Til a Death Do Us Part: A Bakery Detectives Cozy Mystery (6 page)

* * *

I
wasn't expecting
the light to be on in my own apartment when I returned home, but it was.

I unlocked the door and hurried inside, and there she was, standing in the middle of the kitchen, looking incredibly sheepish.

"Pippa!" I ran straight to her, unsure whether I was relieved or furious. At least if she'd been dead, she'd have an excuse for not opening the bakery.

"I'm so sorry," she said, anticipating what I was about to say.

I stopped. "What happened? Where have you been all day?"

"I was...I was looking for Marcello," she admitted. She shook her head. "Not that it did any good. Rachael, I'm so sorry."

Her face was contorted in guilt and confusion. She barely even seemed like she could get a grip on her thoughts, let alone express them out loud.

"Come on, sit down," I said gently, patting the sofa besides me.

She kept pacing back and forth and ignored my offer. "I don't know what came over me, Rachael." Her face was stricken when she finally stopped to look at me. "I...I would understand if you never forgave me."

I sighed. "It's just one morning of lost business. Bronson showed up soon enough."

She shook her head. "It's still inexcusable. You trusted me and I let you down."

"Why are you getting so down on yourself?" I asked. "I'm just glad you're okay."

Tears filled her eyes again. I'd never seen her like this. It was usually me who was the emotional one. "I'm down on myself because you expected better of me than this.
I
expected better of me than this. Do you remember when I was never able to hold onto a job for more than a week or two?"

I hesitated a bit before nodding. "Yes," I said, a small smile creeping onto my lips as I remembered all of her old exploits. In a way, I kind of missed those days of the old Pippa. It certainly kept life interesting hearing about her new job every week and the multitude of ways she managed to get herself fired from her positions.

"And don't you remember how miserable I was?" she asked.

Oh. I nodded slowly. "I suppose, but you did always seem like you were having a lot of fun."

Pippa threw her hands up in the air. "It wasn't much fun always worrying about how I was going to pay my rent...sleeping on my best friend's sofa…" She was still doing that, but now wasn’t the time to point that out. "…never having any sort of stability," she continued.

She threw herself down next me on the couch. "I was really proud of myself lately. Being assistant manager at the bakery, no real screw-ups. I felt like I'd turned over a new leaf. Become the new Pippa."

I turned away a little. "You have been doing really well since..."

Pippa cut me off. "I know what you're going to say. Since I married Marcello."

I nodded. "Yes. I suppose that was kind of the turning point. I suppose marriage kind of...matured you?" I suggested.

Pippa shook her head. "No, it's not that. It's that Marcello is such a disaster that I HAD to change. I had to be the mature one. Otherwise, neither of us would be able to survive."

Oh. I hadn't really thought about it that way, but she had a definite point. I suppose when we are faced with someone who's even more irresponsible or unreliable than we are, we have to 'step up.' We see what we are really capable of. And Pippa had found that she was capable of being a fully functioning adult.

"Don't you see, though?" Pippa whispered, the tears coming again.

"Don't I see what?"

"Now that Marcello has gone, I've reverted. I've gone back to the old me. I've gone back to all my old stupid ways." She started to weep and all I could do was stare at her.

"Pippa, Marcello did not cast some kind of magic spell over you and his absence does not remove the spell!" I exclaimed. "You don't suddenly revert back to some old version of you! It's not out of your control," I said. I reached over and hugged her, worried I was being a little too harsh. "There's only one you, and the mature, responsible Pippa was part of you all along. There aren’t two versions of you. There's just you. And you know what you are capable of now."

She brought her head up and after a few moments consideration she nodded her tear-streaked face. She smiled glumly. "I suppose you're right. I'm sorry, Rach. I won't let you down again like I did today."

I sat silent for a moment, wondering if what Jackson had said was right. Could a person really not change? Did we have only one true self, or did a person contain multitudes? One thing was for sure. It didn't seem like either of us knew Marcello as well as we thought we had. Had there been a monster lurking there all the time? And now the veil had just been lifted?

Pippa lay down on the sofa that doubled for her bed and shot me a look.

"You're spending an awful lot of time with Jackson," she cautioned me.

"It's only because we're working on the case together."

"Sure it is," she said, rolling her eyes before she rolled over, pulling the blanket over her head. "Sure it is."

* * *

J
ackson was
a mess by the time I saw him the following day. I mean, not a mess by most people's standard, but by his at least. His shirt was ruffled and un-ironed and there was the slightest hint of stubble on his chin.

We were outside the precinct and Jackson shook his head as he showed me what he had called me down there for. He handed over a document, which was a lease agreement for Surfer Dude's place.

"What am I looking at?" I asked him.

Jackson tapped his finger to the signature at the top. "The date. Look, he only signed this lease two weeks ago."

"Right..." I mused, looking over it again.

"So does a guy sign a brand new lease right before he intends to sub-lease his apartment?" Jackson asked. "It makes no sense."

I put the paper down. "You're right. It doesn't. I told you, that Frankie guy knows more than he was letting on."

Jackson nodded. "You were right. I should have listened to you. Surfer Dude definitely still lives there and Frankie was covering for him."

"So what now?" I asked him.

Jackson crossed his arms. "Now we've got to find Surfer Dude. We know that he's still living in town, or, if he's not and he's skipped town, that it wasn't planned in advance. He couldn’t have gotten far."

I looked at the ground. "Have you heard from Emma?"

Jackson coughed a little. "No," he said. He didn't sound as sad, nor as angry, about it as he had previously.

"Do you think if we find Surfer Dude... I mean, if we solve this case, then Emma might come back home?"

Jackson shrugged. "I have no idea what is going through her head or why she is hiding out. And to be honest, I'm not sure if I even care anymore." He stopped and looked at me. "Sorry, I shouldn't have said that out loud."

"It's okay," I said. "It's an emotional time. I'm sure you do actually care whether or not you'll see Emma again."

He stared down at me. "Are you? Because I'm not so sure I do," he said softly.

Maybe I was just so tired that my guard was down. Maybe I'd been temporarily possessed by insanity. I don't know what crazy thing came over me but before I knew it, the words had blurted out of me and I couldn't take them back.

"Jackson, I was glad that your wedding was cancelled."

Jackson just stared back at me with eyes that held a thousand questions.

"Why?" he finally whispered.

"Because...because I like you."

Cripes. It was too late. I squeezed my eyes shut, cursing myself. What a stupid, stupid thing to say.

O
h cripes
, he's coming,
I thought, squeezing my eyes shut as I stood at the window, waiting for Jackson's car to stop. Maybe I could pretend I wasn't home. Or that I was sick. Too bad he'd already spotted me standing there with the curtains pulled back.

I turned around and Pippa was standing there with a mug of tea, staring at me. I jumped a mile into the air and placed a hand over my heart. "You scared the life out of me."

"I was just standing here."

"You were hovering."

"Are you really going back out with him today?" she asked incredulously. "Won't that be a little awkward?"

That was understating it. I couldn't believe Jackson was even at my apartment. Though he was waiting a suspiciously long time to get out of the car. I snuck a look and saw that he was talking on his phone. Hmm, a likely story.

"At least you know where
your
boyfriend is."

"He's not my..." Right, that wasn't the important thing to focus on. "What, did Marcello not come home again last night?" I'd been so consumed by my own embarrassment I hadn't even noticed.

"Yes, he did actually," Pippa said. ""But he wouldn't tell me where he had been. I made him leave again. I have no idea where he is right now."

"Probably in a motel," I murmured, looking over my shoulder again. Jackson was getting out of the car. Time to look cool.

"Does this hat look okay?" I asked Pippa in a panic.

"Why are you wearing a hat? You don't wear hats." Pippa came over and swiped the fedora off my head. "You don't need to hide."

"YES I DO."

She pushed me towards the door. "Just get the awkwardness over with and say hello. And don't worry," she said, her tone suddenly getting serious. "I'll take care of the bakery today. You have my word."

Except the awkwardness didn't go away with our first greeting, and in fact it only grew worse during the day as we drove around town, trying to locate one Mr. Rich Robinson, aka Surfer Dude.

We were back in front of the grey apartment building and this time, I had insisted on staying in the car. Not because of any danger, or even because I thought the course of the investigation was fruitless, I just wanted to have five minutes to myself to breathe.

Jackson had been awkwardly avoiding my declaration like nothing had ever happened, which only made it worse.

I wished he would just bring it up, address the giant elephant in the room. Or car.

Maybe I should bring it up. Try to laugh it off as a joke. I banged my head against the passenger seat and opened the door, climbing out for some fresh air.

Maybe Jackson isn't mentioning it because it never happened,
I told myself hopefully as I paced back and forth across the front of the building. People were coming and going, but there was no sign of Frankie, Jackson or Surfer Dude.

Maybe I had been so tired I'd only imagined those words coming out of my mouth. Maybe he hadn't heard me?

Or maybe—and much more likely—he was just pretending it never happened because he didn't feel the same way about me.

I stopped pacing when I saw Jackson exit the lobby, and I tried to act casual as he strode over to me.

"Everything all right?" I asked cheerfully. "Was Frankie there?" He'd taken a while so I assumed he must have been talking to someone.

Jackson cleared his throat. "We've got to go back over everything," he said, "Start from the beginning again." He climbed into the car and I followed suit.

"You don't think it's Surfer Dude anymore?" I asked, surprised, as I adjusted my visor. What was all this start at the beginning business? Didn't we have a perfectly good suspect?

Jackson didn't answer. "Let's go back to the precinct."

Five minutes of silent, awkward car ride later and we were back inside his office. I kept wondering if he was going to address the way things were between us. Instead, he fetched a piece of paper from his folder and laid it on the desk.

"What is this?"

"The wedding invite list." It was three columns wide. He pointed to the bottom of the third one and said, "See? You can see that Dylan wasn't originally part of the official list. We added him later." I looked at his name scrawled in pen down at the bottom in what looked like hasty, annoyed handwriting.

"So he didn't even get a plus one then?" I said.

Jackson shook his head and scoffed. "No way. I suppose that's why he was sitting with Aunt Cassie, but I still can't figure that one out."

"Maybe she's just a very forgiving woman."

Jackson shook his head as he leaned over the list with his palms pressed against the desk. "No matter how many times I look at this, I just can't think who else had a grudge against Aunt Cassie. It's got to be Dylan," he muttered. "I just need to get some real evidence on the guy."

So Surfer Dude really was off the suspect list? I wanted to ask more, but I didn't want to press it. What had happened in that apartment?

I took a deep breath. It was now or never. "Jackson, are you sure that Dylan is really the only true suspect here?" I asked, waving my hand over the invite list.

He looked confused. "Well, if there's a suspect you're holding back from me, I'd like to hear about it." He looked annoyed at the idea that I might be hiding evidence from him. Little did he know, he was likely to be much more annoyed when I told him who it was.

I took a quick sharp breath and just plunged forward. "What about Emma?" I said, waiting for the anger to dart into his eyes. I ignored it and just kept going. "She is Dylan's cousin, she had just as much right to the inheritance as Dylan did. And maybe she wanted it just as badly. Maybe she wanted it even more than Dylan did."

Jackson stared at me in disbelief. "Be careful there, Rachael," he warned me.

I stood up straight and kept going. "She had the perfect opportunity as well. Her wedding day, no one would suspect the bride of ruining her own wedding."

"Her wedding day," Jackson said, interrupting me with anger in his eyes. "Was her perfect opportunity to marry me. She wasn't planning a murder, for crying out loud. She was planning on marrying me!"

I looked down. "If she was planning on marrying you," I said quietly. "Then why didn't she?" I looked up at him again. "Where is she now then? Jackson, she's on the run. If that doesn't make her look guilty as heck then I don't know what does."

Jackson's face was turning bright red. He snatched up the invite list and shoved it back in his folder. "I don't think it's a very good idea to have you working on this case," he said, turning away from me.

"Jackson!" I cried. I knew he wouldn't react very well to my accusation, but I hadn't expected him to throw me off the case. I also didn’t expect him to have a little tantrum, quite literally picking up his toys and going home. "Can you at least hear me out about this?"

He spun back round to face me. "I think I've heard more than enough..."

"You're not thinking clearly," I said. "You're too close to this. You can't see that Emma..."

His face was stony. "No," he said, interrupting me. He took a step closer. "You're the one who is too close to this," he said. "Of course you want Emma to be guilty. That would work out very nicely for you, wouldn't it?"

"What are you talking about, Jackson?" I took a step backwards.

He shook his head. "What you said last night, about being glad that my wedding was called off—being glad because...because you have feelings for me."

Great. So I definitely had said that then. And he had definitely heard it. No use in chalking it up to imagination.

Still, Jackson had barely even been able to say it, to acknowledge what had been said. He cleared his throat and seemed to regain some composure. "You're just jealous. That's why you're accusing Emma."

I wanted to tell him that he was behaving like a baby, not a police detective, but that only would have made things worse right then. He was, though.

I took a deep breath and tried to speak calmly. "I'm not jealous." Well, that was a bit of a lie, but jealousy wasn't the reason I was accusing Emma. At least I hoped so.

I didn't have time to over think that right then. "Jackson, maybe I can just see things that you can't. If you won't hear it from me, or take it seriously now, then someone else is going to see what I can see. Another detective will step up and take over if you remain so blind to the facts."

He still looked like a bull that had been wound up in a fight but after managing to suck in a few deep breaths, he finally nodded, the folder still clutched to his chest. But he still wouldn't look at me.

"Maybe you're right," he finally mumbled in the quietest voice imaginable. So quiet I wasn't quite sure I had actually heard it.

I took a little breath. Not quite a full breath, not quite allowing myself to be fully relieved yet, but at least I knew he wasn't going to snap my head off. And he probably wasn't going to throw me off the case.

He met my eyes. "Maybe there's some truth to what you're saying," he admitted. "Maybe I do need you to point things like that out to me." He looked around cagily. "I definitely don't want any of the guys down here taking over the case. Believe me, they're all sniffing around, trying to." He gulped. "Just like you, they think I might be too close to it." He shrugged. "But I wasn't very close to Aunt Cassie at all."

I nodded. "But I suppose if you'd married Emma and she got her share of the inheritance... Well, you'd be quite well off as well." I let out a little laugh and checked for Jackson's reaction.

But he didn't seem to find it funny at all.

* * *

I
leaned back
against the sofa and took a deep sip of the hot cocoa that Pippa had prepared for me. It smelled divine, even though it was only from a cheap packet.

"Today was uneventful," Pippa said, curling her feet underneath her as she pulled a blanket on and flicked on the TV. "But we did get a few more catering requests."

"Oh no, not this," I said, almost choking on my cocoa as Wedding Hunters flashed up onto the screen. "I don't think I can stomach it."

Pippa muted the volume but the picture was still on and I cringed at the sight of a bride—red-haired and all—in a wedding gown.

Pippa let out a huff. "Maybe if I'd actually had a proper wedding, in a proper gown, then things would have turned out differently."

I looked at her. "Pippa, I don't think any of that would have made a difference!"

She returned the look. "I'm talking about changing the husband as well. Getting a proper one." She took a giant swig of her own cup and I realized that it wasn't cocoa in hers. It was wine.

I sat up straight. "Why don't you let Marcello explain what he’s been up to?"

Pippa shook her head and turned the volume up. "I know perfectly well what he has been up to."

There was a knock on the door and I looked down at the pajama pants I already had on. "Don't answer it," I cautioned her. I'd already taken my makeup off as well and my hair was in a messy ponytail. It was meant to be a girl’s night and I had no intention of strangers seeing me in this state.

"Okay," Pippa said unsurely but when the knock sounded again, louder this time she pulled an apologetic face. "It might be Marcello."

"I thought you didn't want to talk to him."

She turned back to the TV. "You're right."

The knock was louder again, making the whole front of the house rattle. "Ah, if it's Marcello, we'd better answer," I said decisively, jumping up. After all, Marcello had seen me in worse states than this.

Pippa put up a small fight but I skipped over to the door anyway.

"Jackson."

Oh, why hadn't I peeked out the window before I'd flung the door open?

Jackson looked me up and down in bemusement. "Is this a bad time?"

I hid behind the door a little. "Just watching some TV," I said, cringing. "Is there something I can help you with?"

Jackson's face was bright. Brighter than I had seen it in, well, months, actually.

"What's got you so happy?" I asked, taking a little step back, revealing my pajama pants, which were covered in sheep.

His face was flooded with relief as he announced the good news. "Dylan's fingerprints were found at the scene of the crime."

My mouth dropped open. "Are you sure? Is that actually possible?"

I heard Pippa enter the doorway behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see her face drop a little. "Oh. Hi, Jackson," she said, before slinking off again.

"Well, the forensics don't lie," Jackson said as I turned back to him.

It took a few moments for me to process this. "I suppose," I murmured. I mean, forensics didn't lie, but that didn't mean that Dylan was guilty. There were other things to take into consideration. I'd been sitting next to Dylan during the ceremony and during the time Aunt Cassie had been in the bathroom.

Jackson was still beaming. "Looks like we got our guy, Rachael. Isn't that great news?"

"Sure," I said softly. Then I nodded a little more firmly. "Of course it is." I swallowed. Did this all mean that our little partnership was finished with now?