by Amy Korman
I frantically looked around the kitchen for some kind of way to disarm Olivia. Not a single knife was visible anywhere, and I remembered that Channing took his expensive knives home with him at night.
There were large heavy cooking pans that could serve as weapons. . . . The fire extinguisher might work to blast this crazy girl and her accomplice. . . . But given the glinting blade up against Jessica’s jugular, I couldn’t risk a single move toward any of these potentially helpful objects. It could be fatal to further set Olivia off, and while Daniel had looked like a mild-mannered guy the other day at The Breakers, maybe he was a dangerous nut job, too. I began walking toward him on wobbly legs.
“I’m not a part of this,” said Daniel. “Olivia, come on—you’re getting in over your head,” he told his high school girlfriend. Who, I guessed, was also his current inamorata, since why else would he be here helping with the knife-wielding Olivia?
“Shut up!” Olivia told him. “I’m doing this for you! Well, sort of,” she added with an evil little smile on her beautiful face. “And you’ve been involved all along, so don’t try to weasel out of this now. Grab that butcher’s string Channing uses for his tenderloin and tie this girl up. Now!”
“I was okay with planting the old clams and tampering with the air conditioner,” protested Daniel, who reluctantly cut off a couple of lengths of string as directed and began to secure my wrists. “You never said anything about knives and, you know, holding people against their will.” I noticed that he wasn’t making the twine tight enough to hurt me—but, given his sailing background, the knots felt unbreakable, and I had no chance of freeing myself. I shivered as I stood next to the frozen-in-place Jessica.
“What are you doing back here, Jessica?” I asked her desperately, whispering so as to hopefully not set Olivia off even further. “I thought you and Channing had dinner plans.”
“I left my wallet in the office, and after Channing and I had a quick drink, I came back to get it,” she said desperately.
“And I followed her in, thinking I’d finally have my chance to get rid of this blond bitch!” screamed Olivia. “Until you messed everything up!”
“I’m sorry,” I said, a tear dripping down my cheek. “I apologize. For both of us.” I wasn’t sure what Jessica had done, but trying to make amends—fast—seemed like the only plan.
“I’ll just have to take care of both of you,” shrugged Olivia coldly.
“Olivia, Channing will wonder where his girlfriend is, and he’ll show up here any minute,” I told Gianni’s girlfriend with more assurance than I actually felt.
Where was Channing, anyway? He and Jessica weren’t called Janning and Chessica for nothing. The two were inseparable.
“No, he won’t,” Olivia told me smugly. “Channing’s halfway to Tampa right now, in the middle of the Florida swamp on Highway 60. I made a fake call an hour ago inviting him to meet with the manager of the Hard Rock Hotel for a Monday-through-Wednesday chef job. I told him I was the dining manager, and that he had to come over and interview on the spot. The guy was just desperate enough to jump at the chance.”
I looked at Jessica, who nodded miserably. “It’s true,” she mumbled. “Channing hates not working, and he was ecstatic when he thought he could do the Hard Rock job for part of the week until we get this place open full-time again.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Olivia told her. “After tonight, you’ll be dead, and so will his restaurant. No one’s ever going to want to eat at Vicino after I kill you here.”
“But why are you after Jessica?” I whispered, another tear dripping onto the white apron I still wore.
“She’s done nothing but screw up every opportunity I’ve ever had!” Olivia, enraged again. “When we worked together five years ago at a steak house in Philly, Jessica got all the best shifts. Then she met Gianni and started posting on Facebook about the trips to Italy. She wore Louboutins and lived in a fancy house with Gianni. What did you ever do to deserve that life, anyway?” Olivia screamed this in Jessica’s direction, and we both shrank back as Olivia waved her shiny knife.
“But Gianni’s awful,” Jessica whispered. “I mean, you know how he is.”
“You bet I do,” Olivia told her. “But I’m not as lucky as you—of course, you met Channing and ran off down here to open your own fabulous place, while I ended up taking over as Gianni’s manager. And girlfriend,” she added bitterly.
“Gianni was talking last summer about opening a place in Beverly Hills, which is why I decided to date him,” Olivia told us. “All I’ve ever wanted my whole life is to live in California! And I finally had my chance! We were days away from signing a lease on a place out there, and I had an audition for The Voice set up.
“Then Gianni got the offer in November from HGTV to do a pop-up restaurant down here, and everything fell apart. He canceled plans for California. And he started obsessing about you again. Every fucking word out of his mouth was ‘Jessica’!” Olivia screamed at the quaking Louboutin-wearing blonde.
“Even before we got here, I realized I needed to put Vicino out of business. Gianni’s so crazy-competitive that if Vicino flopped, I knew he’d get bored of Gianni Mare. If he didn’t have you as competition, I knew I could get him to close the place here and go to California!”
Daniel looked flummoxed. “You told me Gianni was forcing you to plant the bad clams! You said Gianni would hurt your mom and her Cavalier King Charles spaniel if we didn’t do what he said!”
“I lied,” Olivia told her old flame.
I HONESTLY DON’T remember the next few minutes all that well, but the gist of the ensuing heated argument between Daniel and Olivia was that Daniel had believed that his high school girlfriend was back for good, just waiting for her asshole boyfriend Gianni to get tired of Magnolia Beach.
Olivia had promised Daniel that Gianni had the attention span of a chipmunk (true), and once Jessica was no longer across the street at Vicino, Gianni would get bored in Florida. Olivia and Daniel could take over the daily operations of Gianni Mare, and eventually buy the place from the chef.
Gianni, Barclay, and the Colketts had set up a top-notch restaurant, which Gianni would sell to Olivia for next to nothing once Jessica was gone.
“Once I got down here and had to see you every day, I realized again how much I hate you,” Olivia told Jessica. “And since Daniel and I haven’t been able to scare you into leaving town, I’ll just have to kill you.”
“But you said we were going to terrorize Jessica,” Daniel argued. “Not, you know, stab her.”
“I can’t wait anymore,” Olivia told her hapless ex. “I gave you a week to run over Jessica, plant the bad clams, and send her the live fucking alligator—and you see her! She’s still here!”
“I’ll leave town,” Jessica promised, her voice trembling.
“Feet-first is the way you’ll be leaving,” Olivia told her. “Get in the walk-in freezer. You, too,” she told me.
“Oh my God! I hate the freezer,” screamed Jessica, finally losing her cool (so to speak). “Please don’t make us go in there!”
“That sounds pretty bad,” Daniel agreed.
“Shut up!” Olivia told him. “You were in this with me the whole time, and there’s no way you’re getting out of it now. And stop screaming!” she hissed at Jessica.
OLIVIA OPENED THE walk-in freezer door, which was of heavy galvanized steel, and gestured to me and Jessica to get inside. I knew the freezer had an interior safety release to make sure nothing except food got locked inside, but Olivia had worked in enough restaurants to have planned for this. She was just reaching into an expensive tote bag and pulling out a length of chain when the kitchen door suddenly burst open. It was dark outside by now, but there was just enough light from a corner lamppost that I could make out a tiny form in a caftan—and Joe, who had what appe
ared to be a tire iron in hand.
“Drop everything,” Joe told Olivia. “Put that knife down, Olivia.”
“Are you kidding me?” she said scornfully. “You don’t scare me.”
“He might not, but I definitely do,” said Detective Zack Safina, who walked in after Joe and Sophie and flicked on the overhead kitchen lights.
Chapter 23
THE MORNING AFTER Olivia tried to turn us into human Popsicles, I slept ’til 10:00 a.m. Holly was still at The Breakers with Howard, which I took as a good sign.
As for myself—I was packing up my Old Navy and Target dresses, and Waffles’s kibbles and food bowl. It was definitely time to head home, since I couldn’t keep up the Magnolia Beach pace. The dinners, the late nights, and Gianni’s nutty girlfriend almost freezing us to death had given me a new appreciation for the non-eventful month of January at home. I mean, it was cold in Pennsylvania, but it wasn’t as scary as being locked in the walk-in at Vicino.
I knew Bootsie wasn’t ready to leave yet, but I could work around that. I’d rent a car, and Waffles and I could make the trek north tomorrow. We could leave at 3:00 a.m.
John Hall, horrified by last night’s events, was taking a few days off from his bovine project out west and was heading home. And so were Waffles and I!
“It makes no sense that you’re leaving now, when no one’s trying to kill you,” Bootsie informed me as I tossed an unworn bargain bikini into my suitcase. Luckily, I’d only worn two of Holly’s fancy outfits, so hopefully she’d change her mind and return the stuff that still had tags on them.
“That’s okay!” I told her. “Honestly, I need to get back to work.”
The work excuse was true, but mostly I just wanted to go home. And get away from crazy leather-pants-wearing killers.
“Okay,” Bootsie shrugged. “If you’ve made up your mind, you can take the Range Rover home. I talked my editor into letting me do a travel story on the Keys, and I’m trying to convince Joe and Sophie to come along. I’m renting a Mustang convertible.”
“Thanks!” I told her. Maybe I should leave right now! Then again, it would be scary driving once it got into the middle of the night, and I needed to find Holly and say good-bye. . . .
“Ya should say good-bye to Mrs. Earle, too,” Sophie pointed out. She was in a great mood this morning, given that she was taking a large share of credit for saving my life, and Jessica’s, last night.
She and Joe had just started sipping their drinks at Tiki Joe’s when Sophie, overcome by guilt, had insisted they come back and help me finish up the kitchen. As they’d approached the kitchen door to Vicino, they’d overheard the shouted argument between Daniel and Olivia. Sophie had immediately texted Zack Safina.
What was even better, though, was Sophie’s pride in Joe.
“My Honey Bunny was so manly when he grabbed that tire iron out of his rental car!” Sophie told us about three thousand times this morning. “I’m still turned on!
“Let’s go into town, get some lattes, and stop over at Adelia’s place,” she added. “We can tell her all about that cuckoo Olivia!”
WE STOPPED AT the espresso place, got coffees for ourselves, Joe, Adelia, and Ozzy, and turned toward Adelia’s.
I couldn’t bear to look at Vicino. I shivered just thinking about that walk-in freezer. I averted my eyes, gazing instead at Gianni Mare, where I figured we might see the Colketts futzing around with the patio plantings or sipping their morning cocktails. At least we knew Olivia wouldn’t be there.
She’d gone on an ugly rant to us as we’d waited for more police to arrive. And she’d thrown Daniel even further under the bus than he’d already been, revealing that he’d been a complete pawn.
Olivia had bitterly told us she’d been working behind the scenes to get the Food Network to give her and Gianni their own show—based in Beverly Hills, this time.
Her real plan hadn’t included Daniel at all. She’d just been using him to get rid of Jessica, and once she and Gianni got the TV deal to open a restaurant in L.A., Daniel would be history. In her crazy world, Olivia even thought she could get Channing—once he was done mourning Jessica—to move out to California and fall in love with her. So basically, she’d steal everything Jessica had once had.
“Hello! Paging Single White Female!” Bootsie had remarked when we’d told her Olivia’s nutty scheme.
Right now, in the bright light of day inside Bootsie’s car, I shivered again. Then I noticed that the Gianni Mare sign was being pried from the lintel above the restaurant’s elegant white frame-and-batten front door, and an enormous moving truck was parked around the corner.
Bootsie, similarly intrigued, two-wheeled it into a parallel parking space, and I noticed two well-tailored, sport-coated backs visible just inside the open French windows of Gianni’s place. They were bubble-wrapping the expensive Chinese blue-and-white vases that decorated Gianni Mare. Or what had been Gianni Mare.
“Hey, Tom and Tim,” Bootsie shouted, jumping out of the Range Rover as Sophie and I trailed her. “What’s going on?”
“Moving!” Tom told us. “To . . . drumroll please . . . Beverly Hills! Gianni got the Food Network gig, so he’s closing this place and opening up a new restaurant in L.A.”
“It turns out this really was a pop-up restaurant,” Tim added. “And Olivia had been pitching the Food Network like crazy. Last night, right after they arrested Olivia, Gianni got a call that the Food Network was sending movers here to close up this place and take everything to California.
“The network doesn’t want Gianni trying to run a place here in Florida as well as his places in Philly and in California, so Gianni’s bagging Magnolia Beach! We’re packing up and taking all the furniture, the window treatments, the Ralph Lauren plates, everything that isn’t nailed down—and a few things that are, like the banquettes and the antique mahogany bar.”
“We’re flying to California today to oversee design and installation for the new restaurant, which is right around the corner from the Beverly Wilshire Hotel,” said Tom, as Bootsie’s fingers flew over her phone, furiously texting her editor. “And not to brag, but we’ll be making a pile of cash as recurring characters on Gianni’s show!”
“That’s great,” I told the Colketts, happy to hear about their good fortune. “That sounds really fun! Will you guys still have the florist business in Bryn Mawr, though?”
“Oh, sure,” said Tom. “We figure we’ll help Gianni get the new place up and running, and then jet back and forth to work at both Colkett Florists and our new interior design business.”
I blinked, taking in the implications of this surprise development. Gianni was abandoning Magnolia Beach and heading for California—just as poor, crazy Olivia had wanted all along. And Channing and Jessica could proceed with running Vicino without Olivia, Daniel, and Gianni sabotaging their every move. With the help of Adelia and her rich friends, Vicino would soon be filled with moneyed diners again.
“What about Barclay and Scooter, not to mention J. D.?” asked Bootsie. “Didn’t they sink a few hundred grand into Gianni Mare here in Florida?”
“Fuck Barclay! And Scooter, too!”
Naturally, these words came from Gianni, who’d suddenly appeared from the restaurant’s interior.
He popped through a French door and began yelling at the workmen to be careful with the handmade zinc sign, then turned back to us, his gold earrings glinting and intricate tattoos visible on his bulging biceps.
Gianni looked good with his Florida tan, much as I hated to admit it. In anticipation of his new West Coast lifestyle, the chef had added a bandanna tied in a sort of ’90s-rapper style over his bald dome, and he’d switched up his trademark orange Crocs for a new pair in black.
I couldn’t really explain it, but I couldn’t deny it: There was something weirdly attractive about Gianni. He wa
s the tattooed, muscled-up Vitamix of every guy you’d ever gone out with against all your better instincts, and who then hit on your friends and cheated with your coworkers. TV would be the perfect medium for his undeniable charisma, not to mention a good showcase for his Emmy-worthy tantrums.
“Barclay gonna lose like three hundred grand on this place, but who cares? He can afford it! Plus, he signed papers that said he understood restaurant is a big investment risk!” Gianni told us, looking happy as he recounted how he was sticking it to Sophie’s ex. “And Scooter and Alvarez, they only put in like five thousand each. I tell them they can invest in my new Gianni Mare if they want to—maybe they get a couple minutes on my TV show. Probably not, though!”
He gave an evil little laugh and consulted his watch.
“Hey, flowered pants woman, I forgive you for harassing me at my hotel,” Gianni told my nosy friend. “You can take quick picture of me as I leave town for your paper,” he added. “Hurry up though, I got Esquire and Food & Wine coming out later, then I leave on six p.m. flight from Miami. I see all of you back in Bryn Mawr—if I don’t sell my restaurant there. I might be too famous to come back!”
While Bootsie snapped a few pics and took some notes to e-mail back to the Bryn Mawr Gazette, I considered the fact that Gianni had once again come out on top.
It was official. The guy was unstoppable. He’d been named one of America’s rising-star chefs last year. He’d told his staff, his customers, and anyone else who would listen that he’d have his own TV show by the time he was forty—and now he’d actually done it.
And I had no doubt he’d be mingling with celebrities within a few weeks of landing in Beverly Hills. He’d probably spend next summer doing cannonballs into the Mediterranean from the deck of Leonardo DiCaprio’s yacht.
Unfortunately for Olivia, she wouldn’t be going to Beverly Hills, too.
Chapter 24
“THIS DAY IS turning out awesome!” Sophie shrieked when we got to Adelia’s, handed around the cappuccinos, and relayed the tale of Gianni’s imminent adventures in Hollywood.
