I bite my bottom lip as I think back to all the times Ralph has cheerfully delivered napkins, straws, and all the other little odds and ends that keep The Three Scoops running smoothly.
“He never acted like anything was wrong until that last visit. Even then, he just seemed like he was nervous more than actually afraid. Maybe they’re one and the same, but I remember feeling more confused than anything by his behavior.”
“Did Ralph ever talk to you about any other customers on his route?”
I shake my head. “No. Never.”
“No mention of anyone? Not even a name drop?”
I shake my head again. “No. He didn’t like to gossip. Once in awhile he looked like he wanted to say something, but he always stopped himself. It wasn’t my business anyway,” I add. “We always kept things on a professional level.”
Kyle glances down at the paper in his manila folder. “Would you consider Ralph as someone with enemies?”
“We all have enemies, don’t we?” I widen my eyes, mostly because I am really confused by Kyle’s line of questioning and not because I’m trying to look innocent or hide anything from him. “No one is liked by everyone at all times.”
He starts to close the manila folder on the table. Before it snaps shut I just have time to make out the word “route” written in red ink and underlined twice. “That should be it for now. Thanks, Maddy. I appreciate you coming down to the station.”
“Are we still on for that dinner and a movie date at my place tonight?” I ask.
Kyle’s whole body relaxes when he smiles. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
Becka is hanging around for me when Kyle walks me back to the waiting room.
“Hey, Maddy, guess what!” Becka has a smug I-have-a-secret smile on her face. I’m guessing her secret isn’t all that secret and involves getting Officer Steve’s phone number. Still, I play along. Becka wouldn’t have it any other way.
“What?”
“Officer Steve scoped my digits.” She bounces up and down on her heels like we’re back in high school and she could barely contain her crush on the quarterback. “Maybe we both can date cops!”
I wonder about the guy she offered free ice cream to this morning, but I know there’s no way a handsome delivery guy will stand a chance next to a handsome cop, at least not in Becka’s book. I glance back at Kyle and smile. “It has its benefits.”
It definitely does, especially when it comes to solving mysteries. The first thing I’m doing when I get home is calling up Delivery Plus and seeing if I can find out what Ralph’s delivery route was.
CHAPTER THREE
“Pizza delivery!”
Kyle stoops to kiss me on the cheek in greeting before moving past me into my house. He sets the pizza box down on the low coffee table next to the two glasses of wine I’ve already poured.
Pizza? He says he’s going to bring dinner to our dinner and a movie night and he brings pizza? And what’s up with the cheek kiss? My lips are right here and waiting, yet he goes for the cheek.
Maybe I don’t know Kyle as well as I think I do…Or maybe he’s just not as interested in me as I think he is.
“Red wine and pizza?” I sit down next to Kyle on the couch. He looks like he’s itching to turn on the basketball game instead of the romantic comedy I picked out for our dinner-and-a-movie date. “That doesn’t exactly go together. Kind of like us.”
“Says who?” Kyle holds up his wine glass so we can toast this unusual date. “Anything — or anyone — can fit together if they try hard enough. Nothing comes naturally. We all have to work at it.”
“Is that how you feel about us?” I pick the pepperonis off my slice of pizza and eat them first. “Do we need to try to make things work instead of it being easy and natural?”
Kyle takes a sip of wine before answering. “Where is this insecurity coming from, Maddy? We talked about being casual. What’s wrong with being casual?”
“We also talked about this being a rebound relationship,” I remind him. “Maybe we’ve been doomed from the start and neither of us want to be the first to say it out loud.”
“What are you talking about?” Kyle ruffles a hand through his dark hair. He looks frustrated and stumped in a decidedly male sort of way. “I thought things were good between us. You never said or did anything to make me think otherwise. This is coming completely out of left field, Maddy. Can’t you see that?”
“If things are good, why are you treating me more like a sister than a girlfriend?” I ask. “You kissed me on the cheek, Kyle. Where I come from, that doesn’t scream ‘super happy to see you.’”
“I am super happy to see you, Maddy,” Kyle says. “Trust me. I’m very, very happy to see you.”
He leans forward and kisses me — really kisses me. I sink back into the couch and my mind just stops. I stop thinking about The Three Scoops, or Ralph’s murder or anything else that could spoil this moment. Instead of thinking, I just feel.
Here in his arms, while he’s kissing me, I’m somewhere else, and it’s just so good. I want more of this. I want to forget everything that’s happened in the last months. I want to shut down everything that’s holding me back and just be.
“Kyle? Should we go upstairs?”
He sits up, or at least sits back to make it easier to actually look at me while he’s talking. “Is that what you want?”
Is it?
I try to think of why I wouldn’t want to take Kyle upstairs. Besides the fact that he’s utterly gorgeous and we have a great time together when my insecurities don’t surface to ruin things, he always thinks of me first. He’s always protecting me and putting me first.
With David, it was always him, him, him. I took a backseat from day one in the relationship. In high school, I was too young to know any better. When I did grow up, I was just so used to being in the background that I didn’t bother to correct it.
But my relationship with Kyle is the complete opposite of what I had with David. He’s kind, considerate, caring, and never troubles me with anything. And I mean anything. He has a lot of secrets that he’s still holding close but I don’t press. I know he’ll tell me when the time is right.
Then it hits me. My life has been on pause since David died. I’ve been going through the motions instead of actually living. I’ve been acting how I should, saying what I should, but it’s all been a show. I wanted people to think I moved on — that I was okay — when I really wasn’t.
Taking Kyle upstairs meant hitting the unpause button on my life. It meant I was finally, truly ready to move on. Is that what I what? Do I want to move on?
I start to nod yes, but then I stop.
Something doesn’t feel right about this. I want to pull closer to Kyle, to all the tantalizing sensations I’m experiencing right now, I want to move on and start living again, but something is niggling at me.
I take a deep breath, and I realize. It’s not that I shouldn’t unpause my life. It’s just that this isn’t the way I want to do it. Going to bed with him now would be the ultimate rebound move, and that’s not fair to either one of us.
If I’m going to open myself up to Kyle this way, it’s not going to just be another way of escaping. It’s not going to be for any other reason that that’s what seems the most right thing to do.
I smile, pull back just a drop, and shake my head. “I do want it, but I don’t think now’s the right time. I’m getting there and I will be ready some day, just not today. I want to, though. I want you to know that.”
He leans forward and kisses the center of my forehead. “No pressure, remember, Maddy? I’m here for you no matter what.”
I crumble against his chest, enjoying the feel of his arms around me. I just enjoy being close to him in general. It’s safe and comforting and a million other things I couldn’t probably name. I’m safe.
That is, until someone throws a brick through my living room window.
CHAPTER FOUR
Kyle reacts on instinct. He does a
duck-and-cover move over me like you see in those war movie fire-in-the-hole scenes.
I squeeze my eyes shut and wait for something to happen. I’m not even sure what I’m waiting for. Maybe I’m waiting for gunshots or an actual bomb to go off, but nothing happens. Well, nothing besides the shattered glass and scaring the crap out of me.
“Kyle?” I tap his tense shoulder to try to get him to come back from wherever the commotion took him to in his mind. “At ease, soldier. I think someone is just trying to scare us, not hurt us.”
“How do you know?” His words come out through gritted teeth, but at least he’s back with me in the present. That reaction makes me think I can check off something I didn’t know about Kyle — he very likely served in the military.
“Because if they wanted to hurt us — or worse — they’d have tried a little harder than chucking something through the window.”
I wiggle out from under his rigid body and slide to the floor. It’s not the most graceful move ever, but it gets the job done. I stand and walk with more confidence than I feel toward the brick sitting so innocently on my bedroom floor.
“It’ll have a note,” Kyle says. “They always have a note.”
I pick it up, turn it over, and find a piece of thin, parchment-like paper taped to the bottom. Scratched out in black ink are the words, “First Ralph, then you. Stay out of where you don’t belong.”
The phone call, I think. I hadn’t considered my call to Delivery Plus to be a success, being that the girl who answered said she didn’t know what Ralph’s route had been. She took my name and number, but no one called back.
Could that be what this was about? Did I set off the murderer’s freak-out alarm with that phone call?
Kyle jumps into police mode. “Do you know what this is talking about?” he says, gripping my shoulders.
“No,” I say slowly, shaking my head. That’s pretty honest… I think. I mean, I don’t know what this is about, and making a wild guess that it’s about a phone call I know Kyle wouldn’t be thrilled about doesn’t seem to me to be a wise move right now.
“Fine.” He jumps up and starts pacing. “We’ll amp up police presence on your street and at The Three Scoops. I’ll personally check on you every night and —”
“Kyle.” I tiptoe to kiss him lightly on the lips.
It shuts him up, which was my goal. “If this is meant to be scary, I’m not scared. If anything, it makes me want find out who did this to Ralph even more than I did before.”
“Leave it to the police, Maddy,” Kyle warns. “It’s our job.”
I kiss him again. “I know, and you’re great at it, but if I can find something out to help you with the case, what’s the harm in that?”
“A lot,” he says. “This isn’t a game, Maddy. A man was murdered.”
“I’m not going to treat it like a game,” I say. “But I do think Ralph deserves justice and the faster we figure out who did this to him, the better.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“Remind me again why I let you talk me into doing this. If you want to work the undercover angle, why do you have to drag me along?”
Becka turns in a circle in front of the full-length mirror in my bedroom. We’re both wearing wigs and delivery driver uniforms. It’s not the best disguise ever, but it will get us in to Delivery Plus and out with his route list before anyone thinks to question us…I hope.
“The police already got a copy of the route, but who is going to talk to police?” I say. “They might talk to us.”
“Because we’re dressed like this?”
“No, because eventually even the most tightlipped person can’t help but spill a couple secrets. When they do, we’re going to be there.”
“If you say so, but I am totally not being caught anywhere wearing a fanny pack.” She throws the little hands free waist purse I offer her right back at me. “You wear it.”
I wrap the fanny pack around my waist and snap it in place. “Fine. Let’s go.”
Becka follows me out to the rental car I leased, just so no one can trace mine or Becka’s car. If you’re going undercover, you can’t drive your own car.
“I totally won’t forgive you if you get me killed,” Becka says. “Seriously, I’ll haunt you forever.”
“How is that different from now?”
She punches my shoulder. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Maddy.”
“So do I, Becka. So do I.”
I turn the key in the ignition. The car springs to life, but I‘m not so fast on the upswing. Instead, I take a deep breath, hold it, and count to five.
I can do this. Ralph deserves justice and we can help make that possible. I let all the air out in one, long breath before putting the car in drive and heading over to Delivery Plus.
*
The uninterested office clerk doesn’t think to question us at all when we show up and say we’re taking over Ralph’s route. We flash some IDs that are faker than our fake hair and are instantly let inside. I’m not complaining, but if one of your employees just got killed, you might want to beef up security a bit.
“It’s so horrible what happened to Ralph.” I say as the office clerk leads us to Ralph’s delivery truck. “I get why no one wanted his route. Bad Karma and all that.”
“Yeah, it’s a real bummer.”
I see someone tall and male dart behind one of the trucks, but when I turn to get a better look, he’s gone.
The clerk hands over the keys. “Don’t let it happen to you, okay? If we have three murders on one route, no one’s ever going to want to work it again.”
“We’ll do our best.” Becka grabs the keys and hops into the driver’s seat.
“Have you ever driven something like this before?” I whisper after climbing into the passenger side.
“How hard can it be?” She turns the key, waves at the office clerk, and pulls out of the loading area.
As we turn onto the main road, I see that guy again, the one who had run behind the truck. It’s Mike, the guy Becka was flirting with, who’d come into The Three Scoops right before Ralph was murdered.
I hope he didn’t recognize us. That wouldn’t be good.
My plan is simple enough. We’re going to drive Ralph’s route, ask questions, and hope we learn enough to send the police in the right direction. My simple plan goes simply enough until we get to the stop right before The Three Scoops.
After Becka parks the car, I see another Delivery Plus truck zoom by. It’s going pretty quickly for an in-town street, but not so fast that I can’t see who’s driving it.
The guy behind the wheel is Mike. And he catches my eye as he drives past.
“Isn’t that—“ Becka starts.
“Yup,” I say. “It’s the other guy. The one you were toying with.”
“Oh, come on.” She rolls her eyes. “I wasn’t toying with him. I was just —”
I cut her off. “Don’t you think it’s strange that he’s here again. And that he came into The Three Scoops in the first place? If he’s working for the same company as Ralph, and it’s Ralph’s route, why would he even be in the area.”
She looks thoughtful. “I don’t know,” she says slowly. “You’re not saying he could be the murderer, are you?” She shakes her head. “Murderers aren’t supposed to be hot.”
Now I roll my eyes. “Give me a break. I think it’s definitely suspicious. And something to investigate. I’m going to ask about him when I go in.”
She nods and puts her hand on the door handle, but I stop her.
“You stay here,” I say. “I have the tape recorder, remember?”
“But what if you need backup?”
She wasn’t concerned about me needing backup on any of the other stops. I bet she’s just worried about Mark coming back and being the super-hot, super-evil murderer.
I suppress a smile. “If I’m not back in ten minutes, call Kyle, ‘kay.”
She digs her phone out of her pocket and holds it at the ready. “Be c
areful, okay?”
I smile and nod before grabbing my clipboard and heading into the restaurant. This better work…or else.
*
The Asian Dragon looks like your typical Chinese grill, with paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling and painted dragons on the walls. It’s actually some place I wouldn’t mind going for a date night with Kyle…if it wasn’t so deadly quiet. There are no customers, no employees — everything is silent. This is not the way to run a business at the height of the lunch rush.
“Um, hello?” I call. “Is anyone here? I’m the new delivery driver. I took over for Ralph.”
“Ralph?” A Chinese woman with the chopsticks in her hair appears from the back room. I cross my fingers, hoping she won’t recognize me. “I was so sorry to hear about Ralph. Such a pity when a good man dies young.”
“Yeah, he was well liked,” I play my role. “We miss him.”
She bows her head slightly. “As do we.”
“So, I, uh, have your napkin order.” I motion at the box I’ve just lugged in. “Do you have any particular place you want me to put it?”
“In back is fine.”
She leads the way through a red curtain to the supply room. I set the box down and she signs and initials where she should. So far nothing is too terribly out of the ordinary.
“I just wanted to know…” I say slowly, trying to come up with the best way to ask about Mike.
“Yes?”
“Has another Delivery Plus guy been here?”
“Ralph, of course.” Her eyes narrow.
I shake my head. “No, besides Ralph. There was another guy, Mike. Tall, with black hair and green eyes. He came into the ice cream shop the same time as you.”
I gulp. Oops. I forgot that I’m not me. She stares at me, then shakes her head. She doesn’t say anything though, so I’m not sure that she’s figured out who I am. I do think she knows something, though.
I try again. “Is it usually so quiet here during the lunch rush?”
“Our customers do not come see, we go to them,” she says.
Ice Creamed: A Three Scoops Ice Cream Shop Short Story (Three Scoops Ice Cream Shop Cozy Short Stories Book 2) Page 2
