Read Online A Deadly Delicious Delivery (A Chocolate Centered Cozy Mystery Book 2) by Cindy Bell - Free Book Online

chocolates. “Can you do anything with these?”
    “No, but I need to keep them,” he said as he took them from her. “Like I said, they can’t be considered evidence. But if you’re right, and the chocolates were switched, then yes, someone really is trying to frame you, or your grandmother. I’ll look into competitors or anyone that might have had something against the shop. In the meantime, promise me that you will not dig yourself any deeper into a jail cell, okay?”
    Ally shivered at the thought. “I’ll try.”
    “Ally?” She looked up at him. “Get a lawyer.” He turned and walked away from her. As she watched him go a mixture of emotions plagued her. Part of her was intrigued by how determined he was to try and help her, another part was infuriated that he couldn’t use his influence to protect her. As she walked back to the car the weight of the impending arrest warrant was almost too much for her.
    “Ally? What’s wrong? I heard the sirens.”
    Ally sunk down in the passenger seat. “It did not go well.”
    “What happened?”
    “I was caught. Freely Lakes apparently has a great security guard.” Her thoughts returned briefly to the man who had clearly recognized her. Jensen. The name didn’t summon up any faces from her memory.
    “But you weren’t arrested?” Charlotte sighed with relief.
    “No. Luke was there. Otherwise I probably would have been.”
    “Oh, good thing he was there! Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on him.”
    Ally tightened her lips. “Yes, good thing.” She stared out the window for the duration of the short drive back to the cottage.
     
    ***
     
    Back at the cottage Ally stood by the dining room table.
    “Look at this.” Ally showed Charlotte the crime scene photo of the box of chocolates again. “I don’t think that’s the box that I packaged the chocolates in, Mee-Maw. The boxes you gave me had gold not red writing.”
    “Oh, you’re right.” Charlotte clicked her fingers.
    “I found a box of chocolates in Myrtle’s room, but Luke took them from me. I think it’s the one that we took to the open house. I found it in the air vent. Obviously someone hid it there. The only question is, why would anyone hide it?”
    “This is getting more confusing by the minute.” Charlotte frowned as she sat down at the table next to Ally. She looked up at her granddaughter. “Are you going to tell me what happened with Luke?”
    “Nothing. He let me go.” She shrugged.
    “Really?” Charlotte studied her. “Something tells me that there is more to it than that.”
    “Mee-Maw, we can’t worry about that now. We have to focus on the chocolates. Look, we know now that the poisoned chocolates didn’t come from our shop. Someone else made the walnut, expresso creams, and those are the chocolates that were poisoned.”
    “Right.” Charlotte nodded. “But who? And why? And how?”
    “They aren’t very easy to make,” Ally said.  “How would someone replicate the chocolates? Unless…”
    “Unless what?” Charlotte asked.
    “We had left over coffee cream in the fridge.”
    “Do you think someone broke in and took it?”
    “It’s possible.” Ally sat further forward. “Do you remember seeing it the morning after the murder?”
    “No,” Charlotte said. “But I wasn’t looking out for it. It won’t be there now anyway, the police would have taken it.”
    “So, that’s probably how they made the chocolates.”
    “We still need to work out the who and why,” Charlotte said.
    “Myrtle had a business card on her bedside table for a lawyer. Maybe he’ll have an idea of why someone would want her dead.”
    “Maybe.”
    “Did she have any other family?”
    “Well, I can tell you this, Myrtle was worth a good amount of money. When her parents died, she was in her twenties, and her little sister, Stephanie, was still a minor. Her parents had left her everything in the will, on the condition that she would care for the younger girl. Which Myrtle did.