Banana Muffins & Mayhem (21 page)

She knew what he was doing—trying to get her out of the room so that her former colleagues could do their jobs without her unneeded meddling. Like she had done when he was lying on one of the beds. How had she gone from competent trauma nurse to annoying bystander? "I'll be back in a bit," she said to Amy.

As they walked through the waiting room, Bruce put his hand on her forearm, but she shrugged it off. He was trying to comfort her, but she didn't want to be coddled. She wanted to feel like a normal person again. Instead of a stressed-out maniac. What was wrong with her, and what did she need to do to get her life back on track?

Amy slid her leg sideways so that it was sitting in the ray of warm sunshine. She flexed her foot to try to loosen the tight, sore muscles in her ankle. But that wasn't her only aching body part. According to Geri, the explosion had propelled the Jeep several feet into the air. When it slammed down onto the pavement, she and Alex were tossed around inside, their limbs slamming into the dashboard, center console, and various other hard surfaces. Getting out of bed had been an agonizing chore for her and Alex that morning. As they lay under the sheets discussing what to do, they had decided to go about business as usual. Or at least as well as they physically could after playing the part of the prize inside the exploding Jeep piñata.

According to her very mechanically savvy husband, there was no mechanical explanation for the explosion, but no evidence had been found by police investigators yet to confirm that it was a bomb. The charred Jeep had been removed from Main Street and taken to the state police crime lab. But pieces of an explosive device could've been blown onto rooftops or washed away in gutters when the fire was extinguished. There was a chance that no evidence was left on the melted wreckage.

Alex figured that the twisted person behind the threats, fire, and explosion was very likely watching him. He refused to give them the satisfaction of seeing how scared and hurt he really was. So after slowly getting ready, to a soundtrack of groans and gasps whenever a new ache was discovered, Amy drove him to Quantum to begin his workday.

If her husband could be brave, so could she. For her act of defiance, she was sitting in plain sight in the sunny window of Riverbend Café. News of the accident had spread throughout the downtown businesses faster than the fire had spread through the doomed vehicle. She was greeted with crushing hugs from Sophie and most of the staff with whom she was scheduled to work with the following morning. After being given unlimited time off to recover, Amy retreated to the warmest spot she could find in the dining area, with a vanilla cinnamon latte in one hand and an apricot bar in the other. She had warmed up some frozen muffins and managed to make a pot of coffee at home, but a second caffeine-drenched, sugar-filled breakfast could only improve her mood, especially when the meal came from the café.

Amy tilted her head to the side to stretch out her tender neck muscles. Waiting for Detective Foster to make an arrest wasn't working for her anymore. She wouldn't wait around to be killed while the detective accused half of the town of leading secret lives behind their spouse's backs. Who, if anybody, was the detective's top suspect? Amy had no idea, but she did know who was at the top of her list.

She made a quick phone call. There was just enough time to finish the midmorning meal before she had to leave for the meeting she had set up. After eating every crumb of the dense cake filled with dried fruit and nuts, she set the plate in the dirty dishes bin near the trash can then gave Sophie a quick hug. Outside on the sidewalk, it felt as though she was being watched. Then she realized people were probably looking at her slowly limping along. Her gate wasn't elegant, but she made it back to the Mini, which was parked at the end of the block. She awkwardly dropped into the driver's seat. Gracefully completing the maneuver wasn't possible, so she settled for accuracy. The last thing she needed was to end up sitting on the pavement instead of inside her car.

Sliding back out from underneath the steering wheel a while later in the K Hotel parking lot wasn't any more fun. Her muscles had locked into the sitting position and were protesting being straightened out again to stand. She steeled herself for the walk through the lobby and into the central courtyard. If she tried really hard, there was a chance she could manage not to move like an arthritic eighty-year-old woman. A perpetual case of food poisoning wouldn't be enough revenge for the person who had made her feel so terrible. Not to mention, there was now a small bald spot on the back of her head around the line of stitches. Her hair would never grow back on the scar. Yup. Someone needed to pay big-time. But was she zeroed in on the correct someone…or someones?

The elegant hotel lobby was breathtakingly beautiful. Amy admired the lush flower arrangements scattered around the area as she made her way toward the center of the hotel complex. She hoped that she looked as though she was moving slowly because she was appreciating the gorgeous surroundings, not because she was in too much pain to go any faster.

She stopped at the end of the wall of windows which faced the interior courtyard. The space was bathed in sore muscle-warming sunshine. But Nigel and Ginny were seated at a table in a shady corner. There were several guests milling around the landscaped outdoor space and more walking along the window-lined hallway that ringed the courtyard. Plenty of witnesses and potential helpers, just in case the possible murderers went berserk after being called out for the crime.

Amy winced as she took a step toward the nearest French door. Her right ankle throbbed, and the big toe on her other foot was bruised, but she was sure she could run if she needed to. She forced herself to breathe normally as she crept along the paths winding around trees, fountains, and raised flowerbeds. The producer and assistant leaned toward each other. They seemed oblivious to her approach.

"Good morning," Amy said when she was a few feet away from the table.

Ginny, whose back was facing Amy, flinched. She turned around and glared. "Whatever. I'm not a morning person."

Snark deserves more snark.
"It's almost noon, so maybe you'll be in a better mood soon."

Nigel smirked as he gestured toward an unoccupied chair across the table from him. "I wish the clock was like a switch when she's cranky in the morning. She'd go from the wicked stepsister to sweet Cinderella at the stroke of noon."

The producer looked as disheveled and untidy as ever. Ginny was sporting a casual, rock band groupie look with a super tight Rolling Stones lips T-shirt, artfully ripped blue jeans, and red Converse high tops. She shook her head. The sunlight reflected off the rhinestone-studded headband that held her hair back. Ginny narrowed her eyes at Nigel and said, "Keep it up. I'll break my glass slipper over your head."

Or blow up your vehicle.
Amy sat down. Adrenalin was apparently a pain reliever since the move didn't hurt nearly as much as she had expected. She raised one eyebrow at Nigel. "Better watch it. The princesses with glass slippers are always tougher than you'd expect."

Wow. Had the explosion brought out a hidden abrasive side of her personality? She didn't know where her unusually catty attitude was coming from, but it was working well in the situation. Nigel laughed again and asked, "So what can we help you with?"

Amy crossed her legs. That move didn't feel pleasant. Incentive to get to the point. "I was wondering what the real reason is that you two are still hanging around Kellerton. I doubt you have that many people lined up to audition for the shiny new reincarnation of Phoebe's show."

Ginny's perfectly plucked eyebrows shot up. "What does it matter to you?"

"And what, exactly, do you think we're doing?" Nigel asked.

Amy crossed her arms on the tabletop and leaned forward. She couldn't see anyone else since she was focused on Nigel, but she could hear steps on the cobblestones somewhere in the courtyard. They weren't alone. Good. Someone would notice if the pair dragged her to the central fountain and tried to drown her in it. "Oh, I don't know. How about planting a bomb in my husband's Jeep yesterday?" she whispered.

"What the hell!" Nigel exclaimed. "What are you talking about? Are you accusing us of trying to kill your husband?"

A patch of red appeared in Amy's peripheral vision. The source of the footsteps. A woman wearing a scarlet dress froze for a few seconds as she stared at Nigel with her mouth hanging open. Then she turned around and hurried away. So much for help from strangers. Amy met his angry glare and answered. "Yes. Somebody almost killed me and my husband. And you two are the most likely culprits in my opinion because I think one, or both, of you murdered Phoebe."

"We didn't kill her, and we didn't try to kill you." Ginny shook her head so violently the elastic headband slipped backward and fell on the floor behind her chair. "We're
looking
for Phoebe's murderer."

Okay…that was a twist she hadn't thought of. Or a great diversion to throw her off. There was an easy way to find out if the revelation was true. "Really? So who do you think killed her?"

Ginny wrinkled her nose as though she had smelled one of Pogo's doggy toots. "You."

Damn it
. The plot twists were giving her a headache. "Why would you think that?"

"Phoebe is the only person who wasn't a local judge in that muffin contest. You probably bribed the other judges to rig it so that you would win. But Phoebe refused." Ginny pointed her black-painted fingernail at Amy. "So you killed her."

"Your theory has more holes in it than a slice of focaccia. For one thing, you tasted the food in place of Phoebe. You even told me how much you liked my muffins, so you should realize how my recipe stacked up to the others. Two—I won, so why would I kill her afterward? And three—did you even look at the bio on my website?"

The barrage of sensibility seemed to confuse the duo. They looked at each other. Nigel shrugged. "I don't get it. What does your website have to do with you bribing a judge?"

Amy took a deep breath. She had thought they were a pair of cunning killers. They certainly weren't very bright though. Their rank on her suspect list was going down by the second. "If you had actually checked out my credentials online like you said you did, then you'd know that I've won many recipe contests—even national ones. The prize in the Muffin Tin Madness contest was a trophy and a fifty-dollar prepaid debit card.
Nobody
would kill for that. It was just a friendly little local competition with no hard feelings between anybody." She tapped her fingernails on the glass table several times. "Neither of you have seemed distressed by Phoebe's death. Why would you bother trying to find the killer of someone you obviously didn't like much?"

Nigel looked at Ginny. "I think I should tell her, before she goes to the police and gets us in trouble." His shoulders sagged. "We've been badmouthing Phoebe to try to flush out the killer. I figured the person most likely had some kind of issue with her, so maybe they would commiserate with other haters—in our case, pretend haters, and admit to what they had done. We're trying to find the killer because we feel responsible for her death. I was dating Phoebe, but she found out I was cheating on her a few days before we came to Kellerton. That's why she was in such a bad mood. Honestly, she was much nicer than what everybody witnessed that weekend. She was pissed off at me and not acting like herself." He ran his fingers through his already messed up hair. "I think that's why she ended up with that stranger in the bar. It was her way of getting back at me."

"We feel terrible," Ginny said. "We're trying our best to figure out who killed her, but we aren't having much luck."

"Why do you feel badly about him cheating on her?" Amy asked.

"Because it was with me."

Amy opened her eyes. But she wasn't happy about it. In a matter of seconds, she had plummeted from peaceful sleep into a bedroom filled with very disturbing noises. Pogo was making frenzied laps on the bedspread while barking his rendition of a canine power ballad. Electronic beeps modulating between low and high pitches played in time with a blinking red glow emanating from Alex's side of the bed. For his part in the auditory assault, her husband was unleashing a litany of profanity.

She sat up and gasped when Pogo barreled headfirst into her stomach. "Calm down, baby," she said as the freaked-out dog placed his front paws on her chest and began licking her face. "What is going on?"

Alex was sitting up beside her, staring at his phone. He swiped a finger across the screen. "It's the alarm system at Quantum. The motion detectors are sensing movement inside. I need to see what's going on."

He bolted out of bed. Amy did the same. Both of them froze for a few seconds to catch their breath. Sudden movements were so not a good idea when their bodies felt as though they were the ice cubes in a shaken martini. Amy blinked back the tears that had instantly sprang into her eyes and said, "I'm coming with you."

"No!" He flipped the light switch, flooding the room with pupil-terrorizing light. "I'm not putting you in danger."

Pogo jumped off the bed and began doing figure eights around them as they stood a few feet apart. "I could be in more danger staying home. What if someone is trying to draw you into town so that they can break in here or set the house on fire?"

He stared at her for a few seconds. "You could be right," he conceded as he disappeared into the walk-in closet. "Get dressed as quickly as you can. I'm calling the police right now, so hopefully they'll get there before us."

Amy pulled on a pair of yoga pants and slipped a Detroit Lions sweatshirt over the XXL T-shirt she was wearing as a nightgown. It was 4:30 a.m. She scooped Pogo up as she listened to Alex talking to the 9-1-1 operator. If she was correct about someone trying to break into the house while they were gone, she wasn't going to let her sweet pup face down scary intruders all by himself—even though he could very likely scare away even the Incredible Hulk with a few well-placed ankle chomps.