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“SO TELL ME ABOUT THIS brother. How much do you know?” Troy asked Dana.
“Well, he came in here and sat off to the side watching her while she spoke to me.”
“He did?” Troy said, making notes. “That sounds odd.”
“Doesn’t it?” Dana said, sounding excited to be part of the investigation. What was it about the idea of helping a hot, young detective solve a puzzling crime that turned Dana on?
“Lichelle spoke to me quietly but then when she left, I noticed that he followed her outside and through the glass window, I could see that they were having a heated argument outside her car.”
“I see,” he said, scribbling down the notes. “I’ll have to look into this character then.”
“Character?”
“Yes. As far as we know, Mr. Sampson, Lichelle’s father didn’t have any other children.”
“What?” Now Dana was stumped. “But...”
“It could have been her adopted brother. He did have multiple marriages and he often took care of some of the kids of his ex-wives.”
Now it was Dana’s turn to be stunned. “I see you’ve done your research.”
“Actually, Mr. Sampson died recently. We found the clippings in Lichelle’s possession from the newspaper.”
“Ah, I see.” Dana pondered for a moment.
“Dana, I see the wheels spinning in your head. What is it?”
“Well, Lichelle did mention something about Gerdie Sue and her marriages, I wonder...nothing.”
“Dana. You need to tell me everything you know. This is a murder investigation.”
“I know. But are you sure about your findings?”
He gave her a stern look.
“Okay, of course you’re sure. It’s your line of business.”
“Now, I know you’re an amazing riddles solver on your mystery riddles blog, Dana. But as I’ve said before, please stay out of this investigation. It’s way too dangerous. We obviously have a cold-blooded murderer on the loose.”
“Yet again.”
“Yes, again. But I don’t want you to go snooping around. If you have any information, please let me or the guys at the precinct know.”
“I will. But Troy, you know I can’t promise that I won’t ask questions, I mean one of my customers had been murdered and my cupcake was on the scene. I need to get to the bottom of this too. I need to know who tampered with my cupcake. We pride ourselves on using the best ingredients. I can’t have anyone lacing it with poison or in this case, peanut oil, or whatever it is that the lab found.”
“We don’t know for sure. The official lab results are not back yet. But there were traces of what appears to be peanut oil around her mouth and on the inside.”
“Right. Got it.”
He then looked into her eyes. She felt her heart turn over in her chest when their eyes locked.
She noticed that her breathing had suddenly slowed down and stopped. It was as if the air was too thick to breath. Heat climbed to her cheeks.
Heavens, this guy was stunning. Was he going to say something else?
“Um, Dana, I’ve been meaning to ask you this,” he said, combing his hand through his rich mane of dark hair. Was he nervous? Yes, he must be nervous. That was the second time he’d done that since entering her office.
Her pulse leaped. Her heart galloped like a racehorse in her chest. Was the sexy Troy Anders going to ask her out? Was this it?
Not that she was looking for a relationship, of course, but still, the idea of dating such a handsome, eligible guy who happened to share the same passion as she did in wanting to solve crimes was enticing.
“Yes,” she probed.
Just then, his cell phone rang.
Dang it! Unsaved by the bell.
He reached into his pocket to answer the call.
“Excuse me,” he said to her before answering with a distracted, “Anders.”
While Troy was talking on the phone, Dana made herself busy. She then received a text on her phone and went to see the message...
HI DANA.
MEET ME OUTSIDE BEA’S SALON. WE NEED TO TALK. NO POLICE. I HAVE INFORMATION ON WHO TAMPERED WITH YOUR CUPCAKE.
Dana froze.
Tampered? My cupcake?
She looked up at Detective Troy who was still busy on his cell phone. Then her eyes darted back to her text message. She swallowed hard.
She should tell Troy. She had to tell him. Despite what the texter said.
“Great. I’ll be right over,” Troy finished his conversation then quickly ended the call. “Sorry, Dana. There’s an emergency situation at the precinct. I’ve got to go. But please let me know if you hear anything else.”
“Um...well, okay...” she hesitated before letting him leave.
Great. Now what was she going to do?
Katie walked back into the office seeing how dazed Dana looked.
“Well, that sure was fast. What did he say to you?”
Dana was dying to tell Katie about the mystery text, but she knew Katie would try to stop her from meeting that person so she held off mentioning it for now.
“It’s what he didn’t say to me,” Dana frowned.
“Come again?”
“Oh, nothing. I think he was about to ask me something important,” she bit her lower lip, “But then he got distracted by a phone call from his superiors.”
“Oh. But didn’t he ask you about the case?”
“He sure did. You would not believe this.” Dana had so much to share with her cousin. Where would she begin?
“You mean, they didn’t know about the brother?” Katie asked after Dana explained everything.
“They sure didn’t. But what puzzles me is how much they look alike. I could have sworn that guy was her twin. Anyway, apparently, according to an article Troy had found, Lichelle was an only child, but she had adopted or step brothers from Mr. Sampson’s other marriages.”
“I see. So do you think they had anything to do with it?”
“Quite possibly. You know Katie, Troy doesn’t want me go get involved. And I won’t.”
“You won’t?” Katie asked, dubiously.
“No. I won’t.”
“Yeah, and the sky is purple. Girl, you know you’re going to be putting your nosy nose into this case to try to help those poor underpaid overworked cops at the precinct solve the case. You’re a champion mystery riddles blogger. You don’t fool me one itty bit.” Katie had her arms folded across her chest and her eyebrow raised a fraction.
“Okay, I know he’s concerned about my safety. He told me he was. I get that. There could be a dangerous murderer on the loose. But I’m not getting into any trouble, cuz. I’m only going to ask a few questions.”
“A few questions? What are you planning to do? Post a message on Facebook asking the murderer to send you a private message so you can meet with them?” she asked, humorously.
“Very funny, cuz. Of course, not.” That idea sounded preposterous. Though if the last few freaky murders in the sweet little quiet town of Berry Cove served as examples, it would appear that Dana had a knack of having killers confess to her—one way or the other. Of course, she would be helping Troy and the guys in blue out a great deal, wouldn’t she?
Dana buckled in and decided to show Katie the strange text message she’d just received from an unknown caller.
“Girl, this is crazy. It could be a set up.”
“I know. I thought about that. I was about to tell Troy despite what the message said, but then he just rushed off. He had that emergency to attend to and I figured since it could very well be a prank text, I didn’t want to waste his time.”
“A prank text?”
“Yes. Of course, it could be. Remember what those vandelists called our café after The Gazette critic’s murder, in which one of our strawberry cream cupcakes was found at the scene in the victim’s hand.”
“Yeah, I sure do. They called us the Killer Cupcakes Café,” Katie frowned.
“Precisely. So it could just be a prank. Why get Troy involved if it’s not necessary? Besides, my cell number is published because it’s a business line linked to the store in case customers waiting for delivery need to contact us. So anyone could have left that text.”
“True.”
“Furthermore, the person asked to meet me outside Bea’s Salon. I mean, come on. Bea’s Salon is like the busiest traffic store in town. You can’t exactly hide there. Tons of women flock there—“
“And town gossips. Don’t forget it’s the haven meeting place for all the juicy gossip in town.”
“Exactly. So I don’t think I’d be in any danger with all those witnesses. If he or she’d asked to meet me in the woods alone, that would be a different matter. I’m not stupid.”
Katie frowned. “So you’re going to see this person?”
“Yes. Why not? It’ a safe area.”
Katie grinned. “You have a point. Fine. Do you want me to come with you?”
“No, I’ll be fine. I just want to get down to the bottom of this. I need to know who killed Lichelle, and tried to frame Gerdie and at the same time defame one of our cupcakes. Or I should say, defame the Cozy Cupcakes Café.”
“True girl. After what we’d been through, the last thing we need is to have one of our cupcakes on the scene of another murder. Grandma Rae would be rolling in her grave right now thinking that her cupcakes were killing people.”
Dana flinched at the thought. They’d already had trouble with the competition trying to frame them and tarnish their reputation. No way in hell was she going to let that happen again.
Well, not if she could help it.