Chapter 6
SIX
They made it to Camilla’s bakery, The Sweetest Thing, in good time, having crossed the pedestrian bridge over the river that wound through the center of town and cut through one of the many parks that made Stirling so picturesque. The Sweetest Thing was packed with people, as usual, and every one of them turned to watch as Scarlett and Archer entered. A few people leaned toward each other and whispered.
Scarlett froze. Did they all think she’d killed Ethel Brown? Would the police name them as suspects? Would she have to run away from this town too?
“Over here!” Amelia called out, waving them over to a table.
Archer curved his arm around Scarlett’s back. “You good?”
She nodded. “Yeah.” And with his arm around her, it almost felt like the truth.
They crossed the space, ignoring the stares.
Behind the counter, Camilla smiled, took payment from a customer, then removed the apron she was wearing before coming over to their table with a platter of treats.
Dark-haired Lucy was tucked under Cormac’s arm as they cuddled near the wall. Next to them, Amelia and Leo were sharing a pastry. Marlon sat on his own on the other side of the table near the wall. He snatched Camilla around the waist after she’d dropped the pastries on the table and dragged her onto his lap. Camilla laughed, curling an arm around her husband’s mile-wide shoulders as he stroked her curves. They’d been married for over a year, and they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Scarlett wondered if a man would ever look at her the way Marlon looked at Camilla, then banished the thought. Now was not the time to feel sorry for herself.
She slipped into a free chair while Archer stripped his jacket and placed it on the back of the seat next to hers. He wore a white tee that showed off his golden-brown arms in all their muscular glory. Scarlett watched the cords of his forearm flex as he grabbed a plate from the center of the table and put it in front of her. He perused the selection of treats, then turned to Scarlett and asked her what she wanted before taking anything for himself.
She was more than capable of grabbing her own baked goods from the platter, of course, but… It felt good to be taken care of. In the warmth of the sweet-smelling bakery, a bit of the tension that gripped her body eased.
“How did it go?” Camilla asked, brows arched in concern.
“The police think we did it,” Scarlett blurted.
Cormac and Marlon, who owned a security business together, glanced at each other, frowned, and leaned closer. It was Marlon who spoke. “What makes you say that?”
“The tenor of the interview,” Archer put in, shaking his head. “Let’s just say it was unpleasant.”
“Detective Holden asked me if I had a grudge against Ethel Brown, and then he point-blank asked if I did it.”
“That’s insane!” Lucy shook her head. “How could he think that?”
“Maybe they’re just covering their bases,” Amelia said, sounding uncertain. “Dotting their T’s, and whatnot?”
“What the heck happened?” Camilla asked, wide-eyed. “Did you see… You actually saw Ethel Brown’s body?”
Scarlett groaned and slapped her hands over her face. It had been a little over sixteen hours since she’d walked in to see her desecrated shop, but it seemed like an eon ago.
Camilla reached over to squeeze her hand. “We’re just glad you’re okay. And don’t worry about the police. They’re just trying to do their jobs. They have to question you about it. It happened in your shop.”
“With my wrench,” Archer added.
“Which is really unfortunate,” Amelia said.
“That’s one word for it,” Scarlett quipped, snorting.
“You know whose fault this whole thing is?” Archer asked no one in particular.
Scarlett’s lips twitched. “Who?”
“Muriel Howard.”
“Oh yeah?”
“She called me over to look at her kitchen cabinet hinges for the fourth time this month. I was rushing because I wanted to get over to the Barlows’ place in time, and I forgot to lock the toolbox in the bed of my truck. If I hadn’t gone over there, the murderer wouldn’t have had a weapon. Her hinges are fine! I’ve checked every single cabinet door and they’re all level and true.”
There was real annoyance in his voice, but for some reason it made Scarlett smile. “Maybe she thinks you’re hot, and she’s cooking up excuses to get you to come over.”
“Please.”
“I can’t blame her for trying,” Scarlett said, then clamped her lips shut.
Archer’s gray eyes took on an interested gleam as he met her gaze. “Why, Ms. Westbrook. Are you saying you think I’m hot?”
“We weren’t talking about me.”
“How are your cabinet hinges doing?”
“They’re just fine, thank you,” Scarlett answered primly, picking up her mug. Heat swept over her cheeks and down the back of her neck. “My hinges are not in need of any attention. From anybody.”
Archer had let his arm rest on the back of her chair, and now his thumb swept a burning arch between her shoulder blades. Her nipples tingled.
“Well,” Camilla said in the resulting silence. “This is interesting.”
“Stop it,” Scarlett said, plucking a donut from the platter in the middle of the table. She took a big, angry bite, which made Camilla laugh for some reason.
Scarlett burned with unresolved lust and not a small bit of embarrassment, but she felt better. The hope that had died when she’d messed up the speech yesterday began to grow again. These were her friends—her family. They didn’t look like they were judging her, or angry, or getting ready to shun and ignore her. They looked like they cared.
When she leaned back, she felt Archer’s fingers spread out along her back, felt the soft stroke of his thumb once more.
“What actually happened?” Lucy asked. “You just walked over and found her in the shop?”
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Camilla added.
Scarlett relaxed. “No, I’ll tell you,” she said before launching into an account of what had happened after leaving the Barlows’ place. She could tell the tables around them were listening, so she tried to keep her voice down, whatever good that would do.
Camilla kept pushing more pastries onto her plate as the tale progressed. When Scarlett took a break to tear into a chocolate-filled croissant, Archer picked up the tale. Finally, when they were done, Camilla said, “So we need to find out who was driving that silver car.”
Marlon and Cormac shared a glance, and Cormac took out his phone. No doubt they’d have their tech wizard, Elton, working on it within moments.
Another oat milk latte appeared in front of Scarlett. Camilla must have gestured to the barista for it. Scarlett smiled at the teenage girl who dropped it off, then turned to her friends. “Who do you think it could be? Who in Stirling would actually murder someone, even someone as horrible as Ethel Brown?”
“I think it was Frankie Smith,” the teenager said.
“Emily,” Camilla warned.
“What!” The girl spread her arms. “He was so mean to you.”
“I was the one who signed the contract,” she said. “He’s a jerk, but it doesn’t mean he’s behind every crime in town.”
“One of his goons came in here the other day, when you had your day off,” Emily said.
Camilla arched her brows. “He did? Which one?”
“The big one. Looks like a caveman.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down much,” Camilla noted, laughing.
Emily pursed her lips. “He wanted a custom cake. Can you believe it?”
“A cake for what?”
“Who cares!” Emily exclaimed, shaking her head. “I told him to get lost.”
Marlon grinned. “Good job, Emily.”
“Don’t encourage her,” Camilla chided as Emily walked away, her ponytail swishing with every step.
“Ethel could have had a ton of enemies,” Archer noted, bringing the conversation back around to the previous topic. “She had so many schemes and cons running, she probably tried to rob half the town.”
“I’ll tell you who did it,” a scratchy voice interjected. It was grouchy Mr. Petrovski again, leaning over their table. His gnarled knuckles curled as he put his liver-spotted fist on the table. He was a regular at Camilla’s bakery and was always quick with a comment about how Stirling was falling apart. “It was Ralph Lewis. Greta Moore saw him on the street last night. He went into Bussy’s, but he was having a good long look around. Unusual.”
Greta Moore was a nosy old woman who lived in a small apartment above a consignment shop on Main Street. She would have had a clear view of the bar, Bussy’s, but she couldn’t have seen Scarlett’s shop, since Greta’s place was on the same side of the street, only a few doors down. Scarlett wasn’t familiar with anyone named Ralph Lewis.
Mr. Petrovski was still talking: “Lewis never comes to town, he spends all his time in that cabin of his, but he shows up to go to the bar on the night of the only murder in town for decades? I know who I’m pointing the finger at, and it isn’t the town’s florist.”
Warmth flooded Scarlett’s chest. At least one crotchety old man thought she was innocent. That was something.
“Ralph Lewis,” Archer replied, incredulous. “No way. I apprenticed under him for four years; he’s not a murderer.”
“Tried to murder a man in ’82,” Mr. Petrovski countered, eyes steady on Archer. “Talk of the town at the time. Got away with it too.”
Archer looked thunderstruck. “What?”
“I remember reading about that, actually,” Amelia cut in. “I was doing a research project in high school about Stirling history, and I went through a bunch of newspaper archives. His wife was cheating on him, and he went after the other guy with an axe. Cut off two of the guy’s fingers.”
Everyone sat for a moment while they absorbed that information.
“No way,” Archer finally said.
“I’m telling you,” Mr. Petrovski answered darkly, then flicked his hand and shuffled away, grumbling to himself.
Scarlett picked up her fresh latte and took a sip, mulling over the old man’s words. A guy who goes after his wife’s affair partner isn’t the kind of person who would murder a woman in cold blood. Ralph Lewis’s crime was one of passion.
Then again, she didn’t know why Ethel had been killed. What if Ralph knew her, and had a motive?
She glanced at Archer, whose brow was furrowed.
“Have you talked to Ralph lately, Archer?” The question came from Marlon.
Archer shook his head. At Scarlett’s questioning glance, he explained, “Ralph is the carpenter who took me on as an apprentice in the early days. Extremely talented.”
“And extremely surly,” Camilla put in.
Amelia said, “You can’t really go to the police with only Mr. P’s word to go on. It’s just a rumor.”
“Yeah,” Scarlett agreed.
“I just can’t believe he would do this. Did he even know Ethel?” Archer ran a hand through his hair and let out a long breath.
“You did just say she could have had any number of enemies,” Scarlett said. She chewed her lip, not wanting to say it out loud but knowing she had to. “Maybe they knew each other.”
Archer leaned back. Scarlett watched the decision settle over Archer. She saw the set of his broad shoulders and the way he nodded to himself almost imperceptibly. In this carefree, laughing man, she saw a dark determination that she couldn’t have guessed existed before. “Only one way to find out what Ralph knows,” he said, grim.
He was going to go talk to Ralph Lewis, and he was going to do it now.
Archer was so strong and sure and handsome, and Scarlett couldn’t let him do this alone. Not when she was a suspect too. Not when she knew how it felt to be blindsided by someone’s true character. Not when she knew what it felt like to face life on her own.
So, when Archer stood, Scarlett put a hand on his arm. He glanced down at her, blue eyes steady.
“I’m coming with you,” she said.
Archer held her gaze for a moment, and Scarlett could tell there was a protest on his lips. But he must have seen the determination in her eyes and known it was pointless to try to stop her. He dipped his chin. “Let’s go.”