Page 34 of The Usual Family Mayhem

“Oh...”

“Thought you might want to know that.” He headed for the door but delivered one more gem on the way out. “Try not to sell the place or break anything while everyone is gone.”

I’d be too busy trying to figure out why he told me what he did last night... and why the whoosh of relief almost knocked me over.

Chapter Seventeen

Yes, I’d vowed that the previous peek at Celia’s computer would be the last time I crossed a line into Gram and Celia’s personal space. I meant it back then but my thoughts kept spiraling. This invisible edge loomed in front of them. I needed to pull them back before they fell in and I lost them, too.

I didn’t care about how much they made or who they sold to, their expenses or their bank balances. I cared about them hoarding and possibly using a toxic substance that could kill people... and be traced back to them. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if I stumbled over evidence, but I’d deal with that mess after I made this new mess.

To start? Looking for the bottles Celia claimed she originally locked up in the pantry because they’d expired. I should be able to find them or a trace of them... maybe? Hunting down clues got a bit sticky when you didn’t know what to dig around for or where you should be looking.

I had time to play James Bond before Gram and Celia returned from church but the fear of being caught nagged at me. If Gram walked in and saw me pawing through her property...oh, boy.

The most logical place to look, and one with less risk of getting caught, was the baking annex. The building wasn’t an obvious hot spot for top-secret information because Celia and Gram weren’t the only ones who worked in here. A student from the culinary school in Charlotte, about an hour away, came in every week to help out and get experience. Two women from town worked part-time, mostly when the operation got slammed with orders, like around the holidays.

The shop also had a rotating group of people who helped with the packaging, distribution, and marketing. They shared the glass-walled office at the end of the building. Gram once told me she preferred baking to paperwork. Celia used to handle the boring administrative stuff, but since the business had taken off she worked mostly with Gram on the floor.

All of those bodies, everyone in and out, required the annex to be clean and organized at all times. Well, semiorganized. The desk in the office looked like the employees shuffled everything together, threw it in the air, then walked out the door. I gathered the slips of paper and tried to decipher the comments jotted down on sticky notes. Someone had plastered the yellow squares on and around the computer monitor.

This looked to be their system for double-checking that they’d handled everything. A sort of master checklist that included future projects with customers and information like birthdays and anniversaries. Marketing. Customer reminders. It was all mixed together with feedback and bakery notes, which made me question how usable this business filing system was.

I had a bachelor’s degree in English with a concentration in creative writing. The combination sounded very Jane Austen, but it didn’t translate into a steady income. It hadn’t for me yet, but I kept hoping. My skill set did not include business, finance, or accounting. Still, even I could tell this system needed work.

Determination kicked in. Poisoning intel could wait a few minutes while I came up with a streamlined and more intuitive way to handle this information. That caused one problem. Gram and Celia would know I was in this room when I presented them with my idea, but I could cover that by saying I went looking for leftover icing in the annex fridge. They’d buy that because I’d done it before.

In the end, I hoped to help, to make their lives a bit easier. If they didn’t want that, at least I tried.

Gram’s secondary pair of plaid slippers sat in a basket on the floor. Seeing the frayed and faded hot pink and white pattern made me smile. So subtle.

I took the scattered notes and reminder stickies and compiled everything then moved to the whiteboard. It started out clean, without a stray mark on it. After reading and shuffling and thinking, I had sketched out two separate but related systems—one aimed at future marketing and maintaining customer goodwill.

The other combined all the already available information into one easy-to-find place. Different employees, as they came in and out, would be able to see what was done and what needed attention without trouble.

After some amount of time, not sure how much, my neck stiffened. My lower back ached. I glanced at the clock. No, that couldn’t be right. I never got lost in work, but I’d been at this for almost two hours.

How was that possible?

A familiar scent hit me. Gram’s perfume. I spun around. Gram and Celia stood there in their fancy dresses, gawking atme through the glass wall. I could tell from their expressions that... nope. I had no idea what they were thinking.

Surrender. That was the only option here. “I can explain.”

In my head they stormed into the office, yelling and demanding an explanation. In reality, they wandered in, looking dazed and confused.

Words. I needed words. After a few false starts I got there. “I moved things around. That’s all.”

Celia went to the whiteboard. Studied it.

“Okay, yeah. I also mapped out a system of organization for keeping track of everything without having all these slips of paper hanging around.”

Celia continued to stare at my notes. Gram joined her.

Was the not talking good or bad? Unclear at the moment. “That part on the right is a general list of everything that needs to get done, short- and long-term, who is assigned to handle the task, and the status. A tickler system.”

They turned to face me. In unison.

No, that wasn’t scary at all.

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