by Gayle Trent
* * *
At the Save-A-Buck, Ben and I decided to divide and conquer. We couldn’t simply buy cocoa and go home given the length of time we’d been gone. So, we bought cocoa, steaks, potatoes, macaroni, eggs, rolls, tomatoes, and bagged salad.
When we got back to the house, though, Dad, Mom, Uncle Hal, and Aunt Nancy weren’t there. Mom had left a note on the kitchen table.
Violet invited us to dinner, so we’re eating with them. We’ll see you tomorrow.
I turned to Ben and released a breath I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding.
“Thank goodness! Remind me to tell Vi how much I love her!”
CHAPTER NINE
Not wanting all that food to go to waste—and, besides, we were hungry—Ben put the steaks on the grill and washed the potatoes. Meanwhile, I transferred the white cakes to cardboard rounds and mixed up the batter for the chocolate cakes. By the time Ben had finished preparing our meal of steaks, baked fries, and salad, two of the cakes were in the oven.
“You looked more relaxed than I’ve seen you all day,” Ben said, as I filled his glass with sweet tea.
“Well, there are two reasons for that. One, I’m confident that I’ll be able to deliver the baked goods to Save-A-Buck first thing tomorrow morning. So that’s great.” I sat back down across from Ben. “I can’t control much after Hurricane What-the-Crap blew through here and turned my life upside down, but that I can control.”
“And two?”
“My mother is at Violet’s house.”
He raised his glass. “There is that.”
I clinked my glass to his. “I don’t know why that woman drives me so insane, but she does. For instance, did I tell you that she’s the one who gave Todd my address? Why in the world would she do that?”
“I have no idea, babe.” He took a drink of tea before putting his glass back down. “Maybe she thought you needed some closure.”
“I got closure the day I walked out of Todd’s sentencing hearing.”
Ben looked down at his plate. “It’s all right if you need to talk about it.”
“About what?”
“Todd. The good, the bad…how you felt today when you identified his body.”
I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat. “Today was hard. I felt sorry for him…sad that so much of his life had been unfulfilled. Even before he was killed, he was in prison. And before that, he wasn’t happy.” I took a sip of my tea. “The only time I saw him truly content with his life was when he was in college.”
“That is sad.”
I nodded. “Nothing ever equaled that high to Todd of being the big man on campus.”
The phone rang just as the oven timer went off.
“That might be Mark,” I said. “Would you mind answering the phone while I grab the cakes?”
“No problem.”
While Ben spoke with the person on the phone, I got the first two cakes out of the oven and put the other two in. I set the timer and returned to the table where I determined from hearing his end of the conversation that the person Ben was talking with was either Jason or Violet.
He handed me the receiver. “Violet wants to speak with you.”
“Hey, Vi.”
“She’s coming,” Jason said. “I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”
“I’m all right. Thanks.”
“We’re here if you need us, you know.”
“I do know,” I said. “Did you speak with the warden?”
“Yeah. Ben will tell you all about it. Here’s Violet.”
My sister skipped the pleasantries. “I got Mom alone and asked her if she’d lost her mind.”
My jaw dropped. Violet was the golden child. She and Mom were as close as a mother and daughter could be. I couldn’t imagine her confronting our mother like that.
“She pretended she didn’t know what I was talking about,” Vi continued. “But I didn’t back down. I said I could hardly believe she’d not only told Todd where to find you but that she’d apparently encouraged him to see Leslie and Lucas.”
Ah, there it was. Violet’s protection and love for her children outweighed any affection she had for another person, even Mom.
“Let me guess—she denied ever encouraging him to see the children,” I said.
“No! She didn’t! She said she thought it would be good for him to see them, how much they’ve grown, and how beautiful they are.”
“And what did she think it would be like for them to see him?” I huffed. “I guess they could see if they could remember their uncle at all since they’ve hardly ever seen him in their entire lives.”
“Exactly.” She gave a growl of frustration. “Mom knows better than that.”
“So what reason did she give for spilling my address?”
Violet didn’t answer right away, and I had to prompt her to do so.
“She thought he deserved to see you,” she said at last. “He was your husband—blah, blah, blah. You really don’t want to hear her warped reasoning.”
I debated the issue in my mind. “No. I guess I don’t.”
After all, Mom had thought I’d pushed Todd into shooting at me in the first place. You know how you can be, Daphne. And she’d dubbed me cruel for divorcing him while he was in prison.
“What I can’t figure out is why he even wanted to come here,” I said. “All those years he was in prison, I never heard a word from him—good or bad. Then he gets out of prison and just shows up here in Brea Ridge? There’s bound to be a reason.”
“I agree. And whatever that reason is, I bet it’s ultimately what got him killed.”
* * *
Ben sat on a stool at the island while I placed the first of the eight cakes on a turntable. I put a cake icer tip in my piping bag and then filled the bag with white buttercream.
“So what did Jason tell you about his conversation with the warden?” I asked, as I gently squeezed the piping bag and slowly spun the turntable to frost the sides of the cake.
“He said Todd didn’t appear to have many friends in prison, but the one person he was known to associate with—Monty Harlow—got out two weeks before Todd was released.”
I iced the top of the cake and then used a spatula to smooth it out. “When was that?”
“Just over a month ago.”
“That makes this whole thing ever weirder, don’t you think?” I scraped the excess icing back into the bowl. “I knew his coming here had nothing—or else very little—to do with me. What was he after?”
“We need to find this Monty Harlow and see what he knows.”
* * *
The next morning, I put all of the baked goods into the back of the Mini Cooper and set off for Save-A-Buck. Luckily, Steve had been watching for me, and he and a couple of bag boys came out to help me carry everything inside.
There were two tables near the front of the store that had been pushed together and covered with white linen tablecloths. A banner hung from one end of the tables to the other and read, “Baked goods provided by Daphne’s Delectable Cakes.”
“Ms. Jenkins was in late yesterday afternoon.” Steve put the boxes he was carrying down on one of the tables. “She told me what a rough time you’ve been having.”
“Yes, well…” I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the oven, Todd, or the business about the wedding planner. With Myra, I never knew.
“I’m really sorry. To think you had everything taken care of, and then to learn that your wedding planner has taken off with your money…” He sighed. “That’s terrible.”
“Well, he still might call.” I knew better, but I was trying to be optimistic there in the store in front of Steve Franklin and the Save-A-Buck employees.
Juanita, my favorite cashier, came over and hugged me. “I am so sorry for your misfortune. I have taken classes in floral arrangement, so please let me help with your flowers.”
“All right,” I said. “I will. That is, if the guy doesn’t call me back and tell me I�
�m overreacting.”
“Okay.”
“And I’ll get with my distributors to have the flowers and food obtained at a wholesale price for you,” said Steve.
“Thank you. I’m truly grateful.”
When I left the Save-A-Buck, I drove straight to Myra’s house. She apparently hadn’t been out of bed for long and was still wearing her robe and fuzzy slippers.
“Goodness,” she said as she opened the door. “What’s happened now?”
“Well, I just came from the Save-A-Buck. Steve Franklin is offering me a discount on food and flowers, and Juanita has volunteered to do my floral arrangements.”
“That’s wonderful!” She frowned. “Isn’t it?”
“Yes, except that I thought we were keeping the news about the wedding planner under wraps until we saw whether or not he’d call me back.”
“Has he called you back?”
“No.”
“Well, there you go.” She motioned me into the kitchen. “Coffee?”
“Yes, please.” I noticed as I sat down at the kitchen table that Bruno was playing outside in the yard.
I mulled over what Myra and Mark had told me about the wedding planner. He’d told the proprietor of the dress shop that he was new in the wedding planning business but that he’d overseen the weddings of several of his friends. He’d provided photos of beautiful, elaborate weddings. Those were the same photos he’d shown me.
The proprietor had given the wedding planner the contact information for several women who had upcoming weddings. When Mark followed up with these women, he learned that they had not been contacted by Hunter Hampton. I was the only one.
Myra sat a cup of coffee in front of me. She knew I liked my coffee with cream and sugar, so it was perfect.
“Why do you think he targeted me?” I asked.
“I’m not so sure it was you in particular, hon. I think that the first person who took the bait, he’d take her money and run.”
“But why? Why not get all the money he could before skipping out?” I sipped the hot coffee. “It doesn’t make any sense to stop with one person.”
“No, I guess it doesn’t. But don’t you let that worry you. I’m going to take care of all the wedding preparations,” she said. “Thank you for telling me about Steve and Juanita. I’ll add them to the list.”
“There’s already a list?”
She smiled. “Of course.”
“Jason called last night and told Ben that a man named Marty Harlow—either a friend or associate of Todd’s—was released just two weeks prior to Todd’s release. And—get this—Todd has been out of prison for over a month.”
“Well, he took his sweet time getting here to confess his undying devotion, didn’t he?”
I nodded. “I knew all along that’s not why he was here. But why was he? And why was he trying to write my name on the wall when he died?”
“We’ll get all that figured out. Leave it to Mark.” She got up to get a pen and a notepad out of a kitchen drawer. When she sat back down, she wrote Marty Harlow on the pad. “I’ll have Mark see what he can dig up on this guy.”
“Thanks, Myra.”
“It’ll be all right.” She reached over and squeezed my hand.
“I talked to Violet last night. And, are you ready for this?”
Myra leaned closer. “Yes.”
“She really let Mom have it.”
“Good for her! What did she say?”
“She asked why in the world Mom would give Todd my address and then encourage him to see the twins.”
“Wait,” she said. “Your mom actually suggested that Todd go see Lucas and Leslie? Is she out of her mind?”
“Actually, I believe that she always thought Todd wasn’t that bad.” I huffed. “She’d have known better had she lived with the man. But, anyway, she thought it would be good for Todd to see the kids and that seeing me would give us both closure.”
“The man almost gave you closure from your entire life once. Wasn’t that enough?”
“Apparently not,” I said.
Myra slowly shook her head. “I just can’t comprehend that—taking the feelings of somebody else, especially a jerk like Todd Martin, into consideration over those of your own children.”
“I know.” I blew out a breath. “But, then, that’s Mom. She always liked Todd.”
“I have never liked Todd. Never!”
I started laughing. “Myra, you never knew the man!”
“I didn’t have to. I know you. That’s enough.”
CHAPTER TEN
I decided to go with chocolate pound cake for the base tier of the wedding cake. Lucas and Leslie loved chocolate. By alternating layers with vanilla pound cake, everyone should be happy. When I preheated the oven to three-hundred-fifty degrees, I was delighted all over again to have a working oven.
It took an especially large batch of batter for the fourteen-inch cake. I whisked the flour and salt together in a large bowl and set the mixture aside. Then I put the butter and sugar into the bowl of my stand mixer and beat them at medium speed.
I didn’t realize Myra and Mark had come in through the kitchen door until she called my name. I started and then turned off the mixer.
“You scared me.”
“Why didn’t you have the door locked?” Myra asked. “We could’ve been anybody!”
“Not Todd. And he’s the reason I was locking the doors.”
“But someone killed Todd,” Mark reminded me. “You really need to keep your doors locked.”
“Yeah, I guess I do.” I turned and added the vanilla and cocoa to the mixing bowl. “Give me just one second, will you?”
I finished the batter and poured it into the prepared pan. I slid the pan into the oven and set the timer.
“There we go. We’ve got plenty of time to talk now.” I gestured toward the coffee pot. “Would either of you like a cup of coffee?”
“Sure,” Mark said.
I put sugar, artificial sweetener, and creamer on the table and poured us all a cup of coffee. I placed their cups in front of them, and before I could get mine, I noticed that Mark had a photo of Hunter Hampton on the table next to him.
“Why do you have a photo of Hunter?” I asked. “Did you find him?”
Mark frowned and then exchanged glances with Myra. “You think this is Hunter Hampton?”
“It is,” I said. “Who did you think it was?”
“This is Monty Harlow, Todd’s old prison buddy.”
I slid my chair out and dropped onto it. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No, hon, he’s not.” Myra got up and got my coffee. “Here. You probably need this.”
“I need something a lot stronger than this. Something that could turn back time would be nice.” I stared at the photo of Hunter or Monty or whoever he was. “So he was only here to play me.”
“We figured that already,” Myra pointed out. “You know, since he didn’t contact any of the other women from the bridal store.”
“But now we know why,” I said. “He did it for Todd.”
“We don’t really know why.” Mark added sugar to his coffee. “Yes, he was likely here at Todd’s behest. But why? Was Todd desperate for money? Was he trying to ruin your wedding? We need to find out exactly what they were after.”
“And how do we do that if we can’t get Hun—Monty—to call me back?”
“What types of voicemail messages have you left him?” Mark asked.
“None. I’ve been so angry that I’ve simply hung up without saying anything.”
“Good. We can work with that.” Mark took out a notebook. “I want you to call him, and I’m going to tell you exactly what to say.”
“That won’t work,” I protested. “He won’t call me back. Besides, everybody in Brea Ridge knows by now that my wedding planner was a phony.”
Mark kept writing. “Doesn’t matter. You can leave a message, and he isn’t local. So he has no idea what the people in town know or
don’t know.”
“Right.” Myra gave a resolute nod. “He’s not in our clique. Doesn’t know the secret handshake and isn’t privy to the gossip.”
“Okay. But, if Monty was working with Todd, then he’s bound to know that he was found dead yesterday morning.”
“Not necessarily,” he said. “And, even if he does, he won’t know for sure whether or not the gig is up until he hears from you. So call him, and leave him this message.”
I read Mark’s note and then got up to get my phone.
Myra was reading the message when I got back. “Yeah, this’ll work. If he thinks there’s still a chance he can bilk you for a little more money, he will.”
I called. As anticipated, the call went directly to voicemail.
“Hi, Hunter. This is Daphne Martin. I haven’t talked with you in a day or two. Things have been really crazy around here—you wouldn’t believe. Anyway, the wedding date is drawing ever closer, and I’m getting more nervous by the minute. Do you have everything taken care of? Is there anything else we need to do—anyone who needs to be paid? Please give me a call back. Thanks.”
I ended the call and looked at Mark. “Now what?”
“We wait. Or rather, you wait. If you hear from Harlow, you act like everything is fine—except that you’re really nervous about the wedding and everything coming together. Give him a chance to talk. If he calls, it’s going to be because he thinks he can get more money from you.”
“Should she invite the bum over here so we can nab him?” Myra asked.
“Where did you meet before, Daphne?”
“We met outside the Save-A-Buck.”
“Well, you can’t do that now.” Myra turned to Mark. “She can’t meet him at the Save-a-Buck. Somebody might come up and say something about the wedding.”
“That’s right,” Mark said. “Have him come here but only when you know that I can be here. And I’d like to have McAfee—or some other cop—here too. Not only will it help with your defense, but they can arrest the guy and find out what he’s up to. Odds are, he’s the one who killed Todd.”
I shivered from the chill that tingled through my body. “I hadn’t considered that.”
