Taken In (15 page)

Tori stepped inside the now familiar cupcake shop and sniffed, the tantalizing aromas of chocolate, peanut butter, mint, and cinnamon overpowering all others in their silent, yet magnetic pull toward the front counter. Her stomach gurgled as her feet heeded the invitation.

“Welcome to CupKatery. What size box would you like?” A woman of about thirty, clad in a pretty white-and-pink apron, pointed at the back-lit sign above her head. “Our twenty-five count is the best value.”

Tori glanced toward the case, her eyes instantly gravitating toward the flavors she’d tried with her friends only days earlier. “Um, yeah, sure . . . okay, the twenty-five count will be fine.”

That decided, the woman moved toward the glass case and waited.

So, too, did Tori.

Finally, the woman shifted the empty box to her left hand and shot a pointed look in Tori’s direction. “Which cupcakes do you want in the box?”

“Oh, I have to fill it now, don’t I?” Tori shook off the fog that had settled around her thoughts the moment she walked inside the shop and forced herself to focus. Once the cupcakes were selected, the questions that had propelled her to stop there in the first place could commence. “I’ll take five each of the pancake batter, the s’more, the peanut butter cup, the cookies and cream, and . . . wow, I’m at a loss now.”

The woman pointed to the middle rack. “The maple chip is our flavor of the month. It’s very good.”

“Then let’s finish up the box with those.”

Nodding, the woman filled the box with the specified cupcakes then rang up the purchase with a practiced hand. “That’ll be thirty-five dollars and forty-two cents please.”

She took a moment to count out her change, mentally praying all the while that the store would remain empty. When she had what she needed coin-wise, she carefully placed it in the woman’s hand and nudged her chin toward the kitchen. “My friends and I stopped by here the other day. Gretchen took good care of us.”

“I’m glad to hear—”

The string of bells above the shop’s front door rang, touching off a flurry of apron straightening and over-the-top eye contact from the woman. “Thanks so much for stopping by CupKatery. I hope you love your selections.”

“I’m sure I will.” She glanced over her shoulder to see who was responsible for the clerk’s obvious nervousness and felt her own mouth go dry. There, standing in the doorway, looking around the tiny eating area, was the same dark-haired man from the picture on the wall behind the counter—the man who’d draped his arm so protectively across his mother’s shoulders and who, according to Gretchen, had been furious at the notion that some man had broken his mother’s heart just weeks before her death.

Barely missing a beat, Tori turned back to the counter and smiled. “You know what? I think I’d like to sample one of those maple chip cupcakes now . . . and maybe one of the pancake batter ones, too.”

“For here or to go?”

“For here!” She cringed inwardly at the too-eager lilt to her voice and was grateful when the woman didn’t seem to notice. A moment later, after her money had been exchanged for the bite-sized cupcakes, Tori wandered over to the very same table she’d shared with Rose two days earlier, her ears perked and waiting.

Doug didn’t disappoint.

“Jillian. How’s it going so far today?”

“It’s going well.” Jillian grabbed a cloth from somewhere just outside of Tori’s field of vision and began wiping the already-clean counter. “How are things at the Connecticut store?”

“Pretty good. I had to go over a few kitchen expectations with the bakers but, other than that, not bad.” Doug took in the dining area then crossed to a table on the opposite side of the counter from Tori. Within seconds, all chairs were pushed under the tables in uniform precision.

“I was just about to do that,” Jillian offered weakly.

“I got it.” He crossed to Tori’s side of the shop, exchanged a brief smile with her, then stopped at a neighboring table to remove a newspaper that had been left on one of the chairs. “So did I miss anything exciting while I was up there this past week?”

Jillian shrugged. “Not really. Gretchen and I did fine holding down the fort.”

Tori saw him nod, peer down at the paper, look back up at Jillian, and then jerk his focus back down to his hands. “Well, I’ll be damned! Did you see this, Jillian? This is the piece of garbage who hurt my mom . . .”

Jillian cleared her throat in between nervous glances in Tori’s direction. “Um, boss?”

Oblivious to his employee’s efforts to remind him of Tori’s presence, Doug continued, his words providing the reason for the ever-widening smile on his face. “Some woman pushed him off his balcony on Monday afternoon.”

“Boss—”

“Wow. Too bad I was at the Danbury location, eh? I could have helped.”

“Boss!”

Doug looked up, a strange expression on his face. “What?”

Jillian tilted her head toward Tori, widening her eyes as she did.

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry about that.” He tucked the paper under his arm and shrugged a smile in Tori’s direction. “Don’t mind me. I guess I just got carried away there for a moment at the notion that a truly awful human being got what was coming to him.”

She considered a simple nod in response, even heard the voices in her head telling her that was best, but in the end, she gave in to the desire to engage him in conversation. “What happened?” she asked, pointing at the paper.

Any initial hesitation he showed about answering fell to the side as he followed the path of her finger back to the newspaper in the crook of his arm. “Well, let’s just say there’s a woman charged with murder who really should be given an award.” He glanced back up at Jillian and laughed. “Think the NYPD would let us bring her a carton or two of cupcakes to say thank you?”

If Jillian answered, Tori didn’t hear her over the sudden roar in her ears. For Doug, John’s murder represented an end to a problem. For Dixie, it was merely the start. No amount of cupcakes could ever make that right.

A phone just on the other side of the swinging kitchen door rang and Jillian stepped inside to answer it, her voice audible through the opening left by a well-placed foot. “CupKatery, how can I help—oh, hey, Russ . . . yes, he’s here . . . hang on, I’ll put him on.” Then, holding the phone outward, she addressed her boss once again. “It’s Russ. He says he needs to talk to you about a delivery or something at the other store.”

Doug looked from the phone to the paper before depositing the latter on a nearby table and heading behind the counter and into the kitchen to take the former.

“Hey, Russ, what’s up?” The door swung closed behind Doug, taking the rest of his conversation with him as Jillian finished wiping the counter. When she was done, she reached down to an area Tori couldn’t see and pulled out a pink-and-blue-checked scarf that she casually draped around her neck. “Gretchen had the opening shift today, which meant I got to sleep in,” she said to Tori. “But even with a noon alarm, I still didn’t get up in time. So I’ve been dressing in spurts since I got here. Just before you arrived, I managed to get some mascara on my lashes.”

Tori laughed. “I’ve had those days. Though no matter what holes I find in my day to rectify the situation, I never seem to pull it together as well as you have.” She collected her napkin and walked it to the trash can that sat just inside the tiny dining area. “I love that scarf by the way. It’s very pretty.”

“Thanks! I got it yesterday from one of the sidewalk vendors. He sold it to me for ten bucks, can you believe it?” After a quick check over her shoulder, Jillian whipped open a tube of lip gloss and applied it to her lips with two quick strokes. “I like it even better than the one my cat tore up last week, and I paid twenty bucks for that one.”

“That’s good—”

“Jillian? Could you come in here for a second?”

The assistant manager dropped the tube of lip gloss back into her apron pocket. “Is there anything else I can get you before I talk to my boss?”

Tori started to shake her head then stopped as her gaze fell on the paper Doug had left behind. She retrieved it from the table and held it out for Jillian to see. “Would you mind if I took this with me? It’s a nice day. Maybe I could read it in the park.”

“Sure. Go ahead. It’s almost four o’clock. Most people have already read the morning paper by now and there’s another copy in the rack by the door if they haven’t.” Jillian put her hand to the kitchen door but kept her focus on Tori. “Have a great rest of your day, okay?”

And then the assistant manager was gone, her apron-tied back disappearing behind the kitchen door as it swung shut in her wake.

Tori looked down at the paper and the masthead she’d only seen during the opening segments of a few late-night talk shows. It had been a whim to ask to keep it and one she didn’t fully understand, but if nothing else, it would be one less proclamation of Dixie’s guilt out in the wild.

Slowly, she made her way out of the shop, her feet choosing the direction she turned with absolutely no input from her brain. Around her, buses and cars traveled south on Columbus Avenue toward a particular destination. Strangers passed her on the sidewalk, some walking in the opposite direction, some matching or shadowing her steps for a block or two before breaking off to enter an apartment, a store, a restaurant, or a subway station. Yet Tori kept going, her mind as jumbled as it was when she’d left the hotel that morning in search of fresh air.

There was so much to think about, so much to process, but she was at a loss for where to start.

Doug had been away during John’s murder. That fact alone removed him from the short list of suspects Tori and the others had drafted. Caroline Trotter hadn’t been seen in days, the timing of her disappearance suspect but nothing they were capable of following up on their own. Ms. Steely Eye was still a player, of course, but without a name, she’d be like finding a needle in a haystack.

And then there was the nagging feeling that Tori was missing something—something big. Twice over the past two days something had tickled at her subconscious, only to recede into no-man’s-land before she could give it its due. She’d hoped her walk would clear her head, maybe point her in the next direction she needed to go, but it hadn’t.

Sure, she’d enjoyed her time at the bookstore with Charles and Gavin. In many ways their book-related chatter had been a momentary dalliance with normalcy. And the cupcakes she’d just had had been a nice reprieve, too. But in the end, they’d both been nothing more than a temporary detour from a road she had to travel one way or another.

Dixie was still in jail. For a crime she didn’t commit.

And all Tori and her friends had to go on was a ripped scarf that had been planted in Dixie’s purse . . .

“A ripped scarf . . .” The words drifted from her lips as she stopped midway down the block, the familiar tickle sensation in her thoughts bringing her up short.

But before she could grab and examine anything closely, her cell phone rang. Reaching into her purse with her free hand, she pulled out the device and held it to her ear. “Hello?”

“Victoria? It’s Charles.” She stepped closer to the building and covered her open ear in an effort to drown out the street sounds. “I think I know what you need more than anything right now.”

She heard the exhaustion in her laugh and allowed it to send her shoulders sinking back against the brick exterior of a sandwich shop. “What I need, Charles, is for Dixie to be released from jail so we can all go back home together.”

A beat of silence was followed by Charles’s still-cheery voice. “Let me rephrase. I think I know what you need more than anything
next
to having Dixie free.”

“A hug from Milo?”

“I would if I could, darlin’, but since I don’t know Milo, try again.”

“A full night’s sleep?”

“You’re ruining my excitement, Victoria. You do realize this, don’t you?”

She glanced to her right, spied a bench roughly ten yards from where she stood, and made a beeline in that direction. “I’m sorry, Charles. I’m not trying to be a killjoy, I’m really not. I’m just stressed is all.” Then, after taking a moment to catch her breath, she filled him in on Doug’s whereabouts at the time of John’s murder. When she was done, she took yet another deep breath, releasing it slowly along with her summation of her outing to CupKatery. “So now we’re down a suspect from our already too-short list.”

“Well, then maybe time with Dixie will unearth a replacement name.”

She sucked in her breath, earning her a strange look from a couple who strolled by her bench, hand in hand. “Did you just say time with Dixie?”

“Remember Al? The cop friend of my friend?”

Tori nodded then realized her mistake and said, “Yes.”

“He said we can have some face-to-face time with her this afternoon if we can get down there before five.”

“Face-to-face time?”

“Face-to-face . . . as in no glass. Just the three of us in a room with Al or one of his buddies watching.”

She felt the lump as it rose up her throat, its final choice of resting spots making it difficult to breathe, let alone speak. But she had to speak if for no other reason than to thank him.