Caramel Crush

by Jenn McKinlay

  “What?” Tate cried. He looked at her as if she’d just spoken in Klingon. “That’s crazy. Angie’s the greatest thing to ever happen to me. She’s worth all of it.”

  “Uh-huh,” Mel agreed. “We all know you’re the one who traded up in this relationship, but Angie is superstitious and I think she believes that if she doesn’t nail this wedding, your marriage is doomed.”

  “That’s . . . I . . . Of all the . . . I have to go,” he said. “I need to go fire a DJ and find a band.”

  “Yes, you do,” Mel said.

  Tate downed the hot coffee while Mel picked up the next cupcake. He turned and strode toward the door, looking more determined than Mel had seen him since they opened their first franchise in Vegas.

  “Oh, hey.” Tate paused by the back door. “I forgot to tell you, I did some digging and discovered that I have a friend who works at the accounting firm that does Party On!’s books. We had an interesting conversation as he said that everything Diane told you was true—the company’s tax returns do look pretty bad—but that it’s not necessarily an accurate picture of the situation.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “Party On! maintains the business practice of keeping two sets of books,” he said.

  “I thought that was Al Capone–type stuff,” Mel said.

  “Not really. There’s the tax return set of books where businesses are really trying to minimize the net income so they can pay less taxes—you know, make it look like you’re a loser,” Tate said.

  “And the second set of books is for what then?”

  “That’s what’s known as the GAAP, generally accepted accounting principle, statements that are really more focused on the gains a company is making, for example, the business’s net income, profit, equity, collateral. The stuff investors and bankers use to judge the business. Your eyes are glazing over.”

  “Sorry,” Mel said. “You lost me at accounting principle.”

  “Okay, I’ll keep it simple,” Tate said. “The books Diane was judging the company by are the loss statements. I know Diane said that Mike was marrying her for her money, which would seem likely by the tax returns, but it’s not true. According to the GAAP, the company is solid, more than solid. If they pull off the maneuver the business community is talking about, to expand nationally, it looks like they’ll make bazillions.”

  Mel blinked. That did not at all jibe with what Diane had told her. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive,” he said. “I sort of pretended that I was getting back into the investment game and my friend shared Party On!’s financials with me. Since Party On! looks to have other players in the game—a few small private companies own portions of the business, RR Ty, Hannity Investments, and Plus One—my friend figured it was okay to give me a look-see as a potential investor. We have to keep this on the down low, but it’s all in a file on my hard drive in the office. Take a look.”

  “I will,” Mel said. She waved as he disappeared through the door and then hurriedly finished up the cupcakes and stored them in the walk-in cooler in the kitchen.

  As soon as she washed up and poured herself a third cup of coffee, Mel sat down with Tate’s computer. He had named the file Party On!, so it was easy to spot. He’d also highlighted the parts that he thought were of interest. Even to a non-number-cruncher like Mel, it was easy to see from the GAAP statements that the business was successful—more than successful. They were looking to turn a substantial profit from expanding their business, so why did Diane think that Mike was just marrying her for her money?

  This belied everything Diane had told her about breaking up with Mike. Mel had tried so hard to believe in her friend. Diane had saved her from public humiliation on a scale that Mel still couldn’t quite wrap her head around. She owed her friend the same sort of loyalty Diane had shown her, but this, this made it look as if the reason Diane had given her for breaking up with her fiancé was bogus, meaning that Diane might have been dumping him for his philandering, which was understandable except for that little bit about him being dead instead of just dumped.

  Mel went back out into the kitchen to finish up two other flavors of cupcakes, the first being Bananas Foster, a banana rum cake with banana frosting and a rum caramel drizzle on top, and the second one a Mandarin Orange Cupcake, an orange zest angel food cake with mandarin orange buttercream, while she thought about what Tate had discovered and how she wanted to handle it. When Marty came in to work the front counter and Oz arrived to take over the kitchen, Mel figured she’d better get over to Diane’s office and have a little chat with her old college buddy.

  The Earnest Design offices were slick. Located on a big piece of property off of Scottsdale Road and Lincoln Drive, Diane had set up shop in a mid-century modern building that was all glass windows and sharp angles. Mel parked her Mini Cooper in the small parking lot that was barren of cars.

  She strode up the shallow concrete steps and pulled on the front door. It was locked. Huh. It hadn’t occurred to her that Diane would not be at work. The woman was a workaholic. It was her therapy, her stress relief, the validation of her existence; heck, Mel was pretty sure it was the air she breathed. Would she really not show up to work? Especially when she had so much damage control to do?

  There was no doorbell beside the door. Why would you need one when your walls were mostly glass? You could see everyone coming and going. Mel wasn’t sure she liked that. She thought about knocking but given the empty parking spots and the locked door, it didn’t appear that anyone was here. Mel supposed that Diane could be working from home. She was probably getting more peace and quiet that way.

  Mel suspected that the local reporters had been hounding Diane since the story broke. It had to be horrifying, having everyone think the worst of you. Maybe Diane just hadn’t been able to face it yet.

  Mel pressed her face up to the glass, cupping her hands around her eyes so she could peer in past the glare. The office looked dark. It was an open floor plan in front of a large wooden wall, so there really weren’t any places where a person could hide. Under a desk, maybe, or possibly behind some of the decorative statuary that filled the space. Mel’s gaze swept the space, wondering if Diane was in her office, which she assumed was behind the big wall, and just didn’t hear her knocking.

  Mel knocked again just to be sure. There was no movement from inside. She opened her purse and searched for her phone. She had Diane’s home number, as well as her office and cell. If she had gone home or never opened shop, Mel could catch her there.

  As the phone rang, Mel held it up to her ear. She paced along the stoop. She glanced at the road, surreptitiously looking to see if any paparazzi were going to jump out at her and ask her about Diane. She knew that wouldn’t go well, mostly because she was a panicker when it came to public speaking. She started to sweat and she’d clear her throat repeatedly, whether it needed it or not.

  She had seen a video of a woman in Florida who had a tiff with her boyfriend—in the woman’s defense it appeared she had just found out he was married when she walked into an anniversary party he was hosting for his wife—and the poor woman was caught on film hurling cake at him. The video had gone viral and they’d dubbed her “the party crasher.” Since seeing it, Mel lived in fear of such a thing happening to her.

  The phone rang and rang and then an automated voice came on and told her that the person she was calling had a voice mailbox that was full. Mel ended the call. She glanced back at the office one more time and that’s when she saw it. A shoe was poking out from under a desk. Someone was in there, hiding from her.

  Twenty-one

  Mel rapped on the glass. She saw the shoe start as if the person attached to the shoe hadn’t been expecting that. Still they didn’t come out from under the desk. Mel rapped again. Nothing. And again. Nothing.

  “Oh, come on,” Mel cried. “I know you’re in there. I can see your shoe.”<
br />
  The shoe in question was abruptly yanked back under the desk.

  “Puhleeze, how dumb do you think I am?” Mel cried. “I just saw you move. You might as well open the door, because I am not leaving.”

  She waited two seconds, then four. When she was about to shout again, a person popped out from under the desk and she yelped in surprise.

  Elliott Peters appeared. He stood, adjusted his dark-framed glasses, brushed off his clothes, and strode toward the door where Mel was standing. She had an uneasy feeling about this. Cheryl had said Elliott had a thing for Diane; now Mel wondered: If everyone else was gone, what was Elliott doing here?

  He was halfway to the door and waving at Mel to wait a second when another person popped up from behind the desk. It was Diane Earnest and she looked quite rumpled. And not in a “grief-struck, I’m too depressed to manage my appearance” but rather an “I just let my IT guy kiss the lipstick off of me” sort of way. Interesting.

  Mel stood waiting while Elliott unlatched the door and ushered her inside.

  “Hurry, hurry,” he said. “The paparazzi have been circling like buzzards.”

  “So, you thought fornicating in front of the windows would distract them?” Mel asked.

  As Diane joined them, Mel glanced between them and noticed Diane’s face went red hot while Elliott straightened up with a bit of a swagger. He was clearly pleased with whatever had taken place. Hmm.

  “Do you have news?” Diane asked. “Have the police found the killer?”

  “No,” Mel said. The strap on her handbag was digging into her shoulder and she reached up to adjust it. “At least not that I’ve heard.”

  Diane gasped. “What. Is. That?”

  Mel froze. Was there a bug on her? She held her hands out in the bug slapping position and glanced down at her white cotton shirt and khaki capri pants. She didn’t see anything. Before she could question her, Diane grabbed Mel’s left hand and examined her ring finger.

  “That!” Diane said. She pointed to Mel’s engagement ring. “What the hell is that?”

  Mel relaxed. “The ring? You’re freaking me out over an engagement ring?”

  “Aha!” Diane stepped back and pointed at her.

  Mel looked at Elliott. He shrugged.

  “It’s no big deal, Diane,” Mel said. “Joe asked me to marry him and I said yes. You don’t really have a problem with that, do you?”

  “Problem?” Diane sputtered. “Why would I have a problem with it? Just because you’re supposed to be figuring out who killed my fiancé so that I don’t rot in jail for the rest of my life, why would I have any problem with you spending your time on romantic engagement proposals?”

  “What makes you think it was romantic?”

  “Because they all are,” Diane snapped. “It was, wasn’t it?”

  “Well, yeah,” Mel said. “But just because I got engaged doesn’t mean I stopped trying to figure out who murdered your fiancé. Speaking of which, where were you, Elliott, the morning Mike Bordow was murdered?”

  Elliott blinked at her from behind his glasses, as if he couldn’t quite get her into focus. Mel snapped her fingers in front of his face.

  “Elliott, you in there?” she asked.

  “Well . . . I . . . You can’t think . . . I would never . . .” he stammered and then stopped.

  Diane and Mel watched him as he swallowed convulsively. Mel thought he might be sick. Would a man who bludgeoned another man to death get throw-uppy at the mere suggestion of his guilt? She wasn’t sure.

  “Elliott was with me that morning working on the Blanchard account,” Diane said. “We had a presentation scheduled for later that day. Of course, I canceled it after you found Mike, but Elliott and I pulled an all-nighter the night before Mike’s death.”

  “Can any other staff members verify this?” Mel asked.

  “Why?” Diane looked hurt. “Don’t you believe me?”

  “I do,” Mel said. She meant it, mostly. “But the police are going to want it verified, especially if they get wind of the two of you getting busy.”

  “This just happened,” Diane said, gesturing between her and Elliott. “We aren’t— That is to say, things have been very stressful around here and Elliott was kind enough to comfort me when I was feeling very upset. And as for our alibis, the police have already grilled us and know we were here together.”

  “That’s good. And the comforting thing is totally understandable,” Mel said. As an aside to Elliott, she whispered, “FYI, you might want to zip up your fly.”

  Elliott glanced down and then spun away from them. He looked mortified as he hopped up and down while pulling up his zipper.

  Mel glanced at Diane, who was looking at Elliott in mild confusion, as if she wasn’t quite sure what to make of him. In all the years Mel had known Diane, she had never gone for guys like Elliott. Diane went for the über rich, very handsome, very powerful, arm-candy sort of guys.

  Elliott was none of those things. Oh, he was a successful IT guy, and he was nerdy cute, but he was the sort of guy Diane used to get where she wanted to go, not the sort of guy she wanted when she arrived at her destination. Perhaps Elliott was just what she needed.

  “Listen,” Mel said to Diane. “I need to talk to you. Do you have an office or a meeting room where we can go?”

  “Sure, follow me,” Diane said. “Elliott, we can . . . um . . . finish our conversation later.”

  Elliott’s eyes lit up behind his glasses and Mel had no doubt what conversation he thought they’d be finishing. Judging by the small smile on Diane’s lips, she appeared happy to continue where they had left off as well.

  The back half of the office space was one large wooden wall with Diane’s corporate logo, sculpted out of brushed steel, hanging dead center and lit up with track lighting suspended above it. Diane led Mel toward the wall and through a door that blended so seamlessly into the wood, it was almost invisible to the naked eye. They entered a narrow hallway done in the same pale wood, past several offices with clear glass walls, to the last office, the corner office. On the door, engraved on a burnished steel plate, was the name Diane Earnest, CEO.

  It made Mel pause. She knew how driven Diane had been in college. She knew that running her own marketing firm with clients firmly established in the Fortune 500 was Diane’s lifelong dream. Would she really give it all up, put it at risk, and jeopardize her future because her fiancé was cheating?

  The answer was as clear as the glass that housed her office. Diane would never put her business in harm’s way. She was the mother of this company and just like a mama duck protected her duckling, Diane would safeguard this company from all harm, and she would never do something like kill Mike Bordow—not because she didn’t want to but because she would never put her baby at risk.

  “Have a seat,” Diane said. “Can I get you anything?”

  “No, thanks,” Mel said. She waited until Diane sat down behind her desk and then said, “Nicole Butterfield? Really?”

  To her credit, Diane didn’t pretend not to understand. Instead, she leaned back in her seat and put her hands over her face.

  “I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said. “It should have been you.”

  “Well, weddings haven’t really been my thing, so I’m okay to have been left out of your wedding party, truly, but to put Nicole in—for what possible reason?”

  “I am an idiot,” Diane said. “She’s so well connected in town, thanks to her many ex-husbands, that I thought it would be good for the business if I had a socialite in the wedding party.”

  “Plus, you were worried I’d be fat,” Mel said. Diane opened her mouth to argue but Mel waved her off. “Nicole told me.”

  “That miserable cow,” Diane said. “First she tries to steal my fiancé and now she’s ruining my friendships.”

  “Nothing is ruined,”
Mel said. “I wouldn’t be here if it was.”

  “You always were the best of us,” Diane said. She gave Mel a small smile. “I’m sorry, Mel, truly, really, all the way down to my soul, sorry. I don’t know what got into me. I got so swept up in the planning of the wedding. It was like I lost myself.”

  “It’s okay,” Mel said. She thought about Angie morphing into a bridezilla and made a mental note that she would avoid this at all costs when planning her own wedding, even if it required electroshock therapy. Although she was enjoying the heck out of Diane’s groveling, she needed to get to the point. “Honestly, I was just curious about that. I’m here about something else.”

  “Okay, shoot,” Diane said. She looked relieved.

  “You told me that Mike’s business was in trouble. That’s why he was marrying you, correct?”

  “Yes, apparently he needed me to work my marketing magic to save them with big sales, or convince the bank president, also my client, to give them some extra time to come up with the capital they needed to repay their loan, which he said they were about to default on.”

  “How did you find out that he was using you for that?” Mel asked.

  Diane looked wary, as if she hadn’t expected Mel to go there.

  “I need to know the truth,” Mel said. “It’s important.”

  “Mike told me,” she said.

  “He told you?” Mel asked. “How did that come up in conversation? Was he an idiot? Did you tell anyone? Have you told the police?”

  Diane glanced away. She looked upset. More than that, she looked guilty.

  “The truth, Diane, I mean it,” Mel said. “Lying is only going to make things worse.”

  Diane blew out a breath. “Fine. I suspected that Mike was cheating but I wanted proof. I had Elliott set up surveillance on Mike and Nicole. I heard him tell her that I was his ‘cash cow,’ so technically he told me even if he didn’t know he was telling me at the time.”