A Sampling of Murder: Cupcake Truck Mysteries

by Emily James

  I set the broom down and headed to the kitchen.

  The back door hung open.

  Sharp prickles ran down my sides. That door had been locked. There was no way the door opened accidentally.

  I backed toward the door between the kitchen and the store front.

  A blur of black flashed in my peripheral vision. I turned to run.

  An arm snaked around my waist and another clamped under my chin. I didn’t react fast enough to drop my chin the way Dan had taught me in our self-defense classes.

  “If you scream,” a man’s voice said, “I’ll kill you.”

  Not Jarrod’s voice, Fear said, sounding a lot more logical than I felt. It’s not Jarrod.

  For all the good that did me. This man still had me. I’d been so naïve to think that, because we hadn’t had any more trouble in the past two weeks, no one was watching the store. I’d started to think this was over and whoever it was had gotten what they wanted when Bob Jenner died.

  I’d been naïve, convincing myself it was that way because I didn’t want to think that, along with Jarrod still being after me, and having to testify in the trial for Janie’s former teacher, I also had to worry about someone targeting my store.

  My mind was rambling, but I couldn’t seem to stop it. He’d said he’d kill me if I screamed. Did that mean he wasn’t going to kill me? What was he going to do instead? Claire wouldn’t be back soon enough to save me. The security cameras were recorded, but they weren’t monitored. No one would have seen this man break in. Help wasn’t coming.

  And if Claire did come back in time to stop whatever he was here for, he might just hurt her too.

  His arm tightened around my throat.

  I had to focus and wait for my moment. Dan said part of self-defense was staying calm and picking the right moment. You usually only got one chance.

  “What do you want?” I forced the words out.

  His arm tensed. Pain, heavy and broad, enveloped my throat.

  His head was by mine, but I didn’t feel skin, only cloth. He must be wearing a mask. If he was wearing a mask, he didn’t plan to kill me. Unless he knew about the security cameras and the mask was for their sake.

  The smell of his cologne, something musky and cinnamon-sweet, threatened to choke me if his arm hadn’t already been doing the job.

  His arm tightened, and I couldn’t get air. My lungs burned. My hands instinctively flew to his arm. I tugged at him. He didn’t budge.

  Then he eased off, and air rushed into my body again.

  “Shut your business down.” His voice was hard and gruff. “Leave town.” His arm tensed as if he were going to cut off my air again. “This is your only warning. Understand?”

  I couldn’t nod. I tried to say yes but my throat wouldn’t work. I swallowed and finally got it out. “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  His arm let go, and he shoved me hard.

  My forehead hit the counter, and I fell. The next thing I knew, I was on the floor.

  My forehead felt like it was on fire, and something warm that had to be blood dripped down.

  I was so stupid. If that had been Jarrod, I’d be dead and I’d have deserved it.

  A small, more rational part of me knew that wasn’t true, but it felt like it was. Dan was going to be angry.

  And it was Dan I needed.

  I eased my phone out of my pocket and dialed his number.

  He answered on the first ring with, “Hey, Isabel.”

  “Someone attacked me.”

  Dan dabbed hydrogen peroxide on my forehead. “It’s not deep enough to need stitches.”

  He didn’t say I was lucky. I appreciated that. I didn’t feel lucky. I felt stupid. “I just didn’t want Claire to miss her prescription.”

  Dan had called Claire on his way to me, redirecting her to go stay with Janie, who was already in bed. He’d left as soon as Claire got there. I’d stayed on the floor until he reached me. He’d helped me sit up, but wanted me to stay seated on the floor until he got a better look at my injuries.

  “Bleeding’s almost stopped now.” He gently pressed the wound. “I probably would have agreed with you that you were safe for the few minutes it was going to take her. He must have been waiting for an opportunity.”

  Normally I would have nodded, but I couldn’t move with Dan’s hand on my forehead. He was sitting so close. All I wanted to do was lean into him and cry. But I couldn’t.

  “Was it…” Dan’s voice was more hesitant than I’d ever heard it. “Do you think it was Jarrod?”

  Thank God for small blessings. “It wasn’t him. Wrong voice. Wrong height. Wrong smell.”

  Something flickered across Dan’s face. “You’re sure? If this was Jarrod, it’s my fault for not providing you with protection sooner.”

  Dan shouldn’t feel responsible for this at all. “It wasn’t him.” I rested a hand on the arm he wasn’t using to tend my wound. “This guy told me to close my shop and leave town. Jarrod wouldn’t want that. He’d want me where he could find me.” My throat felt like I’d swallowed glass, but I forced myself to continue. “If this had been Jarrod, Claire would have come back to find the shop empty and me gone because he would have taken me.”

  Dan’s breathing turned slightly ragged. He brought his free hand up and stroked a thumb across my cheek. Warmth spiraled through me.

  We couldn’t go there. I couldn’t let us go there.

  “This has to be related to everything else that’s happened here.” I blurted the words out, stumbling over some of them. “He wanted me to shut the business down.”

  Dan broke his gaze from mine and returned it to the wound on my forehead. He grabbed an adhesive gauze pad from the first aid kit. “Tell me again exactly what he said.”

  The words should have been seared into my mind, but my heart had been beating so fast that I’d felt light-headed, and I’d been more focused on survival. “That this was my only warning. I should close up shop and leave town.”

  Dan smoothed the edges of the bandage flat against my skin. “So we don’t really know if his focus was on the shop or on your leaving. It could be that what he meant was, lock up right now and go.”

  I hadn’t thought about it that way, but either part of the statement could have been the important part. And if what they wanted was for Claire and I to give up the store, why would they also want me to leave town? Unless it was a diversion?

  I felt like I was running around in a maze.

  “We also have to consider that he waited until Claire was gone.” Dan’s voice had an edge to it. “They might have been targeting you alone rather than both of you.”

  If I’d been calmer, if I’d been thinking more clearly, I could have asked questions. But very few people would have that presence of mind when a man was choking them.

  Assuming this was about me and that the important part was leaving town, I could think of only one person that would benefit. Janie’s former teacher. She had a better chance of acquittal if I didn’t show up in court. “This could be related to my testimony in the Glover case.”

  Dan’s hands clenched. “I’ll call DA Hall.”

  I leaned my head back against the island. All of it might have nothing to do with our shop. The spray painted message that we couldn’t clearly read might have been a similar warning to the one I received tonight.

  Bob Jenner might have been an unfortunate casualty. The person who killed him might have been waiting to threaten me. Or his death might have been meant to scare me away from town.

  If that were the case, then even though I hadn’t meant to hurt anyone, I was partly responsible for Scott losing his dad.

  19

  Dan packed the supplies back into the first aid kit. “I still think you should go to the hospital.”

  I shook my head. Pain flared across my vision. “It’s bad enough you’re making me wait for an officer.”

  Dan gave me a long-suffering look. “We have to report this, especially if it might
be related to the Glover case.”

  Intellectually, I knew that. It didn’t make things any better knowing it. Especially given that the woman investigating the case didn’t seem to like me much. “It’s not Detective Austen coming, is it?”

  Dan smirked. “No. She’s off duty tonight. It’s Zee. You remember him. He teaches the women’s self-defense class.”

  Zee was one of Dan’s closest friends. The man was also built like a military tank. I hadn’t been able to take his class. His size alone had caused me panic attacks. But it’d be different to give him a statement across a table than to have him come into close contact with me the way he would have needed to in training.

  Dan escorted me back to the front of the shop and pulled out a chair for me. “I’ll make you a cup of coffee, okay?”

  I smiled at him as well as I could. For some reason, my whole face ached. Probably from hitting the floor with it when I fell. “Okay.”

  While I waited for Zee, I needed to call Scott.

  The background when he picked up was noisy—the kind of noisy that only happened in a crowded place. An automated announcement chimed, but I couldn’t make out the words. Scott had said he wouldn’t be in again until Monday. I hadn’t thought to ask him why. At the time, it’d seemed intrusive. He didn’t owe us an explanation. He didn’t owe us work hours. He’d finally accepted some payment from us, but he was the one doing us a favor. We’d have struggled without the extra set of hands.

  Once this was all over, I would take Flynn up on his request for employment. Claire and I had decided that, until then, we weren’t comfortable with him coming in even at night.

  “Where are you?” I asked. I felt a little like I needed to shout so Scott could hear me.

  “Airport.” His voice was raised as well, even though it was quiet on my end. “Saturday is my mom’s fiftieth.”

  Right. He’d given far-away friends and family as the reason he was happy to work with us. Maybe I shouldn’t tell him. He’d feel it was his responsibility to fix, the same as he had when he installed the security cameras after the vandalism. I’d never met Bob Jenner, but I could say one thing for him—he’d taught his son the value of responsibility and caring for others.

  But I couldn’t keep this from Scott either. He was—or soon would be—our landlord. He’d receive a copy of the police report once Zee filed it. Better he hear it from me. “Something happened tonight, but we have it under control.”

  I filled him in, downplaying the attack slightly.

  “Are you and Claire alright?” There was a weird echo to his voice now, as if he’d gone into a restroom in the hope of hearing me better.

  “For the most part. The police are here now.”

  He made a noise that was part groan and part growl. “When is this going to stop?”

  I didn’t have an answer for him. I wish I did, for all our sakes. “If you’re thinking about canceling your trip, don’t. You can’t do anything here, and your mom’s birthday is important.”

  I didn’t have to say that we never knew how much time we’d get with the people we loved. He knew that as well as anyone after losing his dad.

  Dan’s voice and another man’s floated to me from the kitchen. My body didn’t instantly tense the way it normally did when I heard a strange man. The difference had to be Dan’s presence.

  Hypocrite, a tiny voice hissed at me inside my head.

  If it wasn’t Fear hassling me, it was my conscience. My insistence that Scott make the most of his time with those he loved rang a little false when I was ensuring Dan and I could never try a relationship. I had grounds to divorce Jarrod. He’d violated our marriage covenant in a way that we couldn’t come back from. He’d beaten me to the point where he’d killed our unborn child.

  But if you file for divorce, Fear chimed in, he’ll know exactly where you are.

  Once the trial date for Ms. Glover arrived, he’d know where I was anyway.

  “Isabel?” Scott’s voice jerked me back to the present. “Are you still there?”

  “Sorry. I’m here.” I almost blamed my head injury. I stopped myself just in time. That would only worry him and ensure that he canceled his trip.

  “Get whatever you need to make the shop secure,” Scott said. “New locks. Better locks. Add a lock. I’ll reimburse you as soon as I get back, okay?”

  That swelling feeling in my chest hit me again. The one that reminded me of how much I had to be grateful for. We could have gotten a landlord who didn’t care about us. I’d heard stories about people whose toilets broke or whose heating went out in January and their landlords didn’t show up for days. Mine let us make decisions and get things done in order to keep us protected.

  “Thank you, Scott.”

  “No problem.” His voice cracked slightly. “It’s what my dad would have done.”

  20

  I’d almost finished the edible cookie dough for my cookie dough icing when Dan’s name and picture flashed on my cell phone screen. Ever since the attack last week, he’d taken to calling regularly while I was at work to see how I was doing. He didn’t say so, but I suspected he was worried about PTSD. And that this invasion of a place where I should have felt safe might make me reconsider my decision to stay in Lakeshore permanently.

  “I have good news or bad news depending on how you look at it,” Dan said.

  At this point, I couldn’t take any more bad news. “Spin it so it sounds good.”

  Dan chuckled. “I never thought I’d hear you ask for sugarcoating. At least, not on anything other than a cupcake.”

  Normally that would have gotten a laugh from me as well. I hadn’t felt much like laughing for the past few days. It was hard to stay positive when so many people wanted me to disappear, one way or another.

  “Devon Glover, Ms. Glover’s brother, has been vocal on his social media accounts about the ‘supposed witness’ the police have. He’s made a lot of slurs about what kind of person you must be. Suggesting the police paid you or that you have some other motive for wanting revenge on his sister.”

  A tight feeling ran all the way down my torso. Hearing that some man I didn’t even know was trying to harm my reputation made me feel small and unsafe again.

  What he said shouldn’t have mattered. He didn’t even know me. We’d never meet.

  Maybe my reaction was about what I’d gone through with Jarrod. But this felt different. More…normal. As if maybe this was what anyone would feel, not like an overreaction because I was me.

  “That’s the sugar-coated version?”

  “I don’t actually think there is a sugar-coated version.”

  “Go on, then. I’m not sitting down, but I can take it.”

  “When I told DA Hall what happened to you, she was suspicious that it could be a case of attempted witness intimidation. You don’t have any social media accounts, so Devon couldn’t harass you or mobilize his followers to cyberbully you.”

  Wouldn’t that be ironic if hiding from Jarrod had actually benefited me? Sort of. “So her theory is that he escalated to stalking me in person?”

  “That’s the theory, yes.”

  I stuck a spoonful of cookie dough into my mouth. It didn’t bring me the comfort I was looking for. Instead, it stuck in my throat, the sweetness suddenly cloying.

  Dan’s end of the call was quiet, as if he were giving me a minute to process what he’d said. If criminal behavior could be genetically inherited, then the Glovers both got the gene.

  Except that it couldn’t. Which meant that their sociopathy must be caused by the way they were raised. What kind of home life would have resulted in a sister who hurt children and a brother who would threaten an innocent woman to save his guilty sister.

  “They don’t have any solid evidence that it was him, though?”

  Dan sighed. “Unfortunately, not. Scott had the security company forward the recordings to the station, but your attacker wore a mask. The height and build is similar, but that’s not enough to press ch
arges on.”

  I eyed the bowl of edible cookie dough. If I didn’t need it, I’d be tempted to find a corner and curl up to eat the whole thing.

  Food had never made me feel better, though. It’d always been the therapeutic act of preparing food that soothed my mind. Maybe it was time to work on that salted caramel cupcake I’d been thinking about.

  First, I had to face this problem. Ignoring it wouldn’t make it less real. “You did say there was some good news, right?”

  “I did. But it depends on whether you’ll feel comfortable doing it or not.”

  Something in the tone of Dan’s voice made me think he’d acted as my defender, protecting my right to choose whether to be a part of this plan. That meant it’d be hard. And scary.

  “What’s the idea?”

  “DA Hall would like to stage an ‘accidental’ meeting between you and Devon Glover. We’ll ask him to come to the station for something, and you’ll already be in the waiting room. Detective Austen and I will be in plain clothes in the waiting room as well. The idea is to see if he seems to recognize you, and to give you a chance to hear his voice.”

  In other words, they wanted to set up an ambush. They might catch a break, and Devon would show surprise or anger when he saw me. He might even ask what I was doing there. Either of those would be the ideal situation. If not, my memory was the back-up plan. I would remember my attacker’s voice, and his smell, for a long time.

  I could see now why Dan said he had good news or bad news depending on how I looked at it. The good news was we had a new lead on who might have killed Bob Jenner, vandalized the store, and threatened me. The bad news was I’d have to face that new suspect if we wanted to be able to prove he’d had anything to do with it.

  I might be a coward in many ways, but I’d long ago decided I wouldn’t allow a murderer to walk around free if I could help prevent it.