Lacey Luzzi Box Set

by Gina LaManna

  Meg eyed me up and down. “Girl, I don’t have half the products you need to make yourself look presentable. I’m guessing if you and Anthony are gonna be fooling around in a car all evening, you’re gonna wanna get the infestation of rats out of your hair and wash away some of that natural scent you got going on. And lord almighty, use some eye cream. You’re almost thirty, chickadee.”

  I touched my eyes in a sudden panic. “Oh no! I can’t believe Anthony saw me like this. I’m old! I’m getting ancient.”

  “Relax,” Meg said. “It’s nothing a shower can’t fix. At least that’s what I’ve been saying most of my life, and look how good I look.”

  She struck a pose that looked like a cute, fuzzy bear had crashed the cover shoot for Vogue and demanded an eight-page spread.

  “Right,” I said. “Can you drive me home?”

  “Not until this guy stops macking on blondie,” Meg said, gesturing towards Julio. “Why don’t you call your cousin?”

  I dialed Clay’s number. “Hey, favorite cousin of mine...”

  “DID YOU FIND THE SAUCE?” Clay asked once he’d retrieved me in his creep van.

  I’d initially felt a little embarrassed getting into the thing in a public place. Then I realized I wasn’t exactly a prize myself at the moment.

  “No,” I said shortly, buckling the seatbelt. “You gave us directions to an abandoned high school hangout.”

  Clay’s cheeks reddened.

  “I’m sorry to say, I think your information was wrong,” I said. “Where did you get the idea the sauce was in Stillwater, anyway?”

  “My information is not wrong,” Clay said. “You must have just gone to the wrong place.”

  I slowly turned my head towards him, fires dancing behind my irises. “I don’t think so. We scoured that strip up and down for hours.”

  “You must have missed it,” Clay said with a shrug. “Maybe you should go back tomorrow.”

  I thought steam might come out of my ears. “Listen, I know you’re a computer whiz, and it’s great that you can break into the President’s Facebook account and post cute puppy pictures. But that doesn’t mean you’re right all the time. Stop being so stubborn.”

  “I’m not being stubborn,” Clay said. “I’m being right.”

  I kind of wanted to punch him, but I didn’t for two reasons. One, he was my cousin. We all had faults, and a little stubbornness ran in the Family. But the second reason was most important: he was driving. I wanted to make sure we got home alive, so I could punch him once we parked.

  “Clay,” I said, “I’m trying very hard to keep my voice from screaming at you. Meg and I had a, um, a very difficult day today. If there was any chance Dave was out in Stillwater selling his sauce, we would have found him.”

  Clay’s lips tightened. “What’s your next plan, then?”

  “You don’t have any other thoughts on where I might be able to find him?” I asked. “Would a viral post really be that hard to pull up online? Maybe the food critic knows. What was his name?”

  “I don’t remember,” he muttered.

  I unlocked my phone and pulled up Google. “Well, it shouldn’t be that hard to figure out.”

  “One would think,” Clay muttered.

  I typed in Dave’s Special Sauce Minneapolis Food Critic and clicked search. An article popped up at the top. The site was incredibly minimal with just a few lines written on it and an over-sized picture of a sauce jar.

  I read to Clay loudly. “Dave’s Special Sauce: The finest grilling sauce on the market in beautiful Stillwater, Minnesota. A secret, hidden gem. Visit today.”

  “Well-written,” Clay said.

  I snorted. “I don’t buy it. I’ve never seen a scammier website in my life! If this is a real food critic, he would’ve written about the taste. Don’t they have like, ten methods of taste or something?”

  “Maybe someone put it up in place of Dave’s website, since he refused to create one himself.” Clay shifted as he turned onto our street. “I mean, I don’t really know.”

  “Is there something you’re not telling me?” I asked. “I feel like this is some big joke. How can finding sauce be so challenging?”

  “All I know is Carlos makes someone do it every year. I don’t know why it’s so difficult or where it’s located. Carlos has never graced me with the assignment,” he said, a bit of a sour expression taking over his face as he guided his creep van into the parking space with the green paint on the curb. “Consider yourself lucky.”

  “Sorry,” I said, reaching over and patting him on the shoulder. “I didn’t know this was a sore spot. Let’s do this one together. You’re as much a part of this Family as I am, if not more.”

  Clay gave a tight smile.

  “I’m going to give this critic a call,” I said. While Clay had been talking, I’d cross-referenced the writer of the article and found that Martim Short was indeed a food critic. His number was listed at the bottom of his website, “Tasting the Twins.”

  My cousin glanced over and made an uncomfortable noise in his throat.

  “I know,” I agreed. “You’d think he could come up with a better name. Twin Cities, at least.”

  “Right,” Clay murmured. “Definitely. Are you sure you want to bother him? With a reputation as esteemed as his, the guy probably keeps pretty busy, you know, Tasting the Twins. He might not have time to talk.”

  “The worst he can say is no,” I said, already dialing. “Martim?” I asked, holding up a finger to stop Clay’s next sentence as the food critic picked up the phone. “Hi, you don’t know me, but I’m calling regarding one of your reviews.”

  I waited a minute as a man with a heavy European accent spoke on and on about something that might be called tiramisu, but sounded more like “teary zoo,” and I suddenly understood the mistranslated name to his site. When he wound down from his speech, I gave Clay a confident smile.

  “Thanks for that lovely explanation,” I said. “I was actually wondering more about the grilling sauce you apparently rocketed to fame. Dave’s Special Sauce?”

  “I know not of what you speak,” the man said. “Sauce? I know of fish and the chocolates and teary zoo—”

  “It’s from Stillwater,” I suggested. “Little stand on the side of the road? I found a post you wrote about it online.”

  Clay opened the car door and paced around the vehicle once, as if looking the outside up and down for scratch marks. Though from experience, I knew it would be easier for him to find a non-scratched section of the van’s body.

  “A post? Which post?” Martim asked, a bit of irritation creeping into his voice. “I didn’t write post. I no do grilling sauces.”

  “Are you sure?” I pressed. “I’m looking at it right now.”

  “Stop wasting my time. I do not know Dave and I do not know grilling. I am fine dining food critic, not some garbage from side of road.”

  “Do you know who—” I opened the car door and put the phone in my pocket. “He hung up on me.”

  “Rude,” Clay said, shutting the door and coming around to my side.

  We walked into our droopy apartment complex together – the droopiness not even on my mind, as I wondered why there was so much mystery around a stupid grilling sauce. “What do you think?”

  Clay let us into apartment number 7. “I think you have worked plenty hard on this, and if you can’t find a grilling sauce after this much time and effort, you should show up to Carlos’s with a bottle of ketchup.”

  “But—”

  “I know he gave you an assignment,” Clay said. “But which do you really think you should be focusing on? The sauce or the fireworks?”

  “How do you know about the fireworks?” I asked, suddenly remembering that the last time I saw Clay he’d been too busy entertaining Horatio for me to tell him about my other assignment.

  “Anthony,” he muttered. “It’s my business to know things.”

  “You’re right,” I sighed. “I’m meeting Anthony toni
ght to stake out the warehouse. He thinks his men have found the place where the fireworks are being funneled.”

  “Good,” Clay said. “It’ll take your mind off the sauce. Don’t you agree? Isn’t going with Anthony the better choice?”

  “Yes,” I sighed, agreeing for more reasons than one. “This whole thing is just bothering me. My Spidey Senses are telling me something is not quite right.”

  Clay shrugged. “See what happens tonight. Who knows? Maybe you’ll solve the mystery of the fireworks tonight and have time to go back to Stillwater tomorrow.”

  “True,” I said, heading towards my room. As an afterthought, I paused. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

  “What’s that?” he asked, looking up.

  “What’s an Audi S8 like?” I asked.

  “Who wants to know?” Clay muttered. “You sure as hell don’t care about cars.”

  “Just because I don’t baby my car...” I started. “Anyway, I want to know.”

  Clay glanced up. “An Audi S8? It’s a beast. It’s gorgeous to look at, but not flashy. The interior is comfy and spacious – definitely a luxury car. But whooee,” Clay whistled. “Take a peek under the hood and your mind will be blown. Powerful, that baby. It’s out of this world.”

  I considered the description and paired it with Anthony. Interesting...

  “Seriously,” Clay continued with a dreamy expression on his face. “It’s magic. The engine on that puppy will change your life. Understated on the outside, but if you get to the insides...” he shook his head.

  “Enough, enough,” I said, waving my arms. I couldn’t tell if Clay was talking about cars any more, and the whole description paired with the image of Anthony was doing weird things to my stomach. “I should get some rest. I’ll be up late tonight.”

  “Have fun,” Clay said, his cheeks reddening as he beelined straight towards his computer setup in the living room.

  “Not that sort of fun,” I groaned. “By the way...” I spun around one last time and poked my head into the living room. Clay had started tinkering with the laying desk and barely looked my way. “What were you doing on the Internet when you met Horatio?” I asked. “He mentioned something you’re apparently doing all the time online?”

  “None of your business,” Clay grunted. “And it will remain that way as long as you’d like my help on this case.”

  I smiled on the inside as I plunked my feet back towards my room. Was Clay breaking into something top secret? Nah, I thought, slipping into some cozy purple shorts and my favorite bright yellow sweatshirt. Clay was more likely to be embarrassed about online dating than he was about getting behind NASA’s firewalls.

  I became distinctly less enthusiastic when the impact of Clay’s earlier words dawned on me. Even if Anthony and I were able to stop the firework bomber tonight, that still left an entire aggravating, albeit small, mystery of the special sauce for tomorrow. My birthday.

  With a sigh, I slipped under my covers. An almost thirty-year-old shouldn’t care about birthdays anymore, right? I gave myself a quick pep talk and reminded myself that I specifically told Meg I didn’t want a party. It’d be hypocritical to complain that nobody remembered my birthday after saying I didn’t want to celebrate. Maybe it was a good thing I had to work. All these mysteries and gunshots and motorcycle rides tired me out. I closed my eyes just to rest for a moment. Just a single, quick catnap...

  Chapter 7

  THE HAND ON MY SHOULDER startled me from a sleep so deep that when the hulking figure shook me awake, it took me a full thirty seconds to process my surroundings.

  “I see you’ve spent the evening preparing for a stakeout,” Anthony’s low voice rumbled. “Excellent work, detective.”

  Blinking, yawning, and stretching, I rolled over and came face to face with a handsome, freshly showered Anthony. I could smell the evidence of expensive soap and, coupled with his clean shaven face and cute smile, I discovered a longing desire to run my fingers through his still damp hair.

  Luckily, my hand did no such thing, as the realization that I had not showered before my “catnap” hit me. I smelled like a bonfire, minus the pleasant smoky sensation.

  “AH!” I choked out. “Get away.”

  “Sugar, I’ve seen worse,” he said with a smirk. “I’ve been in the field for a long time.”

  “Noo,” I moaned, pulling the pillow over my head and trying to halfheartedly smother myself. It only took until my first cough and a slight difficulty in breathing for me to push the pillow away and cover my face with my arms instead. This time, I left plenty of room for air to get into my lungs. Apparently, I wasn’t ready to die. “Go away.”

  “It’s ten thirty,” he said. “I thought you wanted to come to the warehouse.”

  “I thought we were going at ten?” I took a chance and peeked through a small hole between my elbow and my nose. I re-covered my face when I caught his gaze in mine.

  “I was ready at nine thirty,” he said. “But you were snoozing, and it seemed like you’d been through a lot. Clay and I thought you might be better off with a little extra rest, so we let you sleep.”

  “You made conversation with Clay for an hour?” I asked. “Here, in the living room?”

  “If you’d like to call it conversation,” Anthony said. “About half the time he talked to me and half the time he talked to his computers. Then his friend Horatio showed up, and I disappeared into the kitchen.”

  “Smart,” I said. “Horatio is a chatterbox. You could have woken me up, you know.”

  “I just did.” Anthony smoothed the blanket from around my neck, and I had a distinctly cuddly feeling I wouldn’t mind holding onto for some time.

  “I meant before,” I said. “I could’ve saved you from an awkward three-way conversation.”

  “I can handle a three-way...conversation, of course.” His face cracked into a grin. “And anyway, I wanted to pick their brains a bit about the sauce fiasco. When I realized the conversation had the added bonus of giving you an extra hour of rest, I was glad.”

  “That’s sweet,” I said.

  “I’m hoping it’ll put you in an extra good mood on our stakeout tonight,” Anthony said. “So it was a little self-serving.”

  I narrowed my eyes, though he couldn’t see them from behind my arms. “What do you mean by extra good mood?”

  Anthony looked surprised, but not unhappy, based on a quick assessment between the fingers still covering my face.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” he said, leaning in and speaking close to my ear. “But I’m not disappointed to see your mind went there.”

  “I just meant,” I shivered from his closeness, realizing that I was trapped here and unable to back away. “You know, I need to shower.”

  “You might want to put some pants on first,” Anthony said as I pushed the covers back and sprinted to my closet.

  “I have pants on – oh,” I said. I looked down, noting that my shorts had very inconveniently ridden up and my extremely over-sized sweatshirt hung nearly to my knees. The combination made me appear pants-less.

  “I don’t have a problem with it,” Anthony said, raising an eyebrow. “But Horatio’s out there and you can tell me if I’m wrong, but he doesn’t seem like your type.”

  “What is my type?” I retorted, adjusting my clothes to an appropriate position.

  Anthony shrugged. “You tell me.”

  “Speaking of Horatio—” I said over my shoulder, as I retrieved a clean towel from my closet. “Something funny happened earlier today...”

  “Why don’t you shower,” Anthony said. “I think we’ll have plenty of time to chat tonight.”

  “You, chatty?” I grinned before I opened the door. “That’s a new one.”

  “NOW, I SAID WE’D HAVE time to chat,” Anthony said as we pulled away from the curb. He’d left his Lambo behind in exchange for a nondescript, silver minivan. “But just to be fair, I should warn you.”

  “Warn me of wh
at?” I asked, still getting used to the idea of Anthony and me together in a minivan.

  “I have a limited number of words I say per day before I start to get crabby. So ask your questions wisely,” he said.

  “The way I’ll interpret your warning is quite different. You’re saying that if I force you to use all your words quickly, then you have to listen to me chatter the night away, and you can’t say anything?” I asked. “By the way, nice minivan. It just screams ‘soccer dad.’“

  “I’m not going to use my allotted words to comment on the choice of vehicle. It’s practical.”

  “I think you used about fifteen words to say that. Next time, just stick with no comment,” I flipped the mirror down and checked to see how much damage I’d removed with my shower.

  For a quickie shower, the results weren’t half bad. But the improvement could’ve been because my before photo hadn’t been stellar. Considering the day I’d had, and then throwing bed-head into the mix, any amount of improvement to my appearance wasn’t hard to come by.

  I’d taken the extra minutes to blow dry my hair, dot some lipstick on my lips and brush mascara through my lashes. I normally didn’t get so decked out for a stakeout, but this time I’d be sitting with Anthony for an extended period of time. Besides sore behinds, sitting in vans for long periods at once resulted mostly in boredom. Boredom led to talking. And talking led to, well – I wanted to be prepared for anything.

  I slid a sideways glance at Anthony in the mirror. He seemed intent on driving, which gave me an additional moment to stare at his nice, full lips. I flashed my eyes back to the mirror the second he glanced my way. I wondered for a moment if I should be relieved or upset that Anthony had given himself a certain number of words for our meeting tonight.

  Then, I realized that Anthony didn’t allot very many words to very many people. His sentences were short and sharp and often necessary to the conversation. Feeling a bit warm in my stomach, I knew that he didn’t show his intelligent, sweet – even sometimes funny – side to everyone. I was quite lucky, in fact. Anthony was a quality-over-quantity sort of guy when it came to words, and he could say more in a sentence than I could in an entire speech.