Run: 2026-09-23-01M36WCT2TKEDBJ5X016K5T4VH

The bell above the door jingled as the morning light spilled across the marble countertop. Flour dusted the air like powdered sugar ghosts. "So you're telling me she baked that cake the night she disappeared?" "The last delivery was made at eleven forty-seven. The receipt was still in her apron pocket." "But nobody saw her leave? In a town this small?" "Everyone was at the Harvest Festival. The square was packed. Except where she was." A long pause settled between them, broken only by the hum of the walk-in cooler. "The cherry filling was wrong, by the way." "Wrong how?" "Too much almond extract. Madeleine never used almond extract. Not once in twenty years." The hand gripping the coffee cup went still. "So somebody else made the cake." "Somebody else made *something*. The question is why they'd bother to leave it." Outside, a delivery truck rumbled past on Maple Street, and the scent of fresh croissants curled through the warm bakery air like a secret it almost wasn't ready to tell.