Dark Chocolate Demise (4 page)

Leo dropped to the ground and began fishing through his backpack. For what, Mel could not imagine and she really didn't want to find out.

“Time for you to take a break, Marty,” she said and she shoved him towards the back door.

Atom, the smaller boy, had grabbed the window ledge and was trying to hoist himself into the van.

“Oh, no you don't, short stack!” Mel said.

She hustled Marty out the back and then grabbed two of her brain cupcakes. She gently nudged the boy off of her window and held out the cupcakes.

“Here you go,” she said. “These are on me. Probably, you shouldn't be chasing people with your . . . uh . . .”

“Specter meter,” Leo said.

He and the smaller one exchanged a look, and Mel realized, judging by their matching nose and chin, that they were brothers. They ignored her proffered cupcakes and Leo jerked his head in the direction of the back of the van. Atom nodded. They took off running in opposite directions.

The next person in line stepped up and Mel went to take their order, when she heard a yelp. She glanced up and saw Marty hotfooting it through the crowd with the two boys on his tail. If she was a betting woman, she'd lay odds that Marty was beating feet over to Olivia's booth.

Mel had no doubt that Olivia would scare the two hooligans away from her man. She just hoped Olivia didn't do any permanent psychological damage to the boys.

“What's the haps?” Tate asked as he climbed back into the van.

“You wouldn't believe me if I told you,” Mel said. Luckily, the crowd surged forward and Mel was spared from trying to explain about Marty and the sawed-off Bonehead Investigators and their specter meter.

She figured they'd see Marty again as soon as he lost his newly acquired shadows, er, shadow hunters? She was unclear on the proper nomenclature for ghost hunters or whatever it was those two boys thought they were.

“So, are you and Angie okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, we're good,” he said. “Seeing Roach like that, well, it made me realize how lucky I am. Anything Angie wants for our wedding she gets, so it looks like you're going to be hers.”

Mel smiled. “Works for me, but you know I would have been happy to stand up for you, too.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said.

They grinned at each other.

“Where is Angie?” she asked.

“Bathroom,” he said.

Mel nodded. She turned back to the next customer, and she and Tate double-teamed the window, getting the cupcakes out as fast as the zombies could order them.

When there was finally a lull, Tate nudged her towards the back door. “Take a break,” he said. “I can handle the horde.”

“Thanks,” Mel said. She didn't admit it to Tate, but she was eager to find Angie and hear her side of the Roach encounter. It had to be a little weird to have your ex sing a song about you to a crowd of, well, monsters.

Mel circled the van and found Oz taking pictures of people as they climbed into the casket. Some went for the grisly fresh-from-the-grave look while others pretended to be dead, and the last two girls had fits of the giggles and could barely stay in the coffin long enough to have their picture snapped.

“Where's Angie?” she asked.

Oz handed the cell phone back to the girls, who were still giggling. One of them cast Oz a look of longing, which Mel noted he was oblivious to, no doubt because he was utterly smitten with his girlfriend Lupe.

Oz glanced around the area, looking for Angie as if he'd misplaced her. Then he frowned.

“I haven't seen her,” he said.

Mel assumed Angie must still be in the restroom. She didn't envy her the problem of trying to maneuver into a public stall in her big poufy dress. Then again the bakery was only a five-minute walk at best; maybe she'd gone there.

“Why don't you take a break?” Mel asked. “I can manage the coffin for a spell.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “Some of these people are sort of scary.”

“Nothing can be scarier than a real dead body,” Mel said. “Sadly, I've had enough experience with those to tell the difference. This is nothing.”

Oz nodded and said, “Point made. I'll be back in five.”

“Take your time,” Mel called after him as he stepped into the crowd.

Oz hadn't been gone more than a few seconds when Mel heard a shout coming from the direction he'd taken. She stood up on her tiptoes and tried to see over the crowd. A man, a very large man, with a scraggly beard that ended in a braid in the middle of his chest had grabbed Oz by the shirtfront and was shaking him. This was no small feat given that Oz was a big boy, having several inches and many pounds over Mel.

“Tate!” Mel stuck her head in the open window of the truck. “Tate, come quick! Oz is in trouble.”

Tate shoved a cupcake at the ghoul in front of him and hunkered down to look out the window. Immediately, he slammed the window shut and jumped out of the back of the van.

“Lock it up!” he yelled at Mel as he threw himself into the melee.

Mel grabbed her keys and hurriedly closed the windows on the van before locking it up. Then she stuffed her keys in her pocket and raced after Tate.

“I saw you touch her, man,” the thug growled into Oz's face while still holding him by the shirtfront.

“Hey, now,” Tate said as he moved in between them. “I'm sure it was just an accident. Right, Oz?”

Oz was glaring at the man who held him. “Like I already said, I got shoved into your girl. I said I was sorry. What more do you want?”

“Your blood,” the man sneered. Then he pulled out a very large switchblade and snapped it open.

“Whoa!” Tate shouted. “Are you nuts? Put that away before someone gets hurt.”

Mel cringed. That was the voice of the old buttoned-down power-suit-wearing Tate. While that voice might make administrative assistants scurry and junior execs cower, it wasn't going to do jack on a guy who looked like he snacked on bats and spiders for milk and cookie time.

“Not helping, Tate,” Oz choked out as the man's fist wound tighter into the fabric of his chef's coat.

Mel stomped forward. Enough was enough.

“Put him down. Now,” she said. The man looked down at her as if she were no more than a mosquito buzzing in his ear.

She could sense a crowd was forming around them, and she had a flash of annoyance that no one else was stepping up to help them out.

“Is this your girl?” the man asked Oz. “Maybe I should grab her tits and we can call it even.”

“Oh, hell no!” Tate and Oz cried together. Then Tate looked at Oz and said, “Do it!”

Oz raised a knee and nailed the man in the junk with it. Mel heard every man in the crowd wince in sympathy. The ogre dropped Oz and with a primal roar, Tate lowered his head and charged the man. The two of them went down with a thump against the pavement.

Just then, Marty came running up. He clapped his hands to his bald head and cried, “What the hell is going on here?”

“He started it!” A buxom redhead, wearing a zombie maid's outfit complete with cheesy fishnet stockings, pointed at Oz. “He grabbed my breasts!”

“I did not!” Oz protested. His voice cracked and his face turned bright red, visible even under his thick gray makeup. “I tripped and fell on . . . er . . . you.”

Mel glanced back at Tate and the big man. They were rolling across the ground. Tate had his arms and legs wrapped around the giant man, making it almost impossible for the guy to get a solid punch in. That didn't stop the ogre from rolling until Tate was on the bottom, where the man tried to head butt him.

“A little help here!” Tate yelled as he dodged the cranial smack-down.

Mel, Oz, and Marty moved in to help, when three Scottsdale police officers on bicycles rolled up.

“Uh-oh,” Marty said.

The officers wasted no time in grabbing the big guy off of Tate. The skanky girlfriend immediately got into the officer's face, pointing at Oz and shrieking about how he had jumped her, and her boyfriend was just protecting her.

Mel recognized one of the officers as being friends with her uncle, Stan Cooper, who was a detective on the Scottsdale PD. She gave him a little wave and he came over.

“Mel, I almost didn't recognize you with your brains coming out of your forehead like that,” he said. “Not your best look.”

“No, I don't suppose it is,” she said. She fingered the latex on her forehead that was beginning to itch. “Good to see you, Henry. How are Jackie and the kids?”

“Good, everyone is good,” he said. They were quiet for a moment and then he gestured to Tate, who was talking to another officer. “Friend of yours?”

“Yes, Tate Harper,” she said. “Uncle Stan can vouch for him. He's a good guy, but that thug accused our employee of trying to feel up his girlfriend, and Tate was forced to intervene.”

“I didn't!” Oz protested.

The officer smiled at Oz's genuinely alarmed face.

“Officer Henry Dodge, this is Oscar Ruiz,” Mel introduced them and they shook hands.

“Can you tell me what happened from the beginning?” Henry asked Oz.

Marty stepped forward, looking like he wanted to add to the conversation, but Mel gestured him back. He made a huffy sound but held his silence.

Oz explained how he was going on a break and got jostled in the crowd. He accidently brushed up against the mean girl, and the next thing he knew her crazy boyfriend had him up in the air by the front of his shirt.

“Stay put,” the officer said. “I'm going to check in with my partners.”

“You don't think they'll arrest me, do you?” Oz asked as Henry walked away.

“Nah, you didn't do anything wrong,” Marty said. “And look at that guy. I bet he has a rap sheet as long as his beard.”

“Let's hope,” Mel said. “Some outstanding warrants would be nice, too.”

It wasn't long before Tate, looking a bit rumpled and missing the dagger that had been lodged in his skull, came back over to them.

“It's going to be just a few minutes,” he said. “They've got some witnesses that are telling them exactly what happened, how the guy jumped on Oz and that I backed him up.”

He and Oz paused to knuckle-bump each other while Marty thumped them both on the back. The testosterone was so thick in the air, Mel was pretty sure she caught a whiff of it on an inhale.

“Why don't you and Marty head back to the van,” Tate said to Mel. “We don't want anyone messing with the coffin, and we still have a lot of brain cupcakes to move.”

“Really? I thought they'd be the most popular. No, huh?” Mel asked.

“The Dark Chocolate Demise with the coffins on top are definitely the favorites,” Tate said. “We should remember this for when we open our franchise.”

Mel heaved a sigh. Tate had been working on expanding her business for the past few months, ever since he quit his high-powered investment job. It had caused some friction between them, mostly for her, as he was trying to take the bakery to the next level, while she was content with things just as they were.

“Yeah, sure,” she said. “Look, if the officers need us, let them know we're over there.”

“Got it,” Tate said. “Hey, has anyone seen Angie?”

He was scanning the crowd for his zombie bride, and Mel knew he was wishing she'd been there to see him take down the big baddie. Probably, because it was usually Angie who led with her fists and punched out the bad guys.

“No, but if I see her, I'll send her over,” Mel promised.

Together she and Marty worked their way through the crowd to the van.

Halfway there, she saw some uniformed members of the Zombie Defense Squad. All role-playing had apparently been suspended during the fight as the squad and zombies all mingled and stood up on their toes, trying to see over the crowd to find out what the ruckus was about. This reminded Mel of Marty's earlier departure from the van.

“What happened to your two new buddies?” she asked.

Marty scowled. “Nothing.”

Which Mel took to mean he didn't want to talk about it. Silly Marty. Had he not known her for over a year?

“When you say nothing, you mean . . . ?” she prompted him.

“You're just not going to let it go, are you?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“Fine.” Marty stepped around a family of undead, and Mel had to move quickly to keep up. “If you must know, they tried to capture me.”

Mel stifled her laugh enough to ask, “How?”

“They had a whosiwhatsis in their backpack. Sort of looked like a humane mouse catcher. Not sure how they thought they were going to stuff me in there, but I got Olivia to run interference while I escaped.”

Now Mel did laugh. Marty gave her an outraged look, which only made her laugh harder.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “Really, it's just, why you?”

“Danged if I know,” Marty said. “Every time they pointed that goofy gizmo at me, it started flashing and beeping like all get-out.”

“Well, obviously, it's faulty,” Mel said.

“Yeah,” Marty said. “Unless . . .”

“What?”

“Unless I died and now I'm a ghost, like in that movie Tate made us watch that scared the snot out of me.”

“
The Sixth Sense
?” Mel asked. When Marty nodded, she shook her head. “No, because that would mean that everyone who comes into contact with you has the ability to see dead people. You. Are. Not. Dead.”

Marty nodded, looking relieved. “You'd tell me though, right?”

“I promise,” Mel said. “The minute my hand passes right through you, I'll be sure to scream and let you know.”

She patted the sleeve of his suit just to reassure them both that he was very much alive and kicking.

They pushed through a group of rowdy teens dressed like dead rock stars to reach the van. It stood deserted with no line as everyone had rushed over to see the fight.

As they unlocked it and climbed into the back, Mel said, “Push the brains.”

“Okay, in all my eighty-plus years, I never thought anyone would say that to me,” Marty said. “What about the coffin? Shouldn't one of us be out there with it?”

“Oh, I forgot,” Mel said.

Marty made to back out of the van, but Mel put her hand on his arm.

“Not you,” she said. “No more napping.”

“Aw, but I'm tired,” he said. “And it's all plush and soundproof.”

“Yeah . . . no,” Mel said. “I'll go out until the others get back.”

Mel hopped down from the van and circled around to the front where the coffin was propped. She noted the lid was open, which was a surprise since she was sure they'd closed it. Then again, there were thousands of people here. It would have been easy for someone to open it while they were away.

She hurried forward and noticed the big poufy white dress hanging out the side. Of course!

“Very funny, Ange,” she said. “While you're napping in the coffin, your fiancé was getting his butt stomped. Oh, but don't tell him I said that. If he asks, tell him I said he was whuppin' the big hairy beastie.”

Mel peered over the side. Angie was wedged in the casket on her side with her hair and veil covering her face. Her dress was crammed in around her. It had never been a sparkling-clean gown, given the fake blood and all, but now it seemed even more dingy with dirt streaks and rips and even more fake blood.

“Angie, did you hear me?” Mel asked. “Tate was in a brawl.”

Angie didn't move. She didn't even twitch at hearing that Tate had been in a fight. That was odd. Mel had expected Angie to explode out of the coffin and go kick some butt on behalf of her man, which was normal Angie-operating procedure. Maybe she really was asleep.

“Angie!” Mel reached into the casket and shook Angie's shoulder. It felt wrong. “Angie!”

Mel began to shove aside the veil and hair, trying to see what was wrong with her friend. One of Angie's arms flopped out of the casket. Mel started and then smiled. Obviously, Angie was having fun with her and playing the zombie bride to the hilt.

“All right,” Mel said. “You win. You startled me. Now come on, we have cupcakes to schlep.”

She grabbed Angie's arm to help her out of the coffin. Her skin was cold to the touch. Too cold. Instinctively, Mel put her fingers over the pulse point on Angie's wrist.

There wasn't one. Angie was dead.