Final Sentence (32 page)

“
Nada
. Not a word.”

“Not from my Aunt Vera?”

“She’s as quiet as a clam.” Rhett held up his hand, swearing to his statement.

“David had taken a few sailing lessons,” I began. “He wanted to try a solo run. He said it was a rite of passage. He needed to prove himself. Jumping out of a perfectly good airplane wasn’t enough.”

“He did that?”

“We both did. With instructors strapped to our backs.” I would never forget the blast of air and the gut-gasping thrill of seeing land over thirteen thousand feet below. “But David wanted more thrills. He was a risk taker. He wanted to face swells on the high seas. He had all the right equipment. He was a good swimmer.” Something twinged in my chest. “All I can think is the boat must have rocked hard and he hit his head before falling overboard. I’ll never know what happened.”

Cascades of female laughter filled the air. I cut a look at the pair of women by the register. Cinnamon tried to steady her companion’s tilting double-decker ice cream cone. “Help,” she cried and laughed harder. Her friend, who was wearing an outfit similar to a policeman’s uniform but clearly unofficial, propped the ice cream up with her fingers.

The owner skirted around the counter wielding a Tupperware garbage bin. “Let’s dump that one, ladies, and start over.”

With Cinnamon in such a cheerful mood, an idea came to me. I didn’t want to continue discussing the end of David’s life. Maybe now was as good a time as any to clear the air with our police chief. Without asking Rhett’s permission, I rose from my chair and hailed Cinnamon.

She signaled to give her a second.

As I hunkered down in my chair, Rhett stood up, his eyes as hard as rock candy.

“What’s wrong?” I reached for his hand.

He stuffed it into his pocket. “I can’t stay.”

“Why not?”

He hitched his head toward Cinnamon. “She and I don’t see eye to eye. I keep my distance.”

“Why?” I was baffled. Just yesterday, when discussing his clerk, Joey, he had paid Cinnamon a compliment.

A long moment passed. Finally Rhett said, “We were dating when The Grotto burned down.”

My heart snagged. He and Cinnamon had dated? For how long?

“She suspected me of the deed.”

“Didn’t you tell her what you’ve told me?”

“Sure I did. She could never convince herself I didn’t do it. Let’s just say it put a crimp in our relationship.”

“But the evidence. The missing art.”

“Wasn’t enough for her. So much for love and trust.” He pinched his lips together as if deciding whether to say more. He didn’t. He left his ice cream and strode out of the shop. As the door closed, a chime played the first seven notes of “Good Vibrations.”

The irony was not lost on me. I leaned back in my chair, upset with myself for not knowing more of Rhett’s story before I’d asked Cinnamon to join us. How insensitive could I be? Luckily ice cream was good for two things: to celebrate a joyous occasion or to drown one’s sorrows. I finished mine and his.

A minute later, Cinnamon and her colleague, whom she introduced as a college intern helping out for the summer, joined me at the table. “Thanks for the invite since there’s no room elsewhere,” Cinnamon said. “Where did Rhett go?”

I cocked my head. She wasn’t stupid. I could tell by her gaze that she knew she had scared him away. In fact, she looked exultant. “He’s innocent.”

“Here we go.” Cinnamon sighed. “Now you’re going to fight his battles, too? He’s free. Isn’t that enough?”

“Freedom from suspicion matters, too.”

Cinnamon inhaled sharply; her nose thinned.

“Did you track down Anton d’Stang?” I asked, gearing the topic back to my personal problem. “I told you, I think he killed Desiree. He might have killed Gigi Goode.”

“He didn’t kill her.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because Gigi Goode has returned.”

I gaped. “She’s not dead?”

“She’s alive and well.” Cinnamon licked the lemon sorbet that dribbled down the sides of her cone. “She admitted that living in hiding doesn’t suit her. She brought back everything she stole, and she entered a rehab program at the Y in Santa Cruz. In addition, I’ve given her community service, working with some of the local kids.”

“Then back to Anton. Did you locate him?”

Cinnamon stood and laid the rest of her cone in Rhett’s empty bowl.

I rose, as well. “Without a confirmed suspect, suspicions linger.”

“Yes, they do.”

There it was, her true opinion, out in the open. She believed I was guilty until proven i
nnocent. Well, I wasn’t going to remain her number one suspect, not as long as I had eyes, ears, and a brain.

Chapter 24

F
UELED BY ANGER
and a chocolate-sugar rush, I jogged back to The Cookbook Nook. Someone had moved the furniture and relocated the bookshelves to the far side of the space. In their place stood tables and chairs from the café and a portable cooking station preset with food and cooking utensils. Judy Garland, singing “Get Happy,” blasted from a CD player. Had someone put that particular song on for my benefit? What had happened to the mix of food-themed songs Katie had created?

“What’s going on?” I said.

“Have you forgotten?” Aunt Vera waltzed from chair to chair setting out recipe cards. “At five P
.
M
.
, less than ten minutes away, we have our first cooking class. Well, our guests won’t actually be cooking yet. We’re waiting for our license. But too-ra-loo, we’re having a tasting.”

“Katie’s made some deliriously good food.” Bailey followed in my aunt’s wake and placed teensy measuring cups on the chairs. “Each participant will receive a recipe card for deviled eggs with shrimp and dill and a cute measuring cup.” She jiggled one. “We have twenty participants signed up.”

“And I’m one of them,” a man said.

I swiveled toward the door. Rhett entered, hair tousled, hands jammed into his jeans pockets. He didn’t scowl at me, which I took as a good sign. Maybe he didn’t hold me accountable for Cinnamon’s presence at the ice cream store. He came over to me and whispered, “I’m sorry about earlier.”

“Me, too. I had no idea. If it makes you feel better, I defended you.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“I wanted to. I don’t believe in bullying. Cinnamon’s mother might have raised her, but my father was her mentor. She knows to get the facts before rushing to judgment.”

“She didn’t rush—”

I put my finger to his lips.

He kissed my finger, and a delicious shiver ran through me to my toes.

“Places, everyone.” Aunt Vera clapped her hands. “Our students are arriving.”

I was surprised to see two of the three women who had accompanied Pepper into the shop the other day—the pretty one who preferred floral patterns, telling by the sundress she wore, and the skinny one who had donned yet another shapeless beaded sweater with capris that made her calves look as thin as pencils. Did they come to make trouble? The nuisance with the frowsy hair was nowhere to be seen, thank heavens. A pair of moms that I recognized, sans children, sat down at one of the tables and praised the recipe card and mini–measuring cup, which they called party favors. I liked that. I wanted our customers to think of our shop as a fun destination. A dozen more people, including my father and the reporter, Tito Martinez, wandered in and took seats. What was Tito doing here? Had he come to give us a nasty write-up?

Bad, Jenna. Do not always think the worst.

Katie rushed in with preparations and took her place behind the portable cooking station. “Welcome, everyone.” She introduced herself and held up a cluster of beautiful appetizer cookbooks, including
Small Bites
and
Bite for Bite,
tasty little books filled with hundreds of recipes. “Let’s start with something easy tonight. We’ll give you a sampling of what fabulous things you can do with a few simple ingredients. For example, these crispy chorizo quesadillas and serrano-rolled asparagus, or this mini-plate of pasta with melted Brie, onion, and spinach.” She held up display plates. “And we’ll also make my grandmother’s version of deviled eggs. You will find that recipe on your chairs.”

The crowd
oohed.

“Boring,” Tito said.

“Shush.” Aunt Vera thwacked him on the shoulder.

A flash of red in the parking lot caught my eye. Sabrina, wearing a halter dress and clutching a number of shopping bags, ascended the stairs to her trailer.

“Psst. Come with me.” Bailey grasped my elbow and dragged me outside. “We’ve got to talk.” She shepherded me out of sight from our customers.

“What’s with all the secrecy? Are you sick? Yesterday you carried a load on your shoulders. I meant to ask you last night when we went out. Does it have to do with the doctor’s appointment?”

“Forget that. My mother has been investigating on your behalf.”

“Oh, no. I can’t pay her.”

“She doesn’t want payment. She loves you like a daughter. More than she loves me.”

“Whoa. Why the pity party?”

“I’m not—” Bailey coughed. “It’s nothing.”

I didn’t believe her. Her eyes looked puffy and swollen. Had she been crying?

“Back to Mom,” Bailey said. “She did some searching into Sabrina Divine’s life after we trash-talked her at brunch. Love and intrigue always pique my mother’s interest. Anyway, remember how the bartender at the Chill Zone told you Desiree and Sabrina argued, and Desiree waggled a bottle of pills at Sabrina? Turns out, good old Sabrina did a couple of stints in drug rehab, but her visits were kept hush-hush.”

When I ran into Sabrina the morning I found Desiree dead, she admitted to having passed out the night before. A friend in college had a drug problem. She hadn’t been able to keep current with her classes. She had battled anorexia. In the end, she had given up her career plans to become a lawyer and took a job slinging hash. Had Sabrina settled for being Desiree’s assistant because she couldn’t manage a career of her own?

“What if Sabrina was relapsing?” Bailey said. “What if Desiree told her to get clean or she’d fire her?”

A trailer door slammed.

Sabrina jogged down the stairs, bouncing car keys in her hand. She headed toward Desiree’s white Mercedes and executed a happier-than-happy twirl. I squeezed Bailey’s arm, signaled I would learn the truth, and hurried across the parking lot.

“Hey, Sabrina, hold up,” I said. “Why the big grin?”

“My boyfriend in L.A. contacted me.” She tweeted the unlock car door button. “He never wanted to break up with me. The call I received the night . . .” She hesitated, swallowed hard. “
That
night.” The night her sister died. “It must have been a prank call. He has all sorts of friends—jerks—who don’t like me.”

“Because of your drug problem?”

Sabrina jolted to a stop. “Well, aren’t you a primo snoop.”

I waited.

“Fine, yes, I used to do drugs. But I gave them up. I’ve been clean for six months. Everybody knows that.”

“And yet the night your sister was murdered, you went back to the trailer with Mackenzie, and soon after, you
passed out
. Your words.”

“I had a drink. I was upset with my boyfriend. I needed to take the edge off.”

“Desiree saw you at the bar. You argued.”

“How do you know that?” Sabrina worked her lip between her teeth. “That wicked bartender must have seen us near the ladies’ room.” She slumped into a hip. “Desiree was missing a bottle of sleeping pills. She thought I took them. As if they would give me a high. I told her to stop hounding me.”

“Did she threaten to fire you?”

“No.”

“Maybe she warned you that she would cut you out of her will.”

Sabrina choked out a laugh. “What will? She gave all her money to charity, didn’t you hear?”

“Which charity?”

“Homeless women. Desiree was all about causes.”

During college Desiree had participated in walks to fight cancer, diabetes, and all sorts of other diseases. “Retrace your steps the night Desiree died.”

“Why should I? You’re not the police.”

“Call me a concerned citizen.”

Sabrina huffed. “I got the phone call from a guy I thought was my boyfriend—the prank phone call—and he dumped me. I felt so betrayed. I loved him so much. I went to the bar for one drink. Gigi claimed the Chill Zone had the best Hurricanes. I felt as if I were caught in one.”

“You ran into your sister.”

“Uh-uh, she ran into me. Literally. Bam!” Sabrina smacked her hand against the car. “Desiree’s face went livid when she realized I was there. She accused me of stealing her pills. For your information, I have never stolen a thing in my life. Not one thing.” Tears brimmed in Sabrina’s eyes. “I muscled her down the hall. We exchanged words. I said everybody knew I used to do drugs. Anybody could have stolen that stupid Tiffany’s pill case of hers. Just to make me look bad in her eyes.”