A Sampling of Murder: Cupcake Truck Mysteries

by Emily James

  I prayed that Flynn wouldn’t come alone. Whatever he’d gotten himself into, I still didn’t want him dead.

  Edwardo shifted in his chair, leaning back so that he seemed to take up more space. “Flynn managed to collect some very condemning evidence against me before he went away. Evidence of our business dealings together, conveniently scrubbed of his involvement. I knew something was wrong when he pled guilty to possession. Flynn never sampled the merchandise.”

  My body felt like it belonged to someone else. That’s why Mr. Wendt and Flynn’s legitimate employer hadn’t noticed his drug habit. He didn’t have one. He’d simply confessed to having one so that the police wouldn’t investigate further when he was caught with drugs.

  Keep going, my rational self urged. Keep him talking.

  “And you think he hid it here?”

  “I know he did. I replaced the decrepit Mr. Wendt’s cleaning lady with one of my own. She searched their house twice over. I rented out the apartment Flynn used to live in and stripped it as well. The only other place where he could have hidden it was here. He never expected his father to give up the family business while he was inside.”

  That explained why Flynn had been so helpful. He hadn’t wanted to work for me or watch for known associates of a drug dealer. He wanted an opportunity to retrieve whatever he’d hidden here. When I visited, he’d realized Edwardo was trying to get his hands on the evidence. Since Flynn hadn’t turned the evidence over to Edwardo, he must have been trying to blackmail his former associate with it.

  Poor Mr. Wendt. This was going to break his heart.

  Everything that had happened was about getting that evidence.

  “Why kill Bob Jenner?”

  Scott flinched under my touch.

  “He caught me trying to strip this place to find Flynn’s stash.” Edwardo spoke calmly as if he were explaining how he’d found a parking spot on a busy street. “The place was supposed to be unoccupied. When Jenner came strolling in and caught me, he left me no choice. He told me to stay where I was, that he was calling the police.”

  He’d accidentally forced Edwardo’s hand so that Edwardo couldn’t just tie him up and continue searching. Once Edwardo shot him, he must have realized the police would arrive soon. He’d had to abort his search.

  He hadn’t been able to get back in after that. First, the police had the scene cordoned off, and then, as soon as they released it, Claire and I found the vandalism. Scott had a security system installed right away. The only time it wasn’t on was when the bakery was also full of people. That left Flynn without a way to sneak the evidence out and Edwardo without a way to gain access to the store for a long enough time period to search it.

  A faint click came from the kitchen. I stayed as still as possible. It’d sounded like the new deadbolt. If it was, help was here. Flynn didn’t have a key to come in the back. He must have called the police, and they got Claire’s set.

  Edwardo didn’t turn his head in that direction. He hadn’t heard it.

  I needed to be ready to take Scott and I to the ground, out of the line of fire. I also needed to keep Edwardo distracted. If he heard anything suspicious, he could easily shoot us first.

  “That was very unethical of Flynn.” I pitched my voice high and loud, as if I were outraged. “He had evidence against you, and he didn’t take it to the police. I have no patience for blackmailers. They’re the lowest of the low.”

  I rambled out everything I could. It meant I couldn’t hear when the exterior door into the kitchen swished open, but hopefully Edwardo couldn’t either.

  I just kept talking.

  The door to the kitchen burst open with shouts of “drop your weapon.”

  I shoved Scott to the side. We both toppled down. A gun boomed. Then multiple shots and shattering glass.

  “Suspect down,” one of the officers said. “Send an ambulance to our location.”

  He had to be talking into a radio. My field of vision narrowed down, and my head felt light. It was over.

  “Isabel.” Scott’s voice was reedy. “Can you get off of me please? I think I landed in my own vomit.”

  25

  Scott and I sat next to each other on the tailgate of one of the ambulances, wrapped in blankets. I’d have to ask Dan later why they gave blankets to people who might be in shock.

  Scott sat hunched over, his elbows on his knees. He wore a sweatshirt that was two sizes too big for him. He had, in fact, been covered in his own vomit. One of the paramedics had given him a shirt, so he could change. We weren’t steady enough to leave immediately, and Scott had looked almost more traumatized about being covered in puke than about being held at gunpoint.

  “I’d be dead now if it weren’t for you,” Scott said, not sitting up. “How did you stay so calm?”

  Edwardo hadn’t touched me, held me down, or restrained me in any way, for starters. Last time I’d faced down a man with a gun, I’d had to wrestle him for it. It hadn’t gone as well. I didn’t remember much of what happened after I got the gun away from him. One minute I was telling him and his girlfriend to stay put, and the next minute Dan was there taking the gun out of my hands.

  More than the absence of touch, though, I’d been thinking about Scott. I’d wanted to protect him. Panicking felt like a luxury. I hadn’t had a problem touching his back when he was afraid because he’d needed my help.

  But no young man wanted to hear that. He already admitted I’d been the one to get us out alive. I didn’t want to emasculate him by saying I stayed calm for his sake.

  Besides, it wouldn’t have been the whole truth. As much as I hated to admit it, life with Jarrod had prepared me for facing down people who wanted to hurt me. I’d had to stay calm no matter what Jarrod did or said because that was the only way to stay alive.

  I put a hand on Scott’s back. “My husband used to beat me. Not a lot is scarier than that.”

  Scott bobbed his head as if I hadn’t just revealed something awful about my past. His passive acceptance pointed to him being in shock, even if I wasn’t. Or maybe I was. My abusive past wasn’t something I generally revealed, but Scott and I had gone through a terrible situation together.

  “I want to make the same deal with you that my dad made,” Scott said.

  He stated the words bluntly, as if we’d been discussing that instead of what happened to us. That alone made me reticent to take him up on the offer.

  “You shouldn’t make any major decisions right now.”

  Scott raised his gaze. “I didn’t make it now. I made it weeks ago. I was waiting until all this was resolved to tell you. I like the bakery. It’s relaxing. I want to be a part of it.”

  That was unexpected. I’d thought that if Scott gave us the same deal, he’d be doing it out of a sense of loyalty to his dad’s memory, not because we somehow won him over. “You want to keep working a couple shifts even once the estate is sorted?”

  Scott nodded. His gaze seemed to snag on something beyond me, and he wedged his hands between his knees and leaned over as if he wasn’t sure whether he needed to throw up again or not.

  I swiveled around until I could see what he’d seen. A man who had to be the medical examiner, based on his lack of a uniform, walked beside a gurney. A black body bag rested on top of it.

  I hugged the blanket tighter around me. Edwardo must not have followed the officer’s order to put down his weapon. The whole thing took place so fast that I hadn’t been paying attention to all the words being yelled.

  When the S.W.A.T. officer ushered Scott and I from the building and over to paramedics, I hadn’t looked in Edwardo’s direction. I hadn’t wanted to see where the shots fired landed. One of the paramedics who checked Scott and I over had said the lead officer had taken a bullet to his vest. So if Edwardo fired first, the officers would have had to open fire in return.

  At least it was over.

  Behind the stretcher, Flynn sat in the back of a police cruiser. I hadn’t been able to talk to him and tha
nk him for calling the police. Maybe I didn’t have to. He had been the one to hide evidence that could convict a criminal in his father’s bakery to begin with. But he also hadn’t needed to go to the police after my weird phone call. He had to know when he did that the questions they’d ask could eventually lead to his arrest for withholding evidence.

  Detective Austen stood near the back of the cruiser, talking to a tall man with dark hair. Not any man. Dan. Claire must have called him after the police came for her keys.

  He spun around. Had I called his name? Scott had lifted his head and was looking around, so I must have.

  I hadn’t felt shaky or weak at all, but now tremors started in my feet and rushed up my body until I felt like I couldn’t have moved if I wanted to. My eyes burned, and I blinked against the pressure.

  Dan swept me up from my sitting position into his arms, and I clung onto him. I didn’t realize I was crying until his jacket felt wet under my cheek. It was like my brain had locked everything up until I saw Dan and knew for sure I was safe.

  “You’re okay,” he whispered into my hair. “You’re okay.”

  I wasn’t sure which one of us he was reassuring.

  I eased back from him. Scott inched over on the back of the ambulance and patted the spot beside him. I sat down. Dan took the small space beside me, his arm pressed up against mine.

  “What will happen to Flynn?” I asked.

  It sounded more gracious than I felt. If I were being honest, I didn’t much care where Flynn ended up. I did care about Mr. Wendt and what finding out what his son had done would do to him. Thank goodness he had his daughter to lean on.

  “He’s cut a deal,” Dan said. “The evidence he had on Edgar Serranno also implicated a lot of other people in his organization that the police have been trying to convict for years. Flynn showed them where it was in exchange for immunity.”

  “Edgar Serranno?” Scott’s voice still sounded a bit spacey, but it was closer to his normal tone than it had been before.

  “Flynn’s drug dealer,” I said. “Sort of.” Since it turned out Flynn had been a business partner rather than a client, I wasn’t sure how to refer to Serranno anymore. If it turned out that Flynn had been working out of his father’s bakery, Mr. Wendt was going to have a hard time recovering any sort of trust in his son.

  Dan leaned around me slightly, so he could see Scott as well. He inclined his head toward the body bag. “The man you knew as Edwardo Sharp was actually Edgar Serranno. Apparently, he and Flynn had a falling out, and Flynn started collecting information that he could use to blackmail Serranno. Before he could use it, he was caught with some of the drugs he’d planned to include in his stash as evidence. He confessed to possession in order to protect his bigger project.”

  And we’d all ended up caught up in it because Flynn stashed his “project” in the bakery. “Where was it?”

  “Under a floorboard in the office.”

  Dan brought me up to my feet. He took the blanket off my shoulders, folded it, and left it in the ambulance. “Time to go home. Claire will have paced a path in the carpet by now.”

  “Vacuumed a path more like.”

  Dan chuckled, but he linked his fingers with mine as if he couldn’t blame Claire, even if her way of dealing with stress was a bit odd.

  Scott got up and folded his blanket as well.

  “Do you need a ride home?” Dan asked.

  Scott shook his head. “I’m okay to drive now, and I’d rather not leave my car here. With how things have gone lately, I’d come back in the morning to find it’d been towed or stolen.”

  Scott headed in one direction, and we headed in the other. We passed by the body bag where Edwardo Sharpe—Edgar Serranno lay.

  It’d once seemed like the only way to stay safe was to hide from Jarrod, but I hadn’t been safe recently. In truth, the only way to stay completely safe was to not live, to hide in my house and never leave. And even then, I couldn’t protect myself from a heart attack or a stroke. I couldn’t guarantee a single minute of my life. Only God could.

  So maybe it was time.

  Maybe it was time to try to free myself from Jarrod once and for all.

  Dan opened the car door for me, but I held up a wait hand. I dug the card for the divorce lawyer he’d given me a few months ago out of the inside pocket where I’d kept it. The edges were frayed, and one corner was bent.

  I handed it back to him.

  He looked down at it. “Does this mean you’ve decided not to file for divorce?”

  His voice didn’t give anything away, but his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.

  “I’ve decided not to use that lawyer. I have a different one in mind.”

  In the previous murder case I’d gotten wrapped up in, I’d called Kirkland Law Offices. The receptionist had turned out to be the lawyer’s wife, and she’d shown me care and sympathy when she thought I was in a bad situation. If I was going to risk this, I wanted her and her husband by my side.

  The corners of Dan’s eyes crinkled.

  I shrugged. “Jarrod’s going to find me one day. If not because I file for divorce then because he shows up at the Glover trial. I decided I’d rather he find out my location on my terms.”

  Dan brushed the hair back from my face. “To show him you’re not afraid of him anymore?”

  That wasn’t possible. Unfortunately, I’d always be afraid of Jarrod. He was like an old wound that would always ache when the weather changed.

  I’d just made a decision about how I’d react to that wound. “To show him that I’m not going to let him or my fear control me anymore.”

  Letter from the Author

  Only one book left in the Cupcake Truck Mysteries!

  I hope you enjoyed watching Isabel take another step forward. The choices she made in this book were challenging ones for her.

  In the final book, Jarrod returns. If you’re like me, you’ve been waiting for it and also dreading it.

  If you want to know when the final Cupcake Truck mystery releases, make sure to sign up for my newsletter at www.subscribepage.com/cupcakes.

  And if you enjoyed this book, I’d really appreciate it if you’d leave an honest review on Amazon or Goodreads. Reviews help fellow readers know if this is a book they might enjoy. Even a short sentence helps!

  Love,

  Emily

  P.S. Signing up for my newsletter also means you’ll get advanced sneak peeks at the new series I’ll be releasing later this year.

  Recipe: Lemon “Meringue” Pie Cupcakes

  One of the first cupcakes Isabel bakes in her new bakery is her lemon meringue pie cupcakes. These aren’t topped with actual meringue. Instead, they’re made with a silky Swiss meringue buttercream. These are one of my personal favorites because I love the contrast of the tart lemon with the sweet frosting.

  To make the buttercream, you will need a stand mixer for this one. If you don’t have a stand mixer, or you don’t want to go to the trouble of making a Swiss meringue buttercream, I’ll also give you instructions at the end for how to top these with a traditional meringue instead. (I’ve made them both ways, and they’re equally delicious. If you make the traditional meringue, just be aware that you need to eat them more quickly.)

  INGREDIENTS

  Cupcake:

  1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

  2 teaspoons baking powder

  1/2 teaspoon salt

  1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

  1 cup granulated sugar

  2 large eggs, at room temperature

  1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

  1/2 cup 2% milk, at room temperature

  2 medium lemons, zested and juiced

  Lemon Curd:

  1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

  2 teaspoons lemon zest

  1/2 cup granulated sugar

  3 large eggs

  6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces

  Swiss Meringue Buttercream:

  1/4 cup pasteurized
egg whites*

  2 cups powdered sugar

  dash of salt

  3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

  2 teaspoons vanilla extract

  *This actually works better with egg whites separated from whole eggs, but I understand that many people aren’t comfortable with that option. If you are okay with using raw egg whites, you’ll need the whites from 2 large eggs.

  Instructions

  1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, and line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.

  To Make the Cupcakes:

  2.In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. These are your dry ingredients.

  3.In a large bowl, use the high speed on your mixer to beat together the butter and sugar for about 2 minutes, until smooth and fluffy.

  4.Turn the mixer down to medium-high, and add the eggs and vanilla. Beat until combined. It should look smooth.

  5.By hand, gently mix your dry ingredients into your wet ingredients until just combined. Do not over-mix.

  6.In a small bowl, mix together milk, lemon juice, and lemon zest.

  7.Immediately but slowly add the milk mixture into the batter. Mix gently. You want them to be combined but not overmixed.

  8.Use the batter to fill the cupcake liners 2/3 full.

  9.Bake for 16-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

  10.Cool completely on a wire rack.

  To Make the Curd:

  11.In a heavy saucepan, whisk together lemon juice, lemon zest, sugar, and eggs.

  12.Turn the heat on to medium-low and add the butter. Whisk until curd is thick enough to make tracks and you see the first couple of bubbles. This should take about 6 minutes.

  13.Remove from heat. Run the curd through a strainer into a bowl to remove any bits of egg that might have overcooked.