Grilling the Subject Read online

  “Shane is a good guy,” Ava went on. “Promise.” She hoisted her tote higher on her shoulder. “Mind if I browse the shelves?”

  “Be our guest.” I made a sweeping gesture and then remembered I hadn’t fixed the arrangement I’d destroyed on the display table. I hurried ahead of her to reset the dozens of barbecue- and grill-themed cookbooks.

  Without asking, Ava placed a stack of flyers on the sales counter and then moved to our display of Wild West–style aprons. I’d ordered a half dozen fashioned out of bandana material and another half dozen made out of cute cow-print fabric with red-checkered borders. “Are any of you partaking in the festivities this week?” she asked while holding a cow-print apron in front of her and inspecting its length on her body.

  “Tito and I are going to the pole-bending event,” Bailey said. Tito Martinez, a reporter for the Crystal Cove Crier, is Bailey’s fiancé. “Have you ever seen that? It’s sort of like slalom racing for skiing. One horse, one rider, weaving around poles. I hear it’s exciting.”

  “What about you, Jenna?” Ava asked.

  “I plan to take in the horse race.”

  “Down Buena Vista Boulevard?”

  “Is there going to be another?”

  Our fair city, which was set on the coast of California below Santa Cruz and above Monterey, was one long stretch of gorgeous territory, marked by an age-old lighthouse at the north end and a public pier filled with shops and fun things to do at the south end. The weather was beautiful year-round, with the occasional splash of rain or drift of fog. The hills to the east boasted wondrous vegetation and beautiful homes. The crests of the mountains sparkled as the waning sun cast its rays on them at sunset. Buena Vista Boulevard, which is what we called the section of the Pacific Coast Highway that cut through town, was populated with shops and restaurants. A main portion of the street would be closed off and traffic detoured for the horse race.

  “Don’t miss the rope twirling,” Ava said, “or the chuck wagon race.”

  The rope twirling would take place on The Pier. The chuck wagon race would be held on the beach. In addition, in the parking lots joining the community college and the aquarium, there were going to be live bands and food trucks. The Cookbook Nook had lots of activities planned over the course of the next ten days, too. For our first specialty event, Katie would lead an adult gingerbread-making session where customers could learn how to construct an old western town.

  “I nearly forgot,” Ava said. “I came in looking for a Steve Raichlen cookbook. You know who I mean, the TV host. It’s about grilling. I think it came out around 2001.” She raised her fingers to snap.

  Before she could, I grabbed her hand and guided her toward our celebrity chef section. Luckily Hurricane Jenna hadn’t demolished that area. The shelves were tidy and alphabetically arranged.

  “Is this it?” I pulled a book from its slot. “Raichlen’s How to Grill: The Complete Illustrated Book of Barbecue Techniques, A Barbecue Bible! Cookbook.” Raichlen offered a lot of show-and-tell and step-by-step instructions.

  “That’s the one.”

  “We also have Bobby Flay’s Grill It! and Smokin’ with Myron Mixon: Recipes Made Simple, from the Winningest Man in Barbecue.” I had stocked up on a few basic books from the Weber grill company, as well, and made sure we had Guy Fieri’s Guy on Fire: 130 Recipes for Adventures in Outdoor Cooking. Reviewers said his book really appealed to male customers, of which we had many. It wasn’t your typically pretty tabletop cookbook; it was filled with humor. I loved the fact that Guy called his outdoor tools his arsenal.

  I nabbed a few more books from the shelf and handed them to Ava. Snapping waylaid, she continued to browse, so I ventured to the display table and did a quick makeover without standing the books up. Call me foolish once, not twice.

  Next, I shifted to the display window to tweak our latest exhibit. Bailey and I had spent all day yesterday putting items in place. We had laid out a crisp checkered tablecloth and built levels beneath it, and then we’d added colorful barbecue tools with a variety of handles, a mini hibachi, some grill lights for late-night grilling, long tubes of matches, and candles. We included a corny-looking chuck wagon cookie jar—I had stumbled across an assortment of kooky cookie jars online and had purchased twenty of them—plus a huge wicker picnic basket, red plastic cups, and a red pitcher. As a finishing touch, we set out mason jars packed with retro cinnamon candy sticks or gumballs.

  Staring at the display now, I felt something was missing, but what? A split second later, I snapped like Ava. Books. Duh! Yes, we sold lots of unique cooking items in our store, but mostly we sold books, and the display had none.

  I roamed the shop and plucked a few titles that would appeal to passersby. Two children’s books: The Gingerbread Cowboy and Little Red Cowboy Hat. As a savvy marketer, I realized that children often pulled their parents into stores. “Mommy, buy me that!” they would cry. Deep in the recesses of my mind, I expected to get paid back in spades when I had children—if I had children. They would tug me this way and that, and I would have to comply. Too-ra-loo, as my aunt would say.

  I added a fun adult book called The Cowboy Hat Book, a coffee table–style book that contained the history of the hat, and I placed a used edition of The All-American Cowboy Cookbook: Over 300 Recipes From the World’s Greatest Cowboys next to that, used because it was out of print, which was too bad. Inside there were colorful stories about a few old-time western stars like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. I had purchased the book for a song at a garage sale. I vowed I would never sell it, but I probably would. For the right price.

  “Jenna!” Ava beckoned me with a finger. “Help me with these.” She had collected a dozen books.

  I hurried to her—see how she gets people to obey?—and I carried her haul to the checkout counter. “What a lot of books. Are you having a party?”

  “Between you and me, shh”—she winked twice—“yes, I’m having a private party. Private because a certain somebody will not be invited to attend. I’ve asked a few of my neighbors, including your father, to come for cocktails and heavy hors d’oeuvres tomorrow night. I think your father has invited his beloved. That’s entirely all right.”

  My father, a former FBI man, is a widower and retired and currently dating Bailey’s mother Lola, who is like my second mother. I adore her. Seeing them together always makes me smile. Dad was lost after my mother died.

  “Why the secrecy?” I asked as I packed her books into one of our specialty shop bags and tied the handle with rattan ribbon.

  “It’s a community gathering, if you will, but that certain someone is not, I repeat not, to hear of it. Do you understand?”

  I nodded, but how could I not tell that someone if I didn’t know who it was?

  Ava peered over her shoulder and back at me with a triumphant—or was it malicious?—gleam in her eye. “See you.”

  As she left, a chill ran down my spine. At the same time a door slammed. Outside the shop.

  I glanced through the window at the parking lot and saw the rear lights of a dark blue Prius flare. Something else flickered, too, inside the car, like sunlight bouncing off a lens of a camera or binoculars. Was someone spying on the store? On Ava? No. Of course not. I was being silly. The driver of the car—I couldn’t tell whether it was a man or woman—was probably doing business on a cell phone or using the utility mirror on the visor.

  In spite of that logical explanation, another chill cut through me. Sheesh, Jenna. Lighten up! I flicked my fingers at the air to rid myself of bad vibes, as my aunt had taught me, but it didn’t work. A third shudder jolted me to my core.

  Chapter 2

  Ever since I returned to Crystal Cove, my aunt, my father, and I had convened at one of our houses for dinner on Sunday night. Sometimes, like tonight, we invited others. Bailey and I had kitchen duty. She was preparing a balsamic barbecue sauce for the steaks my father was gri
lling. I was fixing a Caesar salad with spicy croutons. I wasn’t much of a cook, yet—I had graduated to ten-ingredient recipes a few months ago—but I could always manage a salad. I was quite adept at dicing and slicing.

  “Feeling any better?” Bailey asked.

  Earlier at the shop I had confided how I felt someone had been watching the store . . . or Ava . . . or me. I shrugged. “Not really.”

  “Are you sure you couldn’t identify who was in the car?”

  “Do you know how many dark-blue-Prius owners there are in town?” The Crystal Cove community was quite eco-conscious, not to mention that there were plenty of tourists, and any one of them might drive the same kind of car.

  “True.” She slipped around me and took the ocean-blue peppermill off the counter.

  My father’s kitchen was streamlined, thanks to my mother’s keen eye. She had loved to cook so much that she’d forgotten to teach me. She wasn’t a power freak or anything like that; she simply thought cooking good food was a way to show her family how much she cared. She did teach me to paint, and I would always remember our long walks and talks on the beach. My brother and sister hated walks on the beach; that was when I got Mom all to myself.

  Bailey said, “Next time you see the Prius—”

  “I hope I never do.”

  “But if you do, take a picture with your cell phone. We’ll grab the license plate, and I’ll have my mother run it through the DMV.” Lola, now the proud owner of The Pelican Brief Diner, was formerly a lawyer and knew how to pull governmental strings. “We’ll nail that sucker.”

  “I’m probably overreacting.”

  “But you want to err on the safe side.” She winked at me.

  The safe side. Right. That was why I had reenrolled in self-defense classes at the junior college. I’d been too close to getting clobbered in the past year. Not my fault. I seemed to have a knack for sniffing out bad guys, and the bad guys didn’t seem to like that trait very much. Go figure.

  Aunt Vera waltzed into the kitchen looking serene in a pale blue caftan, which complemented her creamy skin and bright red hair. No turban tonight. She wasn’t telling fortunes; however, her mouth was moving and no words were coming out. Was she divining some kind of good-vibes spell? She stopped abruptly and assessed me while aiming her index finger. “What’s bothering you, Jenna?” She wiggled the finger as if it were her magic wand. The silver-and-blue bangles on her wrist clattered with merry abandon. “Come on. Out with it, dear.” My aunt could always tell when something was bugging me. She claimed to have ESP, and she probably did, or I was as easy to read as a Google map, printed directions and all. “Jenna?” she coaxed.

  “Nothing.”

  “Liar,” Bailey said and filled my aunt in about my anxiety.

  “Traitor,” I muttered.

  “Concerned friend.”

  “Trust those feelings, Jenna, dear.” Aunt Vera studied my neckline. “Where’s the white quartz necklace I gave you?” Quartz, according to my aunt, could dispel negative energy and purify one’s mental and physical planes. She expected me to wear it nonstop.

  “On the counter in my bathroom. Soaking.”

  “Soaking?”

  “I touched the chain after I’d poured honey into my tea earlier. It was sticky.”

  Aunt Vera raised an eyebrow. “Why do you even try to fib, dear?”

  “I’m not fibbing.”

  Her eyes sparkled with humor. “Your lower lip gives you away every time. C’mon. The truth shall set you free.” She rubbed the phoenix amulet she always wore. I resisted, but the force was strong within her.

  “Okay, fine.” She was right; I was pretty lousy at lying. “I took it off for my shower and forgot to replace it.” I got too involved choosing the right outfit. Red or blue top? Skirt or trousers? I opted for a halter dress with bold blue stripes.

  “There, now. Don’t you feel better? You should—”

  Twang. Crackle.

  “What the heck was that?” I tossed the knife onto the cutting board and raced to the patio.

  Bailey and my aunt followed.

  My silver-haired father with movie-star good looks was standing at the railing, a cordless telephone in one hand, binoculars in the other. The sun was setting along the horizon, its rays highlighting him in a happy golden glow, but my father looked anything but happy. In fact, his square jaw was vibrating with rage. “Answer, dang it!” He was peering down the hill toward the next tier of homes.

  “Dad, was that an electric guitar?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer. He started yelling into the phone: “Lady, you have no right!”

  Lola, a shapely woman in her sixties and the same petite size as Bailey with the same short hairstyle although hers was silver, stood beside my father. Despite her size, she could be fearless. She tried to wrest the telephone from my father’s hand. “Cary, please. Don’t.”

  “Who is he screaming at?” I asked.

  “Sylvia Gump,” Lola replied while trying to gain control of the cordless phone.

  Sylvia owned Sterling Sylvia, a specialty shop that offered everything from high-end jewelry to silver cookbook holders and bookmark clips. Customers had to make appointments to see Sylvia. I knew a few women who came from as far away as New York to buy her designs. Sylvia had a passion for cooking and was a regular customer at The Cookbook Nook.

  “Yeah, you heard me right, Sylvia,” my father went on. I had never seen him so openly angry. He was usually an ace at keeping his emotions hidden. “We’re building fences to keep you out, do you hear me? That’s right, we. You’ve done enough damage. You—” He paused, listening. “Oh yeah? Well, you can burn in hell, too!”

  “Cary, no!” Lola finally won the battle and whisked the telephone away. She stabbed the Off button. “Honestly!”

  “What’s going on?” Aunt Vera demanded.

  “Judge for yourself.” My father pointed down the hill.

  About fifty yards away, at the bottom of my father’s property on a stretch of what appeared to be uncultivated land, a group of musicians was setting up amplifiers. They looked about the size of beetles, the bug kind. A musician strummed his electric guitar, and electricity popped again. Twang. Crackle.

  “Are caterers setting up a barbecue?” I asked.

  “Not if I can help it,” my father muttered. “That shrew.”

  Sylvia’s house was directly below my father’s and was so large it dwarfed the size of all the others in the neighborhood. She had made additions every other year for the past five years, or so I’d heard: an extra room, an expanded kitchen, even an ostentatious patio on top of her roof to take advantage of the ocean view. It was, in a word, a monstrosity.

  “Keep your cool, Cary.” Lola put a hand on his shoulder.

  He shrugged her off. “Don’t manage me.”

  “I’m not, darling. I would never do such a thing.” Yes, she would. She winked at Bailey, my aunt, and me.

  “How often does Sylvia throw a party?” I asked.

  “Weekly.” My father spat out the word.

  “Please, sweetheart.” Lola petted him again. “Don’t get upset. Ava will find a solution.”

  Aha! Now I got it. Sylvia was the certain someone that Ava wasn’t inviting to her get-together tomorrow.

  “A solution for what?” I borrowed the binoculars from my father and peered down the hill.

  “That’s my property,” Dad said.

  “Not simply yours, darling,” Lola contended. “It belongs to six of you.”

  My father faced the group. “A half dozen of the properties in this neighborhood abut each other. When the first settlers came to Crystal Cove, they parceled them out in an irregular pattern. No zoning. Some are pie-shaped, others rectangular. Six properties meet in the middle, at the plateau.” Complex math is not my father’s forte; he worked as an analyst at
the FBI, and possibly, although my siblings and I couldn’t prove it, an interrogator, but he is retired and runs a hardware shop and performs odd jobs around town. He knows what’s what. “Sylvia has taken it upon herself to use the plateau for her parties.”

  “In addition to the weekly events,” Lola added, “Sylvia has built hedges, fences, and fountains on the property.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said over my shoulder. “A fountain?”

  “Which is fully plumbed.” Lola wiggled a finger. “Look, if you don’t believe me.”

  Through the binoculars, I could see what she was talking about. There was perhaps the ugliest fountain I’d ever seen featuring a nymph and satyr.

  “Cheek. That’s what Sylvia’s got,” my father grumbled. “She says the property is hers alone.”

  “Claiming possession is nine-tenths of the law,” Lola said.

  “Which is why we’ve got to challenge her.” Dad’s jaw was rock hard.

  “You did, darling.”

  “And you know how well that went.”

  Lola cracked a smile. “Earlier today, your father took Sylvia on at the gas station. She was loading up on lighter fluid and propane tanks, apparently for tonight’s bash. Your father called her on it. She ranted at him like there was no tomorrow. She’s whip-thin, but she’s fierce. He went ape.”

  I gawped at him. “Dad, you didn’t.” He rarely lost his composure.

  Lola shook a fist. “He warned her—”

  “And she spat at my feet,” Dad finished.

  “Ava Judge is going to challenge her,” Lola went on.

  “As a Realtor, Ava is quite educated in real estate law,” Dad said.

  “As am I,” Lola countered.

  “But I don’t want you doing it.”

  Lola sighed. “Ava advised your father against me leading the charge. Even though she’s Sylvia’s immediate neighbor, she believes she can remain impartial. I’m not so sure, but what do I know?”