about the shop, I’ve been a little upset.” I stood to walk her to the door. “Thanks for bringing dinner.”
“I wanted to check on you anyway.” My aunt was heading out the door. “Roger left me a list of the things that do need to be corrected. I guess the electrician you used a few years ago had some shoddy work habits.”
“Wait, what? Barry was right?” I sagged against the doorframe. My aunt had paused in the driveway to drop the trash off into the garbage can. “How much is that going to cost?”
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Roger laughed at a few of the items and crossed them off our list. The ones that weren’t code violations, that is.” My aunt climbed into her tiny sedan and pulled out of the driveway.
“Get some sleep, she says.” I shut the door and aimed my words to Emma. “Then she tells me we need major electrical work done. How am I supposed to sleep after hearing that?”
Emma woofed, which could have meant Poor Jill. But I’m pretty sure it was actually Can you let me out? I started shutting off lights and headed to the kitchen to wait for my dog so we could go to bed. Barry Gleason wouldn’t be there to close our store down, but I still felt a responsibility to fix the items that Aunt Jackie’s Roger had found in his inspection.
* * * *
Greg showed up at the coffee shop as I was getting off for the second day in a row. “Hey, do you want to try for lunch again? I’m waiting for Doc Ames’s report on the autopsy and I’m holding off on a more in-depth interview of the guys from the training crew until I at least get Doc’s take, so I’m at a standstill.” He glanced at the empty coffee bar. “Or are you stuck here?”
“Nope, Sasha’s in the back opening the book order that came in yesterday. I can go anytime. Just let me tell her she’s on her own.” I went into the back office and grabbed my purse. “Sasha, I’m out of here. You going to be okay?”
The girl looked like she was lost in thought, staring at a stack of new paperbacks she’d piled on the desk. “What?”
“I’m going to lunch with Greg. Do you need me to stay for a bit?” I considered her reaction and smiled. Maybe this thing with Kyle was more serious than she’d wanted to admit. It appeared my barista was in love.
“No, I’ll come out. Let me grab this last pile of books.” Her breath caught as she hurried to get out front. “Have fun at lunch.”
“If you need help, call Aunt Jackie. She’ll come in early.” I followed her out to the main dining room and headed to Greg who was looking at a sports book. “I can get you a good discount on that if you’re interested.”
He sat the book down and took my arm. “I should get a great discount since I’m dating the owner of the place.”
“I hear she’s not so generous with her boy toys.” I turned and waved at Sasha. “See you tomorrow.”
We were just a few feet down the street when Greg spoke again. “The girl looks distracted. Something going on?”
He’s got cop’s eyes. The man saw everything. I put my arm in his and leaned close. “I think she’s in love.”
“Who’s the lucky fellow?” Greg walked me across the street and into Diamond Lille’s.
The smell of fried food layered with cheesy pasta and sweet desserts all mixed together almost knocked me over. I wouldn’t want Lille to know this, but I loved this place. That’s one of the reasons I stayed on her good side. The dishes that came out of Tiny’s kitchen made me happy. And I liked being happy, especially around food. Suddenly, I remembered that Lille’s cook Tiny was another member of South Cove’s volunteer fire fighting crew. I cast a side-eyed look at Greg as Lille led us to a booth near the back.
When we were sitting with iced teas in front of us and our orders taken by Carrie, my favorite waitress, I leaned closer. “Did you plan this?”
“To have lunch with you? Yes, I did plan it. Remember, we were going to yesterday, but the whole date thing got a little messy.” He put his hand on mine. “You never said who Sasha was lusting after.”
“I never said lusting.” I didn’t move from my perch over the table. I didn’t want anyone hearing my question besides Greg. “No, I meant, did you plan to come here because Tiny was part of the training burn yesterday? Is he a suspect?”
“No more than Bill or any other of the guys. Look, I just want to have a quiet meal where we don’t talk about murder or suspects or clues.” He squeezed my hand. “What do you say, can we try to appear normal for an hour?”
“Sorry, I just got carried away.” Now I leaned back and slipped my hand out from under his. I took a long sip of my drink and tried to think of a subject that wouldn’t lead us back to his job or mine, for that matter. “Oh, yeah, Sasha. I’m not totally sure, but she did mention Kyle.”
Greg stirred sugar into his tea. “Well, I hope that’s not true because I know Kyle has a girlfriend in Bakerstown. I ran into them there one day when I had to testify at the courthouse. She works there in the prosecutor’s office. I think she might be prelaw.”
“I don’t believe it. Kyle, South Cove’s version of the tattooed man, has a girlfriend in a justice career? What do they talk about?” When the kid first showed up for his volunteer gig with Antiques by Thomas, he’d had so many visible piercings he probably set off all the alarms at the airport just by walking through the front door. “I guess it’s good to have close connections in the legal field.”
“You date a cop. What do we talk about?” Greg must have anticipated the answer because he held up his hand. “Don’t even go there. Besides, our food is coming.”
Carrie dropped off our lunches. “Have you . . .” A crash in the kitchen interrupted her thought. As she turned toward the sound and headed out of the dining room, she said, “Sorry, enjoy.”
“Aunt Jackie brought over food last night after her shift. She thought I was all upset over being at the scene of the fire yesterday. Am I that easy that all I need is food to make me feel better?” When Greg didn’t answer, I looked up from arranging my french fries. “What?”
“Discretion is the better part of valor. Or something like that. Who said that anyway?” This time it was me who didn’t respond. “Seriously, I’m not even touching that comment. How’s your aunt doing? She seems to have settled into life here in South Cove easy enough. That must have been a hard transition, coming from the city.”
“She seems okay. I think sometimes it’s difficult because of all she left behind. But she has Mary here and they seem to do a lot together.” I dipped a fry into Lille’s special sauce, which looked a lot like her Thousand Island dressing. “And the quote is from Shakespeare. Sometimes your knowledge of literature surprises me, Mr. King.”
“I don’t just read the sports page, darling.” He took a bite of his burger and groaned. “And to broach your other question, there isn’t anything wrong with finding pleasure in food when it’s this good.”
That’s why we got along so well. He got me. I cut my own burger into two halves and took a bite. “Oh, she did say one thing that was strange. And before you go all ‘stop investigating’ on me, I didn’t ask her to tell me this.”
Greg
