Cupcakes, Diaries, and Rotten Inquiries: A Romantic, Comedic Annie Graceland Mystery, #6 Read online

  And that’s when I saw him: Mack. Lying on the floor on his stomach as he read my diary. “Be my guest, Annie. Tell him everything. My life is an open book. As is yours, apparently.”

  I screamed. “Don’t—” and then realized—I totally didn’t want Rafe to spot you, Diary.

  “Don’t what?” Rafe frowned.

  “Don’t kill that mouse!” I raced to my tangerine kitchen door, opened it a crack, and pretended to kick the imaginary rodent outside. “No pumpkin cake for you, Mickey! And don’t come back!” I slammed the door.

  I moved to the couch, sat down next to Raphael, took one of his strong, muscular hands in mine, and squeezed it. “I dated Mack in college. I haven’t seen him in decades when—as you already know—he Facebooked me a few weeks ago. Then he started acting weird and I contemplated un-friending him. But, I felt bad, and wanted to give him another chance. So I let my decision ride.”

  “Me, weird?’ Mack asked. “Have you even read what you wrote in here?”

  I contemplated killing him, but he was already dead.

  “You should have cut him off when he exhibited stalker-esque behavior,” Rafe said.

  I ground my teeth. “Mack showed up at Mort’s deli, and under a wee bit of duress, I accompanied him to the Starlight Hollywood Wax Museum. He already knew about you from my posts and photos on Facebook, but he still wanted me to be his date to that WEPOC banquet. I said no. But then someone runs him over in a parking lot and kills him. Do I feel bad? Yes. I feel frigging awful. Maybe if I had gone with him to his stupid event he wouldn’t have been murdered.”

  “Maybe he still would have been murdered and you’d be dead as well,” Raphael said.

  I shook my head. “It’s the least I can do to try and snoop around a bit to find out who might have wanted to kill him. I’m happy to hand you any info I discover.”

  “That’s not a great idea, Annie. Seriously. You’re a baker, not a detective. You could get hurt.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Overprotective,” I said.

  “That’s Detective Overprotective to you,” Raphael said.

  “Hah-hah. Everyone thinks being a baker is a super safe, easy profession—that it’s just smiles, sugar, and spice. But a lot goes on behind the scenes in the world of cupcakes, pies, and scones. It can be dirty, delicious, and downright dangerous. I’ve seen it all first-hand, Rafe. I’m not some crumpet who faints at the first sign of trouble. I’m a Midwestern chick and Midwestern chicks are tough cookies.”

  He sighed. “Fine. Who do you think wanted Mack dead? You were his ex-girlfriend, and I’m assuming he confided in you during the short time he was here. Did he know anyone else in town?”

  “Here’s the part in your diary, Annie, where you start writing about me,” Mack said.

  I flinched. “He knew a fair number of folks. He was in L.A. for that used car convention.”

  “Previously Owned Vehicles,” Mack said. “Oh—hey! I love this entry where you mentioned how many times we did the naughty! Hah-hah! It’s pretty obvious that Mack weighed heavily on your mind for all these years.”

  I snapped my eyes shut, twisted my head to the side, and cracked my neck.

  “You okay?” Rafe asked.

  “Headache,” I said. “Long day.”

  “Scooch over and face your kitchen,” he said. “I’ll give you a neck rub.”

  Almost better than sex (not really) but I’d take one of his amazing massages in a heartbeat. So, I scooched.

  Rafe squeezed the top of my shoulders with his large, strong hands. I could practically feel the stress roll off like a wave.

  “Mack’s former father-in-law, Bob Bubeck was in town for that same conference. From what he told me—there was no love lost between them,” I said. “Heavenly. A little to the left, please.”

  “Already noted,” Raphael said and worked his strong fingers up the back of my neck. “Your neck feels like it’s filled with rocks.”

  “I know,” I said. “Old boyfriend’s dead, mom’s coming into town—I’m a little stressed.”

  “Understandable,” he said.

  “Mack said Devin Dylan was #3 in WEPOC’s annual salesmen award. Perhaps he was jealous,” I said.

  “Probably,” Raphael said. “But enough to kill him?”

  “Competition’s fierce. Who’s top dog. You know how these salesmen guys are.”

  “Apparently these salesmen guys like to do it one hundred and fifty times,” Mack said. “Mack’s #2! Mack’s #2!”

  I winced.

  Raphael stopped. “Too hard?”

  “No, no,” I said. “I just thought of the logistics of Mom visiting. Like—where’s she going to sleep? Do we share my sofa bed with Theodore?”

  “No,” Raphael said.

  “Agreed,” I said.

  “Would she stay at the Marriot in the Marina?”

  I reluctantly broke free from his strong hands, swiveled and faced him. “Would your mom?”

  “Why don’t we get you an air mattress?” he asked.

  I gestured to my miniscule living space like Vanna White on The Wheel of Fortune before she turned a letter. “Where am I going to put it?”

  “There. Just shove the coffee table over. You already do that every night to pull out the sofa bed. Right?”

  “Shoot me, I beg you,” I said.

  “No,” he said. “You’re too dang cute and I’d miss you. By the way—Devin Dylan has a pretty solid alibi,” Rafe said. “And no, I’m not saying more than that.”

  “I bet it was Tubby Partee’, the stripper,” Mack said. “Devin went back for the WEPOC special. He appreciates a woman with curves.”

  “He was with a stripper, wasn’t he, Raphael?” I asked. “She can account for his whereabouts when Mack was murdered.”

  “How do you know Mack and his buddies went to a strip club?”

  “That should be perfectly obvious,” I huffed. “Isn’t that what all guys do after an awards banquet?”

  “Hmm. You’re not bad at this detecting thing,” he said.

  “I’m far from perfect,” I said.

  “Which is one of the reasons I lo… I like you.”

  My breath caught in my throat. “You were going to say something else.”

  “I like you—a lot?” He waggled his jet-black eyebrows.

  “Aw, come on. Just say it!”

  “I already did.” he smiled at me—looking as sweet as sex and candy. “You’ve been a bad girl, Annie Graceland. Where are those cupcake print restraints?”

  He leaned in and kissed me—long and slow and deep. This was exactly like really dark chocolate—I couldn’t have just one piece. It totally wasn’t fair. So I gathered all my willpower, wrapped my arms around his neck, pulled him even closer to me, and kissed him back.

  His bitable full lips; his clever tongue; his very broad shoulders—a girl could get lost for days tracing them. I made my way down his shirt, flipping open the buttons—okay kill me, I tore a few of them off—and they flew through the air. Come on, he had plenty of buttons; he wouldn’t miss a few. I yanked his shirt free from the confines of his pants so I could stroke his washboard abs with my hungry hands for a few days. “Raphael. Raphael,” I murmured, losing myself in the moment, the muscles, his hardness, and our collective, warm, heavy breath. When I heard…

  “Whoa. Nice. Mack likes to watch.”

  I jolted like I’d been hit with a cattle prod and spotted Mack staring at us, googly-eyed.

  Good God, no!

  I stood up, grabbed Rafe’s hands, and hoisted him to standing. “You’ve gotta go. And for God’s sake, button your shirt. Can’t have you out on the street half naked. People would talk.”

  More likely they’d throw themselves at him.

  “I have to clean my place tonight. After all, my mom’s coming in town. And I want you to meet her.”

  Raphael grabbed my waist and pulled me flush against him. Tilted my head back with one finger under my chin and kissed me again. “Your mom’s
not in town, yet.”

  “She might as well be for all the cleaning I have to do.” I pulled away from him.

  “I can help.”

  “You’ll get in the way.”

  “I can’t wait to meet your mom.”

  “You’re a brave soul, Raphael Campillio. A trooper. I like that in a man.”

  “Isuzu made a nice SUV Trooper. It was voted best archaeological field vehicle in 2002,” Mack said.

  I’ll miss sexy-time with Raphael, Diary. But I will not make out with him in front of Mack. Oh, crap—he’s probably going to read this… Nightie night!

  Xo,

  Annie

  Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake by Cheryl Cavitt Carlson

  Ingredients:

  2 cups all-purpose flour

  2 cups sugar

  2 teaspoons baking powder

  1 teaspoon baking soda

  1/2 teaspoon salt

  2 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (I just use cinnamon.)

  4 eggs

  1 can (1 lb., 2 cups) pumpkin

  1 cup vegetable oil

  1 cup Branflake cereal

  1 Six oz. package semi-sweet chocolate morsels (the more the better, it’s chocolate after all!)

  Directions:

  1. Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, soda, salt and spice. Set aside.

  2. In large mixing bowl, beat eggs until foamy. Add pumpkin, oil and bran cereal. Mix well. Add flour mixture, stirring only until combined. Stir in chocolate morsels and nuts. Spread evenly in ungreased tube or Bundt pan.

  3. Bake at 350° F about 1 hour and 10 minutes or until wooden pick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool completely before removing from pan. Drizzle with powdered sugar glaze, if desired.

  Chapter 22

  The Lana Turner

  Grady

  Dear Finley,

  I arrived a little early, sat at the counter of Mort Feinberg’s Deli and noshed on a raisin bagel with cinnamon cream cheese, while I waited for Annie to finish her shift. I’d completed my NaNoWriMo writing goal of over two thousand words today in my murder mystery novel—and no—I’m not sharing the title yet! I can completely, one hundred percent guilt-free, allow myself to pen an update in your crisp, friendly pages.

  First things first—my novel is coming along swimmingly! The hero, JOSH BANKMAN, is a dashing, young, gay man who discovers he can talk to ghosts—specifically murder victims whose crimes have not been solved. When the spirits realize that Josh can see, as well as hear them, they pester him to solve their crimes so they can pass to the Afterlife.

  I know it might sound a little like Annie’s life, but I simply used her experiences as a springboard for inspiration. I did not copy anything, and no one reading this book will ever be able to follow a trail of literary breadcrumbs back to her. Julia perused a few pages and basically told me the same thing. She only insisted I make one moderate character change to the hero—that upon reflection—shook up the story, spun it around and made it even fresher. (I’m so excited!)

  Annie asked me to meet her here today specifically to help investigate Tiffany Tominski, because Mack thought she might be a suspect in his murder. Tiffany nurtured a tremendous grudge toward Mack ‘The Man’ McManus for ‘supposedly’ selling her a lemon back in Wisconsin. She’d stalked and harassed him on and off for years.

  She was now a realtor based in Beverly Hills, but more importantly, according to Mack, a slumlord who owned several apartment buildings in the West Los Angeles area. Annie and I decided the best way to gain access to Tiffany was to pretend to be potential renters. And, lucky for us, after some basic Internet snooping, we discovered her ad on Daveslist for an apartment rental. I’m including the actual listing:

  “OCEAN VIEW! Bright, perky, spacious, completely renovated, one bedroom apartment. Non-smoking building. No puppies allowed but Feline Friendly (for an additional $40.00 monthly fee.) No parking included, but plenty of street parking available. Crown moldings. Good-as-new appliances. Freshly painted. Ceiling fans. Minutes to the Marina, the 10 and 405 Freeways, and the beautiful beaches that line the Pacific Ocean. Great neighborhood! Live in paradise—only $1,875.00 a month!

  YOU—have a good to excellent credit score.

  There is a forty-dollar, non-refundable application fee. A one-month security deposit is required. An additional security deposit of one thousand dollars is required if you have a cat. We do check references—so make sure they are truthful and accurate. We can’t wait to be your Landlord!”

  Lucky for us, Tiffany was too cheap to hire a property manager and had arranged to meet with us, in person, at four p.m. to show us the place.

  Someone tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned expecting to see Annie—but instead came face to face with a short, middle-aged woman with hot pink hair spiraling in wild, frizzy corkscrews out from her round head. She peered at me through black cat-eye glasses and crinkled up her nose.

  “You enjoying that bagel?” she asked.

  “It’s delicious,” I said.

  “It’s been delicious for over an hour, now. First you were writing on a laptop, now you’re writing in a journal. So, I’m going to assume you’re a writer.”

  I smiled—it was so refreshing to be recognized for my craft. “Why, yes, I am.”

  “Write anything I might have heard of?”

  I ruefully eyed the dollop of cream cheese that lay squished on the side of my plate; a sad metaphor for my writing aspirations. “Probably not. Yet.”

  “There’s always hope,” she said. “Hope springs eternal in L.A. for all of us artistic types. We think, ‘Someday I can write a script that attracts the attention of the producers, and managers, and directors. Someday I can make the semifinals in a contest.”

  I sighed in relief. This wild, pink-haired lady got my pain. She got me. Perhaps she was Tinker Bell all grown up, and/or maybe she was meant to be my muse. A complete stranger was giving me hope. Thank you, Universe—but more importantly I needed to… “Thank you.” I held out my hand to shake hers. “My name’s Grady Swenson. What’s yours?”

  But instead of taking my hand, she held hers up in the air, far from me, well out of touching distance.

  “Pinky Stein. Sorry to appear finicky, but I just had my nails done, and I don’t want to damage the acrylics.”

  “Yes. I absolutely get it. I feel the same after I spend an hour or so at Groom—”

  She kept her nails extended but still managed to gather the wisps and tendrils of her errant hair with her two fists. She combined them into one hand and yanked a hairclip from the neckline of her form-fitting pink and black horizontally striped sweater. “Ten years ago I wrote a rom-com script, entered it in the Nicholl competition and made the semifinals.” She piled her hair on top of her skull into a bun, and stabbed it with the clip. “My name started popping up everywhere. I had junior agents calling from CAA, UTA, Gersh. I took meetings.”

  “Yowsa,” I said. “That’s huge!”

  She nodded. “Then my script hit the top ten on the Blacklist. It was a whirlwind of adrenaline. Like I’d downed a Venti Doppio Macchiato from the Buck. I dreamt about becoming the next Tina Fey or Kristen Wiig.”

  “Tell me more,” I said, enthralled.

  “I got a smattering of publicity in Variety, Deadline Hollywood, The Hollywood Reporter, and some screenwriting blogs. I met with a few managers and signed with one. He was smart, savvy. No B.S. He was going to send my script out to a few producers who had already requested it. We hoped for a hit. If nothing happened, he planned to take my script out wide. We had some polite passes. A few mean ones. Someone called my work ‘derivative.’ Asshat. I never even saw the movie they were talking about. After a few months everything quieted down and my manager asked me what else I had.”

  “What else did you have?” Oh, gosh, Diary—who the heck would have thought I’d run into a possible well-established connection while waiting at the counter of Mort Feinberg’s Deli? I gave my head a shake and reminded myse
lf…

  Dreams can come true, it can happen to you, Grady Swenson—just like Lana Turner was discovered drinking a soda at the Top Hat Café (NOT Schwab’s—that was simply Hollywood legend.)

  “I had a bunch of semi-finished drafts,” Pinky said. “Nothing polished, presentable—just decent pitches. So I threw them at him. I hoped that this was it. I was going to be somebody and almost everyone would know my name. I wondered if it was time to divorce my squirrely, verbally abusive husband, and venture out into life as a single lady. And I was sooo close. I actually sat down with an attorney and looked at the logistics. I decided to wait until good fortune hit—but guess what happened?”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing happened. Everybody passed. And I waited two more years before I filed for divorce from the schmuck. Now here I am looking at another hopeful writer and I’ve gotta be honest with you, kid. As much as Mort’s loves to support those in the arts, our turn-around here is swift. We simply can’t shelter the homeless for all that long.”

  “Homeless?” I asked and looked down at my Versace casualwear shirt.

  “There’s a Coffee Bean just down the street,” she said. “Buy a brew, and they’ll let you sit all day. And the library. They love the homeless people. And bonus—you can read last month’s magazines.”

  “I’m not homeless!”

  “Then why are you taking over an hour to eat a bagel, typing on your computer, writing in your journal, and perusing ads for an apartment?”

  “He’s waiting for me.” Annie blew past us wearing her white chef’s ensemble. “I’m the one looking for a new apartment. He’s helping me. Leave him alone.”

  “Oh, so you’re homeless,” Pinky said.

  “I am not homeless!” Annie swiveled and screeched.

  “Well you’ll be homeless soon if you don’t get that order finished in time for She-Who-Must-be-Sucked-up-To’s production company!”