Run: 2026-10-08-01M4E0BYVGF6RZF3JCPQT4GAQ3

Flour drifted through the lamplight like slow snow, and the bakery smelled of cardamom and scorched sugar. "Don't touch anything." "I wasn't going to touch anything. Why do you sound like a funeral director?" "Look at the cinnamon rolls." Forty of them cooled on racks by the window, glossy with icing and freckled with something red. "Oh, heavens. Is that cayenne?" "Enough cayenne to singe a mule. They were meant for the harvest fair, and the judges arrive at ten." Under the counter, the shop cat sneezed. "Was the back door forced?" "Not a scratch on it. Whoever did this had a key." On the windowsill, a chipped blue teapot guarded the spare key, exactly where it had always been. "Your spare's under the blue teapot. Everybody knows that." "Everybody who's ever sat in this shop for tea, which is half of Millbrook." "Half of Millbrook, and one very sore loser." "Gerald Pike wouldn't know cayenne from confetti." A crumpled slip of paper peeked from behind the spice rack. "Then how do you explain his receipt?" "'One tin cayenne, economy size.' Oh, Gerald. You poor, jealous man." "Should we call Sheriff Hale?" "Not yet. Nobody ever solved a crime on an empty stomach, and those rolls won't remake themselves."