Lemon Chiffon Murder: A Donut Hole Cozy Mystery - Book 8 by Susan Gillard Page A

He thrust the page back at the officer, who scuttled out of the room.
    He turned on the trio, his bottom lip trembling and that twitch in his eyes firing at a rapid rate. It looked like a continuous wink.
    “You are free to go,” he said, and gestured towards the door.
    “What?!” Heather asked. “How, why?”
    “Do we really want to be asking questions, right now?” Amy whispered. “Let ’ s just get out of here.”
    “Do as ze girl says,” Piti uttered. He sniffed and twitched again.
    “No, I want to know what ’ s going on. And what ’ s going to happen to Angelica.”
    “Zis Angelica is already back in ze American States. You have ze friends in high places. Now go. Get out ze sight of mine. Go!” Brodoteau was clearly about to explode for a second time.
    Ryan grasped Heather ’ s arm and whispered in her ear, “Live today, fight tomorrow.”
    They hurried out of room 212 and down the hall, not daring to look back in case Piti decided to follow and arrest them after all. They crashed into Amy and Heather ’ s shared bedroom a few minutes later.
    “What on earth was that about?” Heather asked. “What was on that paper.”
    Amy placed Dave on the floor, and he scampered to the doggy pillow in the corner and climbed into it. He curled up with a snuffling sigh and shut his eyes. It ’ d been a rough dog gone day in doggy land.
    “ I don’ t know but –”
    Amy gasped and held her phone aloft. “I know what happened. Kent just messaged me. He managed to get all the charges dropped against Angelica. She was extradited back to the states and they closed the case.”
    “What? How in heaven ’ s name did he manage that?” Heather asked. Even Ryan looked as if he ’ d been hit in the face with a lemon meringue pie.
    “I tried to tell you the other day, Kent ’ s a high-end lawyer. A district attorney, actually, and he ’ s got quite a few connections high up. I had no idea they were this high up.” Amy read the text messages on her phone and focused on them again a second later. “Apparently, he liaised with our embassy here in France and brought down fire. He threatened to have the French police up for arresting Angelica, because they broke the chain of evidence. They were supposed to clean up the crime scene and room 212.”
    “Wow,” Heather whispered.
    “Yeah, they didn ’ t have enough evidence to arrest her. Since the chain of evidence was already broken, they couldn ’ t do anything to us for breaking it even more. The case is closed, at least for Angelica.”
    “That ’ s great and everything, a big relief,” Heather said, “but what does that mean for Jane? Are they actually going to try catch her killer?”
    “ I don’ t know,” Amy said, and frowned. “I ’ ll phone Kent and ask him for more information.”
    Heather sighed. Serendipity had worked in their favor this time, thanks to Kent getting the case thrown right out of court, but that didn ’ t mean it was over.
    They still had to find the killer. And Heather ’ s wedding was only a few days away.

Chapter 15
    Heather stood in the kitchen, late at night, after it had finally closed and all the guests of the Saint James were asleep. Augustin had been a little more lenient after discovering that Angelica was innocent and had been sent back to the States.
    He seemed uplifted now that the case was closed. His hotel could back to functioning normally, and that meant that he would allow the minor – great, according to him – inconvenience of Heather banging her American thumbs in his kitchen.
    “The French have the strangest sayings,” Heather said, and mixed the icing for the Lemon Chiffon crueller donuts.
    “ Oh, I don’ t know, it ’ s starting to grow on me.” Amy sat at one of the counters, watching Heather work her magic and fiddling with the small, white bottle of fake tears that Lori Lisalot had dropped at the memorial dinner.
    “Don ’ t tell me you ’ re going to miss cheesy Augustin and the nosy