Caramel Crush Page 13

  Stan looked at her. “Yeah, I already know about that.”

  “What? When? Who told you?” Tara snapped.

  Mel smiled at her and gave her a little finger wave.

  “You?” Tara looked at her with scorn.

  “He also slept with his future mother-in-law, Cheryl Earnest, or Kelly, or whatever her last name is now,” Mel said.

  Tara’s jaw dropped and she flapped her hands. “How do you know this?”

  “I have my ways,” Mel said with a shrug. She rose from where she had perched herself on the edge of Stan’s desk. She was feeling quite full of herself, so she added, “Here’s another news bulletin: Joe DeLaura and I are moving in together effective immediately.”

  Sixteen

  If Mel had been hoping to see Tara’s head explode, she was sorely disappointed, mostly because Stan erupted out of his seat and hauled her out of the office “to talk” about the situation before she had the satisfaction of seeing Tara’s reaction. Darn it.

  It took Mel a good twenty minutes to calm Stan down, assuring him that she and Joe were still going to get married and that he didn’t have to worry about any of the bad guys in Joe’s life coming after her. Although, it had happened before. By the time she left the station to go back to the bakery, she was exhausted.

  On the drive, her phone rang and she glanced at the display, fearing it was Uncle Stan calling to hassle her some more with some concern that he had forgotten to mention. Fortunately, or unfortunately, it was not Uncle Stan; rather, it was Diane.

  Mel parked the car in the lot behind the bakery and answered her phone. She knew it was better to answer than not as Diane would just keep calling her, and calling her, and calling her. She could be relentless like that.

  “Hi, Diane,” Mel said.

  “Mel, you have to help me,” Diane said. “The police have let me go, but I know it’s only temporary because I am still a person of interest.”

  “Could that be because your fiancé was sleeping with your mother and one of your bridesmaids?” Mel asked. She got out of her car and locked it.

  Silence, the type that was weighted in truth, was the only non-sound Mel heard on the phone. She might have thought the call had been cut off, but she was sure she could hear Diane’s brain whirring as she tried to think of what to say.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Mel asked.

  Diane’s voice when she spoke was faint. It sounded as if all of the fight had gone out of her and Mel felt terrible that she was the one who had brought her to such a low. Then again, better that it was Mel than the police.

  “I was ashamed,” Diane said.

  Mel blew out a breath. Shame was a familiar feeling for her. She used to feel it every time she broke a diet or went on an eating bender or heard someone make fun of her weight. Given Diane’s controlling nature, she could only imagine how much the information that her fiancé was cheating had destroyed her. Enough to kill him? Mel shook her head, refusing to think it.

  “I’m sorry, Diane,” Mel said. “That has to be rough.”

  Diane snorted. “What am I going to do, Mel? How am I going to get out of this?”

  “You’re going to sit tight,” Mel said. She made her voice firm, hoping she sounded much more confident than she felt. “You’ve got Steve as an attorney. He won’t steer you wrong. In the meantime, I’ll figure out a plan and call you back.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive,” Mel said. She hoped her voice sounded more certain than she felt. Honestly, the case against Diane was mounting and she didn’t really know how she could help her friend.

  “Hey,” Diane said, with what sounded like a forced laugh, “after this I’m going to owe you one.”

  “Huh,” Mel said. It was supposed to sound like a chuckle but it came out more like a grunt of pain. She hoped Diane didn’t hear it that way.

  She ended the call and thought about her next move. She could try and find more women who Mike had slept with but she didn’t really think that would play in Diane’s favor. Instead, she needed to find someone with a different take on the situation. Someone like Mike’s father, Butch Bordow. If she could crack him and find someone with a better reason to kill Mike than Diane, well, then she’d be able to help her friend. And Mel knew just who she needed at her back to shake up Butch Bordow.

  She spent the morning in the bakery, listening to Angie, who was so happy about her wedding menu that she didn’t have one wedding meltdown, not one. When her cousin Judi dropped by with her daughters, Ciera and Arianna, to discuss the decorations for the church, Angie deferred to Judi’s excellent suggestions and all was well with the world.

  Marty, who’d been watching Angie laugh with her cousin with one bushy eyebrow raised in suspicion, looked at Mel and asked, “What happened to bridezilla? Did you put Xanax in one of her cupcakes?”

  “No!” Mel protested. “First, I would never drug an unsuspecting friend, I’m pretty sure, and second, where would I even get that stuff?”

  “I figured after your brush with another dead body, a doc might hook you up,” he said.

  “Yeah, no thanks,” Mel said. “I’ll stick to my mood elevator of choice. Frosting.”

  She unloaded the batch of freshly decorated Orange Dreamsicle Cupcakes into the display case then glanced at the clock. It was a little before noon and Oz should be here at any moment to take over the bakery so she could relieve Tate from his duties at the bridal expo in downtown Phoenix. If she was going to intercept Butch Bordow at his favorite drinking spot, she had to go now.

  She put her tray on a rack under the counter and began to untie her apron.

  “Marty, I need to go run an errand. I’ll be back in an hour,” she said.

  She glanced at him to see if he was listening, and he nodded and said, “No.”

  Mel shook her head. The mixed signal, a nod with the word no, was throwing her off.

  “What?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

  “What do you not understand about the word no?” he asked.

  “At the moment, you saying it to me,” she said. “I’m the boss, remember?”

  Marty shrugged. It was clear he didn’t really think that point had any weight in their discussion.

  “Mel, I saw you when you came in yesterday. You were rattled. Finding that guy, sheesh, it had to be rough. I read the description in the paper this morning. They’re saying it was murder. You have to stay away from this,” he said. His bushy eyebrows lowered. “It could be dangerous.”

  “Marty, he was engaged to my friend. She hired me to deliver breakup cupcakes to him,” Mel said. “I can’t help thinking it’s weird that I found him dead at the same time that I was there to end his relationship, which would naturally make his ex the prime suspect.”

  “Okay, I can see where that would bother you, but it really has nothing to do with you,” Marty argued. “You were hired for a job, you did the job. It doesn’t matter that you once lived with this woman. The job was done. The gig is over. Time to move on.”

  “It’s not that simple,” she said. “I owe Diane a favor, a big one, from our past.”

  “So buy her a fruit basket and call it even.”

  “That doesn’t quite cover it.”

  “Neither does getting yourself killed in order to help her out,” he said.

  “I’m not going to—”

  “You don’t know that,” Marty interrupted. “Someone whacked that guy, which means he had enemies. If those enemies don’t like you poking your nose where it doesn’t belong, they are going to come after you. Or have we not learned that over the past year and a half when bad people have tried to hurt us?”

  Mel pressed her index finger to her right eyelid, which had begun to twitch.

  “What’s bugging her?” Oz asked as he joined them behind the display case.

  At well
over six feet tall, with an off-putting black fringe of hair that hung over his eyes, and an athletic build more suited to wielding a hammer than piping rosettes out of buttercream, Oz had been a welcome addition to the bakery crew last year. Aside from his talent as a pastry chef, Mel always enjoyed it when new customers came in and found him behind the counter and looked varying levels of shocked, stunned, and suspicious, right up until they tasted his cupcakes.

  “She’s going snooping and I’m trying to talk her out of it,” Marty said. “You know how she is.”

  “Stubborn,” Oz said.

  “Yep, she’s the only person I know who could argue with a wall and win.”

  “And I’m standing right here,” Mel said. She glanced between them. “And now I’m leaving.”

  “Does Joe know what you’re up to?” Marty asked.

  “Sorry, I can’t hear you,” Mel said. She ducked through the swinging door into the kitchen.

  “How about your uncle Stan, does he know?” Marty persisted. He was hot on her heels like a toddler chasing a snack. “I’ll call him if I have to.”

  “Go ahead,” Mel said. “He won’t take the call. He’s still mad at you for giving me away at my non-wedding, taking what he considers his place in my life.”

  “Really? Still mad?” Marty asked. “You didn’t even get married. He needs to get over it.”

  “I’ll be sure to tell him you said that,” Mel said.

  She hung up her apron and grabbed her handbag from her office. She slung it over her shoulder and headed out the back door.

  “Don’t forget that Tate is working the bridal expo in Phoenix,” Oz said. “You promised T-man you’d take the afternoon shift with Marty.”

  “I know. I’ll be back soon,” she said with a wave. “I promise.”

  “You have one hour and if you’re not back, I’m calling in the brothers,” he said.

  Mel waved at him as if it was no big deal, but as soon as she shut the door, she began to run. She did not—not—want to deal with the DeLaura brothers. No way, no how.

  She hurried to the end of the street and was relieved to see the tattoo shop was open. She glanced through the window and saw Mick, the owner, sitting in one of the barbershop-type recliners while he perused the paper. Mel yanked the door open and hurried inside.

  “Hey, Mick, are you busy?” she asked.

  Mick lowered the paper. “You finally here to get some ink?”

  “No,” she said. “I have to go talk to someone, and I need backup, scary-looking backup.”

  Mick rubbed his big, blocky jaw with the back of his hand.

  “You know I’m a pacifist, right?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “It’s really more your look that I’m after.”

  “Mr. Donnelly, I found the discrepancy in your accounts,” a woman’s voice interrupted them.

  Mel turned toward the back of the shop, where a petite woman in a navy blue suit stood in the doorway of Mick’s office. She had a sheaf of papers in her hand and her dark-framed reading glasses were shoved up on top of her head, resting against her bun of honey-colored hair.

  “Thanks, Frankie,” Mick said. “I knew a smart girl like you could figure it out.”

  “It’s Frances,” she corrected him. She gave him a weary look, as if they had this conversation every day and he just wasn’t getting it.

  “I think Frankie suits you better,” he said. He took the papers from her and began to look them over. “Just like a tiny little dragonfly tattoo right on your—”

  “Stop right there,” she said. Frances frowned at him but it was belied by the pink suffusing her face in an embarrassed shade of seriously crushing on Mick. Huh.

  “It’d be smokin’ hot, that’s all I’m saying,” he said.

  Mel glanced between them. Frances was an accountant who rented the office above Mick’s shop. She was a no-nonsense, prim and proper sort of girl, and while Mick had mentioned previously that he liked her, Mel had never thought his interest would be returned. Go figure.

  “Hi, Frances,” she said.

  “Mel.” Frances nodded. “I have to go now.”

  Frances strode toward the front door as if the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels. Mel shook her head. The woman was more socially awkward than a belch in church.

  “Hey, Frankie,” Mick called just before she disappeared out the door. “Don’t forget, dinner is on me.”

  Frances’s face flashed crimson. Mel would have laughed if she wasn’t so worried that the poor thing was about to pass out.

  Instead, she made a squeaky little noise and ran around the side of the building to the staircase that would take her back up to her office.

  “So, you and Frances, huh?” Mel asked.

  “Not yet, but I’m working on it,” he said.

  “Well, she’s definitely not indifferent to you,” Mel said.

  Mick grinned. With his full lips, it would have been a devastating smile, but the multiple lip rings he was sporting along with the small horns coming out of his nose made it more terrifying than anything else. And for Mel’s purposes, that was perfect.

  “So, can I borrow you?”

  He looked at her and frowned. “No quid pro quo?”

  “I didn’t have time, but I swear, I will bake you a dozen Moonlight Madness Coconut Cupcakes by the end of today,” she said.

  “Can you make half of those Tinkerbells?” he asked. A faint pink tinged his cheeks.

  “Frances’s favorite?” she guessed.

  Mick shrugged. “What can I say? She gets to me.”

  “It’s a deal.” Mel grinned, then she grew serious. “But you have to look really scary. Like, terrifying.”

  “I have no appointments booked for the next half hour, so you’re on and I will do my best to be intimidating. Lead on, fearless cupcake baker,” he said. He gestured toward the door. “So, where are we going, anyway?”

  Mel waited while he paused to lock up behind him.

  “A bar,” she said.

  The silver ball stud pierced where Mick’s right eyebrow used to be—he had shaved the entire thing off—lifted up in surprise. “Not what I expected.”

  “Nothing ever is,” Mel said.

  “Amen to that.”

  They strode in companionable silence to the Triple Fork Saloon, nestled amid the shops in Old Town Scottsdale. The small bar had been here since the fifties and retained its retro ambiance of days gone by.

  Mel pushed through the swinging doors, of course they were, and stepped into the dimly lit space, feeling the empty peanut shells crunch under her feet as she made her way to the bar that ran along the wall on the left. Tables were scattered around the narrow room. Several large-screen televisions were mounted on the wall and at the back a pool table was spotlighted under a stained glass lamp that was advertising beer.

  Mel hadn’t been in here in a year or more and the place hadn’t changed a bit. It even maintained its pungent smell of fried food and stale beer. It only took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the gloom and then she saw him, perched on a stool, elbows resting on the bar, keeping his bloated face just inches above the pint of beer sitting in front of him. Butch Bordow, barfly.

  “Hey, isn’t that—” Mick began, but Mel cut him off.

  “Yes,” she hissed. “Now hush.”

  “But he’s been all over the news,” Mick protested. “His son was—”

  “Murdered, yes, I know,” Mel said.

  “Oh, no.” Mick shook his head. “You are not dragging me into one of your crazy dead-body situations. I was warned about you.”

  Seventeen

  “What dead body? There’s no dead body here,” Mel said. “And who warned you about me?”

  “Frankie,” he said. “She said you have the devil’s own luck.”

  Mel blew out a breath.
“Did she mean that in a good way or a bad way?”

  Mick glowered.

  “Okay, bad way, got it.” Mel lowered her voice before continuing, “Listen, I know this is awkward, but my friend was engaged to the dead guy and she’s being wrongfully accused of harming him, so I’m just going to talk to his father and see if there may have been someone else who might have had reason to kill his son Mike.”

  “Yeah, ’cause that’s an easy conversational segue to work in from how you doin’?” he said. “You’re going to have to up my payment to two dozen cupcakes or, depending upon how this goes, maybe three.”

  “Fine,” Mel said.

  She glanced over at Butch, who seemed unaware that they were there. She felt bad about interrupting a bereaved father and she wasn’t exactly sure how she was going to play it. Still, she needed information. Judging by how Butch had filleted the police on the news last night, he wasn’t going to be sharing with them anytime soon, so really she was doing a public service to try and get him to share any information he had with her. She couldn’t help it if Uncle Stan did not view it in the same light.

  Mel sat on the empty barstool next to Butch. With some muttering and grumbling Mick took the seat on the other side of her. Butch was so entranced with the bubbles floating up to the top of his pale ale, he didn’t even turn to check them out. Mel wondered how blotto he was already and if this was going to be a complete waste of her time.

  Ah, well, nothing ventured nothing gained, as they say, even if it meant a stern talking-to from Uncle Stan and Joe, as well as a whole lot of I told you so’s from Marty.

  She swiveled on her stool so that she nudged Butch Bordow’s knee. This was not hard to do as he was sitting on his stool with his knees splayed wide in a clear manspreading move to get as much of the bar real estate as he could manage. When Mel brushed by him, he didn’t even glance her way, making it more challenging to engage him in conversation.