Buttercream Bump Off (15 page)

“What did you think?”

“I loved it,” Angie gushed. “You’re a god.”

He laughed and pulled her close again. Tucking her against his side, he noticed Mel and Tate. “Hi, Mel. Hey there, Tim.”

“Tate.”

“We’re all going out for a bite,” Roach said. “Do you want to join us?”

“No,” Tate said. He took Angie’s elbow and gently tried to pry her out of Roach’s arms. “And you have to be up early tomorrow for a business meeting.”

“What business meeting?” she asked. She shook him off and pressed herself back against Roach.

“We have to go over our quarterly statements,” Tate said.

With her ears ringing like they’d been slapped repeatedly by trash can lids, Mel was only catching every other word. Still, she wondered if Tate thought he was fooling anyone.

“No, we don’t,” Angie argued. “What do you think, Mel? Are you up for dinner?”

“Huh?” Mel asked. “I’m pretty much lipreading here. You have to speak up.”

Roach busted up laughing. “I like you, Mel. You’re a gas.”

“Eat,” Angie shouted. “Do you want to?”

“Bed,” Mel said with a shake of her head. “All I want is bed.”

“Okay, I’ll see you two tomorrow then,” Angie said.

“The car will take you home,” Roach said. “Thanks for coming to the show.”

He swung Angie into the crowd, and the two of them were swallowed up in a sea of high fives and backslaps.

“You couldn’t back me up, there?” Tate chided Mel as they trudged out the back door.

“Did you really think she was going to leave her new boyfriend to go to bed early because you want to go over the quarterlies tomorrow?” Mel asked.

“Boyfriend?” Tate’s voice rose an octave. “I don’t see him as her boyfriend.”

Mel gave him a hard stare. The driver was waiting at the edge of the lot with the back passenger door open.

“Come on,” she said. “We need to talk.”

In the blessed silence of the backseat, Mel studied Tate as the driver weaved his way through the city streets back to South Scottsdale. By unspoken mutual agreement, neither of them spoke until the driver let them out at the bakery.

“Angie is out with a man who could very well have murdered his own father,” Tate said.

“I am fully aware of the situation,” Mel said. She walked down the narrow alley and unlocked the back door to the bakery kitchen. Tate followed. “But seriously, a business meeting was the best thing you could come up with?”

“What? It was perfectly reasonable,” he said.

Mel slammed her purse down on the table and turned to face Tate. “It was lame.”

“At least I tried,” he said. “You let her go.”

“Because we need to talk,” Mel said. “Listen, I talked to Jimbo, the band’s manager, and he confirmed that there haven’t been any practices. So, it’s official that Roach was not at practice that night like he said.”

“So where was he the night his father died?” Tate demanded.

“I don’t know, but I don’t like this.”

“And you let her go eat dinner with him?” he yelled. “I hate this. I hate that she’s out with him and I hate that he’s probably a murderer.”

“Tate, relax,” Mel said. “We need to come up with a plan.”

“Don’t tell me to relax,” he snapped. He looked like he was at the end of his rope, and Mel wondered if he was finally getting it.

“Tate, why do you suppose it bothers you so much that Angie is dating him?”

“Because he’s a killer,” Tate retorted. “And she’s my friend. I’d be equally upset if you were dating a killer.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Mel said.

Tate gasped in outrage. “Yes, I would.”

“Listen, I know jealous when I see jealous,” Mel said. “You are jealous.”

“I am not,” he protested.

“Yeah, you are,” she said.

“Am not.”

“Are, too.”

“Am—” he began, but Mel cut him off.

“Oh, forget it! If you can’t figure out why this bothers you so much, then you really are hopeless.”

“Am n—” he began, but Mel held up her hand and ordered, “Don’t say it.”

“So, what are we going to do?” he asked. “She’s out there with a probable murderer.”

Mel lifted her car keys off of the hook on the wall.

“Come on, we’re going on a stakeout.”

“Seriously?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Short of backing over him with my car? No.”

“Then let’s go.”

“ ‘Ma’am, what is the approximate dry weight of the average Madagascan fruit tree bat?’ ” Tate asked in his best Joe Friday voice.

“
Dragnet
, really?” Mel asked. She rolled her eyes and led the way out the door.

“Stakeouts are not as exciting as they sound,” Tate said.

“What do you know?” Mel asked. “You’ve been asleep for the past half hour.”

“I was just resting my eyes,” he said.

“Do you always drool when you’re just resting your eyes?”

“It’s a salivary condition.”

“Uh-huh.”

Tate stretched and yawned. He was six feet tall and pushing two hundred pounds. Mel felt herself lean over to give him more room. Why was it all of the men in her life seemed to take up too much space? Specifically,
her
space.

They were parked two houses down from Angie’s duplex in the neighborhood just south of Old Town Scottsdale. Rectangular brick houses built on slabs, they’d probably popped up in 1959 like fruit on a prickly pear cactus.

“What did you mean when you said I was jealous?” Tate asked.

“That’s not self-explanatory?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I’m just protective of you two, that’s all.”

“Deny, deny, deny,” Mel said. “How’s that working for you?”

“For me?” he asked. “How’s it working for you and Joe? Are you ever going to get horizontal with him?”

Mel sucked in a breath. “We get horizontal all the time.”

“I’m not talking about unconscious horizontal,” he said.

“What makes you think we haven’t been . . . conscious?”

“Oh, puleeeze,” Tate said. “I know you. Every time you get intimate with a guy you go on a baking bender.”

“I do not.... I do?”

“Three months dating Gary the barista and you created the Espresso-Shot Cupcake. Five months with the geologist from the university and you came up with the Crystal Cupcake.”

“Oh, yeah, we decorated the cupcakes with rock candy,” Mel said. “Those were cool.”

“See? That’s how I know you and Joe have not gotten naked together yet.”

“You can sleep with someone without being naked,” Mel said.

“Yeah, if you’re talking asleep-sleeping with someone,” he said. He leaned back against the passenger door and studied her. “What’s the holdup anyway? You’ve been in love with him since we were kids.”

“You knew?”

He just looked at her, and Mel let out a pent-up sigh. “It’s this stupid case of his—not that the case is stupid. It’s huge. It’s just taking up all of his time, and when I do see him . . .”

“He’s dead tired?”

“Out before the light.”

“Bummer,” Tate said.

“Yeah.” Given the direction of the conversation, Mel figured it was a good time to put to rest Angie’s suspicions once and for all. “So, it doesn’t bother you that I’m dating him?”

“Well, honestly . . .” he began, but then he swore and crouched down, dragging Mel with him. “Get down! It’s them!”

A moving headlight illuminated the inside of the car. Mel wondered if Angie recognized it. It was a classic red-and-white Mini Cooper, so it wasn’t unique, but still, Angie might be suspicious if she saw it parked on her street. Nuts, she should have parked farther away.

“What should we do?” she asked.

“Poke your head up, and see if you see her,” he said. “See if he’s with her.”

“Me? You do it.”

“You’re her best friend,” he said.

“So are you,” she argued.

“It’s your car.”

“I knew we should have taken your car,” Mel said. “What if she saw us? She’ll be furious.”

“She didn’t see us.”

“How do you know?”

The theme from
Gone with the Wind
flowed from Mel’s purse.

Still hunched over, she and Tate looked at each other in alarm.

“Are you expecting a call at one in the morning?” Tate asked.

“It could be Joe,” she said and fished the phone out of her bag. “Uh-oh, it’s Angie.”

“Maybe she’s just reporting on her date,” Tate said. “Bluff.”

“Hello?” Mel answered, trying to sound as if she’d just woken up.

“Don’t bother,” Angie said. “I see you. You know, if you want to be discreet, you really need to take the cupcake antenna ball off your car.”

“Damn. I’m sorry, Ange.”

“What?” Tate whispered. “What did she say? Is she okay? Did he hurt her?”

“Chillax,” Mel whispered. “She’s fine, but she sees us.”

“Oh.” Tate sat back in his seat.

“Roach just left,” Angie said. “Why don’t you two come in for some breakfast?”

“At one in the morning?” Mel asked.

“Sure, it’ll be like old times.”

“On our way,” Mel said. She shut her phone and started up her car. She pulled into Angie’s small driveway and parked behind her Honda sedan.

Angie was standing in the doorway that led from her carport to her kitchen. Tate and Mel approached with caution.

“Are you mad?” Mel asked.

“Nah,” Angie said. “I know what you’re worried about, but you’re wrong. Roach didn’t hurt his father. I know it.”

“How can—” Tate began, but Mel interrupted, finishing his sentence: “—you stand all those groupies?”

Angie looked at them and then pointed to her outfit. “You’re kidding, right? I think I am now the queen of the groupies.”

“So, where is he?” Tate asked between his teeth.

“Roach has to get up early for an interview, so we called it an early night.”

A slow grin spread across Tate’s face.

“What are you smiling about?” Angie asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “It’s just a nice night out tonight.”

Angie glanced between them and then raised her eyebrows in question at Mel, who shrugged.

“Come on,” Angie said, stepping aside to let them in. “I’ll make you two some eggs.”

Angie flipped on the radio, and they grooved to a jazz station while they made toast, scrambled eggs, and ham. The kitchen was warm on the cold night, and the old-fashioned aqua-tiled counters were welcoming, as if they’d just been waiting for friends to gather round.

Mel watched as Tate teased Angie about her big hair. Angie laughed with him, but something had changed. Angie wasn’t looking at Tate like she used to, with her heart in her eyes. Mel wondered if Tate noticed the difference.

He seemed to be putting forth an even greater effort to make Angie laugh, so Mel figured he did notice the difference, even if it was on an unconscious level. Then she wondered when Tate would realize that he was in love with Angie. He was a man, so it could take a while. She hoped, for his sake, that when he finally did figure it out, it wasn’t too late.

“Aunt Mel, look at me!” a hip-high Darth Vader shouted as he waved a lightsaber at an equally short Luke Skywalker, who was racing away across Joyce’s backyard.

“I’m looking,” Mel yelled back and grinned. Her nephews had been battling each other all evening. She had even spent half an hour tied to an orange tree, pretending to be Princess Leia until Joe showed up and, in his best Han Solo impersonation, saved her. At which point he kissed her, making both boys gag and retch.

“I wish I had their energy,” Joe said as the boys raced by again, making all sorts of loud lightsaber noises.

“No kidding,” Mel said. They were sitting at her mother’s patio table, having just finished dinner.

“It’s all I can do to keep up with them,” Charlie said from the hammock nearby.