Bess kept trying to steer the conversation in her direction, too. “Want some of this chocolate butter, Brock?” she asked eagerly. “It’s great!”
“No, thanks, Bess. I’m watching my weight. With all the chocolate I have to taste here, I need to be careful the rest of the time. I had a long session with my nutritionist before I came, and she told me what I could and couldn’t eat. I’m going to stick to her rules if it kills me.”
He turned back to Nancy and went on with what he had been saying before. “I’m just glad that Samantha had the good sense to keep the tabloid reporters away from this festival. If there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s those junky supermarket newspapers. They make up the worst lies I’ve ever read.”
“Do they write about you a lot?” asked Nancy.
Brock grimaced. “Oh, yeah. The more successful ‘City Heat’ has gotten, the more they’ve picked on me. Especially the Midnight Examiner. The last time I saw an issue, they were claiming that I was married to my thirteen-year-old cousin. I don’t even have any cousins. My fiasco in that chocolate vat would have been right up the Examiner’s alley.”
Suddenly Mrs. Tagley leaned across the table. “And just what caused that disaster, Samantha?” she asked sharply.
“I don’t know yet, Mom,” Samantha replied in a tight voice. “I’ll get on it, don’t worry. There are a lot of other things at the inn that need my attention besides that.”
Mrs. Tagley briefly patted her gray hair. “Well, if you’re going to be running this place, as you insist on doing, you have to be concerned with everything,” she said evenly. “A good innkeeper keeps track of the details and the big picture, you know.”
A sugary-sweet smile spread across Samantha’s face. “All right, Mom,” she cooed. “I’ll just follow your good example, okay?”
Uh-oh, thought Nancy. That sounded like a direct jab at Mrs. Tagley’s own innkeeping skills. From what Jake had said earlier, Oakwood had been having trouble attracting customers. Was Samantha implying that that had been her mother’s fault?
Now Mrs. Tagley seemed as though she was about to explode, but her husband intervened.
“Let’s leave this for another time, all right?” Mr. Tagley said quietly. He looked stiff and uncomfortable in his suit and tie. “The festival’s driving us all crazy enough as it is. No need to bother our company with it, too.”
“Oh, all right,” snapped Mrs. Tagley.
This family certainly didn’t seem to be self-conscious about arguing in front of total strangers! Nancy thought.
She decided it was time to try to get people back into a good mood. “This is a fantastic meal,” she told Mrs. Tagley. “I can’t believe your chef could prepare chocolate in so many interesting ways.”
“Wait till you taste dessert,” Jake volunteered. He sounded relieved at the change of subject. “My stepmother’s chocolate desserts are out of this world. They’re the thing that’s kept this inn going for the past couple of years.”
Once again he broke off, embarrassed, and nervously brushed his sandy hair back. Nancy guessed he hadn’t meant to blurt out yet another reminder that the inn was in trouble.
“What is for dessert?” she asked swiftly.
“Brock Sawyer—the chocolate version, that is,” Mrs. Tagley said mysteriously.
“What do you mean?” asked Bess.
“You’ll have to see for yourself,” Samantha put in. Glancing around at the other tables, she asked, “Do you think people are ready for dessert yet?”
“Definitely!” Bess and George said in unison.
“Well, then, I’ll go get it!”
Samantha jumped up and walked across the dining room toward a cart by the kitchen door, where Nancy could see there was something covered with a white cloth on the cart. As Samantha wheeled the cart to the front of the room, conversation at the other tables began to die down.
“Did everyone have a nice lunch?” Samantha asked, smiling as the guests burst into applause.
“You couldn’t possibly find room for more chocolate, could you?”
“Yes! Yes!” people called out.
“Then I guess we’re just going to have to give you what you want. As some of you may know, my mother is a real artist with chocolate.” Once again the room filled with applause. “And for dessert today, she’s made what I think is her finest creation ever.
“I’m going to ask our special guest to unveil this spectacular dessert for us,” Samantha went on. She glanced toward Nancy’s table. “Ready, Brock?”
Smiling broadly, Brock stood and walked over to her. “Here goes!” he said. With a flourish he picked up a corner of the white cloth and whisked it off the dessert.
Then his smile turned into a shudder of disgust. “What is this?” he shouted.
Everyone craned their necks to see what he was talking about—and a confused murmur filled the room.
On the table was a spectacular white-chocolate cake—a replica of Brock’s face. It was stunning, except for one thing.
The whole surface of the cake was pulsating with a living blanket of ants!
Chapter
Four
WHAT IS THIS, Samantha?” Rage and horror were mixed in Brock’s voice, and Nancy couldn’t blame him. She had seen few sights as bizarre and sickening.
Samantha drew a shaky breath and staggered backward a few steps. She looked as if she was about to faint, but her voice was steady as she summoned a waiter.
“Please take this back to the kitchen and dispose of it immediately.” As the waiter gripped the cart and wheeled it away, Samantha returned to her seat, motioning for Brock to do the same. Once there, she beckoned to another waiter.
“Could you ask the chefs to put together another dessert immediately?”
“Another—another dessert?” the waiter faltered. “What kind, Miss Patton?”
“There’s plenty of ice cream in the freezers, isn’t there?” Jake suggested, coming to the rescue.
Samantha gratefully turned to her stepbrother. “Yes, and lots of fudge sauce. We can have sundaes.”
Nodding, Jake jumped to his feet. “I’ll go help in the kitchen. I’m sure they could use an extra hand.”
The whole conversation had taken about thirty seconds. Glancing around, Nancy could tell that only the guests closest to the cake saw what had happened. But the people who had seen the ants had disgusted expressions on their faces.
“Darling, let’s get out of here,” Nancy heard a wan-looking woman at the next table say to her husband. “I feel sick.” Her husband helped her to her feet, and they hurried out of the room.
Samantha stared bleakly at Nancy. “I sure am getting a lot of practice calming down guests,” she commented. “I’d better fix things up.” She stood up to address the crowd.
“They say bad things come in threes,” she called cheerfully. Nancy and George exchanged an admiring glance. Samantha sounded unbelievably poised. “So I’m sure we’ll have no more trouble from now on!
“I think you’ll find that our replacement dessert will take your minds off anything unpleasant. You’re just about to taste a good old-fashioned sundae made with homemade vanilla ice cream and my mother’s fabulous ultra-fudge sauce. Here come the waiters now!”
She gestured toward some waiters carrying trays of sundaes through the kitchen door. Several “oohs” rose up from the diners.
“Let’s hope that works,” Samantha said under her breath, sinking back into her chair. “I’m not sure how much longer I can continue to smooth things over.”
“I’m not sure, either,” Brock Sawyer told her flatly. “I’m a pretty good actor, but it’s getting hard to act as if I’m having a good time. I think it might be time for me to head back to California.”
At Brock’s words Nancy darted a quick glance around the table. Jake and Mr. Tagley seemed to be concerned, but to Nancy’s surprise, Mrs. Tagley looked oddly happy. Why would she want to lose the festival’s star? Brock’s participation was a defini
te plus for the inn. If he left, the festival’s reputation could suffer. Why would Mrs. Tagley be happy about something that might hurt the inn?
On the other hand, Nancy wasn’t at all surprised to see that Tim was also pleased at Brock’s words. He was eyeing Brock with an expression that seemed to say, So you can’t handle it, huh?
“Brock, you can’t go!” Samantha pleaded quietly, grasping his arm. “We need you here! Please promise you’ll stay.”
“Well—” Brock paused. “I really don’t know—” Then he smiled at Samantha and put his hand over hers. “Maybe for a little longer—just to help a friend in need.”
A waiter was hovering over his shoulder with a sundae in his hand, but Brock waved him away. “Can’t waste the calories,” he explained. “I’d love some coffee, though.”
As the waiter moved on, Brock explained to his dinner companions, “I brought my own low-cal sweetener—my nutritionist recommended it.” He pulled out a small glass jar to show them. “Conscience, it’s called. Great stuff.”
“As he’s told everyone in this inn since he got here,” Tim grumbled under his breath. “Waiters included.”
As the conversation began to pick up at their table, George leaned forward and spoke to Nancy in a low voice. “Aren’t these accidents getting a little suspicious?”
“Definitely,” Nancy whispered back. “As soon as lunch is over, I’m going to look around a little. Those ants didn’t just find that cake. Someone put them there. If I’m lucky, I’ll find a clue or two to tell me what happened.”
• • •
“Can I help you, miss?”
Nancy looked up with a start from where she had been peering behind the refrigerator. A bus-boy had paused in the kitchen doorway, his arms full of dishes and a questioning expression on his face.
“Have you had problems with ants before today?” Nancy asked him.
The busboy shook his head. “You can’t believe how clean this kitchen is,” he said, stepping over to the counter and setting the dishes down with a clatter. “Mrs. Tagley is a real— I mean, everyone at the inn keeps an eye on the kitchen. The trash is taken out six times a day just so we don’t attract any pests. Besides, how could ants crawl through tile walls and a tile floor?” he asked, then seemed to forget she was there.
No way that Nancy could think of. That made her more certain that someone had brought the ants into the kitchen. But in what?
She’d already checked under the steam tables and behind the huge glass-doored refrigerators. The shelves, with their neat rows of kitchen supplies, had turned up nothing. Nancy had even stirred through the industrial-size garbage cans at one end of the kitchen with no success. And now she was starting to worry that the kitchen staff would kick her out soon.
Nancy let out a sigh, brushed back her reddish blond hair, and started to leave, bumping into a stainless-steel worktable on the way. Then it occurred to her that she hadn’t examined the rows of pots and pans under the huge worktables.
In the bottom of a two-gallon double boiler, Nancy found what she’d been looking for.
• • •
“An empty jar wrapped in an apron? Why are you showing me that, Nancy?” Samantha asked. She was staring blankly at the bundle Nancy had plopped down on the desk in her office.
“Look more closely,” Nancy urged. “This is what held the ants we saw on the cake.”
It was a large half-gallon glass jar. It had probably been a mayonnaise jar, Nancy thought, but there was no mayonnaise in it now. There were only ants—a few sluggish ones crawling sleepily around the bottom of the jar.
“I found it hidden in the kitchen,” Nancy explained. “I think whoever put those ants on the cake brought them into the kitchen in this.”
“But—but where would someone get ants?” Samantha asked, confusion in her dark eyes.
“That wouldn’t be too hard,” Nancy answered. “Some pet stores sell ants for ant farms. All anyone would have to do is put them in the refrigerator for a few minutes to make them sluggish enough to pour onto the—”
“Stop!” Samantha was turning slightly green. “I believe you,” she said quickly. “But who would do something like that?”
“I don’t know,” Nancy admitted. “Maybe the same person who set up the scale so it would tip while Brock was being weighed.”
Now Samantha was even more confused. “Set up the—the scale?”
“I forgot to tell you about that,” Nancy said gravely. Quickly she filled Samantha in. “I don’t know whether these pranks are being aimed at Brock or the festival in general,” she finished. “But I’m a detective, and if you’d like me to investigate, I’d be happy to.”
“No!” Samantha said emphatically. Then, as if to calm herself, she began rubbing her temples. “No, thank you, I mean. I’m sure these were just isolated incidents. The scale was probably already broken.”
“But if someone’s out to sabotage the festival or hurt Brock—”
“No, Nancy,” Samantha said firmly. “That’s impossible. It’s—it’s just an old mayonnaise jar, after all. I’ll tell the kitchen staff to do a better job cleaning up from now on.”
She seemed so determined not to hear Nancy’s message that Nancy didn’t bother pointing out that someone had already done an excellent cleanup job—on the jar. There wasn’t a fingerprint on it.
• • •
“Pure cocoa butter,” a woman with a round face and bouffant hairdo was telling Nancy. “That’s the only way you can get it to melt properly. I buy mine from a mail-order place in Switzerland. Would you like the address?”
“It sounds wonderful, but I don’t think so,” Nancy said politely.
Dinner had just ended—a fabulous buffet that included everything from melon in white-chocolate sauce to turkey with chocolate stuffing to chocolate-raspberry mousse torte. Now Nancy, Bess, and George were in the living room—a cozy room with a flagstone fireplace at one end, and sofas and chairs scattered throughout—as they waited for the final chocolate event of the day.
The woman headed off to find someone else to trade recipes with, and Nancy turned to Bess. “I think the people here take chocolate even more seriously than you do, Bess.”
“Impossible,” Bess said promptly. “I mean, I’ve eaten about four thousand chocolate things today, and I still can’t wait to try those new chocolate creams Samantha was telling us about.”
“They did sound pretty scrumptious,” George agreed.
At dinner Samantha had announced that Oakwood Inn was planning to launch a line of its own homemade chocolates. And Brock Sawyer was going to give the new chocolates their first official taste.
“I wonder how famous you have to be before you’re asked to be a taste tester at one of these things,” Bess said longingly. “Oh, look, there’s Brock! I’ll ask him.” She bolted across the room toward the actor.
Nancy chuckled. “Bess doesn’t believe in playing hard to get, does she?” she said to George. “Let’s go see how her tactics are working.”
When they reached Bess, she was saying, “But don’t you get full? I can’t eat more than a bite of these rich desserts, myself.”
George elbowed Nancy in the ribs, and Nancy had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing. But Brock seemed to buy Bess’s act.
The actor shook some of his special artificial sweetener into a glass of iced tea he was holding and took a big swig. “I’m just grateful I’ve got such a great nutritionist,” he told Bess. “If she hadn’t told me about this sweetener, I’d be a total blimp, with all the sampling I’m supposed to be doing. But I admit I’m looking forward to sampling these chocolates.”
Brock set his glass down on a coffee table. “At least I would be, if I were hungrier. That dinner did me in. I wonder if—”
“Ready, Brock?” Samantha spoke up from behind him. She was wearing a red dress that set off her dark hair, which fell in pretty waves down her back. In her hands was a gleaming red box tied with a silver ribbon.
“I sure am.” Brock was a little pale, but his voice was resolute as he followed Samantha to the fireplace. “Nice talking to you, Bess.”
As the girls squeezed into a love seat near the fireplace, Samantha held the red box aloft. “Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please. I’d like you to meet my mother’s newest candy—Silk and Cream Chocolates! They’re really something—made with pure Wisconsin cream and imported Belgian chocolate, from a recipe formulated by my mother. Tomorrow Silk and Cream Chocolates will hit the stores, but tonight our star taster will enjoy the very first bite!”
Samantha handed the red box to Brock. “These are my own personal favorites—Lemon Mousse Truffles.”
Brock pulled the ribbon open with a long, sweeping dramatic gesture. He reached in and lifted out a dark chocolate shaped like a heart.
“These look fabulous,” he said, then popped it into his mouth.
Nancy saw a look of surprise cross Brock’s face, but all he said was “And they—uh—they taste fabulous, too!” He reached for another truffle, but Nancy noticed that he was wincing as he tried to chew it.
“I don’t think he likes them,” George commented, sounding puzzled.
Brock kept chewing. “I’ll hate myself tomorrow,” he said, “but—”
Abruptly he stopped. His face registered shock, not surprise any longer, Nancy noticed. Clutching his stomach, he moaned. “Sam, there’s something wrong with these,” he managed to get out.
There was a nervous titter from some of the guests.
“Oh, Brock, stop it,” Samantha laughed. Giving him a jovial punch in the shoulder, she added, “He’s such a kidder. Aren’t you, Brock?”
Brock didn’t answer. He just fell forward, bent over double.
Then, twisting in agony, he collapsed to the floor.
Chapter
Five