by Beth Byers
I jumped up onto the counter, thrilled that I could after my back injury and then begged, “Tell us.”
She blinked at me, her face as expressive as a wooden board.
“Please, please, please, please, please, please…”
Zee snapped a towel at me and then said, “If I do will you shut up?”
“Yes!” I lied, certain I would have follow up questions.
Az leaned against the counter, crossed his arms over his chest, the muscles of his biceps rippling as we stared at Zee. Both Az and I were tense with anticipation of the story.
“He said I was a meddler,” Zee snorted, gaze narrowed on the countertop as if she were seeing something we couldn’t.
“You are,” Az and I said in unison. We bumped fists and turned back to Zee.
“And I had no business in getting involved with the case,” she added.
“True,” Az and I said in unison, laughing at Zee’s narrowed gaze.
“And that from the looks of it, I was a floozy who flirted like a hooker from 82nd street in Portland.”
“Oh,” I gasped as Az growled.
Zee crossed her arms over her chest again, taking a slow sip of coffee and then added, “He’ll pay for that.”
“Of that I have no doubt,” I told Zee. “Are you two over?”
Zee shrugged. The fact that her answer wasn’t a quick yes told me she cared about him more than she’d let on. I considered for a few minutes and then said, “You’ve got him all twisted up, Zee. He shouldn’t have said what he had…but he was jealous. And probably worried. It’s all fun and games in murder investigations until someone gets hurt. He doesn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Well,” Zee shrugged.
Her face said she understood what I was saying. My experience with her said that she was too stubborn to easily give up or change her ways—even a little bit.
“You might want to consider telling him how you really feel,” I suggested gently.
Her face twisted meanly and she snorted her signature snort. She had, however, paused just long enough to tell me she was considering it. Oh, I thought, she must have it bad.
“You love him,” I told her firmly. “That means you suck it up and be brave.”
“I’m not going to stop being myself.”
I flinched for her suddenly wondering who had expected her to stop being herself. I was still gentle when I said, “You have him worried that you’re playing games with him, Zee. Reassuring him isn’t changing yourself. It’s loving.”
For once Zee wasn’t mean. She wasn’t anything. Her expression blanked out and she went back to work without a word. But the cake she started building was layer upon layer of stress baking. She took the rectangle sheet cake I’d thrown in the oven, cut it into even sized pieces, and turned it into a brick of cake, filling, and frosting. The strawberries she edged around the sides were dipped in chocolate and the curls of chocolate made me want to take the whole thing.
Rather than trying to convince her further, I didn’t say a word. I knew what stress baking and decorating looked liked, so I whipped her up another set of cakes to put together. I had no doubt she’d construct the cakes until her mind cleared. It wouldn’t be the first time either of us had turned to the kitchens at The 2nd Chance Diner for peace.
Az took over the next chocolate tour while Zee and I worked side-by-side in silence. It was long past closing time when Simon arrived at the diner. He had probably messaged me, but I had been so worried about Zee I hadn’t thought about Simon. Az didn’t leave until Simon arrived, and then he sat quietly, working on his laptop while Zee loaded up the cake plates and then placed them in the fridge for the next day.
My assumption about sheet cakes had been replaced with a 7-layer chocolate cake with caramel icing, a layered fruit cake in rainbow colors, carrot cake candied carrots and toasted coconut on the top, and finally, 4 layers of butter cake with chocolate frosting.
Since Zee was finding solace in making cakes, I whipped up enough cookie dough for the next day’s chocolate tours and then made pies. After that I went ahead and made some cinnamon rolls. I started prepping the ingredients for the salad without tossing them when Zee had placed the last chocolate shaving on her butter cake.
“You ok?” I asked her.
Zee simply said, “Good night.”
She walked out without a further word, but Simon and I both heard her muscle car roar to life. It didn’t, however, squeal away. I wanted to follow her with a bottle of wine and one of those cakes, but I knew I wouldn’t be welcome. Zee didn’t open up until she was good and ready, and I didn’t really want to spend the evening in silence, watching her brood while her cats plotted my murder.
“Is she all right?” Simon sounded as concerned as I was. That he’d hunted me down and waited patiently while I helped my friend, flooded me with love for him.
The only answer I could him was a shrug for Zee. I had no idea if she was currently ok. I figured she would be. Nothing held Zee down for long. She’d either be engaged to Carver within the month or she’d have a hot new boyfriend and an impassive face when Carver came into the diner—if he came into the diner.
“Carver’s about the same,” Simon said quietly. “Silent and brooding.”
Simon held his hand out to me and I let him pull me towards him. He wrapped his arms around my waist and held me. I hated seeing Zee—my sassy, lively Zee—wordless. The universe was askew until Zee was mean again.
I pulled out my phone, took a picture of the cakes and sent it to Carver’s number with the title, ‘Silent Baking.’ I followed it up with the question, “When have you known Zee to be quiet?”
Carver didn’t reply. And I didn’t message him again. I simply cut Simon a piece of cake and let him bring me home. When we got there I wasn’t hungry for anything but puppy snuggles, and I got those in excess.
TEN
We worked the diner on Sunday. We weren’t normally open on Sundays and my back had returned to painful stiffness. Not lightning shocks of pain, thank goodness. But from my back’s perspective, I probably shouldn’t have stood in the kitchens of The 2nd Chance Diner baking until after 9:00pm. I hadn’t taken my muscle relaxers the night before and I’d forgotten to sleep with my tens unit and heating pad. At this rate, I was going to be laying on the floor incapable of getting up.
I was washing dishes in the kitchen because it was hard for me to lift trays and occasionally, I seated our customers or wiped down tables. I was moving slower than molasses and my staff didn’t seem to mind, thank goodness. I checked out tickets and refilled drinks and kept things running without straining my back. My friend, Maddie and I were spending the next day in the spa, and I wasn’t sure I was going to move again after my massage. Simon had left me boneless, and he wasn’t a trained masseuse, a real massage was going to be glorious. I scheduled it for 90 minutes without regrets we were in the couples spot. They only had two massage rooms, but they could offer up to 4 massages at a time. So someone else must have scheduled a couple’s massage.
It didn’t matter to me and Maddie to be in the same room or not. We’d get halfway drunk on mimosas and then we were going to stagger to the café next door to the spa. There we’d eat something with crab and kale or as healthy. Greasy food didn’t match spa days, and I was looking forward to indulging in something very different from what my diner served.
As I was thinking about the next day, I saw the woman named Stevie and the pretty professor come back into the diner. Stevie was the one who had slept with the dead guy. Did that make her the likeliest killer, I wondered? Except…she’d still seemed pretty chummy with the Frank. And…there was still the missing money.
“Hello,” I said as I seated them, “How are you two doing?”
Stevie read my face well enough to know that I meant with the death of their colleagues.
“It’s been a…challenging few days,” the pretty professor said. “We’re in shock.”
“I bet,” I replied. “I can�
��t imagine what it must be like to…have this burden.”
What a lie! Sadly, I could imagine given that one of my employees murdered her boyfriend right here in the diner, but I was fishing for information about these two not reliving my own hard times.
Stevie smiled sadly as though she were trying to be brave, but I didn’t quite believe it. I glanced behind me saw Zee had her gaze on us, and I said to them, “Have y’all decided what you’re gonna do about the Tidesman purchase?”
“Not much we can do,” Stevie said disgustedly, “The money was stolen. We’re all out what we invested so far.”
The pretty professor’s face seemed to reflect a bit of a disagreement but none of it passed his mouth. I said, “I’m sorry to hear that. We were really excited about the idea of y’all joining us here in Silver Falls.”
Sort of. Not really. Time to tag Zee in. I went to her and said, “Professor Pretty doesn’t agree with Stevie’s theory that Jayla and Frank stole the money. At least…if I’m reading him right. Who knows if I am.”
Zee nodded as she watched the couple. Roxy bopped over, grinning at them, and took their order. She probably didn’t remember who they were or didn’t care. I watched later as Roxy delivered their food and Professor Pretty got the multigrain pancakes that balled up in your stomach. He looked like the type to eat that stuff all the time, though. He’d probably love it ben though I’d only risked it the one time. His pancakes were even topped with the local berry compote and nuts. I glanced at his order form and saw he’d asked for double nuts. The eggs on the side were scrambled egg whites with salsa. The man wouldn’t need to eat for days, I thought. I grinned at the idea of it and then noted that Stevie ordered the fruit plate with a side of wheat toast, no butter.
These two. So practical. I scowled at their food and Zee came to see what I was looking at.
“Who eats like that on vacation?” Zee asked snidely.
“Healthy people,” I said.
I suddenly felt the need for a green smoothie. I’d had a piece of toast—with butter—when I took the ibuprofen and a half of a muscle relaxer as I got to work. Since then, I’d only had sips of coffee. I was slowly dying of hunger, or so it seemed, but Simon said he’d hoped to come by to the diner for breakfast.
I worked through the breakfast rush without a break. We didn’t so much slow down as just lose our line out the door by the time 11:00 am reached us. I messaged Simon and found he was on his way. I went ahead and ordered myself blueberry waffles. Knowing, Simon he’d prefer to have the ham scramble but I put regular old pancakes on his order too just in case. When Simon got there, Az was just plating our food.
I hadn’t had a chance to test the chocolate waffles the day before, but I knew we had some of the amaretto cream left. I topped my waffle with butter, blueberry syrup, amaretto cream, and fresh blueberries.
“That looks…” Simon glanced at my food and then said, “This looks amazing.”
“Don’t pretend you want to try this,” I told him, accepting that the last thing Simon was going to want was amaretto cream on his waffles. He probably wouldn’t even want real whipped cream. That wasn’t how his Mama served pancakes and waffles, therefore, it wasn’t how he ate them. He knew his attitude drove me mad, but I was trying to not care so much. Of all the negatives to have, not being an adventurous eater was hardly the worst.
Simon kissed my fingertips when I handed him his plate of normal food that didn’t have egg whites or non-fat sour cream on it anywhere. Let alone grilled veggies. He grinned at me and didn’t even have to explain why he was happy.
“You're a good man, Simon,” I told him randomly.
I had been thinking about him that morning as I’d worked. I’d been caught up in how Jayla and Frank had gotten in a fight and Stevie had been able to swoop in for an affair. A case could be made for a similar situation between Roberta and Simon, but the reality was very different.
The reality being that Roberta and Simon hadn’t been committed. That they hadn’t lived together, they didn’t have decades of history as a couple. I was utterly and completely certain that Simon had been very straightforward with Roberta.
Simon smiled at me, confused by my comment about his goodness, but I didn’t really have an explanation. It wasn’t really even about what he was it was about what he was not. He wasn’t a pretty professor from an upscale college who was too snide for the people around him. Simon wasn’t a player who couldn’t be relied upon. He wasn’t a man with a heavy past. At our ages…falling in love with someone like him was a blessing I hadn’t been smart enough to recognize. Not until I started thinking about poor Jayla and the expression as she spied Frank’s hand on Stevie’s lower back.
“Have you heard from Carver today?”
“He took the day off,” Simon said as he took a bite of his hot-sauced drenched scramble. “Went fishing.”
I wanted Zee to know where he was too. I knew she cared about what he was up to and whether he was avoiding her. I waited until Zee passed by before I asked too loudly, “Where did Carver go fishing?”
Simon hadn’t noticed what I was up to, so he didn’t see Zee pause just beyond his shoulder, out of his gaze, and said, “Ocean fishing. With some of the guys.”
“Oh ok,” I said. I grinned at him, took a bite of my waffles, and then looked up as I saw the two professors stop by the booth where Simon and I were having breakfast.
“You need more staff,” Stevie said flipping her hair back. “The food was decent, but you guys are slow and busy.”
Decent? She’d ordered toast and fruit. That would be the same anywhere assuming the cook didn’t burn the bread. I tried to hide my expression, but Professor Pretty aught it and grinned at me.
He said, “My food was delightful. And, I imagine, you are extra busy this weekend with the special events.”
Stevie tossed Professor Pretty a laughing glance and then tried to placate me while also being right. “Well…you have to add staff for that.”
He cleared his throat and then countered, “Given the economics of the area and the likely wages, this diner is probably lucky to have the staff they do.”
I nodded at him. He was very right. As I did, I jerked my gaze to Zee. She crossed the diner, water pitcher in her hand. I grinned and leaned forward, trying to catch his attention as I admitted, “We are very lucky to have the staff we have. It’s super hard to find anyone to work, let alone my extra great people.”
Which was when Zee pretended to trip and drenched the Professor Pretty with her pitcher of water. The thing about Zee was that she was older and less put together than Stevie Lyman. She was not, however, anything less than charismatic in the extreme. Stevie gasped and stepped back, leaving Professor Pretty in the puddle. Zee grinned at him, apologizing and edging into his personal bubble, and he didn’t even seem to mind that he was soaking wet.
“Oh my goodness,” I said, hiding my grin at Zee’s wink, “Oh my goodness. I’m so sorry.”
Stevie laughed merrily adding, “It’s gonna be a cold walk back to the Tidesman.”
“Oh,” Zee interrupted, “No, No. I…I’m so sorry.” Her gaze, however, possessed a liveliness that teased.
“Zee,” I said, as Roxy rushed over with a towel for Professor Pretty, “You should drive the professor back to the Tidesman, so he doesn’t catch a chill. Ocean winds are so biting.”
Professor Pretty tried to laugh it off, but Zee bulldozed him—without Stevie—to the car and they roared off.
Stevie blinked as she looked after Zee’s muscle car and then said, “Well…if that’s the best staff you can get, I can see how you’d have trouble keeping up with your customers.”
I didn’t bother with a reply, I just offered her a slice of cake in compensation. I could see she felt that I should have comped their breakfast, but Zee had waited until after they’d paid to douse Professor Pretty. She was just really that good when it came to her machinations.
“Um,” Simon said as I boxed up two slices of c
ake for Stevie and Professor Pretty, “Carver isn’t…”
I stared at Simon. He stared back at me. I didn’t need him to elaborate. The edge of panic in Simon’s voice told me that Carver would see Zee pull her stunt.
“You liar,” I told him.
Simon winced.
“Carver sent you in here to throw us off. He sent you in here to lie.”
Simon flinched.
I pulled out my phone, hoping I wasn’t too late as I messaged Carver.
Rose: It’s not what it looks like.
Carver sent back a picture of Zee cupping Professor Pretty’s jaw. I flinched and then showed it to Simon who winced.
Rose: I swear. It’s not what it looks like.
Zee better not be making a liar of me, I thought, as I kissed Simon’s cheek, pulled his hair and then left him alone. I couldn’t eat. I had to avoid the food to stress wash dishes.
“The amaretto cream was amazing,” I told Az and showed him the picture Carver had sent me. It took Az a moment to register the photo and a moment longer to see who had sent it before he sighed a deep, honeyed sigh.
He then said, “You two would drive anyone mad. Let alone the men who love you.”
Simon laughed but when I turned to face him in the doorway of the kitchen, his face was impassive.
“Jerk,” I said. “This is your fault.”
“Would you like to go out to dinner?”
I shrugged and then said, “Zee and I might have plans.”
“Don't forget whose team you’re on.”
“Smooth,” I told him, crossing to him to kiss his cheek. “I won’t forget. You probably shouldn’t lie to me if you don’t want me to…get confused.”
“Maybe remind Zee,” Simon said. “You’re on my team. She should be on Carver’s.”
I didn’t bother to reply that. I had no idea what Zee had decided when she baked up a storm yesterday. I just hoped it was something that would make things better.
ELEVEN
The first time I broke into a place in the middle of the night, I’d been with Zee, Maddie, and Jane. They were my best friends since I’d moved to Silver Falls and the women I was most likely to get drunk with on wine and cake in my cottage. Or, more recently, Simon’s house. He’d pour the others into spare bedrooms and couches and carry me to bed where I was more than likely to find painkillers and a bottle of water on my nightstand.