Henry tossed his gun in the safe and banged it shut, spinning the combination lock. He didn’t want the feel of the weapon against his thigh; he didn’t need any more temptation-especially since he had a sixer of Anchor Steam in the fridge and no one he needed to share it with.

He pushed his way through the swinging door into the kitchen and froze. Where he had left breakfast dishes scattered over the table, there now arose an enormous tiered edifice of white frosting with a small plastic bride and groom standing on top.

“Shawn!” he shouted. “Get down here.”

Two small faces appeared on either side of the wedding cake. Henry was pretty sure they belonged to his son Shawn and Shawn’s best friend, Gus, but both were so completely smeared with white, they could have been snowmen.

“Hi, Dad,” one of them said in Shawn’s voice. “Want some cake?”

“I want you to tell me where you got this,” Henry said. “And then I want you to tell me exactly how much trouble you’re in.”

“It’s our cake, Dad,” Shawn said.

“Which I’ll believe as soon as you show me the ring on Gus’ finger,” Henry said.

Gus lifted both hands and waggled his fingers. No rings. “We went into the bakery and Shawn asked for the biggest, best cake they had. And they had this, because someone had ordered it and never picked it up.”

“Poor Kathleen,” Shawn said. “If only she’d listened to her father. He knew Steve was no-good, that lousy two-timer.”

Henry could feel the blood vessels under his scalp constricting. His day had been bad enough already without having to deal with his own son’s malfeasance.

“Even accepting that this ludicrous story is true,” Henry said, “where could you have possibly gotten the money for a cake like this?”

“They gave us a big discount,” Gus said. “Apparently there isn’t much of a market for used wedding cakes.”