A Zest for Murder (Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries Book 5) (4 page)

CHAPTER
9

The tea in my cup had cooled and
the pair of chocolate chip cookies that I’d grabbed a half hour earlier were
untouched on a plate beside my laptop. It was around seven that evening. I was
in the office at Sky High, trying to focus on bookkeeping and invoices while
jagged imagery from the crime scene flashed repeatedly in my mind.

After talking to Trent earlier, I’d
climbed into my car and sat behind the wheel for another twenty minutes,
sifting through my most recent conversations with Tipper. But no matter how
many times I replayed them, I couldn’t find anything suspicious or out of the
ordinary. It was as if my friend had suddenly plunged from her normal daily
life into a terrifying nightmare with an unknown ending.

“It’s no use,” I finally muttered,
closing the computer and pushing away from the desk. “All of you pests can wait
until tomorrow.”

I walked the tea and cookies into
the Sky High kitchen. The whiteboard on the wall forecast that the following
day would be busy with special orders and initial prep work on a catering job
for Gretchen Goode. She was the editor of
The Crescent Creek Gazette
, one
of the few small town newspapers still publishing a daily print edition. She
was also Zack’s boss, so I wanted everything to be especially perfect for the
luncheon she was hosting for several of the area’s leading entrepreneurs.

After washing the cup and slipping
the cookies into a plastic bag, I headed outside and climbed the exterior
stairs to my apartment. The Victorian that housed Sky High Pies was my
self-contained universe: bakery café on the main level and a snug, comfortable
apartment directly above. My sister often asked if I was going to look for a
separate place to call home, but I liked the simplicity and ease of the
arrangement. I also liked the fact that I could hit the snooze button on my
alarm more than once in the morning and still get to work on time.

The living room sofa looked more
than a little inviting when I came through the door, but I drifted past it into
the hallway. Although it was still early, a hot bubble bath sounded ideal. The
shock of finding the woman on Tipper’s kitchen floor had left knots of tension
coiled around my neck and shoulders.

I went into the bathroom and peeled
off my clothes. As I poured my new eucalyptus and spearmint soap into the tub,
I heard the sleigh bells hanging on the front door chime as someone unlocked
the deadbolt and stepped into my apartment.

“Yoo-hoo!”

I grabbed my robe as my heart
crashed against my ribs.

“Katie?”

Even though it was my sister, the
unexpected disruption had already sent my pulse into the stratosphere. I
scurried into the hallway just as Olivia and her rolling suitcase came around
the corner.

“There you are!” she exclaimed
cheerfully. “I was afraid you’d forgotten I was staying here tonight before
driving to Salt Lake in the morning!”

I gulped. “Nope.”

“Thank goodness! I sent you a text
about an hour ago, but you didn’t respond so…” She stopped and tilted her head.
“Why do you have that look on your face?”

“What look? ”

She moved closer, squinting and
craning her heck. “You know, Katie. It’s that, uh…”

I folded my arms across my stomach.
“How was the drive?” I asked, hoping to change the subject.

“Fine,” Liv said. “But why…it’s the
look you always get when something’s wrong. Like when dad fell and broke his
ankle and you didn’t want mom to know so—”

“I’m okay!” I quickly swept both
arms into the air. “I’m absolutely fine!”

She smirked. “You’re absolutely
lying.”

I waited while she abandoned the
suitcase, dropped her purse on the floor and shrugged off her down jacket.

“So?” Her eyes were narrowed again.
“What’s going on? Did Zack break up with you?”

I laughed in response to the
question. Then I told her that Zack and I were still very much in love. And
then I asked how she and Cooper were doing.

“No way,” she said. “This isn’t
about me. Whatever’s going on here is about you.”

“I’m okay, Liv. It was a really
crappy afternoon, so maybe—”

“And it’s got nothing to do with
Zack?”

I shook my head. “We’re fine. He’s
fine. I was just getting ready to take a bubble bath.”

The mistrustful sneer on her face
was replaced by a toothy grin. “I
knew
it! You forgot I was coming to
spend the night!”

While she surrounded me in a tight
hug, I tried to recall the plan. When I kept coming up blank, I decided that
honesty really was the best policy.

“I’m sorry, Liv,” I confessed once
she’d unlocked her arms and stepped back. “I’m lucky that I can remember your
name after what I saw this afternoon.”

She frowned. “What did you see?”

“Let’s get something to drink,” I
said, taking her arm and guiding her down the hall to the kitchen. “Maybe a
bottle of vodka and two straws.”

She laughed softly at the silly
joke. “You almost never drink vodka, Katie. Whatever it is must’ve been just
awful
!”

“It was,” I said. “And you’re
right; I’m not big on vodka. Let’s have a glass of wine instead and I’ll tell
you all about it.”

I pulled the half-filled bottle of
soave from the refrigerator, removed the cork and retrieved two glasses from
the overhead cabinet.

“It’s about Tipper,” I began,
filling one of the wine glasses and sliding it across the counter. “I went by
her house earlier to—”

“Is this about the pageboy?” Liv
asked. “And the argument you guys had when she cut her hair to look more like
you? And her dreamy brother helped smooth things over?”

I smiled at the goofy expression on
her face. “That’s right! You
so
had the hots for Mitchell, didn’t you?”

“Who didn’t?” my sister gushed. “He
was sex on a stick back then!”

I nodded. “Yeah, and he’s not half
bad now either. But he’s married and Theresa just had their third bambino.”

I sipped my wine while Liv settled
onto a barstool.

“Are you pulling my leg? Mitchell
Hedge has
three
kids? He always used to say that he’d never get married
because there were too many cute girls in the world.”

I plucked a box of Wheat Thins from
the cupboard, put them on the counter and opened the refrigerator again.

“I don’t know about that,” I said,
searching for the olive tapenade and wedge of cheddar that I’d been munching on
the night before. “But something terrible happened at his sister’s place this
afternoon, and—” I suddenly realized that I hadn’t asked Trent when he was
going to contact Tipper’s family. “I’m sorry about this, Liv. Will you just
hang on for a sec? I need to call Trent before I do anything else.”

“Yeah, sure,” she said. “But don’t
you dare dial that thing until you tell me if Tipper’s going to be okay.”

My hand was hovering above the
phone on the counter. “That’s the scary part,” I told my sister. “Nobody even
knows where she is at the moment.”

CHAPTER
10

Trent sounded short of breath when
he answered my call a few seconds later.

“What’s up?” he wheezed. “I’m still
at Tipper’s, going through the evidence we’ve gathered so far.”

I apologized for interrupting the
investigation before quickly asking about Tipper’s mother and younger brother.

“Dina’s taking care of that,” Trent
said. “She was working a stolen tractor call, but I asked her to track down
Mrs. Hedge. Turns out she’s not in even in town at the moment.”

“Okay, thanks. My sister’s here and
I was getting ready to tell her what happened this afternoon.”

“Liv’s up from Denver?”

I glanced over at Olivia. “She is
indeed. Unfortunately, I forgot all about her visit, so she caught me getting
ready for a—”

“Tell her I said hello,” Trent cut
in. “But I can’t really talk right now. I’m waiting for the Las Cruces PD to
come back on the other line.”

“Las Cruces?”

“New Mexico,” he said. “The jewelry
that was in the woman’s pocket that got shot was taken during a robbery in Las
Cruces about six days ago.”

“How’d you make that connection so
quickly?” I asked.

“Credit card receipt in the pickup
we found in Tipper’s garage,” Trent answered. “It was from a Chevron station
down there. Turns out the MasterCard they used was strong armed from a guy and
his wife outside the Las Cruces art museum one night last week.”

“Do the local PD have any
suspects?”

“Couple of drifters were seen in
the museum parking lot,” Trent said. “But the robbery actually—” When he
stopped abruptly, I figured he was being told that the other call was ready. I
motioned to my sister that I’d be off in a second. She raised her wine glass
and smiled. I was getting ready to do the same thing when I heard Trent
clearing his throat. “Katie? I’ve gotta go.”

“You bet,” I said. “I was just
curious about Tipper’s family.”

“I was going to suggest that you
drop by tomorrow and check on her mom,” he said. “But, like I already told you,
she’s in Houston visiting relatives. Maybe you can call or wait until she’s
back up here.” He paused, sighed and said, “Now, I’ve really gotta go. I’ll
talk to you later, okay?”

When the line went dead, I put down
the phone and reached for my wine.

“How’s he doing?” Olivia asked.
“You guys still getting along okay?”

I gave her a stern glare before
sipping the soave. “Our high school romance ended in high school,” I said. “And
that was a million years ago.”

“More like thirteen,” Liv said
smugly. “And some embers linger on.”

I ignored the quip. “Okay, so…” I
put down the wine and grabbed a few crackers. “Should we go out for dinner or
do you want to nibble on whatever I’ve got here?”

Liv finished her wine. “We’re not
going anywhere,” she declared, “until you tell me about Tipper.”

I’d been so wrapped up in her
unexpected arrival and then the quick call to Trent that my jittery mind had wandered
off the track. After refilling her glass and pouring crackers into a bowl, I
told her I wanted to get dressed before launching into the story.

“That’s fine by me,” my sister
said, gesturing at my chest with a handful of Wheat Thins. “Your girls have
been playing peek-a-boo for the past five minutes. I’ll meet you in the living
room when you’re decent.”

CHAPTER
11

One hour, two glasses of wine and
dozens of Wheat Thins later, my sister was asleep on the living room sofa.
Between long days as an attorney, keeping up with her husband’s travel schedule
and herding 12-year-old twin sons, Olivia’s exhaustion wasn’t surprising. She
originally proposed the stopover in Crescent Creek to shorten the drive to Salt
Lake City, but I also think it was a rare opportunity for her to get away from
the daily grind in Denver.

“Sweet dreams, Sleeping Beauty,” I
whispered, covering her with a quilt and turning off the lights.

I was halfway down the hall to my
room when I heard a muffled robotic drone from the kitchen. It was my phone.
I’d tucked it into a drawer after Olivia dared me to go without it while we
chatted. I’d agreed to the challenge as long as she joined me. After talking
and drinking and reminiscing for the past hour, I’d forgotten that our phones
were stashed away.

“Oh, drat my luck,” I murmured,
rushing as quietly as possible to retrieve the noisemaker before it woke my
sister. “I hope I can—”

And I did, plucking my phone from
the drawer and swiping at the screen.

“Hello,” I said quietly.

“Katie? I need help!”

I didn’t recognize the feathery
voice, so I checked the display on the phone:
TANIA STURGES 575-555-6987
.
I didn’t know the name or number, but the woman sounded distressed so I figured
hanging up wouldn’t be the best choice.

“This is Kate Reed,” I said,
tiptoeing down the hall. “How can I help?”

“It’s Tipper,” the hushed voice
said. “I didn’t know who else to—”

“Oh, my gosh! Tipper? Where
are
you?”

“I don’t know, Katie. I tried my
brother, but it went—”

“Wait a second! You don’t know
where you are? What’s going on, Tipper? I came over earlier and…” It sounded
like she was crying, so I paused briefly. “Were you home when the woman was
shot?”

“He put me in the trunk before they
started arguing,” she said. “It’s a black car, okay? Almost like the one I
drive, but an older model. And I found this phone in a briefcase that he tossed
in here with me.”

It felt like everything had begun
to spin slowly, as if my world was starting to pivot away from level and
ordinary toward a type of alternative universe. I was in my bedroom. My sister
was sleeping soundly in the living room. And my friend was on the other end of
the line telling me that she’d been abducted and placed in the trunk of a car.

“Are you hurt?” I asked.

“Nothing bad. Some scratches where
that girl grabbed my arm when they first came in the house.”

“The one that I found?” I asked.
“In your kitchen?”

“Uh-huh. I wasn’t there when she
got shot, Katie. I was in the garage. All three of them were crazy! Just plain
crazy! I was at home around three. I knew you were coming by with the delivery,
and Kirsten had called to say she was running late. When the doorbell rang, I
figured…” She gasped softly. “Oh,
no
! The car’s stopping! We’re
stopping
,
Katie!”

I held my breath, waiting for her
to continue.

“Tipper?”

“I heard some kind of door open,”
she said finally, her voice even softer than before. “Like a garage door
maybe.”

“How long have you been in there?”

“I have no idea. It feels like we’ve
been just wandering around town, stopping and going, stopping and going. At one
point, I heard the bells at St. Mary’s and then a bunch of kids laughing and
talking.”

“St. Mary’s on Euclid?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“Okay, that’s really good, sweetie.
If he’s just been driving you around town, maybe—”

“I don’t want to die, Katie.”

The statement was simultaneously
heartbreaking and distressing, the last thing anyone would ever want to hear a
friend say.

“I know, Tipper. But try not to
think of that, okay? Trent’s got everyone searching for you.”

“They have guns,” she whispered.
“And there’s a dog.”

“A dog?”

“They had a dog when they came to
my door,” she said. “And they looked really normal, so I—” She stopped, but I
could still hear her breathing. “We just drove inside somewhere,” she murmured.
“I don’t want him to hear me, Katie. I don’t want him to—”

The line went dead, but I kept the
phone pressed to my ear.

Hoping.

Waiting.

And feeling the sense of dread as
it blossomed somewhere deep inside.