He’d talked over his concern that, while he was ready to quit the agency, he would never be happy if he was completely out of the protect-and-serve business. Hiram had nodded, thought about it for a moment, and then recommended that Spencer apply for the head of security job at Normalton University.
“Yvi’s dead,” Spencer said to Hiram, then paused when Uriah returned with their food.
Hiram set aside his newspaper, took off his glasses, and said, “Yep. Saw that in the headline of the Normalton News. Didn’t shed a tear. Did you?”
Ignoring his mentor’s jibe, Spencer asked, “Did it mention it wasn’t an accident?” He rose and walked to the coffee machine on the counter. Cups were on the tables and everyone was expected to serve themselves. “Want a refill?”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Hiram nodded. “So Yvette finally double-crossed the wrong person.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why do you care? That woman was a lying, cheating bimbo who wore enough makeup to scare a drag queen back into jeans.”
Spencer shook his head at his mentor’s political incorrectness but didn’t bother trying to reform him. The world had changed, but Hiram wasn’t someone who would change with it.
Grabbing the carafe, Spencer poured a cup for himself and topped off Hiram’s white crockery mug, then answered his mentor’s question. “Because I was at the event and might be a suspect.”
“I see.” Hiram leaned back, and without flinching at the scalding hot liquid, he took a long sip, then asked, “Why were you at your ex’s engagement party?”
“It’s kind of complicated.” Spencer stared over Hiram’s shoulder. “You remember my niece’s friend? The one who runs the catering company and inherited the mansion and rents rooms to the girls?”
“Dani Sloan.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“We’ve been sort of…” Spencer removed the napkin from around his silverware and put it in his lap. “Seeing each other.”
“I knew you were sweet on her.”
“The thing is”—Spencer focused on pouring ketchup on his plate for his fries—“there’s this other guy and he helps her sometimes with her catering jobs, so I’ve been helping her too.”
“Is that a fact?” Hiram tilted his head and examined his protégé. “And she was the one Yvette hired to cater her engagement party?”
Spencer nodded. “I don’t think Yvi was aware I was seeing Dani, but who knows?”
“So you helped your current girlfriend cater your ex-wife’s engagement party?” Hiram’s lips quirked. “That had to be awkward.”
“Dani took the news well.” Spencer squirmed on the uncomfortable wooden bench, uneasy with his thoughts. “And Yvi had no idea I was in the kitchen with Dani.”
“Interesting.” Hiram took another sip of his coffee.
“At first it looked as if Yvi’s death was an accident caused by the tent’s collapsing in the high winds.” After Spencer ate a bite of his Ruben, he continued, “But then it turned out to be murder and although the lead detective says I’m not a suspect, he’d be a fool not to include me in his investigations.”
“And you’re afraid if he doesn’t find the real killer soon, he might poke into your past and stir up the hornets’ nest of your undercover work.”
“Right.” Spencer tested his coffee and found it cool enough to take a drink. “So I thought I’d give the police a hand.”
“What do you need from me?”
“I’d like a background check on Yvi. Say for the period since our divorce.” Spencer tilted his head. “Something like our old agency would do if they were investigating her.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem.” Hiram took a small red notebook from his shirt pocket and jotted down a note.
“And my name can’t be associated with it.”
“Ah.” Hiram pinched his bottom lip between his index finger and thumb and pulled it out. “A little more difficult, but doable.”
“How soon?” Spencer slid his cup in circles on the cracked plastic top of the table.
“Depends how much you’re willing to pay to grease the pertinent wheels,” Hiram said.
“Five hundred?” Spencer asked.
Hiram nodded, then said, “Is the detective handling the case someone reasonable?”
“He seems so.” Spencer ate a french fry. “But he’s the guy who helps out Dani.”
“So he might see you as a rival for her affections?” Hiram leaned back in his seat and extended his arms across the back.
“I’m beginning to think not.” Between bites, Spencer filled his mentor in on his observations. “However, he could be fooling me.”
“True.” Hiram nodded approvingly. “That’s smart.”
Clearing his throat, Spencer said, “Getting back to the possibility that my undercover identity might be revealed, any suggestions?”
“Find Yvette’s killer ASAP.”
Chapter 14
Shoot! Dani took off her yoga pants and stared into the mirror on the back of her bathroom door. She was wearing only her red Chef-to-Go T-shirt, and absentmindedly she noticed that her underwear had a huge hole near the crotch.
However, the deplorable state of her panties wasn’t the cause of her distress. It was the realization that she’d promised to help cook the meal at the food pantry that evening. She regularly volunteered at the pantry’s monthly free hot dinner for the poor, but she’d forgotten to add it to her calendar and had already told Spencer that she was free to meet him for pizza. In addition to having a yen for some crispy crust, gooey cheese, and spicy tomato sauce, she really wanted to hear the details of his meeting with Gray. His brief message had been more frustrating than informative.
Great! Now she would have to wait until Thursday. Tuesday night was Spencer’s turn to guard Oinkphelia and Hamlet, and Dani was booked for a personal chef gig on Wednesday evening.
It might be possible for them to squeeze in a late lunch tomorrow. Or…Dani picked up her cell from the bathroom counter. Maybe Spencer would be willing to volunteer at the food pantry with her, and then they could go to his place for a late pizza supper afterward.
Dani tapped out a quick text, put the phone back on the counter, and stripped off her shirt, bra, and panties. Stepping into the shower stall, she was thankful that the water had been running long enough that it was nice and hot.
For a few seconds, she just stood there and let it massage the knots from her shoulders and back. There was one Monday a month that none of her three workers were available to assist her with preparing and selling the lunch-to-go bags and this had been it.
She’d tried to get as much done ahead of time as possible, but a huge selling point for her product was freshly prepared food, rather than precooked fare. This meant a lot of the items had to be made that morning, and as far as she could figure out, there just wasn’t any way around that.
Thankfully, the decline in demand for her lunches had indeed been due to the three-day school break. With the students back on campus, the sales were greater than ever. If this trend continued, it might be time to think about hiring an additional employee. Someone who could work weekday mornings, as well as be available to help with catering jobs.
Dani shampooed her hair and rinsed the suds from her scalp, then grabbed her body wash and poured it on the net bath pouf. As she washed away the morning’s sweat, she frowned remembering her afternoon appointment.
She was getting together with Vicki Troemel to wrap up the loose threads of the disastrous engagement party. She wasn’t sure what to expect from the meeting. She’d never had a client die during an event before.
After one, sadly yes, but Dani’s contractual obligation had already been fulfilled at that point. At best, she’d only satisfied a third of what she’d promised to do for Yvette’s engagement celebration.
It had briefly crossed Dani’s mind that Fra
nklin Whittaker might contact her yesterday. But once she thought about it, she realized that the poor man was probably so overwhelmed with both the legal implications of the tent collapsing and his fiancée’s murder, he couldn’t care less about the leftover food currently residing in Dani’s freezer.
Besides, Mr. Whittaker was doubtlessly used to delegating tasks to his employees. And Vicki would be a lot more aware of the contract’s fine print.
Dani turned off the water, stepped from the stall, and grabbed a towel. After drying off and dressing in black straight-leg wool pants and a white blouse with ebony piping on the collar and cuffs, she clipped her hair into a low ponytail with an onyx barrette, then applied concealer and mascara.
Retrieving her cell phone from the bathroom, she went downstairs and grabbed one of the two leftover lunch-to-go sacks. She had an hour and a half before Vicki was due, and she was hungry.
Dani browsed recipes on her tablet as she ate. There were so many intriguing dishes that she wanted to try. She’d never run out of inspirations.
A knock on the kitchen door startled her and she jerked her head toward the sound. Standing there with a huge grin, Frannie Ryan waved her reporter’s notebook and gestured for Dani to unlock the door.
Sighing, Dani got up and walked over. She wasn’t surprised to see the journalist. Actually, she was shocked it had taken the young woman so long to show up at the mansion. In the past, Frannie had arrived almost before the body was cold.
A little taller than average and a lot curvier than was fashionable, Frannie radiated a confidence not often seen in someone her age who lived in a college town surrounded by a plethora of young, beautiful, thin females. It was a self-assurance that Dani greatly admired and needed to emulate more often.
The abundance of size-four young women in Normalton often made Dani feel like a moose among the gazelles. Although Spencer’s constantly voiced admiration was helping, between Kipp and her father sniping at her figure, Dani’s body image was at an all-time low.
After twisting the lock and waving Frannie inside, Dani said, “I expected to see you yesterday morning. What took you so long?”
Frannie’s nose twitched in annoyance. “Of all weekends I decided to go to Scumble River with my boyfriend. Justin’s mom isn’t in too good a shape mentally and his dad has lots of physical problems, so he needs to go and take care of stuff for them at least once a month. I figured that I’d drive up with him this time so we could tell my dad our news in person.”
“Your news?” Dani perked up. She had an idea about the nature of Frannie’s news and Dani was a sucker for a happy ending.
“Uh-huh.” Frannie beamed and held out her left hand. “Justin popped the question and I said yes.”
Dani admired the modest solitaire, mentally comparing it to Yvette’s huge diamond. This ring was sweet, and Dani would bet there was a lot more love behind it than the gigantic rock her client had sported.
“Was your father happy for you?” Dani snagged the remaining sack lunch and gestured for Frannie to take a seat at the table. “Would you like something to drink? Coffee, soda, water?”
“Water would be great, thanks.” Frannie chose the chair opposite the one Dani had been sitting on, then said, “And yes, Dad was thrilled and immediately wanted to start planning the wedding. But we’re not sure what we want yet so we had to slow his roll.”
“Still, you had a nice time, right?”
“We did.” Frannie frowned. “But not good enough to make up for missing the story of the century.”
“Did they assign the murder to someone else?” Dani asked. She’d seen the headline in the Normalton News but hadn’t had time to read the article or notice whose byline was credited with it.
“Yeah.” Frannie opened the red-and-white-striped bag and pulled out the Full Monty, a beef, turkey, Swiss, and cheddar sandwich with lettuce, tomatoes, and mustard sauce. “Yum.”
“That was the indulgent choice for the day.” Dani nodded to her plate. “I’m having the healthy one. Thinly sliced roasted zucchini sprinkled with oregano, mozzarella cheese, sautéed sweet peppers, baby arugula, and extra virgin olive oil with an olive tapenade spread on whole grain bread.”
“That sounds yum too,” Frannie said, accepting the bottle of water.
Dani resumed her seat and asked, “If another reporter is covering the murder, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”
Frannie had taken a huge bite and held up a finger indicating she’d answer in a second. While the young woman chewed, Dani picked up her own sandwich and started to eat it again.
Frannie swallowed, then took a sip of water and said, “I talked my editor into letting me do the human-interest angle. He knows that’s my specialty. I’m going to look into the victim’s past.”
Crap! Dani kept her expression bland as her mind raced. Should she tell Frannie about Spencer’s relationship with Yvette? The journalist would doubtlessly discover it, and if Dani told her, maybe she could control the way he was portrayed in the story.
“How did you find out that I catered the party?” Dani asked, buying time to consider the pros and cons of revealing that Yvette was Spencer’s ex-wife and that he was present during the incident.
“The original article mentioned that you were among those helping rescue people. It also mentioned that detective who cooks with you and your boyfriend.” Frannie’s head popped up from her sandwich like a jack-in-the-box. “Don’t you read the paper?”
“Normally.” Dani shrugged. “But I was too busy this morning.”
“Oh.” Frannie disappeared back into her meal and Dani relaxed.
After a few seconds, Frannie’s silence started to make Dani nervous and she said, “Where’s Justin? Don’t you and he generally work as a team? You for the physical paper and him for the website?”
“He’s still in Scumble River helping out his folks. Some of the stuff he has to do for them can only be done during business hours.” Frannie wiped her mouth with a napkin. “We were supposed to be off until Wednesday, but when I saw the story about the tent collapse, I borrowed my dad’s spare car and drove down here first thing this morning. I’ll return later in the week, drop it off, and ride back with Justin.”
“Oh. I see.” Dani nodded as she took another bite.
She wondered exactly what was wrong with the young man’s parents. She admired him for taking care of them. A lot of twentysomethings wouldn’t put their families ahead of their careers. Heck. A lot of people of any age wouldn’t. Look at her own father.
“I hope I can get back to Scumble River in time to poke around a little.” Frannie tapped a fingernail on her reporter’s notebook. “I think the mayor is up to something again and I’m afraid it’s something that will put my friend Skye’s husband in a bind.”
“What’s he doing?” Dani recalled that Skye’s husband, Wally, was the Scumble River chief of police and a friend of Spencer’s.
“Sorry.” Frannie winked. “I never talk about my stories before I write them in case I get scooped.”
“Alrighty then.” Dani made a mental note to mention this conversation to Spencer so he could give Wally a heads-up.
Frannie finished her lunch, deposited her trash in the empty sack, and after taking a swig of water said, “That was great. Thanks.”
“You are very welcome.” Dani pushed a plate of deviled eggs toward Frannie. “Try these. I put a little horseradish in them to give them some zing.”
Frannie selected an egg but before eating it said, “I wonder who watched a white thing come out of a chicken’s butt and thought, wow, I bet that would be tasty.”
“Good question.” Dani laughed, then got up, cleared the table, and ran water in the sink to wash up the last of the lunch-to-go dishes.
“So, tell me everything you know about Yvette,” Frannie ordered, her fingers poised over her tablet. “What w
as she like as a client?”
Dani noticed that Frannie used both a paper pad and the digital device and wondered why, but instead of asking said, “Particular. She knew what she wanted, which is a good thing, and she was willing to spend whatever was necessary to get it.”
“Also a good thing, right?” Frannie winked. “Speaking of money…”
“Do we have to?” Dani asked, pretty sure what was coming next.
“Yes.” Frannie shot Dani a look. “How much was this engagement party of hers costing? Was she paying or was her fiancée?”
There was nothing in the contract that prohibited Dani from revealing that information to Frannie. And Dani’s rates were available on her website, so the young woman could get a ballpark idea once she got a copy of the menu, which had been featured on several easels around the tent. All it took was one guest to have snapped a photo and posted it on social media for Frannie to find.
Again, deciding that it was better to control the info, Dani said, “The check was drawn from an account dedicated to the wedding, so I have no idea who provided the original funds. And my portion of the party was thirty-five thousand to feed the four hundred guests.”
“Wow!” Frannie stopped typing and sat with her mouth hanging open.
Dani chuckled. It was clear that Frannie hadn’t had a lot of experience with the cost of high-end events. She watched as the young woman regained her professional composure.
“Off the record.” Frannie pushed her tablet aside. “What percentage of that amount is profit for your company? Three-quarters?”
“I wish.” Dani washed a huge bowl that had contained the rice pilaf salad for the healthy option. “Usually about ten percent after I pay for the food and workers. Probably closer to fifteen percent this time. Because of the short notice, I had to up my prices.” Before Frannie could respond, Dani held up a soapy hand. “But I had to turn down several personal chef gigs in order to use those evenings to prep ingredients in order to be ready for it on time.”
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