She nodded sadly. “Except for Doug. It looks like he’s going to be convicted of the murder.” Her big blue eyes blinked back tears. “I mean I know it’s absurd--he killed Dahlia and tried to kill me. But…it’s still going to take some time to get over.”
“Yeah,” I nodded. Even though he was a lying, cheating, killing bastard, I knew how it was to love someone who was a jerk—minus the killing part.
“You know, that’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.” I sat up straight and cleared my throat. “I…was thinking. I’m considering writing an article about this whole story for the paper. I mean, as you know, that was my original goal in coming out here…journalism. And I didn’t get the TV job but I was thinking I could do a real in depth piece on this.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “So… you’d want to interview me?”
“Yeah, I mean, if you wouldn’t mind.”
She was looking at me, obviously considering the idea. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. After all, I do owe you.”
“No, it’s not that,” I assured her. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to say ‘yes’. I was just thinking I’d focus on you and your store and how Doug ruined everything and tried to kill you. I mean, who knows? Maybe it’ll provide good publicity for your new shop."
She smiled and clasped my hand. “Okay, let’s do it! I’m just taking inventory here, before everything’s dismantled and packed up tomorrow. And I was planning to make a last batch of Bundts, as a thank you for all your help.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet,” I said. “But completely unnecessary…”
“It’s the least I can do,” she said, giving me a look.
I thought of arguing more but who was I kidding? I really wanted that last batch of delicious Bundts. I nodded in thanks.
“Why don’t you come back this evening and we’ll do it then?” she said.
“Great, okay.” I stood up and grabbed my purse. “Do you need any help with anything here?”
She shook her head and started collecting our tea things and putting them back on the tray. “Actually, Rosie, would you mind keeping Cupcake for a few more days? I just need to get things in order before I take her back.”
“No problem. I love Cupcake. I’ll see you later,” I said with a wave, then I headed out of the store feeling like a confident young woman, taking charge of my life. Nana would be so proud—that’s if she was on speaking terms me so I could tell her. And Casey would be prou…
I stopped myself. I wasn’t going to go there. Casey was a cheater and I was through with cheaters.
I went back to the guest house and played with Cupcake for a few minutes. Then I fed her, made myself a snack of yogurt and blueberries, and sat down at the dining table to organize my research on the Bundt Baby murder.
I considered pitching the concept to the local paper before I even started on it, but then figured why limit myself? A story this compelling might turn into a magazine piece that could lead to bigger things for me. After all, I did have the inside scoop.
I started out by making a general list of questions that I wanted to ask Babette. Then with Cupcake rubbing against my ankles in apres-dinner gratitude, I stroked her head as I looked at the available research online.
I rewatched some of the footage from the bridal shower that had been posted on various news channel websites. There were so many different versions of it, taken from so many different camera phones and video recorders that I watched the same thing at least 5 times from different angles.
It was interesting to see but I had the advantage of having been there. And of having Babette to interview about the whole thing.
I knew I should nap, but I was too excited at the prospect of the article. I even jotted down a few notes for my opening paragraph. It was all I could do to wait until my interview with her at 6:00.
By 5:30 I couldn’t wait any longer, so I gave Cupcake a ‘goodbye’ scratch, then headed out.
I arrived at Bundt Baby fifteen minutes early, figuring I could at get some shots of the store before it was all dismantled. I didn’t think Babette would mind and if she did I’d just wait outside. I expected her to be in the store, baking or inventorying, but I noticed that outside, the parking lot was empty. Her car wasn’t there.
I walked up to the front door and peered through the window but it was dark inside. The only light seemed to be coming from the back which was visible because the door to the kitchen was slightly ajar. I knocked, but there was no answer. Maybe Babette was in the back and couldn’t hear me.
The store key was still on my keychain, so I unlocked the front door. The chimes tinkled as I went in. The place was dark, and the glass displays empty. There were boxes stacked on the little eat-in tables, so I took a few shots with my phone camera and then headed to the kitchen door.
I pushed it open and peeked my head in. From where I was standing I could see that the dim light in back was coming from the opened freezer door. That seemed odd.
“Babette?” I called out, as I entered the kitchen. “It’s Rosie! I’m a little early but…”
Just then the back door slammed shut as though someone had just run out the back way. I frowned and flipped on the kitchen light, looking around. “Babette?”
The trays of recently-made Bundt cakes were cooling on the racks, and a bag of butter cream frosting was sitting on the counter, just waiting to be used. But there was no sign of Babette.
That’s when I heard the chimes on the store’s front door open.
I went to the door that separated the kitchen from the front of the store and looked out. “Babette,” I called again. I was thinking she must have gone out for something through back of the kitchen and then come back in through the front of the store. But when I looked up, I saw it was Doug.
“Rosie!” he yelled, coming towards me.
I ran back into the kitchen and slammed the door between us shut. He was pounding on it from the other side, banging hard, trying to get it open.
“Open the door,” he called out, enraged.
I was shaking with fear. For all I knew he blamed me for getting him arrested and wanted to kill me.
I tried to hold the door shut with one hand and get it locked with the other but he kept pounding on it and trying to push it open.
I was finally able to lock it, despite all the banging and cursing. But just as I was making my way to the back door, Doug slammed the rolling buffet through the kitchen door, shattering it violently.
I gasped, terrified.
“Rosie!” he yelled, coming into the kitchen. “Stop!”
He grabbed me but I was able to push him away and dive behind a rolling baker’s rack. As he came towards me I shoved it towards him but he grabbed it, holding it still. Then he pushed it into me, so that I was stuck, trapped beneath the counter—the rack forming the bars of the cage.
“Rosie,” he said. “Stop fighting me.”
Terrified, I reached one hand up to the counter, hoping to find the knife that we usually kept up there. But all I found was the bag of butter cream.
I pulled it down and stared at it dumbly. With shaking hands, I squirted some into my mouth. If I was going to die, I might as well go doing something I loved. Eating butter cream.
But where in the world was that knife?
Just then Doug whipped the baker’s rack away and came towards me with the knife. So that’s where it went.
“Rosie,” he called out. “I just want to talk to you. I won’t hurt you.”
Ha. Famous last words.
“I just want to explain to you…” He put out a hand for me to take. It was the last thing I wanted to do, but staying curled up in a ball under the counter wasn’t doing me much good either. I put my hand in his and let him pull me out.
“What…what do you want to talk about?” I asked, trying to keep calm and pretend that this was just a normal conversation with my boss’s husband.
“I’m innocent! I want you to believe me! To help me the way y
ou helped Babette!”
He was standing inches from me, waving the knife, a crazed look in his eyes. “That’s why I’m here! I came to talk to her! To tell her I’m innocent! I was sound asleep the night that cake was poisoned. It wasn’t me who put that poison there. I went to bed early.”
I nodded slightly, afraid to move.
“Okay. Well. Tell the police that,” I said, trying to keep my voice as steady as possible. “Maybe they’ll believe you.”
“No! They don’t! My own lawyer doesn’t believe me! My own family! They all want me to take a deal and disappear forever!” His crazy eyes looked so sad and desperate and lost that I almost felt sorry for him. Almost but not quite. The knife still in his hand, waving dangerously close to my face as he talked, prevented it.
I nodded and forced myself to look into his eyes, as though taking him seriously. Maybe if I could convince him that I believed him, he’d let me live. “How…” my throat caught in fear. I swallowed hard and tried again. “How exactly do you think I can prove it was someone else?”
“Look at the footage again! I’m telling you— the film from that night! From here in the kitchen! There was a… a reflection in the glass! I think if you zoom in on the picture, the killer’s face will show up!” He was nodding and pacing wildly, then he started mumbling to himself.
I blinked in fear. “Doug, did you tell your lawyer this?”
“My lawyer?” he laughed, wildly.
Oops wrong question.
“My lawyer thinks I’m imagining it! He thinks I have the DT’s or something! I’m under house arrest at my parents but he wants me to go to a rehab place,” he shook his head, mumbling to himself. “They think I’m crazy!” The knife waved in his hand as he brushed his hair out of his eyes.
Then he stopped and looked at me, standing completely still. His flat unwavering gaze made me even more nervous than his earlier crazy-eyes. He was staring at me like a cobra before it strikes. “You’re not going to help me…are you?” he said in a suddenly calm, reasonable voice that made the hair on my neck stand up.
“No! I mean yes! I will!” I nodded urgently. “I’ll look at the footage. In fact…I… I’m doing a story on the murder and it would be great if I could find a surprise twist that the police don’t know about! It’d be perfect!”
I couldn’t tell if he was falling for my act or how much longer I could keep it up. If he was under house arrest, shouldn’t he have one of those ankle monitor things on, to make sure he stayed in a certain place? And shouldn’t the police be looking for him once he left?
Just when I felt my energy start to flag, I caught some kind of movement behind him.
I glanced over.
It was Casey, carefully making his way into the kitchen. He put his hand to his lips, as he slowly and quietly made his way up to Doug from behind.
I just had to keep Doug preoccupied so he wouldn’t turn around. “Listen, Doug,” I said staring him in the eyes. “I promise you, I’ll check the footage for you. But who exactly do you even think the killer is?”
Again the knife began waving frantically in his hands. “Who had a motive to want the store closed? Who wanted to buy it out from under us? It had to be…”
And just as he was about to tell me his crazy theory, Casey came up behind him and smashed him over the head with the heavy, metal stool.
“Got him!” Casey said triumphantly. He still held the stool in his strong hands as he looked down at Doug who was lying on the floor, unconscious.
I stared at him, frozen and paralyzed, my hand covering my mouth.
“Are you okay?”Casey asked gently as he put the stool aside and walked up close to me. He took my hand and helped me step over Doug’s fallen body. Then he put his arm around me, holding me close as we walked towards the door.
On the way, he dialed 911 to tell the police that Doug was passed out in the kitchen of the bakery.
As soon as we were safe and sound out of the room I looked at him to thank him and promptly burst into tears. He hugged me gently and patted my back. “It’s okay. You’re okay now,” he said soothingly.
I nodded then another bout of sobs overtook me.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
The police arrived a few minutes later and took Doug away, telling him that from now on, he’d be stuck in a cell. His cushy days of house arrest were over—thank goodness.
I was finally calming down as I watched them lead him away. And the fact that Casey still had his arm comfortingly around my shoulders, didn’t hurt either.
“C’mon, I’ll take you home,” he said. He stood up, offering me his hand.
Not that I needed the help, but I put my hand in his and we walked out of the bakery hand in hand.
Babette returned just as we were getting into Casey’s car. She was horrified to learn what had happened. “Oh dear, Rosie!” she said, hugging me. “I had no idea! I went to get some fresh cherries to try a new frosting and…” She hugged me again even tighter. “I feel so awful!”
I assured her that it wasn’t her fault and we decided we’d do the interview another day. Then we said goodnight and as she walked into the store, Casey and I decided to take a little walk down by the water.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
The night was perfect: warm and breezy, with the salty smell of the sea in the air and the soft sound of the waves in the distance. I grew more relaxed the more we walked.
“Thank goodness I just happened to come by to check out my new property,” Casey blurted out.
I nodded and looked into his eyes, touched by his concern. “You saved my life,” I said.
He squeezed my hand.
“So what was all that stuff Doug was saying to you?” he asked. We were crossing the street, walking at a slow pace down towards the pier.
“Just crazy stuff.” I answered, shaking my head at the memory as though I could shake it all away. “He told me he didn’t put the poison in the cake. That he was being framed.”
Casey nodded. “So, basically, the usual.”
“Actually,” I glanced over at him. “He was trying to convince me that you did it.”
“Me?” Casey stopped in his tracks. “Me? Where on earth did he get that ridiculous idea?”
“He said you had a motive—which I guess would be to destroy the store, so that they’d be more likely to sell it. Which, as it happens…”
“But they were going to sell the store anyway! Doug was planning to sell all along.”
“You don’t have to convince me. I don’t believe him. But he seemed to think that by destroying either Babette or Babette’s business, she wouldn’t be able to convince him not sell. So they’d have no choice but to do what you wanted.”
Casey kept walking, shaking his head in irritation. “I really don’t like having a nut like Doug besmirching my name all around town.”
“Well, it’s hardly ‘all around town.’ I mean, he’s back in jail. Or he will be. After tonight.”
“Thank goodness,” Casey said taking my hand again and walking slowly in the moonlight.
It felt so natural to be there with him, as if we were used to walking hand in hand down along the pier all the time. I knew I should pull my hand away, what with my anti-cheater vow and everything. But it just felt so nice and safe and comforting to be with him.
And the fact that he saved my life an hour before didn’t hurt either. I figured it gave me a free pass for the evening. Cheaterwise.
“You don’t believe him, do you?” Casey glanced over at me. His voice was casual but I could feel his eyes studying me intently.
“Of course not,” I said. I stopped and looked down, pulling back the hair that was whipping around my face. “I mean, you may be a liar and a cheat but I don’t see you as a murderer.”
“Well thanks for that,” he said exhaling loudly as we started to walk again. Then he frowned and stopped again. He looked me straight in the eyes. “Rose, you don’t really think I’m a liar and cheat, do you? I mean, buying
the store from Doug was a business decision. No one got harmed. They’re getting quite a bit of money for that land, despite what Babette may have told you.”
“No, it’s not that.” I shook my head and stared down at the ground, realizing that for some reason, I had tears in my eyes. “I know ‘business is business.’ I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about you and your fiancé. Back home.”
He frowned at me. “My fiancé…”
“Yes, your fiancé. Back home in England. Everyone knows that you’ve been cheating on her left and right, with every hot woman in town.”
I started to walk on but he didn’t join me. I turned to find him standing in place, watching me. Somewhat angrily, I thought.
I walked back to him. “C’mon, you don’t have to deny it. I know all about you. I read all about it online: “Kaz Baron, international playboy. A woman in every port, so to speak,”
“Kaz?” Casey let out a short barking laugh.
“Yes, I know that’s your nickname. The nickname of the ‘playboy heir who will inherit the Baron real estate empire.’”
He laughed again.
“What is so funny?” I demanded.
“ ‘Kaz’ isn’t my nickname. ‘Casey’ is my nickname. My real name is Caspian, believe it or not. It’s a name I assure you, no young man should be saddled with.”
I frowned, unsure of what he was trying to say. But agreeing about the name.
“ ‘Kaz’ is my brother Cassius’s nickname,” he continued. “ He is the ‘playboy heir to the Baron real estate empire.’ Not me.”
“But…but…I saw the pictures on Google.”
“Well…we do look quite a bit alike. But surely you could see my special…je ne sais quoi, even online...no?” He lifted his chin to show me both sides of his dashing profile.
“But…no…” I shook my head, frowning. “I heard some girls talking. At the party. Here, in town.”
“Ah yes. Well, my brother. He’d just been here for a visit. He pops into town every now and then, for business. He does like those California girls, it seems.”
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