudden good behavior, but she wasn’t about to voice her real suspicions. The mystical happenings that had surrounded some of her caretaking jobs now seemed to be spilling over into the bakery.

She let the girls know she wasn’t upset with them and sent them back to their work. The Halloween cookies were gone now and there was nothing she could do to change the facts. She would distract herself by trying a new recipe.

She had come up with a pumpkin cake recipe and she would use a cream cheese filling and a glossy chocolate ganache icing. Today, she wanted to see how her regular customers liked it. Meanwhile, the ovens were full of cupcakes and muffins and cheesecakes. She chafed at having to wait for oven space. She really needed to work on test projects at home, in the evenings. The repairman was supposed to come this afternoon and Sam hoped that this time he really would show up.

The entire time she was trying to concentrate on accurate measurements and proper pan size, her mind echoed the warning from yesterday. The mask of the child-witch kept intruding into her thoughts. The seekers are in danger. That might refer to herself, but it surely meant Beau.

He was out at Tafoya’s house today with his warrant, searching for the clues that would tell him what happened. Now that the medical examiner had found evidence that Elena’s scarf had not killed her, Beau was intent on finding out who and what did. Some other person and some other device committed that crime. Not suicide. Murder.

She finally got the pumpkin layers into the oven, then managed to botch the ganache. Too distracted, she set the baked layers in the fridge and vowed to get back to it later. She dialed Beau’s cell number.

“Hey there,” he said. “What’s up?”

Oh ,a pint-sized witch spooked me yesterday and now I’m worrying that you’re in danger, so much so that I can’t even blend up a decent frosting. “Just thought I’d check and see how the search was going.”

“Interesting . . .”

“Someone else is listening?”

“Exactly.”

“How about if I meet you later? I just . . . it sounds silly, I know, but I need to know that you’re safe.”

“So far, so good,” he said cheerfully. “I should be back in my office in another hour or so. I’m hoping to get out of there by five. No guarantees, though.”

“I know you can’t really talk. I’ll catch up with you at some point. Maybe you can give me a call when you’re free?”

He mumbled a half response, obviously distracted by someone else who was talking to him. They barely said goodbye before the line went dead.

Not exactly what I wanted to hear from him, Sam thought. But at least he didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger. See there, you little witch. He’s fine.

She went back to the ganache, turning out a perfect batch on the second try. She gave the cream cheese filling another stir, then quickly filled and stacked the layers. The ganache spread over the top, shiny and sleek, giving the cake a sophisticated appearance.

“This needs to chill for at least an hour,” she told Becky, “but then I want to get it out for sampling. Can you help me keep an eye on the time, not let the whole day get away from me?”

Her assistant looked up from the tray she was filling with yellow and red roses, pre-making them for Tafoya’s victory cake. “Sure. No problem. Are you going out?”

The idea took hold. Maybe if she just happened to be out for lunch . . . Beau’s office wasn’t that far away . . . And maybe if she happened to see his vehicle there . . .

As it turned out, he was just getting out of his patrol SUV when Sam cruised by and he spotted her. She whipped into a parking space and joined him at the sidewalk.