Chocolate Grudge (Sweet Shop Mystery Book 1) by Wendy Meadows

Author:Wendy Meadows [Meadows, Wendy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Majestic Owl Publishing LLC
Published: 2020-01-26T22:00:00+00:00

8

I take three boxes of Pop Rocks out of the case under the counter and slide them over to Frankie. “Here you go. You remember what it says on the package. Don’t eat them too fast or you could burst your stomach.”

He doesn’t hear me. He stares down at the boxes with wide eyes. He cradles them in his hand like some mystical treasure.

“Frankie?” I ask. “How would you like to pay for those today?”

Without looking up, he hands me his credit card. I run it through the machine and hand it back along with the receipt. “Thank you. Come again sometime.”

He drifts out of the shop still gaping at the boxes in his hand. If only everyone in the world was so easily mollified.

The instant he leaves, the door jangles again and Allie comes in. To my surprise, a ring of red discolors her normally bright eyes. She sniffs when she puts her handbag on the counter.

“Allie?” I ask. “Is everything all right?”

She waves to me. Then she gets a handkerchief out of her bag and presses it to her nose. “I’m fine, Margaret. Thanks for asking. Could I just have some of those jaw breakers, and maybe a quarter pound of chocolate chews. That’s all I need.”

My mind spins while I measure out the candy. When I bring it to her, I get up the courage to speak. “Do you want to talk about it? I thought you had a full supply of candy at home. Did something happen?”

“It’s Roger.” Her voice quavers. “I woke up at five o’clock this morning, and he hadn’t slept in his side of the bed. I went downstairs, and he had raided my candy stash. He had eaten all the candy.” She clamps her eyes shut, and a single tear streaks down her cheek.

“Why would he do that?” I ask. “I thought you bought the stash to share with him. You didn’t plan to eat it all yourself, did you?”

“It’s the stress!” She lifts her handbag and plunks it down on the counter with a thump. “He can’t sleep, he’s so stressed out all the time. Dorothy put a lien on our house when she was president of the HOA. Roger had to take a second job with a pest extermination company to make up the extra cost of paying it off.”

My hair stands on end. “What did she put a lien on your house for?”

“She cooked up fifty thousand dollars in fines because she said our Christmas decorations drained too much power from the community power grid. Can you believe that?” Allie snuffles into her handkerchief. “She was always pulling stuff like that out of her hat. She did the same thing to everyone. That’s why we had to disband the HOA and get rid of her, but we couldn’t get the lien removed. We had to pay it off, and it’s cost us ten years of misery, all thanks to Dorothy.”

“Wow,” I breathe. “That’s terrible.”

Terrible it might be, but it’s a lot bigger motive to murder than any hocus-pocus romance between Kyle and Mary.

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