I was scared, but a flare of anger shot up my throat and momentarily overpowered the fear. I was angry for my cousin, for Robert Ship, for Paco, and at myself.
“Maybe you should have just found another girl,” I said, loud enough that he couldn’t mistake a word.
“You know, I even tried to be romantic. I wrote her a love note and buried it. I tried to make it a fun treasure hunt. I wanted her to follow clues to see who’d sent it to her. She picked up the note, but she didn’t even follow the first clue. She doesn’t care about anyone but herself.”
“Or she wasn’t in the mood for romance, Mel. Not everyone needs that, you know.”
“We would have been perfect together.”
“And yet you framed her for horrible things.”
“She would never have been convicted.”
“The police didn’t know you were from Arizona, Mel. The recipe card was found in Robert Ship’s hand. Who were they supposed to think was his killer?”
“Peyton. But I knew they’d figure it out eventually. I planned to be gone by then, but then you got all curious. I knew I should have left yesterday.”
“Where were you going to go?”
“I was going to hide. I would have thought of something. How’d you figure me out?”
“You didn’t have any license plates on your truck. I don’t know when you removed them, but that was pretty suspicious. I looked up Paco’s Tacos—Facebook and Twitter were your ultimate downfalls.”
“If I’d had Paco’s passwords, I would have lasted longer.”
“Come on, Mel, pull the truck over. This is dumb.”
As we’d been talking, he’d slowed the truck down to only a slightly unreasonable speed, but my request managed to remind him that he was supposed to be escaping. He pushed his foot hard on the accelerator.
“What—you’ll tell that police officer boyfriend of yours to be easy on me?”
I shook my head. Mel was obsessed, but he wasn’t stupid. Telling him I had any control over Sam or any other officer for that matter wouldn’t make sense. It was unbelievable even to someone who’d lost their grip on reality.
“I just think it’s all bad enough, Mel. Why would you want to make it worse?”
“Once you reach a certain point, nothing is worse.”
As if to punctuate his defeatist stance, the noise of sirens suddenly sounded loud and close.
I tried to see out the back of the truck by looking down the inside middle, but the mini restaurant was in the way. I looked out the side rearview window and my heart soared at the sight of a police cruiser with flashing lights right behind us.
“Come on, pull over, Mel,” I said.
“Not gonna do it. You should never have climbed aboard.” Mel’s voice was maniacal, wicked enough to scare me again and make me double-check my seat belt.
He looked out his side mirror and cursed loudly, causing spit to fly out of his mouth. It was an odd thing to watch—his spit. It landed on the windshield just as the world started to turn funny.
Mel yanked the steering wheel—on purpose—sending us down an embankment. The move was done at a higher speed and with much more intent to harm than Peyton’s journey off road.
Mel’s truck didn’t just bump funny down the hill and then stop harmlessly. The food truck rolled, the sound of the vehicle combined with the sounds of crashing kitchen dishes and utensils. I’d dropped so many bowls in my day that my ears picked out those sounds and focused on them as the seat belt yanked my legs each time the truck was upside down. There were two rolls.
I’m sure I screamed, but I don’t remember.
The next thing I knew, I was being pulled out of the now-right-side-up truck.
“Becca, Becca!” Sam held my arms and looked at me, checking to see if I was aware enough to answer back.
I snapped to. “I’m okay, Sam. I’m okay.”
He pulled me close, hugged me so tight that I lost my breath for a second, but I didn’t want him to know, so I battled through.
We were alone in the world. We were on one side of the truck, but no one else was there with us. I heard commotion. I heard yelling, but it was all happening in that other world on the other side of the truck. On our side, in our world, it was just us and South Carolina countryside.
Sam released the vise grip and held me at arm’s length.
“Listen to me,” he said. I nodded. “I love you more than life. Just so you know, I would go so far as kill to keep you safe even if you did something stupid and illegal. I would hide evidence. I would plant evidence. I would never, ever let you get in trouble. If you don’t already know that, I’ve failed in showing you how much I care. I would die if something happened to you, Becca Robins. Do you understand that?”
“I love you, too,” I said, but the words sounded so wimpy after what he’d said.
“Marry me?” he said.
“Can we do that this afternoon?” I said.
Sam laughed and pulled me close again. “We can do it anytime and any way you want.”
“Then, yes,” I said, breathlessly and with a slur. He was crushing me again and my lungs and mouth couldn’t function quite right.
Not a bad outcome for a dumb girl who willingly got into a crazy person’s food truck.
Twenty-six
We didn’t get married that afternoon. Sam would have done whatever he needed to do to circumvent things like marriage licenses if I’d wanted to. A justice of the peace would have been easy to find. But we just got too busy.
Other than some seat belt bruising, I didn’t get hurt from the truck’s two full rolls. Mel didn’t get hurt, either, but he certainly got arrested. Sam and I missed it all, but Vivien was apparently even more forceful with him than she’d been with Peyton.
Peyton was released. Harry apologized to her. Vivienne apologized to her. I did, too, though I wasn’t at all sure I owed her an apology.
Peyton had no recollection of ever meeting or knowing Mel before sharing parking lot space with him at Bailey’s. And he’d been correct; she hadn’t picked up on his name yet. She’d thought of him as the blond taco guy. And she’d had no idea that Paco’s Tacos was from Arizona. Neither had Harry. I thought maybe he’d kick himself for a long time for not looking more closely at the food truck chefs. His self-appointed task now was to find Paco’s body, and see that his family in Mexico was made aware of his tragic end.
I decided that Peyton needed to work on her powers of observation, which was my way of telling her the she might want to consider being less self-involved. She was young, she was beautiful, and maybe it went with the territory. But it was time for her to grow up and realize there was more to the world than the parts revolving around her.
She’d gotten the note about the treasure hunt that Mel had buried. She said she was so used to men hitting on her that she just blew it off. She didn’t want to tell me about it when I asked her while she was in jail because she didn’t think it was important. And she thought it was a ridiculous waste of time. She also said she got embarrassed from all the male attention she got. I didn’t think that was a lie, but there was something more to it than that, something she wasn’t admitting to. I didn’t take the time to think about it too much, but I thought that it had something to do with her self-involvement. I hoped that meant she was aware of the chink in her personality, but ultimately, it was something she’d have to come to terms with on her own.
She said that the outside panel of her truck had been squeaking at a spot in the top-right corner. She’d climbed up there and tried to stop the noise, which is what Basha had observed. Peyton had never hidden anything in the tube/pipe. Such an idea had never even occurred to her.
She still claims not to have committed the assault and stolen the money. Harry was going to take a closer look at the restaurant manager who told Peyton not to take the money to the bank for a whole week. That angle is making more sense to him, particularly now that so many other things have come to light. He promised he’d ca
ll when he uncovered more information.
Allison had been late to the market because she’d had to take her son, Mathis, to a dentist appointment. But the second after she confirmed I was fine, she grabbed Peyton and made her get all the money she’d kept hidden in her truck. They went to a bank and set up an account. Peyton had been forced to spend alone time with Allison. I could only imagine the lectures. Thinking about it made me smile.
Everyone came to the market that evening. My family, Harry, Vivienne, even Ian and George. We invited Lyle Manner, but he declined. So did Betsy, though she did tell Allison that if she was able to get her business license taken care of, she would come back to Bailey’s. We even invited Jeff, but he’d called Allison earlier to decline and to let her know that he’d filled out and turned in his application.
“You are an interesting woman, Becca,” Harry said to me. “I don’t understand why you did what you did. Why did you get in that truck?”
“Do you ever hear a funny sound in your house and you know that you are hearing something that every person in a horror movie hears before they’re brutally killed but you go check it out anyway?”
“Sure.”
“It was like that. I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted Peyton to be innocent so badly that I didn’t think about what I was doing. I just did it.”
“I should have realized that’s what you were like when you were in Arizona. I should never have agreed to our deal to both investigate your cousin.”
I laughed. “It wouldn’t have mattered if you agreed or not, Harry. I was going to do what I was going to do. Sorry about that.”
“I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“Me, too.”
He tipped his hat before his eyes wandered over to the cupcake truck.
“Excuse me, Harry,” I said. “I should go see if Allison needs any help.”
Allison didn’t really need my help, but she was happy to hand me a tray to deliver to Daryl’s truck as she carried a giant pot.
“So I guess Mel is in trouble in both South Carolina and in Arizona. Where first?” she said.
“Here. Our murder trumps the other stuff. That’s what Sam told me.”
“Makes sense.” She lowered her voice. “We put about sixty thousand dollars into a bank account for Peyton. Do you think it’s actually money she earned?”
“I think so. I hope so.” I spied Peyton talking to Ian and George.
“She must be really good at scrimping and saving; that’s a lot of money.”
“It is.”
“Maybe Harry will figure it out.”
“If anyone will, he will.”
We delivered the tray and the pot and then I helped Allison set out some battery-powered lights. The parking lot by the remaining trucks turned into a party zone. The truck chefs served the food—Allison told them the market would reimburse them for everything they served this evening. Sam had to attend to some business so he got there a little late, though he arrived dressed as casual Sam, not official Sam, which pleased me.
By the time he arrived, I thought I’d listened patiently to everyone’s lectures about my behavior. My parents, Allison, Harry—no one was happy with what I’d done, but they were all grateful I was okay. All’s well that end’s well, or so I said a hundred times or so.
Daryl and Hank had no idea what type of person their new friend Mel truly was. They’d spent the evening apologizing to everyone and being baffled that they hadn’t seen it.
That day I’d seen Hank just appear from between the trucks, when I thought he was behaving strangely, he was, but his behavior had nothing to do with Peyton or the canvas bag. His truck had been deemed okay by the food safety inspector, but one of his refrigerators had suddenly stopped running. He was worried he was going to be shut down—what I’d seen were his concern and his mind working through how he was going to fix his problem. He did fix it and the food safety inspector never even knew it had broken.
I introduced Harry to Basha, and thought I saw a little spark between the two of them. Maybe, maybe not. All I could do was make the introductions.
The other spark I saw worried me. Not only did Peyton seem to know Ian’s name, but she seemed to pay way too close attention to him and hang on his every word. They were both over twenty-one and it really was none of my business, but I hoped that Peyton decided to go back to Arizona soon, just for Ian’s sake.
“Hey,” Sam said as he snuck up behind me while I was talking to my parents.
I faced him, went up to my toes, and kissed him way too passionately considering my parents were in the general vicinity.
True to Jason and Polly, they went with it.
“Goodness, Becca, let the man breathe,” Dad said.
“I don’t know, Jason, he doesn’t seem to mind,” Mom said.
“Not even a little bit,” Sam said. He turned to my parents. “I don’t want to be rude, but can you excuse us a second?”
“Of course,” Mom said with a smile.
She’d been supportive of all my husbands and boyfriends, but there was something in her smile I’d never seen before when it came to one of my significant others: relief.
It was something I might need to ask her about, but for now I just took Sam’s hand as he led us through the parking lot and to my truck. It was parked close to the office building and far enough away from the party that no one there would notice us.
Sam helped me into the bed of the truck and then jumped in behind me.
“What’s this?” I said to the two lawn chairs and the bottle of apple juice chilling in an ice bucket.
“Have a seat,” Sam said.
I sat as he sat on the other chair and took my hand.
“I meant it, you know. That was a real proposal, but I thought I should solidify the offer. I was going to take you someplace wildly romantic, but then I realized that this was better. Your crazy old truck, the Bailey’s parking lot, your family close by.” He tapped on the back cab window and Hobbit popped her head up and smiled and panted a greeting. “I even grabbed her.”
“Hey, girl.” I patted her head. I turned to Sam. “How did you get her to do that?”
“Told her the plan. She agreed.” Sam shrugged.
“Sam. This is perfect. You were right.”
“So what about it?” He moved down to one knee, shoving the lawn chair back with a clatter. He reached into his shorts’ pocket and pulled out a ring. “What do you think, still want to marry me?”
The ring was simple, and beautiful, the diamond embedded more into the band than on top of it. I would be able to wear it at Bailey’s, or working in my kitchen. It was perfect, too.
I looked at Hobbit, I looked at my family and friends just far enough away, and then I looked at Sam. It was a perfect South Carolina summer evening.
Life could be so unpredictable.
“As soon as possible,” I said.
Recipes
Basha’s Pucker-Ups
These are the lemoniest of all lemon cupcakes ever. If you merely like lemon, stay away from these, but if you love lemon, these are your cakes.
CUPCAKES
11/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
11/4 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup whole milk
FILLING
1/2 cup lemon curd (find it by the jams and jellies in your grocery store)
FROSTING
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake tins with liners.
Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl.
Mix together melted butter and sugar with a hand mixer for about 30 seconds. Add eggs one at a
time, mixing after every egg. Mix in vanilla extract and lemon juice.
Alternate adding flour mixture and milk, mixing after each addition but just until mixed. Don’t overmix.
Fill cupcake liners ¾ full. Bake for 13 to 18 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely.
Scoop out a small amount from the middle of the cupcakes, about the size of a marble, and fill with lemon curd, about 1/2 tablespoon.
To make the frosting, place butter in a medium bowl. Add confectioners’ sugar a little at a time, mixing each time until sugar is coated. Mixture is ready when it is creamy.
Add lemon juice and whipping cream and mix until all ingredients are combined and creamy.
Frost the cupcakes and serve. (This is a lot of frosting. Some people like to pile it on. This amount will accomplish that.)
Makes 15 to 16 cupcakes.
Asian Ramen Bowl
1/2 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into cubes
1/4 cup water chestnut halves
1/2 cup snow peas
1/3 cup bean sprouts
1/4 cup celery
3 tablespoons oil
1 package Oriental ramen noodles, with seasoning packet
soy sauce to taste
In a frying pan, brown chicken until done all the way through. Add water chestnuts, snow peas, bean sprouts, celery, and oil. Sauté until vegetables are tender.
Cook noodles according to package directions and drain. Add seasoning packet. Spoon chicken and vegetables over noodles and sprinkle with soy sauce.
Makes 2 servings.
Mel’s Shrimp Tacos
A seafood twist on tacos.
TACOS
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
20 medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
4 corn tortillas
oil for frying
shredded lettuce
diced tomatoes
06 Bushel Full of Murder Page 21
