Cupcakes and Killers

by Laina Turner

  “Just like I made the decision not to move with you. We did what we had to do, Jack. We did what we thought we should in the best interest of us and our families. The timing just isn’t right. It’s no one’s fault.” What I was saying was true, even though I hated saying it. Sometimes things didn’t work out, and it was no one’s fault.

  “Yeah, you’re right. I wish things were different.”

  “We can still talk and be friends, can’t we?” I asked.

  He smiled that smile I loved so much. “Of course. I’d like that.”

  Chapter 18

  “So we decided to stay friends. It’s fine. We’re both adults who realize things between us won’t work, but we can still remain friends.” I was recounting the conversation with Jack from last night to Sally, Cora, Macie—and Rachel, whom Cora had invited along at the last minute. Despite the circumstances under which we had met her, she was quickly becoming part of the group. We were at the bridal store getting our dresses fitted.

  Cora paid for two-day shipping to make sure we wouldn’t run too close to the wedding date. Money well spent, she told us, to alleviate stress. She joked this wedding planning stuff was a lot more complicated than she had thought it would be. We’d gone shoe shopping earlier and had decided on patent leather gold wedges. Alone, they at first glance looked a little hookerish, and we bridesmaids had been quite skeptical, but Cora insisted they would look great with the dresses. It would give the dress a bit of pizzazz, she’d said. The rest of us weren’t convinced, but since she was the bride, we went along with it. Much to our surprise, when we got to the bridal store and tried the shoes on with the dress, she was completely right. The dresses were gorgeous. Cora couldn’t refrain from saying told you so, which we also accepted because she was the bride and, well, because she was right.

  “How do you feel about that? Really?” Sally asked.

  “I’m sad, of course, but what can I do? It’s just what it is. We both know that maintaining a long-distance relationship wasn’t working, and we’re mature enough to handle it. I’m just glad we can be adults, and no one is upset at the other. Just the situation.”

  Sally came over and gave me a hug. “That’s the spirit.”

  “Jonathan’s got some single friends we could hook you up with,” Cora said.

  “Thanks, but I’m good for now.” I wasn’t at all in the mood to deal with dating again. The very thought of it made me cringe.

  “I’m not good. I want to meet some single men,” Macie said, and we all started laughing.

  After we had quieted down, Macie spoke up. “Cora, I know it wasn’t any of my business, but I looked into the background of your friendly stalker.”

  Cora’s eyes widened. “Oh, I don’t mind, but how did you do that?”

  “I put the information I had about him into a legal database I have access to and did a little digging. It’s not super hard when you know where to look.”

  “What did you find?” I asked.

  “This isn’t the first time he’s been fixated on someone. He’s had two prior restraining orders filed against him by women for his increasing actions of stalking, which did progress to the point where they were able to get a restraining order.”

  “See!” Sally said, pointing her finger. “This guy is trouble. He’s not going to stay harmless and just annoying.”

  Macie nodded in agreement. “Yeah, this guy definitely is someone to worry about. I called the police department that monitored one of the restraining orders to see if they would tell me anything and, lucky for us, I got someone rather chatty. When I explained the situation, he was very forthcoming. The story I got was pretty much what you’ve been telling us. Then, one day, he told this woman if she didn’t start to appreciate his gifts she would be sorry. At that time the police still couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything, and I don’t blame them. So often their hands are tied by our legal system. She, of course, didn’t appreciate his gifts, and he broke into her house and tied her up. He said he was willing to wait there until she realized she loved him,” Macie said, finishing with a grim look.

  I shuddered at the thought of any woman having that happen to them, and I looked at Cora, who was now as white as a sheet. “Cora, what’s wrong. Do you feel sick?” I asked.

  Cora just sat there, shaking.

  “Cora, please tell us,” I implored.

  “I haven’t wanted to bother you all with this because of everything else that’s going on. It seems so insignificant in comparison.”

  “Cora, what have you not told us!” Sally said sternly. I could tell Sally was upset, and that’s how she got when she was worried.

  “He sent me more flowers yesterday and admonished me for not being appreciative of his gifts. Appreciative was his exact word. I wasn’t scared before, but after hearing what Macie just said . . . I know the word choice isn’t a coincidence.”

  “That’s it. We have to do something,” I said. “Macie, what can we do?”

  “I can go to Clive with Cora and tell him what I found out, which he can easily verify, and maybe that will be enough for a restraining order.”

  “But how much do restraining orders actually work? Can we make him leave town?” Sally asked.

  “Not legally,” Macie said. “Usually these orders are good for a certain distance but not that far.”

  “But Jonathan can run him out of town,” I added. “Cora, you’re telling him now!”

  “Okay,” she said. I thought the magnitude of the situation was finally hitting home.

  Thirty minutes later, we were all at Jonathan’s motorcycle shop, and Cora was explaining the situation to him. His mouth was set in a grim line, and I could tell he was trying his best to control his anger. I knew Jonathan well enough to know he was probably a little ticked at Cora for not telling him sooner. Same way we’d all been annoyed with her. Jonathan was a protector. It was how he’d always been.

  “Are you mad?” Cora asked him when she had finished her story, knowing full well what his answer was going to be.

  “Hell, yes, I’m mad,” he said, pounding his fist on the counter. Cora flinched. “I’m sorry, Cora. I don’t mean to yell, but why are you just now telling me this? You’ve been in danger, and I didn’t know. How can I take care of you and our baby if you don’t tell me when you need me? And you two.” He pointed at Sally and me. “How could you allow her to not tell me?”

  “Don’t be mad at them, honey. They kept pushing me to tell you, and I told them I would, just at the right time.”

  “That’s not an excuse,” he said, still glaring at us. We should have tried harder to make her tell him, or just should have told him ourselves.

  “Don’t be mad, Jonathan. She’s telling you now,” I said.

  He glared at me. I shrugged it off. He had a right to be pissed, but he would get over it. I was glad he finally knew what was going on. He would know what to do, and I was sure he would do anything to protect Cora.

  “So this guy is in town?” Jonathan asked.

  “I don’t know. Most of his things come via delivery, but he has left a few notes on my front door. I assume he’s relatively close and not driving in four hours from the city each time he wants to leave me something.”

  “Then I need to find him and make it abundantly clear he needs to leave you alone, and that he needs to find another hobby besides bothering women.”

  “How are you going to do that?” Cora asked.

  “Just leave that to me, sweetheart. You concentrate on wedding plans.”

  Chapter 19

  “Are you sure he’ll show up?” I asked Rachel as we waited to meet Stephen, at our prearranged spot. It was almost midnight, and the temperatures had dropped radically, but I think I was shivering more from nervousness than the cold.

  “Unfortunately, he’s desperate, and his level of desperation is going to outweigh his cautiousness.”

  “Do you feel relieved your dad has moved on and isn’t after Stephen?” I asked her. I could tell she
cared a lot about him.

  “Don’t let him fool you. My father hasn’t given up looking for him. That might not be why he’s here, but trust me, since he found out Stephen is also in the area, he’s looking. Regardless of what he said to me the other night. Criminals also tend to be selfish and will do whatever they need to in order to get what they want.”

  “But is there any real point? Surely your dad realizes he can’t get his money back from Stephen.”

  “Oh, he does, and believe me, he doesn’t care about the money. He cares about retribution. That’s the much bigger picture. In his line of business, he can’t afford for people to think he will forgive these kinds of actions. He has power because people fear him; if that fear is gone, he wouldn’t be nearly as powerful.”

  I thought about that for a minute. “I may be really naïve, and I read in the papers about organized crime when John Gotti was convicted and all that, but it seems so surreal. That people really kill people to protect their interests. I know people kill people for a variety of reasons, but this is like just a by-product of doing business.”

  “I understand what you’re saying. It seems surreal to me at times, too, that this is my life. When I was in high school my dad had bodyguards take us to school, and we, of course, had to make up some stupid excuse as to why, since we couldn’t tell the truth. I look back at that and wonder why it took me so long to realize my family isn’t normal, but rather, a bad episode of Mob Wives,” she joked, shifting back and forth.

  “But then, what family is? Normal, I mean. There are just varying degrees of dysfunction,” I said.

  She smiled at that. “True.”

  “What are you guys doing out here? It’s freezing!” Sally said, walking over to us. “Come wait in the car with me and Macie.” We made Cora stay home against her will. But with her being pregnant and the whole stalker issue, there was no way any of us, or Jonathan, was going to allow her to be in harm’s way. She had enough stress to deal with. Jonathan used the baby card on her to finally convince her she needed to take better precautions.

  “Are Jonathan and Joe all set in the barn?” I asked.

  Sally nodded.

  Joe was one of Clive’s deputies, and was here to arrest Stephen when he showed up. Because of Jonathan’s status with the ATF, they were allowing him to assist in an official capacity. Plus, he had been instrumental in getting Clive to agree to this. Clive hadn’t been too happy we had arranged this meeting without talking to him. He told me if I started going behind his back and interfering in police business, I would end up with more volunteer work, and it wouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable as my work at the shelter. He muttered something about picking up trash on Highway 37 in an orange jumpsuit.

  There were two more police officers in on this. One at the end of the road, where we came in. The other way dead-ended into woods, and unless Stephen was in fantastic shape and wanted to navigate dense woods by moonlight, we were safe from him going in that direction. The other cop was out in the field, behind the clearing. I just hoped it would be enough, and that Rachel would be able to help him see reason, and he would turn himself in without a lot of difficulty. Sally went back to the truck. Rachel slipped back closer to the barn, where he couldn’t see her when he turned in the drive. We wanted him to be out of his vehicle before he realized she was there. We all assumed that once he saw her he would know something was going on.

  I felt like I’d been waiting an eternity, and my fingers were freezing. I hadn’t thought to bring gloves. It hadn’t been this cold an hour ago, or maybe just standing out in it for this long was getting to me. Finally, I saw headlights coming down the road. My heart started racing. It was either Stephen or some kids hoping for a secluded spot away from the prying eyes of adults. I smiled at the thought of high schoolers turning in here, hoping for an out-of-the-way spot to drink, or whatever else they didn’t want to get caught doing, and finding a bunch of cops, an ATF agent, and adults already hanging out.

  An older, beat-up gray Malibu pulled in the drive, and the headlights gave me enough light to see that it was Stephen. The engine cut, and the lights shut off. There was still one working floodlight coming off the barn, offering enough light for us to see by.

  I wasn’t scared. There were too many people hiding in the shadows to be scared, but I was nervous. Stephen stepped out of the car and didn’t seem apprehensive at all. If it were me, I might have thought I was being set up, and I wasn’t a paranoid type of person. But if I were wanted by the police and others like he was, I would be very careful. Though maybe he thought I was too afraid of him to go to the cops, and he would have no idea Rachel had approached me. I was sure something like that hadn’t even crossed his mind. He was about to find out.

  He wasted no time when he reached me. “Where’s my money?”

  I paused. “About that,” I said, tilting my head to the left and giving him a half smile.

  He took a menacing step toward me.

  “Stephen! Stop right there!” Rachel cried from the shadows and hurried out to meet us. A shocked look was quickly replaced by confusion at seeing Rachel, then he smiled. He was happy to see her. Wow, he cared about her as much as she did about him. I must say, I was surprised.

  “What are you doing here?” he said, and took a step toward her, arms out, like he was going to give her a hug. Rachel put her hand out to stop him.

  “Stopping you from making a terrible mistake. Stephen, you have to turn yourself in.”

  “You break up with me, tell me you want nothing to do with me, and yet you show up here telling me what to do? What gives you that right?” he demanded.

  “I broke up with you because of your lifestyle. I gave you the option to change and prove you cared more about me than about a life of crime. What did you do? You sure didn’t choose me. So, don’t you dare blame this on me. Regardless of our history, I still care what happens to you. I know this isn’t the right path. It’s only going to end badly, and deep down, you know that too.”

  “If you cared about me, you wouldn’t have left me!”

  “Two can play that game, Stephen, and I’m not willing to play. If you don’t want to believe I still care, fine. But you know I’m right about what you’re doing being wrong. You want to be on the run for the rest of your life?”

  “What do you want me to do? I don’t have a lot of options here, Rachel.”

  “Well, that’s of your own doing.”

  Just then a voice carried across the darkness. “Don’t move, Stephen Westner. You are surrounded!” I saw the shadows of Clive’s men coming toward us. Stephen looked at Rachel, the reality of what was happening dawning on him.

  “You turned me in? You just stood here and told me you cared what happened to me, and you turned me in? You bitch!” he screamed.

  Rachel started crying. “I did it for your own good. You wouldn’t have been able to run forever, and I didn’t want you to end up dead,” she said through her tears.

  Stephen was being patted down and handcuffed by the police, and he glared at Rachel. If looks could kill . . . I was glad he was being handcuffed.

  “Everyone okay?” Jonathan asked as he reached us, Sally close on his heels.

  I nodded, as did Rachel, as she wiped her tears from her face.

  “Honey, you did everything you could have for him. He’ll come around. He knows you’re right. It’s just going to take him some time to admit it,” Sally said, trying to comfort her.

  “I know,” she replied, grabbing a tissue out of her pocket and blowing her nose. “I just don’t want him to hate me.”

  “Sally’s right,” I said. “I’m sure he doesn’t hate you. He’s just pissed off. He needs time to come around and realize you did this because you care.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Rachel, you did the right thing. Even if he does end up hating you, it’s still what had to be done,” Jonathan said. “You didn’t compromise your values, and that’s an admirable thing.”

  She nodded
. “Do you know where they’re taking him?” she asked Jonathan.

  “To county for now. He will have to be arraigned, and I’m not sure, based on his past, if a judge will grant him bail. I would assume not, since he’s already a proven flight risk. He may have to stay there until a trial,” Jonathan said. “He’ll face the charges against him here before they extradite him to whoever else may want him.”

  “Well, it looks as if I might be staying for a while.” She smiled through her tears. “I told him I would be here for him, and I meant it. I don’t want to leave while he’s still here.”

  “If you need a place to stay, you’re welcome to stay with me,” I said.

  “Really?” Rachel looked at me. “You would do that?”

  “Of course. I have more space than I need, and Cody is only with me part-time. I would love the company. Plus, if you get bored, you can help us at the shop. Of course, we would pay you for that, though not a lot,” I warned.

  Rachel squealed and hugged me. “Thank you! You all are the positive things to come out of this whole mess.”

  “Sorry to interrupt,” said one of Clive’s officers. “I need you all to come down to the station to get your formal statement on what happened.”

  “Can it wait until tomorrow?” I asked. “It’s late, and we’re all tired.”

  “I understand. However, it’s best to do this when things are fresh in your head. We’ll try to be quick.”

  “Okay.” I sighed, and we walked to our respective cars. As tired as I was, I was happy this was all finally over.

  Chapter 20

  “You look tired,” Cora said to me when I walked into work the next morning.

  “Yeah. Too many late nights catching up with me. Not like I’m twenty-one anymore. I vaguely remember the days of endless energy in my twenties.” I smiled as she handed me a cup of coffee.

  “Sally called me on her way home last night, and then, of course, Jonathan filled me in too. All’s well that ends well, I take it? You must be happy about that. I know I am.”