Crumbs and Misdemeanors by Nancy Warren

Author:Nancy Warren [Warren, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ambleside Publishing
Published: 2021-03-17T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

All too soon I was back in the tent, standing at my workstation like a statue. Even after Hamish coached me, telling me that nothing was confirmed yet and things weren’t always as they appeared in murder cases, I couldn’t get over that Edward was the prime suspect in Eloise’s murder investigation.

Robbie, the sound guy, attached my mic pack. “You okay?” he asked. “You seem distracted.”

Oh, man. He was right. I was distracted, and I was going to have to fix that.

I smiled weakly and told him that I was worried about the showstopper. It had to be a knockout, otherwise I was getting knocked straight out of this competition.

“You’re still the favorite,” Robbie whispered, a sly grin on his face. “The crew’s got some bets going on who’ll win.” He leaned in. “I’ve got twenty quid on you. Don’t screw up.”

I cheered up immediately. Talk about putting your money where your mouth was. Then my stomach dropped. What if I lost? Then everyone in the crew who’d believed in me would lose money. I knew it was just for fun, like their poker games and the silly jokes they played on each other, but my stress level went up another notch.

“I hope you can afford to lose your twenty.”

“Everyone is allowed one bad day. You can pull it back. Just keep your head in the game.”

Huh. I’d heard that one before. As if it was that easy when (a) you couldn’t make delicious bread for the life of you, and (b) you were caught up in a murder investigation and couldn’t banish its details from your mind.

“Chin up,” Robbie said. “It’s going to be okay.”

I retied my apron and gave him a confident smile. If I couldn’t be confident for real, then I’d have to fake it to make it.

The countdown was on. In five minutes, I’d have to finish this whopper of a showstopper. I wasn’t even allowed to pull out the proving drawer yet to see if the dough had sufficiently risen. What was it that Eloise said? Not to let too many gas bubbles disappear. Argh. I couldn’t remember it all.

Suddenly it was all happening again. Sound: check. Lights: check. The cameras were poised and waiting. Fiona called action. It was showtime.

I opened the proving drawer with my breath held.

Phew. All four breads looked like they’d risen properly. I carefully slid them from their resting place and got ready to work that dough.

The problem was, my hands were shaking. “Calm down,” I whispered to my palms. “Pull yourselves together. You’re letting down the team.”

The bread basket was the shape that worried me most. During my endless hours of practice, it had either worked brilliantly or collapsed or burned to a brittle mess and then broken. I figured my chances were even. The idea was to shape the basket over an inverted bowl that had been covered with aluminum foil and bake it bowl and all. I’d begun with the wrong-shaped bowls—either too shallow or too deep or not wide enough.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.