Murder Over Mochas

by Caroline Fardig

  Daniel said, “Again.”

  Grimacing, Pete hit it again, this time bending the rod even farther down. The inside emergency release was useless now. If we went in there, we weren’t getting out unless we had outside help.

  Daniel said, “You can put the frying pan down now. I can tell you’d like nothing more than to chuck it at my head.”

  Pete tossed it onto the floor.

  Gesturing toward Pete with his gun, Daniel said, “Okay, you two. In the box.”

  I backed toward the sink and noticed that our staff had left some dishes still to be done—including a paring knife carelessly thrown in, waiting for some unsuspecting hands to reach down and get stabbed by it. Normally I would have been furious, but this time someone was getting a raise.

  I hesitated. “Wait, Daniel. Isn’t there something we could do to change your mind? Like…you could pay us to stay quiet or something. You know Scott took all my money, and you’ve seen my apartment. It wouldn’t take much to buy me.”

  From his expression, I could tell that Daniel was mulling it over. He nodded his chin toward Pete. “You own this place?”

  “Yeah.”

  Daniel shook his head. “You’d cost too much to buy.”

  Leaning against the sink, I said, “Well, you could buy just me.”

  “I don’t think your boyfriend here would like that too much. Both of you, in the box.”

  Through gritted teeth, Pete said, “If you let her go…I’ll go in the freezer willingly.”

  “Aww, that is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.” To me, Daniel said, “Old Scott would never have done that for you, would he?”

  I smiled at Pete, although tears were threatening. Part of me worried about how he was holding up (which didn’t appear to be so great), but I needed to keep my wits about me and try to think of a way out of this.

  “No, he wouldn’t have,” I answered, hardening my expression. “He got the karmic kick in the nuts he deserved, though, right?”

  Daniel shrugged. “He pissed plenty of people off. It was time.”

  “I want to know who killed him. If you’re going to kill me, I deserve to know that much.”

  “Okay. It was Mandi…mostly.”

  “How do you ‘mostly’ kill someone?”

  “She put the drugs in his drink, which I delivered to him.”

  “Was it a lethal mix of levodopa and sodium oxybate?”

  Daniel seemed impressed. “You’ve done your homework.”

  Pete interjected, “Um…that means you sort of killed him, too.”

  I stared at Daniel. “Hold on. You and Mandi were with Scott here in Nashville right before he came to see me, boo-hooing about Mandi being kidnapped? What the hell’s up with that?” Did Scott lie to me from the get-go?

  “The alleged kidnapping was a ploy Mandi and I thought up to get Scott to hand over his blackmail information. When he refused to trade his info for her life and tried to look for her on his own, she got pissed. I agreed to help her do something she’d been wanting to do for a while. I arranged to meet Scott at a bar to urge him to make a better decision about the blackmail, but he wouldn’t listen to reason. Mandi was also at the bar, but she stayed out of his sight. Scott didn’t know she was there, and he never knew what hit him.”

  The phone on Java Jive’s kitchen wall rang, and Daniel took his eyes off us for a second. I quickly swiped the small but sharp knife and slid it into my back pocket.

  His bravado wavering, he demanded, “Who knows you’re here?”

  Hoping he hadn’t heard the tail end of my conversation with Ryder, I said innocently, “It’s only a little after ten. Someone’s always here closing up at this time. We often get calls after hours.” While he was stewing about the phone, I went on, “Hey, to settle my own curiosity, did Mandi disappear on her own—the second time—or did you have something to do with it?”

  He smirked at me, which gave me all the answer I needed. “She was at the cabin. Indisposed, of course. Sodium oxybate makes people incredibly pliable and quiet. But if you’d looked a little harder that first morning, you might have found her, which was why I had to distract you.”

  What a psycho. “Well, I have to hand it to you—locking us in Uncle Randy’s creepy cellar was a real distraction.”

  “I thought so.”

  “Speaking of distractions, Dr. Sophie Miller is an awfully pretty thing.”

  His eyes got a bit strained, but a ghost of a smile crossed his lips. “She’s quite an attractive woman, yes.”

  “So Scott blackmailing you and your lady doctor friend was enough to turn you from his BFF to his co-killer? Pretty harsh, if you ask me.”

  Daniel frowned for the first time. “He had no right to even speak to Sophie. She has nothing to do with this.”

  I nodded, moving a little closer to him. I knew better than to bring a knife (a paring knife, at that) to a gunfight, but something had to happen here. He wasn’t going to keep talking all evening.

  “You’re saying Dr. Sophie has no idea all the fun new toys she’s been getting from your bogus nonprofit are actually kickbacks from Silver Spruce?”

  “They’re not technically kickbacks. The items are purchased through Silver Spruce’s philanthropic fund and then routed through the nonprofit.”

  “Do they know how much of their budget you’re wasting on her? Probably not, or else you wouldn’t be going to such lengths to conceal it.”

  He bristled. “It’s not a waste. The clinic needs supplies or they’ll be forced to shut their doors. It would crush Sophie if that happened.”

  “I still can’t get over the fact that she believes a nonprofit no one’s ever heard of is feeding her a steady stream of donations that get delivered by you. You sure she’s a real doctor? Because she sounds kind of dumb if she doesn’t realize what’s going on here.”

  As Daniel’s eyes flashed with rage, Pete threw me a horrified glance and shook his head slightly. I was sure he didn’t think it was a good idea to poke at Daniel, but I felt like I was getting somewhere with him. I had a disturbing amount of experience at getting sociopaths to crack under pressure, and I felt like I’d found the right thing to pick at with this particular lunatic.

  Glaring at me, he spat, “How dare you say things like that about her? She’s brilliant and beautiful, and…and perfect in every way.”

  “Hmm. And hard to get into the pants of, evidently. You sound like a tween girl with a crush.” As I was speaking, I took another step toward Daniel and turned my back a bit in Pete’s direction. I pulled the knife slightly out of my pocket, hoping Pete would see it and know I had at least part of a plan. “What’s the matter, Danny? Is your normal Don Juan routine not enough to win Dr. Sophie’s heart? If you had to supplement your moves with a hundred grand worth of medical equipment, you must be losing your touch, buddy.”

  He roared, “I am not losing my—” Letting out a strangled grunt, he lowered his voice, which now had a sharp edge to it. “If you’re not in that freezer in ten seconds, I’ll shoot you. Ten, nine…”

  As Daniel counted down, I backed toward Pete, sliding one hand behind me and grasping the knife. The problem was, Daniel wasn’t moving toward us like I’d hoped he would. Suddenly there was a hissing sound near Daniel, which made him pause his counting and glance at the deep fryer beside him. The oil began bubbling, and before Daniel could move away, there was a loud pop. Smoke plumed up, and hot oil sprayed two feet in every direction.

  Daniel screeched like a banshee and dropped his gun. Pete and I gaped at each other as both of Daniel’s hands flew to his face and he continued to cry out in agonizing pain. The hot oil only sprayed for a few seconds, so once it stopped, Pete approached the area and snatched the gun. Backing away from the still-gurgling fryer, he pointed the gun at Daniel, who’d dropped to his knees.

  I said, “Pete, call 911. We need police and an ambulance. I’ll deal with Daniel, but if he tries anything, shoot him.”

  While I carefully turned off
the fryer, lest we have another incident with a hot grease geyser, Pete kept the gun trained on Daniel as he used the kitchen phone to call 911. Daniel was in his own world, now writhing on the floor and sobbing, the skin of his face, arms, and hands popping up with more and more big red splotches by the second. Deciding he was no longer in any shape to be a threat to us, I grabbed the first aid kit, found some sterile pads, and ran them under cool water.

  I kneeled down next to Daniel and began tending his wounds as gently as I could. His handsome face was such a mess of blotches and blisters, I wasn’t convinced it would ever fully heal. It was all I could do to keep him still so I could pour some clean water over the burns and place the wet dressings over them. It certainly didn’t help that after Pete finished his 911 call, he stood over Daniel with the gun aimed at the poor man’s head.

  Trying not to stare at Daniel’s painful burns, Pete said, “How can you do that when only a couple of minutes ago he was dead-set on killing us?”

  I shrugged. “Just because he’s terrible doesn’t mean I have to be terrible back. Besides, I’ve had enough grease burns to know that they hurt like a bitch. Trust me—he’s getting his own karmic kick in the nuts right now.”

  “I suppose that’s true. Hey, but that explosion was awesome, right? I mean, not for him, but it was pretty impressive otherwise. That hot oil seeped into my janky phone and literally fried the battery. It would have made a great viral video—”

  Ryder burst into the kitchen, gun drawn, ready to kick some ass.

  Pete and I both greeted him with a nonchalant “Hey.”

  When he surveyed the situation, his serious cop face fell into an expression of bewilderment. “What the hell happened here? You didn’t show up at the station, and you wouldn’t answer any of your phones, so I figured you two got yourselves into trouble again. I came to save you guys, but…” He glanced at Daniel, who had now descended into whimpering and shaking. “It looks like you’ve taken down the bad guy on your own.”

  Technically, it was the exploding battery inside Pete’s phone that had taken down the bad guy, but I didn’t correct him. Dumb luck aside, we had the situation well under control. The fact remained that Pete and I hadn’t needed to be rescued, finally.

  That fact was not lost on Ryder. With a proud grin, he added, “It’s about time.”

  Epilogue

  Four weeks later

  As we were packing up our equipment from our final band practice before heading out on tour the next morning, Pete said to me, “Why don’t we stop by Java Jive for one last coffee? I’m afraid the bile we’ll be subjected to on the road is not going to live up to our lofty standards of percolated perfection.”

  I laughed. “Okay, but then we go straight home. You still haven’t finished packing your suitcase.”

  He threw one arm around my shoulders and steered me toward his car. “Yes, dear. You know, I didn’t realize a perk of living with you is that you’d keep me in line.”

  I squinted up at him. “Are you calling me bossy?”

  “Would I do that?”

  Giving him a playful shove, I hurried around to the passenger side and got in. I was completely over the moon about this tour. Sure, I was scared to death, but more than that, I was so freaking excited about spending the month with Pete. Since we’d decided to go for it, our relationship had blossomed in ways I had never expected and couldn’t begin to explain. I had never been so happy, and I was pretty sure Pete felt the same way. Life could not possibly get any better.

  We got to Java Jive only a few minutes before closing. Rhonda, our newly named assistant manager who we’d decided to leave in charge while we were gone, was busy bossing everyone around (just like I would have) and getting the coffeehouse ready to shut down. Pete and I pulled our own espresso drinks and took them over to the couch. We sat and talked and laughed like we always had, and I felt a twinge of sadness as I realized it would be a long time before we’d be back here. I spent from sunup to sundown here six days a week. It was as much home to me as the home I shared with Pete. Aside from the emotional aspect, and as capable as our staff was, I was also concerned about Java Jive being out of my control for so long.

  “Hey, are you worrying about leaving the coffeehouse in someone else’s hands?” Pete asked. The man could read my mind like no one else.

  I laid my head on his shoulder. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Jules, everything will be fine. If Rhonda has a question, she can always call us. It’s not like we’re touring out of cellphone range.”

  “I know. It’s not just that.” I sighed. “I’m really going to miss this place, too.”

  He kissed the top of my head. “I love it that you love Java Jive every bit as much as Pop did.” Grabbing both my hands, he pulled me up off the couch and led me to the center of the room.

  Rhonda waved from the back hallway as she turned off most of the lights. “You guys have fun. I’ll take good care of the place while you’re gone.” Eyeing us, she added, “Be sure to lock up when you leave.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I replied, stifling a chuckle. Rhonda was more than capable of filling my bossy shoes while we were gone.

  When I turned back around to Pete, he seemed nervous, his brow furrowed slightly and a forced smile fixed on his face.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  He took both of my hands in his. “You know, Jules, the first time we met, you were standing right about here.”

  I smiled, remembering that day. “And you were hard at work behind the counter. Did I ever tell you I had a huge crush on you from seeing you around at school, and how terrifying it was that the first time I actually got to talk to you was when I had to interview with you for my job here?”

  Breaking into a grin, he said, “No. Did I ever tell you the main reason I hired you in under a minute is that I thought you were pretty and wanted to get the interview over with fast so I could hang out with you?”

  “No.”

  His expression turned serious. “While we’re confessing…when you moved back home after your music career went south…” He paused to take a deep breath. “It broke my heart. The night of your stage fright incident, I’d finally got up the nerve to ask you out, but after what happened I didn’t feel like it was the right time. Then you were gone.”

  My eyes filling with tears, I said, “Pete, I never knew that. I wouldn’t have left if I had. All I ever wanted was to be with you.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Why did it take us so long to admit it to each other?”

  He laid his forehead against mine. “We’re together now. That’s all that matters.”

  I kissed him. “I couldn’t agree more. Ready to go do that packing now?”

  “Almost. There’s one more thing I need to do here.”

  Smiling again, he let go of my hands and took something out of his pocket. Before I knew what he was doing, he was down on one knee, holding up a gorgeous antique diamond ring (Gertie’s wedding ring, if I wasn’t mistaken) and looking at me with the sweetest expression on his face. My breath caught in my throat.

  “Marry me, Jules. I want to be with you and love you for the rest of our lives. I want to make music with you and drink coffee here with you every day and make you laugh. I want to grow old and fat and wrinkly with you. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, and now what I want more than anything is to be your husband. To be your family. I love you.”

  The tears that had been threatening now spilled down my cheeks in earnest. I nodded. “Yes. Yes, of course I’ll marry you!” After he stood and slipped the ring on my finger, I threw my arms around him and said, “I love you, Pete. I’ve loved you from the moment I met you, and I’ve never stopped. Not even for a minute.”

  To Julia Maguire

  Acknowledgments

  Words cannot express my thanks to Julia Maguire, who championed this series from the beginning and guided me throughout the journey. Big thanks to Junessa Viloria and the Alibi team for all the work th
ey put into this book. I’m incredibly grateful to my agent, Ethan Ellenberg, for always being in my corner and pushing me to do more. Thank you to Zanna Mackenzie and Deborah Nam-Krane, my trusty betareaders, who continue to provide invaluable feedback and encouragement, and to Jenny Thompson for the inside scoop on the pharmaceutical business. Last but not least, I’m grateful to my family for their love and support.

  BY CAROLINE FARDIG

  The Lizzie Hart Mysteries

  It’s Just a Little Crush

  That Old Black Magic

  Bad Medicine

  My Funny Valentine

  Wedding Bell Blues

  The Java Jive Mysteries

  Death Before Decaf

  Mug Shot

  A Whole Latte Murder

  Brew or Die

  Murder Over Mochas

  The Ellie Matthews Mysteries

  Bitter Past

  PHOTO: JENNYLYNN PHOTOGRAPHY

  CAROLINE FARDIG is the USA Today bestselling author of the Java Jive Mysteries series and the Lizzie Hart Mysteries series. Fardig’s Bad Medicine was named one of the best books of 2015 by Suspense Magazine. She worked as a schoolteacher, church organist, insurance agent, funeral parlor associate, and stay-at-home mom before she realized that she wanted to be a writer when she grew up. Born and raised in a small town in Indiana, Fardig still lives in that same town with an understanding husband, two sweet kids, two energetic dogs, and one malevolent cat. Recordings of her original songs can be found on her website at carolinefardig.com/​music.

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