Fugitive Filling

JESSICA BECK

THE DONUT MYSTERIES, BOOK 24

FUGITIVE FILLING

Donut Mystery #24 Fugitive Filling

Copyright © 2016 by Jessica Beck All rights reserved.

First Edition: February 2016

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Recipes included in this book are to be recreated at the reader’s own risk. The author is not responsible for any damage, medical or otherwise, created as a result of reproducing these recipes. It is the responsibility of the reader to ensure that none of the ingredients are detrimental to their health, and the author will not be held liable in any way for any problems that might arise from following the included recipes.

The First Time Ever Published!

The 24th Donut Mystery.

Jessica Beck is the
New York Times
Bestselling Author of the Donut Mysteries, the Classic Diner Mysteries, the Ghost Cat Cozy Mysteries, and the Cast Iron Cooking Mysteries.

To P & E,

Always and forever, my reasons why!

When the new attorney in April Springs is found dead soon after a public spat with Jake, Suzanne and her husband must team up to solve the woman’s murder before they are both set up to take the fall for a crime neither one committed. Added to the intrigue in her life is news from Suzanne’s mother that very well may change the donut maker’s life forever.

Chapter 1

“S
uzanne, is he still here?”
my assistant, Emma Blake, asked me as I brought in one of the last trays from the display cases in the front of Donut Hearts.

The “he” in question was Jake Bishop, my husband. Jake had spent most of his career with the North Carolina state police, but after leaving them, he’d reluctantly taken over the reins of the local April Springs law enforcement office as a favor to our friend, the mayor. As acting chief, Jake had been embroiled in a great deal of small-town intrigue, but recently he’d resigned that post as well. Since then, he’d claimed to enjoy his “break” from gainful employment, but I knew my husband. He was getting antsy. Lately he’d begun to come by my donut shop in the morning, grab a coffee and an out-of-town newspaper, and settle in until I got off work.

“He has every right to be,” I told Emma. “Jake’s worked hard his entire life. He’s entitled to a vacation.”

“A vacation I understand,” young Emma said, “but why aren’t you two at the beach where it’s warm, instead of here? I just heard the forecast, and in three days we’re expecting sleet and freezing rain. That doesn’t sound like any vacation I’d like to take.”

“Jake may be free, but we have a donut shop to run,” I reminded her.

“You know my mother and I would be happy to sub for you any time. Just say the word.”

Emma and her mother, Sharon—a sweet woman I sometimes accidently called Cheryl because she reminded me so much of an old college friend I’d once had by that name—took over for me occasionally, and more recently, they were running the donut shop two days a week on a regular basis. It had been difficult for me to give up that much control. I couldn’t imagine asking them to step in even more just so I could have a little time off with my husband. Then again, why shouldn’t I? Emma was right. Some warm weather might be just what the doctor ordered.

“Thanks. I’ll think about it,” I said as I walked back up front, leaving Emma with the last of the dishes for the day. I smiled as I grabbed the coffee pot and topped my husband’s mug. “Are you sure I can’t get you any treats?”

Jake patted his waistline. “Thanks, but I’ve put on two pounds since I left police work. I’ve got to watch it, or I won’t be able to fit into my pants.”

“I wish I had your willpower,” I said. Mostly I stayed away from the donuts and other treats that I made, but I had to sample the new recipes, didn’t I? Maybe not a whole donut every time, but hey, there were times that you needed to experience the entire thing before you knew for sure whether it was any good or not. At least that’s what I always managed to convince myself of. “Emma thinks we need a vacation.”

“I’m on one,” Jake said as he put the paper aside. “Why would I need another one?”

“She meant one with me. We could always get away to the coast for a little time off,” I said. “I hate the thought of you just sitting here every day waiting for me to get off work.”

“I didn’t realize it bothered you,” Jake said with a frown.

As he started to get up, I smiled and put a hand on his shoulder, gently shoving him back down into his seat. “Slow down. Don’t go jumping to conclusions. I love having you here. I’m just worried that you’re getting bored.”

He settled back into his seat. “Suzanne, I risked my life so much on the job that it’s actually kind of nice being a little bored.”

“So, you admit that you’re bored,” I said.

“That’s not what I meant. I’m just trying to enjoy the absence of stress in my life for a change. I never realized just how much of it I was holding in until it was all gone. If you’d like to take a trip though, I’m on board. Would you like to get away?”

“Not unless you do,” I said. “The truth is that I’d rather wait until it starts warming up a little. This is my busiest time of year, but I could easily spare a week in the summer. I doubt April Springs would even notice that I was gone.”

“Then let’s plan to go somewhere then, assuming that I’m not working again by then.”

That surprised me. Jake hadn’t said a word about going back to work since he’d resigned as acting chief of police and handing the job over to his second in command, Stephen Grant. Stephen also happened to be the boyfriend of my best friend, Grace Gauge. I know it must sound kind of inbred, but that’s what happens in a small town. The cashier at my bank also happened to be married to the grocery store manager, and their daughter worked at the dry cleaner’s. Most of our lives touched in some way or another on a daily basis. “What do you think you might like to do?”

“I’ve been giving it some serious thought, and I might try my hand at opening a donut shop of my own,” he said with a grin. “You wouldn’t mind a little competition, would you?”

“I had no idea that’s what you wanted to do,” I answered with a grin of my own as I handed him my keys. “You can have this one, if that’s what you want.”

Jake held his hands in front of him, refusing to take them. “Okay, you got me. I was bluffing. The truth is, I don’t know how you do this every day.”

“I take two days off a week now, remember? I used to work all seven.”

“How that didn’t drive you insane is beyond me,” Jake said.

“You didn’t answer my question. What else would you like to do?”

“I’m really not sure,” he admitted. “That’s why I haven’t said anything to you about it yet. I know I can’t just retire, not at my age. I’m just having a hard time coming up with a new game plan for the rest of my life. Don’t worry. Once I do think of something, you’ll be the first person I tell.”

“I certainly hope so,” I said. “Don’t rush your decision on my account, though. I kind of like having you around.”

“I very much appreciate hearing that. I like being here, too. You don’t have to worry about me doing anything rashly. I’m not in any rush. I just thought I should let you know that I’m pondering the situation.” Jake frowned for a moment, and then he said, “In the spirit of full disclosure, there’s something else I need to talk to you about.”

I didn’t care for the serious expression on his face. “Go on, I’m listening.”

“It can wait until you close for the day,” Jake said.

“Cool.” I walked over to the sign and flipped it from OPEN to CLOSED. “We are now officially closed for business.” Since I didn’t have any customers at the moment, it was easy enough to do, and besides, we had less than a dozen donuts left in inventory anyway. “Now talk.”

Jake stretched his shoulders a bit as he bit his lower lip, a sure sign to me that he really wasn’t ready to talk about whatever was on his mind. “How about if we do discuss it on our walk to the bank? I’d feel better not having to make eye contact with you while I tell you.”

“Boy, this is going to be bad, isn’t it?” I had a knot growing in my gut the size of a baseball. What was going on?

“It’s not good, I’ll admit that much, but we can handle it.”

His explanation didn’t comfort me at all. In fact, I was more concerned now than I had been before. What could be so bad that he didn’t want to have to face me to talk about it? “I won’t be long.”

I boxed the last of the donuts into one container, and then I took the final dirty dishes to Emma. “We’re now officially closed.”

“We have another fifteen minutes,” she protested as she glanced at the clock in the kitchen. “It’s not because of something I said, is it?”

“Of course not,” I replied, not wanting to get into it with her, mostly because I didn’t know what was going on myself. I started imagining several worst-case scenarios, but I had to kill that line of speculation immediately. After all, there was no use borrowing trouble. I’d find out in a few minutes anyway. Forcing myself to keep my mind calm, I ran the reports as I cashed out the drawer in the register. Thank goodness it balanced out. After putting the cash and credit card receipts into the deposit bag, I added the slip and zippered it shut. Sweeping the floor quickly, I turned to find Emma exiting the kitchen. “Do you need any help out here?”

“No, I’m good,” I said as I handed her the spare donuts. “Do you have a good home for these?”

“Thanks, I appreciate it. That would be great,” she said.

“Then take them with my blessing. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

“You’re not working tomorrow, remember?” Emma asked. “You’re off for the next two days, unless you want to change the schedule.”

“That’s right. I remember. I’ll see you in three days, then.”

She stood close to me and whispered, “Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine,” I whispered. “Enjoy those donuts.”

“Oh, they aren’t for me,” she answered with a grin.

“Is there by any chance a new young man in your life?”

She grinned. “His name is Chance. I met him in my Econ class.”

“Is that really his name?” I asked her.

“So he says,” she replied. “See you.”

“Bye.”

“Later, Jake,” Emma added as she exited the building.

My husband offered her a truncated smile. “Bye.” Once she’d exited, he asked, “Is she in love again?”

“Emma loves falling in love.”

“I hope she doesn’t get hurt again,” Jake said.

“You sound protective of her.”

“I am. Nobody has to tell me how hard it is to find someone in this world to love. I happened to get lucky twice.”

It was a sweet thing for him to say, and also a reminder that his first wife, who’d died in a car accident while pregnant with their only child, rarely left his thoughts. I had never tried to compete with her. In fact, I loved hearing the stories Jake told about his life before we met. In a way, getting to know her through him brought the two of us that much closer together. Only now it appeared that something was threatening that.

“Let’s go,” I said as I turned off the lights and grabbed the deposit bag.

“You didn’t have to rush on my account,” he said.

“I didn’t. I rushed on mine. I’m not at all sure I can take this suspense.”

“Suzanne, whatever it is that you’re imagining, I can promise you that it’s not as bad as you think,” Jake said with a frown.

“I’ll reserve judgment until I learn what it is that you’re so reluctant to tell me,” I said. “Hang on a second.” I was ninety-nine percent certain that I’d shut off the fryer when I’d made our last donut for the day, but I couldn’t take a chance on burning the place down just because I was in a hurry to get out of there. When I checked, I saw that it was indeed off, as I knew it would be, and everything in back was in perfect order.

It was just too bad that my head and my heart weren’t.

“We’re all good,” I said, and then, in a soft voice, I asked, “Aren’t we?”

“Of course we are,” Jake said as he hugged me.

Whew. I could barely contain my sigh of relief. Whatever the problem might be, it wasn’t with us, and I knew that we could deal with anything else, as long as we were together.

Once we were outside and the front door was locked behind us, I said, “Quit stalling and talk.”

“After we stop by the bank,” Jake insisted.

“Why do we have to wait until then?”

“Because I know you, Suzanne. Once you hear what I’ve got to tell you, you’re going to forget all about making that deposit.”

That would have to be bad indeed. “Are you sure that you still want to tell me?”

“The truth of the matter is that I should have said something to you last night at dinner about what happened, but I wasn’t sure if I should, and by the time I decided to bite the bullet and tell you everything, you were already asleep.”

“Why did you change your mind?” I asked as I began to walk quickly toward the bank.

“Because I was afraid of how you might react if you heard about it from someone else.”

“Me?” I asked, pretending to be surprised by the conclusion he’d jumped to. “Why did you think that? You should know me well enough by now to realize that I’m a levelheaded kind of gal if there ever was one.”

Jake didn’t even laugh at my attempt at a joke, and I knew that whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be just laughed away. I made the deposit as quickly as I could while Jake waited out in the parking lot for me. Once I came back out, I said, “I’m not taking another step until you tell me what’s going on.”

“Okay. You’re right. I can’t put this off one second longer. It’s about Teresa Logan.”

The young attorney had recently taken over the office building I’d inherited from my father. George Morris, the mayor of our fair city, had urged me to do it, and against my better judgment, I’d agreed. It wasn’t that Teresa wasn’t a good attorney or that I thought she would be a bad tenant. I just didn’t want her to have any more interactions with my husband than could be helped. She flirted with him shamelessly whenever she saw him, even if I was standing right there, and I wasn’t a fan of her behavior, though I’d seen her do the same thing with other men in town. “What about her?”

“She got a little too familiar with me yesterday afternoon, and I’m afraid that I reacted badly.”

I bit my lower lip for a moment before I trusted myself to speak. “What happened?” I wasn’t happy to hear that whatever was going on involved Teresa Logan, but I was trying not to overreact until I heard the whole story.

Jake took in a deep breath and then let it out slowly before he spoke. “I was at the bottom of the steps leaving the Boxcar Grill with our dinner last night, and Teresa was on her way in. There’s no other way of telling this that’s going to make it sound any better than it was, so I’m just going to spit it out. She tried to kiss me, Suzanne.”

“She what!” I’m afraid my calm demeanor was now gone. I knew that Teresa had been toying with my husband for several months, but until the night before, she’d never acted on it. “How many times?”

“What are you talking about? That was the first, and the last. I’m afraid I lost my cool, and I started yelling at her to leave me alone, that I was a happily married man. She didn’t even look embarrassed when I yelled at her. All she said was, ‘If you ever change your mind, you know where to find me. You are a special man, and if you ever get tired of donuts, you should come try some crème brûlée.’”

“Tell me that she didn’t really say that,” I said, clenching and unclenching my fists.