Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCPNVTDSPM0QRX7PT42F6A3

The smell of scalded sugar still hung over the counter when the bell above the door gave its tired jingle. "You're closed." "The sign says otherwise. And you've got flour on your sleeve, Marjorie, so don't tell me you haven't been baking either." "That's from the church bake sale. Which, as you well know, ended at four." "Funny. Verna Kessel's lemon bars were still going at half past five. I saw the box on your passenger seat when I drove past the parsonage." A pause. Somewhere in the back, an oven ticked as it cooled. "You've been watching my car." "I've been watching everything since Tuesday. Somebody moved the key to the walk-in. Somebody who knew the spare hangs behind the tea tins." "Half this town knows that." "Half this town wasn't asking me about my grandmother's rye recipe three days before the ledger went missing." "The ledger." A dry sound, almost a laugh. "Is that what you think I wanted?" "I think you wanted to know what I'd written down about the Harlan account." "And if I did?" "Then you'd have found it. It's not in the ledger, dear. It never was." The bell jingled again — not the door this time. The timer. Someone had left a second batch in.