Wedding Bell Blunders: A Freshly Baked Cozy Mystery, Kathleen Suzette [classic books to read .txt] 📗

He snorted. “Wouldn’t you like to know? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get going.”

I nodded and took another leisurely sip of my coffee. “All right. I guess if you’ve got to be going.” I took another step up and took another sip of my coffee. It wasn’t nice of me, but Bob had never been nice to me.

He snorted and clenched his teeth. “Allie, will you get out of my way?”

I looked at him wide-eyed. “Bob, that’s so rude. You need to learn patience. Didn’t your mother teach you to be patient?”

His face went red at the mention of his mother. “It’s none of your business what my mother did or didn’t do.”

I shrugged and stepped up onto the landing. “Suit yourself. Have a good day.”

Lucy hurried behind me, stepping to the side to let Bob by. He snorted and started down the stairs.

At the top of the stairs was a small visitor’s area that was straight out of the 1970s with brown Naugahyde furniture and green shag carpet. The early James Bond movies could have been filmed in this waiting area. We headed over to Alec’s office door.

“Allie, one of these days Bob is going to come for you.”

I looked at Lucy over my shoulder. “I doubt it. He’s all bark and no bite.” I liked giving Bob a hard time. There was something about him that made me feel he had it coming.

I knocked on Alec’s door, but I didn’t wait for him to tell me to come in. I pushed it open. “Good morning, my sweet husband,” I called and headed over to his desk.

He looked up at me and grinned when he saw the coffee cup. “Good morning. Has my sweet wife brought me some coffee?”

“And an orange cranberry muffin.” I held up the bag and set the cup and the bag on his desk. “I thought you could use a break.”

He nodded. “Thank you. Good morning, Lucy.”

She nodded, still a little breathless from our climb up the stairs. “Good morning, Alec. I like your office, but you could use a little more, I don’t know, decorative accents in here.”

He chuckled. “I kind of like the clean, simple look I’ve got going on.”

“What he means is that he likes the sparse, undecorated look,” I said as we sat down at the chairs in front of his desk. “So, what’s going on? Have you got a killer yet?”

He sat back in his seat and took a sip of his coffee. “Oh. What is this?”

“Raspberry mocha. Don’t you like it?”

He nodded. “It’s nice. And to answer your question, not much is going on yet. I don’t have a killer, but I intend to have one soon.”

“I hope so because I’d like to go on my honeymoon. Please.”

He nodded. “I know. You want to go on your honeymoon, and I don’t blame you.”

“Don’t keep your wife waiting,” Lucy said to him.

He shook his head. “I know better than to keep Allie waiting on anything.”

“You’re a smart man, Alec Blanchard. We talked to Mr. Winters when we were at the Cup and Bean,” I told him.

He nodded and took another sip of his coffee. “Why does that not surprise me? What did Mr. Winters have to say?”

“He said that Richard Thomas’s supplier is his cousin, Jared Thomas. I guess I don’t know him.”

He sighed and set his cup down. “I heard that already. Jared is a bad guy, and I wouldn’t want to mess with him.”

“Really?” I asked. It wasn’t often that Alec said that someone was so bad he wouldn’t want to mess with them. Alec wasn’t afraid of anyone, and the statement was telling.

He nodded. “If Richard had had any sense, he would have steered clear of him. He obviously didn’t have any sense.”

“But this Jared works at the grocery store,” Lucy said, taking a sip of her coffee. “That’s what Mr. Winters said. It doesn’t seem like a bad drug dealer would work at the grocery store.”

“In the frozen foods section,” I added.

He shrugged. “Maybe business hasn’t been so good. This is a small town, maybe there are only so many people who buy drugs around here.” He was smirking when he said it.

“I’m sure it doesn’t matter how small of a town it is, there’s always going to be people that are going to be involved in drugs,” Lucy said. “Is he a killer? Do you think he killed his cousin?”

Alec shrugged. “I wish I knew. If I could get him to come in here and confess to me, that would make my job a lot easier, and then Allie and I could go on our honeymoon.”

I looked at Lucy. “We need to talk to Jared and see if we can get him to confess to Alec so we can go on our honeymoon.”

“Oh no, wait a minute,” Alec said. “You are not going anywhere near him. I’m serious about him being a bad guy.”

I sighed and sat back in my chair. “Come on Alec, go down there, and put some pressure on the guy. We need to get this wrapped up so we can go on our trip.”

He shook his head and chuckled. “Well, what have you been up to? Have you been calling around for places to stay on our honeymoon?”

A change of subject. I nodded. “I’ve got a route mapped out, and we’re going to stop in six small towns over the next two weeks. We’ll stay in a bed-and-breakfast in three of those towns, and in the other towns, we’ll stay in motels. I think it’s going to be a quaint and picturesque trip.” I could hardly wait. I’d already seen pictures of the towns and the places we were going to stay online. I