A Killer Latte

by Tonya Kappes

  “It came from Daisy’s phone?” Spencer asked. “Is that her number?”

  “Yes. It is.”

  There were tears on the edges of his eyes. I could tell he was trying to be strong and not cry from the way his chest was heaving up and down, sucking in big, deep breaths. “When I got the text, the mayor was getting upset that she’d not showed up to the meeting. I was a bit relieved to see a text come through, because I just knew it was her telling me she was on her way. It wasn’t unusual for her to make a grand entrance. In fact, it was expected of her.”

  He gulped and took a few quicker breaths. “When I clicked on it and saw that photo, my heart nearly stopped.” He wobbled a little, and I jumped to his side, letting him lean on me.

  “Why don’t you sit down next to Crissy?” Spencer suggested and helped him to sit. The legs of our chairs grunted across the floor when Crissy and I scooted them to make more room at the little café table. “Who were you talking to on the phone?”

  Bunny had now eased up behind us and leaned herself up against the wall. When Spencer looked at her, she took the rag and wiped it down the wall as if she were cleaning it. I smiled.

  “I’d called Daisy’s agent and our production company’s insurance. I have to get the four hundred thousand dollars, or they are going to kill my Daisy. You read the text.”

  “Do you know of anyone on the set that didn’t like Daisy?” Spencer asked but wondered why just four hundred thousand and not just millions.

  It was an odd number to me, only because, as a lawyer, I’d seen cases like this before. Not kidnapping cases but blackmailing cases.

  “No. You saw them today. You talked to them. Everyone loved her.” He rubbed his thick hand over his head. “Why are you standing here asking me all of these questions when you need to be out there looking for my Daisy?”

  “Mr. Lemon, I know you’re upset, but there’s been a ransom requested, and we need to wait to hear from the kidnapper until we can even start to negotiate. We are currently getting all the security footage from the surrounding businesses to see what they show about the truck.” Spencer continued to stare at Stephen.

  I really wanted to know what was in his head.

  “What am I going to do?” Stephen groaned. “I’ve got to get that money.”

  “What did your insurance agent say?” Spencer continued to hammer away, despite how upset Stephen became.

  “He said there’s a clause in the policy that will give money in this situation. They cater to the rich and famous, who do tend to try and get kidnapped.” He had a weird sense of reasoning.

  “I’m going to need you to write down all the information for the agent so we can directly contact them and get the money so when the kidnapper calls for it, we’ve got it and can put a sting operation in place.” Spencer handed him his notepad and the pen.

  “You’re going to have to get the number off my phone.” He scribbled something down and held it up in the air for me to take.

  I noticed Aunt Maxi Bloom had tried to come back into the coffeehouse, this time unsuccessfully. She had her face planted up against the front window, looking in at me. She was trying to get my attention so I’d let the cop let her in. I ignored her.

  “I want my jewels back now!” There was a banging on the door and Loretta screeching behind it. “Talk to me now! My lawyer is in there! Roxanne Bloom is my attorney!”

  Everyone looked at me.

  “You’re a lawyer?” Stephen asked with a shocked expression. He pointed to me. “My lawyer is present.” He looked at Spencer jabbing his thick finger my way. “I’m not answering any more questions because it sure seems like you’re making me the suspect.”

  “Wait a minute.” I stood up.

  “This is getting really good.” Crissy looked at Bunny and squealed.

  “Roxy!” Loretta continued to holler and jerk away from the officer. “Let me go, or I’ll have my lawyer file a harassment suit,” she told him in a stern Southern voice.

  The cop looked into the window at Spencer. Spencer waved Loretta in.

  “Oh, come on!” Aunt Maxi screamed from the outside when the cop did stop her.

  “I heard that she had on my jewels. All my jewels. Do you know how much money is on her body?” Loretta was none too happy. “Seven million dollars. And some of them were from my Cherokee family.”

  “Seven?” My eyes popped open. “Million?” No wonder the kidnapper only asked for another four hundred thousand. They already had their hands on that seven million.

  “Did I stutter?” Loretta gave a slow head turn toward me. “I need to have a consult right now.”

  The bell over the door dinged. Aunt Maxi and Camey Montgomery were pushing the officer right on in the door. Poor guy. Both of them scanned the room, and once their eyes fixed on Spencer, they stormed over.

  “What are you going to do about my phone books?” Camey’s hands were fisted next to her side. She glared at Spencer.

  Aunt Maxi fumbled with her phone before she stuck it in Spencer’s face, and it was no doubt she’d recorded it on voice memo.

  “Are you recording this?” Spencer pushed Aunt Maxi’s hand away from his face.

  “Why? Why can’t everyone know that not only did they get Daisy, but they got my seven million dollars’ worth of jewelry?” Loretta leaned a little more toward Aunt Maxi and spoke clearly into Aunt Maxi’s phone.

  “Please don’t interfere with the investigation, ladies. I’m asking you not to print anything she is saying. It could hinder our investigation.” Spencer looked between the angry women.

  “Aunt Maxi, ladies, can I see you in the kitchen?” I asked them politely.

  “She’s a lawyer,” Aunt Maxi reminded them.

  I let out a long sigh, giving her the wonky eye. I turned on the balls of my feet and headed toward the kitchen.

  After I pushed through the swinging door, everyone but Spencer had followed me in there. Including Stephen Lemon, who assured me the money was on the way.

  SIX

  “Pepper! Sassy!” I yelled for my four-legged fur babies from the front door of my cabin. Our cabin. My and Patrick’s cabin.

  I’d not gotten used to saying that yet.

  I heard a couple of thuds from the bedroom before I heard claws tearing across the floor.

  “Hey, there.” I bent down, propping the door open with my back, and gave them a rub before they darted out into the front yard.

  I followed them out and grabbed the handle of my bicycle and jerked it up from the ground. It was my preferred mode of transportation since the boardwalk was a nice seven-minute bike ride at the most. I walked it to the side of the cabin where Patrick had put in a bike rack since we both rode them.

  After that, I walked back to the front of the house and up the steps to sit down in one of the rocking chairs on the front porch. I watched the dogs dart around, marking their scent on everything. I looked across the road to Lake Honey Springs, wondering where in the world Daisy Lemon was. Not that I would take Stephen Lemon up on his offer to represent him during his police interrogations, but there were some things about his behavior that did raise a brow. He claimed his lawyer was on the way but had some other business to attend to first. I still wasn’t sure if I should help him or not.

  The fact that he was on the phone the entire time, worrying about the insurance money, was enough to raise a red flag for me. He was more desperate to get the money than to grieve his wife’s kidnapping. Granted, he needed the money to give to the kidnapper to get his beloved Daisy back, but he was a huge Hollywood producer who had people who could do the legwork for him.

  Then it struck me. How had Loretta known Daisy was wearing the jewels in the photo the kidnapper had sent?

  The crunching gravel under tires brought me out of my thoughts and made them completely disappear when I saw Patrick’s truck coming up the driveway. Pepper headed up to the porch to me while Sassy ran off to her daddy.

  “You are such a sweet boy.” I bent do
wn to pat the salt-and-pepper schnauzer I’d gotten from Pet Palace, Honey Springs’s local SPCA.

  “Any news on Daisy?” Patrick asked when he walked up on the porch and gave me a kiss on my cheek.

  “None.” I pulled my phone out from my pocket. “I want to call Loretta Bebe. She knew about the kidnapping photo, and it’s not been released.”

  “Roxy.” Patrick’s voice changed to his “be responsible” voice. “You need to stay out of this. You don’t have a dog in this fight.”

  “Heck I don’t.” I begged to differ. “Have you seen what they are saying about the Bean Hive? ‘Serving up kidnapping lattes daily’ is just one example. I’ll be out of business before the end of the week if I don’t figure out who took her and where.”

  “You’re serious.” There was a dumbfounded look on his face, like he couldn’t believe it.

  “Excuse me”—I stuck my hand out—“let me introduce you to your wife. Have you ever known me not to stick my nose into a crime that involves my coffeehouse?”

  “I was afraid of this when I heard you saw Daisy get kidnapped. I wondered how long it was going to take that little mind of yours to come up with some sort of excuse to dig in and investigate.” He shook his head. I was happy there wasn’t a disappointed look on his face.

  “So you’re not mad that I’m going to represent Loretta Bebe and possibly Stephen Lemon?” I said it so fast, I wanted my words to run together so it blurred in his ears, but he heard every word.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t even know why I asked that question. Come on. Let’s get supper on.” He reached out for my hand and pulled me close. “The first sign of any danger, you promise me you tell Shepard. I don’t trust that husband.”

  “Promise.” I sealed it with a kiss.

  The spaghetti and jarred sauce were not what I would’ve cooked, but it was what Patrick made, and I wasn’t going to complain. He even made extra pasta for Sassy and Pepper. I sat at the small table in the kitchen and looked over the top of the laptop into the family room, where Patrick was sitting on the couch with the fur babies. Each one had his chin on his legs, looking up at him lovingly. He patted them both while he watched the nightly news.

  I kept one ear open to see if there were any updates about Daisy while I was busy Googling the Bean Hive. The social media tags had gotten worse, with photos of the Hollywood actress’s face floating in the cream of lattes and terrible plays on words to go along with it.

  “Why don’t you stop looking at all of that?” Patrick looked over his arm that he’d rested on the back of the couch. “Come sit with me, and let’s talk about the house.”

  The house.

  I didn’t want to talk about the house. The house was the only thing Patrick and I didn’t agree on in our marriage. The house was Aunt Maxi’s old house that Patrick and his father had bought when Aunt Maxi had to declare bankruptcy. It was the house that made me not like Patrick before I knew he’d saved her from bankruptcy. It was a grudge I’d held against him because I hadn’t lived here and didn’t really know what’d happened. Aunt Maxi had kept a tight lip and told me only that she’d sold her dream house that had the perfect view of Lake Honey Springs. When I realized Patrick Cane had purchased it … well, let’s say it wasn’t good.

  I’d held harsh feelings for the man I now called my husband for a long time, and I should’ve known better. I thought he’d taken Aunt Maxi’s dream home from her, when in reality he was helping her out of a bad financial situation.

  Fast-forward to tonight, and he wanted to live in the house and I didn’t.

  “What is there to talk about?” I shut the laptop and left it on the table. He was right about needing a break from all the chaos, but discussing the house wasn’t a break at all. “I thought we agreed to not talk about it.”

  I walked over to the couch. Pepper jumped up, wagging his tail, giving me room to sit between him and Patrick.

  “That was last October when we got married, and you refused to move in.” He put his arm around me, and Pepper glued himself to my leg.

  Sassy, well, she was in love with Patrick, and nothing I did fazed her. If she could have made me disappear, she would have.

  “It’s been sitting all winter long. It’s a gorgeous house, and Aunt Maxi wanted people to live in it.” Patrick was trying his hardest to get me to sell the house. “We are spending hundreds of unnecessary dollars on bills like electric bills, gas, and sewage, to name just a few.”

  “That’s her dream house. I can’t do it. She’s only saying that you can sell it because she loves us.” I stared straight ahead and thought about Daisy. Was she in a warm house? Had she eaten?

  “Roxy, with the coffeehouse bills and Cane Construction being light on jobs, we’ve got to dump something.” It was the first time I’d ever heard him allude to the fact that we could be having financial problems.

  “Are we in trouble?” I jerked around and looked at him. I could feel the stress lines form along my forehead.

  “Not yet, but…” he said.

  “Then good. We can talk about it when we are in trouble.” I turned back around, laid my head on his shoulder, and closed my eyes.

  SEVEN

  The warm morning air whipped across my face as the pavement glided under the wheels of my bike. Pepper was nestled in the front basket with his nose in the air, taking in all the early morning smells from all the critters that liked to roam around these parts in the dark.

  If it weren’t for the millions of glowing stars in the sky, the four thirty a.m. bike ride on the curvy old country road to the boardwalk would’ve been all sorts of creepy. It was bad enough Daisy was kidnapped, but to know the kidnapper was still on the loose made my skin crawl with chills.

  I wasn’t a detective, but being a lawyer and knowing how time was precious in kidnapping cases, I knew the more time that went by without making contact with the kidnapper, the less likely it was going to be that Daisy would be returned. Or at least returned alive.

  Off in the distance, the cute carriage lights from the boardwalk glowed. Cane Construction had put them in during the renovation of the boardwalk, and they were beautiful. Patrick really did nice work.

  My legs started to pedal faster because I needed a good cup of coffee to settle my nerves. And a good slice of the fresh blueberry crumb cake I was going to have to make since yesterday’s was all eaten up.

  Thump, thump. The tires crossed over the wooden boards of the boardwalk, echoing off the trees and the lake, breaking the silence. The dark silence.

  “Let’s get in here, buddy.” I walked the bike to the door of the coffee shop and quickly unlocked the door, guiding the bike inside.

  The first thing I did was run my hand up the inside wall to turn the lights on, then I took Pepper out of the basket once the inside was lit up. He rushed over to his bowls to see what was waiting for him. Becca English, my afternoon staff who was a high school student, loved to leave him little surprises.

  While he gobbled up whatever she’d left for him, I walked over to the fireplace and hit the switch to turn it on. I would much rather have a real fire in the fireplace like I had the past couple of years, but I’d gotten a little nervous since my cabin had had a small house fire. Granted, it turned out to be arson and a conversation for another time. It still made me nervous.

  Over the winter, Patrick had come into the coffeehouse when there were a few inches of snow on the ground and noticed it was lit. Next to the crackling fire was one of our customers’ favorite spots to sit.

  Patrick was so sweet. He installed gas logs that made the same crackling noise. It was much easier to flip a switch and not have to start a real fire. Though I still longed for the real thing, it was my peace of mind that mattered. Besides, today’s warm weather wouldn’t require a fire. It was more for the ambiance and cozy feel it gave the coffeehouse, which I was more interested in.

  Our town needed a warm, cozy hug, and if I could give the
m a slice of it in my part of the world, I was going to try really hard.

  It was nice to see how all the café tables were cleaned off and ready to go for the morning crowd that would soon be here about six a.m. The industrial pots were all ready to start the brewing process. I hit the brew buttons on my way into the kitchen, where I turned the stoves on.

  The first thing I was going to get done was get the blueberry crumb cakes in the oven, then retrieve from the freezer the other items that I’d already made up and were basic menu items.

  Though the Bean Hive was a coffeehouse, I also served a simple lunch. I kept it simple by making it all week long and easy enough to make beforehand. This week, it was the Kentucky Benedictine Sandwich with kettle chips and a nice juicy pickle on the side.

  The cucumber and cream cheese with some dill and other ingredients on a nice, soft white bread was a Kentucky staple. I enjoyed making food that was known in our area. It was also a perfect light lunch to have while sitting at one of the outside tables on the beautiful spring day we were supposed to have. Only, I wasn’t sure if anyone would be sitting outside or even coming in today, but I was going to go about my business and act as though the same rush crowds would be in, regardless of what was going on with Daisy and how my coffeehouse had been wrongly portrayed in the social media with all those negative comments about the latte.

  “How about some kibble?” I had grabbed the room-temperature butter and a bag of sugar from the dry-ingredients shelf. When I turned around, Pepper was staring at me with his big, round black eyes.

  He danced at the word “kibble,” wagging his stumpy tail. I opened the plastic container under the center aisle workstation in the kitchen and filled the scoop before taking it to his bowl.

  The light rap on the window, coming from the shop, had caused me to nearly jump out of my skin, especially when Pepper darted to the door and had that protective, deeper bark that sent goose bumps along my neck.