Sandcastle Secrets: A Black Cat Cozy Mystery (The Maggie and Pepper Mysteries Book 2) by Wendy Ledger

Author:Wendy Ledger [Ledger, Wendy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2023-02-06T16:00:00+00:00

13

Serena stood under the light on the porch.

“Hey,” Serena said. “I thought I would come over. Is it okay if I stay here tonight?”

“Of course,” I said. Then I began to feel embarrassed about the whole thing. “I’m sorry if our troubles have inconvenienced you.”

“No problem,” Serena said. “I think it’s good for your mom to spend time with my mom right now.”

Chief Phillips stood up at the table.

“I’m glad you have a friend here, Maggie,” he said. “I’ll just fill my thermos up and get back to work.” He turned to Serena. “I’ll be keeping watch. But you two don’t have to hear from me unless there’s something to report.”

With those words, he made his way into the kitchen and solemnly filled his thermos. He made it seem like a big deal, a sacred rite. If my mom had been here, she would’ve said I should’ve done that for him. But Chief Phillips had already helped me in the kitchen. He knew his way around.

“Let’s make cookies,” Serena whispered as Chief Phillips made his way out the door. “Snickerdoodles. Let’s surprise him.”

It seemed to me that it would be hard to fool Chief Phillips. He would hear the clatter in the kitchen and smell the cookies. But he was awfully preoccupied. Besides, it would be fun.

“Let’s.”

In the kitchen, Serena caught what I was humming and began to sing it aloud. “Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah.” We sang it soulfully. We sang it fast and silly. Pepper sang along with us, and then he would punctuate the song with a meow at the end.

“You’re a good singer,” Serena told him, and something in the way she said it made me think she wasn’t just referring to his meows. Or maybe her eyes twinkled because the smell of cinnamon was taking over the kitchen, and she looked forward to the cookies? I tried to see if I could figure out the answer from Pepper, but he just gave me a soulful “I love you” blink with his eyes.

When the first batch of cookies came out of the oven, I placed several on a plate and we all marched out there and presented it to Chief Phillips, who looked startled, grateful, and exhausted.

“More to come if you want them!” Serena told him, and we danced back to the kitchen. What was I humming? “Ode to Joy”?

But before starting the next batch, we sat at the table and sampled our work.

“Quite tasty,” I stated, veering off in a lower voice to a more important topic. “I think Chief Phillips was genuinely surprised by the cookies. But we were quite loud, and the whole house smelled delightful. He is an investigator. Right now, he’s on watch. And he didn’t even notice?”

Serena reached for a second cookie. Her fingers danced over the warmth. I imagined I could see the wheels turning as she carefully considered what she was about to say.

“One,” she said, “we have a murder and a disappearance wrapped up in a mystery.

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