Excerpt of Asking for Truffle by Dorothy St. James

On the screen was a newspaper headline:

Man Murdered in Vat of Chocolate.

“What in the world is this?” I asked.

A consummate researcher, Granny Mae searching out articles about chocolate and chocolate shops didn’t surprise me. Digging through information had been her way of helping out after I’d received that phony prize to an obscure chocolate shop on the beach.

I scrunched my brows and read the headline again. Murder by chocolate? The articles that usually caught her fancy were scientific discoveries, political opinion pieces, and human rights violations. Not sensational murders.

“What is this? I don’t have time to read an article about some bizarre murder,” I said and then checked my phone for the call that still hadn’t come.

Granny Mae had three PhDs—one in biochemistry, one in astrophysics, and the third in journalism. Strange or sensational news simply wasn’t her thing.

“It’s Skinny,” she whispered.

“What?” I dropped like a heavy weight into the nearest kitchen chair. A frigid cold that had nothing to do with the outside air settled deep into my bones. I read the entire article. Skinny?

“No. It can’t be. It can’t be him,” I said.

Granny Mae bent down and enveloped me in her warm embrace. Together we cried loud, sloppy, hiccupy sobs, the kind I loathed. But with her holding onto me, making me feel safe and loved, I couldn’t seem to hold back my messy emotions.

After I’d wrung myself dry, she handed me a tissue for my nose and then blew hers as well. “After we met with your friend, I subscribed to the digital edition of Camellia Beach’s local newspaper, The Camellia Current. I was hoping the newspaper might help us learn more about the town and the chocolate shop that sent the prize letter,” she explained. “It’s a small-town paper. Most issues are filled with things like arguments about new land developments at the monthly town council meeting, surf contest results, and this scone recipe. But this morning’s headline…” She tapped the iPad with the heavy scone she still had in her hand.

“I can’t believe it,” I whispered. It couldn’t be true. But each time I read the article, the facts refused to change. Last night Skinny McGee, my Skinny McGee, who’d promised to call this morning to tell me his exciting news, had been dipped headfirst into a huge vat of semisweet chocolate in the back room of Camellia Beach’s local chocolate shop, the Chocolate Box.

The Chocolate Box: the same chocolate shop where I’d won cooking lessons—cooking lessons Skinny had suggested I take.

I need to think.

I need to think.

But my mind, along with the rest of my body, had frozen up.

“Could you let Stella in? She must be a pupsicle by now,” I murmured.

Granny Mae sniffed back tears. She grumbled about the little dog as she padded toward the back door and swung it open, letting in a blast of frigid air.

I looked at the article again.

“Start packing your bags,” Skinny had told me. “You really need to come down here and see this for yourself.”

Why? I silently asked him. What did you find?