Sweets Forgotten (Samantha Sweet Mysteries Book 10) (21 page)

Chapter
22

Sam braced herself against the
stainless worktable and stared at the finished box of chocolates. They were as
close to perfect as she could imagine, a collection of cats and kittens in
dark, white and milk chocolate. Her personal favorite was the little calico on
which she’d used essence of orange to create the rust-colored patches. Mr.
Bookman’s desire to present his wife with a gift of her two favorite
things—chocolate and cats—had come to fruition. And Sam’s blast of energy was
completely gone. She set the lid on the candy box and walked to the sales room
to brew the day’s first pot of coffee. Julio would arrive soon to start the
morning pastries, and Jen and Becky would come shortly after.

Gray predawn light filtered
through the front windows. The parking lot was empty and no sounds came from
the street. Sam pressed the button on the coffee maker and stared at the small
view of Taos’s adobe structures she could see from this limited vantage point.
The coffee machine hissed and she felt an ache creep up her arms and into her
shoulders. She would need to sleep off the binge, but at this moment the pains
felt good. Accomplishment and prolonged creativity did that to her. The
bittersweet part, the tradeoff, was that she and Beau had spent the evening of
their first anniversary apart.

Disappointment crowded against
exhaustion and physical ache. Why had she let business take priority over their
time together?

Almost as if he’d read her
thoughts, Beau’s cruiser rolled to an almost silent stop at the front door. She
unlocked it and beckoned him inside.

“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

He pulled her to his chest and
rubbed her back.

“Nothing turned out right—the
special cake I meant to bake for us, a nice dinner together, and our relaxing
night at home …”

“It’s okay. It’s not as if my
work hasn’t interrupted our lives sometimes too.” He held her at arm’s length
with a steady gaze. “The day started to get away from us early on. And I told
you it would be fine to postpone the special dinner to another night. It’s all
good, darlin’.”

The rumble of a Harley disrupted a
kiss that could have lingered a long time. Sam heard the back door open and
Julio’s familiar movements as he began handling metal baking pans, starting his
day’s work.

Sam tilted her head in the
direction of the kitchen and whispered to Beau. “At some point I want to talk
to you about something. Now—coffee?”

He gave a puzzled look but
accepted the cup she poured for him. Seated at one of the bistro tables with
the warm mugs, Sam let herself relax and simply enjoy the fact that she was
married to this wonderful guy. The cozy feeling lasted nearly five whole
minutes before his shoulder mike squawked with an incoming radio call.

“Gotta go,” he said, after
answering with a bunch of coded cop-speak.

“I’ve got to get some sleep,” she
said. “If I get back here in time to make preparations, shall we plan on our
special dinner tonight?”

“First things first. Get your
rest and then we’ll talk about it. I don’t want you wearing yourself out.” He
was out the door as soon as he said it.

She took the used cups to the
kitchen, happy to see Julio already pouring muffin batter into pans. Jo was
next to arrive, wearing an anxious expression. She paused when she saw the box
of chocolates on the table. A quizzical look toward Sam.

“Just remember what I said last
night.” Their own version of a don’t-ask-don’t-tell pact.

Jo nodded and Sam lifted the lid.

“Oh my gosh, they are fantastic!”
Jo actually gasped. “How did—?” She clamped her mouth shut.

“Now for the taste test,” Sam
said, although she’d personally sampled a bit of each new flavor as she devised
it.

She uncovered a plate filled with
the inevitable goof-ups that were part of any decorative endeavor, the
imperfectly formed pieces and those where her hand zigged when it should have
zagged with the pastry bag. Jo took a sample of the cinnamon-nutmeg-molasses
cream enrobed in dark chocolate and her eyelids closed in bliss as she rolled
the flavors on her tongue.

“Will Mr. Bookman and his wife be
impressed?”

Jo had already picked up a milk
chocolate with raspberry and lemongrass. Another eye roll and she nodded
vigorously. “They have to be.”

Becky came in and tried a couple.
“Oh, definitely. You guys have nailed this one.”

Neither Sam nor Jo contradicted
the impression they had both worked on the order.

“Okay, time to declare it done
and let the customer know.”

Sam cut a length of ribbon that
coordinated with the box’s cat design and tied it into a fluffy mass that
topped the gift perfectly. She set the box on the shelf behind Jen’s work area
where it would be safe from harm. On the phone, Mr. Bookman seemed thrilled
that the order was done a day early.

“You look tired, Sam,” said Becky
when she walked back into the kitchen.

“I’ll admit it. I’m going home
for a few hours’ sleep—soon.” She turned to Jo. “There was extra tempered
chocolate after the Bookman order was finished, so I molded some basic squares
and buttons. If you can decorate them today, we’ll set them out with our other
stock.”

“Absolutely. Anything else?”

Until the holidays, they wouldn’t
need large quantities of chocolate and she really couldn’t justify keeping Jo
employed right now. Still, she had to admit the woman had a lot of talent. The
unusual flavors and special molding techniques were things Sam wouldn’t have
known without working alongside her new helper.

“You probably could use some
extra rest, too. How are things going? Personally, I mean.”

“Well enough, I suppose. It’s an
adjustment. Staying with my friend is making it easier. I’d be going crazy
alone in that big house. I started going through those papers I took home
yesterday, but they just aren’t making sense. I guess I have to get my head
back into accounting and numbers and all that.”

“Well, good luck with them. Okay,
folks, I’m leaving for home and sleep. Unless the building’s on fire, don’t
call me.”

Since that had actually happened
once, she amended the phrase. “Don’t let the building catch fire.” Then she was
out the door.

Kelly was just getting out of her
car when Sam hit the pavement.

“Hey, Mom. How’s things? Did you
and Beau have a great celebration for your anniversary?”

“Not exactly.” Sam glossed over
the way the day had gotten out of control and the fact she had worked all
night.

“Mom? I have a question.” Kelly
shifted her purse to the other arm, gazed out past the building in a classic
stalling technique.

Sam raised her eyebrows.

“How did you know Beau was the
one? Your Mr. Right?”

Oh, wow. That was not the
question Sam expected.

“Is this about your new guy, the
one we haven’t met yet?”

Again, Kelly shifted a little in
her spot before nodding.

“Honey, you haven’t known him
very long.”

“You only knew Beau a few months
before he proposed. How did you know saying yes was the right thing?”

How indeed? “I suppose it was
just a feeling. Some undefinable thing … I’m not sure how to describe it.”

Kelly smiled that cute, dimpled
way which had melted Sam’s heart from the time she was a toddler.

“Okay, Mom. Thanks.” She stepped
forward and gave Sam’s hand a squeeze, then turned and disappeared through the
back door at Puppy Chic.

Sam drove home in a daze, her
mom-meter ringing like crazy. Could Kelly really be this serious about someone
they’d never met? Or was it someone they knew well already? The more she
thought about it, the more certain she felt. She patted the dogs on the head
and trudged upstairs, swallowing a PM pill, peeling off her clothes and sliding
under the comforter in her underwear. Her eyes closed but her mind would not
shut down.

Kelly and Julio as a couple. Sam
imagined the proposal, the wedding, the grandchildren to come. Whatever picture
formed in her mind, the tattoos got in the way.
What is wrong with me that I can’t see past the surface?
All this
time, she should have gotten to know Julio better, to cultivate a bit of a
friendship with him, rather than simply relying on his proven expertise as a
baker. She liked the man, but well enough to welcome as a son-in-law? And how
would he and Kelly mesh as a married couple—his quiet, almost taciturn
disposition along with Kelly who exuded bubbles and giggles most of the time.

Sleep came, riddled with dreams.
She rolled over. An hour had ticked by on the clock. Closed eyes again. Rolled
over again. Fifteen more minutes.

Okay, this is ridiculous.

She sat up and called Beau. His
cell went to voicemail immediately and she realized it wasn’t fair to interrupt
his work day because she couldn’t rest. She would interrupt Zoë instead.

“Hey, what’s up?” Zoë’s breath
was rushed, as if she’d run in from the back yard.

“Trying to sleep. Can’t.”

“Pull another all-nighter? Sam, I
thought we’d talked about that.”

“I know. And now I took a
sleeping pill so I shouldn’t drive. Otherwise, I would just go back to the shop
and bake the cake I should have done yesterday.”

“Oh, right. Your anniversary.”

“It didn’t happen. Beau’s job, my
job, no time.”

“It’s really bugging you. Want me
to come over? I could rock you to sleep or something.”

Sam chuckled over that image,
slender little Zoë with her as the oversized baby.

“I’m coming by. Just a cup of tea
and talking it out will help. And you can make me leave at any time by closing
your eyes and getting yourself some real sleep. I’ll be there in fifteen
minutes.”

The emotional bond between them
tugged at Sam. How long had they been best friends? At least twenty years. She
smiled. Meanwhile, she thought of a way to take one other concern off her mind.
She dialed the bakery and asked to speak to Julio.

When his soft, slightly accented
voice came on the line she paused. Mentioning Kelly would be out of line. It
was up to her daughter to bring up that subject. Instead, she did the first
thing that occurred to her, asked him to bake the layers for her anniversary
cake. Beau’s favorite cake for the lower tier and her own for the smaller top.

“No problem, Sam. Anything else?”
he asked.

“No, Julio. That’s fine.”

“Sam? Are you okay? You sound
really tired. We’re a little worried about you.”

We? He and Kelly?

“Jen says to get some sleep. Now.
I mean, that’s how
she
said it.”

Of course he meant the bakery
staff.

“Thanks, Julio. I will.”

Outside, a car crunched through
the gravel in the driveway and Sam peered out the upstairs window. Zoë here
already. She put on a robe and went downstairs.

“I brought my favorite herbal tea,”
Zoë said. “It’s got valerian root, chamomile and some other stuff. I’ll put the
kettle on and you go snuggle into your favorite corner of the sofa with this
lavender-scented afghan. I swear, it’s the best recipe for restful sleep I’ve
ever used.”

Sam took the knitted blanket and
did as instructed. When Zoë delivered a gently steaming mug of the tea and
settled into the overstuffed chair near the foot of the couch, Sam spilled the
whole thing—all her concerns over Kelly and Julio and her own guilt over having
put her first anniversary on hold because of an urgent bakery order.

“Was Beau upset over it?”

“Not at all. He’s been so
understanding … and those roses …”

“Then, you know what? I say don’t
stress over it. You guys are fine. Kelly’s fine. So what if the boyfriend turns
out to be Julio—you love the guy. She’ll tell you what’s going on when she’s
ready, and I know that girl. You cannot push her, and no man is going to push
her.”

Sam had to nod agreement over
that statement.

“You’ve made your customer happy.
You’ve got a great husband and a fantastic marriage. He’ll wrap up his case,
you’ll get your work schedule on an even keel, and the two of you can take a
weekend away. I’d offer a room at our place but I know you. You and Beau will
both sneak out to check your respective work places. Go somewhere fun, sweetie.
Maybe San Antonio or southern California. Take a quick flight and just hole up
in a hotel somewhere.”

Sam smiled as the effects of the
warm tea lulled her.

“I’m setting your cup down now,”
Zoë said. “Put this pillow under your head and just close your eyes for a few
minutes.”

It felt good, hearing her best
friend’s solid, commonsense talk.

When Sam stirred, Zoë was gone.
She pulled the cover over her shoulders and rolled to her side. She woke to
find a lamp on in the room but it was dark outside. Her phone was on the coffee
table and she saw that it was after seven o’clock. She’d missed a call from
Beau.

Chapter
23

Beau bided his time in his office
while Rico put Donny Vargas into the station’s one detention cell. The grease
on the boot print found at the Robinet home came back positive for motor oil
mixed with dirt, a pretty certain sign it had come from a garage floor. Vargas
could sit there awhile and sweat over what the lawmen knew or didn’t know.

Meanwhile, Krystal Cordova was
doing the same in an interrogation room. Beau had picked her up personally,
before she’d had the chance to make up and fluff up for an evening of hanging
around the men at The Scoreboard. Without the makeup and hair she looked
younger and more innocent. Healthier, too. In a way, that made it more
difficult for him to come down hard with his questions but he had to get to the
bottom of this. The case was getting older and colder by the day.

He finished the sandwich someone
had brought him hours ago for lunch, fortified himself with a cup of fresh
coffee, and headed toward Krystal’s room. She looked up, no more timid than the
fiery little thing she’d been at four o’clock.

“What am I doing here, Sheriff?”
she demanded. “Don’t I get a lawyer?”

“Up to you. You haven’t been
charged with anything, so if you call one it’s on your dime. I hear they’re
kind of pricey.”

“So, what do you want?”

“Well, Krystal, I want to know
just how far your plan went when you and Ray tried to blackmail Josephine
Robinet.”

“I have no idea what you’re
talking about.”

“Now
that
is a lie. You admitted a couple days ago that you and Ray
thought you could make more money than what Jo paid you to seduce her husband.”

“I provided more services. I had
the guy ready to take me away to the Virgin Islands. That’s worth more money.”

“Whose bright idea was it to kill
Zack Robinet?”

The abrupt switch in topic
startled her. She went back to the default answer: “I don’t know what you’re
talking about.”

“You don’t know that Zack was
murdered? Come on. Or you don’t know who thought of it?”

“I, uh—”

“You think about that for a
minute. Meanwhile, Donny Vargas broke into the Robinet home yesterday. What was
he there for?” In fact, the intruder had worn gloves, so they only had the
greasy footprint to go by. But it was worth the bluff to see what she knew.
“I’m thinking some important little piece of evidence ties all three of you
into this so deep you’ll never get out. Donny was probably voted, or talked, into
going there to look for it.”

“Donny? What the hell does he
have to do with anything? The guy’s a douche.”

“That’s the best description you
can think of? He’s involved, Krystal. And I seriously doubt he’s going to act
so dumb about the details as you are. When we talk to him, I’ll bet he’s going
to tell us every single thing you and Ray did, from the moment Jo Robinet hired
you to the time of the murder, and probably including what all you’ve done to
cover up your involvement. In court, it’s going to sound like the stupid move
of the century, you all trying to blackmail a woman but going ahead and killing
the husband before you ever got any money from her.”

Her eyes grew wide at the laundry
list of problems Vargas could create for her.

“Look, Sheriff, I really don’t
know about any of this. I have no idea if Donny broke into that lady’s house. I
have no idea if he ever went to Albuquerque, much less to the hotel.” Her voice
cracked slightly.

He gave her a minute of silence,
to let the implications fully soak in. “Krystal, I don’t mean to be hard on you
here. At this point I need to know who actually killed Zack Robinet. Who pushed
that needle full of smack into his arm?”

He leaned in closer across the
table. “Cause, quite frankly, Krystal, you are the only person positively
identified as going in and out of that hotel room. The video cameras don’t lie.
We have the desk clerk and a maid who also remember you. They don’t remember
Ray. They don’t remember Donny. But they remember you.”

“Are you arresting me?” Her hands
shook and she clasped them together to hide the fact.

“I’m building a case. Right now,
according to the evidence, you’re the one going down for this. If others were
involved, I need to know it. If you can tell me how Ray or Donny got into the
room and gave the shot, I’m listening. If you can give me something that shows
it was their idea and they forced you to do it, I think a prosecutor and jury
would be a lot kinder to you.”

He shrugged as if he didn’t have
a care in the world. “That’s all I’m saying.”

A tear tracked its way slowly
down her cheek.

“I swear, Sheriff, all I knew was
the part about trying to get more money from the lady. Okay, that wasn’t a nice
thing to do. But life isn’t nice, is it? She has a bunch of it, and I have
hardly anything. I didn’t see as how it hurt her to pay a little more. She got
what she wanted out of the deal, right? She’s rid of the man she claims treated
her like dirt. I don’t know nothing about the rest of it.”

“Go through that whole day with
me again,” Beau said.

He brought out a yellow pad and
pen, taking down her words which were basically a rehash of what she’d told
them the first time. She was hired by Jo. She’d been seeing Zack Robinet for
awhile. He promised to take her to Vegas for the weekend and maybe somewhere
more exotic later on. They had sex in the hotel room in Albuquerque. She went
out for pizza. He was dead when she came back. She got scared, gathered her
things and ran away.

While it would have been helpful
to have her add something to tie Belatoni or Vargas to the events of that day,
Beau wasn’t ready to give up on the men quite yet. A little time in the holding
cell might improve Krystal’s memory, although it bothered him a little that her
version of the details had, so far, never varied. If only they could connect
her to a known supplier for the heroin—who he believed to be Ray Belatoni—he
could have her sent to Albuquerque and let Kent Taylor do the rest.

Having Albuquerque take over this
mess would be fine with Beau. He sighed and stood up, telling Krystal he’d be
right back. The clock on the wall caught his attention. Already approaching
dinner time and he wasn’t even close to being done. Last night, it had been
Sam’s work interfering with their anniversary celebration. Tonight it was his.
He stepped into his office, dialed her cell and left a message apologizing all
over himself for ruining whatever plan she’d made. He would make it up to her
tomorrow night. Promise.

He rounded up two deputies who
were lounging in the squad room, clearly uneager for work since both were only
now recovering from that flu bug.

“Each of you take one of them.
Handcuffs all the way. I want them to see each other but no chance for a clash
or bodily harm, okay?”

Ramirez went to the holding cell
and handcuffed Donny Vargas, who turned dutifully and put his wrists together.
Waters followed Beau to the interrogation room where Beau explained to Krystal
that she would be spending the evening here instead of at her usual haunts. She
sobbed quietly as her wrists were cuffed.

The little entourage walked
through the station until Beau opened the door leading to the separate holding
cell area. Waters pulled Krystal aside as Ramirez led Donny Vargas out. Her
eyes widened when she saw that Beau was not bluffing; Donny was indeed on his
way to be interrogated. Vargas spotted Krystal and stared daggers at her. The
warning was clear. As soon as the mechanic was safely out of the area, Beau
instructed Waters to lock Krystal in the cell. His voice came out a little more
gruff than normal. When he walked away he could hear her weeping quietly.

He let both suspects stew while
he ate a sandwich at his desk, not exactly the nice dinner Sam had envisioned
for them. When he entered the interrogation room twenty minutes later, Donny
Vargas sat sprawled in a chair, tapping his fingers impatiently on the table.

“About time,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” Beau said, “I wasn’t
aware you were the one setting the schedule here.” He took an extra couple of
minutes to offer water, lay out his notepad and pen and pull out his chair.
“Now, let’s see. First off, there’s the little matter of a break-in at the
Robinet home yesterday morning.”

“Don’t know nothin’ about that.”

“Your footprint, with grease on
it from the garage, was left on their white carpet.”

“Not mine.” Vargas had not
flinched or straightened his posture. Cool as ice.

“We’ll get back to that. You’re
friends with Ray Belatoni at The Scoreboard.”

A tiny shrug. What of it?

“And Krystal Cordova.”

Barely raised eyebrows.

“What’s their relationship with the
Robinets?”

“Relationship? You mean was
Krystal screwing the guy’s brains out?”

Beau tapped his pen against the
notepad.

“Yeah, I suppose. I wasn’t there
at the time.”

“Why do you suppose it’s true?”

“The girl can’t keep her mouth
shut. She was all over the bar, bragging about how she was being paid by some
lady to lure the husband. Krys has it all figured out that she can make the guy
fall in love with her and the two of them will go away together. Says it’s what
the wife really wants, for him to leave town. Why not with her on some island
or something?”

“That’s a pretty unbelievable
request from a wife.”

Donny shrugged again. “Weird,
yeah, but who can figure out people. They’re all weird, especially the ones
with money. The more they got, the weirder they are.”

Beau couldn’t necessarily
disagree with that.

“You got into a big fight with
Zack Robinet over something at the dealership where you work. Did the fight
continue later, in some other place maybe?”

“No. I’m not that stupid. Geez,
you think I’d kill a guy because he yelled at me at work? Half the customers in
that place are unhappy about their bill. Friststone jacks up the prices of
everything. That ain’t my fault.”

“Where were you last Wednesday?”

“Work. Went home after.”

“No stop for a drink on the way?”

“Not that night. Just wasn’t in
the mood.”

“Can someone verify that’s where
you were?”

“Check around. I live alone but
my neighbors might have seen my car outside my apartment.”

“I hear Ray Belatoni deals a
little out at the bar. Ever see evidence that heroin passes through there?”

“Man, I know nothin’ about any
drug deals. My job requires tests and we aren’t told when they’ll happen.” It
was the first time Beau sensed dishonesty in the man’s statement. He probably
had a way of finding out when his test would come around and he’d either lay
off his recreational substances for awhile or he would manage to fake the
results.

Nothing else about the man’s
posture or attitude showed signs of deceit. Beau made notes on the pad,
thinking furiously, looking for a reason to hold Vargas longer, but he couldn’t
come up with anything solid.

*
* *

Sam woke up wondering why she’d
stayed all night on the sofa. Inertia, she supposed. She had listened to Beau’s
message on her phone, saying he was tied up questioning suspects and wouldn’t
get away in time for dinner, and after that she’d simply rolled over and fallen
right back into a deep sleep.

Now, she saw that he’d been home.
A handwritten note was propped against her phone on the table and she caught
the scent of brewed coffee. She picked up the slip of paper.

I tried to be quiet—you needed your sleep.
Call me when you wake up. xx Beau

She could tell he was distracted
during the call, and a glance at the clock told her she had probably
interrupted his morning briefing with the deputies. He promised to be available
for dinner tonight and said he would call her a little later in the day.

Sweet’s Sweets was already
humming when Sam arrived. Three customers at the counter had Jen’s attention,
while two others sat at the bistro tables with their newspapers and coffee. Sam
said hello to each as she surveyed the situation and saw all was running
smoothly.

In the kitchen, Becky was going
through a stack of order forms, prioritizing as Sam always did. Julio stepped
from the walk-in fridge and told her he had put the layers for her anniversary
cake in there. Jo stood at the stove, watching a copper pan full of bubbling
chocolate. Sam stepped over to take a look.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Jo said.
“We didn’t really talk about exactly what you wanted done with this. I molded a
pound or so of fairly plain shapes yesterday. Would you like creams, nuts or
caramels today?”

“Sure. An assortment sounds
good.” She studied Jo’s face. “Thanks for handling this while I rested. I hope
you got some sleep last night, too.”

“I did. It’s still really weird,
being at Brenda’s. I should probably move back home. I managed to spend a
little time last night going through those papers from the safe—Zack’s will,
the original partnership agreement between him and Chandler, the banking and
investment accounts.”

Something told Sam there was
more. “Looks like the chocolate is ready for cooling. Want to chat a minute
while it does?”

Jo turned off the flame and set
the pan aside to cool, tilting her head toward the back door. Outside, she
turned to Sam and the worry showed clearly on her face.

“Remember, I told you I had no
money worries now? Well, something from the safe has me really concerned.”

“Is it something I can help
with?” Sam asked.

“No, not in the way you’re
thinking. I’m only bringing it up because there might be some connection with
what happened to Zack.”

Sam waited while Jo put her
thoughts together.

“There’s a significant amount of
money missing. One of the investment accounts had over three million dollars in
it. It’s nearly empty now.”