Murder Has a Sweet Tooth - By Miranda Bliss Page 0,44

superserious to embarrassed in no time flat.

“It’s none of my business. Of course it’s none of my business,” I stammered. “It’s just that no one’s said a word about it, and I was wondering, that’s all. If Celia, Glynis, and Beth were at cooking class, they obviously would have noticed that Vickie wasn’t at cooking class. I mean, they must have, right? And we know Vickie wasn’t at cooking class because she was over at that restaurant in Arlington with that guy. And the night she was—” I couldn’t take the chance of alienating Edward completely. I carefully avoided the m word. Talk of murder tends to make people queasy. Especially when they’re spouses.

Or suspects.

“The night that everything happened, that wasn’t the first night Vickie was in Arlington with that man. At least that’s what I read in the papers. And that means she’d missed more than just a couple cooking classes, and if she missed a couple cooking classes, of course, her friends would have noticed. And they would have asked her about it, of course. I mean, I certainly would ask a friend where she’d been if I thought she was going to be one place and she didn’t show up. And they did, and Vickie always had an excuse. So I was just wondering if any of them mentioned it to you. You know, if they asked you if Vickie was feeling better, or if they mentioned how much they missed having her in class with them on Tuesday nights. I just wondered, that’s all. I can’t help it.” I added this final bit because a streak of red had streamed up Edward’s neck and stained his cheeks and I was afraid he was going to burst a blood vessel. “I guess I’m just too curious for my own good.”

My phony lack of confidence worked! It put Edward at ease. He smiled. In fact, he laughed. He even patted me on the shoulder.

“You’re right,” he said. “You are too curious for your own good.”

And with that, Edward Monroe walked out of the kitchen.

And me?

I stood there clutching that roll of paper towels (they were an expensive brand and plushier than the ones I usually bought, so it was as soothing as hugging a teddy bear) and thinking. And what I thought was pretty jumbled, but what it amounted to was this:

If Edward Monroe was guilty (and Tyler’s professional opinion and my gut reaction said he certainly could be), then he’d possibly just threatened me and I probably should be worried. I would be, too, as soon as I had time.

Right then and there, though, I had bigger things to think about. Like Jeremy playing soccer and Michael, the man who had nearly been sacked just a couple weeks before, being named to a prestigious position in a successful software firm.

See what I’m getting at here?

Even as I walked back into the great room and started sopping up champagne from the tabletop and the floor, I couldn’t help but think that Edward Monroe was guilty.

And that Beth knew it.

As far as I could see, that was the only thing that could explain how she was blackmailing him.

I DIDN’T WANT TO SUSPECT EDWARD MONROE. Really. So he wasn’t the friendliest guy in the world. So he wasn’t Mr. Charm. So statistics say that most murder victims are killed by someone they know and that often, that someone is their spouse. That didn’t automatically mean Edward killed Vickie. Did it?

Just thinking about it made me queasy, and I wasn’t kidding myself. I knew exactly why. After all, I was getting married in just two short (and getting shorter all the time) weeks, and the life I was planning with Jim was as perfect as my daydreams could make it. Wondering if Vickie and Edward Monroe had once had those kinds of hopes for their marriage and if their love had deteriorated so much that it had exploded into a murderous attack in an alley outside a bar . . .

Well, thinking about it was enough to make this soon-to-be bride wish she wasn’t also a private detective.

But I was. A private detective, that is. And I had promised Jim I would clear Alex’s name.

With that in mind, I knew what I had to do. I had to search for the truth, and follow the clues—and my instincts—wherever they led. If they brought me to the conclusion that some marriages don’t end in happily-ever-after . . . well, I already knew