Gum Drop Dead: Cupcake Truck Mysteries

by Emily James

  I told it to shut up. It was better than Fear, but that didn’t mean I had to listen to everything it said.

  Elijah wasn’t the only one with a business-based motive. Rebecca’s boyfriend would have had a motive too. Not only would killing Donald have freed up Rebecca to marry him—or so he clearly believed—but it might have also saved his job and allowed him to move up in the company.

  “Did he dig up anything else?” Dan asked, effectively putting an end to my brain spinning its wheels.

  “Not much. He tried to investigate further. He even followed around Wells and his wife for weeks hoping to catch a lead. Finally, he offered the wife a huge sum of money if she’d confirm what the other source said and answer some of his questions. She refused and threatened him with a restraining order.”

  At least I knew my theory about Rebecca was partially right. She must have figured out that the reporter was following her. She wouldn’t have known at first who he was or what he wanted. Once she knew his name, she might have wanted to take precautions to make sure he legally had to leave her alone.

  “The reporter I know couldn’t prove anything,” Alan said, “so he eventually had to drop the story.”

  “Will he share the information he was able to gather with me?” Dan asked.

  “I’ll have him get in touch.”

  I ended the call.

  Dan squeezed my hand, quick and then gone. “The department can subpoena records that Alan’s friend couldn’t get. Once we know who would have known about what Donald was doing, we’ll be able to make some arrests, either for embezzlement of accomplices or murder. I think this is almost over.”

  19

  When you bring the cupcakes up today, Elijah’s text message said, leave them at Mary Ellen’s desk. I’ll be waiting in my office.

  I leaned my head back against the headrest, my chest feeling like I’d been hit with a deployed airbag. That message definitely sounded like he was about to fire us. Maybe I should turn the truck around and not go in at all.

  I’d thought everything was going well. I’d met all of his unique requests. I’d made sure to come without Claire. We’d chat for fifteen or twenty minutes every time I dropped off the weekly cupcake order. He’d even text me sometimes during the week to tell me about the current charity they were working with.

  But just because he seemed to like me as a person didn’t mean he’d necessarily want to keep working with us. He might have even found out that I’d been snooping around in his uncle’s death and trying to prove that one of his employees was behind it. Elijah didn’t seem like the kind of man who’d stand for that.

  I sucked in air, and the tight feeling in my chest eased slightly. Losing this contract wouldn’t be great for business, especially with Claire still pushing the idea of us setting up a physical location. But it wouldn’t destroy us.

  Box of cupcakes in my arms, I headed into the building. The security guard knew me so well that I didn’t even have to stop. He passed me through with a smile and a wave.

  Mary Ellen sat behind her desk when I reached their floor. She looked like she’d been perching on the edge of her seat, watching for me.

  “Go right in,” she said. “He’s waiting for you.”

  My throat felt suddenly dry. Mary Ellen didn’t seem upset. She seemed almost…excited. That couldn’t be right if she knew Elijah planned to fire us. She liked my cupcakes.

  I set the box of cupcakes down. “There’s an extra in there for you. Strawberry shortcake this week.”

  She peeked towards Elijah’s office door and slid the box toward her. “You’re an angel, you know that.”

  I forced a smile that I didn’t feel and headed for Elijah’s office. Even if he fired us, we’d still get work simply from having this contract. Mary Ellen had even been talking to me about catering her sister’s bridal shower.

  This was going to be okay. It was.

  I opened Elijah’s office door, and a black dog that looked like a six-month-old Lab bounded up to me. He wriggled and licked my hand and wriggled some more as I tried to pet him.

  Three more dogs followed on his heels—one with long floppy ears, another with a super fluffy brown coat, and a third that was all angles and looked like she hadn’t grown into her feet.

  “I wish I had four hands right now, so I could pet them all.”

  Elijah laughed his soft chuckle. I hadn’t realized I’d spoken that out loud until his reaction.

  I glanced up at him. His tie was slightly askew, and he had a smear of what looked like dog slobber up his pant leg.

  “The people from the shelter will be back to collect them in approximately half an hour,” he said. “But I wanted them to bring the dogs here so you could base your cupcake designs on them. The cats are next door in the conference room. We’ll go there next.”

  What he was saying couldn’t have made less sense if he’d been speaking Italian. “My cupcake designs?”

  I parroted his words back at him even though I knew it made me sound stupid. I couldn’t think straight with so many adorable dogs vying for my attention anyway. They wanted my attention even more than my friend Nicole’s dogs had, and that was saying something.

  “Apparently our social media feed jumped in whatever metrics those types of sites use when we shared we were raising funds for the shelter. The rest of the board and I decided to increase our partnership and host an adoption event. We want it to be a big enough event that it merits news coverage to increase awareness. I’d like you and your partner to cater the event.”

  I sagged back against the door and then had to brace myself against the wall as the dogs sensed my moment of weakness and swarmed me. That was the opposite of getting fired. An event like this would also bring press to How Sweet It Is. And thanks to my partnership with Claire, she could be the face of the business while I stayed out of a photographers’ range.

  A knock sounded on the door behind me.

  “Mr. Wells?” Mary Ellen’s voice was higher than usual and had a wobble to it. “There are some people here to see you.”

  Elijah’s eyebrows drew down in the center, as if he couldn’t understand who could have gotten up here without an appointment. Who would dare? Who that Mary Ellen wouldn’t simply send away or call security on if they refused to leave?

  The police. It hit me at the same time as it must have occurred to Elijah because he glanced at me and then at the door.

  “Show them in.”

  Dan entered with two uniformed officers. His gaze landed on me, and the lines around his lips tightened almost imperceptibly. I only recognized it because I knew him so well.

  He hadn’t thought I’d be here. Maybe he didn’t even realize Claire and I had accepted a contract with the business. I couldn’t remember if either of us had actually told him.

  My throat felt like a rope had coiled around it. If we hadn’t thought to specifically tell him that our new contract was with the Wells’ family business, it would look like I’d intentionally hid this from him. Like I’d lied to him after saying I didn’t want to lie to him.

  “Elijah Wells,” Dan said without looking at me again, “you’re under arrest for the murder of Donald Wells.”

  The older of the uniformed officers stepped forward and recited the Miranda warning.

  One of the dogs licked my hand, and I stroked his soft head. This couldn’t be happening. It was all wrong. They’d gone to the wrong office and gotten the wrong name. The trail was supposed to lead to Leon Schwab.

  Elijah left the room with them without resisting or saying anything other than instructing Mary Ellen to watch the dogs until the people from the shelter returned.

  Dan turned toward the door as well. I grabbed his sleeve.

  He turned back to me and raised his eyebrows.

  The look in his eyes was angry, but there was also something else. Something that looked so much like disappointment that I almost couldn’t breathe. He did think I’d lied to him.

  My lips felt enc
ased in cement. For the first time in a long time, my first instinct wasn’t to run. It was to fight.

  To fight for Elijah because I couldn’t have been deceived about a man again. The first time I’d met a man other than Dan who I wasn’t afraid of couldn’t be the time that man turned out to actually be dangerous.

  I’d spoken to him. We’d texted. He listened to me enough that they were supporting an animal shelter, for crying out loud. He wasn’t a murderer. He couldn’t be a murderer.

  I couldn’t have that little ability to tell a good man from a bad one. If I could be so wrong, what was to say I wasn’t wrong about Dan too?

  And if I was wrong about Dan…I couldn’t even finish the thought.

  The way he was looking at me now, maybe it wouldn’t matter whether I’d been wrong about him or not. He might not want me in his life anymore.

  I had to fight for him too. Especially for him. I’d rather lose my truck, my whole business, than lose Dan and Janie.

  All the things I wanted to say jumbled up in my mind. I didn’t even know where to start.

  “Well?” Dan’s tone was colder than he’d ever used with me before. “I can’t stand here indefinitely. I have to get back to the station.”

  I took a step back.

  Fear banged on the door in my mind where I’d locked him.

  I swallowed hard, forcing my throat and lips to work again. “This is a contract. I’m here for a contract. Elijah hired Claire and I to provide cupcakes for their client meetings.” I gestured at the dogs. “I’m supposed to design cupcakes based on these guys for their upcoming fundraiser.”

  Dan’s face didn’t soften. “Do you call all your clients by their first name?”

  What did that have to do with anything? “We’ve gotten to know each other over the past few weeks.” Heat bubbled in my stomach, and my hands tightened, wanting to make fists. Maybe it was lying to omit that Elijah had asked me to call him by his first name from the start, but Dan’s words had felt a lot like an accusation. He seemed to think there was something unprofessional happening here. “But yes, I do call many of my clients by their first names. I make cupcakes. I’m covered in sugar and glitter half the day. It’s not exactly a formal business.”

  A muscle twitched in Dan’s cheek, almost as if his face wanted to smile, and he wouldn’t allow it. “You might want to start being more selective about which clients you choose to befriend.”

  Ouch. And unfair. The last murder I’d been involved in investigating, the friend I’d made hadn’t even done it. She’d been innocent. If I hadn’t been her friend and hadn’t been willing to fight for her, she might have wrongfully gone to prison.

  The heat inside flared into flames. He didn’t have any right to be angry with me. I hadn’t done anything wrong.

  “Elijah couldn’t have done this. He’s not that kind of person.”

  Dan’s jawline hardened into stone. “Your lead brought us here. I traced the anonymous source to Elijah.” He emphasized his name. “The whole team spent the past two weeks confirming it. We subpoenaed phone records. There’s no doubt he tipped off Alan’s friend at the Michigan Daily.”

  I couldn’t accuse Dan of rushing into this. He was good at his job, and the phone call with Alan had been almost three weeks ago now. “Just because he’s the anonymous source doesn’t mean he killed his uncle.”

  “We’ve interviewed employees here who confirmed there seemed to be a break between Elijah and his uncle prior to Donald Wells’ death. We believe Elijah tried to talk to his uncle first, and his uncle either denied any wrongdoing or refused to stop. That’s when Elijah went to the reporter, thinking that if his uncle felt some pressure from an investigation, he’d stop what he was doing before it ruined them. When that failed too, he killed him.”

  The theory wasn’t outlandish. Elijah cared deeply about this business and the good they could do through it. I’d learned that this small part of the building wasn’t the whole business. It was only their charitable division. Elijah had turned down a more prestigious role in the company to head this division.

  If anything would push him to murder, losing the ability to do good here would be it.

  What if I was wrong about him?

  My legs felt weaker than if I’d run a marathon. I rested a hand on the head of the black lab to brace myself.

  I’d always been a horrible judge of character. Jarrod had proven that. He was supposed to be my knight in shining armor, my one true love, my everything promised by romantic comedies and sappy movies.

  He’d turned out to be the opposite. Maybe everyone wasn’t what they seemed. Not Jarrod. Not Elijah.

  Not Dan.

  That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Fear’s voice hissed in my head.

  If Fear was right, then everything I’d come to care about—everyone I’d come to love—was lost.

  I forced myself to look at Dan even though the way he was looking at me made my heart feel bruised. “How can you trust anyone in this world? You see this all the time.” I couldn’t miss the echo of Claire’s earlier words in my mind. She’d wondered how Dan managed to see carnage and death on a regular basis without breaking. I understood that. A person could work through that. But emotional carnage—that I had no idea how to survive. “How can you ever have a relationship if people can lie and deceive and hurt each other?”

  My words came out so soft I hoped he could hear them over the panting dogs and clicking nails on the floor.

  Dan’s hands twitched as if he wanted to run them over his face or rub the back of his neck, but his training wouldn’t allow him to give in to that kind of a tell. “Were you thinking of having a relationship with him?”

  I felt like I was in a carnival fun house where all the floors were uneven and the mirrors reflected back distorted versions of the world. We didn’t seem to be having the same conversation.

  I kept my gaze steady on his even though it felt like doing so might crack me open. That was probably one of the skills that made him such a good undercover officer in the past and such a good detective now. No one could lie to him when he looked at them like this.

  “A friendship. I thought we were friends or could be friends. I don’t have enough of those.”

  Dan stepped closer, halving the distance between us. “You have more than you think.”

  My mind flashed back to when I’d been sitting at his kitchen table, and he’d been trying to convince me to stay in Lakeshore where I had friends. At the time, it’d been only him and Janie, with his assurance that Claire would eventually come around.

  He’d been right then. He was right now too if I stopped to count them. Nicole was my friend and was still there for me when I needed her, even though she lived in Fair Haven instead of in Lakeshore. I had Eve, who still showed up at my truck daily, only now every Wednesday she did it when the rush was over, and she brought a meal for us to share. Even Alan Brooksbank was my friend, in a weird way, if a friend was someone you could go to when you needed help, and they came through for you.

  Very few people could count that many true friends in their lives. Having that many made me blessed.

  I nodded.

  Dan closed the rest of the gap between us. He cupped my face in one hand and ran his thumb gently along my cheek bone.

  Tingles shot through every inch of my body.

  “Why do you feel like you don’t have enough?” His words were almost a whisper. “Is there something we can do to let you know you’re already cared about?”

  My pulse beat at the back of my throat.

  Don’t have enough.

  My eyes stung. I hadn’t had enough friends to protect me when my dad died and I got involved with Jarrod. There wasn’t anyone to point out the red flag or tell me I was moving too fast. I hadn’t had enough friends to stick around when he isolated me. I hadn’t had anyone to fight for me when I needed it.

  Was I still trying to fix that when I kept feeling like I didn’t have friends and needed to cling
to every chance for one?

  Dan was still looking at me, his thumb stroking my skin, all the anger and disappointment and any other negative emotion I’d seen before gone.

  Waiting for my answer.

  “The more friends I have, the more likely at least one of them won’t abandon me when I need them. If Jarrod…”

  I couldn’t finish the thought. Fear keened in my head when I tried until I felt like I might pass out if I had to say the words.

  “I’m not going to abandon you.” Dan’s voice was soft yet firm.

  He’d shown me that over and over again. And yet the way I’d felt when I saw that note on the back of the business card was still fresh. This wasn’t just about Dan or me or our friendship. “Not even when someone threatens Janie, if Jarrod threatens Janie?”

  “Not even then. We’ll keep her safe together.” His eyes darkened, and his gaze dropped to my lips. “You matter that much.”

  I shifted my gaze down, away from his. I hadn’t imagined it the other day. He had wanted to kiss me. He wanted to do it now.

  And I wanted him to.

  But I still couldn’t let him. We were playing on the edges of something that could destroy us both. I was a married woman. I’d come back to my faith in God in the last few months, and I couldn’t do damage to that new faith and relationship with Jesus by willfully doing something I knew was wrong. No matter how much I wanted it.

  Dan shared the same beliefs I did. As long as I was married, anything we did would be adultery.

  “You know that friendships are all I can have.”

  The words felt like I was carving out my own heart with a spoon. This wasn’t fair. Yes, I’d made my choice when I married Jarrod, but I hadn’t gotten what I’d bargained for. I had grounds for divorce, but I couldn’t even divorce him. Filling for divorce would give him my address and assure that he found me and killed me before I could ever expose in court everything he’d done.

  This wasn’t fair. I directed the thought heavenward this time.

  “I’m still married,” I choked the words out.