“What are we going to do in the meantime?” Maddy asked.
“I say we get something to eat. There’s a greenroom set up with food for us, isn’t there?”
“It’s just cold sandwiches and cans of sodas,” Kenny from Charlotte said as he pointed to a door just off the stage. “Is there anyplace in this one-horse hick town where we can get a decent meal?”
“There’s a pizza place that’s perfect on the downtown promenade, but it’s closed for the competition,” Maddy said with a smile.
“I understand the restaurant here at the hotel is quite good,” I said.
“Thanks, but we need to get away from all of this to plan out our next pizza, and it’s going to be tough to do with all of you hovering around. We’ll find something.”
Maddy watched them go and then turned to me and said, “Someone doesn’t play nice with others.”
“Do you mean besides us?” I asked with a grin.
“Always. I hate to agree with Mr. Personality, but he’s right. Sandwiches don’t sound that great to me after slaving over those pizzas. What do you think?”
“We could always go to Brian’s,” I suggested. “The diner’s got to be better than what we can get for free, and we can’t really afford to eat in the restaurant here.”
Just then, Gina approached us. “Hey there, I forgot to give these out today,” she said as she handed us each a nicely embossed card.
“What are they for?” I asked as I studied mine.
“You can use them in our restaurant while you are our guests here. Meals here are on the house,” she said with a grin, “and you can each bring a guest with you.”
“That’s really sweet of you, Gina, but we can’t do that to your bottom line,” I said.
“Speak for yourself,” Maddy said. “I’ve heard nothing but raves about the place, and I’ve been dying to try it.”
“Does everyone get these?” I asked.
“They get cards, but they aren’t allowed to bring any guests,” she admitted.
“I don’t want you overstepping your bounds just for our sake.”
“Don’t worry; I’m not doing anything that my uncle hasn’t requested. He’s pulling for you two, you know.”
“I hope he doesn’t get his hopes up. We just got lucky this afternoon. That second-place finish was an absolute fluke.”
“Way to talk us up, Eleanor,” Maddy said with a grin that extended well past the wittiness of her remark.
“What are you smiling about?” I asked.
“I just found our two meal guests,” she said.
I looked at where Maddy was pointing and saw David and Bob cutting their way through the crowd onto the stage.
Gina caught it, too. “I’ll leave you two until later. Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” I said as the men approached.
After we collected quick kisses from our respective beaux, Bob said, “We’re here to take you two out to an early dinner. Name the place, and it’s our treat.”
Maddy smiled softly at her fiancé. “Even if it’s the restaurant here at the hotel? I hear that it’s kind of pricey.”
“Absolutely,” Bob said. “Whatever you’d like.” As an attorney, he could well afford it, but still, it was nice of him to offer.
“I’ve got an idea. How about if we take you two out instead?” Maddy asked.
“There’s no need for that,” David said. “We’ve got it.”
“Well, if you insist,” I said, “but Maddy and I happen to each have Golden Tickets, so it’s all on the house if you let us pick up the tab.”
“Even for us?” Bob asked.
Maddy grinned. “Sure. Gina said we could both bring a guest.”
“Then count me in,” he said. It was funny, but from the moment my sister had accepted his proposal, Bob had lost all interest in hurrying the process of the actual ceremony, much to Maddy’s delight. I had a feeling they were in for a very long engagement, but if they were happy with their relationship at its current stage, it was no business of mine.
“Let’s go,” David said. “That’s assuming that I’m your plus-one, Eleanor.”
“It’s normally dangerous to assume anything like that, but this time, you happen to be correct,” I said with a smile. I was happy to have David in my life, though I’d never forget my late husband, Joe. My new boyfriend was a lot like him, though most likely in ways that probably no one else but I could see. The most important thing was that he made me smile, which was a huge plus in his favor.
The restaurant was jammed when we got there, and I was afraid that we wouldn’t be able to get our complimentary meals after all, when the maître d’ said, “This way, if you please. We have a special area reserved just for you.”
He led us to a table overlooking an outdoor fountain surrounded by benches, and as I sat down, I said, “I could get used to this kind of treatment.”
“There’s no reason you shouldn’t, at least not while we’re here for the competition,” Maddy said.
“We could always bring you both here ourselves some other time,” David said.
“Careful what you’re offering. We might just take you up on it,” I said with a grin.
“Hey, if I get a chance to spend some time with you, it’s worth whatever it costs.” Just then David looked down at the menu, and then added hastily, “At least if I don’t mind not paying my other bills on time. This place is kind of pricey for Timber Ridge, isn’t it?”
“When you consider that most of their clientele probably comes from out of town, it makes more sense,” I said.
After we ordered, Bob said, “Congratulations on finishing second in the competition this afternoon, ladies.”
I nodded my acceptance of his compliment, but Maddy barely noticed.
Bob asked, “I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?”
“Don’t mind her. We both feel like there’s something just not right about this contest,” I said.
“I’m glad you said it first,” Maddy answered. “You saw the same thing as I did up there at the end, right?”
“I did,” I answered.
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” David said. “What exactly happened?”
“Our dough wasn’t even golden around the edges, let alone brown, and the veggies on top of the pie had to still be crisp and a little raw,” I said. “It wasn’t entirely our fault, though. Someone unplugged our oven on our second attempt, and we didn’t have enough time to bake our pizza properly. The first pizza disaster was entirely on us, but the second was inedible. Honestly, we would have been better off submitting the first pie cold, mistakes and all, and yet we ended up taking second place in the judging.”
“Could you two just be hypercritical of your own work?” David asked.
I considered it, but quickly dismissed the idea. “Sure, most of the time I’d agree that was a possibility, but we saw what we saw. There’s no way we deserved second place, and anyone with a sense of taste would have put it in last place. Jeff and Sandy made a pizza pretty enough for a magazine shoot, and I’m willing to bet that it was as tasty as it looked.”
“How is that possible, though? They came in last,” David said.
“I’m guessing that Luigi’s got his own agenda about this contest. We got second place because he was punishing the other two for something else they must have done. We know for a fact that none of the competitors here like Luigi at all.”
“Then why did the Charlotte team beat you?” Bob asked.
A diner from another table nearby leaned in and said, “You’re kidding, right? The fix is in. I thought everyone knew that Luigi has a stake in their restaurant.”
“How do you know that?” I asked as I studied the woman in her thirties with frosted tips and a waistline thin enough to defy all logic.
“I’m the food reporter for the
Charlotte Touch,
” she said as she handed Maddy her business card. Her name was Tina Lance, and if her card was any indication, someone had a very high opinion of her work to fork out for those cards.
“I’ve never heard of it,” Maddy said flatly as she handed the card to me.
She shrugged. “We’re new, but we’re feisty. That’s why I’m here. I’m going to expose Luigi for the fraud that he is.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“First of all, his name’s not Luigi at all. It’s George Vincent, and he’s using this contest to advance his own agenda. I’m sorry, but you never stood a chance.”
“We already knew his real name,” I said.
That seemed to take a bit of the wind out of her sails.
“If it’s true that he’s partnered with one of the pizzerias, why haven’t you reported him to the authorities?” Bob asked.
“All in good time,” she answered as her check came. “I probably shouldn’t have said anything to you, but I didn’t want you to get your hopes up. Like I said, there’s no way you can win. The whole thing is fixed.”
After she was gone, I asked Maddy, “Do you believe her?”
“After seeing how he judged the competition before, I find it hard to believe that it’s not the most reasonable explanation of what happened. I keep asking myself why she would lie to us, too,” my sister said. “What does she have to gain by stirring things up like that?”
David broke in and asked, “You’re kidding, right? She’s a reporter. It’s been my experience that they thrive on conflict. If she didn’t see anything in this afternoon’s contest, I wouldn’t put it past her to try to make something happen so she could report it in the rag she works for.”
Our food was delivered just then, and our conversation wove in and out of the critic’s accusations as we ate. By the time we were finished with our excellent meals, I said, “I’m sorry to say that I didn’t do that food justice. I tried my best to ignore what the food reporter told us, but I can’t help wondering if what Tina Lance said was true.”
Maddy grinned at me. “Let’s assume for one second that it was all fact. In a way, she did us a favor. If we were destined not to win, it kind of takes the pressure off of us for the rest of the competition, doesn’t it?”
Bob frowned. “You may look at it however you choose to, but I’m not taking this so lightly. I’ve got a friend in Charlotte who owes me a favor. I’m going to have him dig into Ms. Lance’s background, as well as check to see if her suspicions are true about Luigi and the Charlotte pizza makers.”
“Don’t burn any favors you might need later on down the road on our account,” Maddy said. “In the end, it’s just not all that important.”
“If it matters to you, it impacts me,” Bob said as he started to leave a tip. The waiter spied what he was doing, and then quickly returned it to him. “Thank you for the intent, but it has all been taken care of,” he said, “gratuities included. Have a pleasant evening.”
“Thank you,” Bob said, and we all echoed it.
“Well, ladies, you have an hour and a half to kill before the next competition. Care to share it with us?” David asked.
“As tempting as the offers sounds, I’m afraid that I’ll have to decline,” Bob said as he glanced at his watch. “I’m due in court soon.” He kissed Maddy good-bye, and after he was gone, David grinned at us both. “That suits me just fine. Now I get the both of you to myself.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” Maddy said with a grin. “Besides, I think I’m going to stretch out and rest before we get started again. Luigi arranged for us all to have rooms, and I mean to use mine.”
“If you don’t mind, David, that sounds great to me, too,” I said.
My boyfriend just laughed as he shook his head and said, “I can’t believe that I was just shot down twice in two seconds. If I didn’t have an overinflated ego, something like that might sting a little.”
I kissed him, and then gently shoved him away. “Don’t worry. I’ll make it up to you another time.”
He grinned broadly now. “That sounds great to me. You know me. I just love rain checks!”
We took the elevator upstairs to our rooms after David left us, but we didn’t make it inside right away.
There was something much more interesting than a nap going on in the hallway, something that neither one of us was willing to miss.
Chapter 5
“Y
ou’ll do what I tell you to do, or believe me, I’ll make you suffer for your disobedience,” we heard Luigi say somewhere down the hallway. All of the contestants were staying close together on the same floor, along with Luigi and his employees, Jack Acre and Frank Vincent, so he could be talking to anyone.
I grabbed Maddy’s arm and pulled her into the small room where the ice machine and a vending machine stood. I didn’t want him to see us just yet. After all, we might learn a great deal more about the man if he didn’t know that we were listening in.
“Who’s he talking to?” Maddy asked me softly.
I shrugged. “Whoever it is hasn’t replied, at least not loud enough for me to hear them. It could practically be anybody.”
There was a moment’s silence, and then Luigi said, “I’m not playing around here. If you cross me, I promise you that you’ll live to regret it.”
I peeked around the corner as far as I felt comfortable going, but I still couldn’t see anyone. The only way the conversation made any sense at all was if Luigi was standing in the hallway outside of someone else’s room, and they were still inside. But who could it be? I leaned even farther out, and suddenly felt Maddy pulling me back. “We don’t want him to know that we can hear him,” she said.
I reluctantly agreed, though I was still straining for a clue about who Luigi was threatening.
I was about to poke my head out once again when I heard footsteps approaching quickly. I motioned to Maddy, and then forced myself back into the corner, where hopefully Luigi wouldn’t spot me. Maddy followed suit, and I thought we’d be safe, unless the man had a sudden yearning for ice or soda and decided to take a detour into the small space. The elevator chimed once just past us, the doors slid open, and then a moment later, they closed.
I poked my head out again, and then stepped all the way into the hallway once I knew that he was gone.
“The coast is clear,” I told Maddy.
She came out and joined me, and then we both looked up and down the hallway together. “Any idea where he was standing when he was talking to our mysterious stranger?” Maddy asked me.
I shook my head. “I don’t have a clue. It could have been any one of these rooms. We didn’t have much visibility past our own room.”
Maddy frowned. “I didn’t care for his tone of voice, and I can’t imagine the recipient liked it any better. Luigi clearly threatened someone here. We just don’t know who it was.”
“We’re just going to have to start knocking on doors and see who answers,” I said.
“I’m not saying that you’re wrong, but I’m just curious about something before you knock on the first door. What excuse are we going to use?”
I thought about it for a moment, and then said, “We’ve got the perfect icebreaker, really. We can talk about the competition.”
She shrugged. “It’s not great, but it’s still probably better than anything I can come up with.”
“Wow, stop it. Your extreme praise is going to make me blush.”
“Just start knocking on doors, Sis, okay?”
I nodded, and approached the first door we hadn’t been able to see. After three attempts, no one answered, and I was ready to give up on them.
“Wow, our plan needs some work,” my sister said dryly.
“Maddy, not everyone is going to be in their room this time of day. Consider this a positive new bit of information. Whoever is in this room couldn’t be our candidate.”
She frowned. “Sorry, but I don’t know that I can agree with that, Eleanor. What if they heard our knocking but decided not to answer? We can’t just prowl the hallways hoping and waiting for someone to come out of their room. I can’t imagine someone not calling security if they see us lurking around the corridors like a pair of criminals.”
“You’ve got a point, but I’m still not willing to give up. Let’s at least try a few more rooms, okay?”
“I’ve got your back. Knock on,” she said with a shrug.
We actually had more luck with the next door. After knocking twice, the door was opened by Jack Acre. From his tousled hair and his exposed shirttail, it was clear that he’d been taking a nap. “Can I help you two?” he asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and trying to wake up.
“Sorry, we didn’t mean to disturb you,” I said.
He had the presence of mind to look embarrassed about being caught napping. “I don’t ordinarily nod off in the middle of the day, but the boss insisted that I get my rest. As his second in command, if he’s at the office, that means I have to be there too, even if the ‘office’ in question is the auditorium downstairs. You must have had some reason to knock on my door. What can I do for you?”
I hadn’t really thought about someone not an active part of the competition answering their door. I was fumbling for something to say when Maddy spoke up. “Are we meeting before the competition again for every round, or do we just show up when it’s time from now on?”
He flinched a second, but then he explained, “You have to be there at five on the nose. That’s when everyone else is getting there, and anyone who isn’t on that stage is disqualified immediately from the competition. You read the notes, right?”
“Parts of it were a little fuzzy,” I said, though that wasn’t really true.
“I told Luigi to let me handle drafting it, but he insisted that Frank do it. Now if you’ll both excuse me, I might be able to catch another half hour of sleep before I have to go downstairs for the next stage.”
After he closed his door, Maddy frowned at me and said, “We’re not doing too well so far, are we?”
“We can’t let that stop us, though. I’m not giving up just yet,” I said. As we approached the next door, I started to knock, and then I heard voices coming from inside the room. From the sound of it, they were having an argument. Despite the heavy wooden doors, I could still tell that it was the married couple from Asheville, Jeff and Sandy. When I looked at the door, I understood why I could hear them. They hadn’t pulled it all the way closed, so we could still hear their voices. I had to wonder if the door wasn’t completely shut because Luigi had just left them. It could be for another, innocent, reason, but then again, they could be the folks we were looking for.
“I’m telling you, I didn’t flirt back with him,” Sandy said as I took another step closer to the door.
“It sure looked that way to me,” Jeff said. “I won’t tolerate another incident like what happened in Asheville. I should have punched his lights out then and there, and we never should have agreed to come here and compete.”
“Jeff, you know we didn’t have much choice. If we don’t win, we’re probably going to lose our restaurant.”
“There are some things more important than that. I can’t stomach the thought of that man putting his hands on you.”
“I can promise you that it won’t ever happen again, but I can’t help how the man acts when he’s around me,” Sandy said.
“You don’t have to encourage him, though,” Jeff answered.
“Is that what you think? Do you honestly believe that I was trying to get us a better place in the order of finishes? If I did, I must not be very good at it, because we came in last, remember?”
“That wasn’t because of the pizza we submitted, and we both know it. He was punishing us by putting us in last place, and there’s nothing we can do about it,” Jeff said.
“Honey, I love you, but you’ve got to find a way to get past what happened.”
“You’re probably right, but I’d still like to punch him in the nose the next time I see him,” Jeff said. “I don’t know what I was thinking when I agreed to come here, but we’re not leaving now with our tails between our legs.”
I was about to move on when Maddy surprised me and knocked on the couple’s door frame instead. “What are you doing?” I asked her in a whisper.
“We still need to talk to them,” she answered softly.
Sandy pulled the door open, and was clearly surprised that it hadn’t been shut all of the way in the first place. From the redness in her eyes, it appeared that she’d been crying at some point.
“Hello, ladies,” she said.
I was about to say something inane when Maddy said, “We were wondering if you’d seen Luigi lately. He was supposed to meet us up in my room, but he never showed up.” It was a lie that could easily be discovered, but Maddy was probably right saying it. After all, given what we’d just heard, I couldn’t imagine either pizza maker from Asheville confirming it with our host.
“We haven’t seen him,” Sandy said quickly.
“Funny, I could swear he was just down here.” Maddy replied, pushing just a little harder.
“You’re mistaken,” Sandy said quickly as she tried to close the door. Was she trying to get rid of us?
“Sorry to disturb you,” Maddy said as Jeff approached. “We also wanted to drop by to say that we think you two were cheated in that stage of the contest. Our pizza was a wreck, and yours was ready for a magazine cover shoot. What do you think happened?”
“We really shouldn’t be fraternizing during the contest,” he said.
“She means it. Your pizza really was a work of art,” I said, not just backing up my sister, but saying it because it was true.
Jeff didn’t appear the least bit mollified. “It’s nice of you to say that, but there’s only one opinion that counts, and Luigi torpedoed us.” He shook his head as he rubbed his hand through his hair before adding, “I don’t know how we can come back from this horrible start.”
“It might not be as hard to do as you think,” Maddy said.
“Why do you say that?” Jeff was clearly intrigued by my sister’s statement.
“Think about it. If there’s just one arbiter in the contest, what’s to keep him from picking a winner no matter what the scores end up being? You read the fine print of the contract you signed, right?”
“I glanced over it,” Jeff admitted. “Why? Did I miss something?”
“Since Luigi is the sole judge of the competition, if he decides to, he can throw out the results of the preliminary findings and pick a winner on his own at the very end.”
“That’s actually somewhere in the contract?” Sandy asked.
“It’s buried in the warranties section under completely different wording, but I spoke to an attorney about it, and it’s there, all right.”
A ray of hope broke through Sandy’s gloom as she took Maddy’s hand and squeezed it. “Thank you so much. That’s the best news that we’ve had all day.” She turned to her husband and added, “See? I told you that we still have a chance.”
“As a matter of fact, we all do,” I said. “Good luck this evening.”
“Best of luck to you, too,” Sandy said as Jeff closed the door.
As soon as we were on opposite sides of the door, I turned to Maddy and asked, “Is that the truth?”
“That I wished them luck? Sure, why not? It’s the sporting thing to do, don’t you think?”
“I’m talking about the contract,” I said.
Maddy nodded. “Bob read it again this morning, and he pointed the clause out to me. I thought it was only fair to tell them about it, too.”
“You’ve got a good heart, Maddy,” I said.
“Thanks. It matches my great legs, don’t you think? Now, which door should we knock on next?”
“Let’s just keep going down the line and see who we find on the other side,” I said.
I started to knock on the next door, but it opened before I had a chance to even touch it. The Raleigh twins, Todd and Reggie, were on their way out. As one of them double-checked the door behind him, the other looked at us and asked, “Were you looking for us?”
“We just wanted to ask you something about the competition,” I said.
“Sorry, we don’t have time right now,” the other said.
And then they were gone before we had a chance to ask a thing.
We had just one more person answer the door before we quit, but they weren’t associated with the competition at all.
We’d gained some new information in our little investigation, but we hadn’t discovered who Luigi had been threatening, and our break time was quickly running out.
I glanced at my watch and said, “Maddy, we’ve only got forty-five minutes before it’s time to go. What do you want to do in the meantime? I honestly don’t think there’s time for us take naps, do you?”
She shrugged. “Maybe not, but I’m going to rest for twenty minutes, and then grab a quick shower. It’s not ideal, but I need something to pick me up before we compete tonight. This afternoon was a complete disaster, and we can’t take the chance that Luigi’s going to suddenly lose his sense of taste again.”
“You’re right about that,” I said. “If you don’t hear from me by the time you wake up, come knock on my door and be sure that I’m awake, okay?”
“You can count on me,” she said.
The crowd was even larger this time when we walked into the auditorium three minutes before the contest was to begin again. We’d cut it closer than we’d meant to, and I made a promise to myself that Maddy and I would be on that stage a full ten minutes before each phase was to begin. I couldn’t think of much worse than being disqualified for being late. Losing outright, even coming in fourth, would be better than that.