Buttercream Bump Off (4 page)

“No, I can’t say that I have,” he said.

“Well, I have,” Mr. Felix said. “He’s one of those investment guys. His name is always in the business section of the paper. He’s so good at making money that my company invested all of our pensions with him. We’re looking at a much more comfortable retirement now.”

He and Mrs. Felix exchanged a smile. Mel glanced back at Jay. “Well, that sounds promising.”

“It does,” Jay said. “Mr. Felix, I had no idea you had such a head for business.”

“Oh, I don’t,” he said with a shake of his head. “I just try to keep up with where my money is going. What about you, Dan? You’re an accountant. Have you heard of Baxter Malloy?”

Dan started to splutter and cough, and Irene whacked him on the back. “That’s what you get for snitching the Hershey’s Kisses.”

Red-faced, Dan glared at her, and the rest of the class looked away.

The men started talking finances, but Mel tuned them out to contemplate the bomb her mother had dropped. Joyce had a date with a stranger.

It made Mel feel uneasy, and she wondered if she should have Uncle Stan check Malloy out and how mad her mother would be if she did.
Hmm.
Now she knew how the parents of teenage girls felt. Was there a man good enough for her mother? Not hardly.

Mel stared at the man sprawled out on her futon. His head was tipped back, and soft snores were being emitted from his mouth. He looked as settled in as if he lived there.

Certainly, his clothes were as at home as the rest of him. His red power tie was askew beneath his unbuttoned collar. His charcoal suit jacket was draped over the arm of the foldout bed, and his shoes had wandered off to the other side of her white shag area rug, leaving him plenty of room to stretch out his long legs. For one man, he sure took up a lot of space.

Mel’s studio apartment above the shop was just right for her, but when Joe DeLaura showed up, suddenly it felt pinched like a pair of pointy-toed high heels that were two sizes too small.

He had arrived an hour ago with takeout from Pei Wei and a lovely bouquet of tulips. They were yellow with red edges and were now perched in a clear, square glass vase on the counter of her kitchenette. They were lovely. And they almost made up for the fact that he was dead asleep and snoring. Almost.

They had been dating, if you could call it that, for three months. Just after they’d gotten together, the biggest case of Joe’s career landed on his desk. As an assistant district attorney, he was prosecuting a serial shooter, and the case was a 24-7 nonstop work-a-thon that didn’t leave much time for Mel in his life, unless you counted the amount of time he spent sleeping on her futon.

If she hadn’t been half in love with him since she was twelve years old, and if he weren’t so darned handsome, she probably would have kicked him to the curb by now, but she just couldn’t turn her back on twenty-two years of longing. She was determined to wait it out.

As was becoming her habit, she prepped for lights-out and then rolled him one way and then the other as she made up the bed. The man didn’t flutter an eyelid, not even when she took off his tie so he wouldn’t strangle himself in his sleep. She snuggled in next to him, and he rolled over and pulled her close. He was solid and warm and, despite the fact that she longed for one or both of them to be naked sometime when they did this, she fell fast asleep.

Mel woke up to the sound of a mug of coffee being plunked onto the table beside her head. There was no better sound in the world. She cracked an eyelid, and there hunched Joe, giving her a wry “there’s a crick in my back, but you’re worth it” smile that meant more to her than even the tulips he’d brought the night before.

“I fell asleep on you again,” he said.

“Hmm,” Mel hummed in agreement.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s this case, it’s a . . .”

“Killer,” she finished for him. “Sorry, couldn’t resist.”

He grinned at her. Leaning close, he pulled her into his arms.

“As soon as this case is over, I am whisking you away to a place where no one can find us.” He lowered his head and whispered in her ear, “Then I am going to have my way with you . . . repeatedly.”

Mel felt her entire body grow hot. “Sounds like a plan.” Her voice came out in a froggy croak, and she cleared her throat.

Joe kissed the top of her head and said, “I’ll call you later.”

She watched him leave and decided he was definitely worth the wait.

“Does this make my butt look big?” Joyce spun around in the three-way mirror at Dillard’s, and Mel stifled a yawn. Seven hours, thirteen stores, a number too high to count of rejected outfits, and the beginnings of a blister on her heel, and Joyce had yet to pick a dress for her date. Mel was at her end.

“No, Mom, you look fabulous,” she said.

“You’re not even looking at me,” Joyce chided her. With a miffy humph, she grabbed another selection of outfits, snapped “Excuse me” at a woman in her way, and stomped back into her dressing cubby.

The woman in the way turned and gave Mel an unhappy look. She was standard Scottsdale issue: blonde, buxom, dripping in diamonds, and wearing a body-hugging Dereon animal-print top that showed off her girls to perfection. Mel was willing to bet she’d paid more for her boobs than Mel had for her bakery. Then again, Mel had Tate for financial backing. She glanced at the woman’s chest. Yeah, she probably had a financial push-up, too.

“Rude,” the woman huffed with a hair toss in Joyce’s direction.

Mel frowned. “Didn’t I see you in the changing rooms at Nordstrom?”

The woman’s eyes widened and then narrowed. “I sincerely doubt it.” She scurried into a vacant changing room and slammed the door.

Mel sighed. Obviously she’d been at this too long if she was beginning to think she was seeing the same people at different stores. She took out her cell phone and texted an SOS to her brother Charlie, who lived three hours north in Flagstaff.

Within thirty seconds, her cell phone chimed its distinctive
Gone with the Wind
ringtone.

“Charlie, rent a plane, fly your behind down here, and save me,” she said.

“That bad?”

“Worse,” she said.

“You just hate shopping,” he said. “Man up.”

“I have a blister,” she whined. “And if I get spritzed by one more department store perfume girl, people are going to start thinking I’m a ho.”

“All right, sis,” Charlie said. His voice sounded strained, as if he was trying not to laugh. “Here’s what you do: When she comes back out, you need to sell her on whatever she’s wearing, once and for all.”

“I’ve been trying. Don’t you think I’ve been trying?” Mel’s voice came out in a pitch so high she was sure only dogs would be able to hear her.

“It’s time for backup,” Charlie said. “You need a man. If a man says she looks great, she’ll buy whatever she’s wearing, even if she looks like a pumpkin.”

“I’m in the women’s dressing room. Where am I supposed to find a man?”

“Pop your head out and see if there’s one of those old guys holding his wife’s purse by the door,” Charlie said. He always could think on his feet.

“Fine. I’ll call you later.” Mel ended the call and poked her head out the door, glancing at the cushy seats to the right. Sure enough, three oldsters had been parked with shopping bags and handbags.

The oldest was wearing lime green Bermuda shorts with black socks and loafers. No, Joyce would run for plastic surgery if he told her she looked good. The one in the middle had a waxy sheen to his complexion and was pulling at his ear hairs. No. The third one had thick white hair, sparkling blue eyes, and was dressed in perfectly creased khakis and a Polo golf shirt. Perfect.

Mel sidled up to him. “Hi,” she said.

“Hello,” he replied.

“Nice day, isn’t it?”

“Sure is,” he said.

“Mel? Mel, where are you?” her mother called from the dressing room.

So much for the lame cocktail party-type chitchat. Mel needed to get this guy up to speed fast if she ever hoped to see the inside of her bakery again.

“I need a favor,” she whispered. “My mother, an older version of me, is about to walk through that door. Please, I beg of you, tell her she is the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen.”

The man’s eyes widened as if he thought Mel was deranged, or maybe his pupils were dilating in reaction to the fog bank of perfume Mel was wearing. Either way, before he could answer, Joyce came strolling out of the dressing room wearing a royal blue designer dress with bolero-style shoulders and three-quarter-length sleeves. Even with mussed hair and chewed-off lipstick, she looked amazing.

“Melanie, I was looking for you,” she said.

“Oh, my dear lady,” said the man beside Mel as he rose out of his seat and reached for Joyce’s hand. “You are a vision.”

Joyce’s face turned bright pink, and she did a demure half twirl as she put her hand in his. “Do you think so?”

He kissed the back of her hand and leaned back to study her. “You are exquisite.”

“Why, thank you,” she said.

Suddenly the man reared back and dropped Joyce’s hand. One of his hands clutched at his chest while the other fumbled in his pocket.

“Sir?” Mel asked. “Are you all right?”

“My angina,” he grunted. “In . . . my . . . pocket . . . my . . . pills.”

“Mom, go get help!” Mel said.

Joyce dashed away while Mel helped the man sit down and fished the pills out of his pocket. She unscrewed the top off the prescription bottle and shook a few out with shaky fingers.

“Do you need water?” she asked. He shook his head and opened his mouth. Mel tucked one inside, and he closed his eyes as if waiting for the pill to kick in.

The men in the chairs beside him leaned away as if cardiac arrest might be contagious.

“Henry!” an older woman shrieked from behind Mel. “Henry? Are you all right?”

He patted his chest and gave a nod. Joyce and a clerk came racing back.

“We’ve called 9-1-1,” the clerk said.

The older lady muscled them all out of the way, and as they stood waiting for the paramedic, Mel whispered to her mother, “I suppose you want to get a different dress now?”

“Why would I want to do that?” Joyce asked.

“I don’t know, bad juju?”

“Are you kidding me?” she asked. “I gave a man a heart attack in this dress. I’m going to buy one in every color.”

“What are we watching?” Mel asked as she strode into Tate’s penthouse, shed her jacket, and grabbed a bag of popcorn and a frosty milkshake off the counter.

She plopped down in her usual seat, a recliner to the left of the gigantic flat-screen television he’d had custom built into the wall. It was the first piece of furniture he’d installed in his condominium and vital for their weekly showings of classic movies.

Tate and Angie sat on opposite ends of the big leather couch in the middle. The movie screen was blue, as if they’d been waiting for her to appear before they started, which they probably had, since she had finally finished prepping Joyce for her date and was running a bit late.