Spooning Leads to Forking (Hot in the Kitchen Book 2)

by Kilby Blades

  “Actually, a friend’s letting me borrow his place. He owns one of the Hamren estates up on Elk Hill.”

  “You know, John Hamren’s a family friend…” Don slid into the seat across from her, half a beer still in hand. His face sported that same smug smile, and from the looks of it, he’d had a pretty wet lunch. “We’re the reason why he built in this town. My dad was the one who commissioned all of the houses.”

  Shea hadn’t forgotten how to keep her eyes focused and interested rather than rolling like they always wanted to when forced to listen to people like him.

  “Wow—I should’ve picked up on that a while ago.” Shea played her best version of simpering and dumb. “Donovan Packard is your father?”

  The truth was, Shea had never heard of either of the two Donovan Packards in her New York circles and she still didn’t explicitly remember meeting Jr. on Baron’s yacht. It was probable that Don Sr. simply didn’t run with Keenan’s crowd. Between the fact that Keenan had never mentioned Don Jr. enough for him to stick out in Shea’s mind, and the fact that Don Jr. seemed to be kissing her ass now, meant that Keenan outranked Don Jr. somehow, and that the latter wanted in to Keenan’s clique.

  Don Jr. shrugged a bit smugly. “The old guy’s still kicking. But he’s turned over most of the portfolio to me. That’s what I’m doing up here.”

  Bingo.

  Shea shook her head and smiled playfully. “You’re like Keenan. Always working. God forbid you take a little time for R and R…”

  “Has Keenan been up?” Don Jr. asked. “I’ll bet he’d love this place. You should give him a call. Tell him to fly out this weekend. I’m working on a project that I think he’d really like.”

  Shea raised a conspiratorial eyebrow. “You know how he gets. If he doesn’t get in on the ground floor, he doesn’t do the deal. Wait…” Shea held up a finger, pulled out her phone and began tapping on her phone screen. “I’m gonna text him right now.”

  But instead of texting Keenan, she keyed in her unlock code, lowered the volume and navigated to the voice memo function, then keyed in a title for what she was about to record: “Conversation with Don Jr. at Gator’s.” She pressed the red button as if she were pressing send then rested the phone in her hand. She had also angled her palm in such a way that seemed casual, but that made it impossible for Don Jr. to see the screen.

  “So tell me about your project,” Shea bubbled. “Is it another real estate thing? Are you going to commission another famous architect to build another set of estates?”

  “Maybe for phase two…” Don Jr. placated her in a way she could tell was meant not to sound completely patronizing, even though it kind of was. “Phase one is all about the river.”

  Shea feigned confusion. “There’s a river? I thought people liked to go to the lake.”

  Don waved his hand dismissively. “Too much of that property is owned by locals right now. Buying up the lakefront is more like a ten-year play. But the river…”

  Shea leaned in at the same time he did, still keeping the phone out of his view. His eyelids lulled a bit and his speech wasn’t slurred but it wasn’t quite sharp. It bode well for her that he’d had a few. Hopefully, it would make his lips looser and his spidey sense for mischief dull.

  “…the river is undeveloped.”

  “Wait—that river?” Shea asked, her ignorance that any river existed in Sapling suddenly cured. I thought that was an industrial river. For, like, factory runoff and stuff.”

  “We’ve been in the process of closing those down for six months. That operation is almost complete. I actually used one of Keenan’s guys for the job. You can tell him that.”

  Shea’s heartbeat sped yet again. “One of his guys?” She parroted, all the while wondering internally, what does Keenan have to do with this?

  “Asset retention specialists,” Don Jr. smiled in a way that made Shea want to punch him in his smug face. “Tell him they were very helpful when it came to the insurance and that I appreciated his referral. Tell him I’d work with anyone else he recommended again.”

  Shea felt nauseous as she deciphered Don Jr.’s code and Duff’s bent body flashed through her mind. So Shea’s theory had been true. The mill accidents hadn’t been accidental, and they hadn’t been theft. They’d been insurance fraud so dangerous, people could have died.

  “I still don’t understand—what are you building?” Shea was having a harder and harder time keeping her cool. She needed to get him to confess everything, then wrap it up.

  “A brand-new downtown—except this one with its main street on River Road and resort infrastructure to support volume. It’ll be a combination of timeshares and hotels; al fresco dining, live music, art festivals in the summer…it’ll be like off-season Breckenridge, but with a river.”

  “Ooh, Breckenridge!” It took effort for Shea to infuse delight into her voice and to respond like he would expect—as if destroying a town and its local economy were everyday stuff. “Shame about the downtown, though. Oliver Street is so cute. Have you tried the morning buns at Delilah’s? You’ve gotta get them to move that bakery to River Road. And have you been to The Grand Lake? It’s the most adorable old theater…”

  Shea was working up to a question: what the hell did he plan to do about all the people who worked at the mills?

  “Don’t get all sentimental,” he lectured playfully. “This new development will be the best thing that’s ever happened to this town. We’re gonna rebrand it, too.”

  “Rebrand it?” Shea parroted.

  He leaned in so far, she could smell the alcohol on his breath.

  “You know…reincorporate the place—change the name to Packard.”

  Then, he threw in a doozie that surprised even her.

  “Between you and me, my dad has looked the other way for years. The mills have been hemorrhaging money. You don’t know how many times I’ve begged him to sell. He’s really getting up there in age. Can’t keep track of as much as he used to, you know. But it’s time to do the right thing. It’s time to put this town out of its misery.”

  Shea nearly jumped out of her skin when the bartender chose that moment to march up to their table and set down two large bags with stacked containers. It saved her the agony of eking out a civil answer. And, really, what did anyone even say to that? She pocketed her phone but didn’t bother to stop recording.

  “Well, I’ll tell Keenan all about it,” she promised as she rose, the warm aroma of buffalo sauce failing to hold the expected appeal. “Give him a day or so to get back to you. This week, he’s got a thing. But I’ll work on him, too. I’ll try to get him out here for the weekend.”

  “Great to see you, Shea,” Don Jr. said with emphasis before leaning in to do the cheek kiss thing, you know—since they knew one another now.

  Shea called her goodbyes and headed out to her car. There were only two things that Shea could do now—only two things that mattered: sending Dev that recording and beating Keenan to his next punch.

  31

  The Recording

  Dev

  “Tell me you left the cookies in the car,” Duff demanded, hand on her hip, the minute she swung open her front door to reveal an empty-handed Dev. Last time, she’d made him promise he wouldn’t arrive with more bad news. It was an empty promise. She was still the Sheriff and—technically—she was part-time on the job again.

  “Sorry. No cookies,” Dev replied. “But no paperwork, either. Just a talk. Just you and me.”

  “Uh-oh…” she said, even as she opened the door wider to let him in, sensing there was something wrong. “You off duty?”

  He nodded.

  “Then let’s have a beer.”

  Dev diverted to the right as Duff headed to the back, noticing that both her gait and her house looked better. As recently as a week before, there had been crutches leaned against the wall in the corner and more equipment for physical therapy. He wasn’t supposed to know she’d been seeing a colleague of Laura’s, but he’d accident
ally spotted some sort of referral paperwork for a therapist on Laura’s desk. It would make what he was about to ask of her easier.

  “What the hell is that?”, he asked, not of the ice-cold bottle of beer she put in his hand. He motioned to her small green-and-white can of something else.

  “It’s a Skinny ‘Rita. Don’t judge,” she scolded. “Can’t drink like I used to—not with all the exercise I’m not getting.” She pushed the can toward him. “You can drink one out of solidarity if you want.”

  Dev frowned a little. “Uh…no thanks—I’ll stick to the beer.”

  Resisting the urge to pick up the can and inspect the ingredients, he bit his tongue against a lecture about all the fake sugar it probably had. Though, he did make a mental note to find a recipe for her that used agave nectar or stevia.

  “I’m seeing somebody,” he said without preamble as they toasted silently and each took a long pull.

  “Uh-huh…you and Shea.”

  “Good lord...”

  “Everybody already knows.”

  It strengthened Dev’s resolve. “All the better reason for me to resign.”

  He let his words sit between them for a minute—let Duff absorb the fact that he was putting her back on deck—that, she might have to face her own demons sooner than planned.

  “I know I said I’d do it as long as you needed me to, but—”

  Duff cut him off gently. “You met a girl. And you’re falling in love. And you have your own work to tend to and your own life to live. And you didn’t sign up for any of this shit.”

  Dev couldn’t deny it. Hearing it out loud let him come to terms with the fact that parts of his decision involved all of those things. But he couldn’t not tell Duff the big reason.

  “Shea’s mixed up in something,” he began. Procedurally speaking, it was his duty to notify Duff that he had been compromised. “I don’t know what it is, but I’m not sure it’s legal, which is a problem—not just because I’m Sheriff—because she’s been a source of major information on the case. If something bad came out about her while I was still in the job, it’ll damage the reputation of the department and compromise the investigation.”

  He gave Duff a minute to let the information sink in—to give her time to voice the questions he was sure were coming. They’d be questions he couldn’t answer, but still…

  “How illegal are we talking?”

  “I found suitcases full of money in her house. I didn’t ask to know beyond what I saw. In fact, I told her not to tell me. Plausible deniability and all…”

  “Do you trust her?” Duff asked, not like a police officer gathering facts for an investigation—like a friend giving advice.

  “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”

  More like the five- to ten-million-dollar question, Dev thought to himself. He’d seen confiscated money before in evidence. He knew she could easily be holding on to that much if all those bags he’d seen were full.

  “I mean, before you found the money—did you trust her?” Duff pressed.

  And, the thing was, Dev had. Even knowing she had secrets, he’d never pried. Maybe he should have. She was new in town. Worse than that, she’d just happened to show up in the middle of a crime spree. If there was anyone whose background he should’ve looked into, it should’ve been hers.

  “Things can’t stay the way they are,” Dev said in lieu of answering the question. “As long as I’m wearing this badge, I’m conflicted on both sides. Shea could be in some kind of trouble and it’s not right that I can’t even ask her. And I don’t want to be the sheriff if it means charging my own girl.”

  “It’s not illegal to keep money, you know,” Duff appeased. “Maybe she’s one of those people who doesn’t trust the banking system and puts all her money in cash and gold.”

  Dev didn’t mention to Duff that, when he’d confronted Shea, she’d looked guilty as sin.

  “I’ll give my notice, all the same. I don’t want to leave you hanging. But you were right about the other things. I need to do what I came here to do, and I need to talk to her.”

  Dev’s personal phone chose that moment to do the thing he’d been waiting for it to do all week—it buzzed with an incoming text. He had spent every hour checking obsessively for any contact from Shea. He knew it was absurd, given the way he’d left—knew that he would have to be the one who opened dialogue after he’d backed her into impossible terms. Like a fool, he checked his phone at every twitch.

  Holy shit—it’s from her.

  For weeks, he’d had her entered in as a favorite contact, which set him up to receive her calls and texts, even if his phone was set to Do Not Disturb. Dev had practically slept with one eye open on the off chance that he would reach out to her at all, not caring about the reason or the hour.

  But this, he had not expected. He wasted no time reading her incoming text, and after he did, he read it twice.

  I got him on tape admitting to everything. Now you know the truth about the mills. Note: Keenan is my ex and the person referred to as “Elle” is me. Long story, and not important.

  Just as Dev was about to text back that he wanted to talk and that he was in the middle of resigning his position, he noticed: the text had been sent to a group. Members of the EDC seemed to be the other recipients, and below the note she’d written was a link to an audio recording. Could this really be what it seemed like it was?

  Dev placed it in the middle of the table and pressed play, knowing that Duff needed to hear. He recognized Shea’s voice immediately and wondered where this meeting had taken place—how Shea had found herself out of the house and so close to Don Jr. Had she put herself in the path of a dangerous man, like Cliff had suggested? Had she done it for Dev?

  Such thoughts were quickly replaced by Dev’s dark reaction to the content of Don Jr.’s plans, spoken so casually—so coldly—as if they didn’t involve human lives. It redoubled Dev’s hunger to stop policing so he could work the business angles full time. They had to find a way to stop Don Jr.—whether through legal means, or because they could raise enough money to buy him out.

  Did you listen to it yet?

  A second text came in just as Duff and Dev were listening to the final seconds. That text was from Cliff. No sooner did he send it than did a flurry of tertiary texts come in rapid succession from the others, too fast for Dev to discern what comment had come from whom.

  That asshole has got some nerve, could have as easily come from Cliff as it had come from Stanley Tran. For all he knew, it could have even come from Shea. So could, We need to rally the troops on this one, and, We’ve got to beat him at his own game. The comments about karma and spiritual cleansing had probably come from Laura.

  Before he could sort out who had said what, Duff grabbed his phone and texted out something he didn’t see until after she was done, then got on her feet and disappeared into another room.

  This is Duff. I’m with Dev. We all need to meet right now. Drop what you’re doing and come down to the station. Tell no one about this. It’s evidence.

  Dev picked up the phone, called in yet another favor to Betty to cover the store and texted Delilah for a favor to close. Just as he pocketed his phone, a fully uniformed, fully armed, fully herself Sheriff Duffy strode in from the back and hustled both of them out the door.

  32

  The Sitting Duck

  Shea

  Shea was elbow-deep in her largest suitcase, pressing down hard on the first set of packing cubes she’d set inside. They were stuffed full of bras and underwear, of all things. It had taken a solid ten minutes of helpless standing in the middle of her closet, spinning slowly with her hands at her sides, for her to admit that she had no clue which of her dozens of garments she actually needed.

  Was she headed back to New York? She honestly didn’t know. But there were plenty of reasons not to stay here. What little Dev had said to her that morning had been right—her secrets put people in danger. The investigation itself would b
e compromised—and Dev’s credibility would be undermined—if people learned he was sleeping with a key source who wasn’t who she said she was. Right now, only Dev knew her secret. But staying here would lead Keenan right to her. Letting her ex blaze into town and force her to air her own dirty laundry here would only foul up Dev’s backyard.

  She wouldn’t have put it past Don Jr. to have put in a friendly call to Keenan before Shea had even made it out to her car. With him so eager to be in business with Keenan, he’d blab to someone soon enough. It could take an hour or it could take a week for Keenan to catch on, but when he did, he would get on a plane. Or worse, some inner voice reminded her.

  A chill ran through Shea’s body again. She knew instinctively, this was about to get real. Whatever fantasy she’d been living in had ended the second Dev found the cash. And hearing from Don Jr. about Keenan’s “referral” challenged Shea’s denial. When it came to his business dealings, her husband was a crooked man. And if he wanted to play dirty, he could give the authorities her location and have her arrested. She couldn’t outrun her ghosts forever—not her father, not Keenan, not Kent, not the money, and especially not her lies to Dev.

  But what should she take with her, wherever she went? And how could she get there with Butters? She didn’t think you could fly with a dog and she didn’t even own her own crate. The one place she could’ve showed up, unannounced and with no explanation needed, was Carrie’s. But Carrie was eight months into a high-risk pregnancy and her wife was a diplomat, which changed things given Shea’s legal troubles. And without credit cards, Shea couldn’t even check into a hotel. Where could she go now to ride out this insane, never-ending divorce?

  “Tasha.” Shea didn’t remember ever feeling more relief than she did the moment her attorney’s name popped up on her caller ID. Her inner thoughts were on the brink of maudlin. Shea couldn’t remember how articulate she’d been in the rambling message she’d left for Tasha less than an hour before. At the instant Tasha called, Shea was busy filling a fresh crop of packing cubes with socks.