When we pushed open the door, the sound assaulted us immediately. Thud! And then a pause. Thud! And then another pause.
“What’s that?” Beth whispered.
We took a few brave steps forward, and even Pixie seemed to be frozen with fear as she huddled against my shoulder.
A cell phone had been placed on one of the café tables, its screen emanating the ghastly light and acting as a dim flashlight. A man, dressed entirely in black and wearing a ski mask, stood opposite the wall on the other side and banged into it with a sledgehammer. Thud! There it was again.
A few broken chairs scattered the area around where he stood. My heart leaped into my throat, pounding away as loudly as the noise made by the sledgehammer. I was surprised that the man in black didn’t hear my crazy loud heartbeat and turn around.
The man lowered his sledgehammer for a moment, and as though sensing our presence—or maybe he’d heard our footsteps—he turned around.
For one long moment, the man stared at Beth and me in silence.
I gulped and managed to find my voice. “Hi,” I said weakly. “Um. What…?”
My voice trailed off and the man shook his head, as though woken from a trance. “I can’t believe this,” he said in a deep voice. “Not again.”
“Hellooo,” cooed Pixie from my shoulder. “Hello.”
The man squinted and stared at Pixie. “What’s that?”
“It’s my friend’s parrot,” said Beth. I could tell that she was trying to be brave, but her voice shook a little. “It’s Pixie.”
“Hello,” said Pixie again. “Hello. Pixie. Hellopixie.”
The man shook his head in disbelief. “Who brings a parrot to a murder scene?”
“We needed company,” I said, crossing my arms across my chest defensively. “Besides, Pixie doesn’t know it’s a murder scene. Pixie thinks we’re having fun.”
The man narrowed his eyes. “I’m not here to have fun.”
“Then why are you here?” I said. I took one step backward, and Beth followed my lead. “Why’re you breaking things?”
“Because it’s fun,” the man snarled. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”
Beth and I shook our heads rapidly. From my shoulder, Pixie said, “Pixie.”
The man glanced at Pixie and shook his head in disbelief once again. “Fine,” he said. “I’m Pixie. Now run along. Leave me alone.”
He stood there, waiting for us to leave, and I remembered Neve, sitting on Mike’s couch and smiling, waiting for us to leave.
I couldn’t give up. I wouldn’t leave without finding out what was going on.
“This is about Tim’s murder, isn’t it?” I said. I glanced around rapidly, trying to find something that we might use as a weapon, even as Beth and I took another step backward. But there was nothing, other than the heavy stand mixer that Beth held in her hands.
The man threw his head back in exasperation, and when we didn’t leave, he said, “Look, I had to kill Tim, and that time I ran away. Now I know this place isn’t alarmed. I know nobody’s going to come get me. I’m going to finish up my work here—alone.”
“Maybe we can watch,” I said, trying to sound brave and curious. “Or maybe we can help.”
The man lifted up his sledgehammer and took a step towards us. “You can get out. Or you can die, like Tim did.” He glanced at Pixie. “Not sure what to do about the bird. Maybe I can take her home with me. She seems smart.”
Pixie clearly didn’t understand what was being said and thought that the humans were having a fun late-night picnic. She purred loudly in my ear and said, “Pixie. Good girl Pixie.”
The man watched her, fascinated, and I twisted my head to look at my unfaithful pet. “Why’re you being nice to him, Pixie?” I said. “He’s not a nice man.”
“Sure I am,” the man leered. “I can be very nice.”
Completely misreading the situation, Pixie flew over to the man. I gasped and accidentally let go of the leash. Pixie landed on the man’s shoulder, and I screamed, “No! Pixie! Come back!”
Pixie ignored me completely. She leaned close to the ski mask, decided that it smelled bad, and lunged at it, biting into the man’s skin.
“Stop!” the man yelped, more surprised than hurt. He dropped his sledgehammer, and Pixie bit down hard. The ski mask clearly offended her, and she gave the mask as much pressure as she would give an almond shell. The man screamed, this time clearly in pain, and tried to grab hold of Pixie.
Pixie flew off, just in time, and Beth and I rushed forward. I grabbed the fallen sledgehammer, and Beth thrust the heavy stand mixer into the man’s stomach. There was a loud oof as the air rushed out of his mouth, and he collapsed, winded, onto his knees and fell forward, clutching his stomach.
I used the sledgehammer to press on his back carefully. “Stay on the ground,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt you. Hands behind your back.”
Pixie cawed loudly and she flew around the café, and Beth pressed one foot against the man’s back, making sure that he couldn’t move.
Pixie chose that moment to fly back to me, and she settled onto my shoulder and screamed loudly in my ear.
“Yes,” I told her. “You did a good thing. Good girl, Pixie.”
“Good girl Pixie,” Pixie repeated, and then she purred loudly as Beth found her cell phone and dialed 911.
“Stop,” the man said. “Don’t call the cops.”
I looked at him. He wasn’t moving or trying to escape, and Beth and I seemed safe. “Why shouldn’t we call them?”
“You’ll want to hear this first,” he said.
Chapter Thirty-One
I looked at Beth and she shrugged.
“Okay,” I said. “Tell us why we shouldn’t call the cops.”
“You girls could be rich. This dead man, Tim. He owned all these diamonds. And now they’re mine. Ours.”
I frowned. “The diamonds he gave to his ladies?”
“Not those,” said the man. “These ones he didn’t know he had.”
I glanced at the wall which he’d been banging a hole into. “Let me guess. They’re hidden away in that wall.”
“Exactly,” said the man. “Except Tim didn’t know.”
“Then how’d they get into the wall?”
“I worked on the renovation. I had some hot ice that I needed to hide, and I came by one night, put it in the drywall, and built up around it.”
“Hang on,” I said. Things were starting to fall into place. “You worked on the renovation, which means you work for a construction company. Simon?”
“Bingo,” he said. “I’m surprised you didn’t recognize my voice.”
I shrugged. “I was nervous. Is that why you killed Tim?”
“I didn’t mean to kill Tim,” said Simon.
“Just like you didn’t mean to punch the cop.”
He went silent for a few seconds and said, “You went through my record. Wow.”
“No stone unturned,” I said lightly. “What was that about?”
“It was an accident after I’d had a few drinks,” he said. “And when Tim walked in—well, I panicked. I didn’t want him calling the cops on me, or putting in extra security in this place.”
“So you weren’t really interested in buying the place,” said Beth. “You just wanted to take a good look around, and make sure you got your stuff before the new owner thought to remodel.”
“Exactly,” said Simon. “Don’t tell the cops about this, and half the ice is yours.”
I shook my head no. I didn’t trust the man, and anyway, I’m no expert at fencing diamonds. “It’s too late,” I told him. “Even if it was an accident, you killed a man. And the wrong man could’ve gone to prison for it.”
***
It was a long night for Beth and me. After Simon was arrested, we had to go to the station and give our statements, and then we stopped by Mike’s apartment and woke him up.
“I guess it was worth working slowly,” I told him, and
explained how we’d run into Simon. The man was refusing to talk until his lawyer got there, but he’d already confessed to us, so there was strong evidence against him. And there was enough evidence for the police to drop the charges against Mike.
“I’m sorry I ever doubted you guys,” said Mike. “And I’m sorry about Neve. I know she was trying to interview everyone quickly, and maybe the two of you talking to the same people messed things up a little.”
“It’s not a big deal,” I said. I had a sneaky feeling that I’d have to get used to Neve’s meddling.
“Well,” said Beth, “if Neve hadn’t kept rushing around, maybe we’d have spent more time looking into Simon. The man used to work at a company that renovated houses, and there was a burglary in one of the houses that they renovated. Police always suspected an inside job. The diamonds in the drywall were stolen from that house.”
I sighed. “If we’d found a big gaping hole the next day, we’d probably have started to piece things together anyway. We were already suspicious about Simon.”
“Unlike Neve,” said Mike. “She kept telling me that Whitney was the best lead.”
We chatted a bit about the case, and then Beth said, “So, what’re you going to do now? Is Neve going to buy the café?”
“I’m not sure,” Mike said. “Apparently her dad doesn’t want to loan her the money. But I’ll find someone else. The plan is to sell the café and move to Palo Alto. I need to be with my daughter.”
I looked at Mike and smiled. “What brought that on?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess, watching all those Prison Break episodes made me rethink my life. I could’ve gone to prison. I wouldn’t have ever seen my daughter, then. I need to make the most of my life. I guess my ex-wife is right, I need to stop being so impulsive and step up.”
Beth and I nodded, and once we’d collected a check for the rest of our work, we said our goodbyes. On the drive home, Beth said, “Mike wasn’t the kind of guy I thought he’d be. But I guess he’s trying to be better. I guess people do change.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Beth and I went to the station the next day to answer a few more questions, and when we walked towards the bullpen, we ran into Neve.
She was wearing a pretty floral-print dress, sky-high stilettos, and dangly pink earrings.
“You look nice,” Neve said when she saw us. “Great job with the undereye concealer.”
Beth gulped, and I said, “We’ve got dark circles because we were up half the night helping the cops nab the person who actually killed Timothy Broker.” I looked at her pointedly. “Instead of just pretending we’d done our job.”
Neve snorted. “Hmmph. Well, I turned up some things, too.”
“Of course,” I said politely. “But isn’t being a private investigator a lot more difficult than you thought it would be?”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “I’m going to be qualified soon. And then, believe me, you’re going to see a lot more of me around.” She tossed her hair and stalked off.
Beth and I looked at each other. The woman might be annoying, but I trusted her when she said she’d keep showing up in our lives.
We headed over to Matt’s desk. His partner, Ethan, was sitting next to him, both of them looking at something on the computer screen. I caught a glimpse of a YouTube cat video before the two quickly closed the window and turned us.
Matt smiled at Beth. “It’s good to see you again,” he said.
Beth smiled and murmured something polite in response.
“So, you and Mike. Were you, like—friends or something?” Matt asked.
Beth shook her head. “I barely knew him.”
“I thought you seemed happy to see him,” said Matt.
Beth shrugged. “It was a blast from the past. But the case is over now, and I won’t be seeing Mike again.”
Matt smiled and stood up. “You must be tired from answering all those questions. Why don’t we go to the break room and grab some coffee?”
I watched the two walk away, and then Ethan and I locked eyes. “I’d ask you to stay,” said Ethan. “But I’m really busy.”
I nodded. “Yeah, those ninja cats sure are sneaky.”
The muscles in Ethan’s face relaxed, and he laughed, looking much younger than his years. “You wanna watch the rest of it?”
He fired up the screen and I pulled up a chair next to him. As the video ended, realization struck. “I’m your Neve,” I said.
Ethan looked at me. “You’re not my anything. That ended when you left for college.”
I blushed. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
Ethan watched me closely, his dark eyes revealing nothing. “Then what did you mean?”
“I keep turning up in your life, even though you want to avoid me,” I said slowly. “We’re older now, and it’s not high school. But I’m not doing this to annoy you. I really am a good investigator, and I need the paycheck.”
Ethan shook his head, still smiling. “It doesn’t matter. You’ll leave soon, anyway. It’s not like you ever stick to anything.”
I looked at him, shocked. “Is this because I left Santa Verona after high school? I wanted to go to college—”
“We’ve got a good college here.”
“And I wanted to be a screenwriter.”
“And you were, and you got bored of it. Like you get bored of everything.”
I watched Ethan silently. He’d closed the windows on his screen, all the better for me to not see any sensitive information, and was now checking the messages on his phone.
“I don’t get bored of everything,” I said. “I just wanted to come back home.”
“And here you are,” said Ethan, putting his phone away. “Voilà.”
I shifted in my seat awkwardly. “Well, I’m sorry I irritate you, but this is my job now. And we do try to make it up to you by bringing you cakes.”
“Beth makes it up to me. She’s the one who makes the cakes.”
“Well, I help.”
“Sure you do,” said Ethan. “But if I were to turn up at your apartment one night, would you be able to bake me a cake?”
“Why would you turn up at my apartment one night? It’s not like I’d let you in.”
Ethan threw his head back and laughed. “Okay, then,” he said finally. “How about you make it up to me some other way, then?”
“Something that doesn’t involve you coming up to my apartment.”
Ethan grinned and nodded. “Exactly.”
I thought about it. Ethan’s eyes were dark and glittering, and the smile reminded me too much of good times in the past. “Okay,” I said warily. “If that means getting you off my back. What do you want?”
“Have dinner with me.”
Our eyes held and locked. I tried to fight the blush that I could feel spreading across my cheeks. “Like a date?”
“Of course not,” said Ethan. “A date would mean the potential of coming up to see your new apartment. And we know that’s not going to happen.”
I nodded, wondering why my cheeks felt so hot. “Exactly.”
“Just an apology dinner. Nothing else.”
One dinner to apologize for being such an annoying, good-at-her-job investigator, and then we’d move on. That’s all it was. There was no need to get that fluttering, butterflies-in-my-stomach feeling.
Plus, I needed to stop grinning like an idiot.
“Okay,” I said. “One dinner. Nothing else. And it’s not a date.”
“Of course not,” said Ethan. “It’s definitely not a date.”
Join the A.R. Winters Newsletter
Find out about the latest releases by AR Winters, and get access to exclusive free copies of her books:
CLICK HERE TO JOIN
If you enjoyed this first book in the Piece of Cake mystery series, make sure you check out book two, Wacky Walnuts…
Wacky Walnuts: A Piece of Cake Mystery
When socialite Celeste Rocheford is murdered, Min
dy’s best friend Beth Miller finds herself the prime suspect.
Mindy must prove Beth's innocence and find the real killer – while dealing with her meddling high-school nemesis, Neve, and her former flame, Ethan Macaulay...
Click here to start reading
Dead Man's Diamonds: A Piece of Cake Mystery (Piece of Cake Mysteries Book 1) Page 12
