Murder Melts in Your Mouth Read online

  “And how are you? Now that you and Mick are…?”

  “As good as can be expected. I’ve had my heart ripped out and handed back to me. So I’m a free woman. If you have a scholarly cousin, Crewe, or a friend who has a spare theater ticket, or maybe just a nice man with a few boring habits, why don’t you fix me up?”

  “Nora.”

  “I’m not kidding. I’m looking for a man who’s as dull as beans, please. Someone dependable and quiet. A Mr. Nice Guy.”

  Quietly, Crewe said, “Mick’s not exactly a knight in shining Armani, but he’s good for you.”

  I had fallen head over heels with the most unlikely man my friends could imagine. In fact, I’d taken a stroll down lover’s lane and gotten myself mugged by Michael Abruzzo, the son of a New Jersey crime boss. He maneuvered his way into my life and made a wreck of it. No—that wasn’t quite true. It had taken two of us to do the wrecking. I’d managed to live through my husband’s murder, but even that emotional upheaval didn’t compare with the earthquake Michael had caused.

  “I can’t be with Michael,” I said.

  “Baloney,” Crewe said just as gently as before.

  I drew my fingertips through the cool condensation created by my glass on the surface of the bar. “He’s not like us, Crewe. His opinion of what’s right and wrong…isn’t mine.”

  “Are you worried that he’s some kind of criminal?”

  “I know he’s a criminal. It’s in his blood. And even though he fights it, it’s like cocaine was to Todd.” Seductive. And eventually all-consuming.

  My first husband had gotten himself addicted to drugs while working in a research hospital, and his death—he’d been shot one horrible winter night by his coke dealer—had rocked my world. If it hadn’t been for good friends like Lexie and Crewe, I might still be wallowing in the aftermath.

  And then I allowed myself to get involved with Michael, whose addiction was different. And yet the same.

  I said, “Anyway, he’s the one who broke things off this time. Usually, he does that when there’s something going on in his family.”

  “I heard his brother got arrested for stealing a tractor-trailer.”

  “Really? That hardly seems terrible enough, but how would I know?”

  “I’m sorry, Nora.” Crewe looked genuinely dismayed. “I like Mick.”

  I gave up pretending. “I do, too.”

  Most of the time, I loved him with all my heart. At other times I wondered along with a lot of people if perhaps Michael wasn’t some kind of psychopath—a man who could be charming one minute and a cold-blooded crook the next.

  All I knew for certain was he kept many secrets.

  From the back of the restaurant, we heard a door bang, and seconds later my little sister sauntered into the bar, blowing I-don’t-give-a-damn cigarette smoke.

  One of the bankers sitting at the corner table stiffened at her approach, prepared to be electrocuted if she came too close. The rest of the men at his table suddenly quieted, as if a scene had already taken place before I arrived. I saw frowns cast my sister’s way.

  Emma wore flip-flops, a black T-shirt and a schoolgirl’s plaid skirt with the hem ripped out—an outfit that somehow had a certain streetwise chic, but also conveyed how much more spectacular her naked body could be. Her long, lithe thighs—tickled by the fringe of her skirt—glistened with a golden tan no doubt acquired by nude sunbathing.

  She flicked the banker’s ear as she walked past him. He winced and ducked in case Emma decided to hit him with something more painful. But she caught sight of me and grinned.

  Crewe said, “She looks amazingly like someone I saw behind a window in Amsterdam the summer I finished prep school.”

  I said, “Don’t give her any ideas.”

  Pushing through the patrons along the bar, Emma came toward us, running one hand through the stiff tufts of her short auburn hair. Her slate blue eyes flickered with humor and malice. “Hey, Sis. Long time no see. How’s life in the slow lane?”

  “Faster than usual. I tried to telephone you earlier.”

  She shrugged and reached past me to surrender her cigarette to the bartender, who pointed out the NO SMOKING sign. She said, “I threw my phone off a bridge.”

  “Along with the rest of your clothes, I see. Can that skirt get any shorter?”

  Emma laughed. “Since when did you become part of the Puritan Patrol? Hey, Crewe. Have any luck selling ice cream in that getup?”

  Crewe smiled, unfazed. “Hello, Emma.”

  With a nod of my head, I indicated the group of men at the corner table. “Since when did you start hanging out with bankers?”

  “I’m not hanging out.” She took my iced tea and slugged it all in three gulps. “I’m adding to the ambiance.” She used her fingers to fish the slice of lemon from my drink.

  “I tried calling you. Libby was hit by a car last night. You’ll be relieved to hear she was discharged from the hospital this morning.”

  “Into your capable custody?” Emma put the empty glass back on the bar and proceeded to suck on the lemon.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact. I checked her into the Ritz-Carlton just an hour ago.”

  “Who’s paying that bill? You? Or has Libby met another rich nutcase to support her luxury living?”

  “A mystery man,” I said. “I haven’t met him, but he’s obviously trying to keep her from suing him. He’s the one who hit her with his car.”

  “She going to be okay?”

  “She seems better than okay. The prospect of a new boyfriend always gives her a new outlook on life. I was hoping you might lend a hand with the kids for a few days, though. The twins listen to you. How about it?”

  “Sorry.” She chewed the sour pulp of the lemon without flinching. “I have a new job.”

  Knowing that she had recently found work as the bouncer in an S and M club, I asked cautiously, “Doing what? Training horses, I hope?”

  Emma’s true gift was training and riding Grand Prix show jumpers. But she shook her head. “I’m working the Chocolate Festival. Temping as an industrial model.”

  “A what?”

  “Like that gig I had at the auto show last year. Except I stand around handing out candy instead of pointing out the antilock brakes. I’ve never made so many people happy at one time, believe me. Everybody loves chocolate.”

  “Well,” I said, “I’m glad to hear you’re employed.”

  “Yeah, it seems I need the money.” She tossed the lemon on the bar.

  “You mean, to feed all those ponies I’m looking after?”

  “That. And I’ve got another little problem I need to solve.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  She smirked. “I’m suing Trojan.”

  I saw the mad gleam in her eye, but still didn’t understand. “What are you talking about?”

  “The rabbit died. Except they don’t use rabbits anymore. I got a test kit from Rite Aid. And guess what? There’s a bun in my oven. A—oh, hell, I’m knocked up. It was bound to happen eventually, right?” She laughed at my expression and pulled a tiny paper strip from the waistband of her skirt. She threw it onto the bar. “I found out this morning. Don’t look so shocked. Even I slip up once in a while.”

  “Emma,” I said, hardly able to speak at all. The idea that my feral little sister was pregnant made my head spin.

  And so soon after my own miscarriage, it felt like a knife in my ribs, too.

  “Yeah, big mistake, right? I mean, what am I going to do with a kid? So it’s off to the clinic for me as soon as I can raise some cash.” She grabbed my wrist to check my watch. “I gotta run, as a matter of fact, or I’ll be late.”

  “Late for what? Oh, Em, please—”

  “I gotta get to work.” She tweaked Crewe’s cheek. “Good to see you, Crewsie. Stop by the Chocolate Festival, Nora. I’ll hook you up with some nice desserts.”

  She strolled out into the heat without a backward look, leaving me to stare at the crump
led strip of paper on the bar.

  Crewe said, “Is she drunk?”

  “Loaded, I imagine.” I picked up her test strip. Two pink lines.

  I shook my head. Once again, my sister managed to shock me with her behavior. Emma’s drinking had started in her teens and escalated during her brief marriage to her party animal husband. But it wasn’t until after Jake’s death that Emma started drinking as if competing in the vodka Olympics. I thought she’d managed to cut back, but clearly I was wrong.

  And now she was expecting a baby.

  Crewe said, “It’s hard to imagine somebody like Emma being a mother.”

  I could barely summon my voice. “Yes, it is.”

  “There ought to be some kind of entrance exam before you can become a parent.”

  “Emma’s SAT scores were very high. We think she found a way to cheat.”

  Crewe tapped the pregnancy test strip. “Well, this is one test that’s hard to outsmart. I wonder who the father is.”

  “Hard to say.”

  But I hadn’t failed to notice that the faded T-shirt she wore advertised the Delaware Fly Fishing Company, owned and operated by Michael Abruzzo. I knew exactly where her shirt had come from. And where I could learn some answers.

  Crewe misinterpreted my thoughts. “Take it easy, Nora. Emma couldn’t terminate a pregnancy. Give her some time to think it through.”

  I stuffed the test strip into my handbag. “I hope you’re right.”

  “Of course I am.”

  I wasn’t so sure. There was no telling what Emma might do in a crisis. Her usual response was to dump her problems on somebody else. This time, that option wasn’t possible.

  “Your sister sure knows how to liven up a place.” Crewe turned sideways and leaned against the bar to look at the patrons of the restaurant. They were all going back to their salads while exchanging grins and wisecracks. “She made all these lawyers and bankers forget about their business.”

  “That’s her specialty.”

  “What’s the story with those guys at the corner table? She had a dustup with them earlier. And they’ve been arguing hot and heavy among themselves all day. Do you know them?”

  I figured Crewe was only trying to distract me from the latest Blackbird bombshell. I did a quick head turn to accommodate him and spotted four men just getting up from the coveted corner table. Three of them were smooth businessmen wearing gray business suits. One of them had been the target of my sister’s ear flick.

  The fourth one—much younger and decidedly unhappy—was ridiculously handsome in a white dress shirt unbuttoned at the throat and folded back from his forearms to show off a dark tan. His hair was long and brushed back from his face as if by sea breezes.

  Crewe said, “Who’s Heathcliff? Do you know him?”

  As we watched, the younger man stood up and shook hands grimly with his dining companions, then turned and strode away. His backside drew a few appreciative glances from women around the room. But the hard set to his face clearly said, “Hands off.”

  As he came closer, I murmured, “He looks familiar.”

  “I saw him brooding at the opening reception for the Chocolate Festival. You know everybody, Nora. Is he—”

  “Tierney Cavendish.” I kept my voice low as he drew nearer. “Yes, I knew him when we were children. Our families were friends. But he went off to boarding school early, and I don’t think he ever came home.”

  Crewe was nodding. “I thought so.”

  “He joined the Peace Corps. Didn’t he end up helping farmers somewhere in South America?”

  “Cocoa farmers. Now he provides raw cocoa to chocolate manufacturers here in the States. Very politically correct, too—partnering with family farmers in some godforsaken place instead of using those big cacao plantations that run on slave labor.”

  “How dashing,” I murmured.

  At that moment, Tierney Cavendish walked past and caught me looking at him. Our gazes met, and I couldn’t help staring into his face. He had gray blue eyes marked with fine brows, and a full-lipped, almost feminine mouth. Only the stubborn edge of his jaw saved him from looking absurdly beautiful. He was only slightly taller than me, but with a body that looked strong—and capable of pulling a knife if the need arose.

  Like an idiot, I bumped my handbag off the bar, and it tumbled to the floor at his feet.

  For an instant, he was going to pass by without a word. But only a lout would have stepped over my fallen handbag. Tierney Cavendish checked his walk, then stopped and bent to retrieve my bag.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m not usually so clumsy.”

  “Sure,” he replied, his voice laced with sarcasm.

  I felt myself flush as I accepted the bag. “Thank you.”

  “Anytime.”

  But his tone said, “Don’t try that trick again.”

  He brushed past Crewe without another word and left the restaurant.

  “He thought I did that on purpose!”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “Crewe!”

  “I’m sure it was only some kind of Freudian accident.” Crewe grinned at me. “Women always fall for the handsome guy with the machete. Why is that?”

  “Our primitive instincts are always at work,” I said, still blushing. “Why did you ask me about him?”

  “I couldn’t place him. Turns out, he’s the guy I’ve been trying to catch for an interview. He owns Amazon Chocolate, which is very hot in the foodie world right now. Besides the star chocolatier, Jacque Petite, Tierney Cavendish is the biggest story in the festival. But he hasn’t learned that free publicity is golden, I guess. He’s been dodging me. Who are the guys he was talking with?”

  “Bankers, I think. Isn’t that Hart Jones?” I was pretty sure I recognized the man Emma had flicked as one of Philadelphia’s up-and-coming financiers. I remembered seeing him at a charitable event a few months earlier. I wondered how my sister knew him. “He invests millions in businesses—a kind of hedge fund, I believe.”

  “You’re right, of course. Think he’s going to invest in chocolate?”

  “That’s the logical assumption. But judging by the look on his face just now, Tierney didn’t get the money he was asking for.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  Handsome Tierney’s bad mood was unmistakable as he stormed out of the restaurant and disappeared up the street as briskly as a man putting an unpleasant scene behind him.

  “Seems strange, doesn’t it?” Crewe asked. “That Tierney was asking Hartfield Jones for money? Isn’t Tierney’s father one of the semiretired partners in Lexie’s firm? Why isn’t the chocolate hero borrowing capital from his own father?”

  We didn’t have a chance to discuss his question. The bartender came back to ask if I wanted a refill on my iced tea. I accepted gratefully, and Crewe took a moment to pay his luncheon check. He gallantly paid for my drink, too, and he was just starting to explain more about Jacque Petite and the Chocolate Festival.

  I listened, smiling, although my mind buzzed with Emma and her current situation. I felt as shaken as I had the time she threw a cherry bomb into my bedroom when we were kids.

  Minutes later, a teenage boy slammed against the restaurant door and pushed inside, gulping cool air as if he’d run a mile across a blazing desert. At that exact moment, a police car went whoop-whooping down the street, so heads turned to see what the commotion was. The newcomer caught himself as he realized he’d made a show-stopping entrance.

  “Who’s that?” Crewe asked.

  Chapter Two

  The kid wasn’t really a kid, but only dressed like one. He wore long shorts and huge sneakers in the latest street fashion. Everything else about him said spoiled suburban white boy. His shirt sported an expensive logo and a Japanese anime drawing. In his ears he wore the latest high-tech earphones. His sideburns had been expertly trimmed, his eyebrows waxed. His immaculate baseball cap was worn sideways, hip-hop-style, but he removed it instinctively. He’d been r
aised where good manners were taught young.

  To me, Crewe said, “Wait. Isn’t that—?”

  “Chad Zanzibar,” I murmured. “The actor previously known as Scooter.”

  “I bet he couldn’t wait to get rid of that nickname.”

  “I think his agent insisted.”

  The other restaurant patrons went back to their drinks and conversation, dismissing the arrival of this very short and badly dressed young man in their midst.

  But Chad Zanzibar was no frat boy hoping to score a cold beer on a hot day. I knew he was a Main Line rich kid who rode some family money into show business. He’d started in commercials, then hit the big time wearing a loincloth and elf ears in a made-for-teenagers movie that spawned action figures and posters suitable for the walls of teenybopper bedrooms.

  “Scooter,” I said, waving. “Over here.”

  He blinked, and for a strange instant I wondered if the flash of confusion on his face meant he was in some kind of trouble. But then he recognized me and came toward us, pulling his earphones out. “Nora, right?”

  “Yes, hello.”

  “I thought I recognized you. I was your cousin Farley’s roommate at Choate. Not for long, of course.” He shook my hand very hard. “I bailed early to jump-start my career. I’m called Chad now, by the way.”

  “Of course, sorry.”

  But he would always be Scooter to me—a kid who reminded me of Mighty Mouse—all upper body on short legs. He had been a nonstop talker with a lisp. Now, though, his speech was impeccable and his dark hair had been highlighted with white blond tips. His teeth were impossibly bright. With a very broad chest and long, muscular arms, he had the stunted look of a circus strong man.

  He gave me a not-so-subtle once-over, then released his crushing grip on my hand and tried to be suave. “How is Farley?”

  “Still in college,” I said. My cousin was finishing Harvard in record time, but I didn’t say so. Instead, “This is my friend Crewe Dearborne. I think your fathers were good friends.”

  Graciously, Crewe shook the boy’s hand. “Yes, members of the golf club, I think. Do you play?”

  “Hell, no, dude.” Chad twitched as he glanced around the restaurant. “Waste of time. What does it take to get a drink around here?”