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  The man sitting on the steps, however, had a standing invitation. He just hadn’t accepted it in a while.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” I said as jumped up and touched my mom’s sign. It creaked in response as it swung back and forth.

  “That’s how you get it to fall on so many heads, isn’t it?”

  Even though he was cloaked almost entirely in darkness, I could see Mateo’s smile. It was the first one I’d seen all week that didn’t hold any stress on it. It was relaxed and comfortable, just the way I liked it. I walked up and kissed him. It’d been too long since the two of us had had a moment alone.

  “Is this part of the lure?” he asked.

  “What lure?”

  “You know, loosen the sign, soften the prey, and lead him to his doom under your mom’s sign?”

  “That only happened once.”

  “Is that all?” He nuzzled my neck, and I moaned.

  “I brought you dessert.”

  I pulled back and looked at him. “Really?”

  “That little white bag on your steps has coconut tres leches cake inside.”

  “Mmmmm. That sounds wonderful. Where did you get it?”

  “I made it.”

  “The sheriff of Coleman County bakes?”

  “Shhhh, it’ll be our secret.”

  “And if I decide to share that information with the local paper?”

  “You’ll never get another one.”

  “I think I’m going to like this secret.”

  “You have no idea how much you’re going to like it.” Mateo’s lips found mine just as a woman yelled from the courtyard, “Charli, is that you?”

  Mateo groaned and stepped back, his hands lingering on my waist just a bit too long as Liza Twaine’s heels came to a stop at the gate. “Am I interrupting something?” she asked.

  Only a fool would ask such a ridiculous question.

  Mateo saved her from my wrath. “I just brought Charli some dessert, but I was leaving.”

  “You’re leaving?” I asked.

  “Oh, good.” Liza came through the gate.

  Mateo’s upper lip quirked with humor. “Good to see you too, Liza.”

  Mine raised with distaste as he walked out of the gate. “What do you want Liza?”

  The sign squeaked, and Mateo looked up at it and smiled. I could have sworn he tipped his head in greeting, but that would be silly. Still, it made me feel warm and fuzzy that he would pay homage to my mom.

  Liza looked at Mateo as if she was trying to figure something out. “Is there really something going on between you two? Cause I thought he was just messing with me in the Barn the other day.”

  I ignored her question and turned toward my steps. “You came here for a reason?”

  Her heels clip-clopped behind me on the brick pavers. I picked up my little white bag and opened it just enough to smell the cake inside. The scent was pure heaven, and my stomach growled. I closed the bag unwilling to share if Liza chose to follow me inside my apartment, which she did.

  Once inside Liza pulled a stack of paper from her purse. She had on a purple pantsuit that displayed the wrinkles of a long day at work and a matching purse and shoes. Her makeup needed to be refreshed, and her hair had lost its curl, yet she didn’t seem to care. Which was completely out of character. That alone sparked my interest.

  “I have a copy of the autopsy report.”

  “Whose autopsy report?”

  Liza rolled her eyes. “There’s only one autopsy report we’ve all been waiting for.” She waved the papers in my face, and I leaned back. “Maddie’s report.”

  I’d never seen an autopsy report. I’d heard about them and had been told about some of the details, but seeing one in person was a completely different animal. Especially if it was for someone I knew.

  “I don’t want to read that. Just tell me what it says.”

  Liza heaved a sigh, grabbed my hand, and pulled me over to counter. She slapped the papers on the surface and pushed me onto the bar stool.

  I glared at her.

  “This information is key to this case.”

  “Mateo didn’t say anything about having the report.”

  “That’s because he doesn’t have it yet.”

  “What do you mean, he doesn’t have it?”

  “Would you read the stupid report?” Liza poked the paper like it was a man’s chest.

  “How did you get this?” When Liza ignored my question, I asked, “Did you steal it? Did you break into the Medical Examiner’s office the same way you broke into Scarlet’s trailer?”

  Liza’s index finger pounded on the papers in front of me.

  “If you don’t tell me how you got it, I’m going to call Mateo right now.” I pulled my cell phone out of my back pocket. Liza tried to grab for my phone, but I held it back out of her reach.

  “Fine. I have a person on the inside, alright?”

  She wasn’t getting off that easily. “Who?”

  “If I told you who, you’d get them fired.”

  “Darn tootin’.”

  “And I’d be out of a source.”

  “What they’re doing is illegal!” I insisted.

  “Only in the sense that I get it a few hours before everyone else.”

  “With absolutely nothing redacted,” I pointed out. There wasn’t a black Sharpie mark on any of the pages. “Please tell me there are no pictures.”

  Liza was growing impatient. “What kind of mystery mom are you?”

  “The Mystery Moms are a book club!”

  “Whatever. Just read the stupid report.”

  “You have more in common with Nathan Daniels’s character Eliza Blain than you think,” I muttered as I picked up the report and saw the decedent’s name, Maddie MacAlister, scrawled across the top with a case file number and the date. In the center of the page were the bold words MANNER OF DEATH. Handwritten next to it: Homicide.

  Fuzz buckets. I had truly hoped Maddie had been drunk and went for a swim, played Russian roulette…something other than homicide. People did stupid things when under the influence of alcohol, and Maddie had definitely been under the influence.

  I skimmed through several pages of Maddie’s organs being measured and weighed then looked at Liza. “I really don’t need all these details. Besides I don’t understand most of it.”

  “Go down to page thirty-one.”

  I flipped to the page that had a diagram of a female body. On the diagram there were Xs on her left shoulder and left cheekbone. It then described the injuries to these areas. Her shoulder had a bullet wound entry with no exit. The bullet had fractured her clavicle bone and ricocheted into her left lung where the round was recovered.

  “They got the bullet!” A nervous giggle escaped from somewhere inside me. It was completely inappropriate, and from the look on Liza’s face, even she thought my reaction was uncalled for.

  “Don’t you see? They can clear Sugar of murder! I knew she wouldn’t shoot Maddie.”

  “Keep reading.”

  I read on. Maddie also had a fractured infraorbital foramen and zygoma. I looked at the diagram to see what the heck they were talking about, and it was the cheekbone underneath her left eye. “It says her cheek was shattered due to blunt force trauma.”

  “Yes, and Sugar got in a fight with Maddie the night she died.”

  I didn’t know how Liza found out about the fight, and I didn’t care. All I knew was that Sugar didn’t kill Maddie.

  “Sugar would have broken her hand if she’d hit Maddie like that. She wouldn’t have just lost a fingernail!”

  “A fingernail?”

  Realizing I’d just released information that Cade had given me, I waved Liza off. “I just mean, Sugar would have done some serious damage to her hand.”

  Liza nodde
d. “Read the conclusion.”

  I continued through the narrative and learned that the decedent would have been unable to swim for very long due to a collapsed lung and loss of blood. Maddie’s death was ruled a homicide.

  Which didn’t mean it was premeditated murder, just that someone had caused her death, and it wasn’t Maddie.

  Nor did I believe it was Sugar or Dean. It would have taken two people to get Maddie in that tank unless someone forced her to go in at gunpoint.

  But it was the last line of the report that made up for me having to invite Liza into my apartment: Collected and released to Coleman County Sheriff’s Department: .40 cal slug.

  “Does Mateo have the round that killed Maddie?”

  Liza shook her head. “It’s in the ME’s evidence locker waiting to be picked up.”

  “When will Mateo get this report?”

  “Tomorrow morning after it’s been typed up.”

  “What about Cade?”

  Liza smiled like the Cheshire cat. It was not pretty. “Well, that depends.”

  I proceeded with caution. “On what?”

  “On when you plan on calling him and telling him to get his butt over here for an interview.”

  There was always a cost to a good deed. I was willing to give up my integrity for Sugar and Dean. The question remained…was Cade?

  I glared at Liza and pulled up Cade’s number on the address book of my phone. He answered on the first ring. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Then why are you calling.”

  “Can’t I call you just to chat?”

  Cade’s voice was loaded with sarcasm. “I hardly think the princess I know would want to ‘chat’ after I threatened to turn her in on hindering charges if she meddled in Sugar and Dean’s case.”

  Liza became impatient and began rolling her hand forward in the air trying to make me get to the point.

  I bit my cheek to keep from cussing. “That was uncalled for.”

  Cade sighed on the other end of the phone. “What do you need, Princess?”

  “Could you come over?” I asked.

  “You’re calling me to come over to your place at ten fifteen at night?” His voice was laced with disbelief, and I immediately understood where his mind went.

  “That’s not what I’m calling for Cade Calloway.”

  “What?” His tone was as innocent as a little boy getting caught putting a frog in his sister’s bed.

  “Would you just get over here?”

  “Princess, I have to get up early in the morning.”

  “You’re darn right you do. You have work that is waiting for you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

  “I’m tired of going around in circles with you, Cade. Just get over here.” I hung up the phone before he could argue further.

  Liza’s grin was back. “Was the mayor suggesting something naughty?”

  I rolled my eyes and stood up to make sure she knew I meant business. “He thought I was suggesting something naughty, thanks to you!” I leaned over her and let her know just how unhappy I was. “And if you breathe a word of that outside this room, I will make sure you regret it Liza Twaine.”

  “Fine. There’s no reason to get your panties in a bunch.”

  My panties felt like they’d been in a bunch for too long, but I saw comfort in my future once Sugar and Dean were cleared. Their seventy-two-hour hold was about to end early.

  Liza asked to use my restroom, and I text Mateo while she was inside.

  A copy of the autopsy report has been leaked.

  Are you telling me Liza has a copy of the report before me?

  I’m telling you that it proves Sugar and Dean are innocent. She’s getting ready to rake someone through the coals. Cade’s on his way over here.

  Does he know?

  He doesn’t have a clue.

  Thank you, Charli.

  I sent him a kissy face emoji and got a thumbs-up in return. What the heck did that mean?

  I grabbed the white paper bag with my dessert and looked inside. A clear Tupperware container with two pieces of cake looked back at me. Surely, he’d meant to share it with me. The man was just busy and since he was going to be busy, I had a piece for dessert and a piece for breakfast. I could live with that.

  I listened for Liza in the bathroom but didn’t hear anything, so I grabbed a fork and opened the container. Inside I found whipped cream with coconut sprinkled across the top. The side of the cake showed two moist layers with whipped cream between them. My mouth began to water. I took a bite and moaned. Mateo’s cake was incredible. It gave the appearance of being light, but it was dense with sugary goodness I could get lost in.

  I heard Liza turn on the sink, and I took one last bite before I quickly put it in the refrigerator. I was not sharing my cake with a woman I didn’t like. Nope. It wasn’t going to happen. If she’d been Scarlet…maybe. But Scarlet didn’t eat sugary foods. Mateo didn’t either, which made the fact that he’d baked me a cake that much more special.

  I was going to remember the flavor of his cake, and that he shared a part of himself with me that no one else knew about…and I was going to forget all about his thumbs-up response to my kisses.

  Chapter 12

  Two hours and twenty minutes later, Cade was at my door. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and answered it. Liza’s smile, although tired and worn couldn’t have gotten any bigger. Until Mateo stepped into the doorway behind him.

  She looked at me with an outraged gleam in her eyes. “Touché.”

  “You didn’t really think I could go behind Mateo’s back, did you? He doesn’t want to hold Sugar and Dean any more than the rest of us want him to if they’re not guilty.”

  Liza grabbed the report on the counter and shoved it in her purse. “Is that what took you so long to get here, Mayor?”

  “I had some business with the sheriff I needed to handle first.”

  Liza glanced at Mateo. I got the distinct impression she was waiting for him to make a move with his handcuffs. “Oh?” she said.

  “It seems the autopsy report is complete, and there’s new evidence in the case. Mateo has his crime scene technicians working overtime, and I’m hoping to get their reports soon.”

  A bit of panic crossed through Liza’s eyes. Word was bound to get out that the case was moving and moving fast. Currently, she wasn’t the only one with the scoop, and she’d missed the ten o’clock news, but Liza was anything but a quitter. She was resourceful and intuitive. She knew how to make a story out of nothing, and she knew a good story when she saw one. “I’d still like to interview you, Mayor, if you have time.”

  Mateo looked at his watch. “It’s late, Liza. Surely, your interview can wait until tomorrow?”

  “Actually, I have some questions for Liza.” Cade stepped in, and Mateo stayed at the door.

  “Me? What kind of questions could you possibly have for me?”

  Cade grinned. I coughed, and Liza glared.

  “Sheriff, could you wait for us outside for just a moment?” Cade asked.

  Mateo’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, and I realized Cade was going rogue. Whatever they’d discussed, this was not part of the plan.

  “I’ll be right outside if you need me,” Mateo said.

  “I’ll join—”

  “I need you to stay with us, Princess. If you don’t mind?”

  I shrugged, and Mateo walked out the door, closing it behind him.

  “Why don’t we have a seat?” Cade walked Liza to my couch where she and I had nearly dozed off waiting for them to arrive. This time Liza wasn’t even close to falling asleep. She sat on the edge of the couch looking like she was ready to sprint for the door at any given moment. Except facing Mateo was even less appealing to her. I
sat down in my glider that had been around since the days my mom rocked me to sleep and watched Cade go to work on Liza. He slowly pulled out his phone and opened it to a page of notes. “When did you get back from Dallas?”

  Liza looked at me like I had a clue what Cade was fishing for. I shrugged.

  “About four o’clock.”

  He jotted down the time. “Are Reba Sue and Betty still there?”

  Uh-oh. He knew about the mystery moms’ meddling. Which meant Mateo knew as well.

  Liza nodded.

  “Did you meet with the author Nathan Daniels while you were there?”

  Liza nodded again.

  “Did you interview him in reference to the murder of Maddie MacAlister?”

  This time Liza didn’t nod her head. She stared at him with the wheels spinning around in her brain. I could see it just as well as if the wheels were on the outside of her face.

  “Did you interview Nathan Daniels regarding Maddie’s death?” Cade repeated.

  “Yes, I did,” Liza confessed.

  Cade typed something into his phone. “Did you have your photographer present?”

  Liza paused. She didn’t want to answer the question, and bit off her answer. “No.”

  “No?”

  “I just told you no. No means no, doesn’t it?”

  “Of course, it does.” Cade’s voice was deceptively soothing. “Did you record the interview on your phone?”

  I swore if Liza didn’t bite off her own tongue, it would be a miracle.

  “I had Reba Sue record it using my phone.”

  “I see.” Cade tapped his finger against his pant leg. “And do you have your phone with you now?”

  “Yes, of course,” Liza admitted, but she made no move to take her phone from her purse.

  Cade looked her directly in the eyes. “I’m going to need your phone, Liza.”

  “When did you become law enforcement, Mayor? Do you have a search warrant?”

  Cade smiled. It was soft and pleasant, but I wasn’t fooled. He was going in for the kill.