by Gina LaManna
“Except your blood is ninety-eight percent sugar. I don’t think you can eat too many sweets.”
“While I appreciate your confidence in my stomach, I am human,” I said. “I hate to admit it, but I do get sick. I get belly aches.”
“When’s the last time you threw up?”
“I don’t know. A long time ago.”
“Right. Because you have a stomach of steel. Or whatever is stronger than steel.”
“Honestly, it was probably the marshmallows from 7-Eleven,” I said. “I really think they might have been stale.”
“Lacey.” Anthony deadpanned me. “You buy your coffee regularly from a gas station. They sell gas, not coffee. Anything you eat from there is... iffy at best.”
“I tried some batter at the bake-off today, also. It could’ve been that.”
“You eat raw cookie dough like it’s ice cream.”
“Also fair,” I agreed. “But that doesn’t mean it was poisoned. I could’ve finally gotten a bad batch. I’m due, let’s be honest.”
“Except we know you were poisoned,” Anthony said. “Dr. Gambino came by and took a sample of your blood. You were pretty out of it.”
I squinted, trying to remember. There were some fevered, elusive memories hovering in my brain. It came back to me slowly—Dr. Gambino drawing blood, muttering with Anthony. “Did anything come of it?”
“He was able to identify the poison,” Anthony said. “Fortunately, it’ll just have to work through your system overnight. He left some anti-nausea medicine that should help you weather the storm.”
“Aw, man!” I frowned, then considered. “Wait a minute. If I’m poisoned, and I fed Bella...”
“She’s fine,” Anthony reassured me. “Dr. Gambino took a peek at her as a precaution, but the poison didn’t get into your milk supply.”
“Small miracles,” I said, wedging myself deeper into the pillows. “Man, it’s annoying being poisoned.”
Anthony gave a dry cough. “Yeah, I suppose that’s one way to put it. But Lace, we need to figure out who did this to you.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, I’d like to say nobody hates me enough to poison me. But if I was getting close to Amelia’s killer, it might’ve been easier to just get rid of me.”
Anthony’s jaw moved back and forth. His face was stone. Something in what I’d said had put him deep into protective mode, and he was no longer finding any part of the situation humorous. If I wasn’t married to him, and I didn’t know him inside and out, his mood might’ve been frightening.
“It’s fine,” I told Anthony. “Don’t do anything rash.”
“It’s fine?” He echoed me quietly. Very quietly. “Fine?”
“Okay, it’s not fine,” I said. “But let’s think about this logically. Someone didn’t want me at those finals. Let’s work backward and figure out who that is.”
Anthony blew out an unhappy breath. He reached to rub my back, but I dodged his hand and stuck my head into the trash can. Then I scurried into the bathroom, cleaned up, brushed my teeth, and came back.
Anthony tried again to rub my back, and this time, he was successful. “Get some sleep, sugar. We’ll work this out in the morning.”
I started to argue with Anthony, but I was out before I could finish my sentence.
IN SOME MIRACULOUS turn of events, I made it through the rest of the night without vomiting again. I woke feeling pretty proud of myself. I reached over to share the good news with Anthony, but his spot on the bed was noticeably empty.
That’s when I noticed the sunlight beaming through the windows.
“The finals.” I shot up in bed. A wave of dizziness brought me back down. I took a few deep breaths, hiding under the covers, as if that would fend off the stars. “Crap!”
Once I steadied myself, I limped toward the bathroom and took a gloriously hot shower. I brushed my teeth with three different toothpastes and rinsed twice. A new outfit, combed hair, and a swipe of mascara had me feeling like a brand-new person.
I vaguely remembered promising Meg that I’d help test her recipe for the finals. Judging by the sunlight dumping through the window, I’d missed the boat on that. When I took a peep at my phone and saw thirty-seven missed calls, that confirmed the fact that my little snooze had lasted a teensy bit longer than expected.
“Anthony!” I hoofed it out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. “Why didn’t you wake me? I had things to do. Lots of things to do.”
Anthony patiently waited for Bella to bang a few blocks against her tray table before she opened her mouth. Stealing the slim window of opportunity, Anthony squeezed something that looked like mashed bananas and cereal into her mouth. Bella got a good bite, squished up her nose, then sneezed.
Bits of banana flew everywhere. Anthony’s eyes widened in surprise, then crinkled into a smile. Bella giggled, reached up a chubby fist and spent a few seconds finger painting with the mash on her tray, then very kindly rubbed it over her eyebrows and well into her hair.
“Yeah, that’s not coming out until bath time,” I said. “That cereal is like glue.”
“I know,” Anthony said, glancing at his shirt.
“I meant Bella’s hair.”
“Don’t be mad at me.” Anthony looked up at the sharpness in my words. “Yes, I shut your alarm off. Because you were poisoned. Forgive me, but your health comes before a stupid bake-off.”
I inhaled a deep breath. “You say that as if this is the first time someone has tried to kill me. I love you, Anthony, but if I took a time out every time someone decided they wanted me dead, I’d be sitting on the bench an awful lot.”
“It’s alarming how little that fact bothers you.”
“What can I say? I’m an optimist.”
Anthony grimaced and then muttered something in another language that sounded like a cross between a curse and a prayer. He’d been doing that a lot lately.
“This little girl is all done.” Leaning forward, Anthony unstrapped Bella from her highchair, did a quick wipe up, and brought her to sit on his lap. In the silence that followed, he cast a shifty-eyed glance my way. “So, what are your plans for today?”
“Um, hide from Meg?” I suggested weakly. My stomach rumbled, and I realized it was probably emptier than it’d ever been in my life thanks to the exorcism it’d been through overnight. The thought was almost exciting—so many things to fill it with—but it was quickly followed by the sad fact that none of them sounded particularly appetizing. “Or else there might be another attempt on my life—from my best friend.”
“I took care of Meg.”
I paused, mid-reach for Bella’s leftover baby food, my heart stuttering in my chest. “Anthony!”
“Not like that.” Anthony rolled his eyes, though he didn’t look quite as convinced as I would have liked. “I just talked to her.”
“You did? Were you unarmed or something? Forgot your gun?”
“She called me fifteen times, and I figured if I didn’t answer, she’d come over here.” Anthony lifted one shoulder. “I wasn’t about to let that happen.”
“What’d you tell her?”
“The truth.” He gave me yet another skeptical glance. “That you were almost dying a slow and painful death from poison. I didn’t think it needed any embellishing.”
“How’d she take the news?”
He considered. Didn’t really answer.
“She’s upset,” I deduced.
“That’d be putting it mildly,” Anthony said, “but I talked her off the ledge. She knows you’re going to skip the finals. She was okay with it after I promised she could use the new hot tub we’re having installed next week.”
“We’re getting a hot tub?”
Anthony’s face slid into a smirk. “Not exactly. But she asked.”
I picked up Bella’s abandoned food and began nibbling the mixture off her baby spoon. “You know that won’t stop Meg from showing up in her bathing suit and camping out front, right?”
Anthony’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “Ah.”
“Either way, I’m glad you cleared the air with her, so she didn’t worry.”
Anthony still looked concerned. “But I’m worried.”
“What are you worried about now?”
His gaze focused on my choice of breakfast. “You know we have real food, right? Adult food?”
“Waste not, want not.” I polished off Bella’s banana-cereal concoction. “If it’s good enough for a baby, it’s good enough for me. Plus, that was the first course. With how empty my stomach is, I’m going to need about seven billion samples to fill up my stomach.”
“Lace—”
“I’m kidding!” I gave him a playful pinch on the shoulder. “I won’t eat any samples at the finals.”
Anthony’s shoulders stiffened. “You’re not going to the finals.”
“I have to,” I said. “I can’t give up now.”
“You almost died.”
“Not really. I’ve got you, and you won’t let me die. Thank you for that,” I added quickly. “I’m very grateful to you, even if I don’t sound like it.”
“You aren’t acting grateful, seeing as you’re going to waste all my life-saving efforts by walking right back into the lion’s den.”
“It’s a bake-off!” I stood, grabbed a thermos. Into it, I poured a selection of cereals and a dash of milk before capping it and tossing the whole thing in a bag. “Plus, with the weirdness of yesterday, I’m sure they’ll have some cops and additional security on the scene. How deadly can it be?”
I then stashed three granola bars, a leftover Subway sandwich, and one bag of marshmallows also into my pack. When I straightened, I caught Anthony’s expression of disbelief.
“Okay, don’t answer that,” I amended. “Point taken. But maybe you could, like, spend one more day bonding with your daughter while I finish up my investigation. It’s really healthy for Bella to have a good relationship with her father.”
“I’m wearing her breakfast,” Anthony deadpanned. “I’m not sure how much closer we can get.”
“Great, thanks,” I said. “I love you, too. Is it really almost nine o’clock? The cookie category is scheduled to start at ten, and I do have to give Meg moral support.”
“I don’t—”
“I bet if I help her out today, she’d abandon the idea of using our hot tub—non-existent or not.”
Anthony considered. “Fine, with several stipulations. I get to keep my tracker on your car. You check in once an hour. And when Nora takes Bella for the afternoon shift, I get to join you.”
When Anthony finished his list of demands, I nodded. “Don’t care about the tracker, and I will check in as much as I can. You can join me if you can find me. Capisci?”
Anthony grabbed my wrist and tugged me toward him, quite hard. I didn’t mind, seeing as it brought me up close and personal with his rock-hard chest. I snuggled one arm around him and the other around Bella.
“Be careful,” he whispered in my ear. “I love you. We couldn’t survive without you.”
“I love you, too.” I kissed Anthony, kissed Bella, then repeated the process seven hundred times until Anthony nearly peeled me off him. “I love both of you.”
“Go on,” Anthony finally said, a gentle turn to his words. “Finish up this case and come home safe to us, sugar.”
Chapter 20
I stumbled into the tent with forty minutes to spare. Luckily, Meg hadn’t formally fired me from being her assistant. Mostly because I needed the badge to get inside the arena.
Once I’d secured my official nametag, I scooted inside and tiptoed toward Meg. She was standing behind the frontmost pink bench and was impossible to miss. Not to be outdone by her appliances, Meg had dressed in matching attire to her bench—ensuring everything from her mixer to her fishnet tights, dangling earrings, and glittering tiara were a delicate shade of rosebud.
“Oh, hello,” Meg said casually when I approached. “Who are you?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I really didn’t mean to pass out on you last night, but I was under the weather.”
“Eat this.” Meg shoved a cookie in the shape of a unicorn toward me. “Now. Eat it.”
I looked at it, felt my stomach lurch. “I... I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Whew.” Meg wiped her forehead. “Boy, am I ever glad to hear that.”
“Hear what?”
“Come on,” Meg said. “Have you ever said no to a cookie before?”
I considered. And considered and considered.
Finally, “I can’t think of a single time in my whole entire life.”
“Exactly.” Meg waved a stick of butter at me. “You, my friend, weren’t lying about last night. You were poisoned. I thought for a minute you just got lazy and didn’t want to help me out, but I’m glad that’s not true.”
“That is pretty much hard science.”
“Rock hard science,” Meg agreed. “But it turned out to be one of them blessings in disguises that you couldn’t come by last night. Since I didn’t have a professional taste tester on hand, I just went with Clay’s recipe.”
“You did?” I gulped. “It doesn’t... explode, does it?”
“Don’t think so,” Meg said. “But usually, only time can tell.”
I gulped again.
“Either way, we’re gonna win,” Meg said. “Get your acceptance speech ready, so I can use it if I go speechless.”
“Have you ever been speechless?”
“No, but stranger things have happened,” Meg said. “Like you saying no to a cookie.”
“Point taken.”
Meg squeezed me in a hug. “I’m glad you’re here. And I’m glad you really were poisoned last night.”
“Thanks?” I squished against Meg’s famed camo vest, the only thing that wasn’t pink on her person. “What do you have in your pockets? Something is poking me. It’s deadly in there.”
“Oh, this ole thing?” Meg gestured to her infinite pockets. “I got a lot of supplies. Did I get you with the zester? Or maybe it was the dowel.”
I rubbed my ribs where one of Meg’s utensils had given me a hard poke. “What have I missed this morning?”
“Not much,” Meg said. “Everyone’s just nervous. And waiting.”
I glanced around, noting the vibe of the tent was notably calmer than I’d expected for the grand finale. Sure, there was a note of anticipation trilling just beyond the surface, but there was significantly less bustling than I’d expect for a pool of nervous bakers.
“Why aren’t you getting ready to bake?” I glanced at my phone. “Aren’t the finals about to start?”
“They were, but they might be cancelled,” Meg said. “That’s what we’re all waiting to find out. One of the judges didn’t show up this morning.”
“Again?” I gaped at her. “Now, when I asked you what I missed this morning, why didn’t you tell me that?”
Meg scratched her chin. “Yeah, I suppose that qualifies as news.”
“Which judge didn’t show up?”
“The lady,” Meg said. “Hunter and Filip are here, but nobody has seen Maureen.”
“Don’t tell me she’s been kidnapped.”
“It’s nothing so sinister. There’s no need to make everything so dramatic, Lacey.”
“Dramatic? It’s not dramatic that two judges went missing yesterday and I was poisoned?” I threw a hand up. “Oh, and that there was a murder a few days ago?”
“When you put it like that, it does sound a little dramatic,” Meg agreed. “But I’m afraid this news doesn’t add flavor to the drama at all. It’s sorta boring. All that happened this morning is that the lady judge called Stuart to tell him she was quitting.”
“Quitting?” I blinked. “Just like that?”
“Just like that. Something about her feeling like there was too much tension and crazy stuff going on, and she didn’t want any part of it.”
“Well, that does sound logical, but st
ill... From what everyone else has said, being the judge of the bake-off is pretty prestigious. I would think it would take a lot to frighten a judge when there’s only one day left.”
“Like a murder?”
“Like that,” I said. “But that’s the strange part. There hasn’t been another murder. If she was going to be scared away by a death, wouldn’t she have already quit? Why now... on the morning of the finals?”
“Don’t look at me for an answer,” Meg said. “I personally don’t see how anyone could miss the chance to taste my cookies.”
“Has anyone actually talked to her?” I asked, as a kernel of an idea hovered in my brain. “Or seen her?”
“Oh, gingersnap,” Meg said. “Now, that’s an interesting question, and I don’t even know the answer to it.”
“I think we should find out.”
“Clay’s on his way here,” Meg said. “I bet he can get you Maureen’s number.”
I surveyed the tent while Meg pulled out her phone to call her husband. Britta, Nellie, and Susie were all in the tent already, the three of them milling about near the edges since they wouldn’t be baking for a while. Susie looked prim and proper in a gingham dress with a matching gingham apron and a matching gingham bow in her hair. She looked like she could be on the cover of a roll of cookie dough.
Nellie stood near the entrance to the tent at the hot apple cider counter, leaning against the table and refilling her teeny Dixie cup like it was a compulsive tic. The way she was going through the beverage, she’d be spending most of her baking time allotment in the restroom.
On the exact opposite end of the room, Britta Facelli sat perched on a stool looking like she was fresh off the Jersey Shore. Her lips were a dark purple, her hair was slicked back in a pretty ponytail. Her eyebrows were dark, her earrings big, her gum-smacking loud. Next to her, as usual, was her odd little assistant.
“Got it.” Meg drew my attention as she gave a sharp clap of her hands. “The number, Lace. Write it down.”
I unlocked my phone and typed in the digits as Meg read them to me. I hit dial, listening as it rang twice. Then someone answered, and without a doubt, it was Maureen.