Chocolate With A Side Of Murder Read online

  My eyes were as wide as saucers. “I don’t blame you. I would have gone out of my mind, too.” I exhaled. “As you drove away, did you happen to look in your rearview mirror and see anything?”

  She nodded. “I did, but I didn’t see anyone or anything.”

  “That’s nuts.”

  Concern was all over her face. “It certainly drove me nuts. When I felt like I was a safe distance away, I called the police. I figured they could check it out in case someone was trespassing on the property.”

  “I wonder if the police found anything.”

  Kelly nervously tapped her fingers on the counter. “I wasn’t about to stick around to find out. I darted home and crawled into bed. Unfortunately, after seeing that light on, it took me forever to get to sleep.”

  I gave her a look of deep empathy. “I’m so sorry. That must have really rattled you.”

  A haunted look was in her eyes. “I was so rattled that my antianxiety meds didn’t do a thing. I tossed and turned in bed for three hours, concocting all kinds of crazy explanations for how that light could have been on.”

  I stared out into the distance. “What if Xander Watterson had just returned home after all these years?”

  I knew it was far-fetched, but it was possible. At least until I heard Kelly’s response.

  “At first, I wondered that myself. Then I checked Xander’s social media profile.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “He had posted a photo of himself earlier that night from a beach in Hawaii.”

  I exhaled. “So much for that theory.”

  Kelly’s eyes were filled with fear. “What if the place really is haunted?”

  I scrunched my nose. “There’s probably a much more rational explanation for what you saw.”

  Kelly put me on the spot. “I’m all ears.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know the answer.”

  “Neither do I. All I know is that it seriously freaked me out.”

  I scratched my forehead. “Did you hear back from the police?”

  Kelly shook her head. “No. Maybe they were too afraid to check it out.”

  I bit the corner of my lip. “I doubt that.”

  Kelly’s eyes darted back to the espresso machine. “Either way, I need another shot.”

  While my friend couldn’t wait to get her mind off of what she had seen the night before, I was both fascinated and terrified when I thought about what could have been responsible for that light being on at the Watterson estate. I also knew exactly what to do with my curiosity.

  My boyfriend, David Carlson, was a local police detective. If anyone could get to the bottom of this mystery, it was him. But with opening time at the coffee shop quickly approaching, I would have to shelve my questions about the Watterson estate until later.

  Chapter Three

  “That’s a nice-looking locket,” a curly-haired middle-aged woman said.

  The petite sixty-two-year-old wore a silver monogrammed bracelet on her left wrist with the name Edna etched into the metal. Everything about her screamed “tourist.” I didn’t say that just because I had never seen her before. Granted, Treasure Cove was a small town, but it wasn’t so tiny that I knew every soul who lived within the city limits.

  My assumption was based more on the fact that it was the heart of tourist season and Edna dressed the part of a vacationer. The stereotypes were all accounted for—flip flops, a map of the town poking out from her purse, the outline of a one-piece bathing suit visible under a white T-shirt. I saw a beach day in her future. I wished that I could say the same for myself.

  During the peak tourist season, there was little time to dip my toes in the water. Work came first. That was why I relished the offseason. Although my wallet had a certain appreciation for the high season. The money came easy then—and with good reason.

  Even though I had grown up in Treasure Cove, I never took for granted the spoils that I got to be around every day. The Cove—as the locals liked to call the place—truly was a treasure. It was a scenic town with equally beautiful picture-postcard views of the Pacific Ocean. There was more to Treasure Cove than just the beach, however.

  The board of tourism stocked the calendar with a menagerie of events. The Founder’s Day festival was held in April, a Lavender Festival took place in May, and a Pie Festival signaled the beginning of summer, followed by a Harvest Festival in October. Not to be outdone, the year came to a close with a Winter Celebration that made the chilly December temperatures bearable.

  Perhaps Edna would have such a good time on her beach vacation that she would return at some other point in the year to attend one of our many festivals. At that moment, it wasn’t a festival that fascinated her.

  Instead, her focus was squarely on a piece of jewelry that she had spotted around my neck. The heart-shaped locket was more than just a fashion accessory to me. The piece was near and dear to my heart. I wore it every day. As a matter of fact, the only time I took it off was on occasions when I knew that I was going to get wet. Even though it wasn’t the most financially valuable piece of jewelry that I owned, it was a priceless piece to me.

  While I had spent a great deal of time over the years admiring my locket, I didn’t enjoy the fact that Edna was staring at it like she wanted it for herself. If it were up to me, I would just go back to slinging coffees and finish out my work shift without any further mention of the locket.

  Unfortunately, I could tell that Edna wasn’t going to make it easy for me to do that. There was determination in her eyes. She looked like a woman who had a hard time taking no for an answer.

  I prayed that I was wrong, but even if I was right, I knew from a customer service angle that I needed to be courteous to her.

  “Thank you,” I replied.

  Edna’s eyes remained fixed on my locket. “Where did you get it?”

  Sigh.

  It was going to be one of those days, wasn’t it? When no matter how much I tried, I wouldn’t be able to keep the past buried. Was there anything I could say to get Edna to talk about another topic? I looked down at the locket as my heart grew heavy. With my emotions swelling, my thoughts became too jumbled to be able to think of a smooth way to change the subject.

  Edna was not pleased by my lack of an answer. “Miss, where did you get it?”

  I remained vague, which was exactly how I wanted to keep this conversation. “It was a gift.”

  There was a determined look on her face. “Do you know where I can get one?”

  I grimaced. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “That’s a shame. I would like to get one. Is there any way you can ask the person who gave it to you where they bought it?”

  Edna sure was pushy. She was so persistent that she didn’t notice how uncomfortable she was making me. If she had any awareness whatsoever, she would have seen that I had no interest in continuing this conversation.

  Edna kept staring at me, waiting impatiently for an answer.

  I just wanted to tuck tail and run, but Kelly was back in the storeroom at the moment, grabbing a few more sleeves of large coffee cups. With Kelly in the back, I was the only employee in the front of the shop. That meant that for the time being, I was stuck there talking with Edna.

  My breath shortened as my anxiety level elevated. I had to take a few deep breaths before I was calm enough to answer. “I wish I could.”

  With each vague reply, I secretly hoped that she would become discouraged and drop the subject. Instead, she just pushed forward.

  “Can I buy it?” Edna asked.

  The vagaries had gotten me nowhere. If I was going to make any headway, I would need to be direct with her.

  “It’s not for sale,” I said.

  She shrugged off my response. “Everything has a price.”

  I shook my head. “Not this.”

  “Not even for a hundred dollars?”

  I stared her down. “I’m afraid not.”

  A steely look was in her eyes. “Two hundred.”
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  What part of “not for sale” did she not get? She didn’t seem to be listening to me.

  “I’m not selling it.”

  Edna narrowed her eyes. “Three hundred.”

  My jaw nearly dropped. There was just no talking sense into her. Although, by that point, I was getting so choked up that I could barely speak. Finally, my emotions could not be bottled up any longer. I began to tear up.

  I grabbed a napkin to wipe my eyes just as I spotted Kelly returning from the storeroom.

  My friend’s presence allowed me to make a quick escape from this conversation. I seized the opportunity.

  I turned back to Edna. “I’m sorry. I have something in my eye. Kelly here will take your order.”

  Before Edna had the chance to give me a response, I darted to the back of the coffee shop.

  Chapter Four

  I ducked into the storeroom of the coffee shop to compose myself. With my emotions coming on so strong, I needed a moment alone to catch my breath. Taking a few deep breaths usually did the trick.

  As I sat on the ground, I reached for my locket and opened it up. I kept a photo of my sister inside it. That way she would always be close to me. With my gaze fixed on the photo, the sight of Jessica’s smiling face brought tears to my eyes. I tried to choke them back.

  It was incredible. Even after all this time, my emotions were still so raw every time I thought of my sister. They probably always would be.

  Just as I was trying to pull myself together, my fifty-four-year-old jet-black-haired mother walked by the doorway of the storeroom and spotted me sitting on the floor. A look of deep concern was on Elizabeth’s oval face.

  “Are you okay?” Elizabeth asked.

  I closed the locket and looked up at my mom.

  “Yeah. I just need a minute,” I replied.

  My mother stared at the locket and didn’t believe me for a second. She sat her trim body down next to mine and tried to get to the bottom of things.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  I couldn’t think of a worse place to be having this conversation. There I was, in the middle of a workday, falling to pieces in our storeroom, with my mother’s concerned eyes fixed on me. Normally, I needed to have a few glasses of wine in me to be able to talk about my sister.

  With no chardonnay in sight, I would have to tough this out while being completely sober. Notice how I didn’t say that avoiding this topic was a possibility. My mother was the kind of woman who didn’t take “no” for an answer. That didn’t stop me from trying.

  The topic of my sister was one that I did not have an interest in diving into at the moment. I had ducked into the storeroom to keep my pain to myself. Discussing my inner turmoil was not on my agenda. I just wanted to cobble myself back together and continue on with my day.

  “I’d rather not talk about it,” I said.

  Would my mother take my cue?

  Apparently not. A look of determination was on her face and showed no signs of going away. Even more, as my mother was not one to make small talk, she instead opted to cut right to the heart of the matter.

  “It’s about Jessica, isn’t it?”

  I thought that I had closed the locket before my mother had a chance to see me staring at it, but maybe I wasn’t as quick as I thought. Not that it mattered. My mom had incredible instincts. I didn’t know how she could always pinpoint what was on my mind at any given time, but she just did.

  When I saw the focus in her eyes, I realized it was no use to avoid the topic.

  Before diving into emotionally choppy waters, I took a deep breath then replied, “Yes.”

  Elizabeth sat down next to me and put her arm over my shoulder. “I miss Jessica, too.”

  With the topic already broached, instead of pulling back, I dug deeper. “It is more than just missing her. I feel like I wake up every day with a piece of me missing. I mean, we’re living our lives with this big question mark hanging over our heads.”

  My mom sympathized. “I know what you mean. When I sit down to pray every night, she is the first thing I pray to God about. Not a day goes by that I don’t ask for answers, for clarity, and for a map to brave this uncharted territory we’re living in.”

  I took a deep breath. “Sometimes I think about what I’d give to just talk to her once more. What I’d say to her.”

  My mother stared into the distance. “I’d just hold her and tell her how much I love her.”

  I agreed. The same thing had run through my mind many times.

  I bounced my knee nervously. “To me, the hardest part is not knowing where she is. What happened to her. If she’s even alive.”

  That was where my mother and I deviated. While sometimes I found hope hard to come by, my mom didn’t let doubt seep into her brain.

  “You must not give up hope,” she said. “The answer is out there somewhere. We just haven’t found it yet.”

  I opened my mouth to reply, but no words came out. When I finally untied my tongue, I responded. “Do you think she’s still alive?”

  Up until then, my mother had been filled with confidence. That sureness was noticeably absent with her answer. “I want to believe.”

  I stared long and hard into my mother’s eyes. “Do you think we’ll ever find out what happened to her?”

  My mother’s answers became less certain with each question I asked. The same was true of this one.

  “Like I said, I just keep praying every night. I figure eventually the Lord will give me an answer,” she replied.

  I clutched the locket around my neck. “I hope so.”

  My emotions were as raw as they had been in a long time. So naturally that was when my tall, pear-shaped fifty-six-year-old stepfather, Luke Norton, walked through the back of the coffee shop carrying a bag.

  “Who wants cookies?” Luke asked.

  It was rare for a man’s hair to be going gray and bald at the same time, but that dubious rarity was happening to Luke. With the last of his hair follicles clinging to his scalp, it made his facial expressions stand out even more. So when he saw my mother and me sitting on the ground in the storeroom, he couldn’t hide the confusion on his face.

  Luke had a unique sense of timing. Not just that morning, but the entire time I had known him. It was hardly the first emotionally charged situation that he had been put in the middle of. As a matter of fact, that was how he had entered my mother’s life in the first place.

  While Luke was technically my stepfather, he was more of a dad to me than my biological dad ever was. My birth father, Walter Cobb, had spent his life waging an all-out war against sobriety. With Walter’s penchant for the bottle, it was no surprise when my mother divorced him when I was four years old.

  In the twenty-four years since then, Walter has spent more time with beer bottles than with me. As it was, I couldn’t tell you what city my birth father was living in at that moment, much less what he was doing with his life, or if he even thought about me ever.

  Luke, meanwhile, began dating my mother when I was six years old. Like most children of divorce, my sister and I were reticent to accept Luke into our lives at first. It took a while, but eventually, he won us over. When my sister and I did finally accept him, Luke became the father I never really had. Someone who was caring and kind and attentive. Just as important was the fact that he treated my mother like a queen. After all the drama my mom had been through with my birth father, my mother deserved a man like Luke in her life.

  Although as Luke stood in the doorway to the storeroom that morning, he looked confused.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  If my mother and I answered truthfully, we could end up going much deeper down the rabbit hole and even drag Luke in with us. Instead, my stepfather’s arrival acted as a good impetus to shelve the conversation about my sister for the moment and carry on with the day.

  My mother forced a smile. “It will be when I get a cookie in my mouth.”

  Luke’s forehead wrinkled. “What d
id I miss?”

  I stared at the bag in Luke’s hand. “Let’s just focus on the cookies.”

  After eating a few cookies, I was able to cobble myself together and continue with my workday.

  That night, when my shift was over at the coffee shop, the emotions I had tried so hard to shelve caught up with me all over again.

  Chapter Five

  I had one destination on my mind when I left work that afternoon—memory lane. Shortly after returning home, I plopped down on the comfy couch in my living room and took a nostalgic trip into the past by loading some old videos on my laptop. I had an entire library’s worth of clips featuring my sister and me on my computer. One by one, I went through them, delving deeper into the past with each one that I played.

  Then I stumbled upon one clip in particular that hit especially close to home given the events that had unfolded that morning. The recording was from my seventeenth birthday. It had been a picturesque day at the beach. The sun glistened on the water. The ocean waves crashing behind me acted as a perfect backdrop to the picnic lunch that my mother had packed. The camera work was courtesy of my stepfather, who zoomed in as I opened a present from my sister.

  It was such a simple video, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it. I zeroed in on my sister, who watched with great anticipation as I took the lid off of the box she had given me. Inside was the heart-shaped locket. In the video, I pulled the locket from the box and admired it.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said.

  Jessica’s enthusiasm didn’t stop there. “Look inside.”

  I popped the locket open and gazed at the photo of my sister that was inside it.

  “I figure this way I’ll always be close to you,” Jessica said.

  She was delighted to see how touched I was by her gift.

  “Thank you so much,” I replied.

  “You really like it?” Jessica asked.

  “Of course I do. I love all of your gifts.”

  “You sure know how to bring a smile to my face.”

  “I could say the same thing about you,” I replied.