Murder and Chocolate Cake Read online

  Murder and Chocolate Cake

  Meredith Potts

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Prologue

  “Did you hear that?” I asked.

  I turned to my husband, David Carlson, who was sleeping beside me. He opened his eyes, rolled over on the bed, and gave me a blank stare. “Hear what?”

  David was understandably groggy. After all, it was two o’clock in the morning. In addition, until I woke him up a few seconds ago, he had been sound asleep.

  Unfortunately, I could not say the same for myself. I was wide awake. My heart was pounding. Adrenaline rushed through my veins. And my mind raced.

  “I heard a thud outside,” I replied.

  It was a breezy evening, but I wasn’t convinced that the thud was due to the weather. I was worried about something far more sinister than a few gusts of wind. There was a killer on the loose. David and I were investigating the case. So it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility to suspect that the murderer might be outside our house.

  David remained quiet for a few seconds. “I don’t hear anything except the wind.”

  “Yes. At this exact moment. But a few seconds ago, I definitely heard a thud outside.”

  “It could have just been a tree branch falling down.”

  “What if it was more than that?”

  David sat up in bed. “Sabrina, I know what you’re thinking—”

  My face filled with panic. “What if it’s him? What if he tracked us down?”

  “That’s not likely,” David replied.

  “It’s also not impossible. Now I don’t know about you, but I’m not willing to take any chances with our safety. Let’s say it is him out there, trying to break into our house—”

  “If he is trying to break in then why hasn’t our security alarm gone off?”

  “Maybe our system is malfunctioning.” I got up from bed.

  David jumped up right after me. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  I grabbed the baseball bat that I always kept beside my bed. “I need to find out what’s going on.”

  David opened his nightstand drawer and pulled out his gun. “Oh no you don’t. If anyone is going downstairs to investigate, it’s me.”

  “All right,” I said. “Be careful.”

  He nodded. “I will. And don’t follow me.”

  As David left the room, I closed my eyes and prayed. Maybe my paranoia had just gotten the better of me. Perhaps he was right about a tree branch falling outside. It was certainly the simplest explanation. But these were complicated times.

  ***

  Over a minute went by before I heard another sound. It was excruciating, waiting in silence for an update. I tried to stay positive. Worrying would accomplish nothing.

  Thankfully, as my patience was wearing thin, I heard David’s voice.

  “There’s nothing to panic about,” he said.

  “Seriously?” I replied.

  David entered the bedroom and nodded. “The coast is clear.”

  “What did you see down there?”

  “Honey, you can put the bat down.”

  “David, just answer my question.”

  “There’s a tree branch down in our back yard.”

  “Is that all?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  I continued. “Are you sure?”

  “Honey, we’re safe. The thud you heard was just a branch hitting the ground.” David reached out and grabbed the baseball bat from my hands. He then put the bat down and gave me a hug. “Now calm down.”

  “You can understand why I’d be jumpy,” I said.

  “Of course. But there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “I disagree,” I said. “With a killer on the loose, there’s still plenty to be concerned about.”

  “I’ll tell you what. I’m going to call dispatch and have a patrol car park in front of our house. If that doesn’t make you feel safe, I don’t know what will.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Now try to get some sleep.”

  I took a deep breath. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to.”

  “You have to find a way. We have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow and you need some rest,” David said.

  Chapter One

  Two Days Earlier

  It was safe to say that my daughter was a unique girl. Very few eleven-year-olds wanted to go to an escape room for their birthday. Of the ones who did, I would venture to guess that most of them didn’t want to try to escape the room all by themselves.

  That said, Jessica wasn’t some socially awkward loner. She had invited nearly a dozen girls to her birthday party, which was taking place later in the day. But that morning, she wanted to tackle this escape room all by herself. She loved a good challenge. Besides, by going solo, it would make the achievement of escaping the room even more satisfying. At least in her mind.

  Reality was a little different. David and I honored a number of Jessica’s unusual requests, but we weren’t about to let our child go in there all by herself. We came up with a compromise. The three of us would go into the room together, but David and I would let Jessica do the legwork of escaping while we stood off to the side and supervised.

  Jessica was bursting with energy as David parked the car in front of the warehouse where the escape room was located. “Yay. I’m so excited,” she said.

  “Why wouldn’t you be?” I asked. “It’s your birthday.”

  Jessica got out of the car and sprinted toward the front door of the building. “Come on.”

  Instead of speeding up to keep pace with Jessica, I took a moment to glance at my surroundings. “Ah, the east side of town.”

  “Just as charmless as ever,” David deadpanned.

  I laughed.

  It was safe to say that David and I rarely ever ventured over to this side of town. With good reason. The east side was mostly filled with industrial warehouses and low-rent apartments. It had always been rough around the edges.

  But in the last few years, the city council had been trying to revitalize the neighborhood. The results had been mixed. While it was no longer quite as dumpy as it used to be, it was still far from being a welcoming place.

  That said, even a small amount of improvement was better than nothing. The escape room was being run out of a warehouse that was the former home of Milchner’s Carpets. Prior to the escape room’s opening, the building had sat empty for the better part of five years, so it was nice to have a new business move in here.

  “I can’t think of the last time I was on this side of town without a murder suspect to interview,” David said.

  “That’s exactly why I’m glad they opened something fun like an escape room here. This neighborhood could use the makeover,” I said.

 
; “So true,” David said. “Although, there’s still a lot of work to be done.”

  While David and I were busy conversing, Jessica was impatiently holding the front door of the warehouse open. “What’s taking you so long?”

  “Hold your horses. We’re coming,” David said.

  “Do you think she might be a little excited?” I joked.

  David chuckled. “Just a tad.”

  “Remember when we used to get that excited about birthdays?”

  He nodded. “I sure do. Then again, back in those days, I used to believe that anything was possible.”

  “Well naturally. At that age, you had your whole life ahead of you. Plus, you didn’t have to worry about the dietary consequences of eating a few pieces of birthday cake,” I cracked.

  David shook his head. “Leave it to you to bring up dessert.”

  I threw out my arms. “What’s more important than cake?”

  “I don’t know about you, but as I inch dangerously close to turning fifty, cake is the last thing on my mind,” David said.

  “Honey, you’re forty-seven,” I said. “Fifty is still a few years away.”

  “It’s not as far away as it used to be,” he grumbled.

  “It sounds like someone needs cake more than ever.”

  “Sabrina, cake isn’t the solution to everything.”

  “Maybe not,” I said. “But it should be.”

  Chapter Two

  The warehouse didn’t look like much from the outside, but once the front desk clerk escorted us to the actual escape room, it was a pretty amazing sight.

  There were a number of escape rooms in Treasure Cove, each with different themes. Some were horror. Others were post-apocalyptic. This one was pure mystery. The room was staged to look like a private library at an old stately manor. Three of the four walls in the room were lined with full bookcases. A mahogany desk was set up in front of the fourth wall. In the middle of the room was a few leather chairs.

  Whoever had put this room together could easily get a job in Hollywood as a professional set designer. This was top-notch work.

  I had a feeling this was what the old Watterson estate probably looked like in its heyday. Those days were long gone, though. The Watterson family had once owned the biggest and most ostentatious property in town. But when a double-murder suicide occurred there nearly forty-five years ago, the estate became infamous. It had also sat vacant for a couple of decades before it was eventually demolished and converted into a city park.

  Instead of spending more time thinking about tragic events from the past, I focused on the present. I watched with great interest as Jessica meticulously went through the room, looking to uncover clues. Her end goal was to find a key that would unlock the door and allow us to escape the room. She had sixty-minutes to do so.

  If she failed, the clerk would come by and unlock the door from the outside. But if that happened, Jessica wouldn’t be able to claim victory. And she desperately wanted to be able to leave here with bragging rights.

  ***

  Fifteen minutes into our escape room adventure, I saw Jessica’s forehead wrinkle. She stood silently in the middle of the room for a few seconds. I knew what that meant. She didn’t know what to do next.

  But I also realized she wasn’t the kind of girl who would ask for help—even if she really needed it. That put me in a difficult situation. After all, a mother’s impulse was to take care of her daughter.

  Finally, I couldn’t hold back any longer. “Do you want some help?”

  Jessica shook her head. “No. I can do it.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to lend you a hand?”

  “I can figure this out.”

  “I’m not saying that you can’t. It’s just that we happen to have a fair amount of investigative experience,” I said.

  David stopped short of outright laughter. Although, he did crack a smile. “There’s an understatement for you.”

  “If I’m being honest, I’ve been a part of more investigations than I’m comfortable with,” I said.

  “I want to do this all by myself,” Jessica said.

  “I understand that, but I can see you’re struggling, and this is supposed to be a group activity,” I said.

  “Mommy, I can do this,” Jessica said.

  “All right. I’m not going to argue with you on your birthday,” I said.

  David and I stood back and watched our daughter.

  I grimaced as I saw Jessica continuing to struggle.

  I then leaned over to David and whispered to him, “It’s hard to stand on the sidelines.”

  “I don’t mind standing off to the side,” David said. “For me, the hard part is watching her grow up so fast. The older she gets, the more stubborn she’s becoming.”

  “I’ll say.”

  David stared me down. “I wonder where she gets that from.”

  “Guilty as charged,” I said.

  ***

  David and I continued to stand on the sidelines and let Jessica search for the key to the door.

  A few minutes later, Jessica pulled a novel from one of the bookcases. When she opened it up, she discovered that the book had a false interior. A key was lodged into one of the slots of that interior.

  Jessica grabbed the key, went over to the door, and unlocked it.

  “Yay. I did it,” Jessica said.

  I checked the time on my phone. “Nineteen minutes. Wow. That was quick.”

  Jessica jumped up and down with excitement. “That was so fun. Thanks mommy and daddy.”

  My nose wrinkled. “For what? You wouldn’t let us do anything.”

  “For buying me a ticket to the escape room. This place is great. We should come here every day,” Jessica said.

  “Nice try,” I said.

  Jessica shrugged. “Why not?”

  “Do I really have to explain that to you?” I asked.

  “I guess not,” Jessica said.

  “Good.”

  “I’m just happy I did it,” Jessica said. “See. Didn’t I tell you I could figure it out all by myself?”

  I nodded. “You certainly did.”

  David gave Jessica a high five. “Good job.”

  Jessica’s eyes lit up as her focus switched to another topic. “Can we get cake now?”

  David chuckled. “Like mother, like daughter.”

  “Is that a yes?” Jessica asked.

  Chapter Three

  Two hours later, Jessica’s birthday party was in full swing. While my daughter and her guests were playing in the back yard of our house, I chatted with two of my oldest friends, Shannon Marlowe and Kelly Hogan.

  “Our kids sure love that bounce house. If we let them, they’d probably stay in there until midnight,” Shannon said.

  “Honestly, if we left them to their own devices, I’m sure they’d do a bunch of wacky things,” Kelly remarked.

  Shannon nodded. “True. But they can’t seem to get enough of that house.”

  “You know what they say. You can’t go wrong with a bounce house,” I said.

  “I thought the saying was, you can’t go wrong with chocolate,” Shannon said.

  I smiled. “It’s a flexible saying.”

  “In that case, what else can’t you go wrong with?” Shannon asked.

  “Peace and quiet,” I said. “Hawaiian vacations—”

  Kelly had a suggestion of her own. “Aura cleanses.”

  Shannon looked at Kelly like she had two heads. “

  That one is debatable,” Shannon said.

  Kelly shook her head. “Not to the cosmos, it isn’t.”

  Shannon rolled her eyes and turned her focus back to the bounce house. “I wonder if I’m still agile enough to do a back flip in one of those things.”

  I threw out my arms. “Where did that thought come from?”

  “What are you giving me that look for? I’m just talking about agility. Kelly is over there talking about aura cleansing,” Shannon said.

&n
bsp; “The cleansing of ones aura isn’t something that should be made fun of,” Kelly said. “It is serious celestial business.”

  “Let’s get back to the bounce house back flipping for a second.” I stared at Shannon.

  She defended herself. “It’s not that crazy of a statement. I used to be able to do a back flip with no problem.”

  “Yeah. When you were eleven,” I said.

  “Just let me have my curiosity. And my sense of wonder,” Shannon said.

  “Okay. So you’re not actually going to try to do one today then?” I asked.

  Shannon shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe after the kids leave I’ll give it a go.”

  “I just want to be on the record saying it’s a bad idea,” I said.

  “Thanks for having confidence in me,” Shannon cracked.

  I put my hands on my hips. “When was the last time you did a flip of any kind?”

  Shannon scratched her chin. “A few months ago, I flipped over this half-off purse sale at Endowski’s.”

  “Very funny,” I said.

  “I figured you’d like that joke,” Shannon said.

  I held my pointer finger up. “But in all seriousness—”

  “It’s safe to say that it’s been a while since I’ve done an actual back flip,” Shannon replied.

  I chuckled. “A long while, you mean.”

  “That’s okay. From what I hear, there will be plenty of bounce housing in your future, so you’ll be able to get all kinds of practice working on your back flipping skills,” Kelly said.

  Shannon’s forehead wrinkled. “Wait a minute. Back up for a second. What’s this about my future?”

  “It’s just that I overheard Eric and Jessica chatting earlier. Your son told Jessica that he was going to ask for a bounce house for his birthday. But not just a rental. One that you’d leave in the back yard forever,” I said.

  Shannon laughed. “I hope he changes his mind because he definitely isn’t getting that.”

  “I don’t want to be there when you tell him,” Kelly said.