“Kelly! Help!” she yelled, the second the phone disconnected. “I’ve got to turn out a special cake—tonight!”
Sam flipped through her recipe box for her special red-velvet. Since everything she baked at Taos’s 7,000 foot elevation required special altitude adjustments, she didn’t dare use a recipe from any old cookbook. “Can you whip this up and get it into the oven now?” she said, handing the card over to Kelly.
Bless her heart, Kelly didn’t skip a beat. She turned the oven dial to preheat and began pulling ingredients from the shelves. Sam muttered as she reached into her storage cabinets on the service porch. There were book-shaped pans somewhere in here and that would be the perfect thing for the store’s needs. After a heart-pounding moment in which she began to wonder if she’d given the pans away, she found them. Two pans, representing the halves of an open book. The overall size would be nearly twenty-five inches wide and three inches thick.
“Wash these out before you use them,” she told Kelly. “And as soon as you get the cake into the oven, we need the mixer for a batch of buttercream.”
Sam pulled another large mixing bowl from the shelf and the moment Kelly had finished beating the cake batter, Sam washed the beaters and started on the icing. As she whipped the creamy mixture to piping consistency she visualized the finished confection.
The cake would be an open book on a large board. Ivory frosting for the pages, a brown border to look like a leather cover, and she could dust on a whisper of edible gold powder to make the page edges appear gilt. Ivan’s favorite book of all times was Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities and she would borrow the opening line and pipe it on one of the cake’s open pages . . . “It was the best of times . . .” Roses in the store colors of burgundy and gold, with deep green leaves, would add drama and elegance.
She spooned out lumps of frosting for each of the colors. A tiny hint of brown to create the ivory, a small amount to be tinted green for the leaves, another little bit made black for the writing, and a good-sized glob that would become the burgundy roses. She worked them first, piping them onto small squares of waxed paper and setting them onto a cookie sheet to harden in the refrigerator. A few half-sized ones became rosebuds.
When the oven timer dinged to signal that the cake was done, the two women stared at each other in relief.
“That was a miracle,” Sam said. She set the timer again to remind her when to remove the cakes from the pans. At that point she set them on cooling racks on the service porch counter, to cool a little more quickly.
Kelly glanced up at the kitchen clock. Ten-fifteen. “Oh, boy. I better get to bed. I’m supposed to report for my new job at seventy-thirty in the morning.”
“Thanks for your help, Kell. I couldn’t have done all this without you.”
“Sure, Mom.” She sent a little kiss across the room.
Sam debated whether to try to finish the cake before retiring, herself, but decided that she was too tired. The day was catching up to her quickly.
In her room, she looked at the wooden box on her dresser. Like her own energy, the colors had faded once more.
Chapter 24
Twelve hours, Sam calculated. That was about how long the power of the box seemed to stay with her. She fell into bed, completely exhausted.
The alarm woke her Saturday morning. She’d remembered to set it, thank goodness, or she’d never get everything done today. She rushed to the kitchen and retrieved the cooled cake from the service porch. By the time Kelly appeared at seven, the ivory frosting was in place and Sam had scratched lines along the sides of it to represent the pages of the book.
She wished Kelly a good day on the new job and insisted she at least take along a granola bar or something to give her the energy to start the day.
Sam caught herself yawning as she dusted the edges of the pages with edible gold powder. Maybe it would help if she went in and held the magic box for awhile. She stopped herself. What if the thing were somehow addictive? What if she got so used to the energy it gave off that she couldn’t get through the day without it? The thought scared her. She brewed some coffee instead and downed a cup before proceeding with the cake.
By eight-thirty, she’d finished the wording and flowers and was putting the large sheet into the spare refrigerator to cool thoroughly and set up nicely before delivering it.
Still feeling like she was moving in slow motion, she scrambled a couple of eggs for herself and made a sandwich with them on whole wheat toast. She would not depend on the wooden box for energy.
Beau called just as she was finishing her sandwich.
“Hey there.” He had a sultry tone in his voice and she guessed that he wasn’t calling from home or office. They exchanged a few suggestive ideas that might have actually gone somewhere (she was home alone for a change), but he said he was up to his eyebrows in paperwork today and she was, almost literally, up to hers in frosting.
“Just wanted to let you know that we got the tox reports back on the tissue that the M.I. took from Cantone’s body. Your plant—the deathcamas—matches.”
“Oh gosh.” Sam got a sinking feeling. No matter how much her gut told her that Cantone had been murdered, she’d really hoped that he was merely an old man who got sick and didn’t recover. The idea that his own nephew killed him and buried him was repugnant.
“We still don’t have that proof,” Beau reminded her when she voiced her thoughts. “But I’m going to try to work with Santa Fe County to get Bart Killington brought up here for questioning. I’ll let you know how it goes.”
She cleaned the decorating tools and put everything away, thinking about Beau and wondering what questions he would ask Bart. The guy was so smooth, she couldn’t imagine him just buckling down to confess. But you never knew.
A quick call to Ivan, who said he was ready to take delivery on the cake, and she was out the door. His helpers at the bookstore were thrilled when she carried the cake in and set it on a table they’d prepared for it.
“Sam, you are the best!” Ivan said, bowing as he handed her a check. “Cake is better than I ever expect. The customers are to love it!”
Before leaving, she confirmed with him that the Chocoholics would be meeting again on Tuesday. He suggested another book-shaped cake for them, smaller, and done all in chocolate. She assured him she could do it.
On the front sidewalk there was a flurry of activity as Sam walked out. Two men were in a heated argument next to the bookstore, in front of a gourmet shop where Sam occasionally bought flavorings. She’d nearly passed them when a phrase caught her attention.
“I’ll have the Sheriff’s people out here with an eviction notice,” the shorter of the two men yelled.
“Well, go ahead,” said the other, turning on his heel. He nearly bumped into Sam, muttering under his breath, “Good luck in finding me.”
She sent a tentative smile his way but he’d already walked back into the shop and slammed the door.
Sheriff’s office, huh. Poor Beau, he must get every crummy job out there. She thought of him trying to solve murder cases while stepping in to deliver eviction notices and who knew what else.
She got to her truck and decided to give Rupert a call. “How would you like to skip out on writing for awhile and take a mountain drive with me?” she asked.