Sweets Shop Cozy Mysteries Boxset

by Maisy Morgan

  Mary took the paper from him somewhat aggressively and then looked at the brochure. AToN was the place that all the celebrities went to for rehab. It made her wonder a good bit about this man she was dating. Who was he? How did they meet? Then again, it had been a few years since she had last heard from her daughter. She had no idea what Lilly had been up to in the past few years. She had filed a missing persons report years ago, and the police had evidently found Lilly. And Lilly had said that she didn’t want to be contacted by her mother. Because she was an adult, there wasn’t much more that Mary could do at that point. That had been the last she had heard from her daughter. A brief conversation with the police told Mary that her daughter was not doing well but that she didn’t want help. Now, her ex-husband was standing here telling her he had managed to talk to Lilly. The man who had abandoned them both.

  “Thank you,” Mary said at last after staring at the information he had given her. “I’ll probably call her when I’m in the right state of mind. Honestly, I’m a little shaken up. I’m sorry I rammed you with the grocery cart.”

  “I can’t say that I didn’t deserve that,” he admitted. “Mary, I really am sorry. I hope you know that. It’s taken way too long for regret to catch up to me, but it has. And, I really am sorry. I didn’t even realize Lilly had a drug problem, and it’s apparently been going on for at least twelve years she told me.

  “Something like that,” Mary said. “I tried to help her Jonathan. She got in with the wrong people, and that was it.”

  “How is… um…” Jonathan’s cheeks turned red.

  “How is who?” Mary questioned.

  “Lilly’s son,” he said at last.

  “You don’t even know his name. Do you?” Mary asked.

  “He didn’t come up when Lilly and I talked. I don’t think either of us were ready to open up that wound,” Jonathan stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked away. “I’m terrible, I know. What did she name him?”

  “Tripp,” Mary said.

  “With a druggie for a mom, what kind of life has the boy had Mary?” Jonathan asked.

  “A pretty good one actually,” Mary said. “That boy you hated so much for knocking our daughter up, well, he stepped up big time. He took Tripp away from Lilly and me, because he thought it was best for him not to be around the drugs and lies.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he said sounding truly sincere.

  “Tripp has had a good life,” Mary said. “His dad took good care of him.”

  “Good. That’s good,” he said. “Do you ever see him? I know you and Lilly haven’t spoken in a couple of years. It was as if she dropped off the face of the earth. Have you been in touch with Aaron?”

  Mary felt she had come to a fork in the road. Should she tell Jonathan that Aaron was dead? That Tripp was right here in Georgia with her? She wasn’t sure yet. She decided to wait to decide whether or not she wanted to tell him the truth, so for the time being she lied. “Not much,” Mary said. “I have been a little bit lately. I’ve gotten to see Tripp some.”

  “That’s good,” Jonathan said. “You’ve been all alone haven’t you? With Lilly running off and Aaron not letting you see Tripp.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Mary said. “However, I’ve made it work.”

  “You’ve always been a really strong woman you know?” Jonathan said.

  “It sure would have been nice if I didn’t always have to be Jonathan,” Mary snapped. “You hurt me. I appreciate you bringing me this information. I appreciate the fact that you finally talked to Lilly. But you know that hardly makes up for anything.”

  “I know,” he said. “I also understand if you don’t want to talk, but I would like to. Maybe I can buy you dinner, and we could just, I don’t know, talk it out some?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “However, not right now while I’m out running errands, for crying out loud.”

  “Yeah, of course,” he said. “I wasn’t really sure what to expect honestly. I guess a more delusional part of me thought you might be glad to see me.”

  “A very delusional part,” Mary said, smiling slightly at him. “Who knows, I might call you.”

  He nodded approvingly handing her a slip of paper that he had ready for her already with his hotel information and phone number on it. “Believe it or not, it was good to see you,” he said kicking his shoes a bit to cause some of the flour to fall off. “I’m going to awkwardly walk away and let you deal with that though since you’re the one who shoved me into the shelf.” He winked at her, tossed his grocery basket into her grocery cart, and headed out of the building.

  Mary exhaled deeply. She stuffed Jonathan’s information into her pocket carelessly but carefully folded the contact information for Lilly and placed it within a safe pouch in her purse. She contacted a manager to let the store know about the spilt flour bag before finishing with her shopping list, in a lot less of a rush this time around.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tripp watched as his grandmother darted out of the shop to get eggs, and he felt a slight sense of betrayal. How long was she going to keep from him that the man who had entered the shop only moments ago had been his grandfather? The man who had abandoned her and his mother? Didn’t he have a right to know that his grandfather was there looking for them? Tripp knew his expression of the influx of emotions he was feeling was not being well hidden. But he also knew it was a bit uncalled for when he aggressively said, “What?” to Hannah as she was caught looking at him.

  Hannah leaned back in her wheelchair staring at him from across the shop. “You sure are moody,” she said. “Did something happen? I thought it was weird that my mom asked me to come over here because you needed help watching the shop. You’ve watched it by yourself before and did fine. So, what gives?”

  “This guy was in here earlier,” Tripp said. “He got into it with my grandma.”

  “Yeah, Mom said something about that,” Hannah said. “I’m not sure what good a girl in a wheelchair is going to do if the creep comes back though. Plus, Mom isn’t exactly the sort of person to put me in even the slightest position of risk. You should see her freak out when I go on rides at amusement parks. She wouldn’t have sent me over here as your backup. Now tell me, what’s really going on?’

  “I think they just didn’t want me to be by myself if he comes back because he might start asking questions,” Tripp said.

  “Asking questions about what?” Hannah asked pushing on the wheels of her chair so that she zipped halfway across the room towards him.

  “You are so nosey,” he snapped.

  “I guess you’re not going to tell me what’s going on?” Hannah asked. “You know, I can tell when something is going on that you don’t want to tell me. Who was that guy who was in here earlier? Why did he get into it with your grandma? She’s not exactly the confrontational type.”

  Tripp had been staring out the window of the shop during the entirety of their conversation, so he hadn’t realized that she had slowly rolled up to the edge of the counter. She banged hard on the counter causing him to jump. “What?” he snapped.

  “What’s going on?” she asked glaring at him.

  Tripp rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help but to slightly smile at her. He quickly erased the pleasant expression as his thoughts drifted back to what had taken place only moments ago, namely the bold-faced lie his grandmother, Mary, had just told him. “Okay, so you want to know what happened?”

  “Uh, yeah,” she said with more sass than he could handle.

  He huffed at her. “Stop being so sarcastic with me,” he said. “Okay, so he came into the shop, and Grandma immediately sent me back to the kitchen. She didn’t even call me by my first name. She called me Allen, which is my middle name. That was totally weird first of all. Then, she tells me to go back to the kitchen to get going on the key lime pies, which I don’t even know how to make. I get the hint and dip out, but I stayed by the door. I wanted to hear what was going on.”

  “Draco would be so prou
d,” Hannah teased.

  “Let’s not go down the rabbit hole of Draco’s weird spy mission he did this summer,” Tripp said. “Anyway, I couldn’t hear everything they were saying, but the guy was getting pretty worked up, so I called Preston. Preston was just down the road, and he got here in like two minutes, if that, and he kicked the guy out. I overheard Grandma and Preston talking and found out that the man was her ex-husband.”

  “Wait – what? I thought he lived in California?” Hannah asked. “Her ex-husband, as in, your grandfather!?!”

  “Yes, that’s right, my grandfather,” Tripp said practically snarling. “She then just straight up lies to me. She says he’s some guy she knew in LA that she didn’t get along with.”

  “I suppose that’s not a total lie,” Hannah said. “Your grandad would be some guy she knew in LA that she didn’t get along with.”

  “I deserve for her to be straight with me Hannah!” Tripp said with a louder voice than he intended. He breathed deeply. “I mean, because of my dad, I don’t know half of my family you know?” He immediately bit his tongue. He hadn’t said a negative thing about his dad since his passing, and it felt filthy in his mouth. It made him feel guilty, but it was a truth that had bothered him for some time. His dad had taken him from his mother, for a good reason, but had it been totally necessary for him to kick Mary out of their life too? “It’s just weird,” he said after taking a moment to compose himself. “I’ve got all of this family that I don’t even know, and it’s like everyone is hellbent on never letting me meet any of them. My dad kept me from my mom and my grandma. Now Grandma wants to keep me away from my grandfather?”

  “Looks like your family has an interesting sense of what’s right and what’s wrong,” Hannah said. “I don’t know. It sounds like it all is done with good intentions. Your mom has some serious problems. Your dad kept you away from her for a reason. He was looking out for you.”

  “Yeah, but –”

  “I did the same thing with my mom,” Hannah reminded him. “You know how my dad showed up at the house trying to talk to mom, and I made him leave. I didn’t even tell my mom about it. I don’t know if it was the right thing or not. It had some pretty serious consequences, didn’t it? I just did what I thought was right at the time. I think that’s all your dad did, and I’m sure that’s what Mary is doing too.”

  “Yeah, but it should be my choice,” Tripp said. “If my grandfather shows up looking for me, then I should be able to decide if I want to see him or not. She shouldn’t. It should be up to me. I know he hurt her and my mom, but I should be the one who gets to decide if I want to see him.”

  Hannah thought for a moment, and as she frowned, her eyes softened. “Tripp, don’t take this the wrong way, but how do you know he was looking for you?”

  “What else would he be doing here in Georgia?” Tripp asked. “I guess he might be having regrets and just wanted to talk to my grandma. He could have just come here looking for her if he didn’t know about what happened to my dad. Either way, she should have given me the chance to try to talk to him if I wanted to.”

  “Do you want to?” Hannah asked. “If so, I know someone who is really good at finding people.”

  Tripp stared blankly at her for a moment. “Who?”

  “Draco, you dope!” she exclaimed. “Think about it. He learned all sorts of weird things in that little spy club of this summer. Think about what all he was able to learn about you and your grandmother when he made you guys his project.”

  “I really don’t want to be reminded about how creepy Draco can be,” Tripp said. “We’re friends now, and he’s pretty cool. Let’s not talk about that.”

  “Oh, shut up,” she said. “Just think about it though. I bet Draco could track your grandfather down in no time. He could probably find out where he’s staying. I mean, unless he’s moved here to Georgia, then he’s got to be staying in a hotel, right?”

  Tripp thought about this for a moment. Wouldn’t it just be better to confront his grandmother about the lie? To tell her that he wanted to meet the man? What if he did go to her, and she said no? What if she refused? The idea of her intentionally preventing him from meeting the man made him a bit angry. She had already lied to him. Clearly, she didn’t want him to talk to the man. “Text him for me, would you?” Tripp said. “See if Draco can put his unique skills to use.”

  Hannah smirked. “Sweet! Spy mission!” She paused before putting on a puzzled expression. “I think hanging out with Draco and his parents has gotten to me. I sounded really dorky just then, didn’t I?”

  Tripp laughed. “Yeah, well, Draco’s a cool dork.”

  Hannah laughed as well and sent Draco a text. He pinged back rather quickly, and she grinned. “He just needs his name. You know his full name?”

  “Uhh…” Tripp had to rack his brain for a second. “Oh, dang! My grandmother never went back to her maiden name, so it’s Jonathan Hopkins. I am almost certain.”

  Hannah looked down at her phone for a minute. “Looks like he’s going to need more than that. He needs a middle name too in order to make sure he’s tracking the right guy.”

  “Well, I don’t know!” Tripp groaned. He rubbed his face for a moment. He didn’t even know his grandmother’s middle name, so how was he supposed to know the middle name of this total stranger? “Wait, tell him to try Allen.”

  Hannah once again turned her attention to her phone, and after a few minutes, she held her phone up to Tripp. “This look like the guy? He sent me a picture of someone he found online.”

  Tripp frowned. “That’s him! That’s the man who was in the shop earlier! That’s my, wow, I was named after him! Seriously? I got that creeps middle name!”

  “You’re the one who guessed it,” Hannah said. “Why are you so surprised?”

  “I only guessed it because I remember my dad telling me that my middle name came from someone on my mom’s side of the family,” Tripp said, rubbing his temples. “Why would my mom have given me the middle name Allen after her dad left like that?”

  “Maybe she was hoping he would come back,” Hannah suggested, and it was a rather sad thought. “I’ll tell Draco he’s got the right guy and to see what he can dig up.”

  “Tell him thanks,” Tripp said, and the door to the shop opened.

  Mary entered, her arms full of groceries, and Hannah fumbled to hide her phone away. “I thought you were just going out for eggs!” Hannah exclaimed.

  Mary laughed. “Well, that had been the original plan. There’s more in the car,” she said.

  “I’m on it,” Tripp said and hurried out the door. He helped his grandmother finish with bringing the groceries inside, and once she had everything settled down in the kitchen he asked if he could walk Hannah back to her mother’s antique shop.

  “Good idea,” Mary said while stretching her back. “That was a heck of a trip to the store.”

  Tripp and Hannah exited the dessert shop, and he opted to push her wheelchair to give her arms a break. She had elected to ride in her old-fashioned manual today instead of the electric. “Did he text you back yet?” Tripp asked hopefully.

  “He’s not an FBI agent, Tripp,” Hannah said. “Give Draco time. He’ll find him, and I’ll text you when he does.”

  After heading back to the dessert shop, Tripp had a hard time concentrating the rest of the day. He kept thinking about the man in the white button up shirt who had so suddenly appeared that day. What would he be like? Would he even want to see him? Since it was a bit slow that day, Mary wound up dragging him into the kitchen to teach him how to make the key lime pies.

  Tripp played along nicely, but the truth was, he was feeling incredibly bitter towards her. He kept waiting for her to stop what they were doing, to sit him down, and to tell him about why his grandfather was in town. How and why was she caught off guard by his arrival. None of that happened though. She kept up with the charade, and it made him angry.

  Mary suddenly looked at the clock. “Let’s get closed
up,” she said.

  “It’s early,” he remarked.

  “Did you forget already?” she asked. “We’re closing up early today so that we can get to the bank to open you up a checking and savings account.”

  “Oh! That’s right,” he said happily. The thought added a bit more spring to his step. He decided to put the hostile thoughts aside for the time being and to instead allow himself to be excited once again at the prospect of having his own bank account. He and his grandmother hurried to get the shop closed down before darting out the door toward her car in order to make it to the bank on time.

  Chapter Twenty

  Mary and Tripp pulled up outside of the bank, and truth be told, being back there made Mary a little anxious. She hadn’t been back to the bank since the robbery, and she had been avoiding the place for the most part. However, she knew she couldn’t avoid it forever especially considering the fact that she banked here. “You ready?” Mary asked as they climbed out of the car.

  “Is it weird being back here to you too?” Tripp asked.

  “Yes, I’m glad I’m not the only one,” Mary said smirking. “You kind of read my mind there.” They walked up into the small bank, and they saw that it was fairly empty. There were only two tellers, one of which they recognized immediately as Eddie Williams, and one of their fellow hostages from the day of the bank robbery.

  “I don’t know about you,” Tripp whispered. “But this is kind of feeling like a déjà vu moment.”

  “Don’t start,” Mary warned. “I have my share of illogical fears, and I don’t need to add banks to that list.”

  “Illogical fears? Like what?” Tripp asked curiously.

  “Bunnies,” Mary said. “Now, don’t you dare ask why because I’m not in the mood for swapping embarrassing stories from my youth.”

  Tripp snorted, and Mary laughed a bit at herself as well. Edward spotted them and came out from behind the back counter smiling. “Well, if it isn’t my fellow hostages,” he teased.