Chapter 16
Glaze
Recipe Tip: A thin glaze shows what's underneath. Too much, and you hide the flavor. Too little, and you miss what was there all along.
Tessa didn't return to the bakery immediately.
She sat in her car outside the Copper Kettle with both hands wrapped around the steering wheel.
Pretzel sat in the passenger seat.
He had somehow acquired another napkin.
Tessa stared at him.
"Where did you get that?"
Pretzel blinked.
"Never mind."
She looked through the windshield.
People wandered along Main Street carrying shopping bags and paper cups.
Festival music drifted through the open windows of nearby shops.
Everything looked ordinary.
That was the problem.
Nothing about murder was supposed to look ordinary.
Yet Larkspur Falls had managed to make it look almost cozy.
Tessa closed her eyes.
She needed to think.
Not guess.
Think.
The banana bread at the Copper Kettle had smelled exactly like the loaf beside Garrick.
Maple.
Orange.
Walnut.
The same crumb.
The same glossy crust.
And she had never made it.
Someone else had.
Someone who had access to the festival kitchens.
Someone who knew Garrick.
Someone who could get close enough to replace her loaf.
Tessa opened her eyes.
Friday.
The coatroom.
She remembered Pretzel disappearing.
She remembered following him.
She remembered the argument.
Fiona.
Desmond.
The auction knives.
The certificates.
And then—
the blue object.
Tessa sat up.
"Wait."
Pretzel looked at her.
"The blue thing."
She had put it in her pocket without looking.
Then she'd brought it back to the bakery.
Then she'd forgotten about it.
Until the next morning, when Pretzel had knocked it out from beneath her desk.
The injector cap.
Tessa reached into her purse.
She still had it.
She placed it on the dashboard.
Tiny.
Blue.
Unremarkable.
Except now it seemed to glow.
Her memory began replaying Friday night.
Pretzel escaping the tote.
His enormous gray body disappearing between coats.
Tessa chasing him.
The argument.
She could almost hear Fiona's voice again.
"Someone will compare those numbers."
Desmond's answer.
"Stop talking about it."
Then Pretzel had appeared.
Blue object in his mouth.
At the time, she'd thought it was a button.
A piece of trash.
Something from someone's coat.
But Pretzel hadn't found it on the floor.
He had come out of the coatroom carrying it.
Tessa frowned.
"Whose coat?"
She closed her eyes again.
There had been several.
Fiona's red scarf.
A festival volunteer's green jacket.
Desmond's dark wool coat.
She remembered it because Pretzel had nearly disappeared beneath it.
Tessa opened her eyes.
Desmond's coat.
She stared at the injector cap.
"No."
The word came quietly.
Pretzel tilted his head.
"No."
She started the car.
Back at Second Rise, Tessa spread everything across the counter.
The blue cap.
The ledger corner.
The leather knife roll marked T.B.
Her notebook.
And the crumpled napkin from the Copper Kettle.
She looked at them one by one.
Then she wrote:
BLUE CAP — FRIDAY COATROOM
Underneath:
DESMOND'S COAT
Then:
WALNUT brEAD — GARRICK
Then:
DESMOND KNEW DELIVERY PLAN
Her pen stopped.
That one mattered.
She went back to Wednesday.
She remembered the conversation with Desmond.
His kindness.
His concern.
His suggestion.
"Take him banana bread."
And then—
"Leave it in the pass-through box on the forge porch."
Tessa stared at the sentence.
She had never told Desmond that Garrick used the pass-through box.
Not exactly.
She had mentioned she was going to bring an apology loaf.
Desmond had supplied the rest.
At the time, it hadn't seemed strange.
Why would it?
Desmond knew everyone.
He knew Garrick.
He knew the forge.
He knew the festival.
He knew the town.
He was the person everyone trusted.
The man who remembered birthdays.
The man who donated restaurant meals to the volunteer crews.
The man who had defended Tessa after the Harvest Festival scandal.
The man who had told people she deserved another chance.
Her champion.
Tessa swallowed.
"What did you know, Desmond?"
Pretzel jumped onto the counter.
He sniffed the leather knife roll.
"Don't."
Pretzel sniffed again.
"That's Garrick's."
The cat looked at her.
Then sat directly on it.
"You're very helpful."
Pretzel began washing his paw.
Tessa looked back at her notes.
There was another detail.
The knot.
She remembered tying the banana bread package on Wednesday.
Her grandmother had taught her the same knot when she was seven.
Two loops.
Cross.
Pull.
Another loop.
A double bow.
Secure enough to survive a bakery delivery and pretty enough that her grandmother insisted it mattered.
Tessa had tied hundreds of them.
Maybe thousands.
She knew her knot.
But when she'd found Garrick, the loaf's wrapping had been tied differently.
She hadn't noticed at first.
She'd been too shocked.
Too frightened.
But later—
the memory had bothered her.
The knot had been wrong.
A granny knot.
Simple.
Sloppy.
Not hers.
Tessa grabbed a piece of twine.
She tied her grandmother's double bow.
Then untied it.
Then tied a granny knot.
She stared at both.
The difference was small.
Almost invisible unless you knew what to look for.
But Tessa knew.
She had been tying that double bow since childhood.
She had never delivered that loaf with a granny knot.
Someone had untied her package.
Someone had replaced the bread.
Someone had retied it.
Tessa's stomach tightened.
The murderer hadn't simply poisoned her bread.
They had used her bread as camouflage.
They wanted everyone to believe Garrick had eaten what she delivered.
And someone had needed her to be the person who delivered it.
She looked at her list.
Blue cap.
Desmond's coat.
Walnut bread.
Wrong knot.
Desmond knew about the delivery.
Her pen trembled slightly.
There were too many coincidences now.
She tried to find another explanation.
Renata?
No.
Her hotel record placed her elsewhere.
Bertie?
He had been at the forge, but there was no reason for him to know about Tessa's delivery plan.
Fiona?
She had the walnuts, but her loaf was different.
Lorna?
She knew about the allergy, but she had an alibi.
Theo?
He knew Garrick liked Tessa's bread, but not enough to explain everything.
Desmond?
Tessa stopped.
She didn't want to write his name.
She wrote it anyway.
DESMOND
The word looked wrong.
Almost offensive.
She crossed it out.
Then wrote it again.
DESMOND
Pretzel lifted his head.
Tessa looked at him.
"Don't."
Pretzel blinked.
"He's been helping us."
The cat's ears moved.
"He brought us dinner."
Pretzel stared.
"He defended me."
A pause.
"He told me to trust the police."
Pretzel stared harder.
Tessa sighed.
"You're not making this easier."
She walked to the front window.
Outside, Larkspur Falls was preparing for the final night of the festival.
Families wandered toward the gala.
Lights shimmered across Main Street.
Children chased each other between booths.
Somewhere, music played.
It was beautiful.
Safe.
Familiar.
And suddenly Tessa understood why she had struggled to see it.
She had been looking for someone who seemed dangerous.
Someone angry.
Someone bitter.
Someone with a reason to hate Garrick.
But what if the person she needed to fear was the opposite?
Someone generous.
Someone calm.
Someone who knew exactly what to say.
Someone everyone believed.
Someone who had been standing beside her while she searched for the killer.
Tessa turned from the window.
Her eyes landed on the ledger corner.
Knife numbers.
Forged certificates.
Charity auctions.
Desmond's name wasn't written anywhere.
But it didn't have to be.
A thin glaze could hide what was underneath.
So could kindness.
So could charm.
So could a smile.
Tessa slowly picked up the blue injector cap.
Her fingers closed around it.
For the first time, she wasn't asking whether Desmond could have done it.
She was asking how many things had to be true before coincidence stopped being an explanation.
And the answer frightened her.
Because almost everything pointed toward the man who had been her champion.
The man who had encouraged her to bake the apology loaf.
The man who knew where she was taking it.
The man who had been near the auction records.
The man whose coat had been close to Pretzel when the blue cap appeared.
The man who had spent the entire week telling her she could trust everyone—
except herself.
Tessa whispered his name.
"Desmond."
Pretzel's ears went forward.
And somewhere outside, the church bell rang six times.
Tessa looked toward the door.
Tomorrow was the gala.
And if she was right, the man she had trusted most was going to be there.