Donut Disturb--A Bakeshop Mystery by Ellie Alexander

Author:Ellie Alexander
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Chapter Sixteen

I felt my throat tighten. Nat knew who killed Brett? From the harsh way he was clenching his jaw and his serious gaze, I had to guess he wasn’t going to say Jamie.

“You see, I saw something that I wasn’t supposed to.” He put the testing supplies away while he spoke. “I got here early the morning of the wedding. I always do when we have an event of that magnitude in the park. My wife calls me a control freak, but I’ve been doing this long enough to know where everything goes and how to efficiently set up without extra hassle or work. The summer crew is a bunch of high school and college students who I can never keep in line. Half the time they flake and don’t show up on time.”

“Getting an early start makes sense.” I wasn’t sure I agreed with him on this point. I was the opposite. I trusted my young team, and was thankful that I didn’t have to bear the load of running the bakeshop alone.

“Dani and Brett from Heart Strings were here at the crack of dawn.”

“They were?” I interrupted. No one had mentioned that, at least not to me.

“Yep. It was odd. We deal with a lot of performers, and never do they show up early. Usually we’re having to chase down band members or dancers to get their sound checks in. But not these two. They were on the stage shortly after seven.”

That was early, not for me, but Dani had said herself that they were used to pulling late nights. “Do you think they were eager to practice?” Even as I said it, I doubted that was true. Heart Strings was a seasoned trio. Aside from making sure their mics worked, I couldn’t imagine why they would need to warm up hours before the wedding.

“I got on Brett right away about his instrument. The guy was super disrespectful. He couldn’t care less about my band shell. He was dragging his bass across my stage. Gutting my stage. Drag marks everywhere. I warned him that they were going to have to pay for any damage they did.”

“Why would he drag his instrument?” That didn’t sound like something a professional musician would do. I also found it interesting that Nat referred to the band shell and stage as “his.” Lithia Park belonged to all of us.

“I don’t have the foggiest idea, and frankly I don’t care. I warned him to stop and went about my business.”

Where was he going with this?

Nat fiddled with a Swiss Army knife clipped to his belt buckle. “I was running around the park for a good hour, doing our normal maintenance checks. When I got back to the band shell, they were still there. Only both of them had snuck into my storage area underground.”

“Snuck in?” I repeated.

He nodded. “I caught them in there. I shouldn’t have left it unlocked. Usually I keep everything under lock and key, but with setup for the wedding and reception, I knew there were going to be people in and out of there all day.

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