Текст книги "Fry Another Day"

Автор книги: J. J. Cook

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

TWENTY-THREE

Before I could admit that I had no idea what the tag was all about, Patrick got everything set up and was ready with tomorrow’s challenge.

“These two challenges are gonna be tough.” He opened the big, secret envelope and scanned its contents.

I saw the enigmatic smile on Chef Art’s face and knew he had a hand in creating the challenges.

“The stakes are going up. Tomorrow, each team will have to sell two hundred dollars in product. Remember this has to be your main menu item. You’ll have as long as you need. There is no time limit, but again, the first person to reach two hundred dollars wins.”

That sounded easy enough. I should’ve known there was more to come.

“Now the fun part of this challenge.” Patrick demonstrated how “fun” it was by laughing almost hysterically. “Everyone on the teams has to dress in bikinis, just like our girls up here. Ladies, take a bow.”

The two young women bowed gracefully.

“One of our sponsors, By the Beach—featuring beach toys, towels, swimsuits, and other fun items—now found at more than one hundred locations across the Southeast, has donated bikinis for our teams in every shape, size, color, and style. In other words, we’ve got you covered! No excuses.”

Daryl Barbee stood up at his table and tossed down his big hat. “I am not wearing a bikini tomorrow. This is a stupid challenge.”

Everyone watched him storm out of the room. The cameras followed him, loving the controversy. His wife, Sarah, blushed and shrugged but didn’t comment on her husband’s temper tantrum. One of the assistants followed Daryl out of the dining room, probably for a personal interview.

Chef Art was so busy chuckling to himself that I wanted to hit him. No doubt he thought Delia wearing a bikini as she sold biscuit bowls in downtown Birmingham was a winning idea. Or he just wanted to see her in a bikini. Who knows?

“Good one!” Ollie held up his thumb.

“What’s good about it?” Uncle Saul asked. “Have you ever seen a man wearing a bikini? What do you think we’re going to look like tomorrow?”

“Who cares?” Ollie asked. “Nobody in any of the other food trucks is hot like Delia.”

“There’s Bobbie’s daughter,” I reminded him. “She couldn’t skate, but I bet she’ll look good in a bikini.”

“Oh yeah. That’s right.” He frowned a moment and then lightened up. “Maybe that’s where we’ll use our tag.”

“That’s the spirit,” Chef Art commended him. “Wait. Patrick has more to say.”

Now that the interruption was over, Patrick continued. “Did I mention we’re gonna have a little bikini beauty pageant? Everyone will get a turn on the stage. The winner of our pageant will get a one-week, all-expenses-paid cruise to the Caribbean for their team. This is from another sponsor, All Star Cruise Lines, hailing from the port of Mobile, Alabama.”

That was popular enough, even though it meant that all team members would have to participate. Ollie and Delia didn’t care. Uncle Saul was a little upset, but I knew he’d come around. I’d be okay if they had the right bikini for me.

They did a spin on the board and lit everything up to show us again what our stats were. Nothing had changed. It was a little anticlimactic. The dinner began to break up, vendors heading back to their rooms.

“I’m going to get something real to eat! This was tasteless fare.” Chef Art got to his feet. “I’m buying. Who’s with me? I’m sure Birmingham has something better to offer.”

“I’m in,” Uncle Saul said. “I had some basil and tomato alligator stew here in Birmingham once. Best I ever had.”

I couldn’t believe it. “That would be like me eating a cat. What about Alabaster? How is she going to feel about you eating one of her kind?”

He shrugged. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

The doors to the room burst open as everyone was headed in that general direction. Dante Eldridge, from the ill-fated Stick It Here food truck, ran in.

“Wait! Stop! I found my food truck. I want another shot.” He was shouting and waving his big, muscled arms.

Patrick started to speak but was pulled aside by one of the producers. After a short conversation, he picked up his microphone. “It looks as though Stick It Here will be joining us tomorrow on the street.”

“How does that work?” Bobbie Shields asked. “Why does he get to come back?”

One of the men behind the scenes, who always seemed to have the last word, came forward and took the microphone from Patrick. “Dante wasn’t kicked out of the race because he failed a challenge. He was a victim who has managed to get his food truck back. I think that requires us to allow him back into the race. Thank you.”

Bobbie, about five-foot-five, maybe early fifties, walked up close to Dante, who was a big man, tall and muscular, probably in his thirties. “Well, you won’t look too good in a bikini now, will you? I’m not worried. Good night!”

“Bikini?” Dante glanced around the room for an explanation.

“Come up here,” Patrick said. “I’ll get you up to speed.”

The rest of us left and were guided to another big room by one of the bikini-clad girls. It seemed fitting when she opened the door and the room was filled with bikinis. There had to be every color known to man in that room. There were micro-bikinis, thongs, halter tops, string tops. I’d never seen so many bathing suits in one place.

Of course, the cameramen were there watching and recording the whole thing. Some people made use of the small closet to try their bikinis on. Others just grabbed what they knew was their size and left.

I had an idea as soon as I saw the bikinis. I called my team together, and the closest cameraman zoomed in on us.

“Everyone grab a red bikini,” I said. “I don’t care what kind it is. Our tag is Do it in the red. All of us should wear red.”

Ollie did that frown that went from the tattoo on his head to his chin. “How do we know that’s what we’re supposed to do, Zoe? Maybe we’re supposed to shoot someone in the face with ketchup or spray-paint their food red as they’re trying to sell it.”

“I’m sure it’s the bikini colors. See? Red. Green. Yellow. Blue. It’s the bikinis. We’re going to get something for figuring it out.” Uncle Saul picked up a red bikini with a halter top and twirled it around on his finger. “I’ve admired these on many shapely women over the years. I’ve never thought about wearing one myself.”

“Whatever.” Ollie shook his head. “Let’s find the most revealing bikini we can for Delia. I’ll start over here.”

“You look for your own, big guy,” she told him. “I know what works for me. I don’t need your help.”

After that was over, we were boring to the cameraman, who moved to where Bobbie’s daughter was trying on blue string bikinis. Bobbie either didn’t get the tag idea or was going to ignore it. She was looking at yellow bikinis.

With our plan in motion, I set about finding a red bikini for me.

The thing about bikinis is that they only look good on you if you have a perfect body. By perfect, I mean tall, thin, and shapely. I was only privileged to be in that last category. I got the shapely part from my mother, but tall and thin wasn’t me. I didn’t look bad in a nice one-piece. Bikinis scared me.

I definitely didn’t want a string bikini. Not that any of the other types hid anything. Some of them were barely patches held together by almost invisible string. I quietly picked out a red halter-neck top with a modest bottom.

Ollie and Uncle Saul were having a hard time—not surprising. We found bikinis that would fit both of them. No doubt they wouldn’t be particularly flattering, but that’s not what the producers had in mind.

It was too bad Chef Art didn’t have to wear a red bikini, too. He probably would’ve dropped that brilliant idea if that was the case.

“I’m not shaving my legs—or any other part of my body except my head—for this race,” Ollie told me.

“I don’t think anyone expects you to,” I assured him.

“I personally plan to strangle Chef Art when this is over,” Uncle Saul said. “Of all the stupid—”

The ministers from Our Daily Bread were fussing and feuding like a bunch of schoolboys. It seemed that the race had finally found their soft underbelly.

“Don’t criticize yet,” I said. “Chef Art might have set this up to get Delia delivering biscuit bowls in a bikini, but it might get our competitors so upset that they lose their edge, too.”

Uncle Saul shrugged. “So be it. I’ll be glad to get back home.”

I hugged him. “Have I said how much I appreciate you being with me through all of this?”

“You don’t have to say it, Zoe. I love you, and we’re family. That’s what family is for.”

“I don’t want to be part of a family that requires its members to wear a red bikini,” Ollie interrupted.

I looked up at him. He was at least a foot taller than me. Sometimes it was easy to forget that this man was a tough ex-marine who was still in fighting shape. He was such a sweet person.

“You don’t have to wear if it bothers you too much,” I said. “You can sit this one out. No one will think less of you for it. I appreciate everything you’ve done.”

“Like I’d do that.” He hugged me, almost lifting me off the floor. “A man can gripe, can’t he?”

“Yes, he can.”

Delia had her bikini. We were ready to go. There was still so much going on in the bikini room that we were able to walk out unmolested by any of the camera crew.

“What?” Uncle Saul grinned. “No deep questions about what red bikinis mean to us or what our plans are for tomorrow?”

I laughed. “Not when you’ve got a bunch of angry ministers trying on bikinis.”

“Good. I’m hungry, and I need a drink.” Ollie sniffed. “I smell food coming from that way.”

Chef Art still had other plans. He was waiting close by when we emerged. “Hey. We’re still going out to eat some decent food, right? My limo is waiting.”

Uncle Saul and Ollie glanced at each other and then high-fived.

“All right,” Ollie said. “Let’s go.”

“I’m right behind you.” Uncle Saul slapped him on the back.

“Let me run up and stash these bikinis.” I was nervous about losing one of them before tomorrow. I gathered Ollie’s and Uncle Saul’s with mine.

“I’ll just go up with you and drop mine off, if that’s okay.” Delia smiled with a hint of blush in her cheeks and whispered, “I don’t like my clothes to touch other people’s clothes.”

I smiled back at her, after I pushed the elevator button, thinking she was joking. “You’re serious?”

“Yes. It’s a habit of mine, I guess.” She shrugged. “It’s a thing I learned to do when I was a kid. It’s hard keeping clothes to yourself when you have five sisters.”

We got in the elevator and I hugged her. I could see she was uncomfortable even discussing it. “That’s okay. We all have weird things about us.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Like what?”

“Oh. You mean like my weird thing?”

“Yeah. What do you do weird—besides sleeping with your evil cat?”

“Is that weird?” I’d never thought of sleeping with Crème Brûlée as weird. “No. I was thinking about when I quit my job to run a food truck.”

“I think sleeping with the cat will do.”

The elevator door chimed and opened. We went to our room and dropped off the suits. I gave Crème Brûlée a little hug and a kiss on his nose.

We went back down in the elevator. The men were waiting in the bar. I wished Miguel was there, too. How long could the police talk to him about what happened to Alex?

When we got into Chef Art’s limo, I took the opportunity to ask him if he’d heard anything about Miguel.

“Zoe, I only called my lawyer while I was waiting for you and Delia. We talked about it over dinner, remember?”

“This is stupid. I don’t understand why they keep interviewing him.”

“Maybe because they think he killed someone?” Ollie said. “I’m not saying he did. But the police can get pretty nasty when they think you’re lying to them.”

We went out for drinks at a private club where everyone knew Chef Art. We all had a little too much to drink knowing someone else was driving us around town. Uncle Saul and I talked about what he had planned for the biscuit bowls the next day. I was surprised and pleased by his choices.

Chef Art was welcomed with a big hug from his friend who owned the exclusive restaurant where we went for dinner afterward. He ordered champagne, and we all had elaborate meals with wine.

By the time we’d stopped for drinks again after dinner and then gone back to the hotel, I was a little on the wobbly side. The elevator seemed to be going in the wrong direction. Delia wasn’t as affected by it. She helped me get on and off the elevator with a smile.

“You aren’t used to drinking so much.” She took my key card after the third time I couldn’t open the door.

“Not so much.” I grinned at her. “Thanks.”

“Can you make it to bed by yourself? I’m going back out for a while with Ollie.”

“I’ll be fine. Good night, Delia. I hope our clothes never touch.”

She laughed at me and closed the door on her way out.

I was getting undressed, but my shoes were proving difficult. Someone knocked at the door. Hoping it was Miguel, I ran for it, almost tripping over my own feet.

It wasn’t Miguel. It was Macey Helms. I looked past her for Marsh, but there was no sign of him.

Great. Like I can talk straight about who killed Alex right now.

She had a strange expression on her face. At least I thought she did. I hoped it wasn’t me, and I was imagining that she looked odd.

Before I could say anything, she held up her hand. It was covered in blood.

“Zoe, I need your help.”

TWENTY-FOUR

I guided her into the hotel room and called 911.

“What happened?” I helped her take off her dark pink jacket. It was covered in blood, too.

“Someone shot me as I walked up to the hotel.” Her face was very pale, eyes sunken, with dark circles around them.

“Where’s Marsh?” I looked at my cell phone, called his number and the emergency services number. I hoped the paramedics wouldn’t be far away.”Listen to me a minute.” She put her hand on the cell phone to stop me from calling for help. “I learned something about the killer. I haven’t had time to tell anyone else. You have to remember—”

Her voice started fading, and her eyes closed. Her hand dropped from the cell phone, leaving a smear of blood behind it.

“You can’t die,” I told her. Weren’t people supposed to stay awake? “Stay with me, Macey. Don’t lose consciousness.”

Her eyes fluttered open for a moment, and her lips moved, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying.

I tried to flag down a passing porter. Maybe the hotel could get someone here faster. Hotel staff passed me by like I was invisible.

“Zoe?” Miguel said on his way to the elevator. “Oh my God, what happened?”

Tina came in and sat on the bed while Miguel knelt by my side on the floor.

“She said someone shot her. I don’t think she knew who it was. How long does it take for an ambulance to get here?”

I heard the elevator chime. Uniformed paramedics rushed into the room with a stretcher and other equipment. “Help her, please.”

Miguel put his arm around me and we moved away from Helms. The paramedics were all over her, calling out her vitals and attaching needles and other apparatus to her. She was so helpless.

“She said she was shot,” I repeated, wanting to be some help.

One of them briefly turned to face me. “We can see that, ma’am. Best for you all to wait outside until we can get her out of here.”

“Come on,” Miguel urged me, taking Tina’s hand and leading her out, too.

Marsh was next off the elevator. I told him what had happened. He started to storm into the hotel room, but the paramedics pushed him out of the way and walked quickly past him.

“What happened?” Marsh asked me. “Who shot her?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t know why she came up here. She was trying to tell me something. I couldn’t make out what she was saying.”

Tears in his eyes were hastily pushed away as he pulled himself together. “What is it with you people? This race needs to end now.”

He rushed for the next elevator to follow his partner to the hospital.

Hotel security came next, ushering me out of my room and into another room. The red bloodstain on the beige carpet stood out as I quickly gathered my things together and hid Crème Brûlée under a blanket. He was squirmy and hard to carry.

“Why did she come to see me?” I kept asking Miguel as he helped me relocate. “She said she was shot outside the hotel. Why didn’t she stay outside and call for help? Or ask for help at the check-in counter. That would have made more sense.”

“People do strange things during emergency situations,” he explained. “It’s as though whatever is on your mind supersedes what’s happening to your body.”

Tina was crying and following us around like a puppy.

“She’s exhausted. Let me get her somewhere she can sleep,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

After he was gone, I looked around the new room. It was exactly like the old room, except there was no blood on the floor.

It was crazy. The whole thing seemed crazy to me.

Maybe Marsh was right. Maybe the race should be stopped. How many more bad things could happen before we got home?

I sat in a chair and held Crème Brûlée close to me until Miguel got back. He brought Uncle Saul with him. “Do you think this had something to do with the race?” Uncle Saul sat on the edge of my bed.

“I don’t know.” That sparkly, fun feeling I’d had after drinking too much was gone, leaving me with a raging headache. “Helms said it had something to do with the killer. I couldn’t understand anything else she said.”

“That poor woman.” Miguel shook his head.

“We should see if Chef Art still has his limo out.” I jumped up. “We could go to the hospital and find out how Helms is.”

“I’m sure someone will let us know,” Uncle Saul said.

“I can’t sit here not knowing. I don’t care if I don’t sleep at all tonight—I have to know if she’s okay.”

“Someone will call and let us know,” Miguel said. “You should get some sleep.”

“I don’t know if I can.” I completely lost it, sobbing into Miguel’s shirt. “I want to go home. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt or die. This is it.”

While I cried and tried to stop myself from hiccupping, Miguel and Uncle Saul came up with a plan. I was so glad they did because I wasn’t drunk, but my brain wasn’t functioning right, either. We went downstairs to get Miguel’s car. Several of Birmingham’s uniformed police officers passed us. I kept my head down, not up to answering a barrage of questions about what had happened to Helms. We managed to get out of the hotel. Miguel used his cell phone GPS to find the hospital.

When we got to the hospital, Miguel asked at the admitting desk about Helms. The nurse pointed to a place we could wait. Marsh was already there. He only looked slightly better than his partner had after she’d been shot.

He was staring at a pack of Marlboro cigarettes that hadn’t been opened. “I gave these up six weeks ago. I promised Macey I’d quit. Neither of us is married anymore. No close family. She’s all I have that makes my life normal.”

“They won’t help,” Miguel said as he sat down next to me. “I smoked for a long time after my wife died. It never made me feel better. Nothing does.”

It was another little piece of the puzzle that was Miguel Alexander. I was almost too tormented to even notice. I excused myself and went to the ladies’ room to wash my face.

Blotchy complexion and swollen, red-rimmed eyes had taken their toll. Even my curly hair was flat. I blew my nose on some rough toilet paper and splashed cold water in my face. “Don’t make me slap you, Zoe Elizabeth Chase. You know I’ll do it. Pull yourself together. This behavior isn’t going to help.”

They were my mother’s words on occasions like this one. I imagined her standing in this hospital bathroom saying similar things to herself. Somehow, that grounded me again and made me take a deep breath.

My mother was a tough, pragmatic taskmaster at times, but she was also a rock. I’d never seen her panic or lose it, as I had back there. My dad was a different story. He cried at movies and after listening to his favorite jazz songs.

Maybe it was the curly hair.

When I went back out to the waiting area, I was calmer and beginning to cope with the situation. My head still hurt, so I bought a Coke from a vending machine and swallowed two Tylenol. Good thing, too, because the Birmingham police had caught up with us.

They were actually very polite and apologized for bothering us. They asked a few questions but didn’t stay long.

Marsh kind of vouched for us. I was surprised that he suddenly seemed to trust us. Maybe it was because Helms had come to me after being shot.

The only sticking point I seemed to have with anyone was that I hadn’t been able to understand what Helms had been trying to tell me before she’d passed out. I said the same words over and over, attempting to explain the situation. The Birmingham police looked skeptical.

“She mentioned that there was a new development in Alex Pardini’s death, right?” Marsh asked me.

“I think that’s what she was trying to say.” I sure couldn’t swear to it. “We’re going to have to ask her when she wakes up.”

The surgeon finally came out to talk to us at around three A.M. He said Helms was stable and holding her own. She’d be unconscious for at least the rest of the night and on strong pain meds the next day.

In other words, we might not have any answers about what had happened to her, or what her new information was that might have caused her to get shot, until we were already in Mobile for the last leg of the race.

“Don’t worry,” Marsh told us when the surgeon had gone. “I’m staying here with her. I won’t let anything else happen to her.”

It seemed as though there was nothing else to do. Uncle Saul said we should go back and get some sleep. I agreed, though it was hard leaving Helms.

We were back at the hotel by three thirty A.M. Everything was so quiet. Even the manager at the night desk whispered good morning to us as we walked by.

Uncle Saul decided to go up and sleep for two hours.

Miguel and I went upstairs. He walked me to my door and we went inside. The room was mostly dark. Crème Brûlée was snoring on the chair.

“I’ll see you in a couple of hours,” Miguel said.

He started to walk away and I caught his hand. “Will you stay instead? I don’t think I can sleep, and I don’t want to be alone.”

He nodded and shut the door behind him. “I can do that.”

We ended up sitting up against the pillows on the bed in the dark room. I had thought we could talk; you know, exchange secrets we wouldn’t have said at any other time. I leaned against his chest and heard his heart beating. I thought about him being alone and smoking after his wife and baby had died.

I closed my eyes to gather my scattered thoughts before I spoke, and the next thing I knew, the alarm on my phone was going off. It was six A.M. Time to go on with the race.

“I think I fell asleep for a while,” Miguel whispered, a smile in his voice. “How about you?”

“I think I completely passed out, and I apologize if I was snoring louder than my cat.”

“There were a few gasps and a little muttering, but no snoring,” he assured me.

“That’s good. I’d hate to snore the first night we spend together, you know?”

He kissed me, and we sat together silently for a few minutes.

“We have to go,” he said. “After this is all over, we’ll talk about us. Tonight, we’ll be home again. I’ll see you later, Zoe.”

I didn’t really see him leave, but I saw the door open and close. I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower. After the terrible night I had, I’d expected to feel much worse.

Miguel assuring me that I didn’t snore helped. Seeing his face first thing was great, too. That smile was enough to chase all my blues away.

I felt lighthearted and ready to face the day. It was time to take out the bikini.

– – – – – – –

There was a large crowd waiting for us in downtown Birmingham. The TV show promotion, and the building tension to see who would win, had created fans. I saw my name on two large posters that were held in the air.

“Look! There’s Zoe and Delia!” A man yelled and waved.

“Weird.” Ollie shook his head. “Why was he yelling for the two of you and not me?”

Uncle Saul slapped his back and laughed.

Ropes were up to keep the crowds away from the food trucks in the pre-dawn darkness. Camera crews were on hand from several of the major TV networks. It seemed odd after being in Atlanta, a much larger city, that people would make such a fuss over us in Birmingham.

All the food truck vendors were wearing robes or large shirts that covered up their bikinis when we met in front of the stage where Patrick Ferris was waiting.

“Why isn’t he wearing a bikini?” Ollie asked in a sour voice. His super-long Crimson Tide T-shirt covered his bathing suit.

“Because he isn’t part of the race.” Uncle Saul’s bikini was covered by an ankle-length trench coat. “He gets to wear what he wants. Anyone taking odds on him making it through the rest of the race?”

“I’ve got some money to put on that!” Bobbie Shields was wearing a loose-fitting flowered dress over her bikini.

Her daughter, like Delia, wore her bikini out in the open. Not surprising since she looked awesome in it. It was one of those suits with the patches in strategic places that seemed to be held together with magic.

Patrick was going through his usual spiel, reminding us all of the rules and the challenge for that day. I could tell everyone was extra nervous. This was the end of the line for two more food trucks. Only one stop to go before a winner was announced.

Dante was there, up by the front of the stage. He was wearing his black bikini with no covering. It looked good on him. He pulled it off with fantastic abs and a taut tush.

I clung to my pink robe and didn’t plan to remove it until I had to.

Miguel was there in jeans and a Biscuit Bowl T-shirt. Ollie had a few words to say about the outriders not having to meet the challenge. He was mostly ignored as the time neared for us to get started on making food for the day.

There was no sign of the Our Daily Bread team. Had they given up rather than wear bikinis? It seemed like too much to ask for. I waited for them to make an appearance.

When everything pertinent had been said, the remaining food truck teams started back to get ready for the day. Chef Art had managed to get a TV crew from Mobile to come in and tape us making food.

“You all remember to wear your hats,” he reminded us before making room for the cameramen.

Ollie and Uncle Saul looked at each other and sighed before they removed their outer garments to reveal the skimpy bathing suits beneath them.

When Ollie removed his T-shirt, I heard an audible gasp from Delia.

She stared at him. “Which one of us is supposed to look better in a bikini?”