by Linda Reilly
Talia did as instructed, but her heart was beating so fast she thought it might fly out of her chest. Martha looked grim, but she seated herself next to Audrey.
“First of all,” he began in a soft tone, “I apologize for trying to friend Molly. It was the wrong thing to do. I fully admit that now.”
Audrey’s face remained hard. “I already told Talia and Martha everything. About us. About our . . . breakup. About Brad and me eloping after graduation. If you have nothing more to add, then I will thank you to leave.”
“I still don’t understand, Audrey. Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”
“I tried to tell you! That’s why I asked you to meet me behind the bleachers that day. But you must’ve dropped my note when you were in the cafeteria line. Norma gave it to Sandra, and she made sure she got there first.”
Wesley looked stricken. He stared blankly at the wall, as if seeing it all again in his mind. “Oh God, now I remember. No, I didn’t drop the note. I left it on the table in the cafeteria when I was eating lunch with one of the guys. Norma came over to give us more of that gluey beef stew she’d made. She was always flirting with the boys, the old—” He gave a disgusted look and then blew out a sigh. “She must have read it and told Sandra what it said. Those two were always plotting something. Sandra used her, and Norma was dumb enough to go along with it.”
“Why don’t you just admit it?” Audrey said. “You wanted Sandra. I saw the two of you that day by the bleachers. Her arms were wrapped around you, and her head was on your chest.” Fresh tears sprang into her eyes.
Wesley groaned. “No. No, Audrey. You’ve got it wrong.” He looked helplessly at her, as the horror of what happened that day washed over him. “Couldn’t you see that it was all one way? That my arms were at my sides? That I was trying to avoid even touching her! She knew you’d see us there. She must’ve had it all planned, that conniving little—” He broke off, and a sob escaped him.
Talia felt stunned. If Wesley was telling the truth, then it had all been one huge misunderstanding. Would things have been different if Sandra hadn’t interfered that day? Would Wesley, Audrey, and Molly have gone off into the sunset as one happy family?
“What would you have done if I’d told you?” Audrey said, her voice fading into tears.
Wesley took her hand in his own. She tried to pull away, but he held it fast. “I would have changed my college plans and married you. I loved you, Audrey. I—”
She shook her head. “Your folks wouldn’t have let you give up that scholarship.”
“They wouldn’t have had a choice. I’d have gone to school somewhere else, even without a scholarship. I’d have stayed closer to home, to you and the—”
“Baby?”
Four heads swiveled toward the door. No one had seen or heard Molly come in.
Audrey shot out of her seat. “Molly!”
Talia looked at Molly, then at Wesley. Their profiles were so similar. That was what Molly had seen that day at the festival, when she was staring at the makeshift stage. She was looking at a shadowy image of herself. It must have confused her, even frightened her.
Molly looked a wreck. Her French braid was plastered to her skull, and her colorful tee and denim shorts were soaked. Ignoring her mother, she glowered at Wesley. “By the way, Mr. Thurman, I’ve already unfriended you. I only friended you in the first place to see what kind of crap you were trying to pull. I thought you were a perv then, and I still think you’re a perv.”
Audrey was trembling so hard Talia thought she might shatter. She looked as if she wanted to talk but couldn’t make the words leave her lips.
“Molly, please come in and sit with us,” Talia urged. “Let’s talk about it, okay?” Even as she spoke the words, she knew she didn’t want to be a part of this mess. This was something Audrey and Wes had to work out with Molly—if that was even possible. Talia thought it might be too late for that.
The eatery was going to be opening soon, but Talia doubted they’d have many customers today. The rain didn’t seem to be letting up, and the lightning was getting downright scary.
Molly moved away from the door and went over to Wesley, jabbing a trembling finger in his face. “If my dad were alive, he would kick your sorry behind from here to the moon. So why don’t you just leave and never come back, because no one wants you here!”
Wesley’s jaw dropped, and in the next moment, Molly was gone, slamming the door behind her.
Audrey started to rush after her daughter, but Wesley leaped up and held her shoulders in a firm grasp. “Let her go, Audrey. Give her time to think it through. She’s a smart girl. She takes after her mom.”
“Then she’s in trouble,” Audrey said over a ragged sob, “because her mom did everything wrong.”
22
After Wesley persuaded Audrey to go somewhere to talk privately, Talia and Martha collapsed into adjoining chairs. “Talk about mental torture,” Talia said. “That was absolutely excruciating.”
Talia felt surer than ever that Wesley had paid Dylan to kill Norma Ferguson. Now that she understood why Thurman had so thoroughly despised the woman, the pieces had all come together. Seeing the two men together at the Popover Palace had clinched it for her. Payment had been made for something. What else could it have been for?
She wished Prescott would return her call. There was so much she had to tell her.
Martha was looking off in the distance, her eyes flitting from one spot to another. Talia knew her thoughts were bouncing all over the place. She waited for Martha to respond, but her employee seemed to have gone mute again.
“Martha?” Talia prodded. “Wasn’t that a nightmare?” She poured them each a mug of hot coffee. Martha didn’t touch hers, but Talia added her usual dollop of cream to her own and took a sip.
Martha pushed her mug aside and looked at Talia, a haunted expression in her eyes. “I dreamed about Lucas last night. He was lying in a hospital bed, all hooked up to tubes. I kept screaming at him to wake up, to stop fooling us, but he wouldn’t move. Then a man wearing green scrubs came in. ‘Please move aside,’ the man said. ‘We’re taking him to the morgue.’ I tried to block him, but he pushed me out of the way.”
Talia swallowed. She felt fresh tears flow down her cheeks. Then Martha started to cry in earnest—her shoulders heaving—in loud, uncontrollable sobs. It triggered a copycat effect, and before long Talia was blubbering, too. She could barely think anymore. It was almost eleven thirty. Should she open Fry Me? Or should she shut down for the day with a sign proclaiming SORRY. WE’RE CLOSED TODAY?
Then Martha let out one agonized wail and pounded her fist on the table. “If only I could trade places with him—I’d do it in a heartbeat!”
Talia couldn’t handle much more of this. She couldn’t keep up this deception, and it was unfair of Patti Prescott to expect it. What had she promised the detective?
No one will ever hear it from my lips . . .
Talia looked frantically around the kitchen. Her gaze landed on the sample pack of condiment containers the sales guy from Nifty Squeezables had left her. She’d tossed it on a shelf, figuring she’d deal with it later.
She scraped back her chair, nabbed the Squeezables pack, and then tore off the plastic wrapper. She grabbed the first one—the plastic mustard container—and unscrewed the cap.
Martha gawked at her. “What are you doing?” she said, and then loudly blew her nose.
Talia held up one finger to signal that she needed a minute. She located a new bottle of ketchup from the storeroom, opened it, and began squeezing it into the yellow container. For once she wished she’d bought one of those runny brands instead of this thick stuff.
“Talia, I thought you weren’t going to use those things. They’re not even washed yet! And you’re putting ketchup in the mustard thingy!”
Talia ignored her. When the container was two-thirds full, she screwed the cap on and then went over and pulled Martha’s arm. She tugged her over to the work
table and pointed at the cutting board.
Martha looked frightened. “You’ve gone over the edge, haven’t you?” she whispered.
Talia pressed a finger to her lips, then pointed again. She used the ketchup to spell out the words: Lucas is okay.
Martha cried out and stumbled backward. She grabbed Talia’s arm and said, “For real?”
Talia nodded quickly and then added, No one can know, in ketchup.
Martha nodded, acknowledging that she got it. She understood the reason for the subterfuge. Silently, the two hugged. They jumped up and down like two sisters who hadn’t seen each other in twenty years.
Martha snatched up the cutting board and rinsed it off in the sink. She dried it with a bunch of paper towels and plunked it back down. Joy shone in her eyes and tears flowed down her wide cheeks.
Talia went to the front door and opened it. Almost unbelievably, the rain was coming down even harder. Just standing there, she got a face full of rainwater. The cobblestone plaza was deserted. She could barely see as far as the Fork and Dish. If the lights were on inside the shop, it wasn’t apparent. Talia couldn’t help wondering if Audrey had actually gone somewhere with Wesley to hash things out, or if she’d ditched him and headed somewhere else in search of Molly.
She had to get to Detective Prescott, before Wesley Thurman left town and Dylan stashed the payoff money someplace where it couldn’t be found. She called her again. Again she had to leave a voice mail.
Talia turned the CLOSED sign to OPEN. She and Martha were there, and the basic food prep was done, so they might as well open up to customers. Not that anyone was likely to come in.
Still wet from her earlier encounter with Jodie Ferringer, she figured she could at least exchange her damp apron for a fresh one. She reached up to the shelf where the blue aprons with the Fry Me logo were stacked. Martha emerged from the walk-in storage closet at that moment and bumped Talia’s arm. The pile of aprons fell to the floor, and suddenly Talia gasped.
“Martha. Oh, Martha, Martha, Martha, Martha, Martha.”
Martha raised one eyebrow and gave her a strange look, then bent and began picking up the aprons. Talia squeezed her arm and stopped her. “Oh, Martha, I think that’s it.” She stared down at the aprons, at the way they’d toppled willy-nilly.
Martha straightened. “You’re scaring me—you know that? You’re not going cray-cray on me, are you?” she said, almost teasing.
“No. No, I don’t think so.” She told Martha what Harry had said about Norma dropping her box of supplies and utensils on the way to the temporary cooking stations that day, at the competition.
“Okaaay. So?” Martha said.
“Harry said that he and a few others stopped and helped her pick up her things, but that Norma didn’t even act grateful.”
Martha frowned. “So? I’m still not following.”
Talia waved an impatient hand. “I’m getting away from my point. That day, I’d headed off to my cooking station ahead of the other contestants. I’d gotten a bad feeling about the whole thing and just wanted to prepare my entry, turn it in, and get it over with. According to Harry, he had been trailing behind me, along with Dylan and Crystal and Norma. I’m not sure where Vivian was. She walks kind of slow, so she probably brought up the rear.”
Martha rolled her hand in a hurry-up motion. “And . . . ?”
“Martha, don’t you see? If Crystal had been the one who picked up Norma’s rolling pin, that’s how her fingerprints could’ve gotten on it!”
“Hmmm. It’s possible, I suppose,” Martha said. “But why wouldn’t Crystal have mentioned it to the police?”
“She probably didn’t even remember it. I mean, just picture it, okay? Except for Norma, they were all anxious to get to their cooking stations. Norma drops her box and her stuff rolls out everywhere. The others stop in their tracks and start grabbing things and shoving them back in her box. They’re really not paying attention to what they’re seeing—they just want to get her box repacked so that they can get to their own cooking stations. Crystal was so excited about being a finalist in the contest that it probably never stuck in her mind that she’d been the one to retrieve the rolling pin.”
Martha looked doubtful. “Yeah, but wait a minute. Norma made a flaky-top something-or-other for her entry, right?”
“Yes,” Talia confirmed. “Flaky-top chicken stew.”
“Wouldn’t Crystal’s prints have gotten obliterated when she used it to roll out the pastry?”
Talia felt her triumphant smile slide off her face. “I . . . um . . . I guess they could have. I don’t really know that much about fingerprint technology.”
Darn! Martha had just busted her bubble wide open. She’d been so sure she’d stumbled on the solution.
“You’d better Google it before you suggest it to Detective Prescott,” Martha said dryly. “Otherwise she’s likely to laugh you out of town.”
But there was something else. Something that teased Talia’s brain like a toy dangled in front of a playful cat. For some weird reason, she felt sure it had something to do with Martha.
A crack of thunder exploded in the sky. The two of them jumped visibly. Talia had an insane urge to yell, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” like in that old children’s story.
Martha shivered. “It’s actually getting chilly in here. It’s not even September yet. I hope we don’t have another winter like that last one.” She scowled, but the old animation was back in her eyes.
It had been a bad winter, Talia reflected. Snow up to the rooftops, plus unrelenting cold.
Martha threw up her arms. “Well, we’re all set to serve, and we have no one to serve. I might as well give the tables a once-over. In fact, I should have done it this morning. It was my turn, right?”
Talia nodded, her thoughts drifting off on a tangent. It had been Martha’s turn to spruce up the dining room, but in the state she’d arrived this morning, Talia had thought it wise not to remind her.
Martha reached below the speckled counter for the lime-scented cleaner and located a fresh cloth. Talia checked her phone. No text from Detective Prescott. Where was the woman? Could it be her day off? Talia supposed she was entitled to one, but it wasn’t like the detective to take time off when an unsolved murder was hanging over the town. Unless, of course, she really did believe that the killer had already been nabbed and tagged with a tracking device.
No, Patti knew something was amiss. She knew the killer had fallen into their laps with far too much ease. Talia had sensed it when they were talking privately outside on the plaza.
“Ugh,” Martha bleated from the dining room. She waved a glossy coloring book in the air. “I found this underneath one of the seats. Some sloppy kid got tartar sauce all over it and just left it there.” She shook her head in mock disgust. Martha loved kids, but she refused to admit it. Maintaining her curmudgeonly persona was far more fun.
Talia started to give her a halfhearted smile, but all at once she froze. Why did the coloring book remind her of something?
Wrinkling her nose, Martha went over to the trash can and dumped it in. “I hate to tell you what else it smells like. Don’t kids have manners anymore?”
And in that moment, Talia captured the memory that had been eluding her. She scurried around the edge of the counter into the dining area, to where Martha was scraping ketchup off the back of a chair. “Martha, remember the day of the festival, when you first sat down at our table?”
Martha stuck a hand on her hip. “Yeah, sort of. Why?”
“Didn’t you say Jodie Ferringer shoved one of those political brochures at you, even though you shook your head to refuse it?”
“Yeah, she did. I ended up having to take it so she wouldn’t let it drop to the ground.” Martha gave an evil grin. “I don’t think my attitude pleased her, the b—”
“You brought the brochure to the table,” Talia interrupted. “I remember, because you sniffed it before you tossed it down.”
�
��I did?” Martha scrunched up her face, trying to remember. “That’s right. I did. It had kind of a pungent smell. No, not pungent—that’s the wrong word. It was tangy.”
“Tangy bad?”
Slowly, Martha shook her head. “No, tangy good. Kind of like—I don’t know—celery salt, sage, and tarragon? It reminded me of Thanksgiving.”
Talia felt her heart do a broad jump. She should have seen it all along. How could she have been so blind? Jodie was using the blue cooler to transport Ferringer’s political brochures to the festival. But that wasn’t all that was in that cooler.
“Martha, I think I know why Norma was acting so weird that day,” Talia said. “I think—”
A loud boom from somewhere outside cut her off midsentence.
“Yikes!” Talia cried. “What was that?”
Martha tapped her chest, as if she’d just suffered a heart attack. “That was loud, wasn’t it? Sounded to me like a transformer blew.”
Sirens wailed in the distance, and in the next instant, the lights went off. The eatery was left in darkness.
23
“Stay where you are, Martha. I’ve got a heavy-duty flashlight. Somewhere.”
Talia fumbled her way back into the kitchen. She’d almost reached the storage closet when she heard Martha bellow, “Ouch, my knee!” A muffled curse followed. Make that two curses.
“Be careful, Martha,” Talia called out. “Don’t move until I get the flashlight.”
She remembered setting the high-powered flashlight, complete with fresh batteries, on a particular shelf in a specific spot in the supply closet. Easy to find in an emergency, right? Wrong. The flashlight had somehow journeyed through a maze of canned tomatoes, jars of mayo, and a slew of condiment cups. By the time Talia located it, she was tempted to let out a curse herself.
Talia snapped on the battery’s switch, and a swath of light swept over the ceiling. “Are you okay?” she asked, swinging the light around so that it illuminated Martha’s leg.