Murder, Money & Marzipan (7 page)

Jake nodded. “Well, I think you’d better watch your back, it looks like someone might be out to get you.”

Lexy felt a chill run up her spine, causing her body to vibrate. It took her a second to realize the vibrations were from her cell phone. She dug it out of her pocket thinking it might be Nans. It was Jack.

She glanced up at Jake “Sorry, I have to take this.”

“OK, I’ll talk to you later. Be careful.”
 
Jake turned and she watched him walk to the exit door. Lexy sucked in a deep breath before she answered her phone.
 

She was glad Jack couldn’t see her eye twitching nervously at the little white lies - more like omissions - she was about to tell him. If Jack found out about the sabotaged cake, he’d be out here in a flash or, worse, he’d try to make her come home.

###

“What do you mean she covered up the cake?” Nik
 
stared at Jake, the crease between her brows deepening.

“When I got there, they had already repaired the damage. She said she needed the cake for the wedding cake challenge otherwise she would’ve been disqualified.”

“So she was more worried about the challenge than the fact that somebody deliberately sabotaged her cake? Does that seem a little odd to you?”

“Yeah, most people are more concerned about their safety. She didn’t seem upset about the threat at all.”

 
Nik pursed her lips. “Do you think she staged it? You know, to throw us off track and deflect the suspicion from her?”

Jake shrugged. “It’s possible…the knife was from her kitchen, but the perpetrator could have just grabbed the closest knife. I don’t think she did it though. I think someone really wanted to warn her off of something.”

 
Nik’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell me you’re getting sweet on our little baker?”

 
Jake laughed. “No, it’s just a gut instinct.”

“Detective Stone, take a look at this.”
 

Nik heard the voice of Detective Ducat on the other side of the room.

 
She turned her head in his direction, her eyes drawn to a large television screen where one of the surveillance tapes from the casino was playing. It showed one of the poker tables. Seated right in the middle was Aurea Pearce.

 
Nik moved closer to the screen. “That’s Aurea Pearce.” She looked at the timestamp on the right corner of the screen. “The time indicates she was there at 3:31 am. Is this tape from the morning of the murder?”

Ducat nodded.

“How long was she there?”

“She played until 6 am.”

 
Nik turned to Jake. “Well I guess we can scratch one suspect off our list. Aurea Pearce couldn’t possibly be the killer-she was seen on a time stamped tape playing poker when Amanda Scott-Saunders was killed.”

“I found something else you might be interested in,” Ducat said.

 
Nik watched impatiently while Ducat hunted around on the computer for another recording.
 

“Here it is.”
 
He punched a few buttons, and the screen
 
showed the entrance to
Bakery Battles
Stadium. “This is from last night.”

 
Nick watched Lexy Baker appear on screen, open the doors to the stadium, then disappear inside. A few seconds later Jake appeared, following her in.
 

Ducat fast-forwarded the replay four minutes, and another figure appeared on the screen-Evan Westmore. Nik watched him open the door, cast a furtive glance behind him, and then slip into the stadium.

“That’s Westmore!” Jake said.

Nik felt the exciting rush of finding a new clue energize her body.
 

“Yeah, and he’s going into the stadium right behind Lexy Baker.” She turned to Jake. “Looks like our theory about them having a secret meeting might just prove to be true.”

Jake frowned. “Yes, but if that’s true, why didn’t I see him go past me?”

Nik shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe there is another way to get to his office. If only there were cameras inside the stadium, then we’d know for sure.”

Jake stared at the screen dubiously. “Or maybe he went in there for something else…”

Nik went back over to the board filled with suspects and crossed off Aurea Pearce’s name.
 

“So we have Evan Westmore, Peter Saunders, and Lexy Baker.”
 
She stared at the board, tapping her finger on her lower lip. “We don’t have anything solid on any of them, but Baker keeps turning up in the middle of everything, which makes me rather suspicious of her.”

“Yeah, but what is her motive?
 
For Westmore and Saunders we have the affair angle. If Amanda
was
having an affair with Westmore, either peter or Evan could have killed her in a fit of passion.”

“Yes, but we have yet to prove there even
was
an affair.”

“Right, it seems like we are missing something big-the
real
motive for the murder,” Jake said.

“I think it’s time to turn up the heat on our little baker friend. I want you to tell her we’ve eliminated Aurea Pearce and that our suspect list is down to three, including her. If she knows something, or is involved, it might make her nervous and cause her to get careless. Maybe she will
 
slip up somehow, lead us to the truth, and help us close this case.”

Nik punctuated the last 3 words by ramming the top down onto her whiteboard marker.

 
She turned to Jake. “I want you to stick to her like glue. Put a couple of other detectives on her so we can watch her 24/7 -
 
I have a feeling our little baker girl is about to make her move.”

Chapter Ten

Lexy looked out the window of their hotel room. It was an exceptionally clear day and their tenth floor room offered a phenomenal view. To the left she could see the giant pyramid of the Luxor hotel, to the right she could see the mountain range. Below, the people moved like ants scurrying back and forth between the various hotels.

 
She sighed, wishing she had more time to explore the other hotels and casinos, but the contest schedule was fairly tight and there was this nasty murder business going on. She had little time today for anything other than making pies for the second to last challenge in
Bakery Battles
. She had to really step up her game to overtake Aurea Pearce.

 
The ringing of the iPad interrupted her thoughts, tearing her attention from the majestic view.

“Hello girls!”
 
Nans greeted Ida, Ruth, and Helen whose faces could be seen clustered around the iPad screen.

“How are things in Vegas? It’s cold and snowing here,” Ida said.

“Wonderful.” Nans took the iPad over to the window, holding it up to the glass. “Look at the view we have today!”

The three ladies on the other end made the appropriate noises of appreciation. Nans left the window and took the iPad back to the table. “Now, tell us what you found out.”

Cassie, Lexy, and Nans clustered around the tablet. Lexy couldn’t help but picture them being a mostly younger mirror image of the three ladies on the other side.

Ruth’s face took over the iPad screen. “I made an interesting discovery about your friend Corinne. It seems foreclosure proceedings were recently started on her house.”

Lexy felt her heart clench for the other woman. She couldn’t imagine how that must feel with three kids and a run-away husband. Then she realized that staving off the foreclosure was a powerful motive for taking drastic measures to win the contest.

“That
is
interesting…it could give her a motive to ruin my cake, but I don’t know if it would be something she would kill over.” Lexy bit her lower lip thoughfully.

Ruth’s face was replaced by Ida’s. “I had a chance to look at the pages from that book.”

Lexy glanced nervously at the drawer beside her bed where she had stashed it. Somehow she had to get the book back to Evan Westmore’s office.

“And?”

“It looks like a series of numbers and dates,” Ida said. “Large numbers like twelve thousand, five thousand, and so on - the dates are fairly recent. At least that’s what it looks like if I’ve done the decoding properly.”

“Numbers and dates?” Lexy repeated, her eyebrows mashed together in confusion.

“Yes, dear, that’s what I said.”

“I was thinking it would be some sort of record of Evan’s rendezvous with Amanda Scott-Saunders. Maybe some notes about when they met and where?”

Ida worried her bottom lip. “I don’t think so, unless my calculations are way off.”

Lexy felt her stomach sink. Proof of the affair would help to finger either Westmore or Peter Saunders as the killer. She was hoping there might be an entry for the morning of Amanda Saunders’s death, but no such luck.

She could hear Ruth vying for the iPad on the other end and watched the dizzying image on the screen as the iPad was passed from Ida to Ruth.

“I think you’re barking up the wrong tree with that theory, Lexy,” Ruth said.

“Oh, why is that?” Lexy, Nans, and Cassie all exchanged a look.

“I did some checking on Westmore’s background and I think you can safely rule out the notion of him having an affair with Amanda Scott-Saunders-Evan Westmore is gay.”

###

“I hope Nans is okay doing some surveillance on Corinne. I would’ve done it myself, but I have so much work here.”
 
Lexy spread her arms to indicate their kitchen in Bakery Battles Stadium.

Cassie placed two large bowls on the baking table and pulled a stand mixer out from the corner. “Are you kidding? She lives for this stuff. She’ll be fine. Besides, we need this win to recover from the disastrous wedding cake challenge.”

“I know, there’s only one challenge left after this and we need all the points we can get to win the contest, since the points from all the challenges are added up to determine the overall winner.” Lexy went over to the refrigerator and started piling her arms high with eggs, butter, and milk.
 

She dropped the ingredients onto the counter near Cassie, then went over to her pantry area for flour and sugar. The pantry was next to Aurea Pearce’s kitchen. She couldn’t help but sneak a peek through the wire shelving to see what Aurea was concocting. Much to her surprise, the kitchen was empty.

Lexy narrowed her eyes in curiosity. “I wonder why Aurea isn’t over there baking? Surely she must have pies to bake for the challenge?”

Cassie craned her neck to look over into the booth. “That is strange. Maybe she’s just taking a break.”

“Now that we’ve discovered that Evan Westmore and Amanda Saunders couldn’t have been having an affair, that only leaves us with Aurea and Corinne as suspects. At least that I know of…”

 
“Maybe you can get friendly with that cute Detective Ryan and find out if he has any other suspects. Besides you, I mean.”

 
Lexi felt her stomach clench as she realized
she
was still a suspect. She wondered if Nik Stone and Jake Ryan knew Westmore was gay. If they did, they might eliminate Westmore and Peter Saunders from the suspect list, and that didn’t leave too many people. She’d have to work faster to clear herself before their list whittled down to just one suspect - her!

Lexy cut up some ice-cold butter into tiny chunks and put them in the food processor with flour, salt and sugar. She pulsed the mixture until it looked like small crumbles, then added a tiny bit of ice water, alternating pulsing and adding small amounts of water until the dough started to clump together.

 
Thinking back to her investigation of Westmore’s office she remembered the picture of him and the other tuxedo-clad gentleman. With a
 
jolt, she realized the other person must have been his significant other. Lexy kicked herself for not picking up on it at the time.

“I feel so discouraged now that Peter Saunders and Evan Westmore are out of the running in the suspect race.” Lexy had spent a lot of time thinking about their motives, and now she felt like she was back to square one. “Although, just because Amanda Scott-Saunders wasn’t having an affair didn’t mean Peter Saunders didn’t kill her.”
 

“True, they did have at least one fight that he admits to and what was with her new clothes, purses, and shoes?
 
I still say she was up to something.”
 
Cassie poured corn syrup and vanilla into a pan with butter and brown sugar. Placing it on the stove, she turned the knob on the gas burner. Lexy heard the tell tale clicking and the poof of gas indicating the burner was on.

Turning the dough out of the food processor, Lexy started rolling it out with a marble rolling pin. Their plan was to make two pies for the contest - a bourbon pecan pie and Lexy’s famous coconut cream with a layer of chocolate on the bottom.
 

“It is kind of strange about Corinne though. How would killing Saunders help her win the contest?” Cassie said as she poured pecans and bourbon into the cooling mixture.

 
Lexi narrowed her eyes. “You know that’s a good question. I don’t think eliminating her as a judge would help Corinne, but then again she did win that last contest.”
 

She flipped the dough onto a pie plate and started pinching the edges to even them out along the rim. “Her motivation could be something we don’t know about--like maybe Saunders caught her cheating and was going to expose her?”

“Maybe, or maybe she didn’t kill Saunders. Maybe she just wanted to mess up your cake so she could win the contest.”

“Yeah, but why the warning?”

 
“Good question.” Lexy looked up and thought she saw a familiar figure duck out of sight. “Hey, is that Jake Ryan?”

“That cute detective?
 
Where?” Cassie craned her neck to look around.

“Oover there.” Lexy pointed in the direction where she thought she had seen him, then shrugged. “Must have been my imagination.”

“Ready?” Cassie asked, holding up the pan.