Sally Berneathy - Death by Chocolate 03 - The Great Chocolate Scam (10 page)

“They’re beautiful!” I was impressed. Rick always gave me roses, but I really like lots of different flowers of different colors.

“You’re
beautiful.” He pulled me into his arms and gave me a long, slow, delicious kiss.

“
Want to go upstairs?” I whispered.

He laughed.
“How about we go to dinner first? We’ve waited this long. Let’s do this right.”

I nodded.
“I guess I’m just being a little paranoid. It’s like the universe is scheming to keep you out of my bedroom, and we need to take advantage of this opportunity.”

“
This opportunity will last all night. We’re not going to open the door to anybody, not even the fire department.”

“
Deal.”

I put the flowers in a vase, gave Henry some catnip, and Trent and I went to a steak place with real napkins and candles on the table. I spilled red wine on my gray silk blouse. Should have worn the red shirt.

When we got home, Trent parked his car in my driveway rather than on the street. We were settling in for the night. I smiled as we walked across the yard to my house, his arm around my waist. I’d been waiting for this night for a long time, waiting for my divorce to be final and, more recently, waiting for Rick’s relatives to go away. I had to work the next day, but it was Saturday and we only served brunch on Saturday so I could sleep—or whatever—until six o’clock, an extra two hours.

We went inside. I locked the door behind us and put on the chain then stepped into
Trent’s arms. He has the most luscious lips. I could kiss him for an hour or so, and planned to do just that.

“
Upstairs,” I whispered against those wonderful lips.

“
Mmm hmm,” he agreed, kissing the side of my neck, working his way down, sending tingles all through my body.

His cell phone rang.

“Don’t answer it.”

He sighed and stopped the wonderful things
he’d been doing. “I have to. That’s my work phone.”

I got an eerie feeling that Rick from his vantage point on the other side was somehow still manipulating my life.
I was being paranoid again.

I went to the kitchen to get a Coke while Trent took his call.

When I came back he was sitting on the sofa with his hands in his lap holding his phone between them, his head down.

“
You have to leave, don’t you?”
Please say no!

He nodded and lifted his head to look at me. His eyes were dark.
“They got an anonymous call at the station. Somebody says he knows who killed Rick and wants to meet with me tonight to tell me. The caller has some information we didn’t release to the public, so this could be legitimate.”

I was sleeping soundly on the sofa when Trent returned. He woke me with a kiss on the cheek. I sat up and rubbed my eyes.
“Did you catch the killer?”

Trent sank down beside me, and I could tell by the disgust on his face what the answer was going to be.
“The informant never showed up.”

“
Damn. That sucks. What time is it?”

“
Two a.m.”

“
Two a.m.? It was nine thirty when you left here. Did you wait all that time for some creep who wouldn’t even give you his name?”

Trent leaned back and heaved a long sigh.
“Sort of. He kept calling and saying he’d been delayed, so Lawson and I kept waiting until it got ridiculous. Obviously he knows something or he wouldn’t have known…” He glanced at me. “He wouldn’t have had that information we withheld. But he was jacking us around tonight.”

I wrapped an arm about him and laid my head on his shoulder.
“Want to come up to bed?” I tried to make my words sound suggestive, but my yawn in the middle of the sentence probably blew that attempt.

He laughed softly and kissed the top of my head.
“Not when you have to get up in four hours and you’re already asleep.”

“I’m
awake.”

“
Then why are you snoring?”

I lifted my head and peered at him in the dim light.
“I wasn’t snoring. Was I?”

He laughed again.
“Tomorrow night. You and I. All night long then sleep all day Sunday. That’ll be better anyway.” He stood, pulling me to my feet. “Lock the door behind me and then go straight upstairs to bed.”

“
Okay.” I didn’t protest. To be honest, I wasn’t feeling very sexy at that moment, just sleepy and angry at whoever had led Trent and Lawson on a wild goose chase by claiming to have information about Rick’s murder.

My paranoia was justified. Even dead, Rick was managing to keep Trent and me out of the bedroom.

*~*~*

For once my mother had
n’t overreacted.

I was in the kitchen of Death by Chocolate taking out a fresh pan of brownies when Paula came back to tell me a reporter from one of the local stations wanted to talk to me.

I set the brownies on a cooling rack and uttered a few swear words.

“
Want me to tell her you’re not here?” Paula asked.

“
No, I’ll get rid of her.”

It was just after 11:00.
We’d only been open a few minutes, so there weren’t a lot of customers in the room. That was good. Maybe I’d be able to get rid of the reporter quickly and easily without anybody noticing.

I walked over to the blond woman standing at the counter.
“I’m Lindsay Powell. Can I help you?”

The man sitting beside her rose and turned on his video camera. No, we were
n’t going to be able to do this quickly, easily or discreetly.

The woman smiled.
“Lindsay, I’m Wendy Turner with channel 7. Could we chat for a few minutes?”

“I’m
pretty busy right now.”

She looked around the near-empty room.
“When would be a good time?”

“
If this is about my ex-husband, I have no comment.”

She raised an eyebrow.
“Ex? You and Richard Kramer were divorced when he was killed?”

“
Well, no, but we are now. I mean, he’s dead, so we’re not married anymore. That’s like the ultimate divorce.”

“
Were you aware he was dating Julia Akin?”

“
Rick and I were separated. I didn’t keep up with his social life.” Damn! I was talking to a reporter! Mother wasn’t going to be happy.

“
Do you think Thomas Akin murdered his wife and your husband?”

“
What?” I grabbed a glass, poured myself a Coke and drank half in one gulp. Sure, I’d joked about that scenario but it would be ironic if, after all his cheating, Rick really was killed by a jealous husband.

“
You haven’t heard that the police took Mr. Akin in for questioning this morning?”

“
No. No comment.” It was probably a little late for that. I chugged the rest of the Coke.

“
Was Julia Akin the reason you filed for divorce from your husband?”

“
This is a place of business. You need to leave.”

The bell above the door jingled as another customer came in. I hurried over to take his order then ran back to the kitchen. When I returned with the
man’s food, the reporter and photographer were gone. Whew! Dodged that bullet without spilling too many of my guts.

A couple of hours later the place was packed. Paula and I were both darting around, dispensing sandwiches and chocolate.

I was behind the counter, selecting chocolate chip cookies for the party of four in the corner…one gluten free, one without nuts and two regular…when I heard a familiar voice and looked up to see Detective Lawson standing at the counter, scowling. He always scowled so that didn’t mean anything. I was focused on keeping the cookies separate and just gave him a quick smile and a nod. “Be right with you.”

I gave the right cookies to the right people (later confirmed because nobody went into
anaphylactic shock) then came back to the counter.

“
Hey, Lawson, good to see you,” I said. “What can I get for you? I recommend the brownies. They’re especially good today. I’ve had four already, just for purposes of quality control, of course.”

“
You need to come outside.”

My heart stopped.
When you’re involved with a cop and another cop wants to talk privately, that’s scary. “Is it Trent? Is he okay?”

“Trent’s
fine. He asked me to do this since you and he…” He shrugged, turned and walked to the door.

I caught
Paula’s eye across the room and indicated that I was going outside. She looked around at the crowded room and held her hands out questioningly.

I shrugged and followed Lawson outside. When
a cop beckons, one must follow.

A police cruiser was parked in a
“No Parking” spot in front of the restaurant. Lawson opened the back door and pulled out a tall man.

Brad.

Clint slid out right behind him.

They were
n’t smiling.

“What’s
going on? What are they doing here? Why were they in the back of a cop car?”

“
Detective Morrison arrested them last night for prostitution.”

I had met Alicia Morrison, an attractive lady who often went undercover.
“Prostitution?” I looked at the boys in complete disgust. They ducked their heads and looked ashamed. But like Rick, I’m sure they were only ashamed they’d been caught, not that they’d committed the crime.

“
When Trent came in this morning and found out what happened, he asked me to get them released into your custody since they’re Rick’s brothers.”

“
My custody?” My hand clutched my throat in horror. “Oh, no! Why didn’t he release them to their mother’s custody? I don’t want them!”

“
He tried to get them released to Marissa, but she’s got too many arrests on her record.”

Why did that not surprise me?
“Then take them back to jail! Prostitution?” I glared at the boys. “You tried to hire prostitutes? Are you nuts?”

“
We didn’t try to hire anybody,” Brad protested, lifting his gaze and looking totally unrepentant.

“
That woman was just sitting there in the bar looking lonely,” Clint said. “She acted like she liked us. She should have told us she was a cop.” He glowered at Lawson. “That’s entrapment.”

I saw Marissa drive up and get out of her Cadillac at the same time I saw that the gathering crowd included Wendy Turner and her cameraman. In fact, a news van from another station had just pulled up behind
Marissa’s car. Oh, goody. We were all going to be famous, and my mother was going to have to get her valium prescription refilled.

Marissa was mad. She stomped up to her sons and backhanded both of them.
“What is the matter with you? What were you thinking?”

“Ma’am
,” Lawson said, stepping between her and the boys, “you can’t hit them.”

“
Oh, yes, I can! I gave birth to these sorry excuses for men, and that gives me the right to discipline them when they do something stupid, and propositioning a cop is one of the stupidest things I can think of!”

“
But, Mama,” Clint whined, “we needed some money! She didn’t tell us she was a cop!”

Something about that did
n’t sound quite right.
We needed some money?
How did they plan to pay for sex if they needed money?

“
She looked like a regular woman, and she smiled at us!” Brad said. “You told us yesterday to go make some money.”

Marissa stepped around Lawson, grabbed
Brad’s hair in one hand and Clint’s in the other and started to drag them away. “Tried to sell yourselves to a cop?”

Tried to sell yourselves to a cop?
Omigawd! The implications of her words hit me like a ton of unsweetened chocolate straight to the gut. They hadn’t been soliciting Morrison for sex, they’d been trying to sell it to her! This just got better and better.

“
The two of you don’t have a brain between you!” Marissa berated the boys as they stumbled along behind her. “We’re about to be rich and you put all that at risk—”

Wendy moved in front of her just before she reached her car.
“I’m Wendy Turner with Channel 7. I’d love to hear about how the officer entrapped your sons.”

I expected Marissa to backhand the reporter, but of course that
wasn’t her style. She was, first and foremost, a con artist. She ordered her sons to get in the car, then turned and smiled for the camera. “Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to clear my sons’ names.”

All attention was focused on Marissa, and for the briefest of moments I thought I might be able to escape from the debacle. I turned to go back into the restaurant, but a reporter from the other station stepped in front of me.
“How do you feel about having your brothers-in-law released to your custody?”

“
My—they’re not—I mean—how did you find out?”

“
Police report. Your life has been pretty hectic for the last twenty-four hours, learning about your husband’s affair with Julia Akin, then her husband being questioned by the police, and now your murdered husband’s brothers have been arrested for prostitution. How are you holding up?”

I tried to beat down the panic as I looked at the scene around me. Marissa was smiling and babbling and tossing her hair for the six
o’clock news. All my customers in the restaurant were looking out the window, watching the entertainment. A crowd had gathered on the sidewalk. There was no way I was going to escape this with even a modicum of dignity.

You know what they say…when life hands you a lemon, make Lemon Chocolate Pie.

I straightened and looked directly into the camera. “As long as I have plenty of my wonderful chocolate creations, I’m holding up just fine.” I waved a hand toward the sign for my restaurant, Death by Chocolate. Yes, my mother was going to be horrified, but that’s pretty much a constant state for her. And if this had the same effect on business as that man being murdered in front of the place a few months ago, I could buy her a nice bottle of wine for consolation.

“
We’re getting ready to close now,” I said, “but we’ll be open again on Monday, and I’m going to create a special chocolate dessert that will help the families and friends of both victims, Rick and Julia, cope with this terrible disaster.”

I smiled, waved to the camera and pushed my way into Death by Chocolate.

Paula gave me a smile and a thumbs-up sign.