Allison Janda - Marian Moyer 01 - Sex, Murder & Killer Cupcakes

by Allison Janda

  Barry looked confused as he switched his gaze between Addison and I. “Did you both go on a date with him?” he asked, scratching his head.

  Addison shrugged and smiled sheepishly. “Kind of,” she told him. Delicately, she reached over and removed my pewter pin and placed it into Barry’s hands. “I was kind of recording it.”

  His eyes bugged out of his head and he darted a glance behind him to ensure that no one had heard. “You can’t do that,” he told us angrily, once he was satisfied that we had no eavesdroppers. Turning back to Addison and I, he pulled himself into the cabin. “What were you thinking?”

  Addison snorted. “I was thinking that I’m an undercover reporter. I was thinking that James is a suspect.”

  “How did you come to that conclusion?” Barry hissed but Addison silenced him with a look.

  “It’s my job,” she said simply. “Isn’t it the least bit curious that he showed up just as everything started happening? Does he seem like the type to own a bakery of all things?” We all craned our necks around the ambulance doors to catch a peek at James, who had his arms crossed as he spoke with a senior looking detective. James caught us staring suspiciously and gave us a hesitant wave. With tight smiles, we waved back and slowly drew ourselves back into a huddle inside the ambulance.

  Addison continued. “Our model was poisoned. Next thing you know, Marian found James sniffing around outside her apartment-”

  “Not exactly,” I told them.

  She snorted. “He asks her on a date because he knows that’ll distract her.” I cried out in protest but she fixed me with a look. “I’m sorry, honey, but it’s true.” Turning back to Barry she continued. “He intends to meet her at the restaurant, but shows up to the warehouse? He’s shady about his business ventures? He demonstrates manners all night until he drops her off, not at her car, where he’d be a sitting duck until she started it and left, but at the entrance to her office?”

  “Maybe he thought she’d need to get something from inside,” Barry protested.

  Addison just shook her head. “You make up all the excuses you want to make for him,” she responded. “But I’m still suspicious.”

  We all pondered in silence for a few moments and then I slowly pushed myself up on the gurney with a moan.

  “Lay down,” Rory said gently.

  I shook my head and the effort made me slightly dizzy, but I was determined to get out of there. “I’m not going to the hospital. And I can’t stay in here. I will not just sit around waiting when someone out there is trying to kill me. He could poison my IV! Inject me with penicillin! I’m allergic, you know. He probably already knows that!” I could hear myself growing hysterical, but I couldn’t keep the panic at bay.

  “And where do you think you’re going to go, Marian? Home?” Addison asked, incredulous.

  I paused, willing my breathing to slow. She had a point. If James was the killer and the police hadn’t collected enough evidence to bring him in, which was likely considering we were still suspects, chances are he could try to kill me again tonight when I was weakened and vulnerable, alone in my apartment.

  “She’ll come home with me,” Rory said decidedly. We all looked at him in surprise. “What?” he asked, defensively. “I have a spare room. I have a secured entry. I have added a lot of locks onto my door.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Addison seem to nod agreeably. I found this odd as she and I had been to Rory’s loft only once, despite our years of friendship, and I could barely remember how to get to it, let alone what it looked like. Perhaps I needed an MRI more than I thought.

  Rory hopped out of the back of the ambulance, then held out his arms and gingerly lifted me out and set me on the ground. “Thanks,” I said as I wobbled unsteadily.

  With a smile, he latched an arm around my waist and turned to Addison. “You coming?” he asked her.

  She scurried out of the back of the ambulance and rushed to my other side, helping to prop me up. We had only made it a few steps when she paused and called over her shoulder to Barry, “I have the recording that goes with that pin if you want it. You know where to find me.”

  As we walked towards Rory’s SUV, a detective made his way over to us quickly. “I’ll need to ask you all a few questions,” he said, apologetically.

  Addison shook her head. “You can connect with us tomorrow,” she said firmly, continuing to walk me to Rory’s suburban.

  “It’s actually rather important that we speak now,” he told her.

  Addison sighed and, slowly, she and Rory turned me to face the officer, whom I gave a weak smile. “Does she look like she’s in any condition to answer your questions?”

  The officer shuffled and flipped to a fresh page in his notebook. “No, but-”

  “Do you have any intention of arresting her this evening?” Addison continued, all business.

  “No,” the officer replied.

  “Then you may ask her your questions tomorrow,” Addison said firmly. “And Rory and I weren’t even around when the explosion happened, so that saves you some time with questioning us.”

  With that, she and Rory turned me back around slowly and continued to walk me to Rory’s SUV.

  When I was tucked safely in the backseat, I allowed myself to relax slightly, loosening my stiff muscles as Rory and Addison went around to the other side. Just as I let out a sigh of relief, my door opened. “What did you forget?” I asked, turning with a tired smile. James stood there anxiously and I froze, hearing Addison charging back around to my side of the car, screaming expletives.

  “Marian, I’m so sorry,” James told me, just before Addison shoved her body between us.

  “Sorry that your little plot didn’t pan out?” Addison spat, moving forward and forcing him to take a step back. She closed the door behind her and I quickly reached for the lock, clicking it into place as I stared at the pair through my window. James, head lowered like a lost puppy, eventually turned and began walking back towards the dwindling crowd of officers. I lost him when he turned next to a fire truck.

  Once he was out of sight, Addison relaxed and walked back around the SUV, opened the rear passenger door and climbed in next to me. Rory closed it softly behind her before hopping into the front. He paused before connecting the key to the ignition and turning the engine over. When his car roared to life without incident, the three of us sighed in relief. I laid my head in Addison’s lap and she gingerly began to stroke my head. “Don’t fall asleep yet,” she murmured soothingly. “We’ll need to keep you awake for a few hours to make sure everything is okay.”

  “I’m fine,” I mumbled.

  “Just a few hours, Marian,” Rory repeated, glancing at us in the rearview mirror. “Just enough time to fill me in on everything that happened tonight.”

  Drawing hard from memory, I filled him in on everything he’d missed, with Addison adding additional commentary on our drive through the dark streets. Once we arrived at his apartment, Rory let out a low whistle. “So we’re pretty sure James did it?” he asked, putting his vehicle into park and turning around to face us.

  “I don’t mean to put all of our eggs in one basket,” Addison told him, glancing down at me as I struggled to fight off the urge to sleep for the next 15 years. My entire body ached. “But at this particular moment, I have no idea who else it could be. Even Barry couldn’t crack it. And he’s a cop.”

  Rory allowed her statement to process and then nodded. “It makes sense,” he agreed. “Still, we need to stay alert for other possibilities.”

  We made it to Rory’s apartment in relative silence, save for the occasional gasp of pain or grumble from me. My head continued to feel like it weighed a million pounds and throbbed with pain. Once my friends had me situated in Rory’s brown leather recliner, Addison made her way around the corner into what I could only assume was the bathroom. “Do you have any Advil?” she called out to Rory, as I heard cabinets opening and closing.

  “Bottom drawer,” Rory called bac
k to her. Then to me he added, “And I’m going to go fetch you a glass of water.”

  My pain meds taken, we decided to rent an action film on Rory’s slightly large but still incredibly moderate television that hung from his wall. “Anything loud enough to keep you awake,” he said, clicking through titles until he found something with my favorite actor in the lead.

  He and Addison sat on opposite sides of the loveseat and took turns getting up to come check to make sure I hadn’t fallen asleep. Every once in a while, one of them would ask me a stupid question like, “Hey, Marian, what is two plus two?” and I’d snarl in response as I craned my neck around to catch a glimpse of Bruce Willis as he pulled people out of crumbling buildings and led high speed car chases.

  When the first movie ended, we ordered another, along with Chinese, my go to comfort food. While I wasn’t incredibly hungry — a first — my stomach rolled with nothing more than pain relievers and water, and I knew I’d have no choice but to choke down a spring roll.

  Somewhere in the middle of our third movie that night, I found myself nodding off to sleep. When no one came over to gently shake me awake, I curled up even tighter in my blankets, rocked the recliner backward and allowed myself to be lulled into dark, troubled dreams amidst the sound of gunfire popping out of Rory’s surround sound speakers.

  The next morning, I awoke with a slight crick in my neck, the sun reflecting brightly through the windows. Too brightly. “It snowed!” Addison chirped excitedly behind me. Squatting next to the recliner, she handed me a mug filled with rich black coffee, along with two capsules. “Drink up.”

  Popping the pain relievers, I blinked hard at the bright sun. “Where am I?” I asked, the night before a complete blur. Rory walked around the corner, swathed in a large bath towel, his chest slightly damp from the shower, his moppy curls shellacked to his head. Suddenly everything came rushing back. “My car,” I moaned, covering my eyes with my free hand.

  “We can replace that,” Addison soothed. “Oh, and your mother called.”

  “What?” I asked with a start. “She couldn’t possibly know-”

  “She’s your mother. She knows everything,” Addison replied, patting my shoulder as she stood and began walking back towards the kitchen. “How about some breakfast? Eggs? Bacon?”

  “You sure have made yourself at home,” I told her, forcing the recliner upright and standing with a slight wobble. Rory grinned and disappeared into the hall as I followed Addison into the kitchen. “Eggs,” I told her. “Scrambled. With cheese. And some toast.”

  “Anything else?” she asked, nose buried deep in the refrigerator.

  “Nope!” I replied cheerfully. After a few moments, I reached for my phone, which sat discarded on the kitchen counter. Checking the battery life, I noted that I still had 39%, which was unfortunately plenty with which to call my mother. Chances are if I didn’t reach out soon, she’d call again or simply make the drive down to the city and wait for me at my apartment. I shuddered at the thought. Typing in my pass code, I went to type in her number when the screen lit up with an incoming call. Laughing, I showed it to Addison, who just shook her head as she continued to crack eggs into a large bowl. “Hi, Ma,” I said, answering with the speakerphone feature.

  “Marian!” my mother cried out. Then, “Don! I have her! She answered! She’s alive!”

  There were heavy footsteps on the linoleum and then my father’s voice echoed through the line. “MnM?” he asked me, using my nickname. “That you?”

  “Hi-a, Pop,” I whispered.

  “Honey, we want you to come stay with us until this is over,” my father said loudly into the phone.

  “I can’t do that,” I said simply. “Someone is out to get me and I need to know why.”

  “What do you mean you need to know why?” my mother squawked loudly. “Isn’t the fact that someone is trying to kill you enough for you? Really. Kids these days.”

  I sighed, not entirely sure how to explain. “It’s someone that I know,” I told them. “But I’m still a suspect.”

  “You’re a suspect in your own attempted murder?” my mother cried out. “That’s preposterous! Who is this new Captain? I’m going to march myself down there this morning and-”

  “It’s not just that,” I told her. “And how did you know about all of this anyway?”

  “It’s all over the news,” my dad told me. “Porn Maker’s Car Goes Up in Flames.”

  Addison rolled her eyes. “That’s not the headline,” she mouthed and I grinned.

  “Anyway,” I said, taking a deep breath, “I need to stay here. And I need you,” I paused, “I need both of you to stay there until I get all of this figured out.”

  I could almost hear my mother arguing with herself over my request but, eventually, she offered a surly, “If you say so,” before filling me in on a few updates and hanging up.

  “She seems unusually feisty this morning,” Addie said as she poured several well-beaten eggs into the hot frying pan. They popped and sizzled as she added various pinches of spice.

  “I really hope she doesn’t try to get involved,” I muttered, dropping my phone to the counter. Sitting up straighter in my chair, I reached for a glass cabinet door and swung it towards me, trying to catch a glimpse of my nasty gash. “Eesh,” I said.

  “Pretty nasty,” Addie agreed, flipping the eggs with a spatula.

  “Thanks,” I replied, sarcastically. “Luckily I don’t have anything too important on the agenda for today. Wait. Oh, no.”

  “What?” Addie asked distracted, adding a huge handful of cheese to the eggs.

  “My date!” I moaned, clutching my face in my hands. “My date with Mika is tonight. He can’t see me looking like this!”

  Addie continued to ease the eggs into a scramble, looking anything but flustered. “We’ll take care of it,” she promised. “I’ll help you. But first, I promised to take you down to the police department for questioning at some point this morning.”

  Just then, Rory stepped out of his room. His hair was still wet but he’d managed to dress in wrinkly cargo pants and a long sleeve shirt, his glasses perched firmly atop his nose. “Breakfast!” he cried, sniffing the air heartily. As he passed me, he gave me a gentle shoulder squeeze. Moving next to Addie, he began to gather plates, cutlery and juice glasses. “Just making yourself right at home then, are you?” he asked her, moving to set things up on the breakfast bar.

  Addie flipped the heat to low and pulled a loaf of wheat from the bread basket. Popping two slices into the toaster, she turned back to Rory and gave him a smug smile. “If that’s what you’d like to call it,” she retorted.

  After breakfast, the three of us piled into Rory’s SUV and headed over to the police department for questioning. I offered up everything leading up to the explosion, including my date. However, I left out the piece about catching everything on tape figuring I’d save that tidbit for later use, if needed.

  After questioning, Rory dropped Addison and I at the office, where we picked up her car. Mine was no longer in the lot but there was quite a bit of scorching left in its place. Once we’d determined that the coast was clear in my apartment, she left me to relax and get cleaned up, promising to return later that day to help me get ready.

  After quieting my hungry stomach with half a can of Pringles, I popped a few more pain relievers and checked the clock. There were at least three hours to kill and that was only if I planned on taking over two hours to get ready. Numbly, I caught sight of my Swiffer. May as well clean the apartment. It’s not like I could really go anywhere.

  Three and a half hours later, my apartment, including Fred’s tank, was spotless. Additionally, all of my laundry had been washed and folded, neatly tucked into various drawers and closets. Lost in the smell of Pine Sol, I was shaken back to reality by a loud knock on my door. “Are you in there?” Addie shouted. When I opened the door, her arms were overflowing with dry cleaning bags. She looked me up and down in horror. “Why haven’t you sh
owered yet?”

  “I’ve been cleaning,” I replied. “Besides, who needs over two hours to get ready?”

  She pointed to the ugly gash on my forehead. “That does.” Shooing me to the shower, she carried her dry cleaning down to the bedroom.

  Twenty five minutes of tender soaping and rinsing later, I was wrapped in a warm, fluffy towel, sitting on my bed. Addie buzzed around me, checking the various brushes and heated contraptions she’d brought with her as she ran through the outfits she’d laid out for me. “This one,” she said, picking up a low-cut red satin dress, “is something you can wear if you’re worried about his eyes wandering. He won’t be able to get enough of you.”

  I made a face and shook my head. While I didn’t consider myself to be remotely in the same hotness realm as Mika, I wasn’t too worried about his ability to remain focused. Plus, the dress practically screamed “do me,” which I wasn’t ready for just yet.

  Addie hurried over to a ruffled blouse and knee-length purple pencil skirt. “This one looks like you’ve been at the office all day. Sexy young professional.”

  I shook my head again. I didn’t want to give the impression that I always dressed up for work. He’d seen me in cute professional gear only the day before. Twice in a row, for someone who usually showed up in jeans or yoga gear, would give the wrong impression.

  Addie picked up the last outfit she had laid out. Black skinny jeans paired with a loose gray V-neck sweater.

  “That’s it,” I breathed, reaching out to finger the soft cashmere. “Where did you find this?”

  “Never you mind,” she was grinning. “You can keep it. Consider it a gift.” She let the words “I’m glad you’re not dead” prior to “gift” be assumed.

  A few minutes later, I was snug in my new outfit, sitting perfectly still as Addie fussed with my curls with a hair diffuser and a can of hairspray. “How do you feel about bangs?” she asked, eyeing me critically once my hair was dry. “Maybe something side swept.” She tried tucking a mass of curls over my gash, critiquing the potential outcome.