Winner Cake All

by Denise Swanson

  Hmm. He didn’t want to seem needy or controlling.

  Erasing that message, he tried again. I nabbed a reservation at Reapers for Saturday night at 6:30. Hope you’re still free.

  Okay. That was better.

  His finger hovered over the Send button. Did that message sound a little cold?

  They weren’t at the stage where he’d include the L word. But maybe a romantic emoji would be good. Spencer swiped through the options.

  No. Not the one with hearts in the smiley’s eyes. That seemed too silly.

  How about the smiley holding the red rose?

  No way. Spencer was pretty sure he remembered Dani saying that her ex-boyfriend always gave her red roses after they’d had a fight.

  Spencer kept swiping until he saw the two smileys sharing a plate of spaghetti a la Lady and the Tramp. It was perfect. He tapped the image and sent the text.

  Before slipping his cell back into his pocket, Spencer checked the time. It had taken longer than he’d thought to compose his message and it was almost eight o’clock.

  He glanced at Hamlet and Oinkphelia. The porcine couple had finished eating and were now snuggled side by side, sleeping peacefully.

  Spencer drummed his fingers on his thighs. He’d give the animal abductors until midnight to show up. After that, he’d set up the surveillance equipment he brought with him, put the hardened-steel, high-security padlock on the door, and call it a night.

  Standing, Spencer stretched the kinks out of his back. If he gave in and did this again tomorrow night, he was bringing a more comfortable seat.

  And speaking of comfort, he needed a bathroom break. If he were on a life-and-death stakeout, he’d use a can or a bottle, but a possible pignapping did not qualify for such extreme measures.

  A quick walk around the barn and a scan out the windows of the surrounding area convinced him that there wasn’t anyone nearby. Easing open the door, he stepped outside, then engaged the lock behind him.

  Once the barn was secure, he jogged toward the office building a hundred or so yards away, sure there would be a restroom inside. Good thing he had a master key.

  He was just completing the pause that refreshes when the radio clipped to his utility belt squawked. That wasn’t good. His people had been instructed not to contact him unless it was an emergency.

  Frowning, he zipped up, washed his hands, then keyed the mic and said, “Drake here. What’s up?”

  “Chief.” Lavonia Jools, Spencer’s only female security officer, cleared her throat.

  “That’s me.”

  “We have a situation in Area 51.” Lavonia’s voice was strained.

  The university’s department of paranormal and psychic phenomena was housed in Fox Hall. It had quickly been nicknamed Area 51 and become the butt of student pranks.

  When Lavonia didn’t continue, he asked, “What kind of situation?”

  Lavonia was a good officer and not one to panic needlessly. She’d been an army MP, but while used to dealing with drunks, sometimes the silliness of the college students threw her off her game.

  “Uh.” She cleared her throat again. “It’s a little hard to describe.”

  “Ohhhkay.” Spencer stretched out the word. “Start at the beginning.”

  “The alarm went off in Fox Hall’s storage room,” Lavonia said.

  “I assume you called Robert for backup, then went to check it out.”

  Spencer would be shocked if she hadn’t. Lavonia followed all of his rules, even ones she might not agree with, such as the need for two officers to respond to any alarm. What could have knocked her for a loop?

  “Yes,” Lavonia answered. “I mean no.” She sucked in a breath. “I did call Robert into work, but I had to send him to the Towers. As you know, it’s an all-female dorm and the eighth-floor RA found a drunken guy singing in the shower. When she asked him to leave, he walked down the hallway naked and into one of the suites.”

  “Was it occupied?” Spencer sprinted back to the mascot barn, grabbed the surveillance camera from his duffel, and quickly set it up.

  “Yeah, the girl was able to exit without any problem but unfortunately didn’t take her key, and the door locked itself automatically when she let it close,” Lavonia answered. “While the RA has a key, she didn’t feel safe trying to get the guy out of the room by herself. So Robert’s dealing with that.”

  Spencer attached the high-security padlock and took off toward the lot where he’d parked his truck.

  “The room’s original occupant is fine,” Lavonia added. “But she and the RA are shaken up.”

  “So I’m assuming you went to check on the alarm at Fox on your own.” Spencer arrived at his pickup, beeped open the doors, and threw his duffel onto the passenger seat. “What did you find?”

  “The thing is, sir.” Lavonia paused. “I’m not sure what I found.”

  “Just give me a sitrep.” Spencer slid behind the wheel and drove toward the main campus as he waited for Lavonia to respond.

  Lavonia began her situation report. “When I arrived at Area 51, the entrance and exits were secure and there was no evidence of forced entry.”

  “So if someone was inside, you figured they had a key,” Spencer prodded.

  “Yes.” Lavonia’s voice was low, then there was a long stretch of silence and Spencer wondered if something had happened to the woman. Was she still at Fox Hall? Had she been attacked?

  Just as Spencer was about to check, Lavonia continued, “I cleared the first floor and went on to the second, where the storage area is located.”

  “And?” Spencer was pulling in front of Fox Hall as he spoke.

  “When I got to the storage room, I proceeded with extreme caution.” Lavonia’s voice cracked.

  “Good.” Spencer threw his truck into park, jumped out, and ran up the steps of the building. He fumbled with the huge campus key ring until he found the correct one and opened the front door. “I’m on the premises. Are you still in the storage room?”

  “I am, but the thing is…” Lavonia paused then admitted, “The door closed behind me. It won’t budge and I can’t get out.”

  “Is that the emergency?” Spencer asked. He’d have bet money Lavonia wouldn’t have called him because she got locked in somewhere. She’d have waited until Robert was free and had him grab the key from the security office and get her out.

  “Not exactly.” Lavonia’s voice cracked again. “There’s a young man dressed in some kind of Native American costume. He’s pinned to the wall with a couple of tomahawks.”

  “Is he dead?” Spencer bent to grab his Glock from its ankle holster.

  While the rest of campus security weren’t allowed guns and were only equipped with Tasers and pepper spray, Spencer was licensed for concealed carry.

  “No,” Lavonia answered. “The hatchets are holding him in place through what looks like an animal skin shirt. He says he’s unhurt, but the tomahawks are so deeply embedded in the wall, I can’t pull them out and the shirt is impossible to tear. If someone can hold him up, I could probably get him out of the shirt. Or maybe we can cut him free of it with scissors.”

  “Did the vic say how he got mounted like a bug?” Spencer asked standing in front of the storage room’s door. He inserted his master key.

  “He claims that an Indian chief attacked him, then disappeared into thin air. The next thing he remembered was me asking if he was okay.”

  Chapter 3

  Once Yvette and Vicki left, Dani attempted to relax. She’d tried reading the novel that she’d been struggling to finish in time for her monthly book club, and when that failed to keep her interest, she turned on the TV. After channel surfing through her entire Media Com package, she admitted that what she really wanted to do was start concocting distinctive desserts for her prospective client.

  A few hours later, th
e tantalizing aroma of stout-infused chocolate cake topped with pecan-and-caraway streusel scented the air of her kitchen. As the cake baked, Dani assembled the dough for bomboloni. The hole-less Italian doughnut would be stuffed with matcha, pumpkin, and Baileys liqueur–flavored crème pâtissière.

  While the bombolone dough rested in the fridge, Dani start her third and final offering, hand pies with apple-and-green-chili filling. This was the riskiest of the trio but also the most unique.

  Dani assembled the pastry crust using her usual recipe, but instead of the customary water, she substituted apple cider vinegar. Just as she was cutting the dough into rectangles, the kitchen door swung open and Ivy Drake, one of her three boarders, trudged inside.

  Ivy’s heart-shaped face and pink cheeks made her look even younger than her nineteen years, but her usual dimpled smile was missing.

  Ivy flung herself on the center counter stool and her voice was grumpy when she asked, “Why are you baking so late? We don’t have any events for tomorrow.”

  While Dani explained about her prospective new client’s demand for special desserts, Ivy reached for the plastic containers that held the leftover desserts from that day’s lunch-to-go bags. One held the frosted peanut-butter cookies and the other had the healthier coconut, fruit, and nut bars.

  Dani offered two choices for her takeout meals. Both had an entrée, side, and dessert each day and were packaged in her signature red-and-white-striped paper bags, but one option had less sugar, carbs, and fats, while the other was more indulgent.

  The lunches-to-go were usually the most reliable part of Dani’s income, and she was a bit worried that the number of customers had been down this morning, which was why so many sacks had remained unsold.

  She could only hope it was because the college kids were taking Friday off and heading out early for the weekend. Dani hadn’t quite gotten the rhythm of when students would and wouldn’t be on campus during the semester. And she’d forgotten that Normalton University celebrated Founder’s Day on the third Monday of October. It appeared that a lot of the students took advantage of the holiday to leave the area.

  Dusting the flour off her fingers, Dani paused before starting the hand pie filling and said, “What’s up with you? You’re home pretty early for a Friday night. Is Laz out of town?”

  Dani was nearly a dozen years older than Ivy, who, having skipped a couple of grades, was already a senior at the college. But over the past year and a half or so, the two of them had drifted into a close friendship, especially after Ivy and her best buddies, Tippi Epstein and Starr Fleming, had moved in with Dani and begun to work part-time for her Chef-to-Go company.

  Until a few months ago when Ivy had started seeing Lazarus Hunter, she’d seemed to prefer hanging out at the mansion to going out with her pals. Even now, a lot of evenings when Dani wasn’t working at a personal chef gig, Ivy would lounge around in the family room with her, watching reruns of some cooking show.

  At first, due to their age difference, Dani had been a little uneasy about the friendship, but once she acknowledged that they had a sort of big sister/little sister relationship, she accepted it. She’d always wanted a sibling, but her parents had said that one child was enough of a drain on their time and money.

  “Laz didn’t show up at the library.” Ivy finally answered Dani’s question as she pried off both of the cookie containers’ lids and peered inside to make her selection.

  “And you were expecting him?” Dani clarified, wanting to make sure she understood before weighing in with an opinion or commiserating.

  She’d been apprehensive when Ivy had started seeing Laz. He just didn’t seem like the kind of guy someone as studious as Ivy would attract. And that had Dani worried that he would break the girl’s heart.

  While neither Ivy nor Laz admitted that they were anything other than friends, Dani was pretty darn sure there was more to it than that.

  Still, Laz’s fiancée had only been dead for a few months, so it was probably best he and Ivy kept whatever romantic feelings they had for one another on the down low. It was no one’s business, and this way they kept the rumor mill from grinding out nasty gossip.

  And, despite Dani’s initial doubts, Laz and Ivy had been nearly inseparable and they seemed to get along really well. Enough so that Laz had introduced Ivy to his family during the university’s orientation week. Laz’s mother had been a bit cool toward Ivy, but his father had seemed welcoming. Ivy had even been invited to a second family function.

  “Sort of,” Ivy muttered.

  Dani shook off her recollections and repeated, “Sort of…”

  Ivy licked icing off of her fingers, selected another cookie, this time one of the nut bars, and continued, “He’s been meeting me there every night after supper since classes started. We both work on our homework for three or four hours, then we go get a slice of pizza or some ice cream and he drives me home.”

  “Did you text him?” Dani asked. “The library is huge and if he couldn’t get his regular spot maybe he had to go over to the law library.”

  “Twice.” Ivy played with the gold skulls hanging from her hoop earring. “He never answered.” She wrinkled her brow. “And he always texts me right back.”

  Dani hadn’t been able to decide if it was a good thing or a bad thing that Laz had gotten into NU’s law school. On one hand, she was happy for him that the rehab treatment that he’d gone through the summer between high school and college had been successful and he’d done well enough in college to gain admittance to the prestigious program.

  On the other, it might have been good for Ivy to have a little space from him. With Laz farther away, she would have had a chance to gain some perspective on their relationship.

  Now that Dani thought about his alcohol problem, she wondered if the young man had had a relapse. That would explain why he’d stood up Ivy. Although Laz had been clean and sober for three years, he had slipped off the wagon the day his fiancée had been murdered. Maybe the pressure of school had made it happen again.

  “Has Laz been stressed lately?” Between her prior occupation in human resources and living with three college kids, Dani had gotten good at easing into unpleasant conversations.

  “You mean you’re concerned that he might be drinking again.” Ivy flicked a disappointed glance at Dani. “Don’t you think that I’d notice that?”

  “Addicts can be tricky.” Dani sighed. Evidently, she wasn’t as good as she thought at easing into sensitive topics.

  Ivy’s shoulders drooped. “I suppose. But even if he was hitting the booze, Laz would have let me know that he wasn’t going to see me tonight.”

  “Maybe he was fighting the urge and decided he had to go to an AA meeting right away,” Dani suggested. “I doubt they allow cell phone usage.”

  “That’s probably it.” Ivy beamed. “He’ll call as soon as he’s free.”

  “Definitely.” Dani tried to sound convinced, but Ivy shot her a hard look.

  The two of them were silent, neither exactly sure what else to say.

  Finally, Dani straightened and said, “I’d better get the filling going for these hand pies or I’ll still be making them at midnight.”

  “Can I help?” Ivy asked, hopping off her stool and heading around the counter.

  “Sure.” Dani began gathering the ingredients, then handed Ivy a bag of Granny Smith apples. “How about peeling and slicing those while I get the seeds out of the green chilies and chop them up?”

  “Absolutely.” Ivy washed her hands. “I love seeing if I can get the skin off in one long spiral. My dad says that if you do that and drop it on the floor, it will form the initial of your soul mate.”

  While they worked, Dani sneaked a peek at Ivy. She was disturbed that her young friend looked so downhearted. Ivy’s personality was generally so upbeat and bubbly, it was sad to see her like that.

  �
�You know, you shouldn’t listen to me about Laz. With my history with men, I’m not a very good judge.” Finishing up with the chilies, Dani juiced a lime, then measured out the sugar, cornstarch, salt, nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon. “Look at what happened with my ex.”

  About a year and a half ago, Dani had found out that her then-boyfriend, Dr. Kipp Newson, was actually engaged to someone else. She’d had no idea that she was his side chick until Ivy had done a bit of sleuthing on social media.

  Finding it hard to accept that she’d been so stupid, Dani could only hope that she’d learned her lesson.

  She massaged the back of her neck. Thinking about Kipp always made her tense. Especially remembering that his cheating hadn’t been the half of it. He’d been much worse than she’d ever imagined.

  Ivy’s expression was full of guilt. “I’m sorry I had to be the one to tell you.”

  “No,” Dani assured her. “I appreciate you looking out for me.”

  Although she hated to admit it and would never say it out loud, Dani had known something was off with her and Kipp. However, for once her father had liked someone she was seeing, so she’d ignored her own gut feeling until Ivy shoved the evidence of his infidelity in front of her face.

  Before that undeniable proof, Dani had been unwilling to give up her father’s hard-won and rare approval. He’d been more impressed when she’d introduced him to Kipp than when she’d graduated from college summa cum laude, and she’d wanted to bask in his admiration for as long as she could. Even if in her heart of hearts, she knew Kipp had been only using her for her cooking and her satellite television package.

  Breaking into Dani’s depressing thoughts, Ivy said, “Anyway, all that’s behind you. My uncle would never deceive you like that.”

  Ivy was Spencer’s niece, which was how he and Dani had met. But going out with her friend/boarder/employee’s uncle was a tad awkward at times. Ivy was one of the reasons that, so far, Dani and Spencer’s dates had ended with a chaste kiss at the front door.

  Granted, thanks to the previous owner’s desire for privacy and comfort, Dani had a secluded suite on the third floor. The cozy sitting room filled with relaxing furniture, the spacious bedroom with the amazing walk-in closet, and the huge spa-like bathroom straight out of HGTV were wonderful, but it didn’t have its own entrance and the only way in or out was via the main staircase.