Page 28 of The Rainbow Recipe
He followed his mother, still chattering in Italian, into the kitchen, where she began throwing in Scots-English in her excitement for Pris’s benefit. He hoped the aroma represented his dinner and not just the leftover scent from the one she’d given away, because only a salad sat on the counter.
“I gather you promised itinerant plumbers dinners if they worked on our medieval plumbing?” he asked of Devil Woman, taking a handful of grapes from the fruit bowl to tide him over.
“Priscilla asked if there were any construction jobs in town that required plumbers,” his mother explained, while their silent guest whisked up dressing. “So I called around, as she suggested. Maria at the dispensary mentioned some workmen staying out at a worksite who suffered indigestion from their own cooking. One thing led to another...”
“And in exchange for dinners, we get working plumbing, I got that. I was simply trying to ascertain how this came about.” He finished off the grapes and looked around for something more solid.
With a distracting curl bouncing over her huge—brownie-like—eyes, Priscilla shoved breadsticks at him. She wasn’t magic, he reminded himself. It didn’t take a mind reader to know he was hungry.
“It’s called bartering,” his mother explained, obviously quoting the nuisance. “Apparently it’s very big in the states. Maybe to avoid taxes?” She wrinkled her brow at that thought.
“Theoretically, we pay taxes on our barters, but there are a lot of loopholes.” Priscilla shoved the salad bowl across the counter, poured the dressing into a small pitcher, then turned back to the oven.
Please, let it be lasagna.
Sensing disharmony, his mother wisely went in search of the twins.
“I do not have time to file paperwork on itinerant plumbers who work for food.” He transferred the bowl and pitcher to the table, which had already been set.
He could practically hear her thinkNot my problem.Wait a minute...He pinched the bridge of his nose. He did not just think what he thought he’d thought.
She produced another lasagna dish, and he relinquished the fight. For now.
His mother bustled in with the twins, shooing them to the sink to wash up. “Pasta dishes are inexpensive and easy. I can make them pizza tomorrow. Perhaps I should set a table up in the front room so their food will stay warm and my dishes don’t wander off.”
Dante poured a large glass of wine. “A restaurant for workmen, right. We’ll have the place fixed up in no time.”
Looking decidedly more attractive than she had any right to do, Devil Woman dished out lasagna for the children and a plate for herself. Dante told himself it was hunger and the food in her hand creating that innocent Madonna look.
She dropped a phone on the table instead of plating his food. Gathering up her dinner on a tray, she walked off, abandoning him to his chattering mother and the twins.
No wonder the kids never talked. Their grandmother never shut up.
He tried to push up to follow, but his crutch fell, and she was gone, vanishing like a brownie.
Cursing, he snatched up the phone. She apparently didn’t believe in passwords because it opened immediately to the text:kk cyanide
With a voluble string of mental curses, Dante grabbed his crutch and shoved up from the table. To hell with starvation. Devil Woman might need to be murdered, but she was incapable of killing anyone or anything except conversations.
Fifteen: Evie
Afterthought,South Carolina
“All right,KK, here comes your favorite shop.” Later that afternoon, Evie entered La Bella Gente. Now that she had a goal in mind, she was less intimidated by the posh interior.
Looking bored and filing her fingernails, a different clerk lounged behind the counter. Evie would have been dusting the inventory and rearranging stock, at the very least, but maybe classy clerks didn’t do that sort of thing.
Rather than wait to be noticed, she strode up to the glass display case and laid down the council flyer. “I’m from the committee on Afterthought business licensing and need to speak with Matthew Gladwell. Could you tell me how to reach him?”
KK flitted behind the curtains and returned announcing,in MY office.
“If you’d like to make an appointment...” The clerk reached under the counter for an appointment book.
“This won’t take a moment of his time.” Pulling out her phone, Evie spoke into it while directing her thought at her uninspired spirit. “Lead on.”
KK’s pale aura darted behind the curtains again. Evie followed before the clerk knew how to react.
The storage shelves were nearly empty. If Ariel’s hacking was correct, La Bella Gente had expanded too fast and was now suffering serious cash flow problems. Lack of inventory ought to prove something, but Evie was after people, not boxes. She recognized one of the tall, dark, square-jawed male model types from the Halloween party. He sat behind a mahogany desk—combing his hair.
