Murder by the Slice by Livia J. Washburn Read Free Book Online Page B

eighteen. Young and foolish, you know. I’d gotten married right out of high school to my childhood sweetheart. I should have known better. Those things never work out.”
    Phyllis wouldn’t have gone so far as to say that. But early marriages did take an awful lot of work to make them successful, and often people just weren’t willing to put the effort into it.
    “Anyway,” Shannon went on, “what about the contest? You’re going to enter, aren’t you? Of course you are. It’ll be a lot of fun, and it’s all for such a good cause.”
    “It is for a good cause,” Phyllis had to admit.
    “It’s settled, then. I’ll look forward to trying those healthy cookies.”
    “All right.” The words were out of Phyllis’s mouth before she could stop them. She would just have to make Carolyn understand what had happened. Shannon had trapped her into agreeing.
    “I’ll see you at the meeting Friday.” Shannon smiled and pushed her cart on down the aisle, catching up with her son, who had taken something off one of the shelves to look at it. “Put that down,” Phyllis heard her say. “My God, I can’t leave you alone for a minute.”
    Phyllis turned her cart around and went the other way, blowing out her breath in a sigh as she did so. Even though Shannon had been making an effort to be nicer than usual, the encounter was still troubling to Phyllis. Not only had she gotten roped into agreeing to compete in the healthy snacks contest, but she’d had to witness the way Shannon treated her son. Even though Phyllis didn’t care for that whole pierced, tattooed, shaven-headed lifestyle, she couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for the young man. There he was, over eighteen years old, and his mother was still treating him like he was seven or eight.
    Phyllis had long since learned, though, that she couldn’t change the way people treated their children, and except in extreme cases such as abuse, she didn’t even have the right to try. Teachers did what they could to help youngsters who had less than ideal home situations, but in the end, most of the time they had to just butt out and learn to live with it. To do otherwise was to risk driving themselves to distraction with worry.
    By the time she got back to the house, she thought she had come up with a solution to her problem. She put away the groceries, then found Carolyn in the living room, sitting on the sofa and writing something on a legal pad.
    “I’m still working on the handout for the parents,” Carolyn said. “Would you like to read what I have so far?”
    “Sure.” Phyllis took the pad and sat down in an armchair to read what Carolyn had written. When she had finished, she handed it back and said, “It sounds fine. You even have the information about turning in the recipes for the cookbook. I think you’ve got it covered.”
    “I hope so. Are you sure you don’t mind typing it up and designing it?”
    “No, not at all.” Phyllis took a breath. “You know, I ran into Shannon Dunston at Wal-Mart.”
    “Really? So you had to deal with her twice in one day. Better you than me.”
    “Here’s the strange part,” Phyllis went on. “She was a lot nicer than she was this morning, and she absolutely insisted that I make that cookie recipe for the contest.”
    Carolyn looked up sharply. “What? You said you weren’t going to enter the contest.”
    “I know, but Shannon was so determined—”
    “That you gave in and said you’d do it.” Carolyn’s voice had hardened considerably.
    “Well, yes, I said I’d make the cookies, but I was thinking that I wouldn’t actually enter them in the contest. It would just be … an example of a healthy snack, I guess you could say. People could sample it, but they couldn’t vote for it. That way it could go into the cookbook.”
    Carolyn looked at her for a moment, and enough time ticked by for Phyllis to start feeling uncomfortable. Then Carolyn said flatly, “No.”
    “No what?” Was she