Tres Leches Cupcakes by Josi S. Kilpack Read Free Book Online

good friend and the owner of her own cupcake catering business. For the second year in a row, Lois had a booth at the upcoming Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque—an annual hot air balloon festival that Sadie had heard about, but never actually been to. Sadie loved the idea of helping Lois with her cupcakes, but she knew if she never resolved her questions about what had happened at the dig, she would remain frustrated. She wanted more than newspaper articles.
    “I’m going to run some errands,” she said, making sure the plastic wrap was good and tight around the plate. She’d decided to talk to Margo for a variety of reasons, but mostly because Margo was the one person from the dig that Sadie felt connected to. Finding that body together had made them into an unexpected partnership.
    “I’ll come with you,” Caro said as she started gathering up the bills she was sorting.
    Sadie hurried to talk her out of it as gently as she could. “Well, after the library I was going to stop at Margo’s. She’s the woman I worked with at the site that last day. She was really upset about everything. I want to make sure she’s okay.”
    “Oh,” Caro said, reading between the lines. “It would probably be awkward if I came, wouldn’t it?”
    Sadie made a regretful face. “Probably. Sorry.” While waiting to be cleared to leave the site that night, Margo had smoked her way through half a pack of cigarettes while Sadie came up with a hundred things to talk about in hopes of keeping Margo at least a little bit distracted. It hadn’t helped much. Seeing all the graves open had devastated Margo. It was as though the bodies were her own people—despite her Caucasian ancestry—and she took the fact that they weren’t being properly removed as a personal failure. At the same time, once she got over the initial, intense shock, she seemed a bit embarrassed by her reaction. Sadie hoped that her impromptu visit wouldn’t be too unwelcome.
    “That’s okay,” Caro said, trying to be a good sport. She fanned the bills back out on the table. “You know where she lives?”
    “Background check,” Sadie said with a casual shrug. Didn’t everyone do background checks on their acquaintances? Granted, Sadie hadn’t done a full report on Margo yet, but it had taken less than five minutes for her to find the address. Like Kyle Langley, Margo had her own place—she was easy to find. “I won’t be gone very long—maybe an hour. I could stop and pick up the tortillas for the Tostadas Compuestas. You still wanted to make that tonight, right?”
    “That’d be great. I’m almost out of Monterey Jack cheese, too, if you don’t mind.” The chili con carne was already simmering in the slow cooker, filling the house with the most delectable smell.
    Sadie assured her she didn’t mind, but by the time she was on the road, her eagerness to talk to Margo had moved to the top of Sadie’s list of errands. The library and the Mexican market weren’t going anywhere.
    Margo’s duplex was on the other end of town, so it took a good ten minutes before Sadie pulled up in front of the very basic adobe structure. Caro had shown her some traditional adobe in the restricted section of the city where everything had remained authentic, but the majority of the “adobe” was made of a stucco-type material.
    Parked in the driveway on Margo’s side of the duplex was a 1970s model Land Cruiser with faded green paint and some stickers on the back window: “Bark Less Wag More,” which Sadie didn’t understand, and a familiar blue “Coexist” sticker.
    Sadie took a breath, hoping to calm her nerves as she focused on her objectives: first, make sure Margo was all right, and then see if she could answer some of the questions Sadie couldn’t ask anyone else. Just talking to someone else invested in the dig would be a relief.
    Sadie reached the front door and knocked rather than ringing the doorbell. No one came to the door, but Sadie was sure Margo was