Wicked Whoopie Pies Addison Moore (the false prince series TXT) 📖

“Noah,” I hiss. “What do you think happened?”

He takes a deep breath. “I think maybe whoever sent those notes came in looking for them.”

A hard groan comes from me. “And I left them right out in plain sight, making their job that much easier.”

Noah closes his eyes a moment. “Don’t worry, Lot. I’m betting they would have found them anyway.” He gives a few rapid blinks. “But how would whoever sent the notes know that Terri kept them?”

“Beats me. Maybe they came in looking for something else?” I cast a quick glance around at the office with its walls lined with thick wooden shelves and on each one sits rows and rows of tiny porcelain horrors staring back at us.

“Ooh.” Lyla Nell’s little pink mouth opens as she seems to be studying each and every one of them with great interest.

“I think she’s going to really like dolls,” I say as I bounce her over toward one of the shelves.

“I could think of worse things to like,” he says. “While we’re here, I’ll poke around. No use in wasting a perfectly good warrant.”

He gets right to work, and I study the dolls in their frilly colorful dresses right along with Lyla Nell. No sooner do we meander to the second wall of horrors than I spot a small silver frame, no bigger than my hand, partially hidden by a doll in a purple and black lacy number. I fold my sleeve over my hand and pull the frame into view without touching it with my fingers, and inside is a black and white picture of a man. He has light eyes and a bright smile, dimples that run down longitudinally. He’s wearing a dress shirt, and the glint from his watch catches the sun. There’s water behind him, the lake maybe, and he looks caught off guard as he twists to turn toward the camera.

Over the corner of the frame there looks to be a smudge of something light pink with sparkles and I lean in to inspect it.

“Oh my word, that’s lipstick. Ha. She must have been smooching it.” I pull out my phone and take a few quick snaps of the man in the frame. And as I get in close, Lyla Nell seizes the opportunity and grabs one of the demonic dollies by the hem of her skirt and flings her into the air. Both Lyla Nell and I watch in horror as the tiny ballerina takes flight, right before plummeting straight to the floor and smashing her face to bits.

“Lottie?” Noah bolts over.

“Your daughter did it.” My shoulders hike up a notch. “It looks as if she’s going to do whatever it takes to get her hands on a dolly of her own.”

Noah chuckles as he lands a kiss to her forehead. “How about we stop by the toy store on Main? Something tells me she’s perfectly capable of picking a doll out on her own. I’ll come back tomorrow with Ivy and dust this place down for prints.”

“Ivy?” I make a face. “I’m sure she’ll want to thoroughly inspect the bedroom with you. Not that I can blame her. But it doesn’t mean I have to like her. Unless—you like her.” My voice wobbles without my permission.

He shakes his head as he pulls me in and we sandwich Lyla Nell between us. “Not that way. Not anywhere near how I feel about you.” He brushes his thumb over my cheek. “Let’s get out of here unless, of course, you want to check out the bedroom?” He waggles his brows.

“Please.” I laugh. “Lyla Nell would never sleep long enough for us to have a good time.” I stop shy of telling him about my sexual misadventures with Everett as of late. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want to hear them.

A tiny snore emits from right around my chest, and I look down to find Lyla Nell fast asleep as if refuting my words.

Well then.

I shake my head and don’t say a thing as we take off.

Someone broke into Terri Norris’ home—on the heels of my own break-in. And they took a heck of a lot of incriminating evidence with them.

It makes me wonder who and why.

But I’m betting the answers to that are: the killer—to cover their tracks.

I don’t doubt for a minute that whoever killed Terri and whoever sent those notes are one an the same.

Terri knew her demise was on the dark horizon. It was printed out for her in black and white.

The killer’s demise is on the horizon, too.

And I can’t wait for the dawn of justice to arrive.

Lottie

Noah and I stopped by and let Lyla Nell pick out a doll—not porcelain, and not scary in the least. In fact, she has the same dark hair and dimples as Lyla Nell. Confession: I almost have the urge to nurse her, too. After that little jaunt, Noah had to rush back to Ashford to finish out his shift.

Lily asked if we could close an hour early because she was invited to some hot party she said she didn’t want to miss. And since Suze had already left for the day and I needed to get Lyla Nell home, I agreed. Our last hour of operation is always our slowest, and there hadn’t been a customer in the bakery for at least forty minutes at that point.

Keelie and I help clean up, and Lyla Nell giggles and kicks her way through most of it until she decides it’s dinnertime, so I take a seat in the café and nurse her while perusing my phone.

“Well, Lottie?” Keelie comes over and sits across from me. Her blonde mane is frazzled, her mascara is smudged, and she has red stains over her apron that look as if she’s just been through a massacre. I’m betting those stains are from the marinara sauce they make next door at the Honey Pot. Now just thinking about marinara sauce on anything is making me hungry. “It’s