Connie Shelton - Sweet Masterpiece

Sweet Masterpiece

The First Samantha Sweet Mystery

By Connie Shelton

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Connie Shelton

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced ortransmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage andretrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.In other words, if you copy and share this book with anyone elseyou are in violation of international copyright law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names,characters, places and incidents are either the product of theauthors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance toactual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirelycoincidental. Although the author and publisher have made everyeffort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of informationcontained in this book we assume no responsibility for errors,inaccuracies, omissions or any inconsistency herein. Any slights ofpeople, places or organizations are unintentional.

Book layout and design by Secret StaircaseBooks

Cover image Robertas Pezas

Fiction Categories:

Mystery/Female Sleuth/RomanticSuspense/Paranormal Mystery

Chapter 1

Chocolate icing shot out of the pastry bag asSamantha Sweet tested the consistency of her newest batch. Theridges held shape. Perfect. She picked up a triple-chocolate Kahluacupcake and proceeded to pipe a thick base of chocolate buttercreamon it. On top of that, a smaller cone, which she built up thentapered to form a snout. Two perky ears. Switching to a small roundtip she quickly added short fur and watched as the cupcake became ashaggy puppys head. White chocolate eyes with dark chocolateirises. White chocolate tinted pink for its tiny tongue.

Sam smiled at the happy little face she hadcreated. Set him down and started another. The order was for theTuesday night book group and local chapter of ChocoholicsUnanimous. Every detail, right down to the dogs collars, had to bechocolate, and Sam enjoyed matching the theme of the weekly treatsto that of the book they were reading, in this case a storyfeaturing a dog walker. Unlike typical anonymous twelve-stepgroups, this bunch celebrated their addiction. They reveled in theutter enjoyment of all things chocolate. There was absolutely nointention of overcoming their mutual habit. Sam wasntcomplainingthe weekly order gave a nice boost to her fledglinglittle home business. And someday... a shop... SweetsSweets.

She added the final touches to a schnauzer,then covered the bowl of chocolate cream and put it in the fridge.Chided herself as she licked a gob of the frosting from herfingerwhere did she think those extra pounds came from? She ranhot water and detergent into a bowl and tossed all the implementsinto it to soak until she could get back.

She had to break into a house and she wasrunning late.

Sam rechecked the address, debated hitchingup her utility trailer and decided against it. This wasnt supposedto be that big a job. The pickup should handle it fine.

The house turned out to be a flat-roofedadobe with traditional two-foot-thick walls, on the south side ofTaos. She backed into the driveway, a long one that led to the backof the place. Getting out, she circled the whole house, checkingdoors and windows for anything inadvertently left open. Shecouldnt remember how many times shed gone to a huge effort topick a lock or drill a deadbolt, just to find out that the backdoor was unlocked all along. Talk about frustrating.

No such luck this time. The traditionalblue-painted doors were all buttoned up tight. She pulled out hertool bag and analyzed the lock on the back door. They were almostalways less beefy than front doors, for some stupid reason. Andthat held true at this place. Rather than drill the lock, whichthen required that she replace it before leaving, she decided tosee if she could pick this one. One of these days she would seeabout getting one of those little triggered pick guns, but at themoment all she could afford were standard picks, which take twohands and a lot of patience to operate. It was nothing like itlooked in the movies, she quickly discovered when she began thisline of work.

She worked the picks for close to fiveminutes before feeling the telltale release of the tumblers. Blewout a breath. That was another part of success at thisseemed likeyou had to be holding your breath to make it work. She grabbed thedoorknob and got that tweaky feeling in the gut, that uncertainwhat-lies-behind-this-door question, each time she entered astrange house.

Shed envisioned a recalcitrant homeowner,refusing to leave, shotgun in hand, or maybe a wall-high stack ofnewspapers ready to topple onto her. Everyones read about someweird old man who had a house full of them. But none of that hadhappened to her, yet.

Breaking into houses for a livingallperfectly legal and sanctioned by the U.S. government. The USDAhired folks like Samantha to clean and maintain abandonedproperties where the homeowner defaulted on their loans. Sadly,there were a lot of them these days.

She noticed that a thin crust of dirt coveredthe door and all the glass panes on this side of the house,remnants of New Mexicos famous mud storms where blowing dirt anda small amount of rain combined to coat every surface with a hazeof brown. Sam actually liked this part of the job, assessing thesituation and imagining how good it would look after shed appliedWindex and hot water. The knob twisted in her hand and the doorswung open with a hellish creak. A little oil would take care ofthat. She brushed her hands on her jeans and stuffed the lock toolsback into her canvas bag, leaving it sitting just inside the backdoor. Flipped on the lights. At least the power had not been cutyet.

Heres where the surprises usually showed up.In this case the kitchen was remarkably untrashedsometimeskitchens were a nightmare. A few crusted dishes sat in the sink butthe table was clear, trashcan still had its top firmly in place,and no roaches scurried away. No noxious odors from the fridge. Shewould come back to that.

She walked through a doorway into aliving/dining L and saw that the home still contained furniture.Three doors opened off a short hallwaya little pink bathroom wasvisible but the other two doors were closed. A starter home for ayoung family, certainly adequate for a retired couple. Shed seenquite a few similar, and it wasnt a whole lot smaller than her ownplace on Elmwood Lane.

In the living room an ancient sofa lookedlike prime real estate for dust mites and a round coffee table heldseveral red pillar candles with hard wax drips down their sides.Dusty-looking bundles of dried herbs lay among the candles, and anopen book sat on the sofa, as if the reader had simply gotten up inmid-chapter and planned to return. The rest of the room wascluttered with a lifetimes accumulationshelves held stacks ofmagazines and cheaply framed photos of children in 1940s attire. Anold fashioned wooden radio had cobwebs lacing its speaker andtrailing between the knobs.

Sam wandered through the room, trailing herfingers across the fringe on the shade of an old floor lamp. Thenshe heard a thump.

The hair on her neck rose. Im getting tooold for this.

She searched for a weapon of any kind. Thefloor lamp looked heavy but completely unwieldy. She edged back tothe kitchen and pulled the biggest wrench, a crescent only teninches long, from her tool kit.

Hello? she called out.

The thump came a tiny bit louder thistime.

Hello? USDA caretaker. Anyone here? Shetiptoed into the hallway, her steps silent on the worn saltillotile.

This time she swore she heard a moan. No waythis could be a good thing. She should call 911, she thought, evenas she reached out to the first closed bedroom door and turned theknob.

The smell of illness and old-person emanatedfrom the room as soon as the door opened. Sam held her breath for amoment. The place was so dim she had a hard time finding the sourceof the sound. A wooden bed took up most of the space, while a highdresser on the far wall and a nightstand cluttered with bottles,drinking glasses and wadded tissues filled the rest of the space.Crumpled blankets created waves on the surface of the bed and ittook her a moment to realize that a tiny, shriveled woman lay underthem.