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  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Laura Childs

  Tea Shop Mysteries

  DEATH BY DARJEELING

  GUNPOWDER GREEN

  SHADES OF EARL GREY

  THE ENGLISH BREAKFAST MURDER

  THE JASMINE MOON MURDER

  CHAMOMILE MOURNING

  BLOOD ORANGE BREWING

  DRAGONWELL DEAD

  THE SILVER NEEDLE MURDER

  OOLONG DEAD

  THE TEABERRY STRANGLER

  SCONES & BONES

  AGONY OF THE LEAVES

  SWEET TEA REVENGE

  STEEPED IN EVIL

  Scrapbooking Mysteries

  KEEPSAKE CRIMES

  PHOTO FINISHED

  BOUND FOR MURDER

  MOTIF FOR MURDER

  FRILL KILL

  DEATH SWATCH

  TRAGIC MAGIC

  FIBER & BRIMSTONE

  SKELETON LETTERS

  POSTCARDS FROM THE DEAD

  GILT TRIP

  GOSSAMER GHOST

  Cackleberry Club Mysteries

  EGGS IN PURGATORY

  EGGS BENEDICT ARNOLD

  BEDEVILED EGGS

  STAKE & EGGS

  EGGS IN A CASKET

  SCORCHED EGGS

  Anthologies

  DEATH BY DESIGN

  TEA FOR THREE

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  Copyright © 2014 by Gerry Schmitt & Associates, Inc.

  Excerpt from Ming Tea Murder by Laura Childs copyright © 2014 by Gerry Schmitt & Associates, Inc.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-63351-9

  Childs, Laura.

  Scorched eggs / Laura Childs.—First edition.

  pages ; cm.—(A Cackleberry Club mystery ; 6) ISBN 978-0-425-25559-9 (hardcover) 1. Women detectives—Fiction. 2. Arson—Fiction. 3. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3603.H56S365 2014

  813'.6—dc23

  2014031991

  FIRST EDITION: December 2014

  Cover illustration by David Leonard.

  Cover design by Sarah Oberrender.

  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.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

  Version_1

  This book is for all my terrific teachers at JHS. Especially the ones who taught social studies (sorry I voted for Nixon), chemistry (apologies for that lab explosion), higher algebra (my favorite pi is still apple), English (Steinbeck, yes; Beowulf, no), speech (I still use your tricks!), and typing (a skill I use almost every single day).

  Thank you very much.

  Acknowledgments

  A major thank-you to Sam, Tom, Amanda, Bob, Jennie, Troy, Dan, and all the designers, illustrators, writers, publicists, and sales folk at The Berkley Publishing Group. You are all such a wonderful team. Thank you also to all the booksellers, reviewers, librarians, and bloggers. And special thanks to all my readers and Facebook friends who are so very kind, supportive, and appreciative. I truly love writing for you!

  Contents

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Laura Childs

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  Favorite Recipes from the Cackleberry Club

  Resources

  Special Excerpt of Ming Tea Murder

  CHAPTER 1

  SUZANNE didn’t know how she felt about Blond Bombshell No. 4 as a hair color, but she was about to find out. Especially since she was sprawled in a red plastic chair roughly the size of a Tilt-a-Whirl car, bravely enduring her “beauty experience” at Root 66, downtown Kindred’s premier hair salon. Silver foils that looked like baked-potato wrappers were crimped in her hair, while a sparkly pink ’50s-era bubble-top hair dryer hovered above her head, blasting a constant stream of hot air.

  Yup, the foils were bad enough, but the droning dryer made Suzanne feel as if her head were being sucked into a jet engine.

  Jiggling her foot, tapping her fingers, Suzanne knew she should try to regard this as “me time” as so many women’s magazines advocated.

  But, all cards on the table, Suzanne felt restless and a little guilty about ducking out of the Cackleberry Club, the cozy little café she ran with her two partners, Toni and Petra. She’d dashed away this Friday afternoon claiming a dire personal emergency. And when you were a silvered blonde who was a tad over forty, the emergence of dark, scuzzy roots all over your head definitely qualified as an emergency.

  But now, after all the rigmarole of mixing and tinting and crimping and blow-drying, Suzanne just dreamt of sweet escape.

  She glanced around at the five other women, customers in the salon, who seemed perfectly content to sit and be beautified. But scrunched here, paging through an old copy of Star Whacker magazine and reading about the questionable exploits of Justin and Miley, didn’t seem like the most productive way to spend an afternoon.

  “How you doin’, gorgeous?” cooed Brett. He bent down and flashed his trademark pussycat grin. Brett was her stylist and a co-owner of Root 66. A man who wore his hair bleached, spiked, and gelled. “Are you in need of a little more pampering? Should I send Krista over to do a French manicure?” He cast a slightly disapproving glance at Suzanne’s blunt-cut nails.

  “No thanks, I’m fine,” Suzanne told him as she balled her hands into tight fists. What she wanted to tell Brett was that she had working-girl hand
s. Every day she muscled tables, swept floors, hauled in boxes of groceries, and wrangled two unruly dogs when she finally arrived home at night. In her free time, she stacked hay bales, mucked stalls, and guided her quarter horse, Mocha Gent, through his paces at barrel racing. Oh, and last week, on an egg run to Calico Farms, she’d manhandled a jack and changed a flat tire on her Ford Taurus. Lifestyles of the rich and famous? Here in small-town Kindred? Like . . . not.

  Suzanne poked a finger at an annoying tendril of hair that tickled the back of her neck. Ten more minutes, she told herself. Gotta white knuckle it for ten more minutes. Then I’m outta here.

  She knew she should relax and let herself be coddled, but there were things that needed to be done. Kit Kaslik’s vintage wedding was tomorrow and she had to figure out what to wear. Toni was babbling about launching a new book club. Her horse, Mocha Gent, still wasn’t ready for the Logan County Fair. And Petra was all freaked out about the dinner theater that was coming up fast. And what else? Oh man. She’d gone and invited her boyfriend, Sam, over for dinner next week. And hadn’t he promised to bring a bottle of Cabernet if she grilled a steak for him? Yes, she was pretty sure they’d struck that particular deal.

  Suzanne drummed her fingers. She wasn’t high maintenance, but she was definitely a high-achieving type A. Even so, she projected a certain calm and sense of poise, looking polished but not prim today in a soft denim shirt that was casually knotted at the waist of her trim white jeans. But underneath that denim shirt beat the heart of a racehorse—a thoroughbred who was smart, kind, and the kind of crackerjack businesswoman who could drive a hard bargain or negotiate a sticky contract.

  Suzanne shifted in her chair. She figured she had to be parboiled by now. After all, that wasn’t her morning spritz of Miss Dior that was wafting through the air. In fact, it smelled more like . . . what?

  A few inches of sludgy French roast burning in the back room’s Mr. Coffee? A cranked-up curling iron? Someone’s hair being fricasseed by hot rollers?

  Suzanne peered around suspiciously. Maybe it was Mrs. Krauser, who was tucked under the hair dryer directly across from her. Mrs. Krauser with a swirl of blue hair that perfectly matched her light blue puffed-sleeve blouse.

  Wait a minute. Now she really did smell smoke!

  Suzanne wiggled her nose and sniffed suspiciously. Was it her? Was her hair getting singed?

  Tentatively, she touched a hand to the back of her head. She was warm but not overly done. So . . . okay. Peering around again, she felt a faint prickle of anxiety. It had to be Mrs. Krauser over there, blotting at her pink cheeks with a white lace hankie.

  But wait, Suzanne told herself. There was something definitely going on. Something cooking. And it wasn’t Brett’s complimentary snickerdoodle cookies from his back-room oven.

  So where on earth was that smell coming from?

  Suzanne ducked her head out from beneath the behemoth hair dryer and gazed around the salon, where everything seemed copasetic.

  Still . . . it really did smell like smoke. And were her eyes deceiving her, or did everything suddenly look slightly ethereal and hazy? Like she was peering through a gelled lens?

  Holy crap on a cracker! That was smoke!

  Suzanne scrambled to her feet so fast every pair of eyes in the place was suddenly focused on her.

  “I think there’s . . .” she said, and then hesitated. Standing in the middle of the beauty shop, with everyone staring at her, she felt a little unsure of herself now. No sense making a ruckus over nothing. But when she inhaled, she definitely detected a nasty, acrid burning scent. A scent that touched the limbic portion of her brain and sent a trickle of fear down her spine.

  Smoke. I definitely smell smoke.

  “Something’s on fire!” Suzanne cried out, trying to make herself heard above the roar of the blow-dryers and the blare of show tunes playing over multiple sets of speakers.

  Brett looked up from where he was shampooing a client. “What?” He sounded puzzled as bubbles dripped from his hands. “Something’s what?”

  But Suzanne had already crossed the linoleum floor in three decisive strides and was pushing her way out the front door. On the sidewalk, smack-dab in the middle of downtown Kindred, the summer breeze caught her. It ripped the foils from her hair and sent her purple cape swirling out around her as if she were some kind of superhero.

  And as Suzanne stood there, arms akimbo, knowing something was horribly wrong, she heard a terrifying roar. A rumble like the 4:10 Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train speed-balling its way through Kindred. Within moments, the roar intensified, building to such a furious pitch that it sounded as if a tornado was barreling down upon the entire town. And then, without any warning whatsoever, the windows in the redbrick building right next door to Root 66 suddenly exploded with an earsplitting, heart-stopping blast. And a molten blizzard of jagged glass, chunks of brick, and wooden splinters belched out into the street!

  Suzanne ducked as shards of glass shot past her like arrows! She felt the intense heat as giant tongues of red and orange flames belched from the blown-out windows as if they’d been spewed by World War II flamethrowers.

  Fearing for her life, her self-preservation instinct kicking in big-time, Suzanne dove behind a large blue metal sign that proudly proclaimed Logan County Historic Site. She buried her face in her hands to shield herself from flying debris, hunched her shoulders, and prayed for deliverance.

  A few moments later, Suzanne peered out tentatively and was shocked to see that the entire building, the old brick building that housed the County Services Bureau, was completely engulfed in flames!

  Like a scene out of a Bruce Willis action flick, people suddenly came streaming out of all the surrounding businesses. Realtors, bakers, bankers, and druggists, all screaming hysterically, waving their arms and pointing at what had become a roiling, broiling inferno right in the middle of Main Street. Everyone seemed hysterical, yet nobody was doing much of anything to help.

  “Call 911!” Suzanne yelped to Jenny Probst, who ran the Kindred Bakery with her husband, Bill.

  Jenny nodded frantically. “We called. We already called. Fire department’s on its way.”

  Two minutes later, a fire engine roared to the scene. A dozen firemen jumped off the shiny red truck even as they struggled to pull on heavy protective coats and helmets.

  “There are people in there!” Suzanne cried to the fireman who seemed to be in charge. She pointed desperately at the building that was now a wild torrent of flames. “You’ve got to get them out!”

  “Stand back, ma’am,” ordered one of the firemen, and Suzanne did. She retreated a few steps and took her place in the middle of the street along with the rapidly growing crowd.

  A second fire truck arrived and a metal ladder was quickly cranked up to a second-floor window. To shouts of encouragement from the onlookers, a fireman gamely scrambled up. Then a siren blatted loudly directly behind Suzanne, giving its authoritative whoop whoop, and she was forced to move out of the way again. Sheriff Roy Doogie had arrived in his official maroon and tan cruiser, along with two nervous-looking deputies.

  Sheriff Doogie, by no means a small man, hopped out and immediately began to bully the crowd back even farther.

  “Get back! Give ’em room to work!” Doogie shouted as his khaki bulk quivered. “Get out of the way!”

  Then a white ambulance came screaming into the fray and rocked to a stop directly next to Doogie’s cruiser. Two grim-faced EMTs jumped out, pulling a metal gurney with them, ready to lend medical assistance.

  Thank goodness, Suzanne thought.

  When Suzanne glanced up again, she was thankful to see a terrified-looking woman and a small child clambering over a second-story window ledge and into the waiting arms of the fireman on the ladder.

  “That’s Annie Wolfson,” said a voice behind her.

  Suzanne turned a
round and found Ricky Wilcox, the young man who was the groom in tomorrow’s big wedding, staring fixedly at the rescue that was taking place.

  Good, Suzanne thought. Annie and her child have been saved. But what about the folks in the first-floor County Services Bureau? Bruce Winthrop, the county agent. And his longtime secretary, Hannah Venable. What about those poor souls? Were they still inside?

  Suzanne’s question was partially answered when Winthrop, looking bug-eyed and scared spitless, suddenly crashed through the crowd. Arms flailing, he caromed off her right shoulder and then continued to push his way toward the burning building.

  “Hannah!” Winthrop cried, frantically trying to charge through the surging crowd. “Hannah!” He seemed ready to rush into the burning building and save her single-handedly.

  “Whoa, whoa!” Suzanne cried out. She dashed forward a couple of steps, snagged Winthrop’s arm, and tried to pull him back. But the man was in such a blind panic that he simply shook her off. Suzanne made a final frantic grasp at the back of his tweed sport coat, found some purchase, and fought to reel him in backward. “Wait,” she cried. “You can’t go in there. You’ve got to let the firemen do their jobs.”

  Winthrop spun around to look at her, but was in such an anguished state that he didn’t display a shred of recognition. His face contorted with fear as he tried to jerk away. “Let me go!” he cried. Then, in a pleading tone, “I’ve got to go in and get her.”

  “No you don’t,” Suzanne told him. She grabbed Winthrop’s arm and gave a sharp tug that made him suddenly wince. But at least she’d commanded his attention. “Better to alert Doogie,” she said. “He’ll send a couple of firemen in to rescue Hannah.”

  “Gotta hurry hurry hurry,” Winthrop chattered.

  Suzanne waved an arm over her head and cried out, “Doogie! Sheriff Doogie!”

  Doogie heard his name called out above the roar of the fire and the nervous mutterings of the crowd. He swiveled his big head around, saw Suzanne, and frowned.

  Suzanne pushed closer toward him, dragging Winthrop along with her. “Hannah Venable’s still inside,” she shouted. “You’ve got to send someone in to get her.”