Vangie Vale and the Murdered Macaron (The Matchbaker Mysteries Book 1) Read online

  Vangie Vale and the Murdered Macaron

  The Matchbaker Mysteries, Book One

  R.L. Syme

  Edited by

  Angela Polidoro

  Cover Artist

  Lyndsey Lewellen

  Contents

  Dedication

  Untitled

  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

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  COMING SOON!

  The Murdered Macaron Recipe

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  For my mom.

  “She was snatched back from a dream of far countries, and found herself on Main Street.”

  - Sinclair Lewis

  Chapter One

  Saint Agnes, Montana

  Someone had painted a mural on the big front window of my bakery, blocking my view of the parking lot. It looked like a bad homecoming float: flaking red hearts cascaded all the way down one side and circled up around the other, with Happy Valentine’s Day painted in frilly white script in the center. In order to even see my car, I had to get close enough to look between the letters, where the glass was still clear.

  That was saying a lot, considering my car was a monstrosity of green paint with a wheelbase so wide, it took up a space-plus. The Humvee had been a parting gift from my dad when I’d left North Carolina. Moving to the mountains apparently required a quote-big-rig-unquote.

  The Tank was overkill, but that was my dad for you. Overkill was his first, last, and middle name. His thirty-three year-old daughter had moved across the country, and he’d paved the whole way with Duke flags and Humvees.

  He has no idea what happened. He still thinks I chose this.

  Before I could give much more thought to the mural that had sprung up overnight, the bell above my door gave a sad little jingle. “So, do you—” my shop neighbor, Emma Brent, started to ask in her bubbly voice. Then she squealed. “Oh, Vangie! Your hair…”

  I glanced at my reflection in the streaky window, focusing on the unpainted parts between the hearts. Dark pins held down tufts of short, brown hair, making my pixie cut go flat across the front. “I have to wear a cap when I’m baking. I forgot to fix it.”

  “I’m gonna get you a mirror for back there.” Emma came up behind me, pulling out bobby pins and running her fingers through the spikes. “You have customers.”

  “Not today, I don’t.” I angled my head toward the empty dining area.

  My blonde, stylish friend fussed with my hair until it resembled something vaguely presentable. While I’d rather be holed up in the kitchen, poring over French pastries, Emma loved fashion and cuteness, and was a perfect gift shop owner, with her eye for decoration and detail. I probably had her to thank for that mural, come to think of it.

  “Vangie, you have to care more about how you look.” She clucked at my apron, which was still covered in the crime scene spatter of morning baking. Emma tugged it off me and held it out in front of her, like it was made of nuclear material.

  “Do you like the mural?” she asked once she’d finally disposed of the apron. “It matches the one I did on my window. Subconsciously, it will make people want to shop in both stores.”

  I looped my arms over my chest, eyeing the paint job, not sold on the marketing. I didn’t want to say no—she was a good friend—but I couldn’t say yes. Given that it obscured my view of the Tank, it would keep me from seeing customers as they entered my oddly-shaped store.

  “You mind?” Emma lifted the glass coffee carafe and the end of her sentence. “You’ll have to make a new pot for the lunch rush anyway.”

  “Aww. It’s so cute that you think there’ll be a lunch rush.” I was about to join her at the coffee pot when a ding sounded off to my left.

  “I told you we missed a turn, Henry.” The speaker, a sharp-featured woman, drawled out Southern-tipped words as she turned up her pointy nose at whoever lingered outside the door. “Honestly. I wish you’d stopped and asked for directions.”

  Miss Georgia offered me a cramped little smile and kept walking around my tables. A slim, sandy-haired man breezed in behind her, dressed in the most spectacularly cut charcoal pinstripe suit.

  His gaze flitted around, like he couldn’t really focus, and he followed the woman who was likely his wife. This must be Henry. He could have passed for a supermodel with those cheekbones.

  “I’m so sorry, darling. I appear to’ve forgotten more than I thought,” he said in a breathtaking James-Bond-ian accent. His vowels were elongated and refined, and he smelled like freedom. Like the beach.

  Like home.

  I was oddly grateful Emma had fixed my hair.

  “I swear, some days, I could throttle you within an inch of your life. We’re gonna be late,” pouted Miss Georgia. She’d finally made it to the counter, where she stood with a black-gloved hand on one hip.

  Emma cleared her throat from the corner of the room. I didn’t need her to say it—I’d been talking about not having customers, and I finally had some. Get to it.

  I crossed between the feuding couple, slid behind the white-wood-framed bake case, and lit up the fakest of fake smiles.

  “What can I get you?” I asked.

  “Coffee,” Miss Georgia bit out. “Wait.” She held up a hand and took a deep breath, all her movements exaggerated. “Is it…organic?”

  “Organic and grass-fed,” I said, a sing-song answer to a drama-queen question. James Bond let out a small chuckle, and I found myself meeting his eyes. They were dark, deep, delicious, and…totally married.

  I cleared my throat. “It is organic, yes.”

  “You should really put that on your sign.” Miss Georgia placed one finger on the white-wood counter. “You know, we almost didn’t stop.”

  Now, that would’ve been a travesty.

  Grabbing one of the paper cups, I bit my tongue and poured the coffee, leaving an inch below the rim. Miss Georgia seemed like a cream and sugar girl. I passed it across the counter and waited for more ordering.

  James Bond raised a brow and slid a hundred dollar bill in my direction while his wife made a clip-clop beeline for the condiment bar. “Keep the change,” he said in a low voice. “Sorry about her.”

  “We need to get to Saint Agnes before noon,” she said. “If you’re not ordering, Henry, just leave the poor girl alone.”

  “This is Saint Agnes,” I said, pushing the hundred back. “And I can’t make change for this.”

  “I mean it.” Henry covered my hand, stopping the progress of the bill. “Keep the change. Lord knows we can afford it.”

  When I looked down at his hand—no wedding ring—and glanced at his perfect jawline, I felt a strong impulse to ask him to pull up a chair and read the phonebook. But he was definitely married, ring or not.

 
; “This is Saint Agnes?” Miss Georgia turned so fast, she almost caught the open-topped coffee cup with her elbow.

  “It sure is.” I pulled the bill out from under Henry’s hand and clicked open the vintage cash register. When the old drawer finally popped out, I shoved the money into the till and cursed my sister for convincing me to choose cutesy over functional. But at least it had opened. Some days I wasn’t so lucky.

  “We’re right on the edge of town,” Emma interjected with a low giggle. “That’s why my shop next door is called Saint Agnes Agates and Gifts.”

  “Hmmmm,” said Henry, a thousand-watt smile lighting his features. “I suppose we should have noticed that.”

  “Where are the city limits?” the woman asked.

  “You passed them, back at the sign that said Welcome to Saint Agnes,” I said. “Technically, you’re in the city limits right now, but just barely.”

  The woman snubbed her nose up and turned in to Henry, her fancy high heels clacking on the refurbished floors. “I knew we should have asked for directions. I don’t care if they did move the highway, your memory is a sieve.”

  “You can ask us,” Emma said. “Tourists always stop in, asking for directions since we’re the first place you come to. We’re used to it.”

  “We’re looking for a bank. The Rocky Mountain Bank.” Miss Georgia drew her neck straight and delivered her words with a flare of gravitas, like she was announcing the next Academy Award winner. But it was just a chain of banks all over the state. Not like Fort Knox or something.

  “Oh yeah, that’s down on Broadwater.” Emma pointed toward the center of the small town. “You’ll want to take a right at the stoplight.”

  “The stoplight?”

  “There’s only one.” I offered a quick smile. “Can’t miss it.”

  “So, I have to ask.” Henry lowered an elbow onto the counter and looked up at me through dark lashes. “What is this Matchbakery business anyway?” He picked up one of the laminated menu cards and read from it. “‘Let the Matchbaker decide for you.’ What does that mean?”

  Pulling the card from his hand, I drew my lips together. This happened almost daily, which meant I had plenty of opportunities to regret my lack of willpower. My little sister—who had a lot of ideas about bakeries, it turned out—had helped with the branding for my new business. It had seemed charming and original at the time, given that I would be better-known around town for the job that had actually brought me to Montana, but which would take up very few hours. And given that baking had been my only solace since…well, since Edward. But even then, the Matchbaker concept was more trouble than it was worth.

  I slid the card back onto the pile. “I…match you. To a pastry. Or to a coffee drink or a sandwich, or whatever.”

  “What?” Henry’s brows both shot up. “You match me?”

  “She tells you what you want to eat today.” Emma sidled up to me. “Like a psychic.”

  “I am not a psychic. Let’s get that straight. I just… I read people.”

  Henry held out his hand, the corners of his mouth tugging up. “Read me.”

  I pushed at his arm. “I don’t need to see your palm.” This was something I got pretty often too. The urge to roll my eyes was strong with this one.

  “Tell him what he wants, Vangie,” Emma said, giving me an elbow in the side.

  But I didn’t want to Match him. This too-cool-for-school, over-attentive married man. He didn’t need more attention. He needed a leash.

  “Yes,” Henry said, drawing closer, gaze going darker. “Tell me what I want.”

  “I can tell you what she wants.” I nodded at Miss Georgia, avoiding Henry’s strange, insistent eye contact.

  “Yes, you should do Scarlet. She’s the one who wanted to stop, after all.” He took his wife’s hand and pulled her to his side, in front of the counter, the wattage of his smile dimming just a touch. He wasn’t used to being turned down.

  I looked up and down Scarlet’s body. Of course that was her name—it matched all those long, Georgia vowels and perky, pretty, petite features. A little self-indulgent, but too worried about appearances to order a mocha. “Dark roast with room for cream. That much was easy.”

  Scarlet made a pointed huff and turned her nose up—a classic for a reason. She wore a three-piece tailored skirt suit in slate gray, thick hose, and black ankle boots with stiletto heels and the kind of intricate silver bead and buckle work that couldn’t be done by a machine.

  She didn’t have the too-skinny look of a woman who eschewed dessert for fashion’s sake, but she didn’t succumb often. She was the type who would order a fancy dessert, like a macaron—which she would both spell and pronounce correctly—and let it sit on her counter, taunting her, until she couldn’t hold out any longer. Or it went stale and was no longer appetizing.

  I stepped behind the glass case and constructed a small paper box. Henry shadowed my movements, leaving his wife to stew in front of the cash register.

  “I’m dying to know what you’ll pick for her. She really is addicted to sugar, y’know.” He leaned on the counter like an underwear model and the edge of his accent tapered off, turning almost American on his last words. Interesting.

  I slipped a glove on my left hand and pressed a sheet of tissue paper into the bottom of the box, crinkling it just enough that it would safely hold the delicate cookies. Using my sanitary hand, I selected a small, white macaron. Perfect smooth top, perfect ruffled foot, filled with a vivid red raspberry buttercream.

  “They’re macaroons, Scarlet.” Henry smiled over at Miss Georgia, his accent back in spades. “You’re a macaroon.”

  “Macaron.” Scarlet corrected him at once, sharpish, and I couldn’t help but indulge the tiny smile pulling at one corner of my mouth. Another score for the Matchbaker.

  Three more small delicacies joined the vanilla-raspberry. Pretty little pops of color nestled into the ruffled white paper. A bright green matcha cookie filled with ginger buttercream—because she would want people to think she was interesting enough to like green tea, even though she probably hated all things umami. A graham-cracker-crusted peach pie cookie—because it would remind her of home. And a strawberry cookie dusted with sanding sugar, pretty and pink and filled with a glistening layer of jam—because her husband would actually eat one of them, and he seemed the type to be attracted to sparkly things.

  I folded the box top over. This was more of my sister’s work—there was a clear plastic cut-out in the middle, showing the customer their “matched” treats, and the store’s script-y signature logo had been stamped on the top of each box in a robin’s egg blue. Henry took it out of my hands and pulled out the green tea macaron, examining it in the light.

  “These are quite perfect,” he said, fully back into James Bond mode. “I’ve never seen the like.”

  “Oh, give me that ridiculous box,” Scarlet huffed, grabbing it from him, but Henry kept the green cookie, his thumb cracking the top.

  He looked at it carefully, turning it over and over in his hand. “It’s more fragile than I would have expected. When I pulled it out of the box, it felt quite hard.”

  I took off my glove and stepped back to lean against the counter beside Emma. She sipped at her coffee, clearly not as intrigued by Henry as I was.

  “Macarons are made from meringue, so they’re very delicate,” I said, as though he knew what meringue was. “Hard on the outside, but soft on the inside.”

  Henry bit into the cookie and it crumbled around his lips. His eyes went wide, and he stared at the little dessert tucked between his fingers. “That’s incredible.”

  “Oh, come on.” Scarlet pulled on his arm. “We can’t be late. You have a call with Brad at exactly one o’clock. You know they moved the shooting back just for you and we have a plane to catch tonight.”

  His golden brows drew together with artful precision, and all the pieces locked into place for me. He was an actor. Shooting. Accents that tried too hard. An aggressively put-toget
her wife. So much LA in one little package.

  Scarlet sighed and stalked across the room, coffee in one hand and purse on the other arm, swaying to some internal runway rhythm, not waiting for his frustration to ebb.

  The actor picked up the dessert box with a rueful smile. “Thank you for these, Miss Matchbaker.”

  “Henry.” Scarlet stopped in front of the door, hissing at him, “Stop flirting.”

  “I’m being polite, darling. You should try it.”

  “You always flirt with the fat ones.” Scarlet’s voice was too loud not to carry all the way across the room, which was no doubt intentional. “I swear, it’s like you have a pork fetish.”

  Henry glanced over his shoulder, his features constricted, shaking his head in apology. Before he could say anything, his wife yelled out, “What street did they say to turn on?”

  My chest moved fast, breath rushed. I hated bullies. Maybe more than philanderers. I gripped Emma’s arm before she could answer and plastered on that fakety-fake smile again. “Take your next left. Then look for the stoplight and turn right.”

  Henry gave us apologetic eyes but no more of his melty accent. Then the bell dinged again, and they were gone.

  “Evangeline Vale!” Emma hurried across the room, stopping at the window and watching the car pull away. “I can’t believe you just did that.”

  I pulled the bake case closed with a hard tug. “Justice was served.”