Pies & Peril - Culinary Competition Mystery #1

Chapter 1

(Amy)

Amy groaned when she bent to shut off the bathtub faucet. Her back muscles had more knots than a macramé plant hanger. The physical side effects of becoming a triple champion made her feel like she had been caught in a stampede of tap dancers from Ms. Carrie's Dance Academy. At least the difficult parts were done. The cake and cookie contests, which she had won, once again, were over. Tomorrow was the last day of the Summer Festival and the last contest was on the docket. Pie had never been one of her cooking specialties. Fussing with temperamental crust and inexplicably runny filling wasn't her thing, but finally, she decided to put on her big girl baker panties and enter the pie contest, like a good, uber-competitive amateur baker. No more slicing, mixing and rolling. There were only two things left to do—take the final version of the Bumble Apple Crumble Pie to the town hall and then watch Mandy Jo, the mean queen of the Kellerton Summer Festival pie contest, go down in flames. Considering Mandy Jo's legendary temper, she probably would self-combust when she lost after coming in first place for the last five years.

Before making the delivery, though, a long soak in a hot bath was in order. Amy flipped on the tub's jets, sunk into the frothy water and settled her head onto the squishy, seashell-shaped pillow. The hum of the motor sounded kind of like the expensive white noise machine she had seen on an infomercial once. The weird noise was supposed to help insomniacs fall asleep. Sure enough, she was soon lulled into a drowsy stupor. An hour later she finally crawled out of the tub. She swiped a towel over the fogged mirror and sighed. The humidity had taken a toll on her hair. A halo of frizzy, blonde ringlets, dripping with sweat, framed her face. There was no way she could deliver the pie looking like that. She wasn't a hairstylist anymore, but she had a reputation to uphold. A little anti-frizz serum and a fresh ponytail should do the trick.

Her fingers were wrinkled like raisins as she tamed the unwanted hair fuzz. Raisins had recently been nixed from the pie recipe, banished for adding uneven pockets of sweetness to the filling. She had lost track of the number of hours spent on perfecting the ultimate apple pie. Vinegar or sugar in the crust, thick or thin apple slices, pecans or walnuts in the crumble. Dozens of pies later, after spending an obscene amount of hours tinkering with the recipe, it was perfect. She never had to work so hard to fine-tune her prize-winning cookies and cakes. At first, she delivered outcast pies to the neighbors. When they started giving her the stink eye for showing up at their front doors for the third or fourth time with unsolicited desserts, she began sending the duds to work with her husband, Alex. His employees were like a flock of ravenous vultures. The pie plates always came home licked clean, although she didn't like to think too much about who might be doing the actual licking. Ugh.

She was so happy she almost slid down the banister. Almost. Discretion took over, and she skipped down the steps instead of risking a backflip into the foyer. A neck brace would ruin the photos when she was crowned the Pie Queen, and that would happen. She had tasted Mandy Jo's pies at a couple of wedding showers and one funeral. Impressive considering that when they both worked at Elegance Salon, Mandy Jo had insisted she couldn't even cook blue box macaroni and cheese. Still, her pies couldn't compare to the masterpiece sitting on a cooling rack in Amy's kitchen. She walked around the corner and plummeted into the horrible land of an instantaneous panic attack.

The pie was gone.

Amy ripped out a couple strands of hair from the center of her ponytail. Ouch. The pie didn't magically reappear so she wasn't trapped in a dream. The pie gods had unleashed some kind of real-life nightmare on her for some reason.

Maybe, confused by baking-induced sleep deprivation, she had put it in the refrigerator. A couple boxes of Chinese take-out, the usual array of condiment bottles, a six-pack of Alex's fancy beer...no pie. She checked the freezer, the pantry, and even the laundry room. The pie was really gone. Amy collapsed on an upholstered bench in the breakfast nook. Her legs weren't going to hold her up much longer. The trauma had made her knees weak, along with her ankles and various other body parts. If the pie didn't turn up soon, she'd end up living in a padded room instead of sitting on an overstuffed cushion. Sweat dribbled from her newly smoothed hairline. Her heart was trying to pound its way out of her chest. The effects were similar to doing dance aerobics in a sauna. She had never taken a class even remotely like that, but if it did exist she could sympathize with anybody crazy enough to torture themselves in that way. She needed help from someone who was used to emergency situations and could think under pressure. Amy grabbed her cell phone, which had been on top of the flour canister in the pantry, and called Carla, her best friend and a skilled emergency room nurse.