Sinfully Delicious

by Amanda M. Lee

  I approached Erin Higgins first. I recognized her from high school. She’d been two years behind.

  “Hey, Erin.”

  She sat on a bench, a tissue clutched in her hand as she dabbed at her red-rimmed eyes. It was obvious she’d been crying, and it made me wonder when news of Roy’s death had spread. I’d assumed everyone found out the previous day, because Shadow Hills couldn’t keep a secret.

  She looked up through teary lashes and took a moment to place me. “Stormy?”

  I nodded and forced a tight smile as I sat next to her. “How’s it going?”

  The look she shot me was incredulous.

  “I mean ... other than the obvious.” I felt like an idiot, but I forced myself to swing the conversation to a place I could get information. “Obviously this is a very sad state of affairs.”

  “Oh, you think?” Erin shook her head as she swiped at her smearing eye makeup. “Roy was the best boss ever. He didn’t deserve this. He was a nice guy. Well, kind of. Either way, he paid well. Now what am I supposed to do?”

  “You worked for Roy?”

  “Yeah. I figured that was why you were here, to pay your respects and stuff.”

  Ah, well, this is where things got sticky. “I’m definitely here to pay my respects. I haven’t been able to sleep since I found him yesterday.” That wasn’t true. I slept just fine under the nurturing hand of whiskey. She didn’t need to know that, though.

  She jerked up her head. “You found Roy?”

  Well, that answered that question. I thought for sure everyone would already know that tidbit.

  “They said a waitress at Two Broomsticks found him, but I had no idea it was you.”

  “It was my first day back on the job.” I shot her a rueful smile. “It wasn’t a very nice welcome home.”

  “I’m sure Roy thought that, too.”

  I studied the street, the people who passed. “Do you know who might’ve wanted to kill him?”

  Erin looked offended by the question. “No. He was a wonderful man.”

  She was covering, but I couldn’t blame her. In her mind, I was probably casting aspersions on her boss. He might be dead, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t loyal.

  “He was an ass,” a new voice volunteered from my left, causing me to snap my head in that direction. Sandy Gellar was in her thirties — she’d graduated when I was in middle school — and looked great for her age. In fact, if I didn’t know her, I would peg her age at twenty-five.

  “Sandy.” I flashed a smile. I had fonder memories of her than Erin.

  “Stormy.” She returned the smile, taking a long moment to look me up and down. “I’m sorry to see you back.”

  I knew she didn’t mean it as an insult, but it bothered me all the same. “Yeah, well ... .”

  “You were the talk of the town when you sold that first book. Heck, you were the talk of the town before that, first because you actually got out of here to attend college and then because you dumped Hunter Ryan.”

  Ugh. Why did everyone have to bring up Hunter? Yes, we were close for a time as teenagers. That was a decade ago. We were both adults and he’d clearly moved on — as he’d told me repeatedly. “I doubt I left him broken-hearted.”

  “But you did. He moped around here for months. Actually, now that I think about it, it was more like years. But he’s over it. He has a girlfriend.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Have you been hanging around Phoebe Green?”

  She made a disgusted face. “Why would you suggest that? Phoebe is like toe jam.”

  “What’s toe jam?”

  “That gross stuff you scrape out from between your toes.”

  It was an oddly apt comparison. “I’m not here to talk about Hunter. I’m interested in Roy.”

  “I hear Hunter is investigating Roy’s death,” Erin noted. “I wonder if he’ll interview us.” She looked happy at the prospect, but then caught herself. “Not that Hunter hanging around would make up for Roy being dead or anything. It’s very sad.”

  “Nobody is happy about Roy’s death,” Sandy shot back. “He was our boss. Finding a new job is going to be a pain.”

  “You worked for him, too?” I couldn’t hide my surprise. I didn’t understand how she could work for a guy like Roy.

  “I know what you’re thinking.” Her smile was benign. “Roy didn’t have the best reputation.”

  That was an understatement. “No, he didn’t.”

  “He was a wimp when someone called him on his actions, though,” she explained. “He cornered me near the copy machine one day. I told him that it wasn’t going to fly — I’m not going to put up with crap like that — and he immediately backed off.”

  “Did he try it again?”

  “Once. At a Christmas party.” She smiled at the memory. “There are about five real estate agents who work out of this office. They all had dates or spouses, and some of the bank people were at the party, too, because we work with them all the time.

  “I was a little tipsy — and he was way over the line — so I yelled at him in front of everyone. He was mortified,” she continued. “I wasn’t sure he would remember the next day, but he must have. He never said an untoward thing to me again.”

  “Still, he couldn’t have been easy to work for.”

  “He wasn’t, especially for anybody new and single.” She rummaged in her purse, coming back with a cigarette, and lit it before continuing. “Sometimes I don’t think he even realized that what he was saying was rude or derogatory. Like, if a single woman came in he’d always be, like, ‘Your husband must be running late.’ In his mind, it was a perfectly acceptable thing to say.”

  “But I get where he was coming from,” Erin interjected. “It’s almost impossible to buy a house without a second income.”

  “You don’t have to be loyal to him now that he’s gone,” Sandy argued. “He can’t give you that disapproving look that you hated so much.”

  “He never gave me that look!”

  “Oh, please.” Sandy rolled her eyes as she blew out a cloud of blue smoke. She clearly had little respect for the young secretary and had no problem making sure the overwrought woman knew it. “He gave all of us that look. It was his way. Well, all the females. He was different with the men.”

  Now we were getting somewhere. “How was he different?”

  “He respected men.”

  “Oh no he didn’t,” another man argued, jumping into the conversation without invitation. “He didn’t respect anybody but himself.”

  I took a moment to study the newcomer. I recognized his face — it was older, boasting more lines than almost anybody else milling about next to the real estate office — but I couldn’t remember the name.

  “Really?” Sandy wasn’t buying what the interloper was trying to sell. “I seem to remember you getting bonuses five years in a row even though you sold less than me, Melvin.”

  Things slid into place. Melvin Montgomery. My mother had briefly worked in an office he ran when I was in middle school. She hated him, said he was a jerk of first-class proportions, and was excited when she made enough money to finally leave that office and start one of her own. How did Melvin end up working for Roy if he was his own boss?

  Melvin balked at the statement. “How do you know that?”

  “I make it a point to keep tabs on my co-workers,” Sandy replied, blowing a long string of smoke into Melvin’s face. The more I watched her, the more I wondered if she wasn’t a constant problem in the office. I liked her attitude — she had no intention of taking crap from anyone — but she was aggressive. That couldn’t go over well with her co-workers. “I know darned well you got five-figure bonuses each year for the past five years. I got nothing, even though I brought a lot more money into the office.”

  Melvin turned an accusatory glare on Erin. “Did you tell her?”

  Erin’s already pale face blanched even whiter. “Why would you think that? I’m a secretary ... or was.”

  “Yeah, bu
t Roy made you do all the grunt work, including delivering bonus checks. You’re the only one besides him who knew.”

  “That’s not true.” Erin blew a raspberry, something I expected from a teenager, not a working adult. “He never told me anything. He just barked orders while calling me ‘honey’ and commenting on my skirts.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “And despite that you think he was a good boss?”

  “He paid me well,” Erin said stubbornly. “I was socking money away to get my own place so I didn’t have to live with my parents. Now that’s over.”

  “You still live with your parents?” I was horrified at the thought, though I was almost at that point when I finally agreed to return home and work in the family restaurant. Thankfully the apartment above the restaurant was part of the deal. Otherwise I might’ve actually considered living in my car.

  “Hey, you don’t understand.” She jabbed a finger in my direction. “Not all of us had a chance to leave this place and go to college. Most of us had no choice but to stay. That’s why nobody understands why you’re back. I mean ... you made it. You were out of here. Why would you throw all that away to come back here?”

  Now it was my turn to be defensive. “It’s not as if I had it easy.”

  “You were on television.” Erin jutted out her lower lip. “We all saw you with those mean women on The View. They spent six whole minutes asking you about your book. You didn’t need to come back.”

  Ah, if only that were true. I slid my eyes to Sandy, who watched me speculatively. “It’s not that easy,” I insisted after a beat. “Everyone thinks I got rich off that book, but I didn’t.”

  “Hey, I’m not casting aspersions.” Sandy held up her hands. “I understand why you’re back. I understand about the book industry.”

  “You do?” That was refreshing.

  She bobbed her head. “After you got that big book deal I researched it. I’ve always wanted to write a book.”

  I had to bite back a sigh. The number of times I’d heard that statement was staggering. The number of people who made that claim without putting in the work to write a book was astronomical. False dreams about how easy writers have it deluded so many people.

  “I get that you didn’t get rich,” she continued. “Then that second book of yours didn’t sell at all and they tossed your contract before you could write a third.”

  This conversation was getting more and more uncomfortable. “Yeah, well ... it wasn’t what I thought it would be.” There was no sense in lying. No one would believe I was back working at the family restaurant out of the goodness of my heart. On top of that, lying made me feel icky — unless it was for a good cause, like getting my mother off my back. “I didn’t have a choice but to come back.”

  “Nobody doubts that,” Sandy reassured me, her eyes drifting to an incredulous Erin. “Well, at least nobody with a brain.”

  I had to get this conversation back on track. “So, about Roy. Can you guys think of anyone who’d want to hurt him?”

  “Hurt him?” Sandy screwed up her face. “There are a lot of people who wanted to hurt him. He was a gross old man who said disgusting things. He was also cutthroat when it came to business.”

  “Fair enough. What about killing him? Would any of those people want him dead?”

  “I’m sure many would. Wishing someone dead and making it happen are vastly different, though.”

  She wasn’t wrong. “Were you aware of any arguments he had recently?”

  “I don’t think you understand. The man had nothing but arguments,” Sandy replied. “I can’t think of one person in this town who liked him. Not one.”

  I pursed my lips. “What about his wife?”

  Sandy snorted. “That woman had more reason to hate him than anyone. But she put up with him for, like, forty years or so. Why snap now?”

  I didn’t have an answer. “Well, thanks for your time.” I stood, debating what to do. “Where does everybody hang out these days? Do they go to the coffee shop after hours or anything?”

  Sandy’s eyes lit with amusement. “Are you asking if there’s a hangout for twenty-somethings in this town?”

  Was that what I was asking? “Maybe. Is there?”

  “Not really. It’s the same town you remember. Now that we’re adults, there’s even less to do — unless you want to start bowling.”

  I’d rather cut off my own toes with the lid from a tin can. “Thanks again for your time. If you think of anyone who might’ve wanted to kill Roy, I’ll be working at the diner for the foreseeable future. Don’t hesitate to stop by.”

  7

  Seven

  I returned to the apartment long enough to realize that the town was already making me feel penned in. I lasted a full two hours before I took off again. I needed air.

  In the city — any city — there is always somewhere to go. That’s what I liked about it. As an only child, I was accustomed to entertaining myself. That didn’t mean I liked being alone. In the city I could go to a coffee shop or movie theater and sit with a group of strangers without interacting with them and never feel alone. I didn’t have that option in Shadow Hills.

  For lack of anything better to do, I put on my hiking boots — they were one of only three pairs of shoes I owned these days — and headed to the river. It was one of my favorite haunts when I was a teenager. Hunter and I spent hours walking the banks. He liked looking for fishing spots and I was perfectly content dangling my feet in the water and listening to him talk for hours about the future.

  Most guys of a certain age aren’t chatty. Hunter was the opposite. His home was so stifling, his father such a terror, that he was relegated to silent visitor status under his own roof. He loved the energy of my family. None of them were capable of keeping their mouths shut, something he found amusing. He was also amazed that no one came to blows despite the political arguments.

  When it was just the two of us, conversations were quieter. We talked about books and movies and our plans for the future. At the time, a niggling voice at the back of my head told me that his dream of becoming a sportscaster was unattainable. I refused to believe that, though. We had dreams and wanted to live them together.

  Hunter was a standout athlete, the quarterback of the football team, pitcher on the baseball team, and power forward on the basketball team. He liked playing pickup games in the high school parking lot. He also liked taking walks in the quiet woods that surrounded the town, something we liked to do together.

  I had no idea why I decided it was a good idea to make the trek alone today. I could’ve called Alice to see what she was up to, but I knew walking in the woods wouldn’t be on her list. She had a thing about bugs. I wasn’t a big fan either, but she absolutely freaked out if a bee buzzed near her face. She wouldn’t agree to hang in the woods (let alone go for a five-mile hike) and, after I came up with the idea, that’s all I wanted to do.

  I entered the trees from the path behind the restaurant. The walking trails that led to the river were long and winding, but I remembered the route I wanted to take.

  I’d barely made it a mile when I found the first landmark, a small clearing where Hunter liked to fish. We would spread out a blanket on the bank and I would relax with a book while he amused himself catching rock bass after rock bass and throwing them back. I once asked him why he never kept any. His response confuses me to this day.

  “Some things are only meant to be tamed for a little bit, Stormy. Fish are one of them.”

  I always thought it was a rather bleak philosophy, but I laughed. He seemed to expect it. Now, looking back, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was talking about me. It seemed such a deep observation for a teenage boy.

  I ran my fingers over the underbrush, which was much thicker than I remembered. Boot prints lined the bank, which seemed to indicate someone was still fishing here. For some reason, that made me feel better. What Hunter and I had was a memory, but nobody had yet completely stolen this place from us.

  After
a few minutes of silent reminiscence, I selected another path along the river, revisiting some of our other favorite spots. The old tire swing was still there. A closer study told me that the rope had been replaced recently. The footprints scattered along the ground were smaller. That meant this was no longer a teenage hangout, but rather one for smaller kids. That was probably how it should be, but it still made me sad.

  The next stop on the nostalgia train was the inlet that opened into a small meadow. I couldn’t count the number of picnics Hunter and I had enjoyed there — mostly when he was hiding from his father and his notorious temper. We’d make an entire day of it. Sometimes he’d be sporting bruises on his arms or face, but he’d refuse to answer questions about how he received them. Over time, I learned not to ask. I was gearing up to give the meadow a good once-over when I heard voices and froze.

  At first I thought I heard only two voices, but the longer I listened I realized there had to be at least eight or nine people. I ducked my head under a branch, planning to hide in the bushes until I could ascertain who I was dealing with. Unfortunately, in the years since my last visit somebody had cleared out the bushes that used to line the meadow. I found myself completely exposed — and staring at a group of people I knew well.

  “Stormy,” Hunter said, lifting his eyes to meet mine in surprise. “What are you doing out here?”

  It took me a moment to catch my breath. I’d been thinking about him and here he was. Sadly, he wasn’t alone. I recognized most of the group surrounding him.

  “Just taking a walk,” I replied dully, scanning each face in turn. When I landed on one I remembered well, I broke into a wide grin. “Sebastian Donovan! I can’t believe you’re still in town.”

  The man in question — he was a man, no longer a boy — stood. He boasted a delighted smile and the same blond hair I remembered from high school. It hadn’t darkened one iota. “Stormy?” He started in my direction, his arms already open. He enveloped me in a hug before I could catch my breath. “Welcome home.”