Grilled Cheese Murder: Book 4 in The Darling Deli Series (2 page)

“I was wondering,” he began after a moment. “Would you like to go out to dinner with me?”

“Dinner sounds nice,” she replied, slightly flustered. “Is this a… date?”

“If you want it to be,” he said easily, “then yeah, it is.”

“It’s a date then.” A grin tugged at the corners of her lips. Candice had been right after all. She felt a small stirring of nerves in her belly. It had been far too long since she had dated anyone, let alone someone she liked as much as she liked David.

“What evening is best for you?” he asked.

“Oh, any night after we close the deli is fine. Your schedule is less predictable than mine, so you should just choose an evening that’s convenient for you.”

“Does this Wednesday night sound good? I can pick you up at half past eight,” he offered.

“That’s perfect.” Wednesday was the day after tomorrow, which would give her some time to prepare. Did she even have anything she could wear on a date? “I’m looking forward to it.”

Her good mood lasted all night and well into the morning of the next day. Candice had given her a few quizzical glances on the way home, but Moira kept her upcoming date to herself, wanting to cherish the eager, hopeful feeling for as long as she could. While she loved her daughter, she knew that Candice would want to speculate about where a relationship with David might lead. The deli owner didn’t want to think too much about the future right now—she wanted to focus on how perfect the present was. She would tell Candice about the date just before she went out with him, but for now it was her happy little secret.

On Tuesday, Dante was the only worker on staff and as usual he haunted the back room, keeping tabs on the soup and restocking the front as needed. She had hired him only a few months ago and he had quickly proven himself reliable and trustworthy. In many ways, he was still a mystery to her. He had appeared seemingly out of the ether shortly after she began looking for a new employee and he seemed not to have any connections to the small town whatsoever. Yet he had never once let her down, not even after a murdered food critic had been found in the deli during the Winter Festival.

“Hey, Ms. Darling, is it all right if I take a quick lunch break?” he asked her shortly after noon.

“Go ahead,” she told him. “I should be able to handle everything on my own for a while.”
Maybe I spoke too soon
, she thought as a couple of cars pulled into the parking lot just as her employee disappeared behind the kitchen doors.

“Hi,” she said to the first pair of customers to walk in. It was a woman and her young daughter. They came in every few weeks. “Welcome to Darling’s DELIcious Delights. Feel free to look around. Our soup of the day today is red pepper asparagus, and it comes with grilled cheese zucchini bread.”

“Zucchini bread? Eww.” the little girl asked, wrinkling her nose. The mother shushed her, shooting Moira an apologetic glance. The deli owner just laughed.

“If it’s all right with your mom, I’ll let you try a piece.” The mother nodded, so she ducked into the kitchen to butter a slice of the tasty bread for the girl. When she came back out, a third customer had wandered in. He was a tall man, but thin, with scraggly blonde hair and a hungry look about him. She nodded to him, and then gave the piece of zucchini bread to the girl, who bit into it and smiled hugely.

After ringing up the mom and little girl, who ended up each getting a bowl of soup with an extra order of zucchini bread grilled cheese, she turned her attention to the man who was standing at the back.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“I think I’ll just look around,” he replied. As he began slowly perusing the refrigerated cases, Moira sat back in her stool. She kept half an eye on him, but focused the rest of her attention on the order form she was working on. She couldn’t wait until summer, when the local farmers would be practically overflowing with fresh produce.
Maybe I’ll let one of them set up a fresh produce stand outside again,
she thought. Last summer, she had allowed a young woman to sell fresh black sweet cherries on the sidewalk in front of her store during farmer’s market days. She recalled the sweet, rich flavor of the delicious fruit.

“I’m done with lunch, Ms. Darling. What can I-” Dante’s voice cut off suddenly. Moira turned to see him poking his head out of the kitchen, his grey eye wide. She followed his gaze to see that he was staring at the tall man who was still examining the wares. Without a word, he slipped back into the kitchen. Worried and confused, she could do nothing but stare after her young employee. What was going on with him today?

A moment later the tall man left without buying anything and Moira got up to find Dante. He was busily scrubbing dishes at the wide sink in the kitchen. When she approached, he looked up and greeted her casually as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

“Did you want me to start thawing more zucchini bread, or do you think we have enough?” he asked her. She frowned for a second, not sure whether she should ask him about his odd reaction. With a mental shrug, she decided not to talk about it if he didn’t want to. He had always been the most private of her employees, and it wasn’t her place to push him for an explanation that he didn’t want to give.

“I think we’ve got enough, but if you’re concerned about it, feel free to take out one more loaf. You can always bring it home for dinner if we don’t end up using it,” she told him. “We have plenty of the stuff; I bought about twenty pounds of zucchini last year, and what I didn’t make into soup, I made into bread and froze.”

As she walked out of the kitchen, she did her best to push the incident out of her mind. It was a nice day, the sun was shining, and she had a date to look forward to tomorrow night.

“I can’t believe that you didn’t tell me.” Candice bounced on the balls of her feet, her excitement overcoming any annoyance she might have felt for being out of the loop. Moira grinned at her, and then half turned, trying to look at herself in the mirror. She was wearing black slacks that somehow miraculously still fit her, even though they had been sitting in her closet for who knew how long, and a loose red blouse. Her hair was pulled up in a fancy sort of bun that Candice had managed to create in only a few minutes.

“I did tell you,” she pointed out to her daughter. “I just waited a little bit. It’s not like you tell me every time you go out on a date.”

“True,” the young woman replied. “But I go out on dates all the time. You go out so rarely that it should be considered a national holiday.”

“Oh, hush,” she told Candice fondly. “Just tell me if my outfit looks okay.”

“You look great, Mom.” They embraced, Moira feeling younger than her years and more excited than she had thought she would be. It wasn’t like she hadn’t gone out to eat with David before, but that had always been last minute and out of necessity when they were both hungry, or when he had stopped by for lunch at the deli. Going out together for a dinner that they both acknowledged was a date would be different. She only hoped that things weren’t awkward between them. She cherished the easy friendship that they had built over the past few months.

“I think he’s here,” her daughter said a moment later, peering out the window. “You’ve got to tell me everything when you get back. And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

She met David at the door, taking the arm that he offered her as she navigated the icy walkway. The temperature was dropping rapidly, and everything that had melted during the last few days was refreezing. She was glad that David would be driving instead of her, and doubly glad that they didn’t have far to go. They pulled up at the Redwood Grill, the new restaurant that had opened in town not long ago. It was a gorgeous steakhouse that had amazing—if a bit pricey—food. Moira knew the owner personally. In fact, Denise stopped in at the deli a couple of times a week to chat with her. They were the only two female restaurant owners in town, and had formed a sort of automatic friendship. She was also sure that the lack of direct competition between their businesses helped them maintain that friendship.

“You look gorgeous,” David told her as he opened the passenger side door for her. They had both been unusually quiet on the car ride over, and Moira was beginning to envy her daughter’s easy-going attitude when it came to dating. She really was pretty out of practice.

“Thanks,” she said, smiling up at him. “You look pretty nice yourself.” It was true, he had obviously put effort into his wardrobe. He usually dressed stylishly, openly favoring a clichéd private investigator look. Tonight, however, he was wearing a dress shirt and neatly pressed black pants. He smelled nice too, like soap and cologne.

“I hope it’s all right that we came here,” he added as they walked towards the restaurant’s entranceway. “I know that you and Candice frequent this place, but it’s the nicest place around and I didn’t think it would be a good idea to drive too far with the roads like this.”

“I love this place,” she assured him. “I could eat here every night and not get tired of it.”

The hostess seated them quickly, taking them back to the same booth that Moira and her daughter had sat in on the grill’s opening night. It had become their regular table, and the hostess gave her a quick grin of recognition, raising a discreet eyebrow as she glanced at David. The deli owner felt a faint blush rise on her cheeks. She hadn’t thought of the fact that since everyone who worked at the grill knew her, her date with the private investigator would soon be the talk of the town.

A few minutes later, the two of them were sipping wine and beginning to talk comfortably again. Moira was relieved that the awkwardness had faded quickly. She was still concerned about the date affecting their friendship, but at least they were having fun.

“Do you know if that guy from the toy store ever contacted Candice?” she asked him once they had both put their menus down.

“No, as far as I know, he’s still out of town.” A frown flitted across David’s face. “It’s odd. I’ve known him for years, and he’s always told me if he’s planning on going on a trip. He does have a cabin up north, but I don’t know why he wouldn’t be returning my calls.”

“Are you worried about him?”

“I am a little concerned,” he admitted. “But his granddaughter keeps telling me that he’s fine, so I guess there’s nothing I can do.”

“I hope everything is all right, both for them and for my daughter. She really likes the place.”

“I know.” His face relaxed into a smile. “I don’t think he’ll keep her waiting too much longer. How are all of the plans for the candy shop coming?”

“From what I’ve seen, she and Adrian have been making a ton of progress.” She chuckled. “I have to admit; I don’t understand half of what they’re saying. I hired people to help me get the deli running, but those two are doing most of it by themselves.”

“You must be proud of her,” he said.

“Oh, I am. Proud and worried. I know she’s smart and capable of running a store, but there’s just so much that can go wrong, and she’s going to be putting a lot of money into it.” She took another sip of wine, and was casting around for something else to talk about when she felt her phone buzz in her pocket. Shooting David an apologetic glance, she pulled it out and glanced at the screen. When she saw the caller ID, she felt her blood turn to ice.

“Hello?” she said, pressing the phone to her ear.

“Ms. Darling, this is Trish at the Maple Creek Police Department. We need you to come down to the station for us as soon as possible.”

“Why?” Moira said, her voice sounding hollow. David was gazing at her with concern in his blue eyes.

“There’s been a death, and we need you to identify the body.”

As David drove her to the police station, an uncomfortable silence once again fell over them. All Moira could do was keep repeating to herself,
It’s not Candice, it’s not Candice.
That had been the first thing out of her mouth to the woman from the police station. Her daughter was fine, which was the important thing, but the name that they had given her instead was nearly as bad. When they got there, she saw that the small building was busy for so late at night. Detective Jefferson met her and David at the door.

“Right this way,” he said, leading them both back down familiar hallways to one of the more comfortable interview rooms. “Normally we wouldn’t do this, but he had you as his emergency contact in his phone. We couldn’t find any family to contact.” The detective sighed and put a blue folder down on the coffee table in the center of the room. “I’m really sorry to ask this of you.” He looked between the two of them. “Whenever you’re ready.” Moira took a deep breath, traded a glance with David, and then opened the folder.

“It’s not him,” she gasped, feeling relief course through her. “It’s not Dante.” Horror was close on the heels of her relief though, as the grisly scene in the photos registered in her brain. The body was someone that she recognized, but thankfully not someone that she knew. Instead of Dante’s familiar face, she saw the empty gaze of the young man that had come into the store a few days ago, the one who had seemed so familiar at the time. The similarities between him and Dante were now obvious, and she couldn’t believe that she hadn’t made the connection before. Trying to ignore the bloodstained carpet under the boy in the photo, she handed it over to David so he could get a closer look.

“What happened?” she asked, turning back to Jefferson. “Where’s Dante?”

“If that’s not him, then we don’t know. But it doesn’t look good,” he said grimly. “We got a call from Dante’s neighbor earlier today, a complaint about a gunshot. When we got there, we found him.” He nodded at the blue folder in David’s hands. “He matched the description of the resident, so we thought it must be Dante. But if you’re sure that it isn’t, well, that means we have more questions than before, and fewer answers.”

“This is so terrible. Do you think that there’s any chance that Dante’s okay?” she asked.

“I honestly don’t know what to tell you, Ms. Darling. We don’t know what’s going on here, and we don’t know yet whether we should be considering Dante to be a possible victim, or a suspect.” He rubbed his hand across his face, looking weary. “Anything you can tell us about him will be helpful. We don’t have much to go on right now. How long has he worked for you?”