11. Emmie
11
EMMIE
“ N o way.” Zoe shook her head as we split the leftover lobster mac ‘n’ cheese she’d brought from Girl Meets Fig. “Rosie? I don’t believe she’d kill Brooks. What’s even the motive?”
“She loved him. He told her that he wasn’t going to leave Oakley for her, and she offed him. Snuck into my kitchen, poisoned the cupcakes, brought them to him as a gift. He ate them because he’s a pig, and then he came to my shop and croaked.”
“If she did kill him, she did you a favor in more ways than one.” Zoe speared another noodle.
It was true. The café had never been busier—even with the cat-committee protestors, there was a line down the block to go to the murder cat café. And we were doing a brisk business of cat adoption, though it never seemed to make a dent in the number of kitties in the shop. Maybe I had more cats than I thought.
There were so many customers that I’d hired on two of the young Svensson sisters, who were in town, visiting their brothers. They were working the cash register and making coffee like seasoned holiday-tourism pros.
“If you wouldn’t potentially be on the hook for a murder, I’d say just leave it alone,” Zoe added, scraping out the last of the cheese sauce with her spoon. “Let’s go confront Rosie. I bet she caves.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I argued as I followed Zoe out of the shop and down Main Street. “What if she’s not guilty and we start unnecessary rumors?”
“Jack-fucking-pot,” Zoe murmured as we stopped in the doorway of the pungent-smelling Essence he didn’t need to deal with my emotional state on top of my legal case.
“The police don’t have this information yet,” Marius added in a low voice. “Though I suspect at some point they’re going to do their own tests.”
“So we need to prove my innocence like now now.” Then I had a thought. “What else did the report find?”
“Nothing? Cyanide?” He gave me a questioning look.
“Like, what were the ingredients used in the cream filling and the cupcake and the frosting?”
“Yeah, maybe someone passed off a store-bought cupcake as yours.” Zoe grabbed me.
“I’ll have more tests run,” Marius promised. “Until then, you need to be careful. We’re not sure who the real target is, and there’s a murderer out there.”