Pancake Panic

by Addison Moore

  Noah peers at the look-alike covers and grunts, “I suppose this is the part where Everett would say I’ve got a cowboy hat at home.”

  I can’t help but frown at him.

  It’s clear Noah may never get over the betrayal he felt now that I’ve married Everett—even if it is in name only.

  I cock my head to the side. “Do you realize Everett has only encouraged you and me to explore our feelings with one another? He wanted that for us when you and me inadvertently tied the knot last fall, and he wants it now that I’m his wife—in name only.”

  His brows depress a notch. “Don’t you find that at all suspicious? Because I’ll tell you why he’s doing it. He wants us to tie things off. As in end it forever.”

  I press my gaze into his glowing green eyes.

  A part of me wants to ask if there’s anything left to end. Noah seems intent on keeping me at arm’s length. He never did say anything about ending things with Cormack. She’s all but planned their wedding. Noah is notorious for letting Cormack believe her delusions.

  “Why does Cormack think she slept with you?” I whisper it low like a dirty secret, only it’s worse than that.

  He takes a breath and glances over his shoulder briefly as if he were expecting her to pop up, and let’s face it—it’s not entirely outside the realm of possibility.

  Noah looks down as he scratches the back of his neck. “The night I found out about you and Everett, I went home and downed a bottle of tequila. Cormack happened to be with me and she proceeded to drain any wine I had in the house. I wasn’t paying attention to her, Lottie.” He sighs as he studies me. “I was too lost in grief to care who was in my house. Ten burglars could have marched through the door and I couldn’t have cared less. It was agony.”

  My heart wrenches just hearing it. “I’m so sorry, Noah.”

  “Don’t be. I think it was just the shock of hearing that we were no longer husband and wife—that there was no baby. It was all too much. Anyway, to answer your question. Cormack woke up without any clothes on and surmised what she wanted to. The truth is, I went back to my bed and crashed and she passed out on the sofa.”

  “Well, if you were drunk, how do you know you didn’t—”

  He shakes his head. “Didn’t happen.”

  Another flutter of relief hits me. As much as I find Cormack to be an annoying gnat that I’d like to think Noah would never take seriously, deep down a part of me was afraid he would.

  I swallow hard because Noah isn’t outright denying her a spot in his life. “She’s still at your place, though.”

  “She is.” His features grow both stern and pained, and I’m not sure what he’s telling me.

  A woman strides by to our left before stopping abruptly. “May I help you?”

  We turn to find Lisa Alexander standing there with her dark hair and petite frame while cradling a stack of hardbacks with glossy book jackets. And in a moment her face brightens.

  “Lottie?”

  “It’s me.” I offer a cheery smile. “I’m just here with my mother, poking around.”

  Her mouth falls open. “Where is she? I’d love to say hello.”

  “Oh, not that mother.” I wince. “My other mother. My biological mother—otherwise known as the kooky one.” Come to think of it, they’re both as kooky as can be. That’s hardly a descriptor.

  Lisa twitches her head. “Well, your mother Miranda and I go way back. In fact, I remember your father.” My heart wrenches at the thought even though he’s currently with my mother at the B&B haunting up a storm. As much as a gift it is to have him here haunting our halls, what I wouldn’t do to have him here forever, alive and in the flesh. She sighs dreamily. “He was great guy. He always encouraged Flip to be the best he could be. I think a lot of Flip’s success could be attributed to your father’s faith in him.”

  A man with salt and peppered hair and a square jaw strides up. “And who could you blame his failures on?” he teases with a warm laugh as he shakes my hand and Noah’s. “Orland Studebaker.”

  “I remember you,” I say. “From the—” I pause shy of mentioning the pancake breakfast. “My wedding reception.”

  Noah’s chest pumps with a quiet laugh.

  Orland nods. “That’s right.” He looks to Noah. “And I remember you. Detective, right?”

  “That’s me.” Noah flashes that dimpled grin and my insides bisect with heat once again. “I’m a friend of Lottie’s. Her mother wanted to feed her book addiction, and I told them I knew just where to take them.”

  Lisa’s eyes widen a notch. “Well, thank you. I certainly appreciate the business. We’re always so slow this time of year. It makes it a challenge to pay the rent on this place.”

  Carlotta whizzes by with a cart brimming with books and I shake my head.

  “It looks as if you won’t have as big a problem this month. My birth mother has it covered.”

  Lisa belts out a warm laugh. “Can you bring her by every day?”

  Orland smirks as he folds his arms across his chest. “And bring ten more just like her. At a dollar a piece, it takes a hope and a prayer to keep this place running.”

  “Oh?” I look to the both of them in a new light. “Do you run it together?”

  He hitches his head her way. “She owns and I operate. We’ve always made a good team.”

  Lisa gives him the sly eye. “Orland is my on-again, off-again boyfriend, ex, take your pick. We’ve hit all the relationship milestones with one another at least twice.”

  Orland offers her a greedy grin. “That’s because you can’t get enough of me, babe.”

  I shoot a quick glance to Noah because their story just so happens to mimic ours.

  Noah presses out a gentle laugh. “Well, it’s a story Lottie and I are familiar with ourselves.” He looks to Lisa. “And in that case, I’m rooting for you.”

  Noah is rooting for them? I wonder if that means he’s rooting for us?

  Lisa scowls as if the thought offended her. “Don’t. He’s got an ex-girlfriend from high school that has never stopped sniffing around. She’s like the plague. He can’t shake her.”

  “Ah,” I say. “That sounds all too familiar as well.”

  It’s as if there’s a Cormack and Cressida for everyone these days. It truly is a pitiful pandemic.

  I shrug over at her. “But my mother has nothing but fond memories of you. I guess you were with Flip at the time. I can’t express enough how sorry I am for your loss.”

  Lisa touches her hand to her chest. There’s a look of abject grief in her eyes. “We weren’t perfect, but something like this wipes away the grime from any relationship, and now all I think about are the good times we had together.”

  “I think that’s beautiful,” I whisper as she grows visibly upset with tears sparkling in her eyes. “Lisa, did Flip have any enemies? My mother says he was one of the nicest guys she’s met. She just can’t wrap her head around why someone would want to do this.” Okay, so my mother may not have voiced all of those concerns, but I’m sure she’s thinking them. Besides, she’s a great segue to just about anything with this poor woman.

  “Enemies?” Lisa glances to Orland. “Not really,” she says before looking back at Noah and me. “Flip was loveable. A real gentle giant.”

  A couple of teenagers walk over to the register, and Lisa excuses herself to help them out.

  Orland shakes his head as he watches her walk away. “She’s being far too generous. She can’t bring herself to say a mean thing about him—even if it is the truth.”

  “Like what?” I ask without hesitation. Lisa didn’t give us nearly enough. Maybe her on-again, off-again ex will sing like a canary.

  Orland leans in. “People used to tease that Flip had the reverse Midas touch. Instead of gold—everything he touched turned into debt and trouble. It was just one bad investment after another.”

  Noah blows out a hard breath. “He couldn’t have been happy with that.”

  “Nope. He wasn
’t. Lisa is right. Flip was a nice guy, but he just wasn’t lucky with women or money.”

  “Orland”—I lean in—“do you think he was killed because of a business deal that went sour?”

  He gives a dark chuckle. “I’m sorry. I know that was an inappropriate response, but there’s no other reason. I can think of a handful of people who verbalized the fact they could kill him just weeks before someone actually pulled the trigger, no pun intended.”

  “Like who?” I shrug as if there were no harm in rattling off a whole new suspect list in front of the lead homicide detective. Come to think of it, Noah should have probably sat this one out.

  Orland shifts as he glances briefly to Lisa before stepping our way. “Like everyone. Heck, Lisa’s daughter even had it out for the guy. Not that she did this.” He raises a hand to Noah. “But the kid is sweet. That just goes to show you how far in every direction his financial mass destruction reached.” He glances off to the walls behind me. “He had an old girlfriend, Olivia something or other. He sucked money out of her, too. Not to mention the things he’s done to poor Lisa. She’s been hitting the skids financially for the last year alone. It practically bankrupted her. She would have made him sell their shared properties, but God knows there’s never a buyer for anything Flip touches. It worked out better to have a tenant in it, keeping the mortgages alive.”

  Noah offers a sober nod. “And how about you? Did Flip try to pull you in on one of his schemes?”

  A part of me cringes when Noah refers to Flip’s failed attempts at turning a buck as schemes. Sure, he was down on his luck, but he was hardly a shyster. Come to think of it, this could be Noah’s way of baiting Orland into giving us more dirt.

  “Not me.” Orland’s chest expands with pride. “I steered clear. He did throw out a few offers, but by that time I had seen enough of his track record to steer clear. I had enough financial problems of my own to deal with.”

  I tip my ear his way. “What did you do before this, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “I lost my job as a meatpacker a few months back. It’s been tough, I won’t lie. Lisa offered me a full-time job helping her out, but I couldn’t take her money. Heck, I’m the one that lent her the cash to open this place a few years back. In fact, when times got real tough for her last fall, I paid her mortgage. I can’t take a dime from her when I know she doesn’t have it herself. I’m just hanging out, helping with this place until I find a new prospect.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I say.

  “Don’t worry about me.” His lips curve just enough. “I caught a little break this month, and it’s more than taken the edge off.”

  The front doors open and a small crowd wanders in.

  Orland grabs a box off the table to our right. “I’d better get back to work. Fill up on some books, Detective. Maybe try to figure out how to hang onto this pretty girl, right here.” He gives a sly wink before taking off.

  “I believe those books would be in the self-help section,” I tease.

  Noah gives a wry smile as he speeds us off to the nearest corner laden with bookshelves ensconcing us from every side.

  “What are your thoughts?” His eyes ride over my features painfully slowly, and it takes everything in me not to reach up and touch the stubble on his cheeks the way my fingers crave.

  “I guess we didn’t learn anything new. Lisa was suckered into Flip’s deals, but only because she was his wife at the time. Orland was wise enough to steer clear all together. He did mention Jennifer. But it didn’t sound like he was throwing her under the bus. He only briefly touched on Olivia.”

  Noah takes a full breath. “Don’t worry about it, Lottie. I’ve got this one covered. I’m the one that gets paid for this. You shouldn’t have to think about it.”

  I crimp my lips with a touch of disdain. “I can’t help it. I like a good puzzle. And it just so happens that this puzzle involves a good friend of my father’s.” That visit to the firehouse earlier runs through my mind. “Say? Did you glean anything from the surveillance tapes? Scooter said they had the back of the building locked off. The killer had to come back into the pancake breakfast.”

  “I know.” His dimples dig in with a grimace. “But there was a crowd in the corridor that led from the kitchen to the garage because there happened to be a fight going on.”

  I offer a sober nod. “With you and Everett—over me.”

  “It’s true.” His cheek flickers. “But because of that, it was impossible to tell who was coming out of the kitchen.”

  A heavy sigh expels from me, and Noah rubs his hands over my arms.

  “Don’t worry, Lot. We’ve got this. We will figure this out.” His thumb grazes over my cheek, and there’s a tenderness in his eyes that I’ve craved to see. Noah and I are putting back the pieces of who we were one tender moment at a time.

  Carlotta slogs by with her cart overflowing.

  “Carlotta.” I stagger her way, stunned by the sheer heft of the paperbacks she’s amassed. “My goodness, I think you left a few behind,” I tease.

  “Don’t you judge me.” She wags a spicy book cover my way. “This is what keeps things alive between Harry and me.”

  Harry, as in Mayor Harry Nash my bio daddy. So weird that they’re together after all these years. Carlotta was just a teenager when they had their brief fling, and Mayor Nash was married with a couple of kids under his belt already—and a wife in tow, to boot.

  “You do realize you’ll be moving in with me shortly while we fix up Nell’s. There’s no way you can fit all these books in my guest room.”

  She snickers. “And that’s exactly why we’ll be turning your spare bedroom into a library. Don’t worry. I’ve got Pancake and Waffles covered, too.” She plucks out a book with a picture of a basket of kittens on the cover before looking to Noah. “And don’t you worry your pistol-packing ways either. You and Mr. Sexy could still take turns running in and out of her bedroom. Once I hit the sheets, I’m blind, deaf, and dumb until ten the next morning.”

  There is so much I could say to that but refuse to do it.

  Sometimes Carlotta just makes things far too easy.

  Carlotta antes up at the counter and we say a quick goodbye to both Lisa and Orland.

  “Good luck with the store,” I say to Lisa.

  Carlotta leans her way. “Good luck getting all that cash I just handed over safely to the bank,” she teases.

  Lisa belts out a laugh at the thought.

  The total was shockingly low for such a big purchase.

  Lisa slings an arm over Orland’s shoulders. “I don’t worry about anyone messing with me. This guy is an ex-cop.”

  Orland shakes his head as if refuting the idea. “More like mall cop.”

  Noah gives a wistful shake of the head. “Hey, you’re still fighting the good fight.”

  We take off and wade through the fresh fallen snow as we pile into Noah’s truck.

  I snap on my seatbelt before looking to Noah. “Orland mentioned he was a meatpacker. Lisa mentioned he was once a cop—mall cop as he corrected. It sounds as if he’s been bouncing from job to job.”

  Carlotta pokes her head between us from the back seat. “That’s called real life, kid. Not everyone has a bakery handed to them.”

  “That they don’t,” I say, staring out the windshield as the snow keeps coming down.

  And all the way back to Honey Hollow I go over the conversation we just had with Lisa and Orland, trying my best to sift it for details.

  There doesn’t seem to be anything new under the sun. But there has to be.

  Someone killed Flip Alexander.

  Sure, a handful of people, if not two, had a motive, but someone indeed pulled the trigger.

  I think it’s time to pull back the layers to each of the suspects at hand and learn a little bit more about their pasts. Something tells me the killer is closer than I think.

  I finally get home and curl up in front of the fire with my sweet kitties, Pancake an
d Waffles, as I do a rudimentary Google search on everyone involved.

  “Oh my God,” I whisper as I stare at the screen. “Well, this sheds a whole new light on everything.”

  Chapter 16

  “New York City in the winter is frigid, mean, and dangerous—and that’s just the people,” I say to Carlotta as we walk down a snowy sidewalk.

  Of course, I’m kidding regarding the city. Sort of.

  “I was a New Yorker during my time as a student at Columbia University,” I tell her as she braves the cold front with a ski mask over her face as if she were about to knock over a liquor store. And with Carlotta, you never know. “It’s where I met and almost married Curt—and had I played my cards wrong, I might have been Mrs. Curtis Vanderlin by now.”

  My father decided to sit this one out, seeing that he didn’t want to cause a ghostly scene at the convention. I imagine not many specters would want to hang out with a bunch of people who have the ability to spot them in the wild. Besides, Dad is needed at the B&B while Greer and her fellow hungry specters continue with their hangry hostilities toward me.

  Carlotta scoffs. “You should call up that Vanderlin louse and tell him whose wife you really are. You married a judge, Lottie. You’ve got both clout and the ability to put someone away for life just for looking at you the wrong way.”

  “That’s not how the legal system works.”

  “It is. You’re just too naïve to realize it.”

  We step into the hotel across the street from our own. The Grand Marquis was a bit out of Carlotta’s budget, so we’re staying at a roach motel where there are winged beetles large enough to carry our overnight bags.

  Note to self: Never let Carlotta book an overnight stay again—lest it be my final night on this planet. And judging by the way the sheets were moving all on their own from the sheer number of bed bugs, it just might be.

  I’m exhausted today, and that’s because last night I was too excited to sleep after the Google gods spilled all of Olivia Cartwright’s secrets—or at least one juicy morsel.