“Tara kicked me off the show, remember? She didn’t have to have anything on me.” Gilly catches my gaze and raises a brow in amusement, because as the writer of all those notes, she knows good and well what Tara had on me. Is she going to tell everyone? God, I hope not. Not here. Not in front of Will …
“I think we’re done here,” Mark says, his voice laced with disgust. He brushes past me on his way out the door, muttering under his breath about being late setting up for the dinner crowd.
Gilly doesn’t say anything on her way out.
Carlos gives me the silent treatment too, which, yikes. Gilly, I don’t care about, but I thought Carlos and I were friends. But then, what kind of friend am I to blab about his gambling addiction? Not a very good one, I’m afraid.
Sensing my mood, Juanita gives me a hug. “Don’t worry, Lucy. Carlos won’t stay mad at you. Sooner or later, he’ll start to crave a muffin.”
Wendy squeezes my arm gratefully. “For what it’s worth, I’m actually glad this all came out because now I know that Dad didn’t steal our secret sauce recipe. Not that I doubted it,” she adds quickly, “but it’s good not to have that hanging over my head.”
Heidi picks up one of my orange cranberry low-fat muffins and takes a bite. “I’m supposed to believe that this is really reduced fat? What kind of idiot do you take me for?” She sticks her nose in the air and marches out the door.
But it is reduced fat! Only I don’t think this is a good time to try to get the last word in.
Now that everyone is gone, it’s just me, Will, and Paco.
“Don’t say it,” I warn.
“Say what? Oh, you mean, I told you so?”
I flop down in my chair.
“So Gilly was telling the truth when she said she didn’t poison Tara?” Will asks.
I nod miserably. “I don’t understand. I was so sure that Gilly had to have been the one to poison her. No one else had the motive or the opportunity.”
“What about the camera guys? Alan and Pete? They were all in the same beach house, so they had the opportunity.”
“Yeah, but what’s the motive?”
Will shrugs. “Maybe Travis is wrong. Maybe Tara didn’t die from cyanide poisoning. I heard a rumor that she was taking drugs.”
“You and everyone else in town. I thought Gilly started that rumor to mislead the cops. I guess I was wrong about that too.”
“Look, you did the best you could. Leave the rest to Travis and Zeke. They’ll get to the bottom of it. I say we forget all about Battle of the Beach Eats and go upstairs and watch reruns of America’s Most Vicious Criminals. I’ll order the pizza,” he offers. “And speaking of pizza, you did do some good today. Like Wendy said, at least now she knows the sauce is an original recipe.”
“Okay,” I say, sounding like a petulant child. But I can’t help it. Today was more than a total bust. It was a disaster.
The more I think of it, the more I’m convinced that I’m right and Gilly had to have killed Tara. There’s no other explanation. Which means she lied to me and I couldn’t detect it.
I’ve lost my gift.
I should be happy. I should be dancing on the rooftops. Isn’t this what I’ve always wanted? To be normal?
Except there’s a niggling sensation in the back of my brain telling me that I haven’t lost anything and that the answer is staring me right in the face.
Chapter Nineteen
It’s Thursday, and business at The Bistro is booming, which is great. Except I don’t feel great. Snippets from yesterday’s big who-done-it flop keep popping up in my brain, reminding me that I’m not nearly as clever as I thi
nk I am. Not even close. Hopefully everyone will forget all about my lame attempt at playing Hercule Poirot.
Betty Jean comes up to the counter to order. “Heard how you accused almost everyone in town of poisoning Tara.”
“I’m sure that made your day,” I say in a fake cheery voice. “But it wasn’t almost everyone in town. Just everyone in the cooking competition.”
“Whatever. But you’re wrong, Lucy, it didn’t make my day. Not in the least. I was hoping you’d come through again and solve another murder in this town, but I guess you just got lucky with those other cases, huh?”