Dying for Devil's Food
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Praise for the Cupcake Bakery Mysteries
“[McKinlay’s] characters are delicious.”
—New York Times bestselling author Sheila Connolly
“All the ingredients for a winning read.”
—Cleo Coyle, New York Times bestselling author of the Coffeehouse Mysteries
“McKinlay bakes a sweet read!”
—Krista Davis, New York Times bestselling author of the Domestic Diva Mysteries
“A tender cozy full of warm and likable characters and a refreshingly sympathetic murder victim. . . . Readers will look forward to more of McKinlay’s tasty concoctions.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Good plotting and carefully placed clues make this an enjoyable, light mystery, made a little sweeter with recipes for the cupcakes Mel’s team creates.”
—The Mystery Reader
Titles by Jenn McKinlay
Cupcake Bakery Mysteries
SPRINKLE WITH MURDER
BUTTERCREAM BUMP OFF
DEATH BY THE DOZEN
RED VELVET REVENGE
GOING, GOING, GANACHE
SUGAR AND ICED
DARK CHOCOLATE DEMISE
VANILLA BEANED
CARAMEL CRUSH
WEDDING CAKE CRUMBLE
DYING FOR DEVIL’S FOOD
Library Lover’s Mysteries
BOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING
DUE OR DIE
BOOK, LINE, AND SINKER
READ IT AND WEEP
ON BORROWED TIME
A LIKELY STORY
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER
DEATH IN THE STACKS
HITTING THE BOOKS
Hat Shop Mysteries
CLOCHE AND DAGGER
DEATH OF A MAD HATTER
AT THE DROP OF A HAT
COPY CAP MURDER
ASSAULT AND BERET
Bluff Point Romances
ABOUT A DOG
BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE
EVERY DOG HAS HIS DAY
Happily Ever After Romances
THE GOOD ONES
BERKLEY PRIME CRIME
Published by Berkley
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019
Copyright © 2019 by Jennifer McKinlay Orf
Excerpt from Word to the Wise by Jenn McKinlay copyright © 2019 by Jennifer McKinlay Orf
Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.
BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks and BERKLEY PRIME CRIME is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Ebook ISBN: 9780451492647
First Edition: May 2019
Cover art by Jeff Fitz-Maurice
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.
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For my sisters-in-law, Susan Orf Johnson and Katie Orf Wener. You are two of the funniest, smartest, loveliest women I know, and even though we never get enough time together, I am so grateful for the times we do share. You two were my super awesome bonus prizes when I married your brother. Much love always. XOXO
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Major thanks to my editor, Kate Seaver, and my agent, Christina Hogrebe. They didn’t even blink when I said I was going to send the cupcake girls to their high school reunion. Ha! Also, big thanks to Sarah Blumenstock for her attention to the details. And as always, I am in awe of the cover artist, Jeff Fitz-Maurice. You never let me down with these amazing covers. To the rest of the team at Berkley, especially Tara O’Connor, how can I ever thank you? You consistently come up with new and amazing ways to share my books with the world, and I am ever grateful.
And, as always, big hugs to my men, the Hub and the Hooligans. You three give me so much material, seriously, the books practically write themselves. Love you forever.
CONTENTS
Praise for the Cupcake Bakery Mysteries
Titles by Jenn McKinlay
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Recipes
Excerpt from Word to the Wise
About the Author
One
“Squeee!”
At the screechy noise, Melanie Cooper squeezed her pastry bag too tight and frosting shot out of the tip into a big glob on top of the cupcake she was decorating for a wedding the next day.
“Angie DeLaura, what was that?” she asked. She blew her blond bangs off her forehead as she glared at her business partner, who had just come running through the swinging doors from the front of the bakery into the kitchen, where Mel was working.
“That’s Angie Harper to you, and”—she paused to strike a pose and fan herself with a large envelope and fancy-looking invitation before she continued—“to everyone else we graduated high school with fifteen years ago.”
“Huh?” Mel frowned at her recently married petite brunette friend.
“Our fifteen-year reunion,” Angie said. She pointed to the envelope in her hand. “It’s coming up and guess who they want to bake cupcakes for it?”
Mel stared at her childhood friend who was the sister of her heart. How could she put this as tactfully and delicately as possible?
“No.” Mel used a rubber spatula to scrape the glob off the ruined cupcake and flicked it into the large garbage bin to her right.
“What?” Angie froze in mid-fan. “What do you mean, no?”
“I have no intention of baking cupcakes for those people,” Mel said.
She bent over the cake in front of her. It was a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting. She was keeping it simple and working the frosting in a thick smooth swirl that she then sprinkled with small red hearts. Just the thought of going to her high school reunion made her want to mainline the frosting and sho
ve a whole cupcake into her mouth like a boss.
“But . . . but,” Angie stammered. It was clear she hadn’t anticipated this sort of response, which boggled Mel, but she continued on.
“No buts,” she said. “You’re welcome to go to our reunion but I refuse.”
“Mel, I don’t think you’re grasping the big picture here.”
“Oh, I’m grasping it and I’m tossing it away.”
“But look at us,” Angie said. She swung her arms wide to encompass the kitchen and beyond. “We’re hugely successful. We have franchises all over the country. That gives us a moral imperative to show up at our reunion.”
“No.”
“Mel, I know there were some people who hurt your feelings back in the day—”
“Hurt my feelings?” Mel straightened up. She grabbed a pinch of heart-shaped sprinkles and didn’t so much sprinkle them as threw them onto the freshly piped frosting. She stared at her friend. “Angie, they called me ‘Melephant,’ they bullied me about my weight, and Cassidy Havers, in particular, wrote my name in all of the boys’ bathrooms with my phone number. She was vicious and mean and cruel and if I never see her again, it will be too soon.”
“She’s Cassidy Havers-Griffin now,” Angie said.
“Griffin?”
“Yes, as in Daniel Griffin.”
“She married Danny?” Mel asked. She felt her old high school crush spread its wings and rise out of the ashes of her adolescent heart like a phoenix. “When?”
“A couple of years ago,” Angie said. “I think you were in Paris at culinary school at the time.”
“And you didn’t mention it?”
Angie just looked at her and Mel nodded. Yeah, she wouldn’t have told Angie if her high school crush had gotten married, either. Oh, wait, her crush had been Tate Harper and he had gotten married six months ago. To Angie.
“But you’re going to marry Joe,” Angie said. “And you had a much deeper and longer-lasting crush on Joe than on Danny, right?”
“Well, of course, but I can’t believe he married her,” Mel said. She shuddered. “I mean, he was captain of the basketball team and totally out of my league in high school, and she was the homecoming queen, so I guess it makes sense, but I always hoped he’d meet someone . . .”
Mel’s voice trailed off. She was not going to say it out loud.
“More like you?” Angie guessed.
This was the problem with besties, they knew you too well.
“No, not like me,” Mel said. She felt the need to protest even though they both knew she was full of it. “But someone more like me than her.”
“Uh-huh,” Angie said. She lowered her head and glanced at Mel through her eyelashes. “I can’t believe you’re going to let Cassidy Havers keep you from our reunion.”
“Don’t even try it,” Mel said. “You can’t manipulate me into going. You’re not that good.”
“But what about the commission?” Angie asked. “Five hundred cupcakes with little fifteens on them and we can do them in the school colors of gold and black. They will look so cool and we can use them on our website for advertising and get even more reunion jobs.”
“Nope,” Mel said. “I’m not interested.”
She frosted several more cupcakes and added the sprinkles. Angie didn’t move. She just stood there, glaring. Mel knew she was formulating her argument to get Mel on her side. It was never going to happen. Not only because Angie didn’t have her older brother Joe DeLaura’s lawyerly gifts but also because Mel would not be budged on this. She had less than no interest in seeing anyone from her graduating class. Ever.
“So, the idea of strutting into our reunion, looking amazing, as a successful business owner and renowned pastry chef doesn’t appeal to you in the least?” Angie asked.
“Not even a little,” Mel said. “I could not care less what those people think.”
“And the thought of sashaying into the room on prominent assistant county attorney Joe DeLaura’s arm, while flashing that dazzling sparkler of a ring he gave you, does nothing for you, either?” Angie asked.
“Not a thing,” Mel said. “I’m thrilled to be engaged to Joe but he’s not a trophy husband.”
“You sure about that?” Angie asked. “Because I’m pretty sure every woman in our high school, including a few of the teachers, had a thing for Joe.”
It was true, Mel had to concede that, but she wasn’t about to say it out loud or Angie would have her at the reunion so fast her cupcakes would have whiplash.
“I’m sure Joe would be flattered to hear that,” she said.
She hefted one large tray of cupcakes onto her shoulder and carried it to the walk-in cooler for delivery tomorrow morning. When she came back out, she noted that Angie had her chin set in a defiant tilt. Oh, boy, she wasn’t going to let it go. Mel lifted the second tray and carried that one into the cooler as well.
There was no avoiding Angie as Mel began to clean the steel worktable. Cupcakes were a gloriously messy business. She glanced down at her apron to find some dollops of frosting stuck on the front. She smiled.
Despite what she’d said to Angie, she was thrilled with how successful their enterprise Fairy Tale Cupcakes had become and would have loved to brag about it. When she had started the business with her two childhood best friends, Angie DeLaura—now Harper—and Tate Harper, a few years ago, she had never envisioned the level of success they had achieved. She knew a lot of it was because of Tate’s brilliant business acumen, but she didn’t think he could have made them a success if the product she toiled over, the cupcakes, wasn’t top notch.
“You realize you’re forcing me to go there,” Angie said.
“Go where?”
Angie blew out a breath. “Mel, don’t you want to show off you?”
Mel tipped her head to the side. She felt like a dog hearing a high-pitched whistle. “Come again?”
“You. Look at you,” Angie demanded.
Mel glanced down. She noted the hot pink apron, the frosting blobs. Oh, there was a sprinkle stuck in a glob. She flicked it off into the garbage. Beneath the apron, she was the same old Mel in denim capris, slip-on Vans in the chevron pattern, and a plain blue T-shirt. Sexy, she was not. Comfortable, she most definitely was.
“I’m not seeing where you’re going with this,” she said. She gestured to her ensemble. “This is not exactly show-off worthy.”
“Yes, it is. Mel, this is your chance to show them what you look like now,” Angie said. Her voice was soft as if she was trying to say it in a way that wouldn’t offend Mel. Sadly, there was no way to say it without offense.
“You mean I should go to the reunion because I’m thinner than I was back then,” Mel said. Her voice was tight. “I should hold my head high, wearing a size six, sometimes eight, and trot around the room, letting everyone have a good look at the new and improved Melanie Cooper? Is that where you’re going with this?”
Angie shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Aw, come on, don’t be bashful. You opened this can of worms,” Mel said. “What do you think will happen if I do that?”
“You’ll have the last laugh,” Angie cried. There was a fierce light in her brown eyes. “You’ll arrive a hugely successful pastry chef, about to marry a gorgeous district attorney, and you will positively stun them with how beautiful you are.”
They stood staring at each other. Mel gave her friend a small smile. “I love that you see it playing out that way. You really are such an idealistic optimist. Here’s the problem. That’s never going to happen.”
The kitchen doors banged open and Marty Zelaznik, the bakery’s octogenarian counter help, stood there with his scrawny arms on his hips and his bald head glowing like a beacon.
“Hey, Ange, how about a little help out there? The lunch rush came and you vamoosed. I’ve got people lined
up to the door,” he said. He looked at Mel. “Wouldn’t kill you to come out and help, either.”
“Fine,” Mel said. She walked around the table to follow him back into the bakery.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Angie said. She was hot on Mel’s heels. “We’re not done here.”
“Yes, we are.”
“Walk and talk, people,” Marty barked. “We have customers waiting.”
They pushed through the swinging doors and sure enough, there was a line now going out the door. Most were calmly waiting but a few of them looked irritated. Never a good thing.
“Hi, how can I help you?” Mel asked the first person in line.
“I need a dozen cupcakes,” the woman said. She was twenty-something, dressed in a pale green suit that brought out the red in her blond hair. “But I don’t know what kind to get. I’m meeting my boyfriend’s parents for the first time and I’m terrified. Cupcakes will help, right?”
“Absolutely,” Mel said. “If his parents don’t appreciate a dozen cupcakes from us, then you’re far too good for them.”
The girl laughed and Mel guided her in picking out a solid dozen with a dairy-and-gluten-free option thrown in just in case there were some dietary intolerance issues. Then it was on to the next customer and the next. The business did not stop Angie from badgering her about the reunion, however.
“We could rent a limo,” Angie said while boxing up an order.
“No.”
Mel tried to avoid the discussion but Angie was persistent.
“How about we get Mean Christine to do our hair and makeup?” Angie asked while Mel rang up a customer. “She always makes us look amazing.”
“No.”
“Oh, I’ve been to Christine’s,” the customer said. “She can roll back the years like nobody’s business.”
Mel shoved the box of cupcakes at the woman, who lifted her eyebrows, took the box, and left.
“Angie, I am not going,” Mel said. “I don’t know how many ways I can say this to make you understand.”