A TREACHEROUS TART

by Fiona Grace

  Scruff barked his anger at the clumsy stranger. Only, as she staggered back, Ali realized the person was not a stranger at all. Dark brooding eyebrows. Dark eyes. Chiseled jawline. It was Seth.

  “Seth!” Ali exclaimed, her gaze roving all over his face with surprise. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you. Your shop was shut. You weren’t home. What’s going on?”

  But no sooner had the words left her lips, than her gaze traveled over Seth’s shoulders. He was not alone. Standing beside him was the well-dressed, curvaceous blonde woman Seth’s neighbor had heavily implied from her balcony was romantically entangled with him.

  A jolt of jealousy went through Ali. The feeling surprised her. She thought all of those feelings toward Seth were gone. But now, seeing him standing side by side with a well-dressed, confident, accomplished-looking woman, Ali couldn’t help but feel like a mess in comparison.

  But then she faltered, as she realized the woman was more than just well-dressed, she was dressed for business. This was no date. This was some kind of meeting. Ali’s first thought was she was a lawyer. Had Seth sought legal representation when he realized he’d soon be a murder suspect? Because he was guilty, or for protection? And, on second thought, should Ali have done the same?

  “Ali,” Seth said, looking uncomfortable. “What are you doing here?”

  Thanks to her earlier experience with the snooty server in the French restaurant, Ali immediately took the comment as a slight. What was a person like her doing in a place like this…

  She folded her arms. “I should be asking you the same question. Your shop is shut. You’re not answering your phone. And now you’re meeting with a lawyer?” She gestured toward the woman.

  The woman glanced between Seth and Ali, then in a low voice said, “I’ll be just over here, Mr. Best, as soon as you’ve finished your… conversation.”

  She paced away, the heels of her expensive stilettos clip-clipping against the sidewalk.

  As soon as she was out of earshot, Seth turned his attention back to Ali. He shifted from foot to foot awkwardly.

  “That’s not a lawyer, Ali,” he said. Then he took a deep breath as if he was about to break terrible news. Ali braced herself for him to confess to the murder of Gilbert the Gobbler. “She’s a Realtor.”

  Ali froze, taking a moment for the word to percolate in her mind. “Wait. What? A Realtor? Why are you meeting with a Realtor?”

  “Because I’m trying to find a new restaurant premise to lease in the area,” he confessed, looking down at his feet with shame. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to break it to you. I’m sick of the boardwalk. Of people underappreciating my gourmet hot dogs. I want to open a high-end restaurant.”

  Ali frowned. It was taking her mind a long time to process all this, since it seemed to be coming out of left field. Everything Ali had come here to discuss with Seth seemed to suddenly leave her mind.

  “Wait,” she said again. “But all the leases on this side of town are owned by Sullivan Raine… You mean to say you’re switching to the dark side? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  Seth averted his eyes. He looked so uncomfortable, like a naughty schoolboy caught cheating on an exam.

  “I know,” he said, with an air of remorse. “I knew you’d be disappointed. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

  “But Seth,” Ali added, as her mind finally remembered that there were far bigger things at stake right now than Seth’s switch of allegiance. “Is now really the best time? We’re in the middle of a murder investigation!”

  Now it was Seth’s turn to look utterly perplexed. His dark brows drew in together, making a deep furrow of confusion appear between them. “What are you talking about?” he asked, lowering his voice. “What murder?”

  “Gilbert Brown,” Ali said, “aka Gilbert The Gobbler. He was a contestant at the competition and he died at the contest.”

  Seth’s eyes widened. He brought his hands up to his mouth. The color completely drained from his face. “He died? How?”

  “We’re still waiting for the full coroner’s report,” Ali told him. “But the working theory is that someone contaminated the food with an allergen. Oyster sauce, to be precise. Gilbert was deathly allergic.”

  Seth’s eyebrows flew up to his hairline. “The—the food?” he stammered. “You mean—our—our food?!”

  “Yes!” Ali implored. “I can’t believe you’re only just finding out now.”

  “I’ve been looking at property all day,” Seth said, breathlessly, pointing at the Realtor lurking over by the storefronts, pretending not to be listening in on their conversation. “I had no idea.”

  Had this all happened before the contest, Ali would have immediately believed him. She knew Seth well enough to know when he was genuinely shocked. But after his behavior at the contest and the way he’d shouted at Emilio, she wasn’t as confident anymore. Maybe this was all an act? She needed to find out more.

  “Aren’t you wondering why the cops haven’t come pounding on your door yet?” she asked.

  Seth blinked with confusion. “No. Why would they?”

  “You’re one of the chefs,” Ali said. “Like me, you’re a prime suspect.”

  “Oh,” Seth said quietly. He looked absolutely floored. Shell-shocked.

  “The only reason you’re not a suspect is because Emilio kept your name out of it,” Ali said. “But they’ll find out sooner or later. What will you tell them?”

  “The truth.”

  “That you had nothing to do with it?”

  “Of course I had nothing to do with it!” Seth exclaimed. He must’ve caught on to the inflection in Ali’s voice and realized what she was implying. “How can you even say that? I don’t even have a motive!”

  “Don’t you? What about harming one of the competitors to get back at the organizer?”

  Seth shook his head. “You seriously think I’d kill an innocent man just to get back at Mad Frank?”

  “It could’ve spiraled out of control. A health and safety violation gone too far.”

  “Ali! Come on. No way. I’d never do something like that.”

  Ali wished she could believe him. “But you were so mad, Seth. At Emilio and the whole competition. I’ve never seen that side of you. It was really nasty to see.”

  At the mention of Emilio’s name, Seth looked immediately embarrassed. “I was rude. You’re right. I owe Emilio an apology. A big one, by the sounds of things. But Ali, I swear I had nothing to do with this. I’m not involved. Come on. Please. You know me!”

  Something in his voice told Ali to trust him. She backed down. The Seth she knew would never harm an innocent person, or use another human being as collateral damage in a fight. The Seth she knew was honorable. She had just seen a bad side of him. But that didn’t make him a killer. He really had no idea about Gilbert’s death. He wasn’t the murderer.

  “Okay. I’m sorry. I believe you. But someone tampered with those hot dogs.”

  “…Or your buns,” Seth reminded her.

  “But who?” Ali murmured.

  Just then, Scruff started to bark. Ali turned to see him chasing something along the sidewalk. It was a neon flyer, the same bright pamphlet for the contest that Bottomless Pit Bob had shown her yesterday in the bakery, just like the one he’d signed for Piper.

  Suddenly, the cogs in Ali’s mind started to turn.

  She paced over to Scruff and picked up the pamphlet from beneath his paw. She reread the text on it, musing on how differently she felt now about the contest compared to when she’d first read about it yesterday. Back then, it had just been another quirky Willow Bay festival to her, something she had nothing to do with. Then she’d made friends with one of the competitors, become one of the staff members, and was now sucked into the most strange and bizarre moment in the contest’s history.

  At that moment, Ali’s thoughts collided with the words on the pamphlet she was reading: Queen Eunbi Choi.

  The woman had become a frien
d over the last few days, and she looked nothing like Ali expected. If looks could be that deceiving, could her personality be so as well?

  Suddenly, Ali thought of that night when she and Eunbi had been baking together. Had Ali kept an eye on her the whole time? She’d been drinking, she might have missed something. Perhaps when she was out in the alleyway checking out the odd noises? Could Eunbi have taken the opportunity then to slip something into the batter?

  Ali didn’t want to even think about it. What motive would someone like Eunbi have to want Gilbert dead? If she had any kind of motive it was buried deeply out of sight.

  There was only one way to find out. Ali would have to speak to her and find out once and for all whether there was more to Queen Eunbi Choi than met the eye.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  With the trusty stray beside her, Ali hurried to the Willow Bay Inn. She knew from her prior conversations with Eunbi that that was where she was staying, and which room she was in, but she had no idea whether she would be there. Perhaps she’d already checked out and left?

  “Sorry, Li’l Dude,” she told Scruff when they reached the door of the inn. “No pets allowed.”

  Scruff let out a low grumble, then settled down beside a potted fern on the stone step for a reluctant nap.

  “Good idea,” Ali said, yawning herself. The effects of sleep deprivation and stress were really starting to get to her. It felt like years had passed since she’d had a full night’s sleep.

  She headed inside the inn’s foyer.

  The room was poorly lit with dingy yellow light radiating from several standing lamps dotted about the place. Patterned floral wallpaper adorned the walls and dark wooden furniture was dotted about the place. On either side of a fake fireplace was a shelving unit crammed with ratty-spined books, and two batted dark green leather couches facing one another, with a matching armchair to the side. All the available seats were filled by sad-looking people in Mad Frank T-shirts, and Ali felt a pang of grief as she headed past them for the narrow staircase ahead. To think all these people had come to Willow Bay for fun and excitement but would be leaving in despair.

  The staircase was narrow and steep, with two grimy smudge marks running either side along the wallpaper from the many shoulders that had skimmed across them. The carpet was threadbare.

  Ali raced up the steps two at a time, then along the dimly lit corridor, before stopping outside Eunbi’s door. She took a deep breath and knocked. A moment later, the door opened.

  Eunbi stood in the doorway, and it was immediately clear to Ali that the woman had been crying. Her eyes were red and puffy, the emotional strain evident from the lack of sparkle Ali had seen before. Eunbi looked exhausted and emotionally fraught.

  “I’m sorry, did I wake you?” Ali said.

  Eunbi tightened her arms protectively against her middle. “No. I can’t sleep with everything going on.” She peered behind Ali at the corridor. “What are you doing here?”

  Ali didn’t want to just outright accuse her of anything, so she trod cautiously. “I came to see you. How are you?”

  Eunbi sniffed loudly. “I’m fine. Considering the circumstances.” She pulled the door open wider. “Did you want to come in?”

  Ali hesitated as a sense of trepidation overcame her. If Eunbi was Gilbert’s killer, then she very well may be about to step inside the room of a very dangerous person indeed. But she came here for answers, and she wasn’t leaving until she got them. She just hoped she wouldn’t be leaving in a body bag…

  “Sure,” she said, forcing out a boldness she didn’t feel. “Thanks.”

  Eunbi stepped aside, and Ali entered the hotel room.

  It was a comfortable enough looking room inside, but fairly plain and with extremely dated decor. There were watercolor landscape paintings on the walls of the beach, and thick floral curtains at the windows, drawn shut. Ali wondered whether Eunbi had even opened them. She couldn’t imagine spending her life touring from town to town, living in hotel rooms like this. She’d find it far too depressing.

  “Drink?” Eunbi asked, heading for the mini fridge. “I can get you a cheap wine. Cheap beer. Or if you’re not up for drinking, how about some cheap coffee out of a jar?”

  “Cheap wine is fine with me,” Ali replied. “I take it you’re not enjoying the amenities.”

  “Let’s just say I have more than one reason to want to see the back of this town,” Eunbi replied. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” Ali replied with a nervous chuckle.

  As Eunbi fetched the wine from the mini fridge, Ali perched on the edge of the bed and glanced nervously around. Nothing about Eunbi’s behavior seemed out of the ordinary or suspicious considering the context, and Ali felt even more conflicted about suspecting her than she had been before she got here.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” said Eunbi’s voice from above.

  Ali snapped out of her ruminations and looked up. Eunbi was standing over her, holding out a glass of wine. She held a second glass in her spare hand.

  Ali took the glass. “I was just thinking about how wild the last few days have been.”

  “Tell me about it,” Eunbi replied.

  She sighed heavily and sank down onto the mattress beside Ali. Then she took a long, deep gulp from her wine glass, before grimacing.

  “Never in a million years did I expect my California adventure to end this way,” she added, as she stared into the yellow liquid.

  Ali swirled the wine in her glass thoughtfully. She was feeling particularly cautious about how to approach this conversation with Eunbi. On the surface, at least, Eunbi simply came across as a grieving woman. But Ali had to accept she didn’t really know her, no matter how much of a connection she’d felt in their short time together.

  “Don’t take this question the wrong way,” Ali said, “but how come you’ve not left Willow Bay yet? There’s no reason to stick around in a hotel you hate. The rest of the festival is cancelled. You could simply go home.”

  “Actually…” Eunbi said, shifting awkwardly, “the cops told me I couldn’t leave yet. Not until they’re done questioning me.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Ali replied. “I didn’t realize.”

  She tried hard not to show how much her interest had been piqued. But it had. If the cops had asked Eunbi to stay in town, that probably meant she was on their radar, too. Were they considering her a suspect? Ali wanted to find out, but she knew she was walking a fine line here. If she pushed too much, Eunbi might realize what she was up to and shut down completely. But at the same time she needed to ask the right questions to get her to speak.

  “They asked me not to go anywhere, either,” Ali said, carefully. “What questions did they ask you?”

  “They seemed very interested in the evening we were baking the buns together,” Eunbi replied. “In fact, that’s all they seemed to care about.”

  Ali nodded. That told her one of two things. Either Detective Elton was laser focused on Ali as the main suspect, or she thought Eunbi’s extremely helpful offer to cook the buns for no reward or personal gain was just as suspicious as Ali did.

  “I suppose they don’t understand how you ended up at the bakery that night,” Ali pressed. “It might look kind of suspicious from a law enforcer’s perspective. Especially since the rules say there’s only allowed to be two chefs maximum. Which, presumably, you knew.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Eunbi replied, blandly.

  “Why did you help me that night?” Ali pressed. “Really?”

  “I already told you. I never sleep the night of a contest.”

  “But why?”

  “Because it’s all part of my conditioning process. I choose sweet foods to stimulate ghrelin hormones and trick my brain into thinking I’m famished when I’m actually just sugar-crashing. Then I stay awake to stop my body going into rest and repair mode and slowing down my metabolism. Then I fast to burn through all my energy reserves and empty my stomach. And then I stimulate my hunger sens
es by doing an activity like cooking. It’s just biology.” She let out a wan chuckle. “That way, when a whole plate of hot dogs are finally put in front of me, my body automatically wants me to shove as many of them into my mouth as humanly possible.”

  Ali regarded her. There were glimpses of the Eunbi she’d first met shining through, and she had to admit that her reasoning made sense. Competitive eating was like a sport, and athletes did all kinds of things to their bodies in preparation for competitions—from the abstinence of soccer players to the shaven bodies of swimmers. It would be more strange for her not to do everything possible to win the contest.

  But there was another side to the coin. None of the other contestants seemed to go to such lengths. Just Eunbi. Was all this “basic biology” stuff just a convenient way of explaining away her suspicious behaviors?

  “Do any of the others go to such lengths?” Ali asked. “I mean, I know Bob also conditions with sweet food, but what about the others? Do you all fast and stay awake?”

  “No, it’s just me.”

  “Do you know why? You’d think they’d do everything they could to get that competitive edge.”

  Eunbi sipped her wine. “They probably never did the research in the first place. Huge guys with naturally big appetites are already biologically primed for overeating. But I’m a tiny woman, not a huge six-foot-tall man. I have to do all that just to even the playing field. And even with all that effort, I still rarely win, as you yourself witnessed.”

  Ali nodded. Her explanations did make perfect sense. But was it enough to completely exonerate her? There was still a chance that while everything she’d told Ali was true she was still the killer. Maybe the fact she still never won despite going to such uncomfortable lengths had finally gotten to her. Maybe she was seeking yet another competitive edge by slipping oyster sauce in the buns to make Gilbert, the sure winner, sick and be disqualified. Maybe she had never intended for him to die. She’d just wanted to knock him out of the race.

  She was about to ask more, when she suddenly felt Eunbi’s eyes boring into the side of her face. She looked over to see the woman glowering at her with narrowed eyes and a suspicious expression.