Killing Thyme by Leslie Budewitz Read Free Book Online

stretched and peered the full length of the North Arcade.
    Still no sign of her. The pricks of curiosity sharpened into worry. If Bonnie’s encounter with the old crowd had thrown her off, I wanted to know. And undo the damage.
    Back inside, I found her card and called her number. Voice mail.
    Made another call, fingers crossed that I was fretting over nothing.
    â€œNow that you mention it, I didn’t see her this morning. She usually stops in before she heads to the Market on Saturday. But weekends are crazy here.” Josh Gibson had run the takeout for the Italian grocer in the Market until leaving last winter to start his own place down on Beacon Hill. “I’ll run down and check.”
    He called back five minutes later, when I was helping a customer choose a salt grinder. “You were right, Pepper.” His voice wobbled. “911 is on the way.”
    *   *   *
    The row of 1930s redbrick storefronts had become a destination, nicknamed “Wedding Row.” I’d met all the shopkeepers at a spring bridal fair. A florist anchored one end. One dress shop catered to the bride and bridesmaids, a second to mothers and men. Two sisters offered wedding planning, stationery, and funky gifts. And on the north, Josh’s bakery–deli–catering company kept them all well-fed. Apartments occupied the second floor, and artists’ studios and the ballet school filled out the basement.
    I saw the police car angled across the road from a block away and circled around to approach from the other direction. Left Arf in the car and dashed across the street. (And no, convertibles aren’t the safest places for dogs, but he loves it, and I always make him lie down on the backseat while I’m driving.)
    In the wedding planner’s front window, a display of picnic-themed gifts with an old mint green Dr Pepper cooler in the center caught my eye. I’d wanted one for ages, but it seemed beyond trivial now.
    The street address I’d seen on Bonnie’s card was etched in gold on a half-round window above a glass door next to Beacon Hill Bakery. But I didn’t need the numbers to know this was the place. A shiny red Medic One ambulance idled in front of the building entrance, its back doors open. Maybe there was hope . . .
    I stepped around the police barricade, then through the bakery door.
    Inside, the hiss of the espresso machine greeted me. Half a dozen tween girls in practice leotards and stretchy shorts, their hair in ballerina buns, sipped rainbow-colored frappésand bubble teas as they chatted. Young couples tended strollers, and the barista and counter clerk spun around each other as smoothly as tango dancers. Alt-rock ebbed and flowed.
    Other than a few nervous peeks out the window and the occasional loud bleep from a police radio, the Saturday routine went on.
    â€œOh, I’m sorry. No more truffles,” the woman behind the counter explained to a woman staring hungrily at the pastry case. “Our chocolatier quit.”
    A pass-through divided the front of the house from the kitchen. In the bakery’s prior incarnation, heavy white plates piled high with Reubens or BLTs had sat on its counter until white-clad waitresses grabbed them, three and four at a time.
    His customary blue bandanna wrapped around his head, Josh stood at a stainless steel table, piping the final curlicues on a small round cake. Two larger layers sat close by. He straightened and noticed my approach.
    â€œPepper. My God, can you believe it?”
    â€œI can’t believe you can ice a fancy cake at a time like this.”
    He glanced at the clock on the wall, then back at the project on the lazy Susan. “We’re catering a wedding this afternoon.”
    Yikes.
“I’ll get out of your way, but tell me quick, what happened? And where?”
    â€œThe building door was locked—I have a key—but the door to her studio was open. It’s the