Dark Chocolate Demise (2 page)

Because the cupcake van was packed to bursting with food, there was no way to wedge Angie's poufy meringue of a dress into the back. She and Mel opted to walk the half block to the Civic Center, the park in Old Town Scottsdale where the zombie walk would end and the party would begin.

As Mel and Angie strolled through the bakery's neighborhood, Mel hoped they didn't scare any small children in their ghoulish getups. She did not want to be responsible for anyone's nightmares.

As they passed the tattoo parlor on the corner, Mick the owner poked his head out of the doorway. Standing six feet four and covered in ink right to the top of his shaved head, which sported a rising phoenix, he was fearsome to behold.

“Well, look what crawled up from the netherworld,” he said. “And here I thought today was going to be ordinary.”

Mel glanced at the metal implants on Mick's forehead that made him look like he was about to sprout horns. Did the man even know the meaning of the word
ordinary
?

“It's my new look,” Angie said as she twirled, giving him an eyeful of her axe in the back. “What do you think?”

“Totally hot. If you weren't spoken for, I'd ask you to the opera tonight.”

“You mean you're going to miss the zombie walk?” Mel asked. She would have thought it was right up Mick's alley, literally.

“Sorry,” Mick said with a shrug. “
La Bohème
is tonight. You know how I feel about my man Puccini.”

Mel nodded. Mick was an onion with a lot of layers. Despite his outwardly scary appearance, he was a season ticket holder to the Arizona Opera, and she knew from his weekly visits to the bakery that he had a weakness for coconut cupcakes.

“Oh, ew!” Mel turned around to see a young woman in a charcoal gray skirt and suit jacket over a black blouse and black tights, staring at her and Angie in revulsion. Frances Kelly, CPA, was new to the neighborhood as she had just rented office space above Mick's tattoo parlor. Frances twirled her finger at them. “That is so wrong and on so many levels.”

“Frances, I'm hurt,” Angie said. “I can't believe you don't like my outfit.”

“Flirting with damnation is not my idea of a good time,” Frances said with a sniff. Frances had a very rigid religious code that as far as Mel had been able to determine meant no fun of any kind ever.

Mel rolled her eyes at Mick, who grinned in return.

“Come on, Frankie, lighten up,” he teased the young woman. “A zombie walk is good, clean fun. No harm, no foul.”

“It's Frances, Mr. Donnelly; you would do well to remember that,” she snapped and jerked on the lapels of her jacket while hoisting her messenger bag up onto her shoulder. “And for your information, playing with Satan is always harmful. I'll pray for you all.”

With that she strode past them to the stairs on the side of the building, which led to her office above. When they heard the door shut behind her, Angie turned to Mick with a perplexed expression.

“Explain to me how that”—she paused to point up—“ended up renting space from you.”

Mick shrugged. “Price and location. Besides, I think she likes me.”

“Oh, yeah, I saw a glimmer of that mixed in with her scathing contempt,” Mel said. “Not.”

Mick laughed. “Well, she's not indifferent to me, so we have a starting place.”

Mel and Angie waved good-bye as Mick ducked back into his shop.

“Is it just me or is he completely deluded?” Angie asked.

“It's not you,” Mel said. “For reasons unknown to me, men do not seem to suffer the same self-esteem issues as women do. I mean, have you ever noticed that old, fat bald guys tend to go for young, skinny, pretty girls? What's up with that?”

“I don't know. Maybe they see themselves as they were when they were young,” Angie said.

“See? Deluded,” Mel said. “Not unlike our inked-up friend there thinking he stands a chance with the poster girl of prim and proper.”

“Agreed,” Angie said. “Let me just say if Tate ever throws me over because I've gained a few pounds or let my hair go gray while he did the same, why I'd . . .”

“What?” Mel prompted her.

“Lose the weight, dye my hair, find the youngest, hottest man in town, and make Tate regret his stupidity until he draws his last breath.”

“Wow,” Mel said. “You're kind of scaring me right now.”

Angie gave her a sidelong glance as they crossed the street. “You are not the one who needs to be scared.”

“Noted.”

As they entered the park, Mel could see other vendors setting up their booths for the zombie walk. She was relieved that most of them had dressed up as well, making her feel much less conspicuous than she had under Frances's censorious gaze.

It was a perfect March day in Arizona with a warm sun and a cool breeze, making it the sort of day that demanded it be spent outside.

“Oh, check them out.” Angie nudged Mel with her elbow and pointed to a gruesome twosome.

Mel felt her jaw drop. The woman was dressed like a dominatrix, and she led her zombie man around by a chain around his neck.

“I thought this was a family event,” she said.

Angie shrugged. They watched as the man moaned and shambled past them while the woman strutted on stiletto boots that went all the way up to mid-thigh. She smacked a riding crop against her thigh as if just itching to use it.

“That's fifty shades of seriously wrong,” Mel said and Angie laughed.

“Halt!” A man in a black T-shirt with a bright yellow star on it, black fatigues, and black combat boots jumped in front of them. He assumed a fighter stance and was carrying what looked like a very large semiautomatic weapon.

Mel jumped. “What? What did we do?”

“I'm with the Department of Zombie Defense,” the man barked. “And you look undead to me.”

“Who? Us?” Angie asked. She looked like she was trying not to laugh as she played along. “No, no, we're very much alive.”

“Yep, we have all of our body parts,” Mel said. “See?”

She and Angie shook their arms and legs to prove that all their parts were still attached.

The man gave them a dubious look. “All right. I'll let you pass this time, but you may want to get some sun. You're looking a little pale.”

“Will do,” Mel promised. She and Angie hurried around him to go meet the cupcake van, which was slowly rolling towards them.

“And probably you should get that axe in your back looked at,” the guy yelled.

Angie snorted. “Oh, yeah, this is going to be fun.”

Two zombie cheerleaders scuffled past them with their pom-poms hanging low.

Mel grinned. “I think we need to work on our shamble.”

“Agreed,” Angie said. She pulled her veil over her face and then limp/shuffled towards the cupcake van, which had just pulled into its designated space near the amphitheater.

Tate leaned out the driver's window and let out a wolf whistle, which made Angie giggle.

“There was absolutely nothing zombie sounding about that,” Mel said.

“Sorry,” Angie said. “He's just so cute.”

Mel looked at Tate, with the knife through his skull dripping fake blood all over his collar and down his shirtfront. He'd put in a pair of fake rotten teeth, and his makeup made his eyes appear sunken and his features gaunt.

“If I didn't know better, I'd think you were drunk,” Mel said.

“I'm worse than that,” Angie laughed as they approached the van. “I'm in love.”

Mel studied her friend. Her eyes were bright, her smile wide, and even under her ghoulish foundation, she glowed. Yep, Angie had it bad.

“Have you two set a date yet?” Mel asked as Tate stepped out of the van to join them.

“Not yet,” Angie said. “But don't you worry; as my maid of honor you'll be the first to know.”

“Hold the phone,” Tate said. “Mel can't be your maid of honor. She's my best man, well, woman. Yeah, that's right. She's my best wo-man.”

“Um,” Mel hummed as she glanced between them. Once they'd become a couple, she had thought she'd never have to choose between them unless they broke up, a thought she refused to let enter her head for fear she'd never sleep again.

“No, I have dibs on Mel,” Angie said. “She's my best friend.”

“She's my best friend, too,” Tate protested. “I always figured when I tied the knot, she'd be at my side.”

“Well, so did I,” Angie said.

“Come to think of it, I thought you'd be there, too, as a groomsman, but that was before I fell in love with you.”

“You mean before you noticed me.” Angie glowered. Gone were the joyous sparkles from her eyes, replaced with sizzling lasers of seriously not happy.

“Yeah, I always figured the three of us would rock matching tuxes, and the bachelor party would be the stuff of legends, maybe Vegas. You know, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” he said.

“Not helping,” Mel whispered as she leaned towards Tate. He glanced at her and then at Angie, who looked like she might pull the axe out of her back and whack him on the head with it.

“Who do you want to stand up for, Mel?” Angie asked. “Me or Tate?”

“Oh, no.” Mel shook her head and raised her hands. “I'm Switzerland. I am not stepping into the middle of this. It will be an honor to stand up for either of you, but that's for you two to decide, not me.”

Angie glared at Tate and crossed her arms over her chest. He scowled back. Neither one of them looked like they were going to budge, until Oz poked his head out of the service window of the van and shouted, “Hey, how about a little help here?”

Together, Tate and Angie stomped towards the van.

“What's going on with those two?” Marty asked as he joined her.

“A stand-up standoff,” Mel said.

“Huh?” Marty asked. “What the heck does that mean?”

“It means, ‘Houston, we have a problem,'” Mel said.

“
Apollo 13
,” Marty said.

Mel looked at him.

“What?” he asked. “I don't watch movies? Anyway, it's wrong.”

“What's wrong?” Mel asked.

“The quote,” Marty said. “I was older than you are now in 1970 when
Apollo 13
launched and what Jack Swigert, the pilot, really said was, ‘Houston, we've had a problem here.'”

Mel tried to wrap her head around the fact that Marty had been almost forty in 1970. She couldn't make it compute. The world events he'd seen and the things he'd done in his lifetime boggled her mind.

“Wow,” she said, finally. “You're pretty smart for an undead guy.”

Marty shrugged. “Meh. You pick stuff up along the way, you know, if you're paying attention.”

“Nice outfit, princess.”

Mel and Marty spun around to see Olivia Puckett standing there with her arms crossed over her chest, not an easy feat with a knife sticking out of her ribs, and a frown marring her zombified features. Like Mel, she had gone with the undead chef thing, which did not make Mel happy for a variety of reasons—not the least of which was that Olivia's fake blood looked more real than Mel's. Annoying.

Mel glared. Olivia Puckett was the owner of Confections, a rival bakery, and had been the bane of Mel's existence since the day she opened her shop. Their enmity had gotten pretty heated right up until Marty had decided to venture into the online dating world and had inadvertently hooked up with Olivia.

Mel told herself that this was one of those the-universe-works-in-mysterious-ways sort of situations, but it still felt like a cosmic ass kicking, which was usually what she wanted to do to Olivia.

The relationship was complicated for Mel because she was afraid if Marty were forced to choose between working at Fairy Tale Cupcakes and his girlfriend, he'd choose the girlfriend. Losing Marty to Olivia would be even worse than losing a bake-off, and so Mel was forced to play nice, but it was an effort.

“I could say the same to you,” Mel said. She crossed her arms over her chest, mimicking Olivia's stance. “You make an okay zombie chef.”

“Okay?” Olivia bugged her eyes at her. “I am so much better than okay. And who are you to judge since you didn't even bother to dress up.”

“Why you—” Mel took two steps towards her nemesis, when she felt someone grab her arm and spin her around.

“All rightie then, all kidding aside,” Marty wheezed, looking slightly panicked at the catfight that was about to ensue. “Mel, I think they need you at the cupcake van. Liv, how about you show me your setup? I'd like to see where my girl will be during the shindig.”

“Your girl?” Olivia tittered and blushed. “Oh, Martin, you are a charmer.”

It took everything Mel had to keep her eyes from rolling back into her head. Then again, given that she was at a zombie walk, it was a look that would work, and she could always say it was part of her shtick.

She let her eyeballs roll. Sadly, the effect was wasted on Marty as he had linked arms with Olivia and was now strolling through the undead vendors over to her spot in the festivities. Mel was just relieved that it was not right next to theirs. She didn't think Angie would manage her temper near as well as Mel had.

She circled the van and glanced in the back door to see how things were going between Tate and Angie. Judging by the way Angie was keeping her axe, rather her back, to him, Mel assumed not well.

“We need to put the eyeball cupcakes where people can see them,” Oz said. He was fussing with the display case beside the service window. Both Tate and Angie were ignoring him. “Hey! A little help here, please.”

“Oh, I'd love to help but I'm sure Tate already has dibs on the eyeball cupcakes,” Angie said.

“Now is that nice?” Tate asked.

“Just as nice as you claiming my best friend for your own,” Angie said.

Mel backed away from the truck. She was not going in there until they resolved their issue. She supposed it was lame of her to abandon Oz, but since they were fighting about her, she felt her presence would only make things worse.

She spied their chalkboard sandwich board. Angie had doodled their zombie specialties on the board with prices. Mel lugged it out to the front of the van and propped it up where she figured it would be most visible.

She wanted to wheel the coffin out front, too, as she figured it would give the undead a nice photo op and bring them in to buy cupcakes. She knew she wasn't strong enough to carry the coffin herself, but she really didn't want to get into the bride and groom scuffle again.

She glanced up to see if there were any festival workers that she could ask for help. Then again, how would she know who was working the zombie walk if they were all dressed as zombies?

“Yo, Mel, over here!”

Mel turned at the sound of her name. She squinted at the crowd, trying to see who was calling her. It took her a few seconds to recognize the two zombies shambling towards her. Al DeLaura, who was dressed as a redneck zombie complete with John Deere cap and grubby white tank top, and Paulie DeLaura, who was wearing a torn suit with one sleeve empty, which made perfect sense when Mel realized he was carrying his “missing” limb in his other hand. Ew.

“Al, Paulie,” she greeted them as she hugged them.

Paulie patted her on the head with his fake arm, and she straightened her toque and frowned at him. “Stop that.”

He grinned, showing some blacked-out teeth.

“Do I look as awful as you two?” she asked.

“No one looks as gruesome as me,” Al declared. “There's a cash prize for best zombie outfit, and I'm betting on Bubba the redneck zombie to bring it home for me.”

“Since you're here, how about a favor?” Mel asked. The brothers nodded and Mel gestured for them to follow her.

When they rounded the cupcake van and saw the coffin, they both went wide-eyed.

“That's bringing it to all new levels,” Paulie said in approval.

“Agreed,” Al said. He ran his hand over the blue satin lining. “It's so plush.”

“Can you help me wheel it to the front?” Mel asked. “I want to prop it up to help lure the zombies in.”

“Great idea,” Al said. “Where'd you get it?”

“Dom knew a guy,” she said. The brothers nodded. Among the seven DeLaura brothers, Dom, Sal, Ray, Joe, Paulie, Tony, and Al, they always “knew a guy.” Mel knew Joe kept tabs on his brothers and their flirtations with breaking the law. Although some of the DeLauras bent the rules a bit, for the most part they stayed within the law, mostly out of respect for Joe since he was a county attorney and all.

When Mel went to grab a side of the coffin and help, Paulie and Al shooed her away, making it clear that they had it under control. Paulie popped out his real arm and handed her the fake to hold for him.
Ish!

Mel followed them, directing them to the spot where the coffin would get the most traffic. They locked the wheels on the little trailer, keeping the coffin safely propped up.

“Is it stable enough?” Mel asked. “Marty is going to hang out in it and let people take pictures in it.”

“Let me try,” Paulie said. He took his fake arm back and climbed into the coffin. He rested against the satin, clutching his fake arm to his chest. “How do I look?”

“Horrible,” Al said. He screwed up his ghoulish features with a look of distaste. Then he reached forward and slammed the door shut on the coffin.

“HEY!” Paulie shouted from inside, making it muffled but still discernable. The banging coming from inside started slow but quickly became panicked.

Mel shot Al a reproving look before she lifted the lid on the coffin. Paulie came staggering out and fell to his knees. His free hand was clutching his throat and he was gasping for air.

“I can't breathe,” he wheezed.

“Oh, Paulie, are you okay?” Mel asked and she hunkered beside him. “That was not nice, Al. You scared your brother half to death.”

Al had the grace to look slightly abashed and he hung his head and mumbled, “Sorry.”

Paulie snapped up straight. “I was
not
scared, not even a little. It was the lack of oxygen.”

“Yeah, right,” Al said. He pushed his John Deere cap back on his head and gave his brother a skeptical look.

“It was!” Paulie insisted.

The two looked ready to brawl so Mel figured a change of topic was in order.

“Have either of you heard from Joe?” she asked.

If she'd hit them with a spray of ice water, she was pretty sure they wouldn't have clenched up as much as they did at the name of the brother who had ripped her heart out.

They exchanged a worried look and Al said, “Nope, haven't seen him.”

“Me neither,” Paulie said. He waved his fake arm at Mel as if to emphasize his words. “And you need not to be asking about him.”

“Why not?” Mel asked. “His trial is in all of the papers and on the news. It's not like I can avoid it.”

“Well, you need to try,” Al said.

“Yes, Joe was very clear that we need to keep you safe,” Paulie said. “And to do that, we shouldn't talk about him with you at all ever.”

“Oh, he said that, did he?” Mel asked.

Al reached over and snatched Paulie's fake arm and then whacked him over the head with it.

“You are an idiot,” Al said. Then he handed the arm back.

“
Ouch!
What did I say?” Paulie asked.

“You just admitted that you've been in contact with him,” Mel said. “Now spill. When did you see him? What did he say? How does he look? Is he all right?”

The brothers exchanged another look, and she was afraid they were going to clam up on her. She was desperate for news about Joe, as he'd cut ties with everyone at the bakery in order to keep them safe from the mobster case he was presently working on. It had been an excruciating few months for Mel, and she wasn't about to let the brothers hold out on her now.

“Please,” she said. She gave them her best sad puppy look. “Please just tell me how he is.”