Rain's Short Reads

One Cookie a Day

Nearly a month had passed and each of the twenty-nine days consisted of one thing in familiar: a single cookie lay on the desk of Gabrielle Bone, an over-working investigator who only wished of two things: first, that she could find who murdered Amy Bourne, and second, to find love. On day thirty, she expected nothing less than the same cookie she had received each of the other days.

Shouldering her way through the frigid air, passing street lamps adorned in torn missing person flyers, holding faces of those who would never be found, Gabrielle was reminded of a similar morning about a month ago. On that morning, Gabrielle entered the police station to witness a frenzy - phones were ringing, officers were rushing around, and voices were raised in confusion. She was immediately consulted by the sheriff, who before telling her what was going on felt it necessary to make it known of his personal annoyance that Gabrielle had not answered her phone. However, the more important matter quickly overtook this and the sheriff told her of her new job: "Amy Bourne was murdered. No fingerprints at the crime scene, no evidence at all, seems to me as if she just fell dead."

"And the autopsy?" Gabrielle questioned, not surprised at the lack of evidence. Most murderers don't want to be found.

"Poison," he said, shoving her reports and papers before they parted ways - the sheriff to deal with the family and Gabrielle to her office. She flipped through the papers until she found the portrait of the deceased - a girl with soft brown curls and a pretty smile. It reminded Gabrielle of the missing person flyers, but instead of false hope for those families this girl's death was definite. Pushing open the door to her office, the first thing Gabrielle noticed was the plate on top of her desk holding a heart-shaped cookie dazzled with red frosting. She couldn't stop the blush from rising to her cheeks and shading them a rosy-pink. A heart-shaped cookie for her? She never thought herself to be someone who was deserving of sweet, anonymous, romantic gestures. Of course, that is what this had to be, right? A cookie left for her by some secret admirer, left in a hopeful gesture to make her fall in love with him, like in the movies. She smiled, which seemed almost cruel, as she was supposed to be focusing on death, not the hopefulness that lay in a single cookie. Devouring the cookie, she began to work on the mystery of Amy's death.

Fifteen days later and fifteen anonymous cookies later, Gabrielle was finding herself stumped over the death of Amy Bourne. The body was found strewn across the floor of Amy's office. There was no blood, only the poison that had carried away her life. There were only two questions that stumped her: Who poisoned Amy and where did the poison come from? None of Amy's close family were guilty, it was blatantly obvious. And none of the evidence in her office seemed to be the source of her poison. The idea of suicide was thrown around too, but all signs pointed very far away from that. How is it that someone had gotten away with no traces? Usually something was always left behind...

Gabrielle Bones was brought back to the current day when she entered the police station. The scene reminded her of the frenzy she saw on the first day of the cookies, as the entire police force was a mess. This time, Gabrielle knew what it meant - new evidence. The overly excited sheriff was by her side in seconds and from the look on his face she knew that this evidence made the case and that this was what they had been looking for all this time. He revealed to her his gloved hands, which were holding a small bag. The contents of the bag were something Gabrielle was all too familiar with - a part of a heart-shaped cookie draped in red frosting.

The sheriff was speaking all too fast now, saying, "It has traces of the poison. According to the autopsy, it only takes about a month to kill someone." But Gabrielle wasn't listening anymore, as the walls of her world were being torn down and apart at the realization of what had been done to her. The cookie was not a harmless romantic gesture, it never had been. It was merely a murder dressed in love. She was rushing away from the sheriff, to her office that had been the house of a cookie for twenty-nine days.

Today, however, it was not. She was astounded to find that in the place of the cookie was a note. Slowly, as if Death was standing beside her, she lifted it up. She read the following, neatly typed words, "It's too late."