Murder for the Halibut (4 page)

A sneak peek at the rest of the group still congregating around Stefano verified Casey
wasn’t the only one who didn’t seem all that broken up about the injury. Luis Herrera
wasn’t even trying to hide his grin. Jordan made a mental note to sic Rosie on him
as soon as she could. She’d find out what was up with his attitude.

Mo and Johnny helped Stefano to his feet and led him to the shaded area where he slumped
on the bench, obviously feeling no pain at the moment. After Johnny pulled the anchor,
he revved up the
Sea Shark
’s engine and headed back to port.

Casey made her way over to Michael and Jordan, a half grin still on her face. “And
then there were five,” she snickered. “Guess you won’t need to eliminate one of us
tomorrow at the Greased Lightning Elimination Round.”

The gang was
already at the hotel waiting in Jordan’s room when she and Michael returned.

“Catch any fish?” asked Ray Varga, the oldest among her fellow residents at Empire
Apartments, when he saw her.

“She snared the biggest snapper I’ve ever seen,” Michael answered for her. “You should
have seen her reel that sucker in.”

Ray gave her a squeeze that made her wince. In his sixties and retired for several
years from the police force, Ray still worked out daily and had the body of a much
younger man.

“Sorry, sweetie. Sometimes I squeeze too hard.”

“Tell me about it,” Lola Van Horn said, stealing Jordan from him to embrace her. “The
man hasn’t learned that sometimes less is more.”

In her early seventies, Lola lived next door to Ray and shared more than cups of coffee
with him.

“You didn’t say that last night, shortcake,” Ray replied, unable to conceal the mischief
in his voice.

“Criminy!” Rosie LaRue said from the bed she’d share
with Jordan later. “Do you really think we want to hear about what you and Lola do
behind closed doors, Ray? Some of us aren’t so lucky, you know.” She fist-bumped with
Jordan, then patted the bed. “Power to the sisters. Now sit and tell me how you outfished
all the men, Jordan. Then let’s talk about tomorrow. I’m so excited, I probably won’t
be able to sleep tonight.”

Jordan sat on the edge of the bed and scrunched her mouth in a pout. “I wish I could
eat your food tomorrow instead of the fishy stuff the chefs will be cooking.”

“Oh, pooh! Just take one small taste and spread the rest around on your plate,” Victor
Rodriguez said from the other side of the room. “I used to do that when the nuns tried
to make me eat crap I didn’t like.”

“She can’t play with her food, Victor. Everyone will be watching her. However, as
a judge, she only has to take a few sample bites of each dish, anyway,” Michael said.

“Oh, so now you talk to me?”

Michael lowered his eyes, like a preteen kid who knew he was in trouble. “I couldn’t
find a minute to myself before the fishing trip, Victor, and there were no bars on
my cell phone out at sea. I’ll make it up to you.”

Victor’s eyes lit up. “How?”

“With a nice dinner tonight along with your favorite drink, a chocolate martini.”

“You’re going to do that, anyway.” Victor narrowed his eyes. “Take me on the booze
cruise when we get to Saint Kitts.”

“You know I’m not supposed…” Michael threw up his hands in surrender. “Ah, what the
heck. Agreed. Now quit pouting.”

“You love it when I pout.”

“Geez! What part of ‘no sex talk’ did you not get? Without mentioning any names”—she
poked Jordan—“some of us are flying solo on that mission.”

“Yes, dear.” Victor plopped on the bed beside Rosie and Jordan. “We are
so
going to have a blast. Now that we’re all finally together in one spot, you have
our undivided attention, Michael. Tell us again how you managed to get all of us involved
in this shindig.”

Michael sat in the chair by the window. “Jordan and I are working on the cooking competition.
Ray is private security for Beau and—”

“Who?” Rosie interrupted.

“Beaumont P. Lincoln, Beau for short. He’s the founder and CEO of Sinfully Sweet.”

“I love those,” Lola chimed in, giving her almost-maroon dyed hair a flip. “I gave
this one guy a tarot reading a few months back and told him his luck would change.
When he won a couple of grand on a scratch-off, he came back with a box of Baileys
Irish Cream Fudge from Sinfully Sweet. He said they make goodies from all kinds of
liquor. My mouth is watering right now just thinking about it.”

“Cheapskate. He wins a potload of money, and all you get is candy,” Rosie said, clucking
her tongue.

“Oh, but not just candy, Rosie. A person can get a real buzz by eating an entire box
like I did.” She giggled. “I may have forgotten to mention the C-note he slipped me.
It does pay to give good readings.” She tapped her puffy lips, compliments of a plastic
surgeon she counseled once or twice a week.

“Anyway,” Michael continued, “Beau’s security guy left for Costa Rica to help his
parents fight the local
government and keep their property. He has no idea when he’ll be able to return, if
ever. Beau didn’t think he could properly train another person in that time frame,
so he talked about backing out as a judge. When I told him about Ray, he met him and
was impressed. He agreed to hire him for the cruise.”

Jordan glanced at the retired cop, now grinning almost comically. She loved this man.
When she’d arrived in Ranchero alone and frightened, the gods must have been watching
over her, guiding her to Empire Apartments. Since it was the least shabby of the apartment
complexes she could afford without searching for a roommate, she’d jumped on it.

Her salary, first for writing the personals and more recently as the culinary reporter
at the
Ranchero Globe
, would never make her rich—in fact, it barely paid her bills—but at the time it was
the only job she could find that would actually allow her to use her journalism degree
from the University of Texas.

After following her boyfriend all over Texas and ending up in Dallas where he got
a great job as a sports reporter for a TV station, she’d promptly been dumped for
the petite weather girl who sported a humongous store-bought chest. Ironically, her
ex was living
her
dream life (exclusive of the big-busted girlfriend, of course), which made his success
even harder to stomach.

Vowing never to return home to Amarillo with her tail between her legs, Jordan had
snapped up the
Ranchero Globe
offer and moved to the small town fifty miles northeast of the Dallas metroplex.
The last thing she needed on top of her broken heart was to listen to her parents
and four older brothers say “I told you so.” They’d
never liked Brett in the first place and had warned her about putting her own career
on the back burner while she moved all over Texas with him.

Rosie, who was like a big sister to her, lived in the apartment next door. She’d introduced
herself before Jordan even had a chance to unpack her four suitcases and her goldfish,
Maggie. Along with Victor and Michael, who jointly owned the building, the rest of
the first-floor gang had adopted her and quickly became her second family.

Although she still dreamed about sitting in the press box at athletic events, she
couldn’t complain about her job at the newspaper. When the culinary reporter broke
her hip in a water-skiing accident two months after Jordan was hired, the editor had
offered her the job.

There had been only one huge problem. Dwayne Egan wanted her to post gourmet food
recipes twice a week in her new column. Since her skills in the kitchen were limited
to frying bologna and making Pop-Tarts, she’d almost turned down the offer.

That was before Victor had come up with the brilliant idea of making up foreign names
for Rosie’s recipes. Her famous pork chop casserole was now Cóte de Porc á la Cocotte.
Even Egan had been amazed at the response from the local community. The recipes had
quickly become the talk of the town, and she was now a household name—at least to
the twenty-two thousand or so residents of Ranchero who had no idea she was clueless
in the kitchen.

“Jordan?”

Victor’s voice snapped Jordan back to the present. “What?”

“You were miles away. We’re talking about our jobs.”
He turned to Lola. “So what are you doing?” Victor asked.

“Reading tarot cards for the guests and teaching a class on séances.”

“Ha!” Victor blurted. “The last séance you performed nearly ended in disaster. Remember,
sweetie?”

“That’s because you and Jordan’s brother popped in uninvited,” Lola fired back. “And
don’t ‘sweetie’ me. I was ready to kill you that night.”

Jordan smiled at her friend who had become a second mother to her. Lola owned Lola’s
Spiritual Readings in downtown Ranchero where she read tarot cards, among other psychic
services, for some of the wealthiest people in the county. Standing barely five three,
if that, and wearing caftans over her adorably pudgy figure, Lola loved to eat, especially
the mouthwatering desserts Ray cooked up.

“I know I’m going to help with the entertainment, but what’s she doing?” Victor scooted
over and put his head on Rosie’s shoulder.

“What do I do best?”

He pursed his lips in deep thought. “Make jewelry and sell it on eBay?”

Rosie laughed. “You’re right. And I’m darn good at that, too, but I’m talking about
something else. What do I do every Friday night when you guys all come over to play
cards?”

“Cook?” When she nodded, he shrugged. “Cruises are famous for their great abundance
of good food. Plus, there will be six chefs vying for the title of Caribbean Cook-Off
Champion. No offense, darling, but why would they want you to cook?”

Rosie punched him in the arm playfully. “You have
such a way with words, you clod.” She turned to Michael. “Tell your little friend
what you worked out for me before I smack him upside the head.”

Michael shook his head. “That’s my baby. He opens his mouth, and his foot pops right
into it.” He walked closer to the bed. “Just so you know, my boss and Dwayne Egan,
Jordan’s boss, thought it would add a nice touch if they made some of Jordan’s recipes
available for people to sample. Since Jordan will be busy with the contest—not to
mention no one in their right mind would eat anything she cooks—my boss insisted I
hire Rosie after I gave him a taste of one of her casseroles. They turned one of the
smaller restaurants on board into what they’re calling
Ranchero Globe
’s Kitchen Kupboard. It will be open only for lunch and only to the people who are
part of the KTLK group, the twenty-five tasters chosen from a lottery, and, of course,
the judges and all of us.”

“So, I guess since most of the recipes Jordan prints are right out of Rosie’s cookbook,
our own Friday-night chef will be running the restaurant?” Victor asked.

“You got it,” Michael said “Now Rosie is a head chef for a week.”

Jordan reached over and high-fived her friend. “At least I’ll eat well at lunch.”

“Dinner won’t be so bad, Jordan. I’ll sneak some leftovers to our room if you absolutely
hate what the chefs cook,” Rosie said.

“Oh, I’ll hate the food, for sure, especially the first night.” Jordan shook her head.
“Any fish that doesn’t include beer, batter, and frying is not my idea of tasty.”

Michael laughed. “Tomorrow’s Greased Lightning Elimination Round may not be that bad,
Jordan. The chefs
will only have thirty minutes to prepare their dish, and like I said earlier, you
only have to take one or two bites of each. We can sneak up to the poolside grill
later on for chili dogs and fries.”

“Why do they even need to cook tomorrow? I thought you said one of them was already
knocked out of the competition today. Wasn’t that the whole purpose of the elimination
round?” Ray asked.

“Eliminating one wasn’t the only reason for the first leg of the competition. The
five remaining contestants will still be graded on this round, with that score added
to their final tally.” Michael tsked. “The injured guy was the frontrunner. Too bad
he got hurt.”

“Don’t you mean skewered?” Jordan asked. “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find out
it wasn’t an accident.”

“I know,” Michael agreed. “Casey and Stefano clearly have a history, and not in a
good way.”

“Okay, then,” Victor said, apparently bored with the conversation. “I’m ready for
that chocolate martini.”

“Me, too,” Rosie said, jumping up from the bed. “But make mine and Jordan’s an appletini.”

“Not for me. I’m strictly a margarita girl, Rosie. An appletini would probably send
me to the hospital with a massive migraine.”

As she said it, Jordan couldn’t help thinking about Stefano and wondering if he was
still in the emergency room. Despite his cockiness, in both the culinary and the womanizing
departments, he would’ve added a certain element of entertainment to the competition.
After her encounter with him on the boat, she’d even imagined him including “special”
brownies on his menu.

Now, he’d have to stand on the sidelines and watch,
assuming he even came on the cruise. And all because of a careless accident.

Careless accident or carefully planned sabotage?

Jordan sighed. She’d probably never really know.

“Holy crap! Look
at the size of that thing,” Victor exclaimed. “Hope everyone brought their cell phones,
or we’re gonna spend half the time looking for each other on that monster ship.”

Rosie cocked an eyebrow. “Do you really think you’re going to get a signal out in
the middle of the ocean?”

Victor slapped his head. “Oh, yeah! What was I thinking?”

“Actually, my little honey is right. You can get a signal out at sea, but the roaming
charges are astronomical and aren’t included in the deal we got,” Michael explained
before pointing to a door marked E
MPLOYEES
O
NLY
. “Come on, guys. We’re boarding over there ahead of the rest of the guests.” He led
the way in that direction.