Sweet Taffy and the Marshmallow Murder: Sweet Taffy Cozy Mysteries Book #2

by Dana Moss

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Out on the lake under the light of the moon, Taffy rowed in the direction of the Bradford cabin. She had a vague notion of where it lay on the west edge of the lake. Though she’d never been there before, Maria had once described its approximate location.

  Taffy rowed toward the only lights on the western shore. They were coming from a cabin with wide front windows and French doors looking toward the dark lake. She saw a large porch, narrow lawn, small dock, and strip of beach. As Taffy rowed nearer, she saw a woman moving between the kitchen and the living room. She had a petite frame and dark hair cut into an elegant bob.

  Why had Cara lied about going to San Diego a second time? What was she doing here?

  Taffy rowed up to the little beach. The porch light seemed warm and inviting, but its light didn’t fall as far as the edge of the lake, so Taffy was able to beach the boat and creep stealthily toward the cabin without being seen. Through the window, she saw Cara pour herself a glass of iced tea from a pitcher on the kitchen counter island. She took a tiny sip. Taffy’s throat felt dry. She was thirsty from rowing. Would Cara offer her some if she barged in? Even if she didn’t, Taffy decided she’d help herself.

  As she padded across the lawn to the porch, she watched Cara cross from the open-plan kitchen to an adjoining sitting room with a couch that faced a stone fireplace. On its mantle sat a set of wooden mallards, above them a single oar attached to the upper stones of the chimney. Cara sat on the couch and set her glass on the coffee table.

  Taffy tiptoed across the porch. One of the French doors leading to the kitchen was ajar. She slipped in.

  “Cara?”

  With an alarmed cry, Cara called, “Who’s there?!” In a flash, she was up off the couch and standing at the threshold between the kitchen and living room. Her eyes widened when she saw Taffy. “How did you know I was here?”

  “I didn’t. I had a hunch.” Taffy helped herself to one of the clean, overturned glasses gathered next to the pitcher of iced tea. Cara made a move as if to stop her, but then her hand dropped to her side.

  “Does anyone know you’re here?” Her gaze flicked around the cabin as if searching for escape routes.

  “It’s all right, Cara. I just want to talk.”

  Taffy poured out a full glass of iced tea. Then she downed half the contents. With her thirst slaked, Taffy said, “Why did you lie to Noel and Maria again about going back to San Diego?”

  Cara touched her belly lightly and then crossed her arms and started pacing the rag rug–covered floor. “I needed space to think, to figure things out…” She moved toward the other room. Taffy followed her.

  “When I heard you went back to the spa, I thought you’d decided to give up the baby. You didn’t tell Noel, did you.”

  Cara stood by the mantel now. “I couldn’t. I can’t…” She looked distraught. Her eyes were wide and glassy, as if she were frightened.

  “Tell me about that night, Cara. The night Tyler died.”

  Her eyes narrowed and her jaw tightened. She seemed to be trying to muster up some sort of steely defiance but then gave up. She closed her eyes and opened her lips to let out a big sigh.

  “I was here,” she said. “Tyler came to see me here. He was so angry…”

  Taffy stared at Cara’s petite frame, at her stiff back, her tanned arms. Tyler had been nearly six feet tall and at least fifty pounds heavier than this woman, but Taffy had to ask.

  “Cara, did you kill Tyler?”

  She spun toward Taffy. “Of course not!” Her eyes flashed angrily. But then her gaze softened and looked toward some vague other realm. “I admit I thought about it once or twice when he was being really mean to me. But that’s not a crime. We all fantasize about getting rid of our biggest problems, don’t we? Whatever did Annabelle dig up on your rival?”

  “None of that matters now. What matters is whether you had something to do with Tyler’s ending up dead in that boat. Maria has people looking for you in San Diego.”

  “Because you told her. You betrayed me, Taffy.”

  “Tell me the truth now, Cara. And I’ll do what I can to help you.”

  Cara turned back toward the oar hanging above the fire place and nodded. Her glass still sat on the coffee table in the other room, virtually untouched. Taffy’s throat was still dry. She felt thirstier than before. She stole a sip from Cara’s glass as she spoke.

  “Tyler had canoed across the lake. I assumed he’d been camping and partying with his school friends at the campground. He’d been drinking.”

  “Did he know about the baby?”

  “He’d found out about it somehow.”

  “And he was mad?”

  She nodded. “He wanted me to get rid of it. Thought that’s what I’d been doing in San Diego, but somehow he knew I’d come back early.”

  “Because he’d been tracking your credit card statements online. That’s how I figured out you purchased a new ticket on the Saturday and flew home Sunday not Monday.”

  She looked up, thought about that, and something seemed to click into place.

  “Cara, did Tyler want you to get rid of the baby because it was his?”

  Cara wheeled around. She blinked hard several times, and then her eyes narrowed angrily.

  “You think I slept with my stepson, got pregnant, and then got rid of him? What kind of monster do you think I am?!”

  “I’m sorry, it’s just—”

  “Tyler came here accusing me of having an affair and threatening to tell Noel, threatening to destroy everything, my whole plan. But it’s ruined anyway.” Her voice caught. Her eyes glazed over. She had both hands on her belly now. There was no bulge yet, but whatever was going on inside her seemed more real to Cara than what was going on outside of her.

  “But I promise you, Tyler was alive the last time I saw him. He was angry, drunk or something, and bleeding—”

  “Bleeding?”

  Cara bowed her head and placed one hand on the mantel. She stroked the back of one of the wooden ducks and said, “From a fight.”

  “The one with Rex at the campground?”

  The hand that had been resting on the mantel slipped away from the rows of wooden mallards, dropped to her side, and then clutched at her belly again. She turned to face Taffy and shook her head. Her features looked sunken, sad.

  She opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, a male voice behind Taffy said, “Cara, don’t do it.”

  Taffy twisted around and saw Todd in the doorway. He stood with his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, his gaze fixed on Cara.

  Taffy watched them stare at each other. All the files in her mind started to reshuffle.

  Cara’s features had shifted from sad to resolute. She was looking at Todd but seemed to still be speaking to Taffy.

  “Tyler was bleeding from the mouth, where Todd had hit him after accusing us of what we’d been doing. Of what we’d done. He felt betrayed by us both. That’s why he was so angry that night.”

  Todd took a step forward. “Cara, stop.” He removed one hand from his pocket but not the other. “She doesn’t need to hear this. No one does. We’re going to start a new life together, remember?” He reached for Cara, who recoiled slightly.

  “We are not starting a new life together! I don’t know what I was thinking… I was overreacting when I found out about Noel’s infidelity, but that’s over now. I think we can get past it. I know we can.”

  Then she turned to Taffy.

  “You see, Tyler threatened to tell Noel. And his mother. He got violent with Todd. They fought that night. Todd won.”

  “Cara. I mean it. Stop talking.”

  She turned to him now. “You told me you were taking him outside to talk some sense into him!”

  “He wouldn’t listen. He hated you. You know that. This was his way of getting rid of you for good. He knew Noel would turn you out when he found out the truth about us.”

  “But you told me he got back in
the canoe and went back to his party.”

  “He did. With a little bit of help.”

  Taffy said, “What did you do to him?”

  “Nothing Tyler didn’t talk about doing to himself.”

  Taffy said, “You gave him the overdose of drugs?”

  The files in her mind had finished reshuffling. The remaining puzzle pieces were falling into place. “You put him in the canoe.”

  “I haven’t wanted to believe it…” Cara’s eyes started tearing up.

  “He would have ruined everything for you, Cara! I was protecting you. You wanted him gone, out of your life, and I got rid of him so you could have the life you want. The baby you want. My baby that I could watch grow up. You promised—”

  “I take it all back!” Cara screamed. “I’ve been protecting you because I didn’t believe—couldn’t believe—you were capable of killing your best friend.”

  “I didn’t kill him! He killed himself. With his mother’s sleeping pills.”

  “The pills,” Taffy said, nodding. “You got them from Shannon’s when you picked up that fantasy novel…That’s when her prescription went missing…”

  “He talked about taking his mother’s pills once. I just helped him along with that.”

  “But not just those. Some street drugs, too, Marshmallow Reds, and the booze he’d already been drinking,” Taffy said. “A whole cocktail. And you provided it all…”

  She stared at Todd’s usually handsome face, its mouth now twisted in a grimace, its eyes now angry and accusing. Taffy understood now. “You were the one the drug dealer in Salem remembered, not Tyler, because the two of you look similar. Tyler and Todd, two peas in a pod. All this time I thought it was Rex.” She blinked. “You made me think it was Rex. You tried to frame him, didn’t you? It was you who planted the baggies of pills at the campground and in Rex’s locker. You had me distracted the whole time.”

  “Two birds with one stone would have been good. Tyler and Rex both out of the way.”

  “For what? Why?

  “Tyler knew too much. He wasn’t just going to tell Noel about the baby or that he believed it was mine—”

  Cara yelled. “It’s not yours, it’s supposed to be Noel’s!”

  “You already know it can’t be,” Taffy said to her.

  Cara’s hand went to her mouth, tears gathered in her eyes. “All ruined…” she mumbled as she slumped to the couch.

  Taffy said, “How exactly did Tyler die, Todd?”

  Todd tore his eyes from Cara and looked at Taffy squarely for the first time.

  Coldly, he said. “You know too much.”

  He pulled his other hand from his leather jacket pocket. Taffy’s knees went weak when she saw the gun. He said, “Let’s go outside.”

  Cara wailed, “You can’t kill her too, Todd!”

  “Stop saying I killed anyone!” He waved the gun around the room, and Cara and Taffy instinctively ducked. “Just relax,” Todd said, looking at Cara. I’m going to get her out of the way until we can figure out what we’re going to do, Cara.”

  “That’s what you said the night Tyler died,” Cara whined.

  “If you just do what I say and sit back and let me handle this, everything will turn out fine.”

  Cara stepped forward and said, “Listen, Todd, what we’re going to do is call the police and—”

  “Shut up, Cara!” He pushed her down onto the couch. “Give me your phone.”

  She shook her head. He released the safety on the gun.

  Taffy said, “Give him your phone, Cara. It’s okay.”

  Cara’s teary gaze met Taffy’s. “I only wanted to have Noel’s love all to myself. I never wanted all this.”

  Todd pocketed Cara’s phone, and then, using the gun, he gestured to Taffy. “Ladies first.”

  Taffy took slow steps to the cabin door, which was still ajar. Moonlight winked on the lake’s surface. The owl hooted once.

  “Here’s how it’s going to go, Blondie. You’re getting back in that boat and you’re going to row back to where you came from.”

  “You’re not going to kill me?”

  “I don’t have to. You’re going to do that yourself.”

  “What? You’ve got to be—”

  He pushed her into the rowboat. She fell back against the bench. He pushed on the bow with his foot. The boat rocked in the shallow water.

  “That iced tea you drank is going to make you sleepy and thirsty. There’s a bottle of fresh water in the boat, my compliments, right next to the hole I drilled. Consider that your last supper before you drown.”

  Taffy noticed the water bottle next to the hull. He must have put it there before he entered the cabin to interrupt Cara and Taffy.

  “But Cara drank the iced tea, too. The baby—”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t let Cara fall asleep, and she hasn’t had the other drug yet. You’ll get thirsty and you’ll need that water, and that will make you very sleepy, so sleepy you’ll be happy to take a long nap with the fishes.”

  By now, Cara had followed them outside. “Todd, you can’t treat her this way.”

  “Look, she’s getting back in the boat and going back the way she came, just like good ol’ Tyler,” There was a gleam in his eye as he looked at Cara. “You know how depressed Taffy’s been lately, Cara.”

  “I do?”

  “How she’s been on edge, afraid her boyfriend is cheating on her with his coworker, and how she hired a PI to investigate—”

  Taffy frowned at Cara. “You told him about that?”

  Todd continued, “And how she’s fumbling with her business and can’t really make a go of it in this new town and has generally just given up.”

  “No one will believe that. It’s not even close to true.”

  “But there are all those conversations with Cara, and she’ll attest to that—”

  “No, I won’t!”

  He wheeled on her, a vicious twist to his lips. “You will if you don’t want to have your baby in prison.”

  Cara bit her lip as her hands gripped her belly protectively.

  “And there’s a heap of emails between you two as well, with Cara trying to convince you how good your life is and how you shouldn’t throw it away—”

  “I didn’t write any emails and you know it. And I know you faked all those emails between you and Tyler to make the case for suicide—”

  But Todd talked right over her, “But you can’t be convinced, and you tell Cara you’ll do what Tyler did because it worked so well for him, but this time your boat will sink to the bottom of the lake, and when they dredge it, they’ll find your bloated body and tangle of blond hair and everyone will be sad for a while, but eventually they’ll get over it and move on because that’s what people do. That’s what we all do.”

  “Maria won’t believe any of this. She’ll suspect something. She’ll figure out that you planted the partial suicide note on Tyler’s computer, not Cara, and that you deleted the real emails he wrote to you, all the ones that explained why he was so mad at you, Todd—not Jenny and Rex—after you told him the truth about your relationship with your stepmother.”

  “Shut up, Taffy!”

  “What’s she talking about, Todd?”

  “Your affair’s not the half of it, Cara.”

  “Shut up, I said.” He pointed the gun at Taffy. His arm straightened and shook.

  Taffy knew she should button her lips, but if this really was it, if she was being sent to a watery death, someone had to know the truth.

  “Tyler wasn’t just angry about the baby, Cara. Todd had confided in him that he’d been sleeping with his stepmom, Rita, for years. He’d even implied that Tyler might have that kind of relationship with you one day, Cara.”

  “What?” Cara looked stricken.

  “Shut. Up. There’s no way you can know all this.”

  “You might have wiped out Tyler’s hard drive the day after he died, but you didn’t clear off your own hard drive, Todd, and when you
left your computer on your duffel bag at Cara’s the other day, I made a copy on a flash drive of your secret file, Pea Pod, just like the one you told us to look for on Tyler’s computer, where you planted the fake suicide note and fake emails.”

  “Todd? Is this all true?” Cara said weakly.

  “It’s all lies. Don’t believe her. She’ll say anything right now.”

  “And Rita? You’ve been…?”

  Todd looked desperate. “I hate that woman! I wanted a real start in life, a real family! With you, Cara.”

  “And what about Jenny?” Taffy said. “You wanted to start something with her, too, didn’t you? But you wanted Rex out of the way.”

  “Guys like Rex don’t deserve such a privileged life. He needed to be taught a lesson. For Jenny’s sake.”

  Cara said, “You love Jenny, too?” Her voice was tinged with hurt and disbelief.

  “And what about Cara, Todd? You think you’re going to run off and start a happy family with her?”

  “We’re not,” Cara said. “You need help, Todd. If Rita did all that, you need to—”

  “Shut up about her! You both sound like Tyler. I don’t need any help. I’m fine. You’ll see, Cara. We’ll start over.

  “The police have that flash drive, Todd.” She was lying, but whatever happened to her, they’d find it in her purse eventually. “And no matter what you do to me, Maria will figure it all out one day.”

  Todd gulped. He looked to the left and right.

  Taffy said, “Does your father know the truth, Todd? That all those times he was away for work, Rita was taking advantage of her nerdy, computer-savvy teenage stepson who didn’t know he was allowed to say no?”

  “Cara’s my family now!”

  He splashed into the water and heaved the boat farther away. The force of it made Taffy tumble to the bottom of the boat. Her face hit a puddle of accumulating water. When she pushed herself up and looked back to shore, she saw Cara’s figure backlit by the cabin’s porch light. She clutched her belly differently now, not as if she were protecting something but as if she were trying to hold something back from emerging.

  Todd’s push had launched the boat toward the center of the lake. He’d removed the oars. Taffy drifted farther from shore, but she had to try to make it back to one of the other cabins. She used her hands to paw through the water, but she couldn’t get very far. And she was thirsty again.