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  BEACHFRONT BAKERY:

  A PERILOUS CAKE POP

  (A Beachfront Bakery Cozy Mystery —Book Three)

  FIONA GRACE

  Fiona Grace

  Debut author Fiona Grace is author of the LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY series, comprising nine books; of the TUSCAN VINEYARD COZY MYSTERY series, comprising seven books; of the DUBIOUS WITCH COZY MYSTERY series, comprising three; of the BEACHFRONT BAKERY COZY MYSTERY series, comprising six books; and of the CATS AND DOGS COZY MYSTERY series, comprising nine books.

  Fiona would love to hear from you, so please visit www.fionagraceauthor.com to receive free ebooks, hear the latest news, and stay in touch.

  Copyright © 2021 by Fiona Grace. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright jakkapan used under license from Shutterstock.com.

  BOOKS BY FIONA GRACE

  LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY

  MURDER IN THE MANOR (Book#1)

  DEATH AND A DOG (Book #2)

  CRIME IN THE CAFE (Book #3)

  VEXED ON A VISIT (Book #4)

  KILLED WITH A KISS (Book #5)

  PERISHED BY A PAINTING (Book #6)

  SILENCED BY A SPELL (Book #7)

  FRAMED BY A FORGERY (Book #8)

  CATASTROPHE IN A CLOISTER (Book #9)

  TUSCAN VINEYARD COZY MYSTERY

  AGED FOR MURDER (Book #1)

  AGED FOR DEATH (Book #2)

  AGED FOR MAYHEM (Book #3)

  AGED FOR SEDUCTION (Book #4)

  AGED FOR VENGEANCE (Book #5)

  AGED FOR ACRIMONY (Book #6)

  AGED FOR MALICE (Book #7)

  DUBIOUS WITCH COZY MYSTERY

  SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF MURDER (Book #1)

  SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF CRIME (Book #2)

  SKEPTIC IN SALEM: AN EPISODE OF DEATH (Book #3)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY COZY MYSTERY

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A KILLER CUPCAKE (Book #1)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A MURDEROUS MACARON (Book #2)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A PERILOUS CAKE POP (Book #3)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A DEADLY DANISH (Book #4)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A TREACHEROUS TART (Book #5)

  BEACHFRONT BAKERY: A CALAMITOUS COOKIE (Book #6)

  CATS AND DOGS COZY MYSTERY

  A VILLA IN SICILY: OLIVE OIL AND MURDER (Book #1)

  A VILLA IN SICILY: FIGS AND A CADAVER (Book #2)

  A VILLA IN SICILY: VINO AND DEATH (Book #3)

  A VILLA IN SICILY: CAPERS AND CALAMITY (Book #4)

  A VILLA IN SICILY: ORANGE GROVES AND VENGEANCE (Book #5)

  A VILLA IN SICILY: CANNOLI AND A CASUALTY (Book #6)

  A VILLA IN SICILY: SPAGHETTI AND SUSPICION (Book #7)

  A VILLA IN SICILY: LEMONS AND A PREDICAMENT (Book #8)

  A VILLA IN SICILY: GELATO AND A VENDETTA (Book #9)

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Repeat after me,” Delaney said, stretching her lycra-clad leg behind her in an impossible position. “I am a goddess.”

  Under the warm, 6AM, California sunshine, Ali Sweet raised an eyebrow and glanced over at Piper. Her young assistant was taking their friend Delaney’s oceanside yoga session far more seriously than Ali was herself. Her face was red with effort, and tendrils of her pale blond hair stuck to her forehead with sweat as she thrust her sand-covered foot out behind her.

  “I am a goddess!” she groaned in her soft, Georgian accent.

  “Ali?” Delaney said, opening one blue eye and peering at her with a calm expression, as if the complicated pose was easy-breezy for her to maintain. “I can’t hear you.”

  Ali attempted to stick her leg out behind her. “I am a goddess,” she muttered, as she wobbled on the spot.

  “Now reach down and touch the ground,” Delaney said, stretching forward into an almost upside-down position.

  Ali dutifully followed her instructions, and her long blond braid fell into the sand. In her upside-down position, Ali could now see her bakery, Seaside Sweets, on its boardwalk position between two pizzerias. She smiled. Just a few more painful poses to get through and she’d be able to head into her kitchen and bake that morning’s fresh pastries, cupcakes, and macaroons.

  She loved her bakery more than anything in the world, and now that she’d hired Piper to help with the growing workload, it was going from strength to strength. Her nice but ditzy and somewhat accident-prone assistant was finally getting the hang of things, thanks to Ali’s newly instigated white board to-do system. It was keeping them both organized, while also serving a reminder of just how much they’d accomplished.

  Just then, Ali heard a very strange rumbling sound in the background. At first, she thought it must be all the blood rushing to her head from having been hanging upside-down for so long. But when Piper said, “What on earth is that?” she knew she wasn’t the only one to hear it. There really was a strange rumbling sound coming from the distance.

  She stood up straight, whipping sand into the air as her long blond braid swayed behind her. Delaney and Piper straightened too, and the three blond women turned toward the colorful hillsides surrounding the bay just in time to see something come cresting over the hill. Something large, bright yellow, and with huge black tires.

  “Is that a digger?” Ali said, eyeing the large dirty excavation scoop attached to the front of the vehicle, rattling loudly on its hinges.

  “Looks like it,” Piper replied. “And look, there’s another!”

  She pointed, and Ali squinted through the bright morning glare to see a second large vehicle come over the hilltop behind the digger. But this one was even bigger. Rather than a scoop attachment, it had a huge metal mixer turning round and round, emitting a loud grinding noise.

  “That’s a cement mixer!” Ali exclaimed.

  The unpleasant noises from the two vehicles grew louder as they started coming down the hill toward them.
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  “So much for a peaceful morning yoga session,” Delaney muttered, putting her hands on her hips and pouting. “This isn’t exactly the chilled-out vibe I was attempting to cultivate.”

  The two large, loud vehicles were soon joined by a third, even larger one—some kind of site dumper with a big metal skip, and then a fourth—a bright yellow crane. Then came more diggers, more mixers, more dumpers, until there was a whole procession of them trundling noisily down the road.

  “Where do you think they’re going?” Ali mused aloud.

  The procession reached the promenade road that ran parallel behind the boardwalk and turned, heading toward the east side of town.

  “Maybe they’re something to do with those boards that went up around the old apartment blocks,” Piper said. “I saw a temporary office go up there the other day, with porta potties. They’re probably tearing down the old buildings to build new condos.”

  “That makes sense,” Ali replied.

  Though Willow Bay was a small, easily overlooked town on the Californin shoreline, it wasn’t entirely unheard of for property developers to seek out investment opportunities here. Ali had only lived in Willow Bay for a few months herself, and two apartment blocks had been built in that time.

  But while it wasn’t unheard of, what was unusual was the sheer size of the operation. Ali hadn’t seen such a thing outside of LA, her old hometown, and considering the comparative size of Willow Bay to the procession, it really seemed like a huge redevelopment was about to go down.

  Ali watched the trucks and heavy vehicles rumbling past and saw the word RAINE emblazoned across the side.

  “Anyone heard of that company?” she asked. “Raine? They’re not local to California.”

  Suddenly, Delaney gasped loudly. “Oh no. I know what’s happening!”

  Ali looked at her, scanning her friend’s panicked expression. “What is it? What’s going on?”

  “It’s Sullivan Raine!” Delaney explained, shaking her head. “The property developer.”

  Ali had never heard of him and exchanged a look with Piper. By her blank expression, it was clear she was also none-the-wiser.

  “Who’s Sullivan Raine?” Ali asked.

  “He’s this huge property developer,” Delaney explained. “From Texas. He specializes in buying up empty properties in small beachfront towns and putting in condos and stores. He uses this cookie-cutter formula and he’s known for being super fast. Then when he’s done, he heads straight off to the next town to repeat the process.” She shuddered. “I bet he’s already bought up swaths of land. It’s what he does. Empty stores and properties. Not even the smallest scraps of land will be left unaffected. Be it a boardwalk kiosk or a beach hut, Sullivan Raine will snap it up.” She shook her head and sighed loudly. “Willow Bay is about to change. Quickly. And not in a good way.”

  Ali gulped and glanced back out at the army of trucks rumbling into town. By the sheer number of them, she could certainly believe what Delaney was saying. They’d be able to complete a lot of construction work in a short amount of time. She didn’t want everything to suddenly change all around her. She had only just found her feet in Willow Bay. Her bakery was still in its infancy, and though it was generally very popular and doing well, she didn’t really want anything to come along and rock the boat.

  And what about Fat Tony, the town’s well established property mogul slash mobster boss? How would he react to a Texan cowboy making his presence known in the town and snapping up all the spare property? He wasn’t exactly known for being level-headed about such things!

  Suddenly, an enormous rumble began to sound out from the distance. Sullivan Raine’s construction crew had reached their destination—the run-down eastside apartments Piper had mentioned before—and were already getting to work. Even from this distance, Ali could feel the ground shaking underfoot, and could see dark black smoke belching up into the sky.

  As the dark smoke spread out across the sky, Ali shuddered. There was something ominous about it.

  “I don’t know about you guys,” she said, her eyes transfixed on the dark, smoky cloud. “But I have a really bad feeling about this.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “I’m sorry Delaney, this just isn’t working,” Ali said, straightening up.

  They’d relocated to the kitchen of Seaside Sweets, and though the wonderful smell of baked goods wafted around them, it was a significantly less than ideal location for exercise. The kitchen was stuffy, full of hanging pots and pans, and noisy from the whirring of the industrial refrigerators. And they could still hear the building work rumbling in the background!

  “We’ll just have to cut the session short,” Ali finished.

  “No way,” Delaney replied. “You’re not getting out of it that easily!”

  Delaney had decided it was time to whip Ali into shape with a healthy diet and morning yoga regimen. She was under the impression that they’d soon be completing morning 5k jogs together!

  “Besides, Piper wants to carry on, don’t you?” Delaney added.

  Piper straightened up and flashed her a bashful look. “Actually, I give up, too. I can’t relax with that racket. Not to mention my entire to-do list staring at me.” She gestured woefully to the white board positioned just behind Delaney’s head. Ali had arranged it into two columns, one headed Ali, the other Piper, and since Piper was still in training, she obviously had more on her side than Ali did, everything from: learn how to make pistachio frosting to practice whisk technique.

  “Just don’t look at it,” Delaney replied, clearly not willing to give up. “This time is about remaining present in the moment.”

  A sudden boom punctuated the air and the whole store shook. Delaney toppled off her one-legged pose.

  “Fine,” she huffed. She put her hands in prayer position in front of her. “Then I hope our session, though short, helps you feel grounded and connected to the earth in spite of the changes coming our way. Namaste.” She bowed.

  “Namaste,” Ali repeated dutifully.

  “Namaste,” Piper echoed.

  “Sorry Delaney,” Ali added. “It was a nice idea.”

  “It’s fine,” Delaney replied. “We can go for that 5k instead.”

  She grabbed Ali’s arm and started tugging her toward the door before she could protest.

  Ali immediately flashed Piper a terrified look. “What about Piper?” she cried as Delaney dragged her across the kitchen.

  “She’s busy,” Delaney replied.

  ‘Help me!’ Ali mouthed at Piper as Delaney whisked her out of the kitchen and onto the main bakery floor.

  Piper watched from the doorway, a cheeky glint in her prehnite-green eyes as Delaney dragged Ali all the way across the peppermint checked floor, through the wooden tables covered with chintzy cloths, and out of the pastel-painted bakery’s front door, into the hot California morning. Ali had no choice but to accept defeat. Future toned Ali would thank her for it, at least, even if present day Ali was full of dread.

  Standing on the sidewalk outside of her bakery, Ali shielded her eyes against the bright, early morning glare. The seagull scavengers circled above them, having taken flight at the interruption, and waiting to come back down. The noise of the once calm ocean waves breaking on the shoreline had been replaced by the distant sounds of drills and whirring machines, and heavy vehicles as they rolled into town.

  Just then, Ali heard a bark, and looked over to see Scruff, the boardwalk stray, come bounding toward her.

  “Looks like someone wants to join us,” Delaney joked.

  “He just wants a biscuit,” Ali said, crouching down and taking his favorite brand Jumbo Bone from her pocket. “Here you go, Lil’ Dude,” she said, offering it to him.

  Scruff happily munched it up.

  Ali was expecting him to dart away, but he just stayed where he was, panting in the hot sun, looking up at her expectantly.

  “That’s it,” Ali said. “I’m all out. Delaney made me wear these tight-ass leg
gings.” She showed him her empty pocket to prove the point.

  Delaney chuckled. “I’m telling you; he wants to jog. Even Scruff knows how important exercise is.”

  Ali sighed. She knew she was out of shape, and that Delaney just wanted to help her thrive, but her friend didn’t seem to realize that people were built differently. Ali had never been sporty, and she’d come to accept she’d never be like Delaney, with her daily runs and long, shapely legs. Ali spent far too much time taste-testing cupcakes and macaroons to be anything but a little squishy round the edges. But with all that said, being physically healthier was never a bad thing, if only to make lugging big vats of batter around her kitchen easier.

  “Alright,” she said. “Let’s get this over with.”

  The women took off along the boardwalk, Scruff coming along with them. It was early in the morning, and the only people about were the vendors opening up for the day. It was a good time for a jog, Ali thought, because it was one of the few times the small but popular town was not over-crowded with tourists. The last thing she wanted was witnesses to her puffing and panting jog!

  As they approached White Water, the surf shop belonging to Nate, Ali felt a spark of apprehension inside of her. Nate had recently declared his affection for her with a beautiful bouquet of her favorite giant daisies. Had the romantic gesture come earlier, when Ali was head over heels for him, it would’ve been most welcome. Only he’d waited until another guy, hot dog seller Seth, had shown interest in her to even make a move, and now her mind was a mess of confusion.

  At that very moment, Nate came out of the store door, carrying the big Perspex surf-board sale sign that went outside. His golden-hued, muscular arms glistened like gold as they strained under the weight of it. He’d recently trimmed his long, naturally sun-kissed, chestnut blond hair. It looked darker now, and he’d tucked it into a low, unpretentious bun.

  Something about the new look made him appear more mature than before, and Ali’s heart skipped a beat. Unless that was from the exercise…?