Sour Grapes

by Jeff Shelby

  Lance pulled a folded pamphlet from his pocket. “Found another manual,” he said, holding it out to Mikey.

  Mikey took it. “Thanks.”

  “It’s for the fryer.” He grinned. “Figured you probably know your way around those pretty well after your last job, but I still thought you might want it. You know, just in case.”

  “Right,” Mikey said. He folded his arms across his chest, tucking the manual out of view. “You never know.”

  Lance stood there awkwardly for a moment, his gaze shifting between the three of us. Mikey stared at him and Chuck’s eyes were zeroed in on his phone, which was still on the floor.

  “You sure everything is good?” Lance asked, a little uncertainly.

  Mikey and I both nodded.

  “Kenny is missing,” Chuck blurted out.

  Lance’s eyebrows lifted above his glasses. “What? Kenny Walker? My chef?”

  “Chuck,” Mikey warned.

  But he wasn’t listening.

  “He was kidnapped,” Chuck announced.

  Lance gaped at him. “Kidnapped? What are you talking about?”

  Chuck nodded. His gaze had moved to the man standing in front of him so I subtly shifted my foot so that I could nudge his phone further away from him. The harder it was for him to reach, the harder it would be to make a lunge for it and start calling every news agency and police department on the planet.

  “We’re not at liberty to discuss the details,” Mikey said to Lance. A new muscle was twitching; this one was in his jaw.

  Lance cradled his head in his hands. “Kenny,” he mumbled, his voice barely audible. “What if something happens to Kenny?”

  It dawned on me then that Lance probably did have a close relationship with his former chef, and I felt a pang of sympathy as I watched his reaction to the news.

  He lifted his head. His eyes were moist, his nose red.

  He sniffed. “I can’t believe it. What happened? Did they go to his house? His school?”

  “We don’t know,” Mikey said shortly. “All we know is what we were told.”

  “Which is what?” Lance asked.

  Mikey’s brow furrowed. “Like I said, we’re not at liberty to say.”

  “He’s my former employee.” A tear slipped down Lance’s cheek and he hiccupped. “And one of my best friends. I deserve to know.”

  Chuck looked at Mikey. “He deserves to know.”

  Mikey shook his head. “We don’t know anything!”

  “We know they want ten thousand dollars,” Chuck pointed out. “And that they threatened to kill him if we don’t pay up.”

  Lance let out a little gasp and sank to his knees. He looked as though he might faint. I pulled a chair out and guided him into it. He slumped forward, his neck almost tucked to his chest.

  “We’re going to find him,” I told him. It felt like the weakest of platitudes, but I knew he needed reassurance, despite the fact that none of us were really in a position to offer it.

  Lance let out a muffled sigh.

  “We’ll find him,” I repeated.

  He looked up at me. His glasses had fogged over. “You have to,” he whispered.

  “I’ll do my best.” I forced a smile. “I promise.”

  “Whoever did this is truly evil,” Lance whispered. The lenses of his glasses cleared and his eyes burned with emotion. “First the statue, and now this. Who would do such a thing?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I intend to find out.”

  Mikey took a step forward. “We don’t want this information to be made public. For Kenny’s safety. We were explicitly told not to contact anyone about this.”

  Lance chewed his lip. “And you think that’s a good decision? Wouldn’t the police be able to help?”

  “The police, perhaps,” Mikey said. “Sheriff Lewis? No. And he is who would respond. At least initially.”

  Lance paled. He understood the implications perfectly. Even Chuck seemed to hesitate as he mulled over this bit of information. As much as I’d apparently garnered a reputation as a wannabe detective, Sheriff Lewis also had a reputation to deal with. A reputation of complete and total incompetence.

  It was well deserved.

  “Thanks for the manual,” Mikey said, unfolding his arms and holding the pamphlet Lance had given him. “I appreciate it. But right now, we sort of need to focus on getting Kenny back safe and sound.”

  Lance nodded vigorously. “Of course,” he said as he stood up. He wobbled just a little, and he braced his hands on the table and took a deep breath. “Will you let me know as soon as you hear something? Anything?”

  Mikey hesitated, then nodded.

  Lance sucked in another breath and straightened. I stood nearby, my arms half-extended, wondering if I would need to catch him in mid-faint. But he managed to make his way to the door on steady feet and give us a feeble wave as he exited the restaurant.

  Once he left, Mikey breathed a sigh of relief and Chuck was reduced to stewing over the fact that Mikey was probably right about keeping the info under wraps.

  I replayed what had just happened and Lance’s reaction to hearing about Kenny. There was something there, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on, that had seemed a little off. He’d clearly been wrecked over the news, to the point where it seemed his response was a little over the top.

  And then I remembered something, and my whole body stiffened.

  Lance’s words came back to me. Whoever did this is truly evil. First the statue, and now this. Who would do such a thing?

  I thought about the information Mikey had given him. At no point had he mentioned the statue in connection with the kidnapping. Not a single time.

  So why had Lance Larson jumped to the conclusion that they were connected?

  SEVENTEEN

  I’d been home for all of five minutes when I heard the front door open.

  I peered down from the stop of the stairs, a towel wrapped around me.

  Gunnar had a brown paper bag in one hand and was using the other to close the door, and I breathed a sigh of relief. In my haste to run home and take a quick shower, I’d apparently completely forgotten to lock the door behind me.

  “Hey, stranger,” he said. He was wearing his standard uniform of jeans and a flannel, along with a Virginia Tech ball cap. “I brought dinner.”

  “Dinner?”

  He nodded. “I texted you about bringing dinner by. You said yes. Remember?”

  Guilt pinged through me. I’d completely forgotten about our text conversation. Our brief exchange while I was waiting at the stop sign felt like it had happened days ago, not hours. In fact, the entire day felt like it had stretched the course of a week. It was hard to believe that I’d started my morning with meeting Mikey at the restaurant and eating bacon and eggs and homemade croissants, and had ended it with multiple suspects for a theft and a kidnapping...but no solid leads.

  I’d stuck around the restaurant for a while after Lance had left, going over everything Mikey knew and helping to make sure Chuck would not, in fact, contact anyone about the kidnapping. I had my reservations about this approach, especially if Kenny’s life was truly in danger, but there were some things about the case that bothered me.

  The lack of information the kidnapper had provided. The ridiculously low sum of money they’d demanded. And the fact that they’d kidnapped someone who really didn’t have any great ties to Mikey. It would be one thing if someone had kidnapped his sister or niece; that would have definitely motivated him to send whatever they asked for. But the former chef of the restaurant he’d bought into, a guy he’d basically worked with for a couple of weeks while they were finishing up the remodel? Why would the kidnapper think Mikey would care enough to fork over ten thousand dollars for someone who was little more than a casual acquaintance?

  I shared all of this with Mikey, and he sat for a minute, mulling it over.

  “So you think they’re bluffing?” he finally said.

  “I don�
��t know,” I admitted. “It just seems...weird.”

  He nodded. Chuck had left and we were alone at a table. “Not doing anything about it seems kind of reckless, though. If they’re serious about carrying through on their threat.”

  “I agree,” I said. “But they said they’d call back with more info, right? It’s not like they gave you explicit instructions about what to do.”

  He nodded again.

  “So they didn’t say where to take the money? Provide any other details?”

  “No, they just said that they’d call back tonight with more information.”

  I drummed my fingers on the table. “So what we need to do is stall,” I told him. “When they call, we tell them you need time to get the money. A day or two. And if they don’t agree to that, we start negotiating for extra hours.”

  He looked at me, his expression somber. “But I don’t have the money. And I won’t be able to get it. Not tomorrow, not ever.”

  “Don’t worry about the money.”

  “The money is the whole problem.”

  “I’ll take care of the money,” I said.

  His eyes widened. “No. Absolutely not,” he said, shaking his head.

  I reached my hand out and touched his arm. “Relax. I don’t think it’s going to come to that. But if we need the money, I have it.”

  “I could never pay you back,” Mikey protested.

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  I told him I wanted to run home and get cleaned up, but that I’d come back and hang out with him and wait for the phone call.

  Which was what I was doing when Gunnar arrived with a bag full of food. For a date that I had completely forgotten about.

  “You hungry?” he asked as he crossed the living room and approached the steps. I could tell that he was curious as to what was going on with me. After all, I’d stood at the top of the stairs for a ridiculously long period of time, staring off into space as I recalled what had happened at the restaurant prior to my returning home.

  “I’m more dirty than hungry,” I told him. “I was just heading into the shower.”

  He smiled. “I’ll wait. But hurry. I’m hungry.”

  I trudged to the shower. I wasn’t looking forward to telling Gunnar that my night had already been spoken for, that I’d completely forgotten I’d made loose plans with him. And then another wave of guilt washed over me as I remembered that I still hadn’t told him a single thing about the missing statue.

  I swallowed.

  Or Declan’s impending return.

  I turned on the shower and let the warm water pelt my skin for a few seconds before I got down to soaping up and washing my hair. I wanted to stand there for hours, let the water wash away the stress and help clear my thoughts, but I had a man waiting for me.

  Two men, actually.

  Mikey was waiting for me to come back to the restaurant.

  I turned the water off and squinted into the steam, trying to locate the towel I’d set on the counter.

  I got dressed, pulling on a pair of yoga pants and a long-sleeve t-shirt, and then hurried out of the bathroom and down the hallway. My wet hair left spots on my shirt and my damp feet squeaked on and stuck to the wooden steps as I made my way back downstairs.

  Gunnar had pulled out containers of food, little cartons from the Chinese take-out place in Winslow.

  “You got Chinese?” I asked as I sat down beside him on the couch.

  He leaned in for a kiss. “Yup. Figured it had been a while since we had kung pao chicken. Unless you’ve had it recently...”

  “Me?” I opened one of the cartons. “Nope.”

  He handed me a pair of chopsticks and I picked up a piece of chicken, then gave the container back to him.

  “I didn’t know,” he said casually. “I saw your car at the new restaurant. The Cow & Vine?”

  “You did?” He must have been right behind me as I was driving home.

  He nodded.

  It was the perfect opening to tell him about everything that had happened since I’d seen him last.

  “Yeah, Mikey has been having some...issues.”

  Gunnar raised a brow. “Issues?”

  I thought about Mikey’s desire for secrecy. He’d wanted to keep the missing statue under wraps and I knew how he felt about discussing Kenny’s disappearance. But I was also fully aware that half the town already knew about the theft, thanks to Sheriff Lewis’s phone call while at the bank and the people surrounding him who had overheard it and then spread the news themselves.

  “Did you hear about the statue?” I asked. “What happened to it?”

  Gunnar had opened another carton and was fishing out a piece of beef. He gave a slight shake of his head.

  “Someone stole the cow statue in front of the restaurant.”

  “That massive thing?” Gunnar asked with a frown. “The one that’s been covered by a tarp? I was wondering where that had disappeared to. What happened? Was it defective or something?”

  “It was stolen,” I said.

  “Stolen?” He looked puzzled. “How?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I have some theories.”

  I was hungrier than I realized, and I plowed through half the carton of kung pao chicken as I rattled off the list of potential suspects.

  “Sounds like there are any number of people who could be responsible,” he said when I’d finished. “But if I were a betting man, I’d put my money on Dawn.”

  I nodded. I was sort of thinking that, too.

  But that didn’t explain Lance’s response to Kenny’s kidnapping, or the fact that he’d jumped to the conclusion that the same person was responsible for both the theft and the kidnapping.

  “There’s something else,” I said slowly. I licked my lips, more from the spicy food and being thirsty than hesitation over sharing the news about Kenny.

  Gunnar stole a glance at me, then looked back at the carton in his hands. “Declan?” he asked, his tone light.

  I almost dropped the container I was holding. I swallowed a couple of times. That was not where I thought the conversation was going.

  “Declan?” I repeated.

  “You heard the news, right?” His eyes were still fixated on the carton of food he was holding.

  “Mabel mentioned something about him coming back,” I said slowly. “I wasn’t sure if she’d misheard, and I’ve honestly been kind of busy wrapped up in the statue thing.”

  All of that was true. I had been busy with trying to figure out what was going on with the statue. But, still, I felt a pang of guilt. It was a little disingenuous to pretend I hadn’t given it much thought. I had.

  Gunnar nodded. “I heard about it from Sophia, so I think it’s true.” His eyes were on mine, his expression neutral.

  I managed a smile. “Well, I guess Mabel isn’t completely off her rocker. Yet.”

  There was a moment of silence. I didn’t know what to say, what Gunnar expected me to say. I was still working through my own emotions and reaction over the news of Declan’s return.

  “Where did you see Sophia?” I asked. It wasn’t a complete change of subject, but it was close.

  “At Toby’s. She had a cart full of groceries. Fruit snacks, chips, granola bars, juice boxes. She had a little girl with her, and her dog, too.” He chuckled. “Not sure where she got the kid from.”

  “Mikey’s sister,” I told him. “Charlotte got a job at the Wicked Wich and Sophia is watching Olivia, her little girl, while she looks for more permanent daycare.”

  Gunnar’s eyebrows shot up. “Sophia is babysitting?”

  I nodded. “Crazy, right?” I didn’t say anything about her pregnancy. If I knew Sophia, I knew she would want to control the release of that information...mostly because she would want to tell everyone herself.

  “Glad she didn’t kidnap her,” Gunnar said, chuckling again. “You don’t need another mystery to solve.”

  I stilled. “What?”

&
nbsp; “I said I’m glad Sophia didn’t kidnap the kid.” He must have noticed my stiff posture because he dropped his chopsticks into the container and stared at me. “What’s wrong?”

  “Kidnapping. You mentioned kidnapping.” I expelled a breath. “There’s been one.”

  His eyes widened. “What?”

  “The former chef,” I said. “Of the old restaurant. O’Rourke’s. It looks like it’s connected to the stolen statue, although I can’t quite figure out why.”

  He just stared at me, waiting for me to continue, his chopsticks still sitting in the carton of broccoli beef.

  “I don’t have a lot of details, and only a handful of people know. Mikey wants to keep it that way.”

  Gunnar gave a slight nod.

  “So all we really know is that someone called and told Mikey that Kenny had been kidnapped. They want ten grand...and if he doesn’t pay up, they’ve threatened to kill him.”

  Gunnar looked horrified. But then he cocked his head, his expression changing to one of confusion. “Wait. Why would they ask Mikey to pay the ransom on this guy?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “That’s what I keep getting hung up on.”

  “Are they friends?”

  “Sort of. I guess.” I knew how wishy-washy I sounded, but I was telling the truth. “They worked together for a couple of weeks while Mikey and Chuck were getting the restaurant ready. Mikey said something about Kenny being back in school for a new career, and how Chuck hired him to paint and do some other handy work.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “What? That they hired him to help out?”

  “No,” Gunnar said. “That Mikey was called and given the terms of the ransom.”

  “Oh, I know,” I said. “I thought the same thing, which is why this whole thing is so weird. It’s almost hard to take it seriously. I mean, we are, of course. I actually told Mikey I’d come back tonight so we could wait for the call to come through.”

  “What?” Gunnar was holding the chopsticks in his hands again and he pointed them at me. “Why would you go?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” I asked. “I’m helping him.”

  He started to say something, then stopped. He took a deep breath. “What do you plan to do?”