Miranda Bliss - Dying for Dinner

I hadn’t thought of this, but it made sense. I remembered once reading something about how the owner of a property is responsible for cleaning up after a crime. I didn’t want to consider the task that waited for them. Just the memory of all that blood on the floor…

I wiped the image out of my mind and listened as Jim got down to business.

“Jacques and I… I don’t think I’ve mentioned it… there was never any reason… but Jacques and I, we had an informal agreement of sorts. If anything ever happened to me, he was to see that things here ran smoothly. And if anything ever happened to him-”

“You’re in charge of keeping the shop open for business.”

“Aye.”

I knew Jim was feeling sentimental, not to mention obligated. That’s exactly why he wasn’t thinking clearly. What kind of girlfriend would I have been if I didn’t point this out?

I leaned forward. “I know you’d love to keep your word to Monsieur, but it’s not going to work, Jim. You realize that, don’t you? You’re so busy here, there’s no way you can run the shop.”

“That’s true.” He took my hand. “I can’t manage Très Bonne Cuisine, but you can.”

While I was still at a loss for words and with my mouth wide open, Jim saw his chance and took the opportunity to explain.

“It’s the perfect setup,” he said. “You know Jacques will appreciate your help. When he gets back, I mean. You know he’ll be thrilled to learn the shop’s been in good hands.”

“Sure, but…” I teetered on the edge between laughter and tears. Just to remind Jim of who-and what-I was, I looked him in the eye. “It’s me, Annie Capshaw. I’m the world’s worst cook. You remember that, don’t you?”

“You won’t have to cook.”

“I’m the world’s least likely person to know my way around a kitchen.”

“Bah!” He dismissed this objection in an instant. “It’s naught but cooking supplies, Annie. Pots and pans and the like. There’s nothing to it. And who has a better head for business than you? That’s all it is, you know. A business like any other business. A business just like this one. Only you’re not dealing in food, you’re dealing in-”

“Ice cream makers and roasting pans and pot holders I can’t afford to buy.”

His blank expression told me I wasn’t getting through to him. I tried another tack. “The shop is a crime scene.”

“ Tyler ’s out front.” He didn’t know that I already knew this so he tipped his head in the direction of my closed door and the restaurant beyond. “He says they’ll be done there by tomorrow. Which is why I felt free to schedule that cleaning crew. If you could be there to supervise…”

Supervising was something I knew how to do. I nodded. “Of course I’ll do that if you can spare me here.”

“And when it’s all cleaned up and all ready to open again, then you’ll work the shop.”

“I never said that.”

“But you will, won’t you, Annie darling? We can’t let the business go to pot just because Jacques isn’t there. That’s not how friends respond to their friends in trouble.”

“It isn’t. And I wouldn’t want to leave him high and dry, but-”

“And it will give you the perfect chance to get a closer look at the place. You know, for a little investigating. Detecting, Annie. Not cooking.”

Call me cynical. I knew as sure as I was sitting there that Jim had planned out this speech to the very last word.

How?

Because he’d used the bait he knew would hook me.

Number one, there was that word, cooking. Oh, sure, coming from most of our mouths, there’s nothing special about it. But coming from a Scotsman with a knee-melting accent…

Jim knew I was a sucker for those long o’s, that mellow tone when his voice wrapped around the vowels, and the way his lips puckered the slightest bit.

I could no more resist the temptation in his voice than I could the promise of a little detecting.

He knew that, too.

“But you hate it when I investigate,” I said. Since it was true, I figured I had every right to call him on it. “You always worry when I’m looking into murders.”

“But it’s not the murder you’ll be investigating. Not technically, anyway. The police will take care of that. You’ll be looking into finding Jacques.”

I had to admit the idea was tantalizing. But before I could say as much, Jim went on with the rest of his argument.

“You’re good at this, Annie. You know you are. You have a way of getting to the heart of matters. And that’s what we need, isn’t it? Someone who cares enough to try and find out what happened to Jacques.”

It was practically the same thing Eve had said. I’d been convinced then. Looking into Jim’s eyes-more gray today than they were green-I was more convinced than ever.

“All right. I’ll do it.”

He patted my hand.

“But I’m going to need help,” I told him, just so he didn’t think I was caving completely. “I don’t know anything about kitchen shops, Jim. I can’t answer customer questions.” A new thought hit me and my blood turned to ice water. “Monsieur isn’t still doing the cooking classes upstairs, is he?”

“Now, Annie…” He wound his fingers through mine. “There’s nothing to worry about on that front. He’s been talking about opening the cooking school again, but not until fall. By then-”

“Monsieur will be right back where he belongs.”

I said this mostly to convince myself. I didn’t need to throw the possibility of teaching a cooking class into the mix. Just the idea of spending time at a cookware store was enough to send chills up my spine. I shivered.

“You’ll be fine.” Laughing for the first time since the news of the murder at Très Bonne Cuisine broke, Jim rose and opened the door to go back out into the restaurant. “Think about it, Annie,” he said to me over his shoulder. “It’s a natural sort of job for someone with your organizational skills.”

“And my cooking skills?”

My question stopped Jim in his tracks. He turned and grinned. “Cooking,” he said, emphasizing those o ’s like there was no tomorrow. “What can possibly go wrong with cooking?”

I’d heard that question before, and I didn’t like to remind myself of the answers. Dead cooking students, suspicious cooking students, murderous cooking students.

Plenty could go wrong in cooking classes.

“Only there won’t be any classes,” I told myself in that lay-it-on-the-line voice I used to talk to myself and calm my nerves. “Only pots and pans. Heck, there’s more cooking going on in this place, and lately, things here couldn’t be going any better.”

That cheered me right up, even if I was a little apprehensive, and I went into the restaurant to get an iced tea and to find out what time I needed to be at Très Bonne Cuisine the next day.

I guess my timing was good.

Or maybe it was very, very bad.

That would explain why when I stepped out of my office, I ran smack into a man standing just outside my door.

Did I say man?

This wasn’t just any man and the second I realized it, my stomach hit the floor, then bounced up again to stick in my throat.

That’s when I realized I was face-to-face with someone I hadn’t seen since the day we faced off at the courthouse over a stack of divorce papers.

I LOOKED UP INTO THE CHOCOLATE EYES THAT USED to smile at me every morning from the pillow next to mine. I backed away from the body that was just as familiar and did my best (it wasn’t good enough) to try not to remember that once upon what seemed like a lifetime ago, these were the arms that hugged me and that was the mouth that kissed me good-bye each day as we headed off to our jobs. His was the heartbeat I’d listened to, my head nuzzled against his chest as I fell asleep each night.