“Why? Because you all ignored me. You, Jessica, Diana, Marcus, Ryan, this entire town, the whole damn city even. I have worked hard my entire life and I have nothing to show for it. I watched Jessica and Ryan flaunt their love right in my face and mock me by pretending to be my friends. I watched you and Diana open up your bakery and without even trying, become an instant success. I suffered and struggled and lost while you all forgot about me. I did more for the city of New York and for this town then all of you put together. When is it my turn to be a hero? When is my turn to be recognized!?” Johnny shouted at them.
He continued on with his speech, now addressing Beth once more and as to how he expected to get away with his crimes. He explained that he had in fact been responsible for the break in at the bakery. No one ever suspected the hero or the first responder to a scene to be the one who committed the crime. Johnny had copied Beth’s menu plan, waiting for Diana to arrive so that he may attack her and run unseen, while shortly after returning but as her rescuer. Johnny had stolen two cupcakes from the kitchen that day in all the hecticness and hand delivered one to each Jessica and Ryan as pre-ceremony snacks while they readied. Both of the cupcakes were dosed with a slow acting poison as Johnny didn't want either of them to collapse at the ceremony or reception. He had waited in the underground tunnel beneath the kitchen for Marcus and the girls to finish up cleaning and leave.
He trashed the kitchen to distract anyone from the sprinkles he planted in the cabinet as evidence against Beth and Diana. He even went as far as to plant rumors amongst guests and family members so that they may suspect the girls. If he could throw Marcus under the bus then that would just be icing on the cake, so to speak. Johnny thanked Beth for leaving her fingerprints all over the bottle of poisoned sprinkles, although Johnny admitted that part had not been planned. Neither would having to shoot them all in the kitchen right now. Especially Jessica, who had foiled Johnny’s plan by not eating the cupcake he had sent her. Having already donned her wedding gown, Jessica, unbeknownst to Johnny, had refused the messy snack. Now he would have to devise a new story in which Jessica had been in on the evil plot to poison her husband Ryan. Johnny was sure to state that given his level of intelligence this and the excuse he needed for shooting them all would not be very hard to come up with at all.
Johnny raised the gun again, this time pointing it at Beth. She closed her eyes and waited for Johnny to pull the trigger. She instead hears a loud thunking noise and when she opened her eyes saw Johnny laying unconscious on the kitchen floor. Standing over him and holding a large frying pan was Mr. Rudden, Jessica’s father. After meeting with Johnny earlier that evening in the ballroom, Mr. Rudden had decided to go check up on his daughter. Not finding Jessica in her room he panicked and began to search the castle. Luckily for them, the kitchen was the first place that Mr. Rudden had decided to look. He had overheard Johnny yelling and crept up behind him, hearing Johnny’s full confession as well.
Securing the unconscious Johnny in a locked room on the top floor of the castle, Marcus, Mr. Rudden and the hotel’s manager took turns standing guard. Not that Johnny needed much guarding between the booze he had consumed and the knock he took to the head, Johnny didn't even stir once that night. When he did awake however, he was surprised to see sunshine through his window and elated that the storm had broken. His head was in terrible pain but still his first instinct was to escape and run. Though the room was rather high up, Johnny would rather take his chances with the climb that await his fate locked away in that room.
As Johnny leaned his head out of the window however, he could see that the perimeter of the building had already been surrounded by police cruisers and officers. He bowed his head in defeat and remained there as he heard a loud knocking at the door and an officer shout “NYPD!” All he had ever wanted was for everyone to recognize him and to matter to the people in his town. Beth watched as the police took Johnny out of the castle in cuffs. She supposed after all that in some ways Johnny had gotten his wish, surely no one would forget him now.
Key Lime Pie Murder
Alice Clifford is in big trouble. A man had died, and she is the prime suspect. A frigging man had died, and it happened right in my shop! Alice could not stop pacing the small apartment she had started to call home for the past four months. The images in her head were too much to handle. The whole events that day had happened too fast, and she needed the pace to remember every little detail. Or what she needed was to calm herself and think about getting herself out of this mess.
For the past two months, Alice Clifford has been in the spotlight because of a special recipe for a very delicious lime pie she had discovered. For Alice, the discovery was a breakthrough that would establish her career as a professional chef.
She had spent many years learning, serving and working as a cook in different multinational hotels and baking houses in the states before settling for a small town in Ohio. She had learnt pie was a common pastry in the area, and she wanted to give her neighbours a new flavour. So, Alice took to testing out different mix until she finally found the perfect taste. Lime.
Well, her breakthrough is about to come crumbling down, and everything started when she met James Green. Jamie worked in the local media and press and had bumped into Alice one morning while he was jogging. Alice had been jogging too and was too much entertained by the music she had on her music player. They had bumped into each other without warning on a bridge beside the town’s park, and Jamie had made his apology by asking her to share a morning coffee with him at the nearest café. She accepted with a smile and ever since, Jamie had been her only best friend in the town. Well, until he ended up dead in her shop fifty-two hours ago.
After their encounter on that bridge and the morning coffee that followed, Jamie had often visited Alice in her rented apartment that was a small flat with a bedroom that Alice seldom used. The apartment was painted cream, and most of Alice’s furniture was in the sitting room.
She had made the sitting room as comfortable as possible since she stays alone and might as well be sleeping there most of the nights. Alice had also carefully structured with expertise a small kitchen where she bakes and cooks her food. When Jamie came for the first time, he took note of all these and often joked about how her sitting room and the pie she offered him that day reminded him of his grandmother.
He claimed that the old woman wore more than three clothes at the same time, yet those stuffed clothes made her embrace as warm and welcoming as any home could be.
It was that same day that Jamie had eaten her lime pie and had thought it to be special. He had convinced her to feature it on the local weekly Chef Tabloid and see how people would react to it. She wanted to shy away from this at first, but Jamie was adamant.
“Come on Alice, featuring it won’t hurt, will it? Besides, you always told me you came to this town to establish yourself as a professional chef. This is one of those steps you can take to become one”, Jamie had said that day. He was more than right.
Few days after she had featured her recipe on the tabloid, of course, she had done well to remove one special ingredient that makes her pie stand out; one of the local television stations contacted her and requested that she prepares her much-anticipated pies for selected audience in one of their television shows.
This more than promoted her pies, it brought customers to her doorsteps and before Alice could say pie, she had enough reasons to rent a small shop and call it “Alice’s Lime Pies”. Jamie had helped her paint the store, and they both shared a cup of coffee and wondered how they achieved so much in such little time.
In fact, Jamie was the sole reason everything happened so fast and the only one who had met death through the quick success. After she had rented the shop, and everything was in place, Alice had invited new friends and neighbours to the opening of her shop and had served everyone a plate of her now famous lime pie.
Before that day, Alice had spent the whole night in the new shop with Jamie while most of the nigh
t was used to prepare lime pies for ten visitors. While Alice was baking, Jamie helped with the plates and even now, Alice could remember how she had often glanced at Jamie that night with a lot of admiration and gratitude in her heart.
When morning came, and the visitors arrived with presents and wishes, Alice found herself holding Jamie’s hand to control the tears that kept coming to her eyes. Although most of the visitors were friendly neighbours and acquaintances she had quickly made since her two-months stay in the town, Alice felt right where she thinks she belonged. Among her visitors, there was the newly-wedded Hampton couple. Their eyes never left each other since Alice had met them. Mrs Hampton has been caught several times flashing seductive smiles at her husband that Mr Hampton does so well always to reciprocate.
Another couple, old and in their mid-forties, the Greenheart seldom spoke but they appreciate good food and had been one of the first to order for Alice’s pies after seeing her bake them on the local network. Alice had invited them because they seem like very nice customers and neighbours. The Greenhearts live next door to her apartment. Every other visitors were random friends and acquaintances that had come to knock on the door of her shop when she started painting it and introduced themselves as one shop owner or the other. One makes pies just like Alice; another owns a coffee café while another claimed to own the shop that sells silk down the road. The list was endless.
They all laughed at Big Joe’s jokes while everyone enjoyed her pies. Big Joe’s real name was Joe Sullivan, but Alice assumed everyone called him that because of his size. Big Joe was narrating how he had escaped a German Sheppard that was bent on tearing him to pieces by rolling on the floor and pretending to be a dog. Big Joe walks people’s dogs for a living. At this hour, only six guests remained with her and Jamie, and Alice was already planning to call it a day.
Then Jamie kept asking for water before he started convulsing. He bled blood, and everyone watched while she struggled to keep him from falling heavily on the ground. Big Joe came near, but he was as confused as everyone about what to do to stop a man from drowning in his blood.
At least Mrs Hampton did do something by dialling 911 and getting the paramedics and police involved. Jamie was already dead before both got to her shop. According to the doctor’s post-mortem report, Jamie lungs had burned two hours after consuming poisoned lime pies and had drowned in his blood within ten to twenty seconds.
The truth was that her pie was the only thing Jamie had consumed that day.
Someone had killed Jamie and made it look like it was Alice that did it. In fact, the only reason Alice wasn’t behind bars as of present was because the cops haven’t found enough evidence to keep her there. Her family friend and lawyer, Morgan Brea, had bailed her out from the cops’ arrest few hours ago and had brought her home. She left Alice with a number of one of the investigators on a piece of a paper, in case she had any useful information about the night Jamie died and a piece of advice that Alice was so sure she wouldn’t follow.
“Alice, just stay quiet while I get you out of this. You didn’t do it. I know because I watched you grow this old, and you have never hurt a fly throughout your whole life. The cops might have no other suspects to investigate, but the fact remains that you ARE a suspect until proven otherwise. I will pull some powers and see that this investigation goes beyond what they are calling it. Of course, it is without doubt that the cops would be trailing your movements, expecting the slightest mistake to bring you down. Be careful Alice.”
Morgan had been with Alice’s family for thirty years and knew every member of the family well. Alice would want to listen to her, but she knew no one would ever believe a man had died after eating her pie, in her shop, in the presence of so many people, and she wasn’t the one that poisoned it? Alice finally sat down and slowed down her breaths. What she needed was a way to get herself out of this mess and following Morgan’s advice will not get her out for sure.
Alice thought about her neighbours and how many of them had started to treat her differently. When the cops took her in for questioning and detained her afterwards, she had told them to question her neighbours and see how well they would defend her that she could do nothing of the sort.
The Greenhearts had only told the police that Alice was a new face in the neighbourhood who usually keep to herself and her dead boyfriend.
Alice found that hard to believe when one of the police reported their comments to her but she confirmed it when Morgan brought her home and old Mrs Greenheart had shut their door on her face when she caught sight of her.
Even Kelly had not been different; as the owner of the shop next door and one of the visitors that were present when Jamie died in her shop, the police automatically took her up for questioning. Alice remembered how she had gotten the store by contacting Kelly.
Jamie was the one that introduced Kelly to her as an old friend. They went to high school together and had known each other for years.
Kelly had been supportive and was the one that informed them of the vacant store next door that could be converted to the pie shop of their dream.
A week later, Alice took the shop and Kelly often show up to ask how things were going with the place. Well, most times, Kelly came with one gossip or the other about other shop owners in the area and Alice had only allowed that to go on for long because of the circumstances that instigated how she knew Kelly.
Well, Kelly was also a sweet woman in her mid-thirties who still has a dream of becoming a model. Another thing was that Alice suspected that Kelly liked Jamie, and it often shocked Alice to know that she was uncomfortable with the way Kelly often flirted with Jamie.
Well, Kelly had told the police that Jamie was a good man who had lived most of his adult life improving himself and the town he lived in. She added that he had changed in the few months he knew Alice Clifford.
He started withdrawing from the people he knew and spent most of his time at her house. She painted the whole picture as if Alice had something over Jamie that made him do everything she wanted. It was horrible how the police kept asking Alice afterwards what her motives were for blackmailing and killing James Green.
Alice has no idea how and where to start, but she was already summoning the courage to find out who could want James Green dead and why. She needed to find out herself and reveal everything to the police or she risk ending her new found career in jail instead. Talking about her career, as recently popular, it was on the local news again. But instead of the headline “Upcoming Professional Chef Makes Mark with Lime Pie”, the media was reporting “Alice of ‘Alice’s Lime Pies’ Arrested for Murder”.
Alice placed her face in her hands and sobbed. The Press is having my name and that of my business in the mud already!
Alice sobbed for some time and wished she had someone to talk to. Morgan is the only person she has left as a relation. As the only child, Alice’s parents had spent most of their life making sure their daughter was happily chasing her dream. Since Alice was a child, she loved the smell of good food and had always joked of changing the world with just a little sausage. Her mother had always encouraged her, and when Alice was of age, she registered her in a school that taught professional cooking skills.
Her parents were always proud of her, and she was happy. Alice sobs increased when she thought of all these, especially since she remembered her parents had died a long time ago, and Morgan had been the one to help with things once in a while.
At twenty-eight, Alice is used to taking risks and calculating the consequences. This time around, Alice refused to see any consequence except her sorry ass in jail or the real killer’s instead. She wanted things to go back to how they have been, but Jamie was dead and nothing can bring him back. So Alice stopped crying and pinched herself. Find out who killed your best friend and save your career. Save your innocent self from prison!
Alice stood up and found out how surprisingly calm her body had become. She will investigate this incident herself, and she will allow nothin
g to frustrate or discourage her. First, she has to find out everything she does not know about James Green.
This is a dead end as well! Alice cursed and almost hit herself.
Everything was starting to become frustrating and discouraging. She had woken up this morning with a stubbornness to know everything there is to know about Jamie, her friend. Well, her dead friend. And it turned out there is nothing else to know.
James Green was exactly what she had known him to be. He grew up in the town, went to high school with Kelly Wellington and has been working in the local Press and Media for almost ten years. The only extra thing she had found out today was that Jamie was not fond of women, and the whole town was equally shocked and happy to find out he finally was interested in one. That one person he was interested in was Alice.
When Alice found out Jamie parents were dead as well, she was doubtful she can find someone else to tell her about Jamie. Well, the media had presented the whole case as if Alice was the one that killed him and it was hard finding someone to tell her anything about him.
She finally thought of searching for James Green on Facebook or Instagram and found out on his Facebook profile that he had a brother. His name is Randy and Alice had traced the address she found on his brother’s profile to a farm in the outskirt of the town.
The Alpha Billionaire's Unexpected Baby: A Billionaire BWWM Pregnancy Romance Page 58
