Fry Another Day (22 page)

Ollie was right, too. I couldn't help that jump of joy in my heart knowing we would soon be going home. My bed at the old diner wasn't much, but it was going to be good to sleep in it that night.

I heard someone calling Miguel's name coming closer from a distance. We all looked back as Tina Gerard ran up, tears and black dirt on her face and arms. The dirt seemed to be mingled with blood.

“Miguel! Miguel!” She was screaming his name over and over until she threw herself into his arms. “Someone tried to kill me. They tried to run me down in the hotel parking lot. I managed to get away and I called a taxi. I rode all around the city, hoping he wasn't following me. I tried to call you. Why didn't you answer?”

“My phone didn't ring,” he said. “Are you okay?”

“I just got a few scratches when I fell on the concrete in the parking lot. I thought this was over. Why would someone come after
me
? I'm not part of the race.”

“It may not have anything to do with the race,” he said.

“Surely this proves that I wasn't part of what caused Alex's death. People are trying to kill me, too. I don't understand.”

“Did you call the police?” Miguel asked.

“No. I came straight here. I didn't want to talk to them by myself. I was afraid I might say the wrong thing.” She buried her head in his shirt and stood there, shaking.

Patrick was waiting for the remaining food truck teams to reach the stage. I hated to leave the dramatic scene, but we'd come this far. Miguel was going to have to call the police anyway. There wasn't much any of the rest of us could do. “Go ahead,” he said over Tina's head. “I'll catch up with you.”

Chef Art got out of his golf cart. “What's going on? Why aren't you all down there already?”

I told him about Tina's brush with death.

“Hog feathers! Get over there and win this challenge, Zoe Chase, or you're not the entrepreneur I thought you were.”

He was right. All the remaining teams were there. The producers' assistants were counting the earnings again as the four food truck owners stood by watching.

Grinch's Ganache had demanded a recount. When all the earnings for the morning were counted, the assistants returned our money. All eyes, and TV cameras, were on Patrick as he picked up the microphone.

“Everyone did an exceptional job out there this morning. Congratulations! It looks like our winner for the Birmingham challenge is the Biscuit Bowl. Not only did they sell two hundred dollars in delicious biscuit bowls, they also knew what to do with their red tag—which meant all team members wearing red bikinis.”

Ollie, Delia, Uncle Saul, Chef Art, and I were too busy squealing and hugging to even hear what Patrick said next. We finally quieted down and listened again.

“We have a tie between Shut Up and Eat and Stick It Here. The producers have decided on a tiebreaker to determine who the second food truck winner will be.”

“What happened to Our Daily Bread?” Ollie asked.

“I think we missed that,” I whispered.

Bobbie Shields was standing beside me. “They were disqualified for cheating and removed from the race.”

“Why? What happened?” I couldn't believe it.

“They weren't ministers after all.” She shrugged. “Someone reported seeing Reverend Jablonski on TV doing a promo for the race. He's an escaped felon from Florida.”

“Don't that beat all.” Uncle Saul shook his head. “And here they've been trouncing us right along.”

“Darn good bread makers,” Bobbie remarked.

“We've come up with a tiebreaker,” Patrick announced. “We'll need the owners of Stick It Here and Shut Up and Eat to come forward. Everyone else is free to do what they want for about thirty minutes. We'll have the beauty pageant, and the official announcement of who is going on with the race, at the stage then.”

“I forgot about the beauty pageant.” Ollie's expression was fierce. “I don't know, Zoe. I think I might just go on home now.”

“We're going home in a little while,” I said. “If you back out, we'll be disqualified, too. Please, Ollie. One last thing.”

“You know I might fall for that if I didn't know we still had to do goofy stuff tomorrow in Mobile.” He was frowning but finally relented. “Oh, all right. As long as no one else pinches me.”

“I won't let it happen again,” I promised, hugging him.

We went back out in the street and saw two police cars there with Miguel and Tina. An ambulance was pulling in, sirens blaring, as we reached them.

“Is Tina okay?” I asked Miguel.

“She's probably fine. I think she should be checked out.”

“Who are you people?” an officer asked when he saw our group.

I explained about the food truck race.

He laughed. “I've heard about that on TV. Sounds funny!”

Ollie muttered to himself and shuffled toward the Biscuit Bowl to wait for the final announcement.

“Come with me, Miguel,” Tina asked. “I don't want to go to the hospital
alone
.”

“You'll be fine,” he said. “I'll come and get you. Just take it easy, okay?”

She threw herself against him again. I was starting to feel a little doubtful that she was thinking of him
only
as a friend and attorney. Maybe I was being touchy because my relationship with Miguel was very new and she'd known him forever.

“You might have to kick that girl's scrawny behind,” Delia whispered.

“Thanks.” I grinned at her. “At least I'm not the
only
one seeing this.”

Miguel politely saw Tina into the ambulance. The paramedics got in back with her and the vehicle left.

“Why would anyone want to hurt her anyway?” Delia asked. “I thought the police accused her and Miguel of killing Alex.”

“No one said it had to make sense,” Uncle Saul said. “Maybe someone wanted to kill both of them—someone besides
you
, Zoe.”

I answered my phone. It was Marsh calling from the hospital. Helms still hadn't regained consciousness. Her family from Charlotte was flying in later that day to be with her.

His update was brief and to the point. I explained what he'd said to everyone.

“I don't know what to think about all of this.” I put my phone back in the pocket of my robe. “Marsh and Helms are the only ones who have followed this from the beginning. The Birmingham police are baffled. If we drag it to Mobile, they won't have any answers, either.”

We kind of looked at one another and shrugged. We stood around in the street as the sun rose in the blue sky. Uncle Saul said he was hungry and went to get a biscuit bowl.

The thirty-minute wait to find out what was going on in the race went by slowly, until we were finally called back to the stage. With only two food trucks going to Mobile, the group was dwindling fast.

“Last, but not least, we still have time for the beauty pageant. Biscuit Bowl team up first. Show us your bikinis.”

I took off my robe self-consciously, even though everyone had said I looked fine in my bikini. This was different, being up on a stage for everyone to gawk at.

I didn't have to worry about anyone noticing me, though; not with Uncle Saul and Ollie's onstage antics. Delia and I stood to one side as the men showed their muscles and generally acted like idiots.

“Can you believe that?” Delia asked me when Ollie lifted Uncle Saul and held him in the air.

“I knew he was strong. There's a lot more to Ollie than any of us knows.”

“I think that's true, Zoe.” She smiled at me. “He's such a nice person. I'm worried about hurting him. I don't have good luck with relationships.”

“Maybe this time will be different for you.” I waved shyly to Miguel, who waved back.

“Thank you for the show, Team Biscuit Bowl,” Patrick said. “Team Shut Up and Eat, come on up.”

Bobbie's daughter was stunning in her bikini. She looked shy onstage, but everyone applauded her. Bobbie defiantly shed her flowered dress when she got up there. She looked like an overweight, middle-aged woman in a blue bikini with a tattoo of a swan on her chest. Nothing else to say on that score.

We all applauded again. Bobbie and her daughter were very popular, but Ollie and Uncle Saul's craziness won the day.

“Team Biscuit Bowl wins the pageant, and a Caribbean cruise,” Patrick screamed. “Congratulations!”

Shut Up and Eat's prize for winning second place in the Birmingham challenge was a new deep fryer. Bobbie and her daughter graciously thanked everyone.

Patrick was grinning. “Okay, folks! We have our finalists in the Sweet Magnolia Food Truck Race. Girls, will you light up the board?”

The electronic board had to be prodded a little, but it finally came up with the names of the two finalists.

“Biscuit Bowl is on top!” Ollie yelled and did fist pumps in the air.

“That's right!” Patrick pointed at him. “The Biscuit Bowl from Mobile, Alabama, is number one. And since Shut Up and Eat from Charleston, South Carolina, wore their bikinis, they are our runner-up. Sorry about that, Grinch's Ganache and Stick It Here. Let's give them a round of applause for jumping back into the race even though they ended up losing.”

We all applauded. Some of the men clapped Dante on the back and shook hands with him. He didn't seem to be a good loser like the others had tried to be, letting his disappointment and anger show.

“Only two teams left.” Patrick faced the TV camera, his voice dramatic. He might have been announcing the end of the world with the serious expression on his face. “Shut Up and Eat will go head-to-head with Mobile's own Biscuit Bowl right in their home port. The prizes are bigger, and so are tomorrow's final challenges. Don't miss a moment of the Sweet Magnolia Food Truck Race finale!”

As soon as he'd finished speaking, the assistants began taking everything apart. The trucks would move on, and the race would continue with the Biscuit Bowl in the lead.

“You know, I almost think we might win this race,” I said to Chef Art.

“Zoe, we are
gonna
win tomorrow. Just you wait and see.”

Everything in the Biscuit Bowl was tied down or locked up, and we were ready to go. Everyone took their turns in the cool-down tent dressing room to change out of their bikinis. What a relief!

Miguel didn't want to leave Birmingham without making sure Tina was all right. I didn't want to leave without him. We decided to go to the hospital.

“If it's all the same to you, Zoe,” Uncle Saul said, “I'd just as soon go on home and check on Alabaster—and a certain wildlife officer I've missed. I can drive the food truck and take Crème Brûlée with me, if that would make it easier. This will give me a chance to think about what we should serve tomorrow for our race-winning biscuit bowls, too. It's gotta be something amazing since we're gonna be home. Text or call me if you have any ideas.”

That was fine with me. I gave him, and Crème Brûlée, a kiss.

“You be a good boy,” I said to my sometimes-wayward cat. “You don't want Alabaster to eat you!”

He turned up his nose and ignored me, obviously disgusted with the whole affair. I rubbed his tummy, and he pushed at me with his soft paws.

“It's going to be good to be home,” I told him as I strapped him into the truck seat. “I'll make you something really special for dinner after the race.”

He wasn't impressed. Uncle Saul got into the food truck. I waved to him as he drove away from Birmingham.

Delia winked as I got into the front seat of Miguel's car with him. She and Ollie were in the backseat. I didn't know if Tina would be leaving Birmingham with us or not. If she was, she was going to have to sit in the back with Ollie and Delia. I was seriously tired of her falling all over Miguel. Where did she actually live anyway? Maybe she could go there, or to Florida with her mother.

– – – – – – –

We got to the hospital. Miguel went to see if Tina had been admitted. Ollie went with him. Delia and I went to the floor where Helms was recovering.

“It's nice of you to go and see this woman, even though she and her partner have been a pain in the butt,” Delia said when we were in the elevator.

“She's been all right. She's just doing her job. I feel bad that she had something important to tell me after she was shot and I couldn't understand her. I hope she and Marsh can figure it all out.”

“Like I said,” Delia drawled, “mighty nice.”

The elevator chimed and we got off. I started toward the nurses' station to ask about Helms. There was no sign of Marsh or anyone else waiting to see her. I supposed Marsh had to work even though she was hurt, and her family probably hadn't arrived yet.

“I'd like to see Detective Macey Helms, please.”

“Are you a member of the family?” the nurse asked me.

“No, but I was with her when she was brought in.”

Dark eyes in a chocolate brown face narrowed. “She isn't allowed visitors right now, except family. Sorry.”

I opened my mouth to argue the point, and an alarm went off. People started running past me.

One of them was Detective Marsh. “Someone tried to get into Helms's room,” he yelled. “I think he wanted to finish what he started.”