“I’m her attorney,” Steve said. “Once my client, always my client.”
“But you turned down my case,” Mel said.
“Details. You’re still my client,” Steve retorted. “Always.”
The two men glared at each other. Well, Manny glared and Steve looked bored, which Mel suspected he was doing just to bug Manny.
“Let me guess,” she said. “You two have a history.”
“Everyone has a history with ‘the weasel,’” Manny said with a glower.
“Now, now, let’s not start name-calling just because I freed a man that you wrongly arrested,” Steve said. He ran a hand over his slick suit, as if to be sure Manny’s barbed words had left no tears in the fabric. “And it’s ‘the wolf,’ get your mammal right.”
“That dirtbag was not wrongly arrested, and I didn’t lose the case, since I’m not an attorney,” Manny said. “But let’s be honest, he only got off because you found a legal loophole and weaseled him out of the charges.”
“Don’t hate me because I’m good at my job,” Steve said. His silver hair was trimmed perfectly and Mel suspected that he spent five times as much on personal upkeep than she did. As if sensing her scrutiny, Steve turned to her and asked, “So, Melanie, are you still dating DeLaura?”
“Yes, she is,” Manny answered for her. “And if she’s not dating him, she’s dating me. You’ll have to take a number.”
“Fine by me,” Steve said. “Three has always been my lucky number.”
“Excuse me. What am I, deli meat?” Mel asked.
She gave them her most severe frown. Steve grinned while Manny continued to glower.
“Sorry, it’s just that—” Steve began but was interrupted.
“Steve!” Joyce cried and came running across the room to join them. “How did you know? Did Mel call you? Do you think you can help Lupe?”
“What? Mom, no,” Mel said. “He just happens to be here. I didn’t call him. Lupe is innocent. We don’t need a law—”
It was too late. Joyce had wrapped her hand around Steve’s elbow and was dragging him toward Lupe and Angie.
Mel watched them go. When Joyce made up her mind, she was like a force of nature. There was no stopping her.
“I’d better go,” Mel said to Manny.
He nodded, then he leaned close and gave her a look that smoldered. “Just remember. I’m your number two.”
Mel smiled. The detective certainly had charm. Not many men would be content to play second-string. It made her wonder.
“How come you’re so willing to wait and see what happens between me and Joe?” she said. “A good-looking guy like you could have any girl he wants.”
“But I don’t want any girl,” he said. “I’ve got my heart set on a sassy cupcake baker.”
Mel felt her face get warm. She met his dark gaze and wondered what might have happened between them if she had met him before Joe had come back into her life. Could she have fallen for the handsome detective? With a shake of her head, she decided it was probably better not to think about it.
“Flirt,” she accused.
“Only with you,” he said.
“Manny!” Stan called from across the lobby. He was chomping on what looked like another antacid pill and waving Martinez over with a hand.
Manny waved to indicate he was on his way. Then he turned to Mel and said, “All bantering aside, did you see anything suspicious this morning when you set up? Anything at all?”
Mel thought about the mad scramble they had been in to get the cupcake tower loaded that morning.
“No, we were running late because Tate was taking the van into downtown Phoenix today to work the lunch crowd, so Angie and I barely had time to unload before we were handing out cupcakes.”
“We’re going to have to take all of those cupcakes in,” he said. “I think it’s a given that the body was under the table well before you set up, but who knows, maybe the perp came by later to admire their handiwork and left a fingerprint.”
Mel felt her gag reflex kick in. “I’ll talk to Angie and see if we can remember who came by this morning.”
“Thanks. If you or Angie remember anything that seems weird or unusual, give me a call.”
“We will,” she said.
He paused, looking as if he wanted to say something else, but instead he just nodded and walked back over to the crime scene. Mel watched him go with mixed emotions. A part of her was curious about what it would be like to date the detective and another part of her felt that until she had things figured out with Joe, she really should not be speculating about anyone else.
She turned and went to join the others as they stood in a group at the far end of the room. Steve glanced over Joyce’s head at her and winked.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Angie whispered. “Don’t tell me you’ve got another one.”
“Another what?” Mel asked.
“Admirer,” Angie said.
“No,” Mel said. “Absolutely not.”
“Really?” Angie asked. “Because he’s looking at you like you’d make a lovely snack.”
“That’s just the lawyer in him,” Mel said.
“The lawyer in who?” a voice asked from behind them.
Mel and Angie spun around to find Ginny Lobo standing there. She was in her usual skintight outfit—today’s was a leopard-print skirt and black hose with a gold blouse. Her blond hair was twisted up onto her head, and per usual, she had her water bottle at the ready.
She wore her usual unperturbed look, and Mel wondered if she even knew what was happening.
“Ginny!” Joyce cried. “What did Cici say? Does she have any idea who might have done this?”
“Done what?” Ginny asked.
“Murdered Mariel Mars,” Joyce said.
“What?” Ginny blinked. “I just got here. I had a slow start this morning. Monty had to literally push me out of bed. Huh. So, that’s what all of the police are doing here?”
“Yes, Ginny, we are now in the middle of a murder investigation,” Joyce said with a dab of exasperation in her voice.
Mel studied her mother’s best friend. Ginny was a former beauty queen who had married Monty Lobo, a billionaire who thought Ginny was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. He indulged her every crazy whim, and Mel knew Ginny had spent a considerable amount of Monty’s billions trying to prove she was the illegitimate love child of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe. So far she’d had no luck. Despite all of the crazy, however, Mel suspected that deep down Ginny was one sharp cookie.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Does Lupe have an alibi?” Ginny asked.
“Why does everyone keep asking that?” Joyce asked.
“Because she’s not a pageant regular, because she threatened Mariel yesterday, and because the cops are going to find out those two things and look at her first,” Ginny said.
“But she’s innocent,” Joyce protested.
“You know that and I know that,” Ginny said. “But I can pretty much guarantee you that the other contestants are going to do everything in their power to finger her for the murder, thus removing some competition for themselves.”
Mel looked at her mother as if to say I told you so, but Joyce was ignoring her.
“Well, none of that matters because we have Steve,” Joyce said.
“Steve who?”
“Wolfmeier.” Steve stepped forward with his card. Ginny took it and glanced from it to him as if she were carding him for buying booze.
“I’ve heard of you,” she said. “What’s your Martindale-Hubbell rating?”
“AV all the way,” he said.
Ginny looked somewhat mollified, but before she could say anything else, Brittany and Destiny entered the lobby from the pool patio outside. Destiny was wearing her terrycloth robe tied tightly over her middle, whil
e Brittany was wearing a black-lace coverall over what looked like a micro mini-bikini. Mel refused to look too closely at her, mostly because she suspected that was what Brittany wanted.
Brittany gave Destiny a hearty shove into the center of the lobby. Destiny cast her mother an irritated look, but Brittany crossed her arms over her chest, making it clear that she was expecting something from her daughter. Destiny stood and slowly shook her head. Brittany let out a huff and then strode to the center of the lobby to stand beside Destiny. Brittany let out a dramatic shriek and put her hand to her forehead as if she might faint.
“Ma’am, are you all right?” One of the uniformed security guards went to help her, but she shoved off of him and then pointed at Lupe.
“There! There she is!” Brittany yelled. Her voice was brittle and stiff, as if she were reading the words off a cue card. “She killed poor Mariel! You have to arrest her!”
Fourteen
Joyce, Mel, and Angie reflexively stepped in front of Lupe. Steve frowned at Brittany and her daughter, who stood looking at her mother in disgust.
“Told you she was a pain in the a—” Ginny said but Joyce interrupted.
“So, Steve, will you take the case?” Joyce asked. She shot Ginny a look, but she just shrugged and took a sip off of her water bottle.
Steve glanced at Lupe and then at Brittany. Mel noticed that his lips compressed into a firm line and his gray eyes narrowed. For the first time since she’d met him, he looked serious. In fact, he looked seriously annoyed.
“Absolutely, I’ll take the case,” he said. He glanced down at Lupe and said, “Don’t you worry. I’m not going to let anyone bully you and I’m definitely not going to let them railroad you for a crime you didn’t commit.”
Angie leaned close to Mel and said, “Okay, I like him.”
“Me, too,” Mel agreed. When she turned and grinned at Steve, he blinked in surprise.
“Good plan,” Ginny said as she moved to stand in between Mel and Angie.
“What’s a good plan?”
“Having a pair and a spare,” she said. She looked at Angie. “You could learn a thing or two from her.”
“What are you talking about?” Mel asked.
Ginny counted on her fingers. “District attorney and homicide detective, the pair you’re dating, and now the defense attorney, your spare.”
Mel heard Angie snort and felt her face get hot with embarrassment. “I do not have a pair and a spare.”
“Mel, can I talk to you for a sec?” Steve asked.
Ginny smirked at her.
“Don’t even think it,” she said.
She stepped away from the group and followed Steve into the corner.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Do you know who that woman and her daughter are?” he asked. His face was set in harsh lines and she could tell he was in full lawyer mode.
“Destiny and Brittany Richards. According to Ginny, a real pageant princess and her stage mother,” she said.
“Yeah, no,” he said. “They are the wife and daughter of Brandon Richards.”
Mel looked at him. Brandon Richards? Was this a name she was supposed to know?
“Scanning, scanning, scanning,” she said in a robotic voice. “Sorry, I’m getting nothing.”
Steve’s lips twitched. “Of course you’re not. He’s a noted plastic surgeon. Most of my richy-rich clients have standing appointments with him.”
“Ah, not surprising that I haven’t heard of him, given that elective surgery—an oxymoron if you ask me—is not really in my budget,” Mel said.
“Well, that and the fact that you don’t need it,” he said.
His voice was so matter-of-fact that Mel smiled. It was definitely one of the better compliments she’d ever gotten.
“Thanks,” she began but Steve interrupted.
“Listen,” he said. He glanced over his shoulder at their group, all of which were pretending not to watch them. “The reason I’m mentioning this is because Brandon Richards has a lot of connections and power in this town. He can make or break people with just a well-placed phone call.”
Mel paused. There was something she had to ask, but she wasn’t sure how to say it without sounding ungrateful and a little mean.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Um, why are you offering to represent Lupe when the Richards seem to be the sort you’d normally represent?” she asked. Then she covered her face with her hands and peered at him through her fingers. “Ugh, I tried but that still didn’t come out nice, did it?”
Steve smiled at her. This time he was clearly amused.
“It’s personal,” he said. “Let’s leave it at I don’t like bullies.”
Mel let out a pent-up breath. She knew Steve was one of the best defense attorneys in the valley. She was relieved he was willing to help them even if he wouldn’t share the full whys with her.
“I can respect that,” she said. “Thanks.”
“No problem, but now I have to warn you. If the Richards go after Lupe in some misguided attempt to get her bounced from the pageant, they will throw everything they have at her.”
Mel glanced over to where the teen stood with Joyce. They were covertly watching Mel and Steve, and she could tell they were wondering what he was saying. She forced a reassuring smile. Instead of looking relieved, her mother looked even more concerned and Mel knew that her mother knew her too well to be fooled.
“Do you think you can beat them?” she asked Steve.
The grin he gave her was pure predator and Mel realized that he loved this. With his client’s back against the wall, Steve would have to be very, very good to get Lupe off and he relished the challenge.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “This is going to be fun.”
“We have very different ideas of what constitutes fun,” Mel said.
Steve met her gaze and his grin deepened. “Oh, I don’t know. I think there might be some common ground be-tween us.”
His words were as innuendo-laden as a direct proposition. Mel gave him her best quelling look. She was not going to become what Ginny described as “a girl with a pair and a spare.” The idea was too mortifying for words.
“No, just no,” she said. He grinned and she realized that issuing a challenge was the worst way to handle him. She’d do better to get down on one knee and propose. Then, she was quite certain, the guy would leave skid marks.
“No,” she said again. Mel turned away from him and crossed back over to her mother and the rest of their group.
“Steve will represent Lupe, right?” her mother asked.
“If she needs it, yes,” Mel said. “I’m really hoping she doesn’t.”
“Me, too,” Joyce said. “I’m going to check with Stan and if he says it’s okay, I’m going to get her out of here. I’m not sure if there’s even going to be a pageant now.”
“Oh, there’ll be a pageant,” Ginny said. “There’s too much money with sponsors and prizes for them to cancel it.”
Mel glanced over toward the crime scene. Mariel Mars was dead. Like her or not, it seemed wrong that the pageant would just carry on as if her role as a judge was insignificant and her life replaceable.
Fifteen
“Mel, I had the most amazing epiphany in the van today!” Tate said as he pushed through her office door and stepped into her inner sanctum.
Mel glanced up from the computer on her desk. She was trying to combine a triple word and triple letter tile in Words with Friends to beat her friend Erika Ona Sanborn, a Canadian cupcake baker who was also an elementary school teacher, bless her heart. Erika had dusted her in their last match and Mel was looking to even the score.
“Can you make a word out of three L’s, two P’s, a Z, and a Q?” she asked.
“Qlzlplp?” he offered.
Mel growled and slamm
ed the lid on her laptop.
“Back to me now?” Tate asked.
“Yes, you had an epiphany,” Mel said just to prove she had sort of been listening.
“So, I was parked down by Patriots Square Park in Phoenix and what did I notice but tons of delivery trucks,” he said. “And it hit me—all of those trucks are delivering packages.”
“Hence the name delivery truck,” Mel said.
He ignored her and took the seat across from her. He looked positively giddy, which was Mel’s first clue that she probably wouldn’t like what was coming.
“Just think,” he said. “What if all those trucks were delivering our cupcakes? Come on, say it with me, Cha-ching.”
“Did you hit your head on the service window in the van?” Mel asked.
“No, why?”
“Tate, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but cupcakes are an extremely perishable food item, not to mention they get mushed pretty easily,” she said. “Even if there were enough people who wanted us to send cupcakes for them, it would be prohibitively expensive. We’d be better served opening a franchise in downtown Phoenix.”
“Hey, now you’re talking,” he said.
“No.”
“I could study up on franchises and do a cost analysis.”
“No.”
“Aw, come on, Mel, you’re killing me,” he said.
Tate looked so crestfallen that Mel felt herself weaken. Darn it.
“If I say yes to you writing up a business proposal, will you go away?” she asked.
“I will be nothing but a memory,” he promised.
“‘Memories are meant to fade. They’re designed that way for a reason,’” Mel said.
“Ha!” Tate grinned at her. “From the movie Strange Days.”
“Correct,” Mel said returning his grin. “Now go away.”
Tate raised his hands in surrender and backed out of her office and into the kitchen.
Mel knew that taking the bakery to the next level had become Tate’s personal mission. The trouble with that was if they expanded she feared their product—Ack! That was the problem right there. When she started thinking of her cupcakes as product instead of yummies from her own kitchen, well, she was going corporate and she really didn’t want to venture down that path.
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