Cook the Books (20 page)

“Oh.” I gazed into his blue eyes and gently ran my hand down his back. “So you’re not interested in Georgie?”

“God no. There is only one woman I’m interested in, Chloe.”

“Oh,” I said again.

“But you’re right about one thing. Georgie is not above cheating on Snacker.”

“I know. Digger, right?”

“Yeah. How’d you know that?”

“That was another conversation that I happened to overhear.”

“My, you heard a lot that night, didn’t you?” Josh teased. “I can tell you that Digger wasn’t the only guy she was cheating on Snacker with. I never thought Snacker would be the faithful one in a relationship, but he seems really into her. I feel bad for him, although he’s probably earned it after all the messing around he’s done in his life.”

“You don’t think . . . you don’t think that Snacker could have . . .” I started.

“No. Snacker did not kill Digger.” Josh shook his head.

“Did Snacker know that his girlfriend was having an affair with Digger, his close friend? No one—not even Snacker, who has his own knack for philandering—would like that.”

“I can’t believe that he would ever do something so gruesome. He loved Digger, just like I did.”

“He did benefit from Digger’s death, though. He got the executive chef job at the Penthouse.”

“I hate to admit it, but Snacker’s not the most honest, upright person I know, and yes, he did need the money. But that’s all.”

“Do you know he stole some of your recipes? You couldn’t have missed the spring rolls he put on the menu. He thought you’d be in Hawaii and you’d never know.”

“No, no.” Josh shook his head. “Snacker didn’t steal my recipes. After Digger died, Snacker asked me to help him with the menu. I gave him a ton of help, so of course the menu had my mark on it. I don’t mind if I give my permission, so it’s not like he was being sneaky or anything. Besides, after the opening, Snacker told me that he couldn’t handle being the executive chef there. He’s going to step down as soon as they find a replacement. He’s not ready, and he knows it. He never wanted that job, Chloe.”

“Good. What about Digger’s girlfriend, Ellie? After all, Digger betrayed her with her best friend. She did seem totally devoted to him.”

“Hmm.” Josh rolled off me and propped himself up on his elbow while he traced a finger over my stomach. “That’s actually a possibility.”

“I was the one who had to tell Ellie about Digger’s death, and she took it really hard. She was genuinely upset and heartbroken. She asked me to call Georgie. Ellie was obviously on good terms with her friend then. Or she was pretending to be. I know that she went through Digger’s e-mail after he died, but she could have done the same thing before his death and found out that he was cheating on her with Georgie. I think she took Digger’s laptop from his apartment after the fire,” I said, remembering the clean, soot- free outline that I’d seen on the desk. “When she told me that she hadn’t been there, she lied.”

“She’s a better suspect than Snacker, that’s for sure. Listen, Chloe,” Josh said, turning my face to his. “I have to talk to you about Kyle. I don’t know how involved you are with him, but—”

“I’m not involved with him at all, Josh. Not like that. I’m just his cookbook assistant.”

“Really? That’s a relief. I thought you two were . . .”

“I guess that’s what I wanted you to think.” I was not about to confess that I had, in fact, made an idiotic play for Kyle and been rebuffed. “It’s just that after you left, well, I was pissed. Actually, I’m still pissed. This,” I said, waving a finger between us, “is the result of temporary insanity.”

“Don’t say that. Please don’t say this is temporary.” Josh leaned down and kissed my stomach, and I let him work his way up to my lips.

“Last August you were only thinking about yourself and what you wanted. You didn’t stop and think about what leaving would mean for me. You left me, Josh. Don’t forget that.” I might have been talking tough, but I felt anything but.

“I left, yes, but I didn’t mean to leave you. I know that sounds stupid, but it’s true. And I wasn’t thinking about myself. Okay, not just about myself. I really thought you’d want to come with me. The couple I work for put me up in this great guesthouse, I looked up a program where you could have kept going to school, and I just . . . I don’t know. I thought after the year we’d had that maybe it would be good to get away for a while. To go somewhere where we could just relax and enjoy each other. But you just said no so quickly . . . I screwed up, Chloe. I really screwed up.”

“It was escaping, Josh. That’s all it was. Going to Hawaii meant avoiding everything here instead of tackling problems head-on. How were things supposed to become normal if we ran off?”

“Babe, what’s wrong with escaping once in a while?”

It was true that Josh had had good reason to escape. Josh and I had been madly in love, so that part of my year had been great, but chaos had sullied much of our time together. Its principal source had been his work. As a chef, he’d worked hideously long hours in return for terrible pay and little appreciation. Most of all, he’d had all-around crummy bosses.

“I didn’t know that you’d looked into schools for me,” I said. “But you wanted me to just up and leave my life here! Leave Ade, Owen, and Patrick . . .” I trailed off. Adrianna had pointed out to me that, as much as they loved me, they could certainly function without me. “I mean, I have responsibilities here. I have school. I have . . . I have responsibilities. Big responsibilities. Of all sorts!”

Josh nodded. I could tell that he was trying not to smile. “I know. I didn’t mean for you to think that I don’t take your life seriously or that I don’t respect everything you have going on in Boston. You’ve worked really hard in school, and I’m proud of how much you’ve put into it. I was just hoping that you would’ve continued in Hawaii. You know, I found this great community center not too far from where I live. They have a program for underprivileged children, and I talked to the dean at the grad school nearby, and he said they’d consider letting students do internships there, and—”

“You talked to the dean?” I sat up in bed, totally surprised.

“Have you really not read any of my e- mails? Even the Facebook ones?”

“Well, no. I deleted all the ones you sent at first, and then after that, I blocked your address.” I hung my head, slightly embarrassed. “I guess I forgot about Facebook.”

“Go look. Right now.”

I leaned off the bed, pulled my laptop onto my lap, and checked my inbox. Oh my God! There were twenty-six messages, all from Josh. I started at the beginning and skimmed over the screen as my vision became blurry with tears. There were long e-mails in which Josh poured his heart out, begging me to forgive him for leaving and insisting that he still loved me. I tapped through message after message as Josh stroked my back and rubbed his cheek against my arm. What if I had read these messages earlier? Would things have changed? No, I told myself. Last summer, I wasn’t ready to up and leave. And who knew if I would ever be ready. I had worked so hard to build an independent life for myself, and I wasn’t about to chuck it for some guy. But Josh wasn’t just any guy. I promised myself that I’d read Josh’s letters more thoroughly later, but there was a limit to how much I could absorb right now.

“Seems like you made a lot of friends in Hawaii,” I said as I pulled up the gaggle of girls on the screen. “Lots of very sexy, scantily clad friends.”

“That,” he said pointing to one of the girls, “is my friend Fritz’s fiancée, and that’s her cousin, who is married.” Josh shut off the computer and took my hands in his. “Since the day I met you, I have not even glanced at another woman. Not one. I don’t want anyone else. I don’t love anyone else. Only you. Do you believe that?”

I wanted to believe him, but what was the point? He would go back to Hawaii soon, and I’d still be in Boston.

“I’m starving,” I announced.

Josh laughed. “Of course you are. Some things never change.”

“And some things do,” I said pointedly.

“Let’s get some food in you and see how you feel after that. You want to walk down to Pino’s?”

I couldn’t say no to the best, gooiest pizza in the world.

“Sure.”

After all, I’d worked up quite an appetite. . . .

WHILE
we got dressed, Josh brought up Kyle again. “Aside from wanting to see you tonight, I did want to warn you about Kyle. I’m glad you’re not dating him, but I don’t think you should be working with him, either.”

“Why not?” I yanked a sweatshirt over my head and slipped back into my sweatpants. “What exactly is your problem with him?”

“You told me you were working on a cookbook, but I didn’t realize it was with Kyle until I saw you with him at the Penthouse. Digger and I went to culinary school with him.”

“Owen just told me that this afternoon. I don’t know why Kyle never mentioned that he’d trained as a chef, though.” I grabbed my winter boots and ski jacket, and took my keys off the desk. “You ready?”

Josh nodded. “I’ll tell you why Kyle never told you. He dropped out of the program.”

“He did?” We went out the back door. It was dark now. I held the railing as I walked down the stairs.

“Yeah, and Digger and I are probably to blame for that. Kyle just couldn’t cook. He was awful. He couldn’t tell good food from bad. He dropped stuff all the time, never cleaned his workstation, burned things more times than I could count—he was just incompetent in every aspect.” Josh put his arm around my shoulder as we walked, and I unconsciously leaned into him. It was bitterly cold out. “He basically was lazy and a big baby. He couldn’t take the competitive environment at school. He hated the rough atmosphere and the constant pranks and jokes we all used to pull. Honestly, that made us ride him even harder, and we called him on all of his screwups. Look, it wasn’t nice of us, but we were young, and he was such an easy target.”

“So you were a bully?”

“I guess so,” Josh admitted. “And I did try to smooth things over with him, but he didn’t want anything to do with me. Honestly, all he did was complain and try to get us to cover up his mistakes or outright do his work for him. He was a pill. And he was always going out with these glamorous, attractive women. He thought he was so cool because he dated girls who looked like beauty-pageant queens. We teased him about that, too. Don’t think for a second that you’re going to get any credit for this cookbook. He’s going to say that he did all the work. That is, if he doesn’t ruin it completely.”

“You sound like Kyle’s father. You know who that is, right? Hank Boucher.”

“I know. His whack job of a father is the other reason he quit school. Just before Hank was coming to visit Kyle at school, Digger and I teased him to pieces about what we were going to do when his father the famous chef got there. That we’d make sure Hank knew how terrible his son was doing as a culinary student and all that. I know, I know,” Josh said when I glared at him, “it was wrong, and we were obnoxious punks back then. But Kyle wanted a free pass in life because of who his father was, and the whole time he couldn’t so much as boil water without setting fire to the entire stove top! Kyle was so bullshit with us and so scared of his father finding out what a dink he was that he up and dropped out of school just before his father arrived. Kyle didn’t like me much, obviously, but he really loathed Digger, because Digger was the one who instigated the majority of the teasing. Kyle totally wanted to kill him most of the time.”

I stopped in my tracks, yanking Josh backward. “Oh my God.”

“What?”

“Digger was killed just before Kyle and Hank were supposed to meet him at his apartment for a tasting. I don’t think it was a coincidence.” I looked right at Josh. “I think Kyle never wanted Hank and Digger to meet.”

“Oh God.” Josh dropped his head and put his hands on his hips. “You could be right. Kyle might have killed Digger. Damn it! But we don’t have any proof. We have nothing.”

“And Kyle called me before you showed up tonight to see if I wanted to go out to dinner with him. I never want to see him again! And when I said I was busy, he asked if Adrianna and Owen might want to go. Thank God Ade is out with Patrick tonight, and Owen’s at home job hunting. I’m not letting anyone I know anywhere near Kyle again. Ever!”

“Chloe, Adrianna is exactly Kyle’s type. She should be careful,” he warned. “Back when we were in school, he tried to compensate for his total incompetence in school by showing off his gorgeous women and bragging about them every chance he got. Maybe he’s changed, but I doubt it.”

“Kyle told me that his father has been married to one trophy wife after another. Like father, like son, I guess.” I looped my arm through Josh’s and continued walking. “You know, Kyle did invite Adrianna along with us to dinner quite a bit. But I just thought . . . Oh, it’s stupid, but I thought that he was a nice guy who wanted to get to know my friends. He seemed to feel bad that she and Owen have been struggling so much, and he liked to treat her to dinner. But this whole time he’s been interested in her?”

“He can be smooth when he wants to,” Josh said. “There’s got to be a way to link Kyle to the fire at Digger’s apartment, but I can’t think on an empty stomach. Let’s get some dinner, and we’ll figure something out.”

“Why don’t we swing by Owen and Ade’s and see if Owen wants to come out with us. I know he’s supposed to be on the computer all night, but I think we should tell him what we know about Kyle as soon as possible.”

“Good idea.”

We walked silently for a few minutes. When we got close to Adrianna and Owen’s apartment, I couldn’t help sniffing. “Ugh! Owen must be grilling again. Only that nut would stand outside in this cold just to burn chicken.”

“I don’t think that smell is from a grill.” Josh walked quickly now, pulling me forward. “Come on.”

“What do you mean?” I asked as I hurried alongside him. Looking up at the three-story building, I saw nothing alarming. Still, there was no denying that the burning smell was growing stronger. I immediately flashed back to my malodorous trek through Digger’s apartment. The one odd thing about the building was the absence of lighted windows. The windows on the first two floors were understandably dark since the owners, who lived there, were away, but Ade and Owen’s third- floor apartment was dark, too. Owen was supposed to be at home conducting an online job search, so there should have been lights on, I reasoned; Owen wasn’t the kind of person who huddles over a computer in a darkened room. “This way,” I said to Josh as I started across the lawn toward the back of the building, where I expected to look up and see Owen hovering over a smoldering grill on the wooden fire escape—in other words, taking advantage of Ade’s absence to do exactly what she’d told him not to do. As for the stench, he’d probably run out of lighter fluid and was burning random items in an attempt to ignite the charcoal.