Sugar and Vice: Cupcake Truck Mysteries

by Emily James

  Instead of saying any of that, I let the silence stretch.

  “Anyway,” Alan said, with a nervous edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before, “I know physical newspapers seem to be going the way of the cassette tape these days, but the paper still likes to give complimentary copies to anyone when we do a story on them. I was hoping I’d be able to drop your copies off to you sometime this afternoon.”

  Okay, that wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe I could frame a copy and hang it up by my menu for people to read while they were waiting for their cupcake. It certainly couldn’t hurt.

  I felt like a balloon of optimism had been inflating in my chest and was popped. That wouldn’t work. I had to change my truck’s name as soon as I left Lakeshore. I was already taking a big risk not leaving the business behind entirely. But I loved baking too much to walk away yet. If I let Jarrod steal everything I enjoyed from me, was my life even worth living?

  If I were going to give up baking, I might as well let the police arrest me for Harold’s murder and lock me away. At least I’d be safe from Jarrod in prison, I wouldn’t have to worry about whether I’d have enough to eat, and I’d have a real bed to sleep on.

  It was looking like that would be my fate anyway since I had no way to prove my theory about the man who ran into me in the parking lot the day Harold Cartwright died.

  “Isabel?” Alan asked. “Are you still there?”

  I leaned back against my fridge and looked at my phone. It was a long shot, but maybe a reporter would have a way to find out who belonged to a license plate. That seemed like something a reporter might need to do for an undercover story. Those weren’t the kind of stories Alan wrote, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have contacts.

  “I’m still here.”

  The problem was, I couldn’t tell him why I needed to know who the license plate belonged to. That would require telling him information about myself that I wasn’t comfortable sharing, and he probably wouldn’t want to get in the middle of a police investigation in any way.

  “I have a favor to ask, actually,” I said to make sure he didn’t end the call.

  I had to think quick. He wrote the Positivity Project, so he was a sucker for happy-ending, do-gooder stories.

  “I clipped the mirror on a car the other day. I didn’t have a paper and pen to leave my name, and I couldn’t wait around because I was on my way to a job. I took a picture of the license plate, thinking I could find the owner that way. I didn’t realize that information wasn’t available to everyone. If I texted you the number, do you have any resources to help me find the car’s owner so I can make it right?”

  I clamped my mouth shut before I could ramble on. Over-explaining was one of the biggest red flags that a person was lying—or at least, that’s what Jarrod had told me. While he wasn’t the best example of a human being, he was good at his job.

  It was Alan’s turn to go quiet. In the background, I could hear music playing. I didn’t recognize the song, but it had a beat that made me want to hum to it.

  “I’ve never needed to check a license plate before.” His words were slow, as if he were picking them with care. “I’ll see if anyone has any connections who could make it happen, but I can’t promise you.”

  An I’ll try was better than where I stood now. “I appreciate you trying.”

  “Can we set up a time to meet? I’ll give you the copies of my story and the owner’s name and number…if I can get it.”

  Why is he so insistent on meeting you? Fear whispered in my ear.

  It’d been difficult enough for me to accept catering jobs from clients because Fear had told me those were perfect opportunities for Jarrod to know exactly where I’d be. I’d had to do those because catering jobs were a food truck’s bread and butter—or, in my case, cake and icing.

  This was different. For all I knew, Jarrod had contacted Alan and asked him to lure me to some location. Jarrod wouldn’t have told Alan who he really was or who I really was. There’d have been some convincing tale behind it, like he’d seen Alan’s article and recognized his long-lost sister. Could Alan arrange a surprise meeting? Someone like Alan Brooksbank would jump on a follow-up story chance like that. He’d never suspect Jarrod’s motives weren’t genuine.

  I couldn’t take that risk.

  “I’ll pop by the newspaper’s office sometime early next week.” My phone beeped in my ear, letting me know I had another call coming in. Saved by the beep. “I have another call. I’ll see you then.”

  I switched over before Alan could argue and answered with my practiced This is Isabel of How Sweet It Is Cupcake Truck.

  “I’m glad I caught you before you closed for the day,” another male voice said.

  The voice was vaguely familiar, but I could quite place it. It was deeper than Jarrod’s. I was sure I’d have recognized his voice even if he tried to disguise it. It also had a slower, more relaxed cadence to it than Alan’s. Alan’s voice carried that upbeat pace of someone who was naturally energetic or had drunk too many caffeinated beverages in a short period of time.

  I slid into the driver’s seat of my truck, but I didn’t start the engine. I’d hooked up my phone to Bluetooth so I could always answer while driving. That would send my call through the truck, which tended to slightly distort the voice on the other end and make it harder for me to pinpoint the speaker. He hadn’t identified himself. My regular clients usually gave their names right away.

  Maybe he wasn’t someone I knew. Many people had similar voices.

  “How can I help you?” I asked.

  “I’m hoping you cater small events. My daughter has a big role in her school’s end-of-the-year play, and every family is supposed to bring a dessert for the party afterward. I don’t know how to bake.”

  The way he said it all took a bit of the stiffness out of my shoulders. His tone wasn’t so self-deprecating as to suggest he had low self-esteem, but it also wasn’t the cocky tone some men had where they seemed to think not knowing how to cook or bake was a manly badge of honor. His tone was more like I know I should learn, but help me out of a bind for now.

  “I do small events, and I also do orders for pickup.” As much as I could use the money, this dad sounded like a decent guy who was trying to make sure he didn’t embarrass his kid. I didn’t want to take advantage of him. “It can be a bit pricy, though, compared to a bigger order. If you want a small order of something that’s not already on my menu for that day, it means making a separate small batch. That’s more time-consuming for me as a baker. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather grab something from the grocery store?”

  “Yeah, I thought of that, but I don’t want to take the risk. My daughter has food allergies. I want to make sure there’s something there I know she can safely eat. Her class had a picnic earlier this year, and she almost ate a brownie with nuts in it because someone forgot and didn’t label them properly. I’d be happy to take a selection of what you already plan to prepare for that day.”

  After what I’d seen lately, I didn’t blame him for being extra cautious. Most schools were trying to protect students with food allergies, but not every parent with non-allergic children understood the potential severity of it. Or would always remember. I’d read a sad story about a month ago about a child who died because he traded snacks with another kid in his class. The other kid’s mom was facing a lawsuit from the dead child’s family, but in the interview I’d read, she insisted she’d sent that food for her own child—who wasn’t allergic—and she shouldn’t be held responsible for the fact that some other child liked her child’s food better than his own.

  The clock on my dashboard flipped over to a new hour. This guy probably just sounded like someone I knew, and I needed to get to the school or I’d lose my chance at a space. I started my engine, let my phone switch over to Bluetooth, and walked him through how I preferred payment, my cancellation policy, and all the usual details.

  “I really appreciate it.” His voice faded out, then came
back in like he’d switched the phone from one ear to another. “I didn’t have any allergies growing up, and I didn’t realize how hard it would be. I want to make sure she has a normal childhood and doesn’t feel left out.”

  Switching his phone from one side to the other struck me as odd. It was something you did when you either planned to continue talking for a while longer or you needed your dominant hand free to write something down. Since the conversation was almost over, I guessed the latter. He should have done that before I started giving him details about what I’d need to know from him, not after. It meant he hadn’t written down what I’d said, but he was preparing to write something down.

  “So,” he said, “all I still need from you then is your last name so the school can do a background check. They require it for all volunteers.”

  I felt a click in my brain that reminded me of a stuck key finally turning in a lock. I did know the man’s voice. It was Dan Holmes.

  I almost sent up a prayer of thanks that I hadn’t fallen for it completely. I might very well have given him my last name. He’d have taken it to the police, and they would have discovered quickly that I had to be operating under a false name. While that alone wasn’t a crime—though possessing the fake ID I carried was—it would make me their primary suspect in Harold’s death.

  If they brought me in for questioning, I’d have no choice but to give them my real name and show them my real ID. Giving them the fake ones meant a guaranteed possession charge, bringing with it fines or jail time.

  Of course, giving them my real name meant giving Jarrod proof positive of where I was. While he might think twice about making the trip across the country over a photo that might or might not be me, he wouldn’t hesitate a second if my name popped up in the system.

  But bluntly refusing to give Dan my name without a reason also presented a problem—it’d only make him more suspicious. Since he didn’t know that I knew who he was, I might be able to dodge it in a believable way.

  One thing I would have to thank Jarrod for when he finally caught me was that living with him had taught me how to talk my way out of things. Having a believable explanation at the ready had saved me more than once from a beating.

  “You don’t need to make the school go to all that trouble.” I made sure to smile even though I didn’t feel like it. I was convinced people could hear a smile in someone’s voice even over the phone. “I’m not actually going to be a volunteer. I won’t have any contact with the kids. I’ll just drop the cupcakes off to you ahead of time. That way the other parents won’t know you bought them.”

  He hummed like he was thinking about it. “That’s tempting to help me save face, but I want to be able to focus on helping my daughter get ready. Getting her hair done right will be enough of a challenge without having to remember the cupcakes, too. I’d rather you set them up at the school.”

  Dan Holmes had an answer for everything I tried. It was like trying to best a grand master in a game of chess, even though I couldn’t even name all the pieces. “Honestly, there’s nothing to set up. When I’m not catering, I deliver them in a nice box, but that’s it. You just have to open it and set it on the table.”

  His pause was long enough to let me know that he was trying to come up with some other reason I needed to give him my name. “You’re probably right.” He laughed, and if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought it was genuine. “This is my first school play. I think I’m more nervous than she is. I’ll get back to you with the exact date and the amount I’ll need.”

  He ended the call. I drove my truck through the most circuitous route possible while still making sure to arrive at the high school early enough. It wasn’t really necessary. Dan Holmes had no reason to be physically tailing me at this point. After a few turns, I was sure no one was following me.

  But the shivers running over my skin wouldn’t settle down. I wouldn’t hear from him again about buying cupcakes from me, but I knew one thing for sure.

  It wasn’t only the police or Jarrod I needed to watch out for. Dan Holmes was determined to expose my secret and see me investigated for the death of Harold Cartwright.

  Chapter 9

  After the baseball game finished on Friday night, I drove my truck to an open but practically abandoned campground one town over and hid there until Monday.

  Hiding out for the weekend leveled another blow to my bank account since weekends tended to earn me as much as I made during the whole rest of the week. But it was the only way I could make sure Jarrod wouldn’t find me. He’d only have the weekend to be able to hunt for me without his absence being noted. By hiding away, I bought myself another week of safety.

  I hoped.

  A lot could have changed in the year I’d been gone. It was always possible that Jarrod had gone back to field work rather than the desk job he’d had for the past few years thanks to a promotion. If he’d gone back to field work, no days were safe. His “weekends” would be completely random.

  I pushed the thought from my mind. There were too many ifs. I couldn’t try to counteract them all. I’d end up frozen.

  On Monday, I kept my regular lunch spot—partly for the money, partly because my regulars counted on me to be there, and partly to give Alan as much time as possible to get me a name to go along with the license plate. As soon as the lunch crowd died off, I closed up and headed for the newspaper office.

  I’d equipped my truck with a GPS, but I only used it when I first came to a town. Anywhere that I planned to stay for longer than a week, I studied an online map and memorized as much as I could. It wasn’t that hard. I’d always loved the paper maps my dad and I used when we took vacations when I was a kid, before GPS was a thing. A GPS wouldn’t help me if I were being followed. If someone were following me, my ability to escape could depend on how well I knew the roads and alternate routes.

  It was especially true in Lakeshore. Whoever designed the roads had obviously been a masochist. The downtown and most of the business sectors were riddled with one-way streets. One of my earliest clients had told me the running joke among the locals was that the engineer who’d laid out their streets made them that way to encourage the tourists to walk rather than drive in the hope that they’d buy more if they were right next to the shop windows.

  From what I’d seen of Lakeshore’s shops, tourists would buy regardless of whether they were on foot or had to park a car. The shops were some of the most interesting I’d ever seen, from the Humblebee selling all things beeswax from lip balm to candles, to Prism filled with some of the most stunning glass artistry anywhere, to Just Beachy, a shop devoted entirely to signs, blankets, t-shirts, and pillows all declaring in some form how life was better at the beach.

  One of my regrets was that I didn’t have the time or the money to explore them all myself.

  I parked my truck behind the bank next to the newspaper office because the bank’s parking lot was the only place on the street with two exits. If I needed to make a getaway because this was a trap set by Jarrod, I’d have an easier time getting out.

  The directory in the building’s front lobby told me the newspaper office was on the second floor. I skipped the elevator and took the stairs.

  The door for the newspaper office was a clear glass door with letters embossed on it, making it look a bit like a private detective’s office from old black and white movies. Inside, about fifteen men and women moved around a room filled with metal desks. Flimsy cubical-style walls blocked the rest of the room off from the front, maybe separating the editorial staff from the regular reporters.

  I pushed the door open, and the noise of the room hit me first—soft tapping from keyboards, voices, and the hum of electronics and fans.

  I stopped a few steps inside. Surprising Alan Brooksbank had felt safer, but it also left me with a problem. I didn’t have an appointment, so he wasn’t watching for me, and I didn’t know what he looked like.

  A man in a wheelchair rolled to a stop beside me. “May I help you?�
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  I did a double take. The man’s voice sounded enough like Alan’s that it seemed improbable it wasn’t him. But he was in a wheelchair. And he wasn’t fresh out of college.

  The man in front of me was in his early forties, with a shaved head and bulky shoulders and arm muscles straining at his dark t-shirt. He looked nothing like the image I’d had in my mind.

  I realized I was staring just barely in time to answer his question before the pause got awkward. “I’m Isabel.”

  Alan smiled, his thin, wide lips reminding me a bit of the Grinch once his heart grew three sizes. It was a nice smile, just a little too big for his face. “Sorry about that. That picture I got wasn’t clear enough for me to recognize you. And I expected you to stand me up. You sounded even more annoyed with me for calling about complimentary copies than you did when I asked you for the story in the first place.”

  If I’d been a cartoon character, my ears probably would have burst into little embarrassed flames. After all my years of hiding my true emotions from Jarrod, I should have been better at faking it. Though perhaps Alan saw through it because he was a reporter. They probably had to get good at reading interview subjects so they knew when to push and when not to.

  Alan waved for me to follow him. “My desk’s this way.”

  He weaved through the maze of desks with me trailing behind him. The spacing between the desks seemed to have been set up specifically to allow Alan enough room to maneuver, suggesting his condition wasn’t a new one and that he was a valued member of the news team.

  It didn’t make sense. As much as I loved the Positivity Project, it’d always seemed to me like it was written by someone who hadn’t seen the harsh realities of the world. Alan was in a wheelchair. He had to have some knowledge of how brutal and unfair life could be.