Authors: Jennifer L. Hart
Crickets. The only sound in the Bowtie Angel several hours later was the distinct chirp of the insects through the open screened door. It was like a bad movie sound effect, except it was my life—in stereo.
I moved into the main dining area, heart in my throat. The mess had all been cleaned away, the floors mopped, and the case that held the pasta scrubbed to gleaming. Other than the faint scent of cleanser, there was no way anyone would be able to tell what had happened here.
My career circled the drain.
Again.
Jones came up beside me and put a hand on my shoulder, his presence reassuring. We stood there in silence for a time, both of us lost in our own thoughts. My enthusiasm and get-up-and-go from earlier had disappeared with my customers.
"I don't understand." My voice was thicker than Alfredo, choked up with overwhelming emotions. "Kaylee and I tasted while we prepared it all, and we're fine. What went wrong?"
Jones squeezed my shoulder with a gentle pressure. He had no answers. I knew that, but that squeeze meant he'd do whatever it took to help me find some. "Come on. We should go home."
My eyes met his, and I nodded. "Okay."
"Give me your keys." He held out his hand.
Too numb to protest, I did. It might take us hours to get home with Jones behind the wheel, but my situational awareness was nil. My brain kept turning the events of the day over and over in my head, looking for answers to the same old question—what had gone wrong?
"We'll know more when we hear from the lab," Jones murmured as we left the too-silent kitchen.
"Right." Kyle had had all the food from the bins sealed up and taken to a lab for testing. Between that and the hospital results from some of the people who'd gone in to have their stomachs pumped, we could figure out where the contamination had started. Once we narrowed down what the culprit was, we might have a better idea of what had happened. But knowing wouldn't get customers to spend their hard-earned money on my food.
I'd checked the Foodie Fanatic blog, and sure enough, I was the headline.
The Death Chef Strikes Again
, Fangirl#1 had written. All that work to rebuild my reputation, completely destroyed.
Jones locked up as I stared down the alley to the back. Jacob's construction crew had taken off some unknown amount of time ago, the patio area more of a mess than before they'd started. Idly the thought surfaced that I should call a halt to all the work, since there was no way I could ever pay Jacob back. Not after what had happened.
A tear slid down my cheek. The Bowtie Angel was shut down, indefinitely.
"Andrea," Jones cupped my face in his hands. "It'll be all right."
"Sure." The word came out sounding forced and hollow. I didn't believe him but was too wrung out to argue.
Jones escorted me to Mustang Sally and helped me into the car. Distantly I felt as though I was forgetting something, but my brain was too fuzzy to care. Whatever it was, it wasn't urgent.
The sun was much higher in the sky than it usually was when I drove up to Jones's house. The town car was gone, a small relief. Aunt Cecily and Pops would find out sooner or later about what had happened, but I didn't have the energy to try to explain what I didn't fully comprehend myself.
Lizzy and Clayton were perched in the hammock out back, and she was singing some sort of song to him that I didn't recognize. Something about ducks, and she quacked every other verse, which made the little guy chortle.
"I have some calls to make. Will you be all right?" Jones asked.
"Yeah." What I needed at the moment was a super-huge dose of nonjudgmental baby love. Clayton at least didn't look at me and think Death Chef or failure or loser.
Lizzy swung her legs over the side when she heard my approach, her genial expression morphed to concern. "Hi, Andy."
"You heard?" I asked flatly and reached for Clayton, needing his warm weight anchoring me to the earth. I felt completely insubstantial, like a gust of air would carry me off.
She grimaced. "It was on the news."
I closed my eyes. Of course it was. I couldn't make a mistake without it ending up on television. "Did Pops and Aunt Cecily see it?"
Lizzy settled back on the hammock, one leg dangling casually over the side. "They left before it aired, so I don't know for sure. What happened?"
I just shook my head.
"Do you want me to stick around?" Lizzy asked. "I could help out with Clay, give him dinner and a bath."
Surprised, I opened my eyes to study her. A year ago I never could have imagined Lizzy Tillman eager to babysit. "You've been really great these last couple of days, you know that?"
She shrugged, appearing uncomfortable. "It's what you do for family."
"It is," I agreed. "But I still get to say thank you. And yes, I would love for you to stick around and help out."
The sound of gravel crunching under tires snagged our attention. I gasped, horrified at the sight of the news van heading toward us.
"They can't come up here." Lizzy sounded furious, an irate fairy princess on the warpath. "This is private property."
I was already scurrying toward the house. The absolute last thing we needed was the press getting a good look at Clayton and for some reporter to get curious. It would be open season on my personal life as well as my professional one.
Clayton and I rushed through the door just as Jones emerged from the basement. "Your grandfather telephoned to warn us about the paparazzi. They're at the rental too."
"This is a nightmare," I huffed. "Lizzy's out there reading them the riot act, but I don't know if they saw me with Clayton."
Jones took the little guy from me, but Clayton snagged a fistful of my hair and yanked, screaming bloody murder.
"I have him," I snapped, my temper burning through my numbness. Jones stepped back, dropping his hands, and I felt like a shrew. "Sorry."
With his son in my custody, Jones moved toward the front windows and pulled a sheer to the side. "Should I telephone the sheriff?"
I considered it then shook my head. "Kyle can only push them back to the property line."
Jones looked over at me, one eyebrow raised. "You know this, how?"
"Firsthand experience." What we needed was to escape for the night, somewhere they wouldn't look for us. My rental house was out, and no way would I lead the circus to Donna's. There was only one option left. "Go out, and tell them I'll make a statement tomorrow in town and that they need to get off the property, or we will involve law enforcement."
"Do you think that'll head them off?" Jones raised a brow.
I could only hope. "I think it will buy us time. Go, and I'll pack up."
Jones raised a brow. "Where are we going?"
I let out a sigh. "To the only place I can think of—the next circle of hell."
* * *
Lizzy and Jones managed to shoo the media back down to the main road. I had three bags packed, two for Clayton and one for Jones and me, and I met them by the door. "I think we should walk across the field to Lizzy's and then take her Audi down that horrible back road that comes out on the other side of the mountain."
Lizzy nodded. "Fine, but I'm coming too. Will I need my passport?"
"I sincerely hope not." Jones's tone was dry, but he sent me a speculative look.
"No, we aren't escaping extradition. We just need to lie low for a bit." I took a deep breath and pushed the words out. "We're going to Jacob's house."
Lizzy's eyes went wide, but Jones nodded, a small smile tugging at his lips. "Clever. There's no public record of your relationship with him, so the press won't know to look there. Let me grab my laptop, and then we'll go."
"You're just going to show up though?" Lizzy asked. "I mean, won't that be a little awkward?"
In fact it would be completely awkward, but there was no helping it. "Maybe, but I don't have any other ideas. Besides, he invited me, and Kaylee will be there. So will Kyle," I added, taking a time-out from my own drama to study her. Sure enough, her shoulders went back, and her chin lifted. "Will that be a problem for you?"
She sniffed indignantly. "No, of course not. The sheriff and I are adults."
"Adults who used to get naked together." The words slipped out before I thought better of it. Drat the brat for blindsiding me with that mental picture.
Lizzy blushed furiously. "Here, give me the baby before you drop him."
Clayton was in no danger, but I handed him over anyway. "Sorry, I didn't mean to go there. It's just for a minute—" I broke off, amazed by what I'd been about to admit.
"What?" Lizzy snapped.
Oh, what the hell. Not like the day could descend any further into madness. "I was talking to you the way I talk to Donna, you know? Like a friend."
Her lips parted, and she blinked. I couldn't tell if her shock stemmed from my admission or the fact that I'd been willing to cop to my feelings. Moments passed, and Jones returned.
"Anyway," I cleared my throat. "Sorry. It won't happen again."
"No," Lizzy whispered, surprising me. "I'm the one who should apologize. I'm not usually so sensitive. It's just…" She trailed off.
Jones looked back and forth between the two of us. "Am I interrupting something?"
"No," we both said and turned toward the door.
I thought about Lizzy's reaction as we schlepped across the field to her house. I knew exactly how she felt because I'd gotten used to being on the defensive with her. Teasing wasn't a normal part of our cool-but-cordial relationship. But she'd been so helpful over the last few days, looking out for Clayton and going toe-to-toe with the press on my behalf. I guess we were friends of a sort. But neither of us was ready to accept that change or the mutual caring that came with it.
By the time we loaded Clayton and all his gear into the car and maneuvered Lizzy's car down the treacherous back road, the sun was low on the western horizon. Luckily none of the dogged reporters had zoomed in on our escape route, and we hit the highway without incident.
"Should we call to let them know we're coming?" Lizzy, ever the polite southern belle, asked.
Jones, who sat in front next to her, shook his head. "Better if we don't. Someone might be able to trace the phone records back to Griffin."
"You would think there would be a bigger story somewhere in the world," I grumped. Clayton blew me a raspberry.
"It's all the attention from the
Diced
competition," Jones said. "That, plus your earlier incident is making headlines. And then there's Chad Tobey's death."
"What about it?" I asked. "I thought Kyle had that under wraps."
"It was on the news earlier," Lizzy added. "Right before your story."
"But we still don't know how he died, do we?"
Jones shifted in his seat. "The ME's report listed extreme anaphylaxis as the cause of death. It seems Mr. Tobey had a severe allergy to marshmallows."
"Marshmallows?" Lizzy and I chorused.
Jones turned to face me. "Technically the allergy is to the protein gelatin. That's what I found this morning but never had a chance to tell you. There were trace amounts of gelatin in his dinner, so the ME is ruling it an accident. But, considering what happened at the pasta shop earlier, I think there's more going on."
I held up a hand. "Wait a minute. You're telling me you think someone intentionally poisoned Chad Tobey with gelatin and then poisoned the entire pasta shop? Why?"
Jones shook his head. "As of right now, all I have is speculation. But it's too much of a coincidence that several people who worked on
Al Dente
when the mass food poisoning occurred suddenly show up in town, and then there's another incident also targeting you, Andrea."
"But why?" Lizzy asked. "Why go after Andy and the pasta shop over a year later?"
"I don't know." Jones let the words hang, and I knew what had to come next.
I took a deep breath. Though I'd have to be an idiot to miss the connections, I hadn't wanted to think that someone really did have it out for me. Next to me, Clayton breathed deeply, lulled by the steady rhythm of the car into a light doze. There was someone out there with a serious grudge against me, someone crazy enough to hurt a lot of innocent people just to make me look bad. I had to keep the people I loved safe.
"Malcolm—" I swallowed then cleared my throat. "You offered to look into the food poisoning before. Can you still do that?"
"At this point," Jones said, "I don't think we have any other option."
Italian Apple Crumb Cake
You'll need:
Cake:
5-6 medium apples
1 lemon, zested and juiced
7 tablespoons butter
⅓ cup milk
1¾ cups all-purpose flour
⅛ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Crumbs:
¾ cup all-purpose flour
⅓ cup sugar
6 tablespoons shortening
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350° F. Line the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan with parchment paper, and grease and flour the sides. Peel, core, and cut the apples into thin slices. Place in a large bowl, and toss them with the lemon juice to prevent browning. Melt butter in a microwave safe bowl and add the milk.
In another small bowl, sift the flour, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon together.
In a separate, large bowl, on low speed beat the eggs and sugar together until yellow and creamy, 2-3 minutes. Beat in the lemon zest and vanilla. Add in the flour slowly. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and beat in the butter/milk mixture just until a smooth batter forms; don't overmix. Gently fold in half the apple slices. Spread the batter in the prepared pan, and shake the pan gently to level it.
Arrange the remaining apples slices over the top in a circular pattern with the edges slightly overlapping. Mix flour and sugar for crumbs, and cut in shortening with a pastry blender or two knives used scissor fashion. Evenly distribute over cake mixture.