Mayhem at the Orient Express (21 page)

21

“I
hear you had some excitement here last night.”

I was sitting on the front porch sipping a cup of coffee, so really, I shouldn’t have
been startled when Levi showed up. I suppose my mind was a million miles away. That’s
why I didn’t see him come up the front walk.

I set down my coffee mug on the table between the wicker rocker where I was sitting
and the chair next to it. “No one got seriously hurt, though Luella was a little shaken
up. I can’t blame her.”

“And you?” It was a sunny and pleasant morning (even if the world was still a little
soggy from all that snow), and Levi’s careful gaze skimmed from my pink bunny slippers
to my ankle wrapped in an athletic bandage to where my bandaged knees showed right
below where my denim capris ended. From there, he glanced to the sling on my right
arm and the bruise on the side of my face. “You don’t look so hot.”

“Just what a girl wants to hear!” I managed a laugh and only winced a little when
my ribs protested. “Nothing’s broken. Everything’s sore. I don’t have any guests checking
in for a couple weeks, so I’ve got plenty of time to rest and recover.”

“You need anything?” he asked.

There was an opening if I ever heard one. Rather than give in to my baser instincts
and list all the things I thought it might be interesting to get from him, I held
out my empty mug. “Another cup of coffee would be perfect,” I said, and when he disappeared
into the house, I called after him, “and get one for yourself.”

A minute later he brought me my coffee and a blueberry muffin, too. While I was out
on the porch, Meg must have sneaked in the back door. Bless her!

Levi sat down on the chair next to mine, took a big bite of the muffin he’d brought
for himself, and washed it down with a gulp of coffee. “This is way better than what
they gave me for breakfast in jail,” he said.

“Maybe I can use that when I advertise for the B and B. ‘Breakfast better than what
you get in jail.’ It kind of has a nice ring to it. What do you think?”

“I think . . .” He’d been smiling and the expression faded. He took another drink
before he set down his cup. “I think I’m grateful you believed in my innocence,” he
said.

“Except I never actually said I did.”

He thought this over and conceded my point with a nod. “You didn’t have to. I knew
as soon as you brought me that cup of coffee. You wouldn’t have done that. Not if
you really thought I killed Peter or took that jewelry. Of course, I knew I was innocent.
I just don’t know how you did.”

I’d been breaking off tiny bits of muffin and popping them in my mouth, and I set
my plate on the table next to my cup and brushed crumbs from my hand. “Call it a hunch.
It was the way you talked about your grandmother,” I admitted. “You loved her a lot.
Killing Peter isn’t the way you’d honor her memory.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to my own gut.”

“About me?”

“About your safety. I should have known Anderson wouldn’t be happy. Not when the cops
had the bracelet. I should have figured that he wouldn’t leave things at that.”

“But none of us knew the rest of the jewelry was here. Or that it even still existed.
He could have pawned those rings years ago. There was no way you could have known.”

“I should have. I’ve been beating myself up about it since I heard what happened.”

“Well, don’t.” The blueberry muffin was calling my name and I got back to it, dispensing
with nibbling crumbs and taking a nice big bite. “In the great scheme of things, this
is pretty much a happily ever after,” I told him, just as Chandra’s van roared up
to the front of the house and she got out of it along with Luella and Kate. I made
to wave and thought better of it when my arm twinged. “We got the bad guy. We solved
the murder. All’s right with the world, and all the secrets are out in the open.”

“Not exactly.” Levi got up and moved toward the stairs, taking the rest of his muffin
with him. “I owe you,” he said. “For believing in me.”

“You don’t owe my anything. Though I wouldn’t mind a burger at your place one of these
days when I actually feel like climbing up on a barstool.”

“Done.” He said it, he just didn’t look happy about it, and before I could wonder
why, he glanced over his shoulder at my friends, who were chatting as they came up
the front walk. Apparently he made up his mind about something. He took a step toward
me. “You should know,” he said. “I did some checking. You know, about all that stuff
Chandra told me about you. You should know that I know.”

Good thing I’d put down my coffee mug, because the way my hands started to shake,
I knew the coffee would have sloshed out on my lap. “And you know . . . ?”

Levi didn’t smile. Not exactly. His honey-colored brows twitched. One corner of his
mouth pulled up. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. But I know there was never
a Martin Cartwright,” he said. “Not one you were married to, anyway.”

And with that, he turned around, offered a greeting to the three ladies just coming
up the steps, and was gone.

Good thing Kate, Chandra, and Luella were deep in conversation about whatever Kate,
Chandra, and Luella were talking about, because for a few minutes, all I could do
is sit there with my mouth hanging open. And my brain whirling a mile a minute.

Levi knew.

At least part of the story.

And he wasn’t going to spread the word.

By the time Chandra flopped down in the chair next to mine and Kate and Luella sat
next to each other on the wicker settee across from me, I was smiling.

It looked like when it came to hunches, mine were pretty good.

“So . . .” Chandra leaned over and slapped my knee, and when I winced she made a horrified
face and apologized. “We figured we’d check on you,” she said.

“And thank you,” Luella added.

“And get down to business.” Kate pulled out her phone and scrolled through what must
have been her calendar. “First things first. Since Chandra thought of it, she gets
to announce the news.”

Chandra sat up and pulled back her shoulders. “Our book discussion group,” she said.
“I figured we needed a name. So . . .” She drew out the moment and the drama. “We’re
now officially the League of Literary Ladies.”

I liked it, and I told her so.

“And,” Kate interrupted. “With that taken care of, we figure we might as well get
started. I mean, with you being laid up, it’s the perfect time.”

“Not for another murder investigation, I hope.”

Chandra barked out a laugh. “Of course not! To pick another book for our next discussion.
We voted on the way over here, and we decided to let you make the choice.”

I took a sip of coffee. The better to wash down the sudden knot of emotion in my throat.
“Nothing scary,” I said, and they all nodded their agreement. “And no Belgian detectives.”

Chandra looked honestly disappointed.

“I’m thinking something old and wonderful and classic.” I had any number of such books
on the shelf in the parlor, and I hauled myself out of my chair to go have a look
and make a choice.

Was it a good thing or a bad thing that I picked that particular moment to get up?
I can’t say. I only know I was just in time to discover that Jerry Garcia had wandered
over from next door.

He was peeing in my pansies.

Turn the page for a preview
of the first book in Kylie Logan’s new
Chili Cook-off Mysteries . . .

CHILI CON CARNAGE

Coming October 2013 from
Berkley Prime Crime!

“W
ho died and left you boss?”

It was one of those what-do-you-call-its, a rhetorical question, so really, Sylvia
shouldn’t have given me that know-it-all look of hers. Eyes scrunched, head tilted
slightly forward, she looked me up and down, and her top lip curled when she said,
“Since when does the giant chile pepper get to ask the questions?”

Okay, so I hadn’t picked the best of all possible moments to confront her—I mean,
what with her wearing crisp khakis and a jalapeño-colored polo shirt with the Texas
Jack logo over her heart, and me in a giant red chile pepper costume that covered
my head and body all the way down past my hips.

She looked neat and professional—as always—with her honey-colored hair pulled back
in a ponytail, and far cooler than I was feeling with the sun of a New Mexico September
beating down on me. But hey, Sylvia might be a neatnik and taller than me by a head,
but no way was she ever going to look as good as I do in fishnet stockings and stilettoes.

Just so she wouldn’t forget it, I shuffled said stilettoes against the blacktop of
the parking lot behind where we’d set up Texas Jack Pierce’s Hot-Cha Chile Seasoning
Palace. It was the day before the opening of the Taos Chili Showdown and though technically
I didn’t need the practice, I did need an excuse not to have to help Sylvia stick
labels on spice jars. Rehearsing the routine I’d use to attract the crowds that would
begin arriving the next morning was as good an excuse as any. While I was showing
off my dancing talents (not as artistic as they were enthusiastic), I gave Sylvia
the I-have-better-legs-than-you grin. Too bad she couldn’t see it, what with my face
being covered and all.

“The Chili Chick gets to ask the questions,” I reminded her, stopping to catch my
breath, “because the Chili Chick is equal partners with you in this little venture.
Which means the Chili Chick has equal say. Which means my original question stands.
Who died and left you boss?”

Sylvia rolled those sky blue eyes of hers like she always does when I get the best
of her and she refuses to admit it. Which is all the time. “All I did was change the
prices on a couple of our most popular products,” she said. “All-Purpose Chile Cha-Cha,
Global Warming, and—”

“Thermal Conversion. Yeah, I know. You changed the prices. And I didn’t know anything
about it until I showed up this morning and started setting up the stand. You have
an awful short memory, Sylvia. When we took over, we agreed—”

“To make all decisions jointly. Yes, I remember.” I guess that didn’t mean she had
to like it, because those perfectly bowed lips of hers puckered. “I decided to make
the change last night because I was going through the books and realized we were missing
out on a gold mine. Those are our biggest selling items, and by jacking the price
up just a tad, we can increase our profit margin by—”

Since she couldn’t see me yawn, I made enough noise to let her know what was going
on inside my Chili Chick costume.

“See?” She tossed her head. “I knew you wouldn’t be interested. Which is exactly why
I didn’t bother to tell you. Besides, you weren’t even here last night.” Her lips
thinned. “You knew there were seasonings to mix last night, Maxie. Tomorrow’s the
first day of the cook-off and we always do our best business in the first few hours.
But instead of helping, you ran off. With that loser, Roberto, right? You left me
high and dry and I had to stay up well past midnight. I had to do everything. All
by myself.”

She was right. I’d bailed. And truth be told, Roberto wasn’t worth it. Not that he
wasn’t cute. And marginally sexy. It’s just that any guy who thinks drinking uber
quantities of tequila is the way to a girl’s heart isn’t exactly my type.

I was actually all set to apologize until Sylvia added a little sing-song, “And you
didn’t come in until what was it, three this morning?”

Apology forgotten, I propped my fists on my hips. Well, not exactly on my hips since
my hips were camouflaged by the red chile. “So in addition to being the one who makes
the decisions and doesn’t tell me, now you’re my mother?”

Oh, this stung. Just like I hoped it would. I knew it for sure because Sylvia’s slim
shoulders shot back a fraction of an inch and her chin came up. The word “mother”
always does that to Sylvia. But then, talking about mothers makes her think of my
mother. And thinking about my mother makes her think about how my mother stole her
father from her mother.

Got that?

Sylvia and I, see, are half sisters. We share the same father, the aforementioned
Texas Jack Pierce, and we have mothers who are as different as . . . well, as Sylvia
and I are.

“Not that it’s any of your business,” I reminded her, “but I happened to have a date
last night.”

“With Roberto.” No one could do a tongue click quite like Sylvia. But then, she had
a lot of practice. “I told you when he signed on with the cook-off to help with the
set up and tear down, that guy’s up to no good. Honestly, I thought you’d be smarter
about men. I mean, after All You’ve Been Through.”

The capital letters are my addition, though I swear, if it were humanly possible to
speak in uppercase, Sylvia would have mastered the skill by now. Just as she didn’t
like talk of mothers in general and mine in particular, I was not exactly thrilled
when she dropped the whole All You’ve Been Through thing.

Which is, of course, exactly why she mentioned it.

“We were talking about you raising prices,” I said and since my teeth were clenched,
I hoped she could hear me from behind the red mesh that covered my face so I could
see out of the chile and customers couldn’t easily see in. “We weren’t talking about
Edik and what happened back in Chicago.”

“No, but maybe we should.”

Uh-oh. There is was. That sympathetic look. The tender, understanding voice. Before
I could back away, Sylvia grabbed my hand and dragged me closer. She liked to do this
when she was playing big sister. Well, big half sister. I liked to resist because
let’s face it, she didn’t really care. All Sylvia wanted to do was remind me what
a mess I’d made of my life back in Chicago. That, and the fact that she’d never in
a million years be stupid enough to make the same mistakes I had.

“You’ve got to work through this problem of yours, Maxie,” she insisted, and then
before I could point out the obvious fact that there was no problem and therefore,
no chance of working through it, she went right on. “You keep getting involved with
guys who are all wrong for you. Obviously Edik—”

“Was hotter than a habanero and great in bed.” I knew she’d get all pinched faced
on me when I said this.

Which is exactly why I did.

Sylvia is an attractive woman. When she’s not as puckered as a prune. “He also stole
how much from you? Fifty thousand dollars? And left your credit rating a shambles.
Honestly, Maxie, if you can’t see that Roberto’s going to do the same thing—”

“He’s not. Because I’m not going to give him a chance.” This much was true. Rather
than admit I’d already decided I was never going out with Roberto again, I added,
“Roberto’s good for a few laughs. Nothing else.”

“Like the nothing else you were doing until three o’clock this morning?”

“Like I said, a few laughs.” It was easier than explaining about the tequila and the
bar and the fight and the cops. It was also easier than even trying to begin to explain
what I knew in my heart: with Edik, I’d learned my lesson. Oh yeah, he was firecracker
hot, and as drop-dead delicious as any rock band lead guitarist in the western hemisphere.
But Edik was a creep who thought of Edik first, last, and always. I’d caught on a
little too late, but believe me, I wasn’t going to let it happen again. Because there
was no way, no how, I was ever going to let myself fall in love again. Not madly,
completely and totally in love. Not like I’d been with Edik.

“Listen . . .” If I weren’t wearing the Chili Chick costume, I would have scraped
a hand through my dark, spiky hair. The way it was, all I could do was pat the side
of my giant chile pepper costume. Something told me it didn’t have the same effect,
and no way did it express the sort of frustration I always felt when Sylvia pretended
that she was the loving big sister (Okay, half sister) and I needed her guidance to
find my way through the minefield that is my love life. “I can take care of myself,”
I reminded her.

Her smile was so brittle, I waited to hear the crack. “Yes, and you proved that back
in Chicago, didn’t you?”

I bit the inside of my mouth. It was that, or the long line of vendors around us who
were getting their booths ready for the next day’s opening festivities would hear
a string of profanity hotter than any chile mix in the great state of New Mexico.

“What happened in Chicago was a mistake,” I said.

“You admit it?”

“Of course I admit it.” My arms stuck out the side of the costume (the better to wave
folks toward Texas Jack’s stand), and I threw my hands in the air. “What, you want
me to say it wasn’t? That I liked being taken to the cleaners by the man I loved?”

Sylvia’s golden eyebrows dipped over her eyes. “Did you? Love him?” There was that
annoying note of compassion again. Like Sylvia might actually know what it’s like
to get her heart broken. Thirty-two years old and, honest, I was pretty sure she was
still a virgin. It was the only thing that could possibly explain how tightly wound
she was. “I’m sorry, Maxie. I never thought—”

“Whatever.” The perfect all-purpose response, and delivered at the right moment, too.
The PA system that had been set up in the parking lot of the fairgrounds hosting the
cook-off buzzed and crackled, and Bob “Tumbleweed” Ballew, our organizer and emcee,
announced that there would be a vendor meeting that evening precisely at six o’clock.
Since there was a vendor meeting precisely at six o’clock the night before every Showdown,
it pretty much went without saying, but hey, there wasn’t one of us among the couple
of dozens vendors who followed the chili circuit who would ever mention it. Tumbleweed
liked making announcements and, hey, listening to him was way better than listening
to Sylvia and I guess she knew it. She huffed out into the Palace.

Just to prove it, I decide to practice a little more.

Arms waving, hands beckoning, feet moving to the only routine I remembered from a
long-ago tap class that thankfully proved to my mother once and for all that I was
not made for the stage, I dance stepped my way to the front of our booth just the
way I would do the next day when the Showdown opened.

“Lookin’ good, Chili Chick!” This from Tumbleweed, who came out of the trailer where
he and his wife, Ruth Ann, handled all the admin work that went into the Showdown.
He stopped long enough to beam a smile at me. “Just you wait until tomorrow. There’s
not a cowboy in New Mexico who will be able to resist you, sweetheart!”

I didn’t take offense. After all, Tumbleweed was at least seventy and I’d known him
since back when I was a kid and I spent my summers traveling the chili circuit with
Jack (and, unfortunately, with Sylvia, too). In fact, Tumbleweed was Jack’s best friend,
the one who’d called me when—

Even inside the clumsy costume and standing in the blazing sun, I shivered.

“Hey, not losing heart, are you?” Like I said, Tumbleweed and I had been friends a
long time; he knew exactly what I was thinking. He pressed my hand. “We’re going to
find him, honey.”

“I know.” I did. Deep down in my heart I knew we were going to locate Jack, who’d
been missing for nearly six weeks now. Tell that to the lump of emotion that blocked
my throat and made it impossible for me to swallow. “But no one’s seen him, Tumbleweed,
and—”

He chuckled and waved away my worries as if they were nothing more annoying than the
brown ambush bug that flew out of the flowering shrubs near where we were standing
and did a fly-by between us. “I know Texas Jack and you know Texas Jack.” He grinned
and winked. “We both know he’s got an eye for the ladies and a taste for adventure.
He’ll be back, honey. And when he is, he’s gonna be as happy as a hornet in honey
to see what you two girls have done to keep the business going.” Tumbleweed slid a
look over to the stand where Sylvia was putting the last-minute touches on the catering
trailer we hauled around behind our RV.

Not that there was a whole lot to do. The Palace was only seven by fourteen—smaller
than a lot of the trailers the other vendors and chili cook-off contestants used.
It had a wide concession window at one end and, inside, a stove, fridge, worktable,
and shelves where we displayed our wares. Jack being Jack, he didn’t allow the trailer’s
small size to stymie business. The Palace was painted chile pepper red and the sign
above it—the one that featured Jack’s smiling face—was impossible-to-miss yellow with
alligator green lettering. The Palace was flashy. Some people said it was trashy.
I thought it was beautiful, and I loved it like no other thing on earth.

It looked like mind reading went both ways, because as I watched Tumbleweed look over
the Palace and Sylvia working away like a busy little beaver inside it, I knew what
was on his mind. When I shook my head, the chile costume swayed from side to side.
“I just don’t get it, Tumbleweed. I know why I’m here.”

“Yup.” He nodded. “To look for that wandering daddy of yours. And to help forget All
You’ve Been Through, of course.”

Did everyone on the cook-off circuit know the pitiful story of my love life?

Tumbleweed ignored my groan. “Hey, I get it. I’ve fallen in love with the wrong sort
a couple times myself.” Another chuckle jiggled his ample belly inside the blue Taos
T-shirt he was wearing. “Nothing like Texas Jack, of course! It sounds cruel to say
he’s the type to love ’em and leave ’em, ’cept he really is. When Jack falls in love
with a woman . . .” Tumbleweed sighed. “Well, I suppose you’ve heard it from your
mama. When Jack falls in love, that woman becomes his whole, entire world. He really
does devote himself to her, body and soul.”