Run: 2026-09-23-01M37P8SNTQ0JR1JYVH71QAY6S

The bell above the door of Crumb & Cardamom jingled just as the last tray of cinnamon twists came out of the oven. "We're not open for another twenty minutes." "I know. I saw the light on. Marjorie, did you hear about the pie?" "Which pie? I bake forty a week." "The blue-ribbon cherry. The one for the Harvest Fair. It's gone. Somebody lifted it right off the judges' table last night." "Gone? That table's locked up in the town hall." "Locked, yes. But the side window was open, and there was flour on the sill." "Flour. Well, that narrows it down to every kitchen in Pinecrest." "Not this flour. It was pink. Beet-tinted, like the kind you use in your valentine cookies." "Now hold on. You can't think I climbed through a window at midnight to steal my own pie." "Of course not. Your knees wouldn't allow it. But who else buys from your supplier?" "Only one person. Delia Hawthorne. She came in Tuesday asking about my crust." "Asking what, exactly?" "Whether I use lard or butter." "And what did you tell her?" "Nothing. It's a family secret." "Then I'd say someone wanted that secret badly enough to take the whole pie home and taste it."