Town In a Lobster Stew by Haywood B.B

Author:Haywood, B.B.
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group, Inc.
Published: 2011-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY

The subject line at the top of the e-mail read, Fwd: For Candy Holliday’s Eyes Only.

Just as Ben had said.

She’d seen these types of e-mails before. Usually they were complaints. But it didn’t look like Wanda’s handiwork this time. She usually wanted anyone and everyone to read her letters and e-mails—as many people as possible. Never before had she labeled one of her messages this way.

Candy took a few moments to mentally prepare herself. When she felt she was ready for whatever she might read, she positioned the mouse and tapped the laptop’s touchpad. The e-mail opened. She dropped her gaze to the text in the lower pane.

It was short and to the point: The wrong person won the cook-off. Contact me if you want to know what really happened.

It was signed Cinnamon Girl.

Candy felt goose bumps rise on her arm as a cool breeze blew down from the blueberry fields and across the porch. She rubbed at her arms and leaned back.

The wrong person won the cook-off? At first glance, she’d say Ben was right—it did sound like a complaint, at least on its surface.

But it was the sign-off that gave her pause.

Cinnamon Girl.

Was that a coincidence? Or was someone trying to tell her something? Was there a hidden meaning in the name?

There was only one way to find out.

Still, she hesitated, knowing she should think carefully before taking a step deeper into the mystery. Sometimes when you stepped in too far, it became impossible to step back out, as she had found out. The last time she’d taken such a step, she had put herself and others in danger. Was she certain she wanted to put herself in possible danger again?

This had all started with a stolen lobster stew recipe, she reminded herself—a fairly nonthreatening mystery. Now someone had died. That changed the situation completely, and it made her pause, as any person with a dab of common sense would.

In the end, though, she knew she had to do it. But she resolved to be smarter about it this time.

She clicked the reply button, which opened a new window, and looked at the name in the address field’s To line. It was addressed to CinnamonGirl, followed by a series of five numbers, at a Gmail account.

Candy typed, Okay, I’m interested. What do you know? and before she could think about it any more, she hit the send button in the upper left corner of the screen.

She waited.

Doc walked past again, still whistling and carrying a glass of iced tea. She hadn’t even noticed him going into the house. He walked off the porch and headed across the gravel driveway, past the Jeep and his old Ford pickup, to the barn again.

Candy decided to follow him—at least partway. A little walk would help clear her mind, so she could focus on her article. She rose, set the laptop on a nearby wooden bench, and started after her father, though she angled off behind the barn, where she kept her chickens.

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