Rum Cake Murder: A Frosted Love Cozy Mystery - Book 8 (Frosted Love Cozy Mysteries) Read Online Free PDF Page B

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Chapter 10
    Missy had been avoiding Cheryl because she didn’t know what to say to her, and couldn’t shake the thought that the sweet-seeming girl may very well have killed her stepfather, but when she received a text from her that said “ 911, please call me at the shop, ” she knew she had no choice but to respond.
    “Hi Cheryl, it’s Missy. What’s going on?”
    The young woman sounded panicked and spoke in a low voice. “Is there any way that you can come into the shop? I’ve had people calling me all morning to cancel their delivery and party orders. I have no idea what’s going on, and none of them will tell me why they’re cancelling. I don’t know what’s happening, or what to do.”
    Missy sighed, guessing that Loretta Christianson had been on the warpath, convincing the many friends that she had in various businesses, churches and organizations that Missy’s cupcakes were not to be trusted. “Okay Cheryl, I’ll be over there in a few, just make a stack of the requests to cancel, and I’ll call them back to see what I can find out,” she directed.
    Missy was numb. The LaChance shop had been started by her parents decades ago, and passed on to her after their tragic deaths when she was just seventeen. Baking for a living was the only life she’d ever known, and the thought of her beloved shops closing filled her with an unspeakable dread. She had to fight the lawsuit. One way or another, the truth had to set her free. She couldn’t fathom any other option.
    Going directly to her office off of the kitchen in the back of the shop, Missy did her best to avoid Cheryl, her greeting to the bewildered girl polite but short. Grayson and Cheryl exchanged a puzzled look at the owner’s cool indifference, but shrugged it off and kept working. Most of the patrons who had cancelled didn’t answer Missy’s calls, but the ones who did gave vague excuses and got off the phone as soon as possible. Some of them seemed quite cold to her, and after dealing with so many people who were just shy of being rude, she leaned her head in her hand and dumped the rest of the cancellation requests in the trash.
    Feeling as though her world was falling apart, she gathered her purse and stood to leave. A soft knock on her doorframe caused her to turn.
    “Ms. G., is everything okay?” Cheryl asked quietly, concern written over her features.
    “No, actually, nothing is okay, but I’m dealing with it the best way that I know how,” Missy snapped, immediately ashamed of her tone.
    “It’s about me, isn’t it? It’s because they think that I killed Stanley,” she mumbled, embarrassed. “You don’t think that I did it, do you?” she asked pitifully.
    Missy eyed her sadly for a long moment before responding.
    “Anymore, I have no idea what to think,” she said tiredly, brushing past the miserable girl. “You can let Grayson close up by himself if you need to go home. I don’t think we’re going to be getting much business for a while,” she tossed over her shoulder, heading out the door. When Ben called a few minutes later, asking if Chris could close up the Dellville store so that he could drive over and give Cheryl a ride home, she felt a twinge of conscience, knowing that the poor girl had probably fallen apart after she left. Taking the guilt over her treatment of Cheryl out on Ben, she told him that he needed to make sure that everything at the Dellville store was taken care of before he picked up his distraught former fiancé, knowing full well that he would never consider leaving his work undone. He sounded hurt when he hung up, making Missy feel like a first-class heel, but she allowed her frustration to convince her that she didn’t care, she was just being the boss.
    Driving home, Missy felt her fear and frustration building within her to the point where she felt like she just might explode. Charging up the back porch steps, she ran up to her bedroom and changed into exercise wear. Toffee, who had