Sweets Galore: The Sixth Samantha Sweet Mystery (The Samantha Sweet Mysteries) (16 page)

Sam dried her face, hoping that
was true. She didn’t like to think that Jake’s appearance here was the reason
he died. On the other hand, why would someone from California track him here
and then take such pains to make it look like Sam had killed him? Maybe she
should start looking more closely at who her own enemies might be.

* *
*

Sam’s rocky night in that cell
caught up with her quickly and she was asleep almost instantly after pulling
the big comforter over herself. When she woke it was dark and the clock
numerals read 3:41. Random questions came at her. Who might be angry enough
with her to frame her for Jake’s murder? Or was she simply being paranoid—maybe
the cupcake was the handiest method for the killer, nothing at all personal
against her? Like a broken record, the thoughts kept replaying in her head and
by four-thirty she knew there would be no more sleep. She kissed Beau’s bare
arm lightly and rolled out of bed.

The bakery, as always, became her
refuge. By the time Julio arrived she already had scones in the oven.

“Hey, boss,” he said. “No time
off?”

“I tried. Things are just too
jumbled up right now.”

He nodded knowingly. Normally a
man of few words, he’d worked for her a couple of months already and still Sam
knew relatively little about him. It was nice, after the long weekend with her
family, to be around someone who rarely spoke. He set to work with the
breakfast pastries while Sam organized her desk and checked email.

Not many messages; everyone
believed her to be away on her honeymoon right now. She sighed at the reminder
of how far off track their plans had gone. She should be in Ireland now,
finding out about the inheritance from her mysterious uncle, she thought as she
clicked on junk messages to delete them. She stopped in mid-click. What if—?
No, it couldn’t be—

She went back to the emails, but
her mind kept jumping track. What if this sudden inheritance had something to
do with Jake’s death? Or, more specifically, with Sam being made to look like the
guilty party. Who would know about it? Who would actually do something about
it?

It was not quite seven, but on the
east coast it would be two hours later and she felt sure Clinton Hardgate would
be in his office. She dialed his number and walked to the empty sales room for
privacy.

“Ready to reschedule that trip?”
he asked after a quick greeting.

“Not quite.” She had never told
him the real reason for the delay. “I have a question, though.”

She wasn’t terribly surprised that
he didn’t know of anyone else in New Mexico who might know about her
inheritance unless she had told them.

“Our firm would never divulge such
private information,” he said. “What’s this about?”

“Probably just my over-active
imagination,” she said. “I ran into some trouble recently that got me thinking
somebody might benefit if I were out of the way.”

“Sam, do you think your life is in
danger?” She got the feeling that he was picturing some Wild West scenario,
where bad guys came riding into town and challenged her to a shootout.

“No, not really. But do let me
know if you come across anyone outside my family who might have a connection.”

For a fraction of second she toyed
with the idea that it could actually be someone within her family, someone who
believed they might get the inheritance if Sam were put away for life. But that
didn’t make a lot of sense either. For one thing, no one had known about it
until the very day Jake died. And those who knew about the inheritance didn’t
know about Jake. And why harm a stranger when it was far easier to do away with
Sam herself? And why do that when they could simply let her accept the money
and then nag her to death for a portion of it? That scenario seemed far more
likely.

She filed away that entire line of
thinking and started toward the walk-in fridge. Her wedding cake was stashed it
there, but Sam was beginning to think it ought to be in the freezer where it
would keep longer. There didn’t seem to be any quick solution to the mystery of
Jake’s death coming their way anytime soon. She had brought the cake to the
worktable and found heavy plastic wrap to secure it when the front door bells
jangled and she heard a male voice speaking to Jen. A few seconds later the
intercom buzzed.

“Sam? Someone to see you.”

She spotted a red BMW parked at
the curb. At the sales counter stood a young man who looked vaguely familiar.
Tight black jeans on a skinny frame, black silk shirt, short wool jacket—black,
of course—and some kind of designer watch that looked like plastic but probably
cost a few thousand dollars. His green eyes were narrow under heavy brows and
his sable brown hair was gelled into an odd little point at the top. Another
guy, dressed similarly but without the same air of
cool
had a cell phone to his ear, was speaking in the tones of some
power-conversation. Outside, a burly man in black stood near the BMW.

“You’re Samantha Sweet?” asked the
first man.

She nodded and thought she caught
a flicker of disappointment.

“Um, I’m Tustin Deor.” He held out
a hand.

He looked about eighteen, although
Sam felt sure he had to be in his thirties if Jake’s version of his
accomplishments were even half true. He regarded Sam down the length of his
perfectly straight nose, reconciling what he saw with what Jake must have told
him. Obviously he’d been expecting someone who oozed money without having to
work for it—maybe some kind of society lady associated with the arts and
willing to back their production if the star-power were strong enough.

Sam gave him as genuine a smile as
she could muster. “Jake’s friend.”

“Colleague,” Tustin said. “In a
way. Jake wanted in on my latest project. I thought I’d see what he could bring
to the table.”

He leaned a hip against her sales
counter, seemingly relaxed, but his gaze traveled around the room constantly.

He recapped the pitch, which was
pretty much what Jake had told her several days ago. She let him talk.

“Last time I spoke with Jake,” he
said, “he thought you were pretty interested. Said you knew him from way back.
I’m sure you knew that Jake was a pretty decent musician himself. We’re
gonna
miss him. He said you loved music.”

“Really?” She vaguely remembered
him getting together with another guy at the pipeline camp, both of them
strumming guitars and belting out
Creedence
Clearwater songs. If Jake ever did become a good musician it was well after
those days when he couldn’t stay on key for
Proud
Mary
.

“Look, we’re holding a press
conference this afternoon on the plaza. Two o’clock, couple big announcements.
Come by. I think you’ll be impressed with what we’ve got going for us. You
might change your mind about investing.” He flashed a smile that probably
worked wonders with rising young stars like Evie Madsen, then walked out and
got into the Beemer. Not exactly broken up over the loss of his business
colleague,
if
Jake had truly been
important to the show at all.

“Whew—cute!” Jen said, giving
herself tiny pats on the chest.

“Seriously?”
Man, I
am
getting old
,
Sam thought as she went back to the kitchen to tend to her cake. She
constructed a large box to hold the cake and then wound lengths of plastic wrap
around it, musing over the situation.

None of this made sense. If this
Deor guy was such hot stuff in Hollywood why were he and Jake scouting around
Taos, especially around her, for money? Surely the kind of folks who backed
half the other crappy reality stuff on television would follow Deor anywhere.
Either Jake had painted Tustin a completely wrong picture of Sam’s situation or
Deor wasn’t nearly the hotshot Jake had made him out to be. The old charmer at
work again. Who else had he tried to swindle in recent times?

Across the table, Becky was
working on a cake with a photography theme, which reminded Sam of the news
conference Deor planned to hold this afternoon. She would remind Beau about it
and suggest that they go and listen in.

She pulled her phone from her
pocket but before she could dial him, it rang in her hand. Her mother’s number
showed on the readout. Sam knew what would happen; bored with hanging around
the ranch, the parents would cook up some activity for Sam to do with them. She
understood that—they’d come to town to see her. But now that she had to clear
her name or face a trial, it seemed there were more important ways to spend her
time. If she and Beau ever hoped to be married and get on with life, they
needed to devote their time to the effort of finding Jake’s killer. Sam let
Nina Rae’s call go to voicemail and she dialed Rupert.

“Help, please,” she whimpered.

“For you, love, anything. How’s it
going?”

She gave him a quick rundown of
the situation since the wedding had fizzled. “I need someone to entertain my
parents for the day.”

“No problem. How would they like
lunch and shopping in Santa Fe?”

“It sounds like exactly Mother’s
cup of tea. Just tone down the clothing if you can for my dad?”

“What—he’s not into purple?”

Sam couldn’t begin to explain how
not into purple
her father, the retired
accountant, would be. “Maybe stick to the grays and blacks today, if possible,
Rupe
. Otherwise, whatever you can think of that would keep
them busy all day . . . I would
so
appreciate it.”

“Shall I pick them up at your
place?”

“Let me verify that and I’ll get
right back to you.”

She listened to her mother’s
message—exactly as she had guessed, they wanted to make lunch plans. When she
called saying that a friend really wanted to show them around Santa Fe since
she and Beau were tied up all day, Nina Rae readily accepted the invitation.
Sam told them Rupert would be there in a half hour, called him back and said
anything in the world he wanted would be his in return for the favor. He
jokingly said he would pass on her firstborn, thank you, but a heavenly dessert
for one of his monthly soirees would be an excellent trade-off. She hoped he
felt that way after a whole day with her mother.

Chapter
14

Her next call went to Beau,
telling him about Tustin
Deor’s
visit to the bakery
and suggesting that they might want to catch the press conference this
afternoon.

“Good idea. I’ve got more news.
Jake’s brother, Tom, will be in town this afternoon to get Jake’s possessions.”

“Can we talk to him?”

“I got a phone number. Thought if
you made the call, explained—only as much as you want to—about knowing Jake
from the past . . . maybe he would agree to see you. I can be there if you
want.”

“You could help me think of
questions to ask him. It might be our only chance to find out what’s been going
on in Jake’s life in recent years. Maybe Tom would know whether he had enemies
out there somewhere.”

She gathered her thoughts and
called Tom Calendar. He was on the bus, just outside town, and explained that
he planned to drive Jake’s pickup truck home.

“I knew Jake a lot of years ago,”
she said.

“Yeah, I recognized your name. He
talked about you a lot when he got back from Alaska.”

“Really?” She felt oddly gratified
for that scrap of information. “He’d stopped in at my shop last week. I’d
really like to talk with you. Could I pick you up at the bus station?”

“That’d be great. Afraid I don’t
know the town at all.”

He told her what time to arrive.
Taos didn’t really have a bus station, as such, just a lobby attached to a
local business where people could wait for the next Greyhound. She ran a couple
of quick errands and made sure she was there five minutes early. She called
Beau and told him what she had planned.

Tom Calendar looked enough like
Jake to make Sam’s breath catch. Same hair, grayer—Jake might have been
coloring his; the eyes had more green, less blue; his size and shape were
nearly identical, dressed in jeans and a blue all-weather jacket. She got out
of her truck as he stood beside the bus, looking around expectantly.

“Hi, Sam,” he said, hefting the
strap of a small duffle to his shoulder.

His voice was similar to Jake’s,
too, but without the quality that made you feel like you were being sold on
something. She liked his genuine smile and waved him toward her truck.

“Are you staying overnight?” she
asked.

“Yeah, a room at the
Econolodge
. Didn’t have any idea how long it would take me
to . . . do what I have to.”

She nodded. “Before you talk with
the police, I need to tell you some things. Can I buy you lunch?”

He didn’t have much choice since
they were in her vehicle, but he didn’t seem to mind. They pulled into the
crowded lot at the
Taoseño
. An empty table wedged
against the far wall looked like it would afford the privacy they wanted,
although the room was so full of noisy diners there was little chance of their
conversation being overheard. They asked for water and spent a few minutes
looking over the menu.

“So, what was this you wanted to
tell me?” he asked. Direct and to the point. She liked that.

“The police know that Jake and I
were involved at one time, and they seem to think I might have killed him.”

“I assume you didn’t, being that
you’re sitting here with me. That you even
want
to sit here with me.”

“That’s right.” She looked up and
saw Beau walking toward them.

She gave Tom a two-sentence
rundown on why she and Beau were investigating on their own. The two men shook
hands and Beau took the empty seat next to Sam’s.