A TREACHEROUS TART by Fiona Grace

Author:Fiona Grace [Grace, Fiona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-09-22T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Ali hurried into the bakery to find it empty of customers. Piper was standing behind the counter, eyes glued to her phone. She glanced up as Ali shut the door behind her.

“Ali! Thank goodness you’re back!” she exclaimed. “What is going on? It says here that someone died on stage!”

Ali took a breath to steel herself. The rumor mill was already churning, and it had only been a few hours. She paced over to the counter. “One of the competitors died. Gilbert the Gobbler. But it happened backstage, not in front of the audience.”

“Everyone seems to think he was poisoned!”

Ali tensed. “That’s a theory. The police still have to run tests before they can properly determine foul play. It might have just been a terrible accident, contamination or something. Gilbert was allergic to oysters and an empty packet of oyster sauce was found in the catering tent.” She knew she was clutching at straws here, but she was still clinging on to hope this would blow over before she was implicated in something even bigger.

“It’s not just a theory,” Piper contested. “It says here it was murder.”

She spoke confidently, as if she were somehow more knowledgeable on the subject than Ali, despite the fact Ali had actually been present.

“And where is ‘here’ exactly?” Ali queried.

“The Armchair Sleuths forum,” Piper replied.

“The what?”

“Armchair Sleuths forum,” Piper repeated. “For unsolved crimes. Murders. Disappearances. Kidnappings. That sort of thing. People post up information and videos and stuff. That’s how I found out.”

Ali tutted. Only a few hours had passed and there was already a forum?

“Well, as sure as I am that the Armchair Sleuths forum is a well-regarded source of properly researched and unbiased journalism—” She stopped her sarcastic comment as she realized Piper had started playing a video on her phone and a very familiar voice was now floating out of it. “Wait. Is that Detective Callihan?”

“Uh-huh,” Piper said, orienting her phone toward Ali so she could see the screen.

And there he was. Sebastian Callihan. Her date turned detective in the middle of an interview with a local news channel.

Ali was surprised by the speed of the investigation. By the time she’d made it here, an armchair sleuth had already managed to find and embed a live news feed online! She was going to have to eat her words about it being an unreliable source.

She focused on the screen.

“Yes, that’s correct,” Detective Callihan was saying. “We are launching a murder investigation into the death of Gilbert Brown.”

“See,” Piper said. “Told you it was a murder.”

Ali’s mind began to spin. It was very bold to come out this early on in the investigation to publicly declare the case to be murder. The detectives were usually much more cautious than that, trying to avoid widespread panic whenever possible. But something must have given them reason to believe the oyster sauce packet was indeed the murder weapon, and that Gilbert’s death had come about through deliberate and malicious intent. And since Detective Callihan was usually

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