Criminally Cocoa Read online

  A flush filled my cheeks, and I looked away, feeling like the shy girl in my one-room schoolhouse back in Ohio all over again.

  The director was back in his chair. “Let’s make short work of this promo because we are still behind on the main schedule.”

  “Yes, of course,” Linc said. “But you know, Raymond, shoots like these are important too. We have to give the audience a reason to watch the show. Not that I doubt they will want to. This is going to be an amazing hit. I hope we are all ready to work on Bailey’s Amish Sweets for years to come.”

  Just as he had the last time Linc said something similar, Raymond made a face.

  “Everything is ready to go,” Maria said, stepping away from the island. “Todd was about to put out the candies and pretzels you wanted.”

  “That’s great.” Bailey stepped around the side of the island. “This should go pretty quickly. I just need to make a quick caramel, which has only three ingredients.”

  “Perfect for a promo spot,” Linc said, and then he turned to me. “Here. Put the pig on the bench, and I want you to stand beside him.”

  I placed Jethro on the high bench. He looked around the room with a little trepidation on his piggy face.

  Juliet waved from beside the camera. “I’m right here, baby. You’re doing great. You’re a star!”

  “She’s talking to the pig,” Bailey whispered to me.

  I laughed. “I know she wasn’t calling you or me baby.”

  Jethro sat back on his haunches. It seemed that Juliet’s encouragement was all he needed to settle in.

  “Let’s start rolling,” Raymond said. “We have a busy day, and I don’t want to be here all night.”

  I patted Jethro’s head. Across from me, I could see Maria just off the set. She had her arms folded across her chest, and she was glaring at Bailey. She definitely didn’t like my friend. Should that give me more reason to think she was behind the odd things that were happening on Bailey’s Amish Sweets? Todd stood a little away from her and caught me looking again. He gave me the thumbs-up sign and grinned. I frowned.

  “Rolling in five!” Raymond shouted.

  I took a deep breath and put a smile on my face. My only job on the set was to look Amish. I knew that was something I could pull off.

  A few minutes later, Bailey stirred the caramel she was making on the stovetop. “If you don’t have time to make your own caramel, you can always buy it. Not that my Amish grandmother would ever let me get away with that. She is a firm believer that caramel and fudge should be made from scratch. However, if you want to cheat a bit—and if you do, I won’t tell my grandmother—then you can actually buy Amish caramel sauce from Swissmen Sweets. We have a new online store, and you can order whatever you need in a pinch. I know how hard it is to make time for those extra things.” She peered into the pan. “It’s looking great. I’m going to turn the heat down and get the pretzels and the candies ready for our nests. Charlotte, can you open the bag of candies and pour them in a bowl? Make sure you keep them out of Jethro’s reach.”

  “I’ll do my best.” I laughed and picked up the bag of candies. They were pastel-colored chocolates just as Bailey had requested. Todd had gotten her everything she wanted.

  As I opened the bag, Bailey picked up a plastic container of pretzels with a screw-top lid. Like most cans and jars on the set, it had been previously opened. Bailey said that the crew did this so she wouldn’t struggle to get something open on film, which might result in the costly reshoot of a scene.

  I started pouring the candies in the bowl as Bailey pulled the lid open. A cloud of black powder puffed around her face, and she sneezed so hard she stumbled backward. Startled, I threw the bag of chocolates in the air, scaring Jethro. The pig leaped off his bench and bolted for Juliet, who was standing by Teven. The pig miscalculated and ran into the legs of the camera’s tripod, knocking it to the floor with a crash.

  When the black powder cleared, the camera was on the floor in two pieces, bird’s egg candies were all over the set, and Bailey was still sneezing.

  Chapter Ten

  Raymond threw the stack of papers he had been holding on to the floor. “This is ridiculous!”

  Bailey continued to sneeze, and her eyes were watering terribly.

  I touched her arm. “Are you okay?”

  She shook her head. “I need fresh air.” She stumbled off the set.

  I peered at the pretzel container. It lay on its side, the pretzels spilling out onto the counter, and they were all covered with a fine black powder. I didn’t touch the powder, but I leaned over it and sniffed. Almost immediately, I sneezed.

  “It’s sneezing powder,” a voice said beside me. “We used to use it in film school when we needed to sneeze for a scene but couldn’t work up the sniffles on command.”

  “Sneezing powder?” I asked. “Why would there be sneezing powder in a container of pretzels?”

  “They didn’t come that way, I can tell you that. I bought them and gave them to Maria to set up the scene for the promo.”

  Maria again. She had to be behind what was going on at the show.

  Bailey stumbled back onto the set. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I don’t have allergies, and I’m not sick.”

  I grabbed her hand and showed her what I’d discovered. “It’s not your fault. Someone put sneezing powder in the container.”

  Her eyes were bloodshot. That sneezing powder must be strong stuff. “Someone did this on purpose.”

  While Bailey and I were looking at the evidence of tampering, Linc and Raymond were arguing about the broken camera. “Who’s going to pay for this?” Raymond said, pointing at the camera. “Because it’s not coming out of my paycheck.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that, Raymond, and we can have another camera here in a half hour. This isn’t a disaster.”

  “Everything related to this show has been a disaster from start to finish!” the director shouted back.

  “Jethro has a bump on his head. Does anyone care that poor Jethro has a bump on his head?” Juliet asked. “Can we get a vet here?”

  Bailey rubbed her forehead. “I think I’m getting a headache.”

  “I can see why,” I said sympathetically.

  “I need a vet,” Juliet said.

  “The pig looks fine to me,” Teven said. “What about my camera?”

  Everyone looked down at the very expensive video camera that was now in pieces on the floor.

  Raymond took charge. “Okay, I’ll make some calls and we can borrow another camera from another set that is not currently filming.” He pointed at Jethro. “But I want that pig off my set!”

  Juliet held Jethro in her arms and glared at Raymond so fiercely that her expression would have scared me half to death if she ever looked at me like that. “How dare you be so unkind to Jethro? It wasn’t his fault. He was frightened. You should not treat the star of the show so poorly.”

  “He’s not the star,” Raymond shot back.

  “I—I—how—I will call Jethro’s agent and let her give you a piece of her mind!” Juliet sputtered.

  It was a real threat considering that his acting agent was Cass, and I personally found her a little bit scary.

  Linc stepped in between them. “Raymond, that’s a good idea. Get a new camera. Also, you and Teven go through the film to make sure we didn’t lose anything in the accident.”

  “It should still all be there,” Teven said. “The lens is broken, but the recording should be intact.”

  Linc nodded. “Good, good.” He snapped his fingers, although I didn’t know whose attention he was trying to get since we were all looking at him. “Let’s reset the scene so we can start filming again as soon as the new camera arrives.”

  “I texted a friend of mine,” Teven said. “A new camera should be here in about forty minutes
.”

  “Good, good,” Linc said. “That’s not too much time lost.”

  “Every minute counts with this production. Some of us have other, more important things to do than this—this…” He sputtered and trailed off as if he couldn’t think of a word that would describe whatever “this” was. I had a feeling it wouldn’t have been a word that I’d learned growing up Amish.

  “I want the pig out!” Raymond said finally when he regained a bit of his composure. At least he could speak again, so that was something.

  Linc glared at Raymond. “You seem to want a lot of things, Raymond. I don’t see you getting any of them.”

  Raymond turned bright red from the base of his neck to the top of his forehead. I had never actually seen someone’s face turn red like that. Instinctively, I took a step back.

  Bailey started sneezing again and covered her mouth. “Excuse me.” She ran back in the direction of her green room.

  I started to follow her.

  “If Bailey is sick,” Juliet said, “who will take care of Jethro? I can’t do it by myself in a strange environment.”

  Who was she kidding? She could barely do it back home. “She’s not sick. Someone…” I trailed off. I couldn’t tell Juliet about the sneezing powder, especially in the middle of all these people because I realized, standing there with the crew, that one of them had to be the one who’d done it. I knew that it was time to tell Linc, but I didn’t want to do that without telling Bailey my plans.

  “Excuse me,” I murmured, and I hurried off the set in the direction that Bailey had gone.

  The door to Bailey’s green room was closed. I turned the knob and found that it wasn’t locked. I knocked and pushed the door inward. “Bailey?”

  I don’t know why it was called a green room at all because it wasn’t green. In fact, it was completely devoid of color. The floor, walls, and furniture reminded me of the oatmeal that my mother used to make on cold winter days at the farm for my siblings and me after morning chores. I hate oatmeal, and she always got angry at me for not eating my portion. It was all I could do to choke down a few mouthfuls. I knew if I didn’t at least do that, I would have nothing at all to eat until midday, and doing chores on a farm was hungry work. I didn’t miss those days. There were pieces that I missed, the animals, the sunrises, the warm comforting air in my mother’s kitchen, but not the oatmeal or the work or being told I couldn’t have the life I wanted. I guess that’s why I was here. I was still figuring out what kind of life I wanted. It had been so hard to walk away from my family all those months ago, but if I hadn’t, I would have to walk away from the person I wanted to be or thought I could be.

  Bailey was in the makeup chair wiping the makeup from her face. She showed me the cloth. It was covered with foundation. “The makeup artist certainly cakes it on. She’s not going to be happy with me when she finds out she will have to start over, but I didn’t know how else I would be able to get the sneezing powder off my skin.”

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  Dark eye makeup was smeared under both of her eyes, making her look like a raccoon. Bailey was a beautiful girl, but at the moment she was a bit of mess. She washed her face with a damp cloth, running the cloth beneath both of her eyes. “I think so. I don’t know when I have had such a fit of sneezing in my life.” Her makeup was all washed off, and she held a cool washcloth to the corner of her eye. “You said it was sneezing powder? Why would someone play such a prank? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It’s not just one prank.”

  She looked at me. She was no longer wearing any makeup, and I thought she was just as pretty without it. “What do you mean?”

  “This is the third time that someone has played a prank or tampered with the production.”

  “What?” And then her expression cleared. “The explosion and then Jethro running off. You think someone here on the set of my show is making accidents happen on purpose?”

  I nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

  “Tell me why.”

  And so I did.

  When I finished telling Bailey all my suspicions, including the fact that I thought Maria might be the person behind all of it, she sat back in the makeup chair with a loud groan. Then she hopped out of the chair. “I’m not going to let someone mess with my show. I have to do something.”

  This was the exact reaction I’d expected from her, which was why it had taken me so long to share my suspicions with her.

  “Maria is going to get an earful from me,” Bailey said angrily.

  “I just think it’s Maria. I don’t know for sure.”

  “There’s only one way to find out and that’s by asking her, and we need to tell Linc what’s going on. He should know.” She headed to the door, and then stopped. “It would be better if we approached her with some kind of evidence. Did you grab the sneezing powder? I don’t want to smell it, but I would like to see it, and it’s our only proof.”

  “Oh no,” I said. “I should have thought of that. I’ll get it.” I ran out of her green room and back onto the set. Everything was quiet. I didn’t know where everyone had gone. The only thing I knew for certain was that there was no sign of the black sneezing powder.

  Chapter Eleven

  Bailey wasn’t going to like it when I reported back about the missing sneezing powder, but I knew that I’d seen it. I wasn’t the only one either; Bailey and Todd had too. Todd. That’s who I needed to find. He was the one who’d told me it was sneezing powder in the pretzel container. Why would he help clean it up if he knew that it represented some kind of sabotage against Bailey? Yet he and Maria would be the only ones who would have cleaned it up.

  I left the set and went in the opposite direction from Bailey’s green room. This other way led me down a hallway that opened up into other soundstages. Technically, I wasn’t supposed to be there. Raymond had been very direct in saying that I shouldn’t wander around the studio when I wasn’t needed on the set because there were other people filming throughout the building and I might make noise that would reflect badly on him. Raymond seemed to be very concerned about everything that might reflect badly on him.

  I crept down the poorly lit hallway. To my left I saw lights flashing, and there were murmurings coming from another set. It wasn’t loud enough for me to hear the words, but I knew that it must have been some kind of cooking show because those were the only programs that taped at Gourmet Television. It smelled like the Mexican restaurant Bailey and Cass had taken me to on our first night in New York. My stomach rumbled just thinking about it, and I wished I’d grabbed a snack from the food table today before all the uproar.

  I inched behind the director’s chair just as the man cooking on the set added liquid to his saucepan, and a giant flame flew into his face.

  I yelped.

  “Cut!” the director yelled. “Who made that noise? The perfect take was ruined. Whoever did that better get off my set!”

  I ducked and dashed to another corridor. When I felt like I was safely away, I looked back, half expecting to see the angry director behind me. Were all directors angry? I wondered if that was some sort of job requirement.

  The hallway I found myself in was dark, and that’s when I realized I would never find Todd in this maze of passageways and sets. An even bigger problem was that the only way I knew how to get back to the set of Bailey’s Amish Sweets was by going past the set with the angry director. I wasn’t sure I was ready to risk being seen by him again. I inched forward in the corridor, wishing that I had a candle or lantern to light my way. I’d never thought I would need either of those in New York. Electric light wasn’t in question here like it was back in my community in Harvest.

  I inched forward and bumped the toe of my sneaker into a barrel. Why on earth would they need a barrel on a television set? The world of TV was peculiar.

  When my toe hit the barrel, it made
a scraping sound across the concrete floor.

  “Did you hear that?” a hushed male voice asked.

  I froze, thinking more and more that I should have stayed back in the green room with Bailey. She should be the one out here getting frightened and yelled at. She had more experience with such things than I did; that was for certain.

  “I didn’t hear anything. You can’t ignore this like nothing happened. I know what you’ve been up to,” another voice whispered back.

  The second was higher and spoke more quickly. I guessed that it was a woman, but I couldn’t be sure. If Bailey were with me, she would know. She had eavesdropped on more people than I had. I knew I would have to pay more attention the next time she told me that she was in the middle of an investigation. Clearly, I hadn’t picked up as many sleuthing tips from her as I should have.

  “I know I heard something. It could have been a mouse.”

  “There are no mice in Gourmet Television,” the woman said.

  “Perhaps,” he said. “But there are plenty of rats.”

  “Are you speaking as one?” she said.

  The man said something in a low voice that I couldn’t hear, but the woman’s voice rang out loud and clear. “And don’t change the subject,” she said. “You told me that I was next up for a show on this network, and now I’m hearing that I’m not because some Amish girl comes to town, and Linc falls all over himself to impress her. Do you know how hard I have worked to get where I am today? How many ridiculous things I had to do? And now you are telling me this girl, who didn’t even want a show, gets it without earning it. No thank you. You owe me more than this.”

  “Everyone in this business has been pushed aside at one time or another because someone new came along. It is the nature of the game.”

  “Well, I don’t accept that, and I’m going to change the rules of the game starting right now.”