Read Cherry Cheesecake Murder for Free Online Page B

film, they would exercise bragging rights with friends and relatives who lived more humdrum lives in less fortunate places.
    There was a parking spot in front of the community center and Hannah took it. She went around to the back of her truck and opened the rear doors, eyeing the stacks of tablecloths and napkins she’d picked up from her condo neighbors, the Hollenbeck sisters, who’d washed and ironed them in honor of this special occasion. It had taken her three trips to load them in her truck and it would take that many to deliver them to Edna at the community center kitchen.
    Hannah stacked up her first load, the widest brown paper-wrapped bundle on the bottom and smaller paper-wrapped bundles on top. When she had a pyramid of five packages, she picked them up and started for the door.
    “Hold it!” a female voice called out, and Hannah stopped in her tracks. The top bundle was blocking her view and she peered around it like a kid with a periscope to see who’d halted her forward progress.
    “Hi Pam,” Hannah greeted Jordan High’s Home Economics teacher.
    “Girls?” Pam addressed the half-dozen high school seniors who’d volunteered for waitress duty and were following in her wake. “Don’t just stand there. You know what to do.”
    Beth Halvorsen, one of Hannah’s favorite high school seniors, led the charge to Hannah’s cookie truck and soon the packages were being loaded into younger arms. One of the girls veered off to relieve Hannah of her burden and before she could do more than say thank you, Pam’s students had disappeared inside the building and Hannah was left as free as a bird, with nothing but her purse to carry.
    “It’s times like this that I wonder if I should have been a teacher,” Hannah said, falling into step with last year’s teacher of the year.
    “Maybe. My girls adore you.”
    “Don’t let that fool you. It’s because I bring cookies every time I visit your class.”
    “You’ve got a point,” Pam said, as they stepped inside and headed for the stairway that led down to the community center banquet room.
    The two friends parted ways at the bottom of the stairs. Pam went to help her student teacher, Willa Sunquist, supervise the girls, who were draping tablecloths over the tables and setting out the centerpieces they’d made in class.
    “Hannah!” Edna called out as Hannah pushed open the kitchen door. “I’m so glad you’re here early!”
    “There’s a problem?” Hannah asked, guessing that something besides blusher must have caused the high color in Edna’s normally pale cheeks.
    “You can say that again! What can we make to take the place of Loretta Richardson’s Sausage and Egg Casserole?”
    “I’m not sure. Why do we have to think of something to replace it?”
    “Because Loretta slipped on a patch of ice on the way out to the garage and all three pans spilled in the snow. We need something else and we need it in less than two hours.”
    Hannah thought fast. Since Edna had been planning to put three pans of Sausage and Egg Casserole in the oven, she had extra oven space. “I could make Fruit Pocket French Toast.”
    “What’s that?”
    “It’s something my Grandma Ingrid used to bake for breakfast on Christmas morning.”
    “Then it’s a holiday dish and it’s bound to be good. How long does it take to make it?”
    Hannah added up the cooking time of forty-five minutes, preparation time of ten minutes, and standing time of twenty minutes. “If I can get all the ingredients I need in ten minutes, I can have it ready to serve in about an hour and a half.”
    “Perfect.” Edna looked around for Florence Evans and beckoned her over. “Can you open up the Red Owl? Hannah’s going to pull off a miracle and she needs supplies in a big hurry.”
    “No problem. Give me a list.”
    Hannah scrawled a quick list and gave it to Florence. “Can you be back in here in ten minutes? Time’s going to be a factor.”
    “I’ll be back in five,”