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  Danger, Deceit and Dark Chocolate Cake: A Piece of Cake Mystery

  By

  A. R. Winters

  Danger, Deceit and Dark Chocolate Cake

  Copyright 2017 by A. R. Winters

  www.arwinters.com

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  ***

  Danger, Deceit and Dark Chocolate Cake

  (A Piece of Cake Mystery)

  ***

  Catching a killer is a piece of cake... Or is it?

  A jazz bar … a poisoned waitress.

  When Mindy and Beth stumble upon what seems to be a cover-up, they race against time to discover who tried to kill Vanessa.

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  Table of Contents

  Danger, Deceit and Dark Chocolate Cake: A Piece of Cake Mystery

  Prelude

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Prelude

  The shadowy figure eyed the ceviche.

  It looked so harmless, sitting there by itself.

  But a few drops of the toxic powder, and the ceviche would turn deadly. Whoever ate it would feel the effects.

  It was too bad, really. It wasn’t like anybody deserved what was about to happen—they would just be collateral damage.

  Chapter One

  “Mmm, this is delicious. It’s the perfect amount of deep chocolatey.” I savored the last bite of the dark chocolate cake, chewing slowly and closing my eyes briefly. When the cake was gone, I looked down at my plate, disappointed. “How about we have another slice?”

  Beth shook her head disapprovingly. “Aren’t you trying to watch your weight?”

  I looked at her and sighed. “What’s one more slice?”

  “Another three or four hundred calories,” Beth said sternly.

  Beth is my best friend in the whole wide world. She has hazelnut eyes, short brown hair, and an IQ that’s far too high. That high IQ meant that she knew exactly how many calories worth of cake I’d eaten already, and she was going to stick to her threat of putting me on a cake diet.

  Which was difficult, given that Beth runs an online bakery called A Piece of Cake. Every time Beth makes a cake for a client, she uses the same ingredients to make a smaller cake for tasting purposes. And I do love to help her out with the tasting.

  “I’m glad you’re making so many cakes these days,” I told her. “Each one’s better than the last.”

  “Business took off after I was arrested for the Celeste Rocheford poisoning,” said Beth. “Everyone wants cakes from me now.”

  “Wrongly arrested,” I corrected her.

  I put my plate away, smoothed down my long dirty-blond hair, and glanced down at the dark jeans and white knit top I was wearing. “I’m going to wear my black cardigan with this,” I told Beth. “It’s appropriate for a jazz restaurant, right? Not too casual?”

  Beth said, “Maybe a little. But we’re not there to party. We’re going to meet a new client. What did he tell you about the case?”

  “Not much, just that he thinks his girlfriend was poisoned. He thinks a murderer’s out there, on the loose.”

  Beth nodded. “Cakes and killers, that’s my life now.”

  I smiled. “I don’t mind the cake part. Are you ready to go?”

  Beth carefully put the larger dark chocolate cake into a paper box and said, “We can set out in about ten minutes. That’s enough time for me to freshen up my lipstick, and maybe play with Pixie a little.”

  At the mention of her name, my little Hahn’s macaw parrot dropped the toy she was chewing. She was outside her cage, hanging out on her play stand, and she gave Beth an inquisitive look. “Hello?” she said.

  Pixie was almost five months old, and though she was precocious for her age, her vocabulary was limited to just a few phrases. Mostly things she’d heard me say, such as, “Hello,” “Pixie,” and “Mmm! Cake!”

  Although she’d been mine for just a few weeks, I couldn’t imagine life without her. Her large play stand and cage took up a fair bit of space in my one-bedroom apartment, and her constant need for new parrot toys and pellets put a dent in my monthly budget. My place has always been a little bit messy, and now Pixie added to the mess by throwing around bits of broken plastic and leather parrot toys.

  “Hello,” Pixie repeated to Beth. “Step up.”

  “Step up” is the command we use to ask Pixie to step onto our hands. Of course, these days, Pixie is the one giving us the commands, so I dutifully went and picked her up.

  “Thanks for coming over with the cakes,” I said to Beth as Pixie ran up to my shoulder and began nibbling my ear. “Pixie loves getting a chance to hang out with you.”

  “And yet, I notice it’s your ear she’s nibbling,” Beth said. She reached out her hand for Pixie to step on and stroked the bird’s tiny head gently. Pixie’s feathers fluffed up, indicating that she loved the attention.

  Just then, there was a knock on the door. Pixie stood up tall and alert, her feathers slicked back, and Beth and I both turned to face the door.

  “You’re not expecting anyone, are you?” said Beth.

  I shook my head. “No. I’ve got no idea who that might be.”

  Chapter Two

  “Hello, ladies,” said Neve. She smiled at me brightly from the hallway. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  I glanced back at Beth, who stood frozen where she was. Pixie was standing on her wrist, watching our guest with bright, observant eyes.

  I looked at Neve and forced myself to smile. “Come in,” I said. “But I should warn you, Beth and I are heading out in a few minutes.”

  Neve wandered inside. Her artfully styled golden-blond hair fell to mid-back, and she was dressed in an expensive-looking black dress and black stiletto heels. Her makeup, as usual, was perfect and sophisticated. I caught her glancing judgmentally at my messy kitchenette and living room, and then she wandered over to my love seat and perched on the arm.

  “So,” she said, still smiling as though we were friends, “how’ve you been?”

  “Great,” I deadpanned. “Ever since you got told off for messing with our murder investigation and we managed to prove that Beth wasn’t a killer.”

  Neve colored slightly. “I always knew Beth was innocent,” she said. “It’s not my fault if the DA’s office wanted me to investigate the prime suspect.”

  “The DA’s office wanted nothing of the sort,” I told her. “Aren’t you sick of messing
with our lives?”

  “I’m not messing with your lives,” Neve protested. “I’m just doing my job.”

  That was a blatant lie. Neve has been trying to ruin my life ever since we were in high school. I had been the quiet nerd who liked to have her nose in a thick tome, and Neve had been the pretty cheerleader who liked to make fun of the quiet nerd who had her nose in a thick tome.

  Neve had always dreamed of becoming a Hollywood superstar, and her wealthy parents had supported that dream for a few years. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out for Neve, and she returned to our hometown of Santa Verona just as I got my first serious screenwriting job, working for a TV crime show. Neve took it as a personal affront that a nerd like me had “succeeded” in Hollywood, while a glamorous beauty like herself had been forced to throw in the towel.

  Never mind that I, too, had decided to leave Hollywood and move back to Santa Verona for good.

  Santa Verona is just a few hours’ drive up the coast from Los Angeles. In the years since I’d left, the houses along the beach had been bought up by Hollywood stars. A constant influx of tourists and tight housing controls meant that the cost of living in Santa Verona had gone up. Instead of being able to rely on my screenwriting royalties, I was forced to get a job.

  That job turned out to be “former Hollywood crime writer turned investigator.” It had started off with finding missing pets, tailing a few cheating spouses, and looking into a few cases of insurance fraud. But then Beth and I had stumbled across a murder, which we’d wound up solving. And then there was another homicide case, and another—and before we knew it, our trips to the Santa Verona Police Department had become regular occurrences, and Beth and I were on a first-name basis with most of the detectives.

  Along the way, Neve decided that it would be nice if she became a crime solver, too. So she registered to become a private investigator and started popping up whenever Beth and I were investigating a case. The latest instance of her crime solving had involved her getting cozy with the DA’s assistant—and my former boyfriend—Liam, and obtaining an internship at the DA’s office.

  “How’s the internship going?” I asked Neve.

  She looked away. “Actually, I kind of got fired.”

  “They don’t like people badgering potential witnesses?” asked Beth sweetly.

  Neve shrugged. “Liam told me they didn’t need an intern anymore.”

  “I wouldn’t trust anything Liam says,” I said lightly. My relationship with Liam had been short, but not short enough.

  Neve rolled her eyes. “He told me you’d say nasty things about him. He said you were bitter and selfish.”

  “I’m sure he said a lot more than that,” I said. “I was just trying to warn you.”

  “I don’t need your warnings.” Neve smiled, a thin, tight-lipped smile. “He’s good-looking, intelligent and ambitious.”

  “Did he tell you all that himself?” I said. “Did he forget to mention he’s also God’s gift to women?”

  Beth broke into a suspicious coughing fit, and Neve said, “I’m not here to talk about Liam.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But when you catch Liam doing the deed with a senator’s daughter, don’t come crying to me.”

  Neve looked uncertain for a moment. She might have been temporarily blinded by Liam’s charm, but I knew she’d noticed his egomaniacal, selfish tendencies. But then she recovered and said, “I was wondering how your investigation work was going.”

  Right at that moment, Pixie decided she’d had enough of being ignored. She let out a loud screech and flew towards Neve’s shoulder.

  Neve let out a shriek that rivaled Pixie’s and ducked. Poor Pixie flew around in a circle and finally landed on my shoulder.

  “What is that thing?” said Neve, straightening up and glaring at the parrot.

  Pixie said, “Hello. Pixie. HelloPixie.”

  I tilted my head towards Pixie. “Like she said, her name’s Pixie. She was just trying to be friendly.”

  Neve rolled her eyes. “She was going to ruin my dress. No wonder you don’t wear expensive clothes—you’re worried your parrot’s going to rip them up.”

  I blinked slowly and tilted my chin up the way I imagined a fashionista would. “Pixie only rips up last season’s clothes.”

  “Or t-shirts with logos on them,” said Beth. “Pixie’s very particular.”

  Neve glared at us. “Very funny. And my dress is from this season.”

  “I’m sure it is,” I said. “But Pixie knows best. She’s a keen judge of fashion.”

  Neve took a deep breath, as though we were trying her patience. “Whatever. How’s the investigative business going?”

  “Good,” I said warily. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well.” Neve flipped her long hair behind her shoulder and glanced from me to Beth. “I was thinking we could team up.”

  “No,” chimed Beth and I together.

  Neve had done enough to meddle with our investigations; we didn’t need to invite her in.

  “We work alone,” I told Neve firmly. “And you’re not even an accredited private investigator.”

  “Neither are you,” said Neve. “We’re all investigating as private citizens. We’re so similar.”

  “Not really,” said Beth. “Mindy and I solve cases. You solve nothing. And you get in the way.”

  Neve scowled. “It’s not like I try to get in the way. And if we were working together—”

  “It’s not going to happen,” I told her flatly.

  “My family knows a lot of powerful people,” said Neve. “I could help us get a lot of cases.”

  “We don’t need your help,” I told her. “You can keep those cases. And now, if you’ll excuse us, Beth and I need to get going if we don’t want to be late.”

  “Late for what?” said Neve. “Are you meeting with a client?”

  Beth and I exchanged a glance.

  “Not that it’s any of your business,” I said, “but Beth needs to drop a cake off at a client’s.”

  All three of us glanced at the paper box containing Beth’s cake.

  “And then what?” said Neve. “I can’t believe you two aren’t working on some other case. You’re always working some case. Are you going to talk to suspects afterward? I can help, you know.”

  “No offense, Neve,” I said, “but I don’t think we need your help. What with you trying to steal our clients in the past, and trying to prove that Beth was a murderer.”

  “Why do you even want to work with us?” said Beth. “If your family knows all these powerful people who could be clients, why don’t you just take the cases?”

  Neve shrugged and mumbled something we couldn’t hear. I gave Beth a what’d she say? look, and she shrugged in response.

  “Neve,” said Beth. “We need to go. Thanks for the offer—not that we don’t appreciate it, but the two of us are set. And now, I need to get this cake to my client. The cake’s not going to eat itself.”

  Chapter Three

  Beth and I dropped off the dark chocolate cake and headed over to the jazz restaurant. As we drove, I said, “Can you believe the nerve of Neve?”

  Beth smiled wryly. “She doesn’t let up. She doesn’t think the three of us will ever be friends, does she? Or actually work together?”

  “She’s probably still hoping to steal clients,” I said, unable to forget Neve’s past behavior. “I don’t know why she expected us to say yes.”

  “Maybe she’s just spying on us,” Beth suggested.

  Beth parked the car, and we stepped out into the parking lot. I glanced around, half-expecting to see Neve popping up from around the corner, giving some validity to Beth’s suggestion that she was spying on us, but there was no Neve to be seen.

  The sun had just set, and the streetlights were on. While Santa Verona was warm and sunny during the day, the evenings and nights were always chilly. The sharp wind raced through my thin cardigan, and I crossed my arms. “Well, it’s time to meet the clie
nt.”

  “He didn’t tell you anything over the phone?” asked Beth as we headed towards the entrance of the jazz restaurant.

  I shook my head. “I didn’t really ask. It’s always easier to talk to people in person.”

  The jazz restaurant was located just east of the main Santa Verona tourist district. It was a few blocks away from the beach, and the location didn’t seem all that fancy; there was a bodega a few houses away, and a dry cleaner’s three doors down.

  From the outside, the restaurant looked like a big block of granite. No windows, and only one door. There was a small neon sign above the door that said “Black Cat Jazz Restaurant,” but apart from that, there didn’t seem to be any other signage. It all looked rather drab and unimpressive.

  Inside, however, was a different story.

  Beth and I stepped in to dim lighting, smooth music, and the smell of something mouthwatering. Steak, I guessed, and probably fries. The jazz restaurant was one big room, with the stage on the far end and the restaurant seating area towards our left. Tables were scattered around the floor, and VIP booths lined the wall to our right. A jazz ensemble played on the stage, and the audience ate and chatted softly, occasionally breaking out into applause when a song ended.

  “This is really nice,” said Beth, sounding surprised. “I can’t believe we haven’t been here before.”

  “I guess it’s new,” I said. “All kinds of new places popping up in Santa Verona. Do you think most of the people here are tourists or locals?”

  We glanced around and both came to the same conclusion. Like most of the nicer places in Santa Verona, the clientele comprised a mix: perhaps sixty to seventy percent tourists, and the rest locals.

  A man sitting at a table away from the stage waved at us, and I smiled and headed over.

  “You must be Bill Jeffries,” I said, extending my hand. “I’m Mindy. This is Beth.”

  Introductions were made all around, and Beth and I sat down opposite Bill. I noticed he was sipping on a glass of red wine, and after the waitress came by, Beth and I ordered two club sodas. It was our drink of choice whenever we were out working a case.