If You Can't Stand the Heat

by Robin Allen

  I changed my tone. “Mitch will never sell Markham’s.”

  I turned toward the door, but quick as a panther, Will was around the desk and behind me. “In a few months, he won’t have a choice.”

  I turned to face him. “What are you talking about?” He stood so close to me, I could smell the detergent on his shirt.

  “That secret little side deal he tried to make with Évariste to franchise his name would have helped, but now there’s no help for him.” Will laughed at the shocked look on my face. “Évariste told me about it the night of the party. That silly man thought their deal would get him out of debt with us at the same time. He never did like ruining restaurants.”

  Then it really did come together. I had assumed that Évariste wore his special red coat with the Markham’s logo that night to send a subtle message that he was in charge of the kitchen, but it wasn’t Ursula he was taunting. “You killed Évariste,” I said.

  Will laughed. “If the police thought that, they would have arrested me instead of Ursula.”

  I reached behind me for something, anything, to stop me from crumbling to the floor. My fingers fumbled against the doorknob. Locked. “You framed her.”

  “There’s no evidence to support that, Poppy.” His voice sounded smooth and controlled, the way it had the night of the party when he wanted Évariste to speak with reporters. “Not even a flash drive.”

  He took a step back and started to say something else, but I jerked up my knee, grazing his groin. He only winced, but it bought me the moment I needed. I turned the lock, flung open the door, and fled into the darkness of the kitchen. I heard him slam through the swinging doors as they swung back toward him, then the lights came on. I would lose a physical fight against Will, but if I could get through the back door I had a chance.

  In two seconds my chance vanished as Will’s fingers wound around my wrist.

  I pulled forward out of his grasp, then pumped my elbow back. I didn’t connect with him, and the force of my swing knocked me off-balance. I reached for the silver prep table, but my hand slipped on the curved edge. My rump connected hard with the tile floor.

  Will stood over me and extended a hand to help me stand up. Was that the hand that held the knife that killed Évariste? I scooted back and he stepped forward.

  “Can you claim self-defense, Will? Did Évariste have the knife and you used it on him before he could use it on you?”

  “I could say that, but the police would want to know what took me so long to remember.” He looked down at me, his face unreadable. “Why would I do that anyway? Markham’s was the spike in our development plans, and now it’s not. Everything is going so well.” He raised an eyebrow. “Except for one or two details.”

  I jumped ten steps past panic, and animal survival instincts took over. I pulled my knee to my chest and kicked up between his legs as hard as I could. Full contact.

  Will doubled over, his face crimson with pain and rage. “Witch!” he gurgled.

  I scrambled backward and around the corner of the prep table, grabbing pans from the low shelf, hurling them in front of me. They couldn’t hurt Will, but they would slow him down. He said something, but I couldn’t hear over the racket of metal against tile.

  A few more inches and I would have what I needed. I flipped over to my belly and flung myself around the third corner. I reached into the curved well under the prep table and felt it: a bread knife I had hidden ages ago. My fingers curled around the handle as Will jerked up my ankles. I pitched forward and the knife bounced off the bottom shelf and under the table.

  I reached for it, but Will dragged me back. I kicked loose of him, and threw my body forward with a grunt. The knife cut my palm as I grappled with the blade. I switched the handle to my left hand and wrapped my right arm around the leg of the prep table.

  “Let go, Poppy.”

  I held on tighter and flailed my legs. Will kicked my right elbow to loosen my hold, then yanked hard on my legs. He pulled me through the noisy rubble of the pots and pans, my body sliding easily across the floor, leaving a red smear on the white tiles.

  “Where is that blood coming from?” he demanded.

  “My nose,” I lied. “Belize knows about all of this, doesn’t she? You going to kill her too?”

  “Belize was a diversion for one of my partners. The one with the bad manners and big mouth, unfortunately. She tried to blackmail us, but I’m better at that game.” He stopped and dropped one of my ankles. “She will be dealt with.”

  I heard the walk-in door pop open and felt a rush of cool air. I kicked back and struck his shin. He stomped my ankle, then picked it up and jerked me over the threshold. The walk-in floor felt cold and gritty.

  “Another murder so soon after Évariste’s and the police will know it wasn’t Ursula.”

  “By the time someone finds you on Tuesday, you’ll be frozen. An accident.” He laughed. “Don’t worry. We can blame Trevor for turning down the thermostat.”

  He held my legs and tried to turn me around so his back was to the exit, but he stumbled and dropped one of my ankles to steady himself.

  I twisted onto my back, pulling my other leg free. He lunged for me and I slashed his knee with the bread knife. He howled in pain, his eyes huge from the surprise of my attack.

  “That was for Ursula,” I said. “And this is for Mitch.” I kicked at the bleeding wound, rolled out of the walk-in, then shut the door.

  I scrambled up, ready for Will to make one last effort to push open the door. When I heard the catch release, I rammed the door with my shoulder. I heard a crash and hoped he had toppled that large crate of tomatoes onto his head. I still had the knife in my hand and shoved it into the catch.

  Then I slid down to the floor and waited for the dry heaves to stop so I could call Jamie.

  _____

  “How many stitches?” Mitch asked. He was propped up on some pillows, full of color and life, spooning tapioca into his mouth. Nina had gone to pick up Ursula.

  “Eleven,” I said, holding up my bandaged hand. After I had been released from the ER, Jamie and I went straight to Mitch’s room. “You know my side of the story, so now tell me yours.”

  “It’s complicated, Pene—”

  “Don’t Penelope Jane me, Daddy. Will Denton almost killed me. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “Okay.” He placed the empty bowl on the rolling table next to his bed. “As you already figured out, Évariste and Will and those other men were business partners. They were using Évariste in a fairly complicated real estate scam.”

  “We got that far,” I said. “Jamie and I saw that all of their restaurant investments turned into condos. Is that what they were trying to do with Markham’s?”

  Mitch nodded. “If they wanted to buy a restaurant, and the restaurant wouldn’t sell, they found other ways to get what they wanted. If the restaurant was in financial trouble, Will and Évariste would offer the owners an injection of cash along with free consulting services. Will took control of the front of the house and Évariste came in for a couple of weeks to work with the chef to prepare for a big debut.”

  “But Markham’s isn’t in trouble, is it?” I asked.

  “Upgrading the restaurant wasn’t cheap, and they offered better terms than the bank. I’m getting too old to run everything by myself, and the package they presented was exactly what I needed. Will managed everything, and Évariste’s involvement guaranteed more press coverage than I’d ever get on my own.” He adjusted the pillows behind him. “The deal was that if business increased by a certain percentage within thirty days, Will and his buddies would get forty-nine percent ownership and Évariste would get two percent.”

  “Giving up controlling interest seems pretty hefty,” Jamie said.

  “As I said, it was just supposed to be a temporary thing. And I didn’t know their true intentions until Évariste told me, but by then it was too late.” Mitch looked out the window then back at me and Jamie. “In spite of being a bad guy,
Will knew what he was doing and he got the numbers up pretty quickly. It was only after they had their percentage that we started losing money.”

  “So that’s why Will comped all that food and expensive wine,” Jamie said. “He was running costs into the red to bankrupt the restaurant.”

  “And that’s probably why he opened this weekend and let Trevor lead the kitchen,” I said. “He hoped Trevor would screw up and we’d lose even more money.” I shook my head. “I owe Trevor an apology.”

  Jamie said, “Shall I post my review of his first night?”

  “Immediately, please,” I said, then remembered I wouldn’t be the one dealing with this trespass onto Ursula’s territory. I looked at Mitch to second the motion and he nodded. “Okay, keep going with the story, Daddy.”

  “The deal didn’t look that bad at first because they gave me the option of buying them out. But it had to be in one lump sum.”

  “Couldn’t you take out a loan or get another investor and pay them back?” I asked.

  “That’s something that had to be voted on among the three shareholders,” Mitch said, “which Will and his partners would never do because they didn’t want their money back. After we all had our percentages and everything was nice and legally binding, Will sprang on me that because Markham’s was losing money, they had decided to sell the restaurant to developers.”

  “Which happened to be them operating under a different name,” Jamie said.

  Mitch looked sad and guilty. I knew he felt foolish for getting involved in this, but he didn’t deserve all the blame. Nina had taken his focus away from Markham’s. “If anything came to a vote,” he said, “Évariste was always supposed to vote with Will to give them a fifty-one percent majority.”

  “So what role does the name deal play in all of this?” I asked.

  “Will and his partners had been using Évariste for years and he decided he’d finally had enough, so he told me everything. Évariste wanted to franchise his name, and over a couple of days, we hashed out a plan.”

  Jamie laughed. “Leave it to an old Texas hippie to bring down an international scam.”

  “It wasn’t without its problems,” Mitch said. “The first is that once Évariste defected to my side, he could also vote with me to take out a loan, which meant I could pay Will and his boys back. Will’s partners had already bought up other businesses over a couple of blocks. They had too much at stake and Markham’s was threatening to bring it to a halt.”

  “So losing Markham’s meant losing millions,” I said.

  Mitch pointed to a cup of water, which I handed to him. After he drank, he continued. “A second, more long-term problem is that losing Évariste meant the end of their game.”

  “Wait,” Jamie said, “I thought Évariste owed Will money. How could Évariste get out from under them?”

  “Once Évariste started franchising his name, he would eventually earn enough to pay them back.”

  “Which they also didn’t want,” I said.

  Mitch nodded. “The only reason they were able to invest in as many restaurants as they did was because of Évariste. The night of the party, Évariste got drunk and told Will that he wouldn’t be voting his two percent to sell Markham’s.”

  “So Will killed him,” I said. “But why? At least if Évariste was alive, Will could possibly make him change his mind.”

  “Honey, there are two kinds of people in this world. Those who work out their problems by civilized means, and real estate developers.”

  Jamie and I laughed, then Jamie said, “With Évariste dead, his two percent goes to BonBon.”

  “Who they would make sure voted with them,” I said.

  “I did a little digging after you left my office,” Jamie said. “The deals they made for other businesses in the area were contingent on all of the properties being sold to them. This whole thing takes Markham’s off the table, I imagine, so the investors who don’t go to prison can legally back out.”

  “Which means the Johns can stay where they are,” I said. “And I’m assuming Will set fire to my house. Or hired someone to do it. That jerk tried to kill me twice.”

  Jamie hugged me. “I’m proud of you, Poppycakes.”

  “Me too, honey,” Mitch said.

  “Me too,” said Ursula, bounding into the room. She kissed Mitch’s forehead. “Mom’s outside talking to the nurse. They might let you out of here today.” She wore the same pants and t-shirt she had worn in the kitchen during the party.

  Ursula turned to me and pulled me into a tight hug. “I owe you my life, Poppy,” she whispered.

  I drew back and quickly put some distance between us. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, Ursula, but you stink.”

  The End

  © Leigh-Ann Shrum

  About the Author

  Robin Allen holds a BA degree in English from the University of Texas at San Antonio. She worked in restaurants and bars to pay her way through college. If You Can’t Stand the Heat is her first novel.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title_Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  About_the_Author