Plain Vanilla Murder: A Frosted Love Cozy Mystery - Book 12 (Frosted Love Cozy Mysteries) (6 page)

“Ben
and I had a fight,” Cheryl Radigan, the manager of
Missy’s Muffins and More
confessed when Missy came in to the shop after her return to Louisiana.

“Really?
That’s unusual,” Missy remarked, gingerly packing up cupcakes for delivery to a
church social.

“Yeah,
I know. I hate it. We get along so well almost every single second, but he just
can’t see my point of view on this one particular thing,” the younger woman
complained.

“Well,
I can’t say that I know from experience, but from what I hear, marriage works
best when both partners are willing to compromise. Is there a middle ground
that you two can agree upon?” she asked, trying not to pry, despite the fact
that her curiosity was killing her.

“No,
I don’t think so,” Cheryl shook her head miserably. “Here’s the thing…after I
spent some time working as an extra on the set of
Whispers of Blood
, I
realized that acting was something that comes really naturally to me, and I
want to do more of it.”

“So
what’s the problem?” Missy was puzzled. “I would think you’d have plenty of
time to do community theatre productions while Ben is busy studying.”

Cheryl
gave her a blank look. “I don’t want to do community theatre. I want to really
act. Like, I want to give it a real shot by auditioning in California or New
York or something. I really think that I could make it,” she said sincerely,
stars in her eyes.

Missy
sighed inwardly. She loved Ben and Cheryl like they were her very own kids, and
she would feel bad if she didn’t at least try to inject a little bit of reality
into the idealistic young woman’s world. Just the thought of most of the
Hollywood types that she had met made her shudder, and she just knew that the
lovely person in front of her would get eaten alive in that cutthroat
environment.

“Oh,
honey, I don’t think you realize how dark and cynical the movie and television
industry can be. Success can often depend more upon who you know and what
you’re willing to do rather than how talented you are. Besides, Ben still has
at least another year of grad school left, doesn’t he?”

“Well,
yes, but, just because he’s stuck here for another year doesn’t mean that I
can’t go make a name for myself. Then, when he graduates, he can relocate to be
with me,” she smiled as if the whole issue was solved.

“Does
he want to do that?” Missy asked gently, trying to remind her that Ben’s
feelings need to be considered too.

Cheryl
shook her head, not meeting Missy’s eyes. “No, he doesn’t. Well, hey, sorry to
bother you with all of this, I need to get up front so that we can open,” she
said, fleeing the kitchen to end the conversation.

The
young manager avoided her boss for the rest of the day, making sure to take her
lunch break when Missy came back from deliveries, leaving Grayson to pull
cupcakes out of the ovens and frost while Missy manned the front counter.

The
bell above the door jangled as Missy’s favorite group of ladies came in,
talking a mile a minute, as usual. The
Books and Burgundies
book club
got together for coffee and cupcakes every Tuesday at the LaChance location,
and had invited Missy multiple times to join their little group. She had the
book list and read the selections of the week, but couldn’t often take the time
to go and socialize at their Thursday night meetings.

She
greeted the group’s ringleader, Sally Higgins, set out five coffee cups at
their favorite table, and headed to the display case for five Cupcakes of the
Day.

“Hey
darlin, we’re going to need another place setting today,” Sally leaned over the
counter with a smile. “There’s a new gal joining us – Samantha Lemmon, do you
know her?”

Missy
shook her head, grabbing another cup and cupcake. The Cupcake of the Day was
inspired by Simon’s chocolate and ginger creation, and she thought the ladies
would really like it.

“She’s
a nurse over at the hospital, a real sweet gal that Marsha met when she did the
fundraiser for the cancer wing,” Sally continued. “Everyone loves her. I’ll
make sure I introduce the two of you when she comes in,” she promised.

“I’ll
look forward to meeting her,” Missy smiled, carrying the cupcakes out on a
tray. She really admired the way the women in this group cared about each other
and were involved in each other’s lives. She met Samantha Lemmon when she
breezed in a few minutes later on her break, still wearing scrubs, and found
her to be as delightful as Sally had described. With the book club taken care
of and cackling merrily, Missy took off her frilled apron, turned over the
store to Grayson, who was done frosting the latest batch of cupcakes, and
headed for the Dellville store.

“I’m
really beginning to worry about Ben and Cheryl,” Missy confided over Chas’s
spectacular Fettuccini Alfredo.

“They’re
young, they love each other, they’ll figure it out,” the handsome detective
said with a slight shrug as he wound tender pasta around his fork.

“I
sure hope so,” Missy frowned, tearing the end off of a buttery breadstick. “I
don’t know that I was ever as young an idealistic as Cheryl seems to be right
now. That girl has her head in the clouds.”

“Your
life had a different focus,” Chas reminded her gently. “First you worked in
your family’s business, and then when your parents’ accident turned your life
upside down, you had to take it over. There wasn’t really an opportunity to
dream about what could be when you were consumed with staying afloat.”

“True.
And then there’s the reality that I was already doing what I had dreamed about.
I had the joy of baking for a living and being a part of people’s special
occasions and celebrations. Still do,” she smiled, thankful.

“Speaking
of special occasions, has Mayor Felton tried to bully you into planning anymore
weddings?” he teased.

“Thankfully,
no,” Missy crossed her fingers and held them up. She had planned Ben and
Cheryl’s wedding, which had turned out beautifully, because neither of them had
any family to speak of, and ever since, the Mayor had been sending hopeful
couples her way, despite her protests that she wasn’t a wedding planner.

“Maybe
you should seek out some wedding clients, it’d be good practice,” his blue eyes
sparkled wickedly.

“Practice?
Practice for what?” Missy asked, savoring a sumptuous bite of fettuccini.

“…For
whatever might come up,” the detective replied mysteriously, avoiding her gaze,
then changing the subject. “Speaking of practice, the Junior High baseball
season starts up soon, so I’ll be coaching at practice three nights a week.”
Chas had inherited a massive fortune when his father passed away the previous
year, and one of his charitable endeavors had been to sponsor and coach in the
baseball program for Junior High aged players.

“Oh,
how fun! What nights will you be coaching?” she asked, sipping her wine. The
thought of Chas working with kids warmed her heart, and the vision of him in
athletic wear made it skip a beat.

“Tuesday
through Thursday,” he replied, entirely unaware of his dinner companion’s
wayward thoughts. One of the most compelling things about Chas Beckett was his
complete cluelessness about just how attractive he actually was. He had it all,
looks, intelligence, wit and compassion, and had no idea.

“Oh,
that’s perfect. Since I won’t be seeing you on those nights, I can plan on
attending book club,” Missy was excited. It wasn’t that being with Chas had
kept her from participating in the ladies group, but when she came home at the
end of the day and had to choose between getting freshened up and heading out
of the house vs. snuggling up with Mr. Tall-dark-and-handsome, she usually
chose the latter.

“I
heard from Fernandez in LA earlier today. They finally caught up with Penny
Mathers, who, as it turns out, was a pretty vicious character. The apprehended
her trying to cross the border into Mexico. She has several aliases and a trail
of bodies behind her that make most serial killers look tame,” he said grimly.

Missy’s
eyes widened and she shuddered, remembering that she had shared living quarters
with the woman. “That’s awful,” she shook her head. “What was her motivation?”

“Money.
Always money. She did whatever she had to in order to finance a pretty
luxurious lifestyle. She had several different innocent-looking disguises to
throw people off. When I think of how close you came to…” Chas didn’t finish
his sentence, shaking his head. He took Missy’s hand across the table, gazing
into her eyes. “Do you have any idea how much you mean to me?” he asked softly,
bringing her hand to his lips.

“Yes,
but I’d love to hear more about it,” Missy grinned, biting her lower lip shyly.

Missy
was so glad to fall back into her normal routine upon returning home to
Louisiana. There was nothing better than starting the day with a brisk romp in
the park, accompanied by her favorite furry companions. Toffee and Bitsy had
been well taken care of in her absence, Chas was a devoted fan of the girls,
but Missy had missed them terribly and had been giving them extra love and
attention since her return. The trio played fetch for nearly an hour before
heading home, and when they trotted up the steps to the house, Missy was out of
breath and looking forward to a shower.

After
showering and getting ready for the day, the cupcake artist had just sat down
to enjoy coffee and a bowl of yogurt mixed with granola when the text tone on
her phone chimed.

“Hey
girl – you might want to stop by my house this morning,”
her
friend Echo had texted, leaving her wondering what was up.

“Will
do!”
she texted back, feeling a bit unsettled. One thing that she loved about Echo
is that she was always very direct - so direct, in fact, that sometimes her
seeming lack of filters rubbed folks the wrong way, but Missy loved bold
honesty, which was probably part of the reason that the two of them got along
so well. For her friend to send an obscure message like this one was an unusual
thing, so she hurried through the rest of her breakfast, made sure the dogs had
plenty of food and water, poured her coffee in a to-go cup and headed for
Echo’s charming bungalow.

Echo
opened the door after Missy knocked softly, giving her a strange look and
leading her to the kitchen in the back part of the house, where Cheryl sat, her
head in her hands.

“Cheryl?”
Missy asked, wondering what was going on.

“Oh,
Ms. G…Ben and I are separated,” she moaned, her eyes puffy from crying.

Missy
was astounded. “What? Why?” she exclaimed pulling up a chair next to the
miserable girl.

“We
had another fight, and Ben accused me of caring more about trying to become an
actress than participating in our relationship, and I told him he was being
selfish and we both got very angry, and…” Cheryl suddenly looked panicked,
jumped up from the table and sprinted to Echo’s main floor powder room. The gut-wrenching
sounds of her losing her breakfast reached their ears and Echo turned on the
radio to give the poor girl some privacy.

“Wow,
she’s really upset,” Missy observed sadly.

“For
sure,” her friend nodded. “She came to the door late last night, asking if she
could stay. There was no way in the world that I was going to say no, so I set
her up in the guest room, poor creature. She can’t sleep, won’t eat. The most
that I’ve been able to get her to do is to sip tea while we talk. She cries all
the time, but refuses to budge when I suggest that she talk to her husband,”
Echo whispered, bringing Missy up to speed.

“I
think I’m going to have a talk with Ben,” Missy replied. “Because, honestly, I
don’t like to choose sides, but it certainly seems like he’s being the
level-headed one in this scenario.”

“I
agree,” her friend nodded, falling silent when Cheryl dragged herself back into
the kitchen looking pale.

“Honey,
you need to have some tea to settle your stomach and then get a bite to eat,”
Missy counseled the pitiful young woman who slumped in the chair next to her.

“I
can’t,” she murmured. “Every time I think about this, I just get sick to my
stomach,” she put her hands over her midsection miserably.

“Well,
try to relax, okay? Get some rest. I’m going to run over to
Crème de la
Cupcake
and pick up something and we can talk when I get back, alright?”

“You’re
not going to go talk to Ben are you?” Cheryl asked, her lower lip trembling.

“Of
course I am. Would you expect anything less?” Missy challenged.

“My
mind is made up,” she muttered sullenly.

Missy
let that go, gave her a big hug, and headed for the door. “Watch her,” she
mouthed silently to Echo on the way out. Her friend nodded and gave her a
thumbs up, closing the door behind her.

**

“She’s
being entirely unreasonable,” Ben complained when Missy sat down with him at
one of the tables in the eating area. “I’ve never seen her like this. She’s
always so practical and mature, and lately it’s just like she’s gone off the
deep end or something. Her reasoning makes no sense and she refuses to see
things from my perspective. I don’t know what on earth is causing this, but she
certainly hasn’t been herself and I don’t know what to do about it,” he shook
his head sadly.

Missy’s
eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Ben, honey, how long has this been going on?” she
asked.

“It’s
been nearly two months. She didn’t say anything immediately after the Hollywood
people left town, it was a few weeks after that when she started talking about
it,” he explained.

A
huge grin spread slowly across Missy’s face.

“What?”
Ben asked, eyeing her strange reaction suspiciously.

“I’ll
be right back, sugar, you just take care of things here,” she replied, grabbing
her bag of cupcakes and dashing to the door, leaving a startled and puzzled Ben
staring after her as though she’d lost her mind.

Stopping
at the drug store on the way back to Echo’s, Missy thought that she might have
an idea that would explain Ben and Cheryl’s entire disagreement.

**

Ben
Radigan cleared the coffee cups that he and his boss had used when she stopped
by, wondering what on earth had possessed her to dash out of the shop in the
way that she had. Shrugging it off and thinking that just about every woman he
knew was acting strangely, he tidied up the eating area, took a batch of cupcakes
out of the oven to cool, and packaged up an order for a children’s party.

Hearing
the front door bell jangle, he came out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a
towel, his apron covered in flour, to see his beloved wife standing in the
eating area with tears streaming down her lovely face, with Missy and Echo
beaming behind her.

“Umm…everything
okay?” he asked, confused.

Cheryl
ran to him and threw her arms around his waist, burying her face in his chest
and not caring that she was getting covered in flour. “Oh Ben, I’m so sorry.
I’ve just been awful and I had no idea, and I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.
You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, and there’s no way that I’m
going to go to New York or Los Angeles or anywhere else without you,” she
babbled, tears flowing freely.

“Hey,”
he raised her chin, making her look up with him. “I love you, it’s okay,” he
reassured her, enveloping her in a warm hug. “But, what made you change your
mind?” he asked, wondering how Missy and Echo had been able to talk some sense
into her so quickly.

Reaching
into her purse, she extracted a baggie that contained a beige plastic stick of
some sort, and handed it to him. “This,” she said, pointing out the pink plus
sign on the stick. “You’re going to be a daddy,” her face flooded with joy as
Ben’s mouth hung open. Tears welled in his eyes as he crushed his beloved wife
protectively to him.

“That
explains a lot,” he chuckled through his tears as Missy and Echo moved forward
for a group hug.

Missy
grinned from ear to ear. She was home, she was safe, and she was about to
become a godmother – could life be any better?