“Does your boss have any idea how you work their system?” I asked with a smile.
“She doesn’t want to, Suzanne. I’m running the number three territory in the Southeast. As long as the numbers are good, no one asks me any questions.”
“It must be nice,” I said as I wiped the counter down.
“It has its moments,” she said. Grace looked back into the kitchen where Emma was happily washing the last dishes, glasses, cups, and trays for the day. It was clear that my assistant was listening to her iPod by the soft sounds of her singing along with the music. Sometimes I tried to guess based on what I heard, but it was often too hard to do. Emma wasn’t exactly tone deaf, but she wasn’t spot-on in her sing-alongs, either. “What’s on the schedule for this afternoon?”
“Do you mean after I finish cleaning up here, closing out the register, making my deposit out, and generally shutting the donut shop down for the day?”
“Yeah, after all of that,” Grace said with a grin. “Don’t try to complain to me about what you do. You know as well as I do that you love it.”
“Guilty as charged,” I said as I returned her smile. “We need to find Peter and talk to him. That’s got to be first on our list.”
“Do you really think that he might have killed Jude?” Grace asked.
“I don’t know, but there’s enough smoke around that I’m willing to look for some fire.”
“Okay, so we talk to Peter. What’s in store after that?” Grace said as she flipped open the box of donuts. She was trying to eat healthier these days, but that didn’t mean that she was willing to cut donuts completely out of her life.
“You can have one, you know,” I said.
“What? No. No thanks. No offense,” she said as she closed the lid and scooted the donuts back toward me. “I’ve picked up a few pounds lately that I’ve been trying to lose.”
“You look great, and you know it,” I said as I moved them out of her reach.
“Yes, we’re all pretty,” she said happily. “Are we going to talk to Max, too?”
“We have to, don’t we?” I asked.
“Well, Jude used to go out with Emily, and Max is the jealous type, so yes, he needs to be on our list.”
“That’s going to be more awkward than I can even fathom,” I said.
“I could do it by myself, if you’d like me to,” Grace offered.
“Thanks, but I’ll manage to get through it,” I replied. “Should we talk to Emily as well?”
“Do you honestly think that she might have killed Jude?” Grace asked, the surprise clear on her face.
“I don’t know, but we have to ask,” I said.
“What motive could she possibly have?”
“What if Jude threatened to tell Max something that would break up the wedding?” I asked. “She might kill him to protect her love.”
“What could he say that could possibly drive Max away?” Grace asked. “The man’s absolutely smitten with her. You said as much yourself.”
“That’s just it. I don’t know. We need to find anyone Jude interacted with in the last few days who might have a reason to want to see him dead.”
“That could be a long list of suspects,” Grace said after whistling softly.
“Then we’d better get started.”
“Is there anything else we need to do today?”
There was something else on my personal list, but I wasn’t about to tell Grace that I was going to track Jake down, even if I had to drive to Raleigh to do it. I was going to find out what my boyfriend had on his mind, one way or the other. If he was going to dump me, I needed to get it over with. I honestly was beginning to think that the suspense of it all was worse than anything that he could say to me. That wasn’t exactly true, but I did hate being kept in the dark about his intentions. “Nothing I can’t handle on my own.”
“Are you talking about Jake?” she asked tentatively.
“I really don’t want to discuss it,” I said.
She could read my tone of voice better than anybody but my mother could. Grace recognized the fact that I was ending the conversation before it could even get started. “Okay, what can I do to help around here so we can get started?” she asked as she clapped her hands together and looked around the donut shop.
“You could wipe the tables down and sweep the floor,” I said.
“Consider it done,” she said. Grace grabbed a rag, and I started balancing the register receipts and running my daily reports. Everything checked out on the first try, and I was just finishing up the deposit slip when Emma walked out.