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She huffs. "I can't, Brett. I can't admit to him that after the divorce, his life became a paradise and mine… m-mine became a…." The words catch in her throat as she sobs, the tears flowing freely now.
"Pull over, baby," I tell her. "Slowly."
She does as I ask, turning slowly into the nearest parking lot and easing the car to a stop. Leaning across the car, I fold her into my arms.
"It's going to be okay," I say softly, though inside, my mind is still going a hundred miles an hour. "It's fine. We'll figure this out."
"That's why Ineedthis wedding to go well, Brett," she whispers into my shoulder, her voice so small I can barely understand her. "With the bakery going, the rest of Tinsley's payment will go into Sophia's account before she even notices it's gone. I c-can't let her know what I did, Brett. I need this day to go p-perfectly."
I rub her back, trying to calm her down. "Shh. Don't worry. It will. You're great at what you do. Everything will be fine." And even though I'm not sure yet that I believe it, I hope she will.
From the backseat, I hear Sophia let out a sleepy sigh, shifting as she starts to sit up.
"Are we there?" she mumbles, stretching. Then she pauses. "Oh jeez. You guys couldn't even wait ten minutes to before crawling all over each other? Come on."
"Sorry," Denise says quickly, sitting up and clearing her throat so Sophia won't hear how upset she is. "We'll get moving again."
"Like a couple of teenagers," I hear Sophia murmur to herself before she quickly falls back to sleep.
* * *
Paul and Sheilaare already waiting outside the Sugar Breeze when we arrive, along with one of Denise's bakers. As Denise hops out of the car and directs them to bring the supplies in, Sheila's eyebrows are furrowed in concern. She can tell Denise has been crying. But luckily, she knows better than to say anything. At least not yet.
As a group, we all head into the kitchen. With her little ragtag team of inexperienced helpers behind her, Denise quickly whips us all into shape. It's fascinating seeing her at work like this. When she wants to be, she can be an excellent boss, even on a day like this.
She and her baker will be at the dough station, cutting out hundreds of cookies and filling dozens of little pans, bringing them all to the ovens to bake. She puts Sheila and Sophia at the end of the line while Paul mans the ovens.
I'm at the far end of the kitchen with the large industrial mixers and hands a small stack of paper recipes.
"You're a smart man," she says, patting my arm affectionately. "I trust you can follow these recipes. They're not very complicated. I promise."
"Of course," I assure her, giving her a peck on the cheek. "Anything for you, babe."
Denise flushes a little, but my assurance seems to put a little extra pep in her step.
With all of us working together like this, the job gets done quickly. In fact, it all gets done so quickly that, within half an hour, Denise has moved from the dough station to the end of the production line, loading pastries into boxes to free up enough counter space for everything the ovens are still churning out.
The finished wedding cake sits in the corner, thawing from its night in the fridge and looking gorgeous. Virginal white with delicate icing swoops, edible pearls, and a sugar sun that looks immaculate at the top. Perfect and shining like stained glass.
Denise really is great at what she does.
After a few hours, Brittany finally arrives, smiling and waving shyly and apologizing for the delay. When Denise sees she's already come dressed for the wedding, she directs Brittany to bounce around the kitchen instead of a specific station. She's free to go wherever help is needed. And as Brittany immediately turns to me and gives a wave, my mood immediately sours. I do not return her greeting.
Because the more I think about it, the more things about the state of this bakery start to make less and less sense. And the connecting fiber between all of them in my mind is Brittany.
The more I think about it, the more I realize how strange some of the bakery's problems seem. How unlikely is it for so many different things to go wrong at once? Even the types of things that have gone wrong seem increasingly suspicious to me as each day goes by.
The bathroom door that mysteriously locked itself, for instance. The more I think about it, the weirder it gets.
Obviously, a door wouldn't just do something like that alone. It had to be a person. But not a customer. I've been in there. There are no other exits. No extra doors to pry open, no windows to climb through. It had to have been someone with access to a key. And the only two people I know for sure had access to the bathroom key are both standing in this room. Denise and Brittany.
And I know for sure thatoneof them didn't do it.
It seems so far-fetched, doesn't it? When Denise told me about the bathroom at first, about the myriad of problems at the Sugar Breeze, I realized they were strange, but I didn't put too much thought into it. Other things were going on in our lives that seemed more important. And besides, I was new in town. I had no reason to suspect anyone in the bakery of any wrongdoing.
But after seeing Brittany at the party with Austin….
Day by day, my suspicions of her only grow.
