Murder in the Mix Boxed Set 28-30: Cozy Mystery Addison Moore (the reading strategies book .txt) 📖

In fact, right this moment, I’m sharing a platter of those lava cakes with Carlotta, Lainey, and Keelie.

Lainey has baby Josie strapped to her chest, and Keelie has passed baby Bear off to Carlotta.

A thunderous sound rumbles from baby Bear’s bottom, and Carlotta turns her head and howls.

“Son of a motherless goat!” Carlotta gasps as she holds baby Bear out at arm’s length. “What are you feeding this kid, Keelie Nell?”

My blonde bestie scoops up her little man and gives him a pat on the bottom.

“That’s how I know he belongs to Bear.” She leans over and kisses Josie on the top of her head. “No fair, Lainey. She always smells like a rose.”

“That’s how I know she’s mine.” She gives a playful wink to Keelie. “Seriously, though”—Lainey digs into her molten chocolate cake—“I lived off your desserts for the entire time I was pregnant with her, Lottie.”

“Makes sense.” Keelie nods. “I lived off barbeque pork sandwiches. What are you eating, Lot?”

Carlotta chuckles. “That baby is going to come out smelling like a pickle—a fried pickle with a side of Sexy.”

Lainey’s mouth falls open “So you think the baby is Everett’s?”

I shake my head. “I don’t have any idea. Noah is positive this baby is his. Everett says it doesn’t matter, it’s still his.”

Keelie waggles her brows. “Got to give it to Everett. That man knows how to lay claim to something. What I wouldn’t do to be a fly on your bedroom wall.”

“Well, I have been!” Carlotta says with a touch too much enthusiasm. But before she can get into the dirty details, I spot a pink spray of stars appearing near my bakery shelves.

“I’ll be right back, ladies,” I say, rising to my feet.

“Go on, Lot.” Carlotta flicks me away with her fingers. “I’d hate to give away my trade secrets while giving away your trade secrets.”

I make a face as I speed away. I’ll pump Keelie for information later just to make sure Carlotta isn’t taking naps in my closet again. In her defense, it’s a huge walk-in and she’s dozed off a couple of times in the middle of a wardrobe heist. I don’t mind Carlotta wearing my old clothes so much. It’s like seeing good friends you haven’t seen in a good long while out in the wild. And the clothes in question are the ones she managed to hole away at Mayor Nash’s place, which made them lucky enough to escape the big fire. And now I’m grateful for the fact she had sticky fingers before the big tragedy struck.

“Flo,” I hiss her name out as she tries to pluck a jelly-filled donut out of the glass case and I help her with the endeavor. “You have to tell me where to find Donata.”

She glowers over at me a moment. Her long, dark, curly hair looks just as crispy as ever, her flawless complexion, her pouty strawberry-colored lips, and smokin’ body—smoking in the literal sense since it has some sort of pink fog emanating from it—only annunciate her razor-sharp beauty. It’s easy to see why she would be so taken with herself.

“Fine.” She takes an angry bite out of the jelly donut and moans. And while she indulges, I do my best to shield the sight of the floating fried delight with my body.

Lily is busy at the register, and the customers are either too engrossed with the offerings in the refrigerated shelves or stuffing their faces with my sweet treats—mostly waffles—to notice. That whole Last Thing They Ate Tour my mother dreamed up has morphed into a full-blown trend.

Flo glances to the ceiling. “Lottie Lemon, your desserts were worth the trip back to the planet. But no offense, there’s a place where the desserts have a taste of the old country that I can’t get enough of. And I have it on good authority my witches are meeting up there right about now.”

“Perfect. Where is it?”

She brays out a laugh. “Let’s have it be a surprise. I’ll hop in your van and tell you were to go. Trust me, you’re going to thank your lucky stars I ended up on the wrong side of existence once you step into that place.”

“I would never say that, Flo. But before we go, you need to tell me where that turf war is happening. Noah can’t stop it if he misses the event entirely.”

She gives a little wink. “Lottie, I’m family. I’m under blood oath not to reveal sensitive information.”

“What?” I squawk so loud Lily looks my way. “This jelly donut is delicious!” I say, snatching it from Flo’s stingy little hand and gobbling it up myself. “Flo, you have to tell me where this deadly meet and greet is going down. You know that’s one of the reasons we did what we did for you and your hair.”

“Lottie?” Lily hisses my name as she heads on over. “You’re scaring the customers. It’s bad enough you’re filling the shelves with weird things like fried pickles and crullers drizzled with hot sauce, but yelling at yourself is taking it to the extra insane next level.”

“Don’t forget the cheese Danish sprinkled with bacon bits,” I say. “That’s one of my new faves.”

Flo gives a frenetic nod. “And the waffle pizza. Oh, hon, I’m still dreaming about it.”

I wink her way. The waffle pizza was a one-off I made a few days back for the two of us to share, but it was so delicious I’m thinking I should add it to the menu soon.

“Whatever,” Lily snips. “Keep it down. I for one can’t wait until you have that baby. It’s making you crazy, Lot. And Lord knows things are crazy enough in this town.” She takes off, and I turn to glare at Flo.

“Speak.”

She lifts her chin a notch. “Okay, okay. Don’t get your parachute panties in a bunch. I can’t tell you outright, but if you happen to guess