“How sad,” I muttered aloud as Sam and I stacked dirty dishes in the sink.
“Yeah, it is terrible. His coworkers all seemed like they really liked Arthur.”
“No,” I shook my head, “not that. I mean, yes, that too, but I was thinking how sad it was that nobody mentioned Coco. Besides Landon, nobody here seemed to know her. Who knows if she has family, or if they’ve been notified? I can’t get the picture of her out of my mind; tossed up from the sea like old garbage, no friends or loved ones around to mourn.” Truth be told, the poor girl’s fate struck too close to home after my harrowing escape from a madwoman on the beach only too recently.
“You’re right,” Sam’s eyes had moistened. “I didn’t think of that. It makes me more determined to figure out what happened to her and who did it.”
“Let’s leave these for Alice and her crew to clean. I’m ready to find Landon and see who he thinks might have killed Coco.”
“You go ahead,” Sam said. “I’ll try to catch Alice on her way here and find out the names of the girls who work for her.” Sam pulled a slice of Watermelon Pie from the freezer and grinned. “It’s time to make a delivery.”
~
Griff was waiting for me on the porch of the cabin Sam and I were sharing. He hadn’t stuck around for breakfast; he said he didn’t want to be in our way.
I unlocked the cabin door and we went inside. Griff stretched his long legs out on the floor and I took the cooler as a seat again.
“They should really have chairs,” I said.
“Sure,” Griff drew out the word. “They would fit great on the top bunk.” He looked pointedly around the miniscule amount of space in the room.
I stuck my tongue out at him.
“Piper,” he leaned forward, catching my eye before he continued. “I know things have been really busy and time kind of got away from us, but I want you to know I meant what I said about you. About us.”
I wriggled around uncomfortably. Whoops! With a thud my cooler overturned and I was planted hard on the floor.
“Are you okay?” Griff asked. His lips twitched and I narrowed my eyes at his barely contained mirth.
“Chairs!” I grumbled, rubbing my sore hip. “See, we need chairs.” Deciding it was best that I stay put on the floor, I crossed my legs and took a deep breath. “Who’s Kendra?” I blurted. Whoops. That wasn’t what I had planned to lead with; really, it wasn’t what I planned to say at all actually. I felt heat creep up my neck and into my cheeks.
“What?”
“I’m sorry. I’m sure it isn’t any of my business. Sam and I saw you having lunch with some gorgeous girl with a gorgeous yellow dress, and you lied about where you were to Sam and then on the phone your mom yelled something about Kendra looking for you and Sam said Kendra was this wicked smart lawyer or something, I don’t remember, anyway then I wondered if she was your lunch date in the yellow dress.” I stopped my babbling and shrugged. “So, who’s Kendra?” I asked again. It was too late to turn back now.
Griff shook his head slowly back and forth. “Whoa. Okay, first yes Kendra has a legal background, but she decided not to go into law. And yes, she and I met for lunch a few days ago but I didn’t lie to Sam. It was work-related. You see….”
A succession of four or five light taps on the door were the only notice we had before Landon ducked in and closed the door behind him.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Griff sighed.
“Sorry – didn’t want to be seen. Am I interrupting?” Landon looked down to meet our stares.
“Yes,” Griff said through gritted teeth.
“A little bit,” my clipped tone carried the frustration that I was finding difficult to tamp down. “What are you doing? I thought you were keeping a low profile?”
“I can’t just hide in a cabin for the rest of my life. We have to figure this out and I’ve been thinking,” Landon nudged me to scoot over some so he could join our little pow-wow on the floor. “I think I can narrow down who might have killed Coco.”
“How?” I asked.
“A timeline.”
“A timeline of what?” Griff frowned.
The door flew open and banged into Landon’s shoulder before bouncing back.
“Oomph!” This time, the door opened much slower, inching open at a snail’s pace as Sam leaned around it holding up a shoe. “Thank gosh,” she said. “I thought someone broke in here and hit me with the door. Who did hit me with the door anyway?”
“We really have to get you outfitted with a better weapon than a shoe,” I laughed. “At least your last one had a dangerous, pointy heel.”
“You hit Landon with the door, Sis. Then it bounced off his thick head and back into you.”
Sam looked to Griff, her jaw dropping, then back to Landon. “I’m so, so, so, sorry!”
“It didn’t hit me in the head, just the shoulder; your brother’s messing with you.”
“Come on in and shut the door,” I told her.
Landon scooted around so Sam could squeeze in between us and Griff scooted closer to me, away from Landon, and placed a warm hand on my knee. My stomach flip-flopped.
“What did I miss?” Sam asked.
“Landon was about to tell us how he narrowed down the suspects for Coco’s murder.”
“And who they are, hopefully,” Griff added.
“Good.” Sam nodded. “After that I’ll tell you about the girls working for Alice.”
“Alice?” Both men shared a puzzled look.
I waved them off. “Landon, hurry up and tell us. Sam and I still have to go back and make desserts for lunch.
“Yeah, some of us are actually working,” Sam shot Griff a pointed glance.
I held a hand up between them, like a ref making a call. We didn’t have time for that trail of thought. “Landon?” I prompted.
“Okay, here’s the deal.” He unfolded a sheet of paper with scratches and lines of ink scribbled all across it. “I began to notice a few months ago that the feeling of our assignments started changing.”
“Hold on,” Griff said. “Can you explain these assignments first. What is it that you or Breaking Chains actually do? I’m trying to understand why you would be in that massage parlor Piper described and still give you the benefit of the doubt, but it doesn’t sound like a place where legitimate businesses would go to me.”
“Let me give you the summary version: Breaking Chains is mission focused on two things. First, raise awareness of human trafficking. Second, put an end to it. They do this through intervention, outreach, and restoration. Intervention involves prayer teams and data reporting, but that isn’t the team I’m with. Restoration is a follow-up service providing housing, education, and resources to women, children, and even men who are able to get out of the trafficking world and that comes later. The part I’m involved with is the second part: outreach. As an outreach team, members get out on the streets, in the cantinas, or other businesses that are suspected of using trafficked victims for business. We hand out cards or gifts to earn trust, often the gifts have a hotline phone number that can be called if they need someone to help them get away from a pimp or boss safely.”
“Like the lipstick,” Sam said.
“Exactly.”
“I had heard about the Thai Massage in one of the online sites where discreet advertisements are often placed. I’ve been going there on my own for the last two weeks trying to establish trust with some of the girls so I could get more information on who owns it. I’m tired of releasing one fish to have seventeen more scooped up in a net; helping one or two women escape is great but as long as there is a market for sex or cheap labor the demand continues to be met.”
“Back to the timeline because speaking of time we are seriously running out of it here,” I said as I looked at my phone. “What changed to make you suspicious about your coworkers or teammates?”
“Well,” Landon said, “I didn’t actually think anything of it at the time, it’s just been the last fe
w weeks that I’ve started to wonder. At the beginning of my career with Breaking Chains, when we participated in the outreach groups, we were talking to fifteen or twenty women a night on the street or five to six in the massage parlors. The few cantinas we went into were eager to sell the cerveza especial de la casa, the house special beer, for a premium price which really bought you time with the waitress. After time though, we were able to reach less and less people.”
“You don’t think it was because you were getting recognized, that maybe word spread on the street that you were slowing down business?” Griff asked, rubbing a hand along the stubble of his jaw. I could tell he wanted to think everything through and be thorough.
“Actually, that is what I thought in the beginning,” Landon nodded. “Then it continued even when we went to new places, new cities.”
“And you think the establishments had been warned about you?” I asked.
He gave a nod. “I’ve been going over the teams to find a pattern and I think I finally did.”
“Does it narrow the list of people down? Because, so far, all Piper and I have done is managed to grow the list of suspects,” Sam pushed red and blonde strands of hair behind her neck.
“Yeah, it does. What I noticed is that six particular people were hired within two weeks of our outreaches going south.”
“Six people? That seems like a lot to hire at one time,” Sam frowned.
“Breaking Chains underwent a major expansion; these people came onboard during that time.”
“Who were they?” I leaned forward across our little circle, trying to see what Landon had written on his timeline sheet.
“Minnie Hitchens, Chaplain Mark Moore, Arthur Cole, Regina Wilson, Jerry Jackson, and August Mitchell.”
“I guess we can rule out Arthur from poisoning his own pie,” Sam made a checking motion as if eliminating one name from our long list.
“What about of killing Coco?” Griff asked. “We don’t actually know which of them was killed first; maybe Arthur killed her and couldn’t live with the guilt.”
“Urrr,” I grumbled and slapped Griff on the leg. “We are trying to make this easier to figure out, not harder!”
He raised his hands and sat back in mock surrender. “Just sayin’.”
“I think we’ve met Chaplain Mark and Regina, unless there are a lot of Regina’s you work with?” I waited a second and continued after Landon shook his head in the negative. “That is still a lot of names. Did you narrow it down any further?”
“Slightly. I do think we can eliminate Arthur. Besides being killed himself, he was strictly a business guy and the best business is for Breaking Chains to have a higher tally of individuals helped, not lower. Often contributions are a large part of our operating budget. With no statistics showing we do good then no more contributions would be coming in.”
“Down to five,” Sam, smile fixed firmly in place as usual, clapped her hands. “Who else can we cross off?”
“To narrow down those five, I started thinking about the places we went that had little to no people around for us to make contact with and who our team consisted of at those times. Those particular missions always involved me and two other team members who have been with me for years, Chaplain Moore, and Regina Wilson.”
“But you don’t think there is any way it could have been the other two team members? Just because you’ve known them a long time?”
“No. I don’t think it could be them for several reasons. Besides working with them for years before the weird slow down of interventions, one of them had a niece who was a sex trafficking victim and the other retired a month ago.”
“Okay, so we’re down to you, Chaplain Moore, and Regina Wilson as suspects.” Griff ignored the annoyed look I shot him for lumping Landon back into the suspect pool. “Tell us about their roles in the company.”
Landon quickly summarized the jobs of the two: Chaplain Moore was one of three chaplains who provided prayer and support for the emotional well-being of both the teams and the victims and joined in on many intervention outreaches; Regina coordinated tips and leads and funneled them into action-plans for intervention missions, assigning them to teams.
“Chaplain Moore is pretty private; he doesn’t talk about himself or his past. He only comes into the office to prep and leave on interventions, otherwise we don’t really see him.” Landon continued, “Regina on the other hand is outspoken, gregarious, well-liked by coworkers, and a workaholic.”
“Sam, didn’t you say something about your list from Alice?” I asked. “Yikes, and hurry! We have to go make desserts for after lunch.”
“Alice said she gets the girls who are on the cleaning crew from a service. She says often she gets new ones every two or three weeks.”
“What service?” Griff asked.
“Is that how Coco came out here?” Landon grabbed Sam’s arm. “You both said she was working with the cleaning crew when you saw her, right?”
“That’s right. Alice couldn’t remember the name of the service. Look, Piper is right. We really have to get back to the kitchen,” Sam stood followed by Landon. He paced in small, tight strides, rubbing his neck.
Before I finished unfolding my legs from their cramped position, Griff was extending a hand out to me. I took it and he pulled me gently to my feet. “Please, be careful,” he whispered against my hair before letting me go and taking a step back.
I nodded. Speech had deserted me again. I decided that was due to being tired and having too much murder on the brain; obviously, it had nothing to do with the proximity of Griff, the warmth I could feel emanating from him, or the tingle of awareness singing my skin where his hand had been. Nope, not that at all.
Before Sam and I got the door open, Landon’s pacing stopped short in front of us and he pulled us together into a hug. “Thank you. Thank you for believing me and for your help.” With a kiss to my cheek and a squeeze of Sam’s shoulder he let us go.
I won’t lie – I high-tailed it out of there faster than a barefoot kid on hot asphalt; I could all but feel Griff seething and didn’t plan to stick around for the fireworks.
Chapter 23
Sam and I were taking the last Fudge Pie out of the oven when Alice knocked on the back door.
“Hi, Alice,” I held the door open. “Come in. Is there something we can do for you?”
The front door banged open and voices trickled our way. Alice’s eyes darted through the opening from the kitchen to the dining hall and shook her head with such violence I worried she would get a headache.
“No. No, I can’t talk here.” Looking past me to Sam she said, “I remembered something. Meet me at your cabin at two-thirty.” Turning, Alice scurried off without another word.
“She seemed rattled,” I closed the door and looked to Sam who nodded in agreement.
“Much more nervous than when I spoke to her earlier.”
“Strange. I guess we have to wait to find out why,” I sighed. “And we better get these desserts out to the dessert table before we have a riot on our hands.”
I could see that the line had moved quickly through the lunch buffet and was now clogging at the dessert table where we had only set out a plate of Ooey Gooey Butter Cookies and Cinnamon Apple Mini Tarts. Carrying the remaining desserts out on an oversized sheet tray, we placed them on the table to a smattering of applause from those waiting.
Sam played along, first with a bow and then a curtsy that would have impressed the queen. Seriously, who knows how to curtsy? Most likely Deidra had included charm school in Sam’s childhood somewhere along the way.
“Thank goodness,” someone drawled. “We thought something terrible might have happened to you.”
I scanned the faces, but a crowd was elbowing its way into reach of all the desserts by now and heads bobbed in and out of view. The voice sounded familiar, but I’d only been around these people for a day now. Regardless, I brushed at the chill bumps creeping up my arms. Concern wasn’t the emotion I heard laced th
rough the benign words.
~
At a quarter after two, Sam and I were stretched out on our separate bunks waiting for Alice to arrive. Team building activities had resumed for the employees of Breaking Chains. Griff, after much insistence from both of us, had agreed to go back to work. He had several meetings scheduled even though it was a Sunday. Landon went with him to stay off of the police radar.
“Who do you think it might be?” Sam asked aloud.
There wasn’t a doubt what she meant. “I’m not sure,” I told her. Tracing lines in the bottom of the bunk above my head with my finger, I considered everything we knew. “Alice had opportunity to plant poison in the kitchen, but I can’t see a motive. Coco shouldn’t have wanted Landon dead if he were trying to help her, but even if she did, how did she get killed herself at the same time? Too bad the sheriff won’t share the time of death with us so we could rule her out.”
“Yeah, I really think it had to be someone close to Landon and the pie during the blackout.”
I smacked myself in the forehead. “I knew I forgot something. Sam, I completely forgot to ask Landon who specifically sat at his table.”
A knock, timid and small, sounded at the door.
“That must be Alice,” Sam stretched before getting off of her bunk to answer the knock.
I sat up, too. “What’s that smell?” I asked wrinkling my nose. It was kind of an acrid, smoky scent. Too late, I saw writhing gray fingers of smoke reaching under the door. “No! Sam don’t…”
Sam turned the knob and cried out in pain. I pulled her back as she opened the door and a whoosh of flames licked towards her. Cradling her palm, the flesh rapidly turning fire-engine-red, she kicked the door shut.
“What do we do now?” she cried. “That’s the only door. Shouldn’t we just try to get through it?”
Ooey Gooey Bakery Mystery Box Set Page 26
