Page 10 of The White Picket Fence

“I know. She always has been.”

“She thinks you feel guilty for what happened to her, and she’s not sure why.”

Charlotte flinched. “Well, that’s blunt.”

Tino shrugged. “We don’t have much time. I need to get you back to the hospital, and I promised her I’d try to help you.”

Charlotte swallowed hard. “It’s...” She trailed off, shaking her head. “It’s personal and not related to what happened to Dottie.”

“Okay,” he said simply. He’d let it go for now, but he would follow up later because he didn’t think that Charlotte entirely believed her own words. There was doubt in her eyes, a tremble in her voice. “Here’s Angela. Did you decide what you want to eat?”

She looked up at Angela, who’d stopped at their table with an expectant smile. “I’ll try the meatball sandwich, please. I’ve heard it’s wonderful.”

Angela beamed. “It is. My Burt is the very best chef in the city. Tino? The usual?”

“Make it two sandwiches. We need to be getting back to the hospital soon, so we may end up taking some of it to go.”

“I’ll make it quick,” Angela promised, then hustled back to the kitchen, shouting their order.

Charlotte was regarding him with a pensive expression.

“What?” he asked. “I like the meatball sandwich, too.”

She shook her head. “You’re not going to press me for details?”

“Maybe later. Not now.”

“That’s what I figured.” She sighed. “You can find it if you google it.”

“Find what?”

“The report about my...” She sighed again. “My assault.”

He stared at her, shocked. Was that why she now used a cane? Someone had hurt her?Who do I need to kill?“What assault?”

“A man back in Memphis. That’s where I lived for, gosh—fifteen years now. My ex’s family lives there so when we got married, we moved there. After the divorce, I just stayed. My business was there.”

“But not your chef business.”

“At the beginning, yes. I was the head chef in a very nice restaurant in Memphis for about four years. Then my ex and I were in a car accident.” She lifted the cane. “Broke my pelvis. I did all the physical therapy and managed to eventually return to my job, but I couldn’t manage the hours on my feet anymore. So I had to give it up.”

He wanted to say he was sorry, but he sensed she didn’t want that. “What did you do instead?”

“Became a restaurant critic.”

His brows shot up. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Not many people do. Long story short, my column became popular and I became locally notorious. I didn’t write under my own name and I wore disguises every time I was working. Never took the cane, as that would have been a memorable detail. I wanted to be incognito. No special treatment.”

“You wanted to experience the food the way a normal person would.” He winced. “A person who wasn’t a food critic.”

“I knew what you meant, and yes. That’s why I did it. Turns out that anonymity kept me safe for a long time. Then a year ago a restaurant owner had to declare bankruptcy and blamed my review.”

“Not five stars, I take it.”

“Not even one. The place was filthy, the food was frozen, cooked in a microwave. The servers were untrained and rude. One of them hit on me, then called me a bitch when I turned him down.”

“Wow.”

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