Read Online Dark Chocolate Demise by Jenn McKinlay - Free Book Online Page B

bathroom.”
    â€œI did,” she said. “But I didn’t want to try and cram all of this”—she gestured to her poufy skirt—“in a stall, so I went back to the bakery. On my way back, I ran into Roach and we talked.”
    Roach made a scoffing sound and Tate frowned at him. Mel had a feeling fists were going to fly at any moment. She suspected that Oz and Marty were getting the same feeling as they inched closer to Tate, as if to be in grabbing range.
    â€œOh, no you don’t,” Angie said to Roach. “Don’t you try to make something out of nothing. We talked. It was very nice. Don’t ruin it.”
    Roach let out an impatient sigh, and Mel noted that Tate’s shoulders seemed to ease down just a little bit. Then they snapped back up as Tate studied Roach more closely.
    â€œYou know, given that you’ve been accused of murder once before, I’d say that of the two of us, that makes you the more likely suspect,” Tate said. “That and the fact that
I
got the girl. What’s the matter, you couldn’t sweet talk her back to you so you decided to kill her?”
    This time Roach did lose his cool. With a gruff shout, he lowered his head like a bull about to charge. Tate shoved Angie into Oz’s arms and braced himself. The hit never came. Roach took only three steps forward, when he was grabbed by the back of his expensive leather jacket.
    Mel glanced around him to see Detective Manny Martinez holding on to Roach but looking at her.
    â€œIt’s been a long time, Mel,” he said.
    Caught off guard by the handsome detective, Mel nodded.
    â€œFive weeks, four days, and a handful of hours to be exact,” he said.
    Mel raised her eyebrows in surprise. He’d been counting?
    Manny passed Roach off to Officer Henry. “Walk him around until he cools off.” Then he turned to Tate and said, “Really?”
    â€œSorry, it’s been a rough afternoon,” Tate said.
    Manny nodded. “So, I heard.” He glanced over his shoulder at the crime scene techs working around the body. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to be briefed.”
    He left without waiting for a response, and Mel felt her insides pinch. She and Manny had been friends, maybe even a little bit more than friends, given that he had saved her life and all, but he had wanted more, and she could never be more. She was in love with Joe DeLaura, and she always would be.
    â€œI think I liked it better when he thought he had a chance with you,” Angie said. “This feels . . . awkward.”
    â€œTell me about it,” Mel said.
    Uncle Stan came tromping through the crowd. He had his usual roll of antacid tablets clutched in his fist, and Mel could see he was clearly unhappy about being called to the scene of a homicide in the middle of all of this chaos.
    â€œBack up!” he barked at a pair of zombies who were crowding him. He stopped in front of Mel and company and stared at them. “Oh, for the love of Pete, not you, too.”
    â€œWe’re working it,” Mel said by way of explanation. Then she gestured to the van as if to prove they had not been having any fun of any kind.
    â€œStan,” Officer Henry called his name, and Stan turned to face him. “Did Mel tell you that she’s the one who found the body?”
    Stan turned back to Mel with a look of disbelief. She gave him a sheepish shrug.
    â€œShe was stuffed in our coffin,” Mel explained. At his sympathetic look, the words came tumbling out in a rush. “She’s dressed like a bride and I thought she was Angie and then I couldn’t get her out and then there was so much blood . . .”
    Mel started to hiccup and Stan opened his arms and pulled her into a bear hug, so much like the ones her father, Stan’s older brother, used to give when she was little that Mel’s hiccups turned into sobs, and she gooped all over his suit