“Oh my word,” I breathe, because suddenly everything makes horrible sense.
“I have to go,” Bunny says abruptly, noticing her new customer’s increasingly impatient expression. “But Lottie—I would never take my brother’s life. I may have wanted to throttle him sometimes, especially when he was being stubborn about the business, but I appreciated how much he did for our family.” She casts her gaze to the ground. “The gaping hole he left in his wake is evidence of that.”
Something she said earlier comes back to me. “Bunny, who sent you the flowers?”
She gives a little shrug. “It was sort of a mystery delivery. They just showed up this morning. Must be one of my many secret admirers.” She gives a little wink before hurrying away, leaving me standing next to a display of potentially deadly flowers with my mind racing through implications, and the deadly connections the Whitmores had with the Lazzari family.
“Well, that was illuminating,” Lenny growls. “Though I’m not sure if we just ruled out our primary suspect or discovered something much more dangerous.”
I start processing everything we’ve learned, letting the pieces fall into place with the satisfying click of a puzzle finally coming together.
“Luke was in it for a cover operation,” I sigh hard at the thought. “And I know just what mobsters like him need a good cover for. Lots and lots of illegal cash. No wonder Luke didn’t dare mention his true connection to this mess. It involved money laundering.”
Lenny belts out a roar.
Duncan’s nervousness about ending the partnership comes to mind. The financial irregularities that Fairbanks discovered with his tech expertise.
Lenny stands straight on all fours. “So who did this?”
“Someone with the computer skills to manage complex international transactions, the business knowledge to hide illegal money transfers within legitimate chocolate company operations, and the family access to both poison Duncan and steal Nell’s knife.”
He shakes his wooly mane, and a sprinkle of blue stars flies from it. “Someone who stood to lose everything if Duncan exposed the money laundering scheme—not just the legitimate chocolate business, but potentially decades in federal prison for racketeering charges.”
“Very good,” I tell him while giving his fur a quick pat. “Someone who had been at the festival, knew about my cakewalk supplies, understood Duncan was about to expose his wife, and had both the opportunity to poison him beforehand and stab him when the poison alone wasn’t working fast enough.”
He nods. “Someone who appeared helpful and grieving while actually protecting a criminal empire worth millions of dollars,” he counters.
“Touché,” I say as a thought comes to me. “Oh my goodness,” I whisper as the final pieces lock into place. “It wasn’t about family drama or business rivalries or even Luke Lazzari.”
Lenny tosses his head with a menacing roar. “What are you thinking?”
I look toward the Whitmore chocolate booth, bustling with bodies, then back at those lethal flowers.
“I know who sent them. I think I know who killed Duncan Whitmore—and why.”
NOAH
The parking lot looks like a war zone designed by teenagers with too much time and too little supervision.
The asphalt is a minefield of broken eggshells and scattered candy and enough trampled Easter grass to outfit a football field. Two groups of kids face off near the lake entrance, their Sunday best now bearing the battle scars of whatever social media drama escalated into actual warfare.
“Seriously?” I mutter, surveying the damage as Ivy approaches with that expression she reserves for situations that test her faith in humanity’s future. Usually, those have to do with Lottie.
“The one with the bunny ears started it,” she says, gesturing toward a girl who’s somehow managed to maintain her composure despite looking like she wrestled with a rainbow. “Something about someone stealing someone else’s boyfriend, which led to accusations about fake designer purses, which somehow escalated into a full-scale turf war involving bunny ears and plastic eggs as weapons.”
“Of course, it did.” I watch as one kid tries to untangle himself from what appears to be fifty feet of pastel ribbon. “Because nothing says teenage romance drama like weaponized holiday decor.”
Ivy snorts, pulling out her notepad. “I’ve got statements from halfthe combatants, but they’re all speaking in some kind of code that involves social media platforms I’ve never heard of and relationship terminology that makes my head hurt.”
“The joys of law enforcement in the digital age,” I say, stepping over a deflated inflatable bunny that’s seen better days. “Remember when teenagers fought over valid things like who looked at whom wrong in the hallway?”
“Those were simpler times.” Ivy glances around at the carnage with something akin to nostalgia. “At least we could understand the motives back then. I can finally say I don’t even understand teenagers.”
“I don’t understand teenagers either,” I tell her. “They say things like, ‘I love that for you,’ and they mean it as an insult.”
“Sounds like the next generation’s way of saying ‘bless your heart.’”
I tick my head toward the blossoming crowd of teens. “Let’s go bless a few hearts.”
