The Jealousy Game novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Smile, You're on Camera

On Thursday morning there were seventeen people in my bakery and a three-tier cake on the counter.

It was the party cake, ordered a month ago by Brett's mother, vanilla with lemon curd, finished at five a.m. and boxed for pickup at eight.

Maddie came in at five past, alone, in her pink coat.

"Hi, Lena!" she said, bright and shy. "Brett's mom sent me to get it. I hope that's all right."

"It's all right."

"I'll be so careful."

"I know you will."

My morning girl, behind the register, looked at me and then at the camera in the corner of the shop.

I had installed it in March, after the cash drawer came up short twice.

It pointed down at the counter, and the little red light was on.

I put one finger on the box.

"It's heavy. I'll carry it out to the car with you."

"Oh, no, don't trouble," Maddie said. "I can manage."

She put both hands under the box, and lifted it, and turned toward the door.

She took two steps.

Then she swung her hip sideways into the glass case, hard, and went down on one knee on my floor.

The box left her hands and flew.

It landed on its corner and burst open, and the cake slid out across the tile in three pale tiers with the lemon curd smeared behind it.

A woman by the pastry case gasped.

"Lena!" Maddie said, on her knees, in the middle of the wreck, her voice breaking. "Why did you push me?"

I had not moved.

I was standing behind the counter with my hands flat on the wood, a full four feet away.

The door chimed.

Brett came in, in his good coat.

He took in the cake, and Maddie on her knees, and me.

"Strike thirty-three," he said.

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