Chapter 1
Lexy felt her stomach flutter as she approached the massive oak door. Balancing a huge glass tray loaded with artfully stacked towers of lemon, cheese and strawberry Danish pastries in one hand she teetered up the steps on the spikes of her Jimmy Choo stilettos.
She still felt a bit intimidated by the large house even though she had been there twice before. The elegant Victorian, owned by the absurdly wealthy Toliver family for the entire one hundred and fifty years of its existence, had bragging rights of being the biggest house in their little town.
She shifted the weight of the tray onto her shoulder, careful not to tip it. The Danish were part of the setup for a morning brunch - a fancy affair to celebrate the upcoming wedding of aging family patriarch Xavier Toliver. The catering job could give a big boost to her little bakery business and she wanted everything to go perfectly.
Lexy took a deep breath. She grabbed the cold brass door knocker, rapping it against the plate to announce her arrival. Instead of the expected sound of footsteps coming to the door, she heard the squeak of hinges. The door swung open on it’s own, beckoning her inside.
“Hello?” she ventured. Maybe they’re all busy getting ready and left it open so I could let myself in?
Lexy pushed the door wider taking a tentative step into the marble foyer.
“Hello...it’s me, Lexy Baker from the Cup and Cake.” No answer. Lexy shrugged. Better get to work. She shifted the tray so the palm of her hand would steady it and bear most of the weight. Proceeding forward she made her way through the foyer to the great hall which led to the kitchen. Hollow clacking sounds from her heels on the cold tile bounced off the oak paneled walls.
The hallway opened up into the expansive kitchen. Even though the house was old, the kitchen was modernized - a showcase of gleaming granite and oak.
“Is anyone here? I have the pastries.”
Lexy entered the kitchen. Looking for the best place to set the Danish, her eyes scanned the room, then settled on a pair of long tables covered in white cloths which had been placed by the palladium windows.
She skirted round the massive kitchen island, heading towards the tables. Something sticking out from behind the breakfast bar caught her eye. Were those feet?
She took a few steps over to get a closer look. They were feet - well dressed feet wearing the latest Steve Madden pumps laying at an impossible angle on the floor.
Lexy knew something was very wrong, she wanted to run, but her body seemed to have other ideas and it stepped closer to the feet. Against her will, her head craned around the corner.
Crash!
Lexy felt sharp pinches on her ankles, saw Danish pastries bouncing off the floor. She heard a loud, high scream that wouldn’t stop. It took her a few minutes to realize the scream was coming from her.
***
The rough texture of crisp linen scratched against Lexy’s cheek. Strong hands rubbed her back. She wasn’t sure how long she had stood there screaming or whose hands were soothing her. Apparently the owner of those hands had a soothing voice to match and it was murmuring in her ear. It felt good. She wanted to just forget about everything else and melt into the crisp linen. But she couldn’t.
Lexy turned away from the shirt. Her stomach lurched. Her breath caught sharply in her throat. She felt dizzy, but forced herself to look. In front of her, the kitchen was a sticky mess of Danish pastry, glass and blood. Yep, blood. The blood came from the body which had been attached to those designer clad feet - the body of Chastine Johnson, the fiancee of Xavier Toliver. She lay on her side on the kitchen floor, the blood apparently coming out of the big hole in her chest. A stab wound, Lexy guessed, although she’d never actually seen one in real life.
“Don’t look.” The murmurer tried to pull her head back to his chest. Lexy looked up. Concerned ice blue eyes looked back at her.
“Who are you?” she asked, pushing herself away reluctantly. Her eye started to twitch a bit at the corner. She put her finger up to it, mashing her lower lid in an effort to get the twitching to stop.
“Blake Toliver...and you are?” He held out his hand. Lexy reciprocated, her small hand disappearing inside his large one. The handshake as warm and firm. It felt rather pleasant despite the gruesome circumstances.
“I’m Lexy Baker. I own the Cup and Cake Bakery. I was delivering pastries for the brunch when I found...” She nodded in the direction of the body, letting her voice trail off. Ripping her glance away from the dead woman, she turned her attention back to Blake. She knew from what she had heard around town that Xavier Toliver had two sons. Blake was one of them, but she’d thought he would be older considering his father was well into his seventies.
Apparently Xavier had waited until later in life to become a father. The outcome wasn’t half bad. Blake looked to be a few years older than Lexy. He was tall, about six feet and broad shouldered. Black curly hair framed a handsome face providing a perfectly, delicious contrast to his ice blue eyes. Lexy might have felt all tingly and hot if there hadn’t been a body laying five feet away...and if she wasn’t involved with someone...sort of.
She spun around at the sound of heavy boots coming up behind her. In front of her stood another tall, dark and handsome man. The other son. But where Blake was all charm and smiles, this one seemed dark and moody with black close cut hair and dark brown, stormy eyes.
Lexy held out her hand to make friends. “I’m Lexy Baker...”
“I heard you introduce yourself to my brother.” He ignored her hand which Lexy let dangle foolishly in the air until the onset of another eye twitch caused her to grind it into her eye again.
“This is my brother Bronson,” Blake interjected. “I apologize for his bad manners, he can be such a caveman sometimes.”
Bronson ignored the remark. “I called 911 - the police should be here any minute.” Sirens wailed in the distance as if to verify the statement.
“Shall we go in the other room, it’s a bit unpleasant in here. We probably shouldn’t be milling about the crime scene anyway.” Blake put his hand on the small of Lexy’s back propelling her down the hall. Lexy cast a look back over her shoulder marveling at how easy it was to get used to looking at a dead body - just minutes ago she was a screaming mess and now she could look over there with barely a tummy twinge.
Blake steered her inside a lavishly decorated room. He nodded towards a blue velvet antique tufted wing back chair motioning for her to sit while he moved behind a wet bar.
He grabbed a couple of ice cubes with silver tongs and dropped them into a short glass, the cubes made clinking sounds as they hit the bottom. Choosing a crystal decanter from the sideboard, he pulled off the top and filled a couple of fingers worth of smokey amber liquid from the decanter into the glass which he held up towards Lexy.
“Drink?”
Lexy shook her head. Kind of early in the morning for drinks, isn’t it?
Blake looked over at Bronson who leaned against the doorframe, not quite in the room but not quite out of it either.
“Too early for you, Bronnie?”
Bronson just stared back.
Lexy couldn’t help but notice a strange dynamic between the brothers which made her feel a bit uncomfortable. Their behavior towards each other wasn’t the only thing that set her on edge. The thing that she found most odd was it appeared that neither of the brothers seemed too surprised...or upset...that a murder had just happened right in their own kitchen.
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