Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder (Hannah Swensen #1)(96)

When your thermometer reaches 240 degrees F., give the pan a final stir, turn off the burner, and take your candy from the heat. Let it cool on a wire rack or a cold burner until it returns to almost room temperature. Then stir it with a wooden spoon until it looks creamy.



Lay out sheets of wax paper. Drop the Brown Sugar Drops by a spoon onto the paper. Don’t worry if your “drops” aren’t of uniform size. Once your guests taste them, they’ll be hunting for the bigger pieces.



Hannah’s 2nd Note: If the time gets away from you and your candy hardens too much in the pan, you can stick it back on the burner over very low heat and stir it constantly until it’s the proper creamy texture again.



Lisa’s Note: This candy reminds me of the kind that’s shaped like maple leaves. Dad used to bring it back from Vermont when he went back to visit Uncle Fritz and I loved it. Just for fun, I tried adding a teaspoon of maple extract and it was really good that way!



Yield: 3-dozen bon-bon size pieces of delicious candy.





Chapter Two




Candice Roberts arranged her sleeping bag under the lights by the front window of The Cookie Jar. The heater in the coffee shop blew out warm air that smelled like cookies, and Candy’s stomach growled even though there was no way that she could be hungry. She’d eaten the ham and cheese sandwich that the red-haired owner had left for her, along with the bag of potato chips and the sour dill pickle that had reminded her of the kind Granny Roberts used to make. And then, for dessert, she’d polished off six of a dozen cookies that had been left on a plate for her, and she’d washed them down with a full glass of milk from the walk-in refrigerator.

Once the sleeping bag was arranged to her satisfaction, Candy snuggled in and thanked her lucky stars that she wasn’t outside in the bitter cold. Her sleeping bag was rated for twenty below, but a glance at the thermometer in the kitchen window had told her that it was twenty-three below zero tonight, and it would probably get even colder before the sun came up in the morning.

A tear rolled down Candy’s cheek and dripped onto the fabric of her sleeping bag. It had been her dad’s last Christmas present to her, along with the down-filled, quilted field jacket that was getting just a bit too tight across the shoulders, and the buckskin mittens he’d called “choppers” that were lined with real fur. Dad had grown up in Minnesota, and they’d planned to go winter camping at the campground he remembered on the shores of Eden Lake.

Another tear joined the first, and then another. Now she’d never go camping with her dad again. A year ago, Dad had gone down to the clinic for an emergency. On his way home, a drunk driver had hit him and he’d died on the way to the hospital.

For a long while, Candy hadn’t thought she’d ever be happy again. She missed him so much. But she’d talked a lot with Mom, and that had helped. She was just starting to feel as if things might actually be okay when disaster struck again.

Just thinking about it caused another tear to fall, and then the dam broke. Candy cried until there were no more tears left, and then she closed her swollen eyes. She missed her dad, but missing him couldn’t bring him back again. And she missed her mom, but she wouldn’t see her again for a long, long time.



“You really wouldn’t mind driving past my shop?” Hannah asked, turning to Norman to make sure he was serious. They’d just finished dinner at the Lake Eden Inn where they’d had several new appetizers that Sally Laughlin, the co-owner and chef, would be featuring at her huge Christmas party next Friday night. It was a straight shot from the Lake Eden Inn to Hannah’s condo, but driving into town, where Hannah’s cookie shop was located, amounted to a twenty-six-mile detour.

“Why would I mind?” Norman answered her question with a question, something that Hannah’s mother frequently accused her of doing. “It gives me more time with you.”

The smile Norman gave her looked perfectly genuine in the dim light coming from his dashboard. Hannah smiled back and they were off, heading to Lake Eden on a wintry night that suddenly seemed much warmer to Hannah. “Would you like to hear about the night visitor I had this morning?” she asked.

“A night visitor in the morning?” Norman turned on the windshield wipers to handle the light sprinkling of snow that was falling. “Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?”

“No. Do you want to hear about it?”

“Yes, I want to hear about it.”

“All right then. The lights in the window were on when I drove past the front of the shop this morning. And then, when I unlocked the back door, I noticed that there was ice on the knob, as if a warm hand had gripped it just moments before.”

“You thought someone might be inside your shop and you went in anyway?” Norman glanced at her sharply.

“Of course I did. This is Lake Eden. We don’t have any crime to speak of.”

Norman didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. He just ran his finger across his throat in a slashing motion.

“Okay, okay. I get your point. Maybe we do have a little crime. But it was only one double-homicide, and I don’t think we’ve ever had one before. Lake Eden’s a really safe place to live in the winter, at least as far as break-ins go.”

“It’s too cold for crime?” Norman guessed.