Carrot Cake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #10)(11)

“You’re right,” Gus admitted. “I’m guilty as charged.” He turned to Hannah. “Will you put away a plate of carrot cake for me?”

“Oh. Well…sure. How much do you want?”

“At least half a cake,” Patsy answered for him. “That’s what he used to ask Marge for. And in the morning, it was all gone. Gus was a midnight refrigerator bandit.”

“So is Jack,” Marge said, in an attempt to bring Jack into the conversation.

Hannah turned to look at Jack. He wasn’t having it. He was just staring at Gus and glowering.

“I don’t suppose you brought that Cocoa Fudge Cake tonight, did you?” Gus addressed Marge. Hannah was sure he’d noticed that Jack was glowering at him, but he preferred to ignore it.

“Not tonight, but I’m baking it tomorrow. I’ll make an extra cake, just for you.”

“For me and not for your boyfriend?” Gus glanced across the table at Jack.

“Jack isn’t exactly my boyfriend, although I love him a lot. I always have and I always will.” Marge shot Gus a level look and took a deep breath. Hannah suspected that she was debating the wisdom of saying more. “And speaking of love,” Marge went on, “how could you leave Lake Eden in the middle of the night without saying anything to any of us?”

Gus reared back as if he’d been hit buy a salvo of enemy arrows. “I didn’t do it on purpose, Marge. It was just that I had to go then. I don’t have to explain myself to you or to anyone else.”

“No, you don’t,” Patsy chimed in. “But you should have. It’s too late for the people who loved you the most. Our parents are dead now. They deserved an explanation, or at least a goodbye before you left.”

“They never stopped believing that you’d come home,” Marge added. “And you never even wrote, or called, or anything. We saw their hearts break, and we want to know why.”

Hannah’s head swiveled to Gus. He looked horribly uncomfortable. For a split second she almost felt sorry for him, but what Marge and Patsy had said was true. Gus hadn’t bothered to call, or write, or contact his parents in any way. And now it was too late.

Gus was silent for a moment. And then he leaned forward. “I couldn’t,” he said. “I had to prove myself first. And that didn’t happen until a couple of years ago.”

Hannah began to frown. Gus had been bragging about his nightclub business when she’d joined Marge in the booth. “But you said you were successful once your flagship, Mood Indigo, got off the ground. You also said that you paid off the money you borrowed to start it over twenty years ago. You could have come back then. Your parents were still alive.”

Gus turned to her, and Hannah fought to the urge to shrink back. He didn’t look happy that she’d caught him in an inconsistency.

“What is this? The inquisition?” He gave Hannah a look intended to warn her off. “I didn’t want to put the cart before the horse. There’s no way I wanted to contact Mother and say I was a successful businessman and then fail in my plans for expansion.”

“Expansion?” Mac leaned closer. “You have more than one nightclub now?”

“You bet. I’ve got four, and I’m thinking about expanding again. Atlantic City is a great place to own a nightclub, and they’re popping up all over.”

Mac leaned slightly closer to Gus. “You must be pulling in a good profit to think about opening another one.”

“Oh, I am. You don’t expand unless you’ve got the money to do it. That’s what I meant about putting the cart before the horse. It always takes a while to get a new club going.”

“The construction of the building?” Mac guessed.

“That and the fact you have to get the customers in and then keep them coming back. You definitely have to set aside a big budget for advertising.”

“I like the name Mood Indigo,” Marge said, and Hannah noticed that she squeezed Jack’s hand. “Do all the others have a blue theme?”

Gus looked relieved now that they’d switched to a less personal subject, and he favored his sister with a smile. “It’s clever of you to realize that. We play mainly blues in the clubs. And the décor in each club is a different shade of blue. There’s Mood Indigo, you already know about that. And then there’s the Aqua Room, Sky Blue Heaven, and Midnight Stars. I got that idea from the map of the heavens I used to have on my ceiling. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to go through that trunk from my old bedroom. I thought I might come up with another name for a nightclub.”

“True Blue,” Jack offered. “Except that it wouldn’t fit. You’ve never been true to anyone in your life.”

“And you’ve never minded picking up the leftovers,” Gus shot back.

There was a moment of silence when everyone just held collective breaths. Hannah wondered if they would sit there forever, just wanting for that second shoe to drop. She hated to think of what might happen if it did. Jack was glaring at Gus. And Gus was glaring at Jack. This could be very awkward, especially since she was seated next to Gus.

“Excuse me,” Hannah said. And the tension eased as everyone turned to look at her. “I think I’ll check my cake platter to see if I need to cut more. Does anyone else want more dessert?”