Wicked Whoopie Pies by Addison Moore (english novels to improve english TXT) 📕

“You got a point there,” I say out loud because it works in response to both of their comments. “Did you hear that the sheriff’s department thinks she was poisoned?”

“I didn’t, but then I didn’t need to hear it. I knew it the second she fell face-first into a plate of your desserts. Make no bones about it, someone wanted her dead. And they wanted it to happen at that exact moment. Lots of people in the room had it out for the old lady. She was a troublemaker.”

“I gathered as much.”

Binky swats me with her tail. “Lottie, Terri was my girl. Sure, she captured me in the thick of night, separated me from my friends and family, and had my stink box as she called it surgically removed. The rest of the world may have called her Terri the Terror, but to me she was Mom. That’s what she insisted I call her. Not that I could call her anything at the time. But oh, she squeezed me good and hard until I cried out something similar. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, Carlotta!”

“Never mind that,” I whisper. “Sergio, did Terri do anything specific to upset you? I mean, I think she did something to upset all of us quite frankly. It just seemed to be her way.” I may as well go with it.

The muscles in his jaw jump as he looks straight ahead. “Yeah, she ticked me off.” He shrugs. “I hired her to redo the website at Mangias. She said she wanted to do it on my own computer at the shop, so I let her. It cost me five grand. The website was decent, lots of bells and whistles I’ll never use, but about a week after she finished the job, she came back and said she needed another two and a half grand.”

“Whatever for?” The five grand already had me balking.

He gives a quick glance around before leaning in. “Look, I thought it was strange that she wanted to create the website from my computer to begin with. I may not be tech-savvy, but I know enough to realize she could have constructed the entire thing from the comfort of her living room and just shot me the URL and passcodes. So when she hit me up for the extra money, I knew.”

“He knew what?” Binky tosses her hands his way.

“You knew what?” I parrot.

He gives a long blink. “She hacked into all my systems. She claimed I left my accounting tab open, but I knew that wasn’t true. I always sign out of the accounting software before I leave the office in the event an employee went in and took a look at it. I’m the owner, the numbers mean different things to me. Some kid making minimum wage might think my brothers and me are loaded, but they wouldn’t know about all the overhead we’ve got.” His shoulders jerk. “Anyway, Terri thought we weren’t claiming any cash sales. She thought we had two sets of books. One for us and one for our accountant. She was wrong. Dead wrong.”

Both Binky and I jump a little as he says it.

“She wanted me to give her hush money. But I didn’t kill her.” His lips tug to the side. “However, I have a feeling I know who did.”

“Who?” Binky and I howl at once.

Binky does a series of three quick flips. “Get on with it already. Carlott—”

“Who killed her?” I ask, taking a step in closer to him.

Sergio takes a deep breath. “I think it was Clem.” He offers a forlorn smile. “My sister looked at her husband crooked a few weeks back and Clem jumped right down her throat.”

My heart thumps wildly. “Clem?” The things that Olive mentioned about her husband having an affair with Terri come to mind. “Do you think Clem was so jumpy about her husband because he was, you know, unfaithful?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. Some chicks are just unstable that way. I don’t know.” He scratches the back of his neck. “I had a girlfriend once who I didn’t want anyone looking at. I got a little hotheaded about it. A part of me gets it. But women are supposed to be more levelheaded about those things. She should have known better. Call me old-fashioned. Anyway, for the last two weeks, Clem has been having one confrontation after another with Terri. And oddly, it was always while there were others around.”

“That’s interesting. Clem is a teacher at Honey Hollow High. You’d think she wouldn’t want anyone in on her business.”

“Different strokes for different folks. You gonna be okay here tonight? You want an escort to the parking lot? This ain’t no place for a lady.”

Binky chortles. “Someone forgot to tell the rest of the girls.”

“I’ll be fine. I’m here with friends.” Okay, so that’s mostly a lie. More like a friend and others.

“Have a good night, Lottie.”

He takes off and Binky zips me off to the table where, to my horror, I find Naomi, Lily, and Cormack whooping it up at the foot of the stage while Carlotta dances on the table with her top off, spinning it over her head like a flag.

I step over to Keelie. “Is she surrendering to the universe or swatting a fly?”

She laughs as she bucks her hip to mine. “Get with it, Lottie! The real party is about to start.”

“What real party?”

“And now”—the lights flicker on and off as a disembodied voice filters through the speakers—“all the way from Higgins Bottom, Arizona—let’s welcome Char—lay.”

“What?” I squawk so loud it pierces right over the raucous music.

“Lottie!” Greer zooms my way, and along with her is her two-hundred-year-old boy toy Winslow Decker. Winslow has dirty blond hair, a sweet smile, and is as handsome as can be. He’s frozen in time at about the age of thirty and used to have a pig farm on the land where my mother’s B&B is situated. “I tried to stop her. But she’s