Miranda Bliss - Dying for Dinner

It was exactly the reason I hadn’t done more to pursue that stack of suspicious IDs. Or the telltale information I’d received from Monsieur Brun, the innkeeper, the day before.

Not everyone was what they appeared to be, and if I dug a little deeper into Monsieur Lavoie’s background, I was afraid I wasn’t going to like what I found.

Did it matter?

Personally, yes, it mattered a whole bunch. To me, to Jim, to all Monsieur’s other friends.

Professionally…

I knew exactly when I made up my mind, because my hands tightened on the steering wheel and my spine stiffened with resolve.

Professionally, I had to find out what was going on.

No matter what the consequences.

THE BAD NEWS WAS THAT ON MONDAY, HER DAY off, Eve twisted her ankle.

No, it didn’t happen at the gym. Eve and sweat are not on a first-name basis.

She told everybody that the accident happened as she was chasing after Doc, racing to save him from meeting a tragic and horrible end under the wheels of an oncoming bus.

I knew better.

Number one, because Doc is too lazy and far too spoiled to ever think about running away from Eve. I mean, why should he? The dog lives better than a lot of people. He certainly has a bigger wardrobe than mine.

Number two, I knew that just like Eve and sweat, Eve racing anywhere is a statistical improbability.

Unless she’s racing to a sale at Nordstrom.

She finally fessed up with the truth-I knew she would-and the truth was that my instincts were right on. It was her own fault, Eve admitted. She had tried to outpace a woman who had her eye on the same pair of alligator slingbacks Eve saw from the other side of the shoe department. Eve darted. The other woman rushed forward. Eve sidestepped, pivoted, slipped.

The good news?

Well, according to Eve, the good news was that she got to the shoes first. Even though by that time, she was limping.

As far as I was concerned, the good news was that the injury wasn’t serious. However, Eve had been ordered by her doctor to stay off her feet for a couple days. And that was the second piece of good news. Because she is the hostess at Bellywasher’s and because a restaurant hostess is always on her feet, Eve was forced to take a couple days off. That meant she was free to investigate with me.

After all, Eve riding in the passenger seat while I drove qualified as staying off her feet, right?

Eve pulled down the visor on her side of the Saturn and peered at herself in the little mirror, checking to make sure her makeup was just right. Of course it was. “So, you think Raymond will work out well?” she asked me.

The way I grinned at the very mention of his name should have been a clue, but since Eve was so busy looking at herself, she didn’t notice. “He practically begged me to let him work today,” I said. “This is my first real day off in as long as I can remember. Raymond is my hero! He’s going to be perfect. I talked to him before I left home, and he’s in his glory. He actually thinks working at Très Bonne Cuisine is the best job in the whole, wide world.”

“You don’t.” Eve snapped the visor back into place. “I don’t know how you’re doing it, Annie. I mean, with the way you feel about cooking and all. And I miss you at Bellywasher’s.”

“I miss being there.” Who ever would have thought I’d say that about working at a restaurant! My grin stayed firmly in place. “I just don’t fit in at Très Bonne Cuisine. Sure, the shop is gorgeous, and most of the customers are nice. Except for the ones who come in just to see the place where Greg died.”

After a week, I should have been used to the scenario, but it still gave me the creeps. We were headed south and the early morning sun was blazing through my window. My air-conditioning was on the fritz so it wasn’t nearly as cool in the car as I would have liked. Still, I shivered.

“We need to get to the bottom of this,” I told Eve. As if she didn’t know. “The whole thing is weird, and it’s driving me crazy. Has Tyler said anything…”

OK, so subtle, I’m not. Since Eve was being less than forthcoming about her contact (or lack of it) with Tyler, it was only fair for me, as her best friend, to force the subject.

“You mean about Greg? About Greg’s murder?” Even though she’d just checked her makeup, she checked it again. “The only thing he’s said-”

“Aha! You have talked to him again!” I was so proud of my detective skills and so jazzed about catching Eve in my little trap, I didn’t realize how hard I was pressing on the accelerator. It wasn’t until I saw my speedometer inch up to seventy-five that I caught myself, and slowed right down. Sure, everybody on I-95 exceeds the speed limit. All the time. But I am not everybody. Especially when it comes to driving.

Careful to keep my speed exactly where it belonged, I moved over to the far right lane to stay out of the way of the speed demons on the road with me. The driver of the dark sedan behind me must have been gauging his own speed against mine. He slipped right behind me into the lane.

I gave Eve a sidelong glance. “You’ve been seeing Tyler.”

“That’s exactly why I haven’t told you. I knew this was how you’d take it.”

“Take it? Take what?” My heart thumped like the bass line in the music of the overloud stereo of the Hummer that whizzed by us as if we were standing still. “Eve, you and Tyler… you’re not…” I swallowed hard. No easy thing, seeing as my mouth was suddenly so parched I could barely get the words out. “You’re not engaged again, are you?”

Eve’s only reply was a squeal of laughter.

It wasn’t much, but it did make me feel better, and my heart rate ratcheted back. If Eve was laughing at the very idea of marrying Tyler, then it couldn’t really happen.

Right?

I never trust cars that actually drive slower than me. Or maybe I should say more accurately, I never trust the drivers of those cars.

As I was thinking all this, I checked my mirrors-twice-before I passed the red Camry crawling along in the right lane. The car behind me did the same. It wasn’t until I settled back in the lane and well in front of both the red Toyota and the dark sedan that I felt safe giving Eve another probing look.

“You didn’t answer me.”

“About being engaged? To Tyler?” Eve picked at her white linen pants. Not that there was any lint on them or anything. “Don’t be silly, Annie. Tyler is still engaged to Kaitlin. Technically. And even if he wasn’t… my goodness, Annie! Even if he wasn’t, a man who’s been engaged, then gets unengaged, he wouldn’t be ready to get engaged again.”

“Would you?”

“To Tyler? My goodness, you don’t have any faith in me at all, do you?” Eve sniffed in the way she always does when she’s put out.

I guess I couldn’t blame her.

Tyler had sliced and diced her heart. He had pureed her self-esteem, stir-fried her self-confidence, and served it all up on the platter of his own huge ego.

Maybe I was starting to think like I worked in a gourmet shop after all.

“So let’s go over our plan.” I figured I owed Eve for questioning her judgment, and I engineered the change of subject without any fanfare. “I’m glad you’re investigating with me, Eve. Want to grab that file folder I gave you when you got in the car?”

She did, flipped it open, and squinted at the copy I’d made of one of the licenses we’d found at Monsieur’s. “The name on the driver’s license is Bill Boxley.” Thinking, Eve cocked her head. “Do you think Monsieur’s real name is Bill Boxley? If it is, I can’t say I blame him for changing it.”