Sweets Shop Cozy Mysteries Boxset

by Maisy Morgan

  Bradley looked away, breaking eye contact with Tripp through the rearview mirror, and they sat in uncomfortable silence until the girls came burling back into the car. “Okay, we’ve really got to go!” Stacey squealed. “I don’t want to have to explain to Mom why I missed that test!”

  “Right, right,” Bradley said, pulling them out of the parking lot and back down the small highway.

  They all snuck back into the school. Bradley and Stacey took off in one direction, Kara and Tripp in the other. Kara pulled Tripp around a corner where a column stuck out and blocked them from the view of any doorways, where she proceeded to lock lips with him for a moment. When they released, she smiled at him. “What were you and Bradley talking about while we were inside, by the way?” she asked. “He looked kind of upset when we came back.”

  “His dad came up in conversation,” Tripp admitted.

  Kara cringed. “Touchy subject. I guess it is for you both, huh? Can I tell you something?”

  “Sure,” Tripp said.

  “I feel so terrible for feeling this way, but I’m kind of relieved,” Kara said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “My dad and Stacey’s dad… they were planning a buyout of the company. Bradley had no idea they were going to try to cut his dad out of the business but that was the plan. They had hired lawyers and everything—I can’t imagine what it would have done to Bradley and Stacey if they had gone through with the whole thing… now that he’s gone… well… they didn’t have to… and Bradley and Stacey are none the wiser that our dads were having problems. I feel bad—don’t get me wrong, I’m not glad Bradley’s dad is dead or anything… I’m just glad Bradley and Stacey are still together. I’m not sure if their relationship would have survived that one, you know?”

  “Uh…” Tripp stared at her, unsure of how to respond, when the bell rang.

  “Oh! Got to go!” Kara sang, giving him another quick kiss before prancing off.

  The rest of the day went on fairly normally. Hannah didn’t even bother asking him in math class where he had been homeroom, so he was glad he didn’t have to explain himself. At the end of the day, he and Hannah remained by the lockers for a bit talking before he pushed her wheelchair toward the carlines and then began his walk across the school toward the buses. Looking around, he felt a little concerned he hadn’t seen Draco. Usually, after they went to their lockers after drama class, they would meet to walk Hannah before boarding the busses.

  Tripp turned a corner down a back hall and he saw then why Draco hadn’t met him. A group of older boys had him cornered, and Draco looked like a frightened little puppy surrounded by large pits. His books were scattered all over the floor, and they were pushing him back and forth between them. Five on one, and that made Tripp’s blood boil. “Come on, Malfoy,” one of them sang, making fun of Draco’s name. “Stand up!”

  “Stop it!” Draco yelped just as he took a serious fumble and busted his lip into the wall.

  Tripp darted over. “Hey, knock it off!” Tripp roared, throwing down his backpack, his fist up and ready.

  “Shoot, it’s Hollywood!” one of the boys in the circle exclaimed, and upon seeing that Tripp was ready to fight them, looked a bit concerned.

  “What’s going on over here?” Tripp snapped, lowering his fists. These were some of Bradley’s friends that he had met at the party.

  “Man, we’re just playing around,” the boy with the slightly crooked nose said.

  “It’s not funny!” Tripp snapped.

  “Hey, man, we didn’t mean nothing by it,” the first boy, the one who had called him Hollywood, said. “We’ll just leave.”

  “Yeah, we cool, Hollywood?” asked the crooked nose boy.

  Tripp just glared at them all, but to his surprise, the group of older boys departed, muttering apologies before disappearing.

  Draco, who had fallen to the floor after having his face slammed to the wall, was sitting and sulking slightly. He had begun gathering his books when Tripp approached and held out his hand to help him stand. Draco glared up at him, his lip busted, and slapped his hand away. “I’m fine, Hollywood,” he snapped and stormed off, his books in tow, towards the parking lot.

  Tripp frowned. “Hey! I just stopped them from… Draco!” he called, but Draco was already out the door. “Maybe a thanks?” Tripp called, and he rolled his eyes, picking his backpack up before boarding the bus. He and Draco sat on opposite ends.

  When Tripp arrived at the sweets shop, he forced himself to put aside what had taken place with Draco that afternoon. He had tried to help, after all—what did Draco even have to be mad at him about? His grandmother smiled at him as he entered the shop. “How was school?” she asked.

  Tripp instantly recalled the conversation he’d had with Kara in the hall that morning. “Grandma, Kara told me something today that I think you should tell Officer Preston,” Tripp said, but he almost instantly regretted it. What if what he said got Kara’s family in trouble? But he had already said enough for his grandmother to latch onto. She looked at him expectantly. Tripp sighed, knowing it was the right thing to do. “Kara told me her dad, Mr. Darren… and uh, Stacey’s dad, Mr. Bob, that they were planning on buying Ken out. They had hired a team of lawyers and stuff because they wanted to push him out of the business.”

  She raised a brow, and Tripp could tell this meant something to her. “Thank you for telling me that, Tripp. Now, if you would, go finish your homework.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said and opened up his backpack, sitting in his usual spot in the corner of the shop.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mary texted Preston before she and Tripp headed home that evening, letting him know what Tripp had managed to learn from Kara at school that day. She wasn’t sure if it was going to turn out to mean anything, but there was no doubt that the three families who ran that construction company together were all starting to raise her eyebrows.

  Tripp was quite thrilled when Mary told him that he could take his video game console up to his room to play on, which she normally forbade, because Officer Preston was coming over and they had some things to discuss. He disappeared out of sight, eager for the unusual privacy he would get with his games.

  Preston arrived no less than thirty minutes after she helped Tripp hook his console up to the television upstairs, and the two of them convened in the kitchen. Mary pointed out on the counter the piles of shredded paper she had spent the evening before organizing. “So, that’s as far as I managed to get with what I found in Jaden’s shredder,” she said unconfidently.

  He laughed. “That’s not very far at all, I’m afraid.”

  “I know, but I’ve been at the shop all day training Ella May… not that she needs much training. She’s been doing a fantastic job. Do you have any idea how much better my recipes have gotten since I’ve hired her on?”

  “She’s pretty talented,” Preston said, and the two of them rolled up their sleeves and got right to work on the painstakingly tedious task of piecing together shredded paperwork to try to decipher what it was Jaden had felt the need to shred the moment they had arrived at her place of work.

  They talked about what Tripp had told her earlier about Bob and Darren, and this greatly interested Preston. “That’s interesting,” Preston said. “I wonder why they would want Ken out?”

  “I don’t know,” Mary said. “Especially since they said he was the one who usually found them clients. They said he was the one who was good with people. Plus, his wife was their interior designer. I don’t think Jaden could have known it. I suspect Kara wasn’t supposed to know that either.”

  “Probably not—he said that Kara didn’t think Stacey knew?” Preston asked.

  “No, she didn’t know,” Mary said. “That little tidbit certainly raises an eyebrow. What do you think? Do you think Ken could have found out and confronted them?”

  “On a rooftop?” Preston asked. “Maybe. Could have used the damaged roof as a reason to get them up there. Maybe Ken
was the aggressor? And Bob or Darren fought back with the tool they brought to fix the roof?”

  “Possibly,” Mary said. “I keep picturing Bob and Darren—they don’t seem like particularly aggressive men. They definitely have that softie ‘dad of girls’ vibe.”

  By now, they had spent well over two hours piecing together papers, and the oven timer was going off as Mary had elected to bake a casserole. She went to attend to the food when Preston suddenly exclaimed, “I got something!”

  Mary, after putting the casserole dinner aside, scurried over to see. He spread out the paper he had finished putting together. “Look. Look at what this is!”

  Mary had to squint to read the paper thanks to all the shredded lines, but it was clear what she was looking at. Divorce papers, and Jaden had signed her name quite large on one line. “No way,” Mary said. “They were in the middle of a divorce!” Mary yelped. “And Jaden didn’t think to share that?”

  “Look who didn’t sign, though,” Preston said. “Jaden might have been planning on surprising him with it. Ken hasn’t signed it.”

  “You think Ken didn’t know she was going to slap him with divorce papers? Or maybe he did know? Maybe when she presented the papers to him, he threatened to fight her for a bunch of stuff?” Mary asked.

  “Check this page out,” Preston said as he finished putting together another page from the documents. “She’s got it written up that she would get full custody of Bradley, but she was leaving him with pretty much everything else—his share in the business, the house, the cars… she just wanted Bradley.”

  “Something’s not sitting right with me about this,” Mary said. “So he didn’t sign any of the pages yet?”

  “No,” Preston said. “Looks like Ken never touched the paperwork, from what we’ve got pieced together. For all we know, he didn’t know what she was planning.”

  “Or maybe he did, refused to give her the divorce and threatened to fight her on it, and she shot him with a nail gun up on the roof?” Mary asked. “That one still isn’t lining up.”

  “Something weird is going on with these families, I’m telling you,” Preston said. “Wonder what the reason for the divorce was. Think he was unfaithful?”

  “Those three families were really close,” Mary said. “Lana or Nat could have cheated with him. Maybe one of the ladies decided to shut him up about it?”

  “Oye,” Preston said. “Lots of speculations…”

  “I smell food!” Tripp called from the top of the stairs, and Mary could hear him heading down.

  They carefully put up the papers, not wanting to have to put them back together again, just as Tripp came barging into the kitchen. They put aside their talk of Ken’s murder for the time being, and Mary made each of them a plate. They sat at the kitchen table and talked about less pressing issues. Preston and Tripp talked for a while about their next step on getting the Volkswagen running again, and this seemed to excite Tripp quite a bit.

  “Anything interesting happen at school today?” Mary asked eventually.

  Tripp suddenly stopped eating. It was like he had something he wanted to say, but he didn’t know how to say it. “No,” he said.

  “Tripp?” Mary beckoned. “Did something happen?”

  He paused. “I had a weird conversation with Bradley today,” he said.

  Mary suspected that this wasn’t what he had initially been thinking about, but she didn’t want to push too hard. “Oh?” Mary asked.

  “We talked about our dads,” Tripp said. “I don’t know, I think he wants someone to talk to about it, and I just make sense since I lost my dad too. But whenever we start talking about our dads, he cuts the conversation off even if he was the one who started it.”

  “He probably needs to talk to someone but is worried about what you’re going to think of him if he gets worked up,” Preston said. “Bradley is a good kid, but he cares a little too much about his image.”

  “I could probably concur with that,” Mary said.

  “Yeah, maybe,” Tripp said. “He asked me about my dad again, and I told him that I missed him. That I wish I could get him back… and then he just got all… I don’t know… weird. Quiet. I don’t know what to say to him. I wish I could help. I can tell he wants to talk to someone about it, but I feel like I always say the wrong thing.”

  “You’ve just got to listen to him; that’s all you can do,” Preston said, smiling at Tripp. “Sounds like he’s lucky to have you as a friend right now.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Tripp said and finished up his food. He thanked his grandmother for the meal before darting back up the stairs to play video games.

  Mary sighed. “I feel so bad for that boy—Bradley, I mean. He’s not handling it well, I can tell. I have this bad feeling that he’s going to cope with his father’s death in a… self-destructive sort of way. He and I spoke once, and he told me he couldn’t feel anything. That he didn’t think he felt sad enough, and that made him angry at himself.”

  “It’ll hit him eventually,” Preston said. “It’s going to be rough when it does. Everyone grieves differently.”

  “Yes, I suppose,” Mary said. “I don’t know what to think, though. Nothing seems to be adding up. I’m worried we’re not going to get that poor boy closure. Tripp never got closure, you know? The man who shot his dad—he’s still out there.”

  “I know,” Preston said. “And, it’s not right. We’ll try to help find Bradley some closure. I wonder if it might be worth talking to his friends? His girlfriend, Stacey… and then Kara and Becky. I’ve spoken with a few other kids at the party, but I haven’t really sat down and talked to those three just yet. I’m wondering if maybe they could tell us something more about the dynamics between these three families. Something the adults aren’t telling us.”

  “Last thing we want is to make those kids feel like we’re looking into their parents,” Mary said. “Then they might lie to us. Mislead us.”

  “No, we want to tread lightly when we start interrogating teenagers,” Preston said. “But right now, I’m pretty confident that either Darren or Bob had something to do with whatever happened up on that rooftop. Possibly Jaden.”

  “You don’t think Nat or Lana?” Mary asked. “I mean, if there was an affair involved?”

  Preston exhaled and waved his hand towards the papers they had put together before Tripp had come downstairs. “I love how we find more evidence, more clues, and we can’t use it to narrow our suspect pool down even a little bit.”

  “I know,” Mary said, shaking her head. “Anyone could have killed Ken. I’m sure there is something we’re not seeing. And when we realize what that thing is, maybe we’ll have enough to put this puzzle together.”

  Preston nodded. “Maybe,” he said and then looked longingly towards the kitchen. “Any more of that casserole left?”

  Mary smiled and got up to fix him another plate.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The following morning at the shop, Mary found herself distracted at work. She kept fumbling over Sweet Feet, who usually did not pose much of a problem for her. She dropped a bag of flour at one point, coating half the kitchen in the white powder. On more than one occasion, Ella May had asked her a question and had to repeat herself as Mary had been a bit zoned out. After the two of them had finished cleaning up the mess in the kitchen, Ella May shooed her behind the counter.

  “What is going on with you today, dear?” Ella May asked, staring at her from across the room as she did a bit of sweeping in front of the counter. “You are not acting like yourself.”

  Mary wasn’t sure what Ella May was basing ‘acting like yourself’ off of since they had only just met, but the woman was right. “Sorry, I’m having some trouble…”

  “Trouble?” Ella May prodded.

  Mary contemplated whether or not she wanted to tell the woman what was bothering her, but she finally decided she needed someone to talk to. “It’s Tripp,” she admitted. “I feel terrible, but I invaded his privacy a bit and
looked through his phone. This girl he has been seeing at school has been sending him some very inappropriate pictures, and I don’t know how to address it.”

  “Ah,” Ella May said. “Teenage drama. That’ll stress you out.”

  Mary sighed. “Yes. I just… I feel like I really messed up with my daughter at this age. She was pregnant at thirteen. I don’t want Tripp making the same sort of mistakes his mother made, but I don’t want to say the wrong thing and then have Tripp thinking I’m calling him a mistake. I also don’t want him to be upset with me for invading his privacy. I’m worried if I’m making a bigger deal out of these pictures than I should be—it wasn’t like she sent him nude pictures. Though they were inappropriate, no doubt. I’ll be honest; I wish he wasn’t dating this girl. She’s not a bad kid or anything, but I just don’t feel right about it. I think he’s falling in with the wrong crowd at school, but I remember what happened with Lilly. I pushed too hard, and she pushed back harder.”

  “I’m afraid to say that there is no right answer here, Mary,” Ella May said. “Going through his phone was probably not the best idea because when you bring it up to him now, that’s what the conversation is going to be about. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have the conversation. You’re the parent. He’s not.”

  “I suppose,” Mary said.

  “He seems like a good kid,” Ella May said. “But teenagers are little twerps no matter how good they are.”

  Mary laughed. “You can say that again. I just hate feeling like I can’t do anything. I feel like no matter what I say or do, at the end of the day he’s his own person, and he’s going to make bad decisions like everyone else.”

  “Pretty much,” Ella May said. “I will say this: it is so much harder for teenagers these days than it was when I was growing up.”

  “Same here,” Mary admitted.

  “They are under so much pressure at that age. Too much pressure. It’s not just work and school—it’s all these extracurriculars they’re expected to do. Then you add social media to all of that. Kids are being constantly judged by their peers online, and they see things on the internet they think they got to live up to.”