by Harper Lin
“Well”—Amelia squeezed back—“what is that for?”
“Nothing.” Meg’s voice was muffled by Amelia’s shirt. “Just because Dad can be a jerk sometimes and he doesn’t know how hard you work.”
“Don’t call your father names,” Amelia corrected her as she smoothed Meg’s hair. “He works hard, too, and is probably just getting stressed out.”
It probably is stressful trying to keep up with a twenty-something when you are over fifty. Poor thing. Poor baby.
But Amelia kept her thoughts to herself as usual and would share them only with Lila once they were finally allowed back in the truck to work. As if reading her mind, Meg looked up into her mother’s face.
“The cops haven’t given us the all clear for work yet, have they?”
Amelia shook her head. “How about sandwiches for supper?”
“Katherine invited me over. Can I go to her house?”
“Sure. Where is your brother?”
“Where else?” Meg jerked her thumb behind her at the basement door. “Probably contacting aliens, hoping they’ll beam him aboard the mother ship.”
Giving her daughter a playful spank as she went to call Katherine and have dinner with her friend, Amelia opened the basement and called to Adam.
“Do you want sandwiches for supper?”
“Amy invited me to her house for dinner. Can I go?”
Amelia found herself with the next couple of hours alone, and the weight of not being able to finish the Food Fest was nagging at her. When things slipped out of her control, she turned to the one thing that brought her stability and a sense of calm…she baked.
After a quick shower and change of clothes, Amelia looked through her stash in the pantry, found a bottle of unopened honey, apricot preserve, and a bag of shredded coconut.
“When in the world did I buy this?” She turned the bag of coconut over in her hands. “Good thing I did.”
With the staples for a moist cake, she started to turn her kitchen into an art studio where she would create a masterpiece. As she sprinkled the flour, sugar, and baking soda into her large mixing bowl, Amelia thought about the day’s events one at a time.
Unfortunately, the fact that she had run into her ex-husband stuck in her mind like a tack in a corkboard and just wasn’t going to go anywhere until she spoke with him. Turning the oven on to get it warmed up, she decided to get it over with and yank off that Band-Aid in one swift, painful, nerve-wracking yank.
“What in the world were you thinking?” John hissed into the phone.
“Well, hello to you, too.” Amelia stared at the counter in front of her, thankful the kids weren’t in the house.
“Do you realize how many people saw you and asked me if we had come together? Do you know how that made Jennifer feel?”
“John, are you seriously trying to tell me how my attending the funeral of the mayor of Gary affected you? Is that what you came away with?”
“That was Detective Walishovsky with you.” He clicked his tongue.
“Dan and I just ran into each other there. He’s trying to solve this murder. Of course he’d be at the funeral.”
“So that’s why you had to be there, too.” John’s voice was like a hot poker.
“What are you talking about?” Amelia was angry. Not just annoyed and not just frustrated, but angry. “I went to see…”
“You went hoping to run into the detective. I know you, Amelia, and…”
Amelia’s jaw hit the floor.
“I don’t believe you.” She chuckled. “Do you really think I am that desperate?”
“I don’t know what you are anymore.” That comment stuck with Amelia. John didn’t know what she was anymore. The man she had been married to for sixteen years, who didn’t know her while they were together, was complaining that he didn’t know her now that they were not together.
Like a wave falling over her, Amelia felt her heart stop racing, her fists unclench, and her breath come out in a long, slow stream.
“I’ve got to go, John. I’ve got something in the oven.”
“Wait,” he barked. “Jennifer and I are getting married.”
Was it a slap? Was it a punch to the gut Amelia felt? Was it as if a trap door had opened up underneath her feet? No. It was something different.
“Do the kids know?” were the only words she could find.
“Not yet. We were going to tell them when we had them next weekend.”
“Okay,” Amelia breathed. “Well, I won’t say anything. It can be your big surprise.”
“You made it very difficult for us to tell anyone today. It was awkward all around.” John sounded tired. Jennifer must have given him an earful on the way home.
“Yeah, I’ll bet making that big announcement at Mayor Pearl’s funeral was ruined by my being there.” She almost started to laugh. “Congratulations, John. To both of you.”
She pressed the disconnect button and turned back to her baking.
Looking down and grabbing the bottle of honey, Amelia wondered what she was feeling. It was a sort of numbness with a very thin layer of sadness there.
Jennifer was going to be the new Mrs. O’Malley. It was bound to be a major event since Amelia had shouldered the hard part of steering the ship with John going through law school and working for next to nothing trying to make a name for himself. When success and security had finally found them, she had been too busy with kids to realize that her days were numbered.
“Live and learn, I guess,” she said soothingly to herself while squirting a healthy dose of honey into the batter. Crying was an option. The pit that had formed in her stomach at hearing the news from John wanted a way out. It pushed and tumbled inside her, inching its way closer and closer to her eyes, but she stopped it there.
Amelia didn’t want to get back together with John. She was actually enjoying her new life. The freedom, the independence. The Pink Cupcake had carved out a place for her in the world. She was no longer John O’Malley’s wife. She hadn’t been for quite some time. She was Amelia Harley, businesswoman and single mom. Those were badges she was proud to wear.
“So why do you feel like you want to crumple to the floor and cry like a baby?” Her eyes glistened a little. “Because it still hurts.”
Having promised herself she wouldn’t cry, Amelia went to the sink, pulled down a coffee cup from the cabinet, filled it with lukewarm water from the tap, and drank it down.
“Maybe that should have been whiskey,” she joked, instantly thinking of Lila. She dialed her number, held her breath, and waited for her friend to answer.
“Hey.” Lila’s voice was cheery as always. “Are we back to work?”
Amelia lost it. She spilled the whole horrible story, crying like a dumped teenager and wiping her nose on the sleeve of her shirt.
“I’ll be right over,” was all Lila said. Within twenty minutes, she was letting herself in the front door with a bottle of wine in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other.
“I feel so stupid, Lila,” she blubbered. “I don’t want John back. I guess I just…”
“You thought there might be a longer grieving period.”
Amelia nodded, taking a sip of the white wine they had quickly opened and going back to stirring her batter.
“And if the Food Fest hadn’t turned out to be such a bust, I probably would have offered to throw them an engagement party.” Amelia laughed.
“Let’s not get crazy,” Lila interjected, holding her right hand up in front of her. “That is probably what’s got you more upset than anything. Because if we were working and you needed cupcakes, your mind would be on that, not roaming free like a grazing cow.”
“Something like that.” Amelia laughed. Lila was right. It wasn’t John she was upset about—it was that her business was being severely dented by this whole scandal with the late mayor, and there wasn’t a darn thing Amelia could do about it.
The conversation drifted from the news of John and Jennifer�
��s engagement, to the Food Fest, to lunch with Gavin from the Philly Cheese Steak truck, to the visit to the funeral, and Dan.
By the time they got to the topic of Detective Walishovsky, the bottle of wine was empty and piping-hot honey-apricot cupcakes with almond frosting were cooling on the counter.
“They smell good,” Lila said encouragingly. “Probably because they are sweetened with your tears.”
“Right?” Amelia chuckled. “They’ll never turn out this good again unless I make them while going through some tragedy. That’s what I’ll call them. Tragedy cupcakes.”
“Disappointment cakes,” Lila added, laughing loudly.
“Cakes of Regret!” Amelia was holding her stomach, she was laughing so hard, until she saw her phone light up and the wind-chime ringer go off.
“It’s John,” Lila said teasingly. “He wants to know if you’ll make the wedding cake. At cost, of course.”
Amelia let out a sarcastic burst of laughter but quickly composed herself, her hand going to the back of her neck to smooth her hair down.
“Hi, Dan.” She put her index finger to her lips, to which Lila nodded and winked. “What’s going on?”
Lila could hear the detective’s serious voice and watched Amelia smile and nod.
“Sure. I’d be happy to help.” She looked down at her casual clothes—baggy jeans and a long-sleeved shirt—and shrugged. “Okay, twenty minutes is fine. See you shortly.”
When Amelia pressed the disconnect button on her phone, she looked up to see Lila already grabbing her purse and pulling out her keys, a devilish smirk on her face.
“What are you and the detective up to?”
“Oh, it’s really nothing.” Amelia shook her head and took a cupcake from the cooling rack, handing it to Lila. “He’s going on a stakeout and asked if I wanted to go along. You know, I went before, and it was kind of fun, so I guess…”
Lila took her cupcake.
“Well, I’m glad he’s driving since you had two rather large glasses of wine.”
“Oh, gosh.” Amelia waved her hand in the air rather flamboyantly. “I’m fine. I had more wine than that once and baked dour fozen brownies without burning one.”
“Dour fozen?”
“Four dozen! Oh, Lila, you are a bad influence!” They laughed as Amelia hugged her friend and watched as she climbed into her car and pulled out of the driveway.
Shutting the door quickly, Amelia ran upstairs to brush her teeth, put on a little lip gloss, and change into a different shirt, remembering she had used her sleeve as a handkerchief just a short while ago.
After settling on a red sweater that looked cute with her dungarees, Amelia bolted downstairs and slipped into her gym shoes, grabbed her surveillance gear, and managed to stuff it all in her bag just as the doorbell rang.
Grabbing two cupcakes, she opened the door, looked up, and gasped.
Chapter Thirteen
“What happened to your face?” She nearly dropped her things as she reached up to touch Dan’s cheek, where a swollen bump was proceeding to turn a deep purple.
“I was born with it,” Dan said teasingly as he escorted her to the car.
After she had left the funeral, Dan had had to dive into the fight that had broken out in front of the funeral home.
“It was just a lucky punch. You should see the other guy,” he joked.
“Did you put any ice on it?”
“I haven’t had time.” He sort of smirked, but it looked as though it hurt to do even that. “Assaulting an officer is against the law. I’ve been at the station with a few of the guys you said you overheard talking.”
Amelia raised her eyebrows and turned around to look over the top of her shoulder at Dan.
“Ever hear of a bar called The Boss Bar?”
“Nope.”
“Well, that’s where we are heading.”
“Why?”
“Because that is where the security guards hang out when they have time off. And two of the three you overheard were heading that way.”
“Why would they tell you that after you arrested them?” Amelia was enthralled. John and Jennifer were completely forgotten.
“In order to get off the hook, they offered some information. It seems that their free ride ran out of gas.” Dan stretched his fingers against the steering wheel, and Amelia saw they were swollen, too. “No one from the Pearl camp sent anyone to bail them out or get them out of trouble. So, for the first time in several years, they were on their own to clean up their mess. Guys like that, guys who are easily led and manipulated…they are faithful to no one.”
“So what did they say?”
“It wasn’t what they said—it was what one of them didn’t say.”
Amelia leaned in, looking from the windshield to Dan and back again.
“It was the weird bald guy, wasn’t it? The bald guy?”
“No.” Dan tightened his lips together. “Chuck DeLuca. He’s got blond hair, his eyes are kind of…”
“Chinese?” Amelia blurted out. “Sorry, that’s not very PC. Lila and I had some wine before you came over. I’m afraid I’m a little more brazen than usual.”
Dan gave Amelia a sideways glance as if he didn’t approve. “Miss Harley, I’m shocked at you.”
“Oh, hush and tell me what he said.”
“The fight was between these three guys that had been protecting the mayor. Jones—the bald guy—and Lamar, the black guy, said that DeLuca started it. He had been on detail with the mayor for several years. According to Jones and Lamar, the mayor treated DeLuca like a redheaded stepchild. That guy couldn’t do anything right.”
“So why didn’t he fire him?”
“Don’t know,” Dan mumbled.
They drove into Bridgeport in silence. Amelia watched as the buildings slowly morphed into smaller, cozier blue-collar mom-and-pop establishments. There were VFWs and corner grocery stores. The streets were well lit and clean.
The homes were just a few steps past modest, with long driveways and simply manicured laws.
“There’s our place.” Dan pointed ahead to a green-and-orange neon sign that glared The Boss Bar. It was on a corner. The windows were darkened and couldn’t be seen into even at this hour of the night when the sun was down.
Loitering outside were a couple of hulking forms shuffling their feet, smoking cigarettes, and talking to each other.
“Are you sure about this place?” Amelia asked.
“Yeah. My contact said DeLuca showed up in there just a little after the brawl. He’s been there ever since.”
“Yikes.” Amelia grimaced. The idea of drinking for that many hours made her stomach flip. Suddenly, she remembered her cupcakes. “Hungry?” she asked, presenting Dan with one.
“Well, it’ll cost me a few more miles on the treadmill, but okay.”
“This is a new recipe. If you don’t like it, don’t hold back.”
Dan pulled around a corner so he could creep up an alley that was right across from the bar, where he could see who was coming and going. He took a bite of the cupcake just as he raised his binoculars to his eyes.
Amelia, with a cupcake in one hand and her own binoculars in the other, followed suit.
Just as they took a bite, the suspect, DeLuca, leaned out the door and began yelling and cussing at the men who were on the sidewalk. He was screaming at them so loudly that Amelia could hear the obscenities through the rolled-up windows.
“What in the world?”
Dan watched as DeLuca went back into the bar, slamming the door shut.
“You wait here,” Dan said, getting out of the driver’s side and quickly making his way up to the entrance of the bar and disappearing inside.
Amelia sat still for a few minutes until curiosity got the best of her.
“It’s dangerous,” she mumbled, licking the frosting from her lips. “Dan said stay put. I should listen. These guys are big and…big.” She watched as the door flew open and DeLuca came stumbling out alone.<
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“Where is he?” Crumbs fell from her mouth as she spoke. Dan did not follow DeLuca out of the bar.
“He’s getting away. He’s fleeing, sort of.” She watched as DeLuca stumbled and staggered his way down the sidewalk, using the side of the building to hold himself up every couple of steps.
Without thinking, Amelia slowly got out of the car and began to follow DeLuca as he drunkenly wove his way back and forth along the sidewalk. Quietly, she hurried on tiptoe to get closer to him.
“This is it! I’ll kill you,” DeLuca grumbled, each comment becoming more and more vulgar. “I’ve done it before. That’s right! I’ve done it, and I’ll do it to you, too.”
Amelia hung back, hopping from shadow to shadow until DeLuca stopped and stood stone still in the middle of the sidewalk.
She froze. Had he heard her footsteps? Heard her breathing?
It was cool outside. The air smelled different from the street Amelia lived on. It had a metallic, industrial smell to it that reminded Amelia that she was way out of her element. To turn tail and run now would give her position away. And just because the guy couldn’t walk didn’t mean he couldn’t run if he felt he had to.
Finally, DeLuca began walking again. He rounded a corner and stood at the bottom of a stoop to a nice three-flat home. Watching, Amelia saw in the light from the streetlamp DeLuca pulling a gun from the inside of his coat.
He swayed uneasily and pointed the gun across the street. Shooting sounds could be heard coming from his mouth as he took aim at houses, garbage cans, and a couple of parked cars. Pulling himself up the stairs by the railing, DeLuca kept the gun in one hand while he fumbled with his keys in the other hand.
Tripping and nearly falling in the door, DeLuca made it inside and slammed the door shut, his keys still dangling from the doorknob.
“He’s going to kill himself.” Amelia felt panic rise up from her feet. Without warning, images of her children surfaced in her mind. DeLuca was someone’s son. Wouldn’t she hope that if one of her children were in this kind of pain, someone would step in to help?
Pulling her cell phone from her pocket, Amelia quickly dialed Dan’s number. He didn’t answer.
