Hardheaded Brunette (33 page)
Sanchez flinched but threw Nigel a camera. "Record this, will you? That girl's not doing her job."
"I've got this, handsome." Marion snatched the camera from Nigel's hands then sat beside him. "You just sit back and enjoy the bloodshed."
Gilda gritted her teeth and was about to join them when the front door flew open again.
Kane ran into the school, his hair disheveled and his eyes manic. "Where are they?"
"Who?" She took a step back.
"Them." His entire body seemed to tense and his nostrils flared. Before she could blink, he ran across the mats to where Mick and Gomes sparred. "Sanchez, you're a dead man!"
"Whoa." Mick tried to grab Kane but got tossed aside like a stuffed toy.
When Gomes lunged at Kane's legs in an attempt to bring him down, Kane brushed him off like little more than lint. Gomes bounced off the mats and rolled toward Nigel, who leaped to his feet a bit too late. Gomes plowed right into him. Nigel hit the mats, forearms first.
Kane seized Sanchez by the neck and lifted him three feet off the floor, shaking him with two hands like a giant maraca. "What did you do? Charlie never did anything to you. Why did you kill him?"
Marion, her mouth wide as she recorded everything, got to her knees on the mats.
Sanchez's face turned red then purple.
"Stop! You're killing him." Mick grabbed hold of Kane's right arm while Gomes grabbed his left. "Have you gone insane? Let him go."
"This creep killed Charlie," Kane shouted.
"Calm down." Mick struggled to pry Kane's fingers from around Sanchez's neck. "What makes you think he killed Charlie? The police didn't find any evidence."
Kane's breathing became as ragged as Sanchez's as he squeezed his hands tighter into the other man's throat. "He was having an affair with Mena. They planned to get rid of Charlie, Giorgio, and Gary, then convince Gomes to hand over his shares in Stocker Holdings before they ran off with the money."
"What the hell is Stocker Holdings?" Gomes struck a quick chop at Kane's elbow, which gave out, forcing him to loosen his grip.
Sanchez tumbled to the floor in a gasping heap and clutched his throat.Gilda let out a puff of air as if she'd been sucker punched. "You never actually were a board member, were you?"
"No," Sanchez croaked. "Good guess."
Nigel crossed the mats to where Mick stood and scowled. "Wait. Stocker Holdings was one of the businesses I inherited from my dad. Mena was livid. She said she'd buy me out. All I had to do was name my price."
Sanchez rolled onto his hands and knees. "Shut up."
"What does Stocker Holdings do?" Gomes asked.
Kane snorted. "Rig fights. Ruin fighters. Scam money from hardworking athletes. That sort of thing. Charlie and Giorgio started the company. Sanchez found out what was going on and bullied his way into the business."
"As usual, you have no idea what you're talking about." Mena stood at the far end of the dojo with Thayer and Fabio close behind. "Leave Sanchez alone and go do what you do best."
"And what's that, love?" Kane asked.
"Get into trouble." She flashed a saccharin smile.
"It's over, Mena." Sanchez kept one hand on his reddened throat. "Just tell them what they want to know. We can cut a deal with the D.A."
Nigel turned to face his sister, his face ashen. "What is going on, Mena? What are these guys talking about?"
"Money, Nigel." She shook her head. "More money than your tiny little brain could ever comprehend, and Dad tried to leave it all to you. I should have known. Even when I looked after all his financial dealings, you were the one he named as beneficiary to everything but the fifty thousand he left me. Simply because I'm a girl."
"That's not true." Nigel groaned. "He knew you'd blow it all the second you got your grubby little hands on any of it. The only reason you had enough money for the store was because of Charlie."
Kane raised his eyebrows. "Oh really? And how exactly did that work?"
"Shut up, Nigel." Mena took a menacing step toward her brother.
A foot wider and several inches taller, Nigel didn't appear intimidated. "I know you and Charlie were having an affair. I also know why you sent me on that stupid errand the night he was murdered."
"You killed him." Gilda stared at Mena. "And you got Sanchez to help."
"You're a liar," Mena growled.
Mick stepped between Kane and Sanchez. "Mena probably tried to get Charlie to sell her his shares in the company. She'd pay him once she got her inheritance money. Since he wasn't about to give up so easily, she told him about the Phoenix grand opening and convinced him to come as a guest referee. That way she could negotiate with him as well as having Sanchez as muscle in case Charlie flat-out refused to sell."
"So you stole my identity and used my name on business documents?" Gomes glowered at his trainer. "What does Stocker Holdings have to do with anything?"
"It's the company who owned us both, mate." Kane frowned. "That board of directors controlled every move we made."
Gilda nodded. "You two, as well as several other fighters, I'd guess. Apparently, Sanchez and Mena got greedy. Gary was next on their hit list. Once he was gone, Sanchez and Mena could have it all."
Kane snorted. "Unless the crazy witch planned to kill Sanchez too."
"Butt out, Kane," Mena snarled.
"But why use my name when I had nothing to do with the company?" Gomes asked. "That's identity theft."
Mena pulled away when Thayer tried to put handcuffs on her. "He had to. There was no way my father would ever work with Sanchez. Dad liked Gomes, even if he is a lousy fighter. He hated Sanchez, no matter what he did. Most board meetings took place on conference calls. We hardly ever met face to face. When we did, 'Gomes' would call in sick."
"That's enough for me." Thayer snapped the handcuffs onto her wrists. "Gorgeous or not, you're under arrest, lady."
"You too." Fabio helped Sanchez to his feet then cuffed him as well.
"You and Kane were the ones who searched my house." Gilda pointed a finger at Mena. "You knew about the hidden strongbox and about the keys Charlie and your dad had. I'll bet you lured Charlie out to the beach and pretended to seduce him. You paid Sanchez to sneak up behind to kill him."
"Does this mean I'm a free man, mate?" Kane asked.
Thayer huffed in disgust. "For now."
"That also means your house should be safe from intruders again." Mick hugged Gilda. "So you don't have to move in with me after all."
She smiled. "Not under such extreme pressure, anyway.
"Good." Kane wrapped his long arms around them both. "Then I've still got a fair shot at winning the lady over."
"Ha! You don't stand a turkey's chance in hell with Gilda." Marion, still recording everything, barked from across the room. She lowered the camera and flashed a coy smile. "But I'm still available."
Kane paled and pressed his forehead to Gilda's. "I don't suppose you'd consider a time-share option, would you, love? Split your time between me and our sensei?"
Gilda's face burned. "That's flattering, Kane, but—"
"Not a turkey's chance in hell." Mick tugged her away from Kane's grasp.
Razi strolled into the dojo and grinned. "You will not have time for romance anyway. You will be too busy dealing with the New Age store."
"Why's that, mate?" Kane narrowed his eyes.
"Sanchez signed your name to the lease instead of his. Since he planned to disappear once the fights were over anyway, he decided to stick you with paying the rent for the next two years." Razi handed Kane a copy of a contract. "Now that Mena is going to jail for murder, you have the pleasure of owning a purple shop full of expensive rocks."
Kane swore then threw several punches at one of the heavy bags.
Gilda giggled once he'd stopped. "It could be worse. She could have painted the whole shop pink."
He groaned then roared as he chased her out of the dojo.
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Diane Bator is an avid hiker, yoga enthusiast, Reiki Master, wannabe runner, and martial artist, who loves to make a mess in the kitchen and putter in the garden. Moving across the country with three boys and a cat, then joining a writing group, was the catalyst for coming out of the creative closet and writing her first murder mystery series. Hard at work on her second series, she lives in Southern Ontario, Canada with her husband, three teenagers, and a cat who thinks he's a Husky.
To learn more about Diane Bator, visit her online at:
http://penspaintsandpaper.com
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Gilda Wright Mysteries
:
* * * * *
of another humorous romantic mystery from
Gemma Halliday Publishing
DEATH BY SCONES
A DANGER COVE
BAKERY MYSTERY
by
JENNIFER FISCHETTO
&
ELIZABETH ASHBY
CHAPTER ONE
One, two, three dashes of pure lemon extract. I rarely measured when I baked anymore. I'd done it all my life and could eyeball a teaspoon or tablespoon perfectly. I breathed in a deep lungful and smiled. Raw dough smelled of hope and possibilities. The tanginess of the lemon trifecta—extract, juice, and zest—mixed with the olive oil, sugar, and eggs was heaven. Grams swore up and down that it was impossible to smell sugar and that it was the memory of the way it tasted that I thought I smelled, but hogwash. I had the nose of a bloodhound, and I knew the sweet raw scent of the tiniest grain.
I thrust my hips to the right and then the left. The skirt of my black-and-white, polka-dot halter swing dress made a whooshing sound. A glance to the other side of the bakery's kitchen showed me that our full-time baker, Joe, wasn't watching. Good. Food needed to be celebrated, but it didn't mean I wanted an audience. I'd prefer if Joe didn't see me getting jiggy with it this early in the morning.
I turned off the Hobart stand mixer and admired the yellow flecks in the gorgeous, pale batter. This was a new recipe. One that had come to me last night as I crawled into bed.
One of Grams' many friends had a farm in Southern Cali. The family had sent her a crate full of baby spinach last week. It was as if they'd forgotten only the two of us lived in the small, white-shingled house by the beach. We'd been eating spinach for days, and while I loved the tender green leaves, it would go bad before we finished it all. So last night I made a spinach, mushroom, and fontina frittata and a bucket of pesto. We still had enough for lasagna and several vibrant smoothies.
I reached for the container of nut-free pesto, dropped a couple of large dollops into the batter, and mixed just until incorporated.
After filling two jumbo muffin tins, I popped them into the oven, tucked an escaping strand of my long dark hair back into my hair net, and started cleanup. A quick glance at the clock told me I still had an hour before I needed to open the family bakery.
My
bakery!
I thought of the box of party decorations I'd left here yesterday, just waiting to be hung, and I giggled. I had purchased balloons, streamers, and a huge banner that read:
Re-Grand Opening!
Maybe it was cheesy, but it made me smile.
Grams, a.k.a. Cinnamon Templeton, had opened Cinnamon Sugar Bakery twenty years ago. I was ten. She'd built the shop with sweat, tears, and hard work. Not that I'd ever seen Grams cry. Except at Mom's funeral.
Today was the first day of her retirement. She had groomed me all my life and had handed over the keys yesterday afternoon. Today was my first official day as owner.
For my fifth birthday, Santa had gotten me an Easy-Bake Oven. That's when I'd known I'd bake forever. Once I'd run out of packaged mixes, Grams had helped me concoct my own creations. Pretty soon, the tiny pink oven had begun to collect dust in the corner of her kitchen while she and I used her real oven to make bigger, more lavish cakes, cupcakes, and cookies.
She always said, "Riley, dear, you are Cinnamon Sugar's inspiration. If it wasn't for your tiny pink oven, I wouldn't have remembered how much I loved baking with my mother as a child." I was just happy to work in the kitchen and create the delicious treats. I'd never thought about Grams retiring. She was too young for that. But during the last five years, she'd started talking about cruises and trips to Italy and France after she hung up her apron strings, and I started envisioning wearing those strings. Well, the apron too.
The bakery's back doorknob jiggled, and I flinched. Other than Grams or Joe, no one would be here this early or use the delivery entrance. And Grams wasn't in town. She'd left to visit friends last night. Her first official retirement vacation.
"Did you forget to lock it again?" Joe asked and picked up one of our French rolling pins.
He was a big guy. Six feet of bulk and heft and with a jagged scar that ran from the corner of his right brow down to the tip of his nose. He'd been in a knife fight as a teen and said cooking had helped him turn his life around. I loved him. Even when I'd been a kid and he'd first started working here, I'd never once feared him. The rolling pin looked like a toy in his beefy hands, and I had little doubt he'd know how to use it, even though he was up there in age—somewhere between Grams' sixty-nine and my thirty.
I opened my mouth to say I couldn't remember if I'd locked the door but just ended up acting like a fish gulping for air. There was nothing I could say to defend myself. I, Riley Spencer, was absent minded. I was known for forgetting where I placed my phone or keys and not locking up behind me properly. It wasn't an everyday occurrence but usually happened when I was also baking. What could I say? Tossing ingredients into a bowl and whipping up something decadent was foremost on my mind. Luckily, I was also known for my Death by Mocha Brownies.
