Dessert, Diamonds and Deadly Secrets by A.R. Winters

Author:A.R. Winters [Winters, A.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-08-22T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

“You don’t mind if I take the stand mixer, do you?” asked Beth.

“Be my guest.” Mike handed the key back to us. “Just make sure you don’t take anything else. I think buyers want the place with all the trimmings, so they can run the café. I’m going to talk to a real estate agent or two. They might be able to help me get a better price.”

“So you’re really serious about selling the place,” I said. “What about Neve?”

Mike shrugged. “I don’t owe Neve anything. She offered to help with the investigation. I’m not the one promising her the café. Unless she can pony up the cash.”

I said, “But you’ve already had a few offers to buy the place.”

“Yeah,” said Mike. “And with a bit of marketing, I’ll probably get a few more offers.”

“Speaking of,” I said, “has Simon Macchio called you yet?”

“Simon who?”

“Macchio. He seemed pretty keen on buying the place.”

“Nope. No calls from him, or anyone with that name.”

“Well, he’s got your number, and he might give you a buzz.”

“Sure,” said Mike. “The sooner I sell the place, the sooner I get the money.”

“You never told us you had a fight with your uncle about not selling the place.”

Mike shrugged. “It didn’t seem important.”

“Well, everything’s important.” I tried to keep my annoyance in check. “Have you ever considered how bad it looks for you?”

“Everything looks bad for me,” Mike mumbled.

“Well, why’d you fight with him?”

Mike shrugged. “I didn’t have an easy time getting jobs, okay? At least with my uncle, I knew that even if he yelled at me and he wasn’t paying me much, as long as I pulled a few espresso shots, my job was safe. But if he sold the place, the new owners might not keep me on.”

“Nepotism for the win,” said Beth drily.

“Look,” said Mike, rubbing his forehead, “I had no idea he was going to leave me the café. It’s not like I killed him to keep him from selling the place.”

I sighed. “Well. Anyway. And how’s Neve doing? Have you talked to her since yesterday?”

“Not really,” said Mike. “I assume she’s doing her job.”

My cell phone buzzed, and I looked down to check the message. I looked at Beth and said, “Well, it seems like Neve is doing her job. Elaine just texted me that she talked to Neve.”

Beth shrugged. “At least she’s not insisting that the three of us go together.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Small miracles.”

“Speaking of,” Beth said. “We need to get going. I promised two separate women that I’d do cakes for their baby showers, and I need them done by tonight.”

“What flavors?” I said.

“Vanilla and carrot-walnut,” she said. “C’mon. Maybe some cake-tasting will help you think better. Maybe you can figure out who really killed Tim over a slice of carrot-walnut cake.”

Beth was right about two things. One, I’d never say no to cake-tasting. And two, I really did need to think things through. There was no point talking to any more people until I pieced together all the information I’d learned so far.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.