She glanced down at the cupcakes on the table and rearranged them. “Either’s fine.”
The way she said it made me think she’d never considered it before. Anyone who had a name that could be shortened to a nickname thought about it. Most people I knew had a strong preference. Unless it wasn’t her real name.
Which was more than a little paranoid. Maybe I should talk to Mark again about me building a defense for him should he need it. Every shadow I saw was going to turn into a monster under the bed otherwise. My brain apparently couldn’t know a murderer was in Fair Haven without trying to find them.
The sugar from Isabel’s cupcakes was much needed. The way I felt right now, I might have cupcakes with a chaser of candy bars on the way home.
I’d tested the tiramisu cupcake and was unwrapping the maple syrup cupcake when my phone rang again.
If it was Russ calling back, he could go to voicemail this time. Him warning me off the case would only make me want to take it on even more.
This time the display read Mandy instead. I gave my maple syrup cupcake a longing look and Isabel an apologetic one. Mandy had a tendency to keep calling and texting incessantly until she got an answer. “A member of my wedding party.”
Originally, Mark and I had planned to keep our wedding party to his two brothers, my best friend Ahanti, and Elise. Once Elise married Erik, though, Mark felt he should include him, but once he included him, it felt wrong not to ask Quincey, who’d been Mark’s friend longer than Erik had. To balance things out, I asked Stacey—Sugarwood’s assistant office manager—since she was like a little sister to me, and Mandy. My mom’s reaction of But she’s in her 60s hadn’t dissuaded me. Mandy and I had been through a lot together. The days she got on my nerves were far outnumbered by the days she’d come through when I needed her.
Isabel waved for me to take the call.
“Is Mark okay?” Mandy asked after a rushed hello. “I heard they arrested him.”
Just when I thought the Fair Haven gossip mill couldn’t get any worse. “They didn’t arrest him.”
“But they found a dead man in his house.”
Thankfully it sounded like the Fair Haven police officers at least knew how to stay quiet. Mandy didn’t know who had died. It might even be the real reason she called.
I gave myself a mental kick. That thought didn’t do Mandy justice. She liked hearing gossip, but only because she liked to speculate. She didn’t spread it around. The identity of the dead man would be less interesting to her than how he got there and why.
Still, I had to squash even the idea that Mark was guilty. “You had a murder in your B&B. That didn’t make you a murderer.”
“Someone must be trying to frame him, then. I bet it’s an ex-boyfriend of yours trying to stop the wedding.”
My only ex-boyfriend had at least twenty-five years left on his prison sentence. I could guarantee he wasn’t behind this.
“How is this going to affect the wedding?” The speed of Mandy’s words made me think she’d been talking while I’d been thinking and I’d missed some of what came in between.
“It’s not. Chief McTavish will figure out what happened, including that Mark wasn’t involved, and the wedding will go ahead as planned.”
Mandy’s pause felt like the silence between a lightning flash and the thunder, full of nervous anticipation over how loud it would be. The cupcake I’d just eaten lay heavy in my stomach.
“I thought someone would have told you,” Mandy said. “Chief McTavish is missing.”
5
As I disconnected the call with Mandy, I reminded myself that her source also told her the police arrested Mark. They could be wrong about McTavish as well.
Please, Lord, let them be wrong about Chief McTavish.
Right or wrong, I wasn’t going to be able to concentrate on cupcakes until I knew.
I wiggled out of my chair. “Something’s come up. Could you pack me a few samples and my fiancé and I can try them together?”
Isabel stayed in her chair for a full ten seconds, then rose to her feet slowly. Like she was buying herself time to make a decision.
I’d gotten the impression that she had a narrow margin of profit on her truck. She was probably doing the math in her head to figure out if she could afford to give me extras for free or if she needed to ask for money. Even though she was putting together the cupcake tree for my wedding, it didn’t mean I should take advantage of her and eat up extra products she could otherwise sell.
I reached for my purse. “I’ll pay you, obviously.”
Isabel held out her hand in a stop gesture. “Don’t worry about it.” She lowered her hand to her side, but her fingers tapped a barely noticeable beat on her leg. “Is everything…Are you okay?”
There was something in her voice, like she was asking me something deeper than the actual question. I just wasn’t sure what it was.
And as nice as she seemed, I didn’t know her well enough to share the whole strange affair with her. She overheard enough already.
“Everything’s fine. It’s just a case I’m working.”
I needed to be careful. This lying thing was getting out of hand.
She nodded, but it wasn’t an I believe you nod. It was an I’m accepting you don’t want to talk about it nod.
She packaged up two of each of the flavors. I’d already decided I wanted a maple syrup cupcake, but Isabel suggested we offer at least three options. Not everyone liked maple, she said. The other contenders were tiramisu, cookies and cream, white chocolate raspberry, and lemon meringue pie. I’d told her I didn’t want the traditional chocolate and vanilla, so she’d suggested some of her most popular cupcakes as options.
She passed the cupcake carrier to me, but didn’t meet my gaze. “There are people who can help if you find you’re in a situation and don’t know how to get out.”
She said it quietly and casually, as if she were saying Make sure to try them all.
It took a second for it to click in my brain what she meant. She thought that Mark might be a danger to me.
I tucked the cupcake carrier securely into my body. “It’s not what it probably sounded like. My fiancé wouldn’t hurt me or anyone.”
