Undercover Cook

by Jeannie Watt

  “Probably. Or taking care of the money for someone who was.”

  “Well, that kind of pisses me off,” he said in a deceptively light voice as he sat in a chair across the table from her.

  Eden gave her brother a weary look, but could see that he was very, very angry. Justin had never been one to explode. No. He did more of a slow burn, hiding both anxiety and pain behind a flippant front. As he was doing now.

  “Why did he decide we weren’t laundering money?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know how these things work. He just said they got information that indicated we were in the clear.” And that he could sleep with me.

  “I think bank records require a subpoena or warrant.”

  “I couldn’t tell you what happened. Just that I feel used.” Eden pressed a palm to her forehead. “Really used.”

  “And this happened before you two…” Justin let his voice trail off.

  Eden was shocked. “How’d you know about us?”

  He gave her a pained look. “The old guys gossip about you. I could hear them in my room, because most of them speak at very high decibel levels.” He drew his eyebrows together in a frown, one hand still on his forgotten beer. “I’m pissed,” he repeated.

  Eden knew the feeling.

  REGGIE WAS DUE back in two weeks and Eden was determined the business would be running smoothly when she arrived—even though Eden was having one hell of a time concentrating. Every now and then tears of anger, and regret, would swell, and she had to hide them from the ever vigilant Patty.

  Wedding season would be starting soon, and with it an upsurge in bookings. Eden would be too busy to think. But right now she had time and hated it.

  She was so damned mad at Nick, felt so damned used.

  What really killed her was that she’d been well on the way to falling in love with the guy she’d thought he was. Hell, she was in love with that guy.

  On top of the Nick trauma, she couldn’t say she was thrilled about Justin’s job at the lake anymore, either. It was a fact that some casino hotels had a dark element to them. The owners and operators worked hard to keep their businesses on the up and up, but with such huge staffs, they couldn’t control everything. In fact, Eden had come to realize on one of her many sleepless nights that the setting was incidental. It could have been at a ski lodge or a bus garage or a T-shirt shop.

  But it wasn’t. The place the police were investigating was the hotel where her brother worked, and it worried her.

  She couldn’t blame Nick for that.

  “IT DIDN’T WORK out,” Lenny said, shouting across the poker table. “You and Eden? It didn’t work out?”

  “No.” Nick cut his grandfather a look, but Gabe kept his eyes on his cards. Apparently everyone was disappointed in Nick for screwing up with Eden. He couldn’t very well tell them the truth, that the relationship was doomed from the start because of what he’d had to do, so he kept his mouth shut.

  But he was going to do something, because the situation was eating at him. He figured he’d give her some time to be totally torqued off at him, then he’d work on damage control. He had to, because he was pretty certain he was in love with her.

  “She canceled next week’s lesson, you know.” Paul glared at Nick.

  “I don’t think it was because of me.” He tossed a couple cards on the table. “I’ll take two.” Lenny dealt him two, off the top of the deck this time.

  “Where’s that Marcus kid?” Lenny asked, looking around as if he’d find him behind a potted plant. “He’s supposed to be here tonight.”

  “No idea,” Nick said. He avoided Marcus at work. And he couldn’t say things were grand between him and Daphne. She was hell-bent on cracking the drug ring, and seemed to think he was a slacker because he’d objected to her methods.

  She wasn’t wrong in questioning Justin…Nick just wished he’d had some warning she was going to do it.

  “Nick’s taking me shopping tomorrow,” Gabe commented as he threw some cards down. “Three.”

  “I need pancake mix,” Paul said.

  “Tomato sauce and onions,” James added.

  “We’ll make lists after the game,” Nick promised.

  He drew a deep, silent breath, feeling as if he’d been run over by a truck. Who would have thought cooking lessons would have such a devastating effect on his life?

  THE GAME HAD gone on forever and the entire time Nick had sat staring at his cards or the table with a deep frown. Lenny kept making wisecracks and every now and then he’d say something about cooking class, then glance over at Nick, who ignored him. Gabe had wanted to pop him one.

  “Would you mind telling me what that was all about?” Nick asked as soon as he and Gabe left the common area. “All that stuff about things not working out with Eden?”

  “Just Lenny flapping his lips,” Gabe said in a clipped voice. “Lenny’s an idiot, and these guys gossip about everything.”

  It was obvious to Gabe that Nick wasn’t buying it, even if it was the truth. He stopped in the center of the hall.

  “I know you’re trying to help,” he said, “but you gotta quit trying to set me up. I can handle my own life, Granddad.”

  “But are you?”

  “What does that mean?” Nick hooked a thumb in his front pocket, his chin slightly jutted out in a way that reminded Gabe of himself back in the day.

  “Years slide by, Nick. They evaporate. One minute you’re thirty-five and deep in the job. The next thing you know you’re fifty-five, facing mandatory retirement and you’ve become a closed-off son of a bitch who no one wants anything to do with. Then you’re seventy and—” He broke off abruptly.

  Nick stared at him. “You want to flesh that out a little?”

  Gabe closed his eyes. No, he didn’t. But maybe if he did, then Nick would understand a few things. About him, and about life.

  “Let’s go to my rooms.”

  GABE’S STORY WAS pretty lean and Nick had had to fight to get some actual details out of him. After Gabe’s wife had left, he’d been devastated, but too macho to let it show. Instead he dove into his work, let that define his life. He met a woman—Bonita Tarrington—who’d put up with him for longer than he deserved. She finally drew a line in the sand, demanded that he either cut back his workload and pay attention to her or she was leaving.

  “I let her go,” Gabe said. “Work was safe. Wouldn’t divorce me or die on me or anything. Stupid move. I tried to go out with other women, but it didn’t feel the same.”

  For a long moment Nick simply stared at his granddad. He’d never had a clue that any of this had happened. Gabe had always seemed so happy being single and alone. “Have you tried to find her?”

  Gabe’s shoulders slumped before he said, “I called her after I retired. She basically told me to go to hell.”

  “But you still think about her.”

  “Yeah. I…made one hell of a mistake letting her go.”

  “Find her,” Nick said. “The worst she could do is tell you to go to hell again.”

  “I’ve been trying,” Gabe practically shouted, his pale eyes blazing. “Now that I’m a shriveled-up old fart, I’m trying to find her. Maybe she’s dead. Maybe she has dementia. Maybe she’s still happily married.”

  Okay. This was a touchy subject and Nick needed to tread lightly. “How long ago did you last contact her?”

  “Over twenty years.” Gabe studied the floor. Very uncharacteristic for him, a man who usually met life head-on. “I understand there are no guarantees, and even if Bonita and I had made a life when I’d tried to contact her, it may not have worked. But I also understand that had I not been so short-sighted, I may have had companionship through some of my lonely years.”

  The pieces clicked into place. “And that’s what you want for me.”

  Gabe made a frustrated gesture. “I can see you heading down the same path I did, if that’s what you mean. Don’t do it. Things didn’t work out with Eden, but it’s a start. Try aga
in. Find someone to share your life, even if it’s only a couple of years or weeks or even days. Because life passes faster than you ever dream.” Gabe shot him a quick look. “But I like Eden. Any chance…?”

  Nick shook his head then focused on the coffee table.

  A very long silence followed and then he heard his granddad exhale. Two stubborn men at an impasse. Finally he raised his head. “You want me to see if I can find Bonita?”

  Gabe stiffened. “It wouldn’t involve anything unethical, would it?”

  “Like using the police databases? No.” Nick had pushed that particular envelope and had lived to regret it. “But Marcus is good with this kind of stuff. I can ask him to see if he can find her.” It might be a way for them to start talking again.

  It took his granddad a long time to answer, but finally he nodded. “Unless you don’t think it’s wise,” Nick said, not wanting to push his granddad into anything.

  “No. I want to find her.” Gabe spoke without emotion.

  After another long silence, Nick said, “Scared?”

  “Like a little girl.”

  EDEN HAD JUST finished the book work for the day and was about to leave the kitchen when the office phone rang. It was after normal business hours and she almost let it keep ringing, which spoke volumes about her current mood. Eden never let an opportunity pass. But now she didn’t particularly care if this was opportunity calling. She was having one hell of a time going back to living the way she had before Nick came barging in, upsetting her equilibrium and destroying what little trust Ian had left intact.

  After the fourth ring, she couldn’t take it any longer and answered. “Tremont Catering.”

  “Eden? This is Lois at the Candlewood Center.”

  Eden’s stomach lurched. What now? “Hi, Lois.”

  “I called, well, for clarification really. The guys are enjoying your class and, while I understand that you had to cancel this week’s class, I need to know…are you going to continue to give the classes?”

  “I…” Had hoped to have a few days to figure that out. Right now she was still recovering from an emotional blindside.

  “If you can’t, which I fully understand,” Lois said in a way that told Eden she’d heard the same gossip about her and Nick that Justin had, “then I want to make alternative arrangements.”

  Eden hesitated, reluctant to commit, because being around Gabe would only remind her of Nick. And it wasn’t as if she could tell Lois, “Yes, I’ll give the class, but don’t bring Gabe.”

  “Can I get back to you?” Eden finally asked. “I need to firm up a few things.”

  “Certainly.” Lois didn’t sound happy.

  “I’ll give you a definite answer soon.”

  “Thanks, Eden. I hope you continue. The guys loved the class and they’re all cooking to some extent now.”

  “Glad I could help.” Even if it had turned her life upside down. It wasn’t her class’s fault that Nick had used her.

  “HERE, LET ME get the door,” Nick said as he followed his granddad down the hall to his apartment, which was only slightly larger than Gabe’s but had more room in the kitchen.

  “You have the groceries,” Gabe said, coming to a stop. “And I’m not helpless. Give me your keys.”

  Nick maneuvered his hand from beneath the bulging paper bag to drop the keys into Gabe’s open palm. His granddad unlocked the door and pushed it open, then made his way inside.

  “You sure you know what to do with all that stuff?” Gabe asked as Nick dumped the two bags onto his kitchen table, which creaked. They were going to make the stuffed cabbages—his grandfather’s favorite dish—at Nick’s place while they watched the game. This would be Gabe’s offering for the family casino-night potluck.

  It’d keep Nick from thinking about Eden and screwing up royally. Lies and more lies. And Cully’s murderer was still out there and drugs were still moving through the Tahoe Summit.

  Life went on.

  “The trick to stuffed cabbage is sour salt,” Nick said as he pulled the small jar out of the bag. Nick had done a fair amount of internet research in order to learn the ins and outs of making stuffed cabbage. It wasn’t like he could ask Eden about it.

  “I see.” Gabe gave a slight frown, as if Nick was speaking in a foreign tongue. “And here I thought it was cabbage,” he said drily.

  “Another important component,” he agreed.

  He’d just gotten the water boiling to blanch the cabbage leaves when the phone in his inside jacket pocket rang. He dug it out and answered without looking at the number.

  “Justin Tremont had a car accident on the Carson Grade.” Daphne’s voice was subdued. “He’s alive,” she added, anticipating his first question.

  Thank God for that. “When’d it happen?”

  “Almost two hours ago. They had to transport him, but he’s all right. For the most part.” She paused for a second before adding. “I thought you might want to know.”

  Damn right he wanted to know. And all he could think about was what Eden must be going through right now.

  “What hospital?”

  “Saint Mary’s. And Nick?”

  “Yeah?”

  “There are some concerns.”

  Oh, shit. “Can you meet me there?” he asked.

  “I’m here now.”

  “I’ll see you in ten,” he said, ending the call. He turned to his granddad, who was watching him intently. “I have to go to the hospital.”

  “Someone I know?” Gabe asked. “A cop?”

  “No. Maybe part of a case.” He grabbed his keys up off the table. “I don’t know how long this is going to take. You want me to take you home? Or stay here.”

  “Maybe I can come along?”

  Nick hesitated only for a moment. “Sure. Come on.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  EDEN HAD ALWAYS hated that Firebird as much as Justin loved it. Well, the Firebird was no more, and Justin had come within a hairbreadth of following suit. A seat belt had pretty much saved him after his car had missed a curve coming down the Carson Grade.

  Thankfully, although he was on an IV and bandaged up with a broken tibia and a serious concussion, he was pronounced in stable condition. The thing that disturbed her, though, was that when she got the visit from the highway patrol, they’d specifically asked her not to talk to anyone. Not even Reggie, who was going to kill her.

  Eden closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall as she waited for the medical staff to do whatever they had to do before they allowed her back inside her brother’s room.

  “There she is.” Eden’s eyes came open at a familiar voice. Gravelly and impatient. Gabe. And, of course, Nick. On the opposite side of Gabe stood a striking dark haired woman with a no-nonsense expression. This couldn’t be good in any way, shape or form.

  Eden moved in front of Justin’s door.

  “You’re not going in there,” she said to no one in particular. In response, the woman took out a badge case and flipped it open. “Daphne Sparks, Washoe-Tahoe Drug Task Force.”

  So this was Daphne. Eden instantly decided she didn’t like her.

  “My brother is injured and you’re not going in and upsetting him.”

  “I’m not going in to upset him,” Daphne said, looking as if she was seconds away from forcibly moving Eden.

  “Right. Because you’re not going in.”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  “Daph…” Nick said in a warning voice. He shifted his gaze to Eden. “We need to talk to Justin about the circumstances of the accident. We have a witness who suggests that it wasn’t an accident. We need corroboration.”

  “Not an accident?” Eden felt the blood leave her face. “Because of…” she glanced at Daphne “…his job?” Otherwise a highway-patrol investigator would be there, not a drug-task-force member.

  “We don’t know.” Nick spoke in a flat cop voice, but his eyes were far from emotionless. There was a veritable storm going on in their depths. “And we need
to talk to Justin to find out.”

  “I want to be there.”

  He shook his head. “You can’t.” His voice took on a gentler note as he said, “We won’t be long.”

  Eden let out a breath before grudgingly stepping aside. Daphne knocked, and when the door opened, she and Nick went inside, leaving Eden out in the hall with Gabe, who shifted uncomfortably.

  Before the door had closed all the way, it opened again and the two nurses who’d been in the room came out.

  “As soon as they’re done, you can go in,” the taller nurse said to Eden. Then she and her associate walked down the hall in the opposite direction.

  Gabe cleared his throat and Eden glanced at him. He reached out and awkwardly took her hand, holding it in his warm, surprisingly strong grip. “I’m sure sorry this happened,” he said.

  “Me, too.” Eden swallowed, determined to hold it together.

  “Nick about went out of his head on the way over here,” Gabe added helpfully.

  “I see.” She looked at the door, then back at the old man. “Your grandson has put me through hell, you know.”

  “For the record,” Gabe stated, “I suspect you’ve done the same for him.”

  “Then I guess he got what he deserves,” Eden said.

  JUSTIN’S FACE AND PART of his head were bandaged. He had tubes in his good arm and his eyes were almost swollen shut. He looked like hell, but he was alive, Nick thought, which was saying something after seeing the photos of the accident scene.

  “You,” he slurred, looking at Nick through those puffy eyes.

  “Yeah, me,” Nick said. “Can you remember the accident?”

  Justin made a slight up and down movement with his head. “Hit from behind.”

  Daphne stepped closer to the bed. “Can you remember the vehicle?”

  “Jeep Grand Cherokee. Dark.” He formed each word slowly but distinctly, then paused to swallow. “Prob’ly the one with the Hemi, since it caught my Firebird.”