Marty Ambrose - Mango Bay 04 - Killer Kool (15 page)

I stopped midbite. She was really hitting below the
belt. “Hey, the Observer might not be the Washington
Post, but a lot of islanders read it, and a bad review would
hurt your business.” I slammed down my fork. “And Pop
Pop can chew his food if he’s wearing his dentures.”

She turned on me. “You can shut the hell up too”

I opened my mouth, starting to phrase a pithy retort,
but noticed Nick Billie coming over. I clamped my lips
together and remained silent.

“I don’t care if you’re doing a review of my restaurant. I want you all out of here.” Francesca raised her
chin and pointed at the front door. “Now!”

“Okay, everyone, just calm down,” Nick said as he
approached. “No one has to leave.”

Goody. I still had two shrimp left and hated to let the
food go to waste.

“We were just enjoying a pleasant dinner when Francesca started shouting.” Madame Geri dabbed her napkin on Pop Pop’s lips. “I think she’s deranged.”

Francesca shrieked and attempted to throttle Madame
Geri, but Nick seized her arm and pulled her back.

People stopped talking, preferring to enjoy the show at
our table, and for a mad moment, I wondered if I could
hide under the linen cloth. I couldn’t take another restaurant scene, especially with Nick struggling to hold back
the owner’s fury, which Madame Geri had unleashed.

Just then, Guido rushed into the dining room, fastening a wild gaze in Francesca’s direction and hollering,
“Murderer! You killed Mr. Santini!”

Oh no. Here we go again.

Guido headed, arrow-straight, for Francesca, whose
flailing arms flapped against Nick’s restraining hold
like the wings of a trapped bird.

As Guido grew closer to his target, I stood up, not sure
what to do. Checking my companions, I noticed that
Madame Geri remained seated, and Pop Pop was still
occupied with spearing a mushroom with his fork.

Not much help there.

“Do you need help?” I finally managed to ask Nick,
not sure whether to abandon my lone shrimp or kick
Francesca in the shin.

“I’ve got it under control,” he responded in a grim tone,
somehow managing to clamp down on Francesca’s arms.

When Guido reached us, Nick held up a hand. “Stop
right there, or I’m arresting all of you.”

Guido halted. Francesca froze. No one else in the
dining room batted an eye, including me.

“I finally got one!” Pop Pop raised his fork with a small
mushroom poised on the prongs.

Yippee.

“I want all of you outside-now,” Nick ordered, gesturing at our little group with a circular motion of his
hand. Abashed, we all trooped behind him like a line of
soldiers following orders.

Before I abandoned my shrimp Alfredo, I grabbed my
coat; something told me we might be out there for a good
long while. Then I helped Pop Pop to his feet, secured
his oxygen tank, and assisted him as he shuffled across
the dining room.

We passed Cole, but he didn’t look up. Still mad at
me, I guess.

Once Pop Pop and I made it out the door, I noticed that
Francesca had already begun relating to Nick her side of
the dispute with Madame Geri, but the island psychic
managed to counter every point with the flair of a fighter
in combat. Guido stood to one side, arms folded, not
speaking.

While the female gladiators continued their verbal
jabs, Nick lowered his head and scratched the back of
his neck. Eventually, when they showed no sign of abating, he raised his head again. “This isn’t getting us anywhere”

“You’re telling me,” Pop Pop protested, still clutching
his fork with the elusive mushroom. “All I wanted was a
quiet dinner with my girl.” He pointed at me, and I managed a shaky smile in return, not sure what was more
embarrassing: my “date’s” touching attraction to me or
sense of pride over his spearing the mushroom.

“Sorry about that,” Nick said. I detected barely restrained humor in his voice, and that caused me to cringe
even more.

“I’ll get over it.” Pop Pop gulped the mushroom and
swallowed it whole.

I waited to see if I’d have to give him the Heimlich
maneuver, but he seemed okay.

“All right, here’s what we’re going to do,” Nick began, focusing on Beatrice’s boyfriend first. “Guido, you
go home, and stay there. I don’t want any more outbursts from you. Got it?”

The young man nodded, staring down at his shoes.
“Si.”

“Francesca and Madame Geri, you two need to just
cool it. There’s no point in arguing about a recipe when
Marco isn’t around to care.”

“He cares, trust me.” Madame Geri pronounced.
“Just because he’s crossed over doesn’t mean he’s not
connected with what’s going on.”

Francesca drew back and crossed herself as if to ward
off some evil.

Did she have something to fear? Maybe-if she
killed Marco.

Nick raised an eyebrow. “Okay, let’s just say he
doesn’t care from this world.”

“Fine.” Madame Geri inclined her head. “If you want
to limit your doors of perception.”

I shivered, partly from the cold, partly from the thought
that Marco might be hovering around the Taste of Ven ice, and partly from the fact that Madame Geri actually
could quote from Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and
Hell.

“So, I want everyone to hit the road and forget about
what happened here tonight,” Nick said. “Do I make
myself clear?”

More nods from the group.

As they made for their cars, I lingered, along with
Pop Pop.

“I’m freezing my buns off,” Pop Pop announced, his
dentures beginning to chatter. Not an appealing sight.

“I’ll take you home,” Madame Geri said, motioning
him over to her vehicle. I could have cried in gratitude,
as I helped him wheel his oxygen tank over to my new
best friend, Madame Geri. Once he was settled in the
passenger seat, I gave her a thumbs-up.

“Pretty good evening, huh?” Madame Geri leaned
over and whispered to me. “We now know that Francesca has the temperament to commit murder.”

“You mean, you said all that just to get her annoyed?”
My mouth dropped open in amazement.

“Oh yeah.”

“Hey, ladies, don’t fight over me.” Pop Pop leaned back
in the seat with a smug quirk to his mouth. “I’ve got my
Social Security check coming in the mail tomorrow, and
the rest of the week is open to kick up my heels with you.”

And break a hip on your way down, I added silently.

“He’s all yours.” I tapped the top of Madame Geri’s
car and stepped back.

As she drove off, I sensed Nick was standing behind
me. The wind had started to whip up with a biting chill,
but I could still catch a whiff of Nick’s deep-woodsy aftershave. I shivered again, but this time for a different reason.

“How can you pass up an offer like Pop Pop’s?” His
voice held a thread of humor again.

Slowly, I turned around, and our eyes met. “It’s hardthe oxygen and dentures are a potent combination.”

“Why were you and Madame Geri here tonight?”

“Uh … for my new gig as the Observer food critic.
You know what a slave-driver Anita can be about getting stories out, and with `Taste of the Island’ coming
up this weekend, she wants as many reviews posted to
the blog as I can do-lunch and dinner. Can you believe
that? I never ate much more than a sub or microwave
dinner in my Airstream, but now I … I-” I broke off,
my teeth beginning to chatter as the cold supercharged
my motormouth.

“Let’s get out of this wind.” He took my arm and
drew me back toward the front of the building.

That cut some of the breeze, though I wrapped my
arms around myself to contain the maximum amount of
warmth. Nick halted next to me, so close I could feel his
body heat. Be still, my heart.

“So, this was just an innocent dinner with Madame
Geri, and you weren’t here trying to get some kind of
confession out of her that she murdered Marco Santini?”

Damn.

“I’ll take your silence as a yes.”

“Maybe-okay, it’s true. We’re all worried at the Observer that Jimmy might get jailed because of the shellfish articles found in his locker,” I blurted. There was
no point in trying to hide anything from Nick; he knew
me too well.

“I’m not arresting Jimmy, but he does need to explain
those articles.”

“He was researching new ways to cook shrimp at the
restaurant”

“It sounds plausible, I guess.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“Mallie, I have to pursue all leads when it’s a case
like this one.”

My ears perked up, and I gazed at him with pleading
eyes. “So it is a murder investigation? I need to knowfor Jimmy’s sake.”

He sighed, an echo that floated toward me in the wind.
“I can’t say for sure. Marco definitely died from a reaction to shellfish, and since he knew about his allergy, it
seems unlikely that he would knowingly eat any kind of
shellfish.”

“So someone put it in his sauce?” Just as I had thought.

“Seems so”

“What about Carlos’ death? Is there a connection?”

He shook his head. “Carlos Santini died of a heart
attack. His cardiologist told me that he had given Carlos
only days to live after his last visit. He simply went
home, apparently knowing he would die.”

“Really? That feels wrong to me, especially because he loved Beatrice so much.” The wind began to howl,
almost like a wail for the lost lives of the Santini
brothers.

“Something else feels wrong.” Nick leaned one arm
against the wall and lowered his face to a level inches
from my own.

My breath caught in my throat, as my heart began to
beat with a nervous staccato. “I … I … uh … don’t
know what you mean”

“Yes, you do” His dark eyes turned into liquid fire,
burning through me. “You can’t just dangle Cole and
me as if we were toys. You’ve got to choose.”

The staccato turned into a pounding allegro. “I’ve
known Cole for a long time, and I can’t just pretend that
we weren’t a couple.”

“He’s the past?”

“Sort of.” Okay, now I was making a total muddle
of this whole conversation, but I couldn’t think straight
when Nick stood this close to me. “Is that what you were
talking to him about?”

“Worried that we might start a fistfight with Pop
Pop over you?” One side of his mouth turned up with
amusement. “Nothing so dramatic. I just ran into him
inside the restaurant when he was taking pictures
for Francesca, and I asked if he would do mug shots
for me.”

“Oh.” A tiny tug of disappointment pulled at my
heart. Silly, I know.

“But I would fight him for you.” Nick voice deepened.

“Pop Pop or Cole?”

“Both.” He lowered his mouth and covered mine with
a searing kiss that went on and on and on. My arms
slipped around his waist, and I leaned into the hard planes
of his body. Desire flooded through me, stronger than
anything I’d known, pulling me into emotional depths
and raw feelings.

Whoa.

I pulled back, gulping the cold air as if I had just run a
marathon. “Nick, this is too much…. I need some time.”

He searched my face, his own breathing ragged. “You
can take an hour, a day, or a month, but you can’t hide
from what’s between us. I know, because I’ve been trying to do that from the moment I set eyes on you. It just
grows more consuming.”

Go for it, a tiny voice whispered inside me.

Why not?

My hands slipped around his neck, drawing Nick’s face
down to mine again, right at the moment when I heard the
front door of the Taste of Venice open. Some sixth sense
caused me to turn away from Nick-and catch sight of
Cole.

For once, I was speechless. It felt like a replay of last
night when both men had appeared at my Airstream,
and I couldn’t find the words to express what I was feeling. I just didn’t know.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Cole said in a voice full
of hurt.

“You weren’t,” I hastened to answer. “We were just
talking about the upcoming `Taste of the Island.’ ”
Lame.

“Sure.” Cole disappeared back into the restaurant,
and I flinched at the shadow of distress that had passed
across his normally upbeat face.

“Mallie-” Nick began.

“I’ve got to go. My heater is on the blink, and I need
to make sure that Sam fixes it tonight, since there’s a
hard-freeze warning.” Before he could respond, I dashed
for my truck, started the engine, and got the heck out of
there.

As I drove away, I checked in my rearview mirror;
Nick just stood there, watching me drive off. For a few
mad moments, I toyed with the idea of jerking the wheel
in the opposite direction and taking up where Nick and
I had left off.

But I was scared-really scared. And I couldn’t just
dump Cole. We had a history. And since he’d come to
Coral Island, I remembered how much fun we used to
have when we were a couple in Orlando, despite my
days spent sweeping litter at Epcot.

I headed north on Cypress Drive, trying to push all
thoughts of Nick and Cole out of my mind. I couldn’t
deal with the dueling boyfriends right now; it was too
confusing, too painful, too exciting. Especially when I had more important things looming, like finding Marco’s
killer before Jimmy was jailed.