For Mirabelle Graham, it wasn't blood and oxygen that kept her alive. It was the sugar coursing through her veins and the sweet aroma of cupcakes filling her lungs that sustained her.

Finn had a feeling he shouldn't drive to the TinCaps game – Parkview Field isn't that far a walk from his Wayne Street coffee shop.

Eugene Thompson sat at a table, taking small, deliberate bites of his rocky road brownie sundae. The combination of chocolate and caramel, salt and sweet was almost too much for him. In a good way.

“Good morning. Thank you for calling Swinney, Todd & Blazer. Please hold.” “Good morning and thank you for calling Swinney, Todd & Blazer. Please hold.

The afternoon July air was hot and thick, and Jennifer Sanders could feel the beads of sweat forming along her brow. She reached down for her purse, lying on the sidewalk, and pulled out a Clinique compact.

“The police aren’t doing anything,” Mirabelle exclaimed, slamming her beer onto her dining table. The Mad Anthony Summer Daze sloshed out of the glass, creating a puddle of amber liquid on the white surface. “Not!

April walked down the alley, the sky still dark and the stars still out. Even at 5 a.m., it was hot and muggy.

Mirabelle and April jumped off the parking garage ledge where they had been perched, their eyes darting around frantically. "What was that?" April said in a whispered mumble – her mouth still full of milkshake.

Mirabelle's body was slumped over the marble counter of the Queen Pin kitchen, her head resting on her folded arms. Dark brown hair flopped over her face.

"Get down from there!" Mirabelle said, swatting her hand at April's bottom, which was perched on the case at the Queen Pin bakery. "Someone might see you!

It was 6:23. It was 7 minutes before Harrison Todd said he would arrive. Seven minutes before Mirabelle would have an answer to the question that haunted her for much of the afternoon:

“Well, thanks for dinner,” Mirabelle said from the top step of Queen Pin.

Mirabelle stretched out her legs and crossed them at her ankles. Her mother would kill her for this, she thought to herself.

Finn pulled the silver fork from his mouth and clinked the tines against the edge of the crumb-coated pink plate in front of him. "That guy from last night," he began, "you know the one at JK O'Donnell's?

The white rectangular box landed with a thump on the round table. "Well, the cupcakes are here. Let's get this party started," Mirabelle said as she pulled out a chair tucked in the corner of Finn's downtown coffee shop.

Mirabelle could smell the spearmint gum on April’s breath as she leaned across the marble work surface in the kitchen of Queen Pin. “You think it’s who?” she whispered.

The cupcake tin landed with a clangy thud on the countertop, jolting Mirabelle from her fixed stare on the clock. 4:30 it read.

“How long has it been since you called?” April asked, looking up at Mirabelle with pleading eyes.Mirabelle clicked a button on her cellphone and stared for a moment.“A minute and a half.

“Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man. Bake me a cake as fast as you can. Pat it and roll it and mark it with an ‘M.’ And put it in the oven for Mirabelle and me.