Murder for the Halibut (9 page)

As soon as Jordan and Rosie reentered the bar, the waitress approached them to say
the lounge would be closing in fifteen minutes and they’d already missed last call.
After assuring her they would only be a few minutes, Jordan made eye contact with
Rosie and cocked her head in the direction of the far corner.

Rosie started that way, and Jordan followed. Beau and Marsha were so caught up in
an animated conversation, they didn’t even look up until the two had plopped down
in the empty chairs across from them. Casey was asleep with her head on the table
and a half-empty drink in front of her. An earth-shattering snore caused her to jerk
awake, but she quickly returned to whatever dream she was having.

Rosie reached for a cold French fry from the nearly empty basket. “So, it looks like
you two are gonna be here
for a while, right?” She pointed to the four full drinks in front of them.

Marsha laughed. “We’ve been talking about the cooking industry, and we lost track
of time. Beau thought we needed reinforcements before they cut us off.”

Cooking industry, my butt!
“It looks like you need black coffee more than reinforcements,” Jordan said, scanning
the table for Marsha’s or Casey’s purse.

Initially disappointed when she didn’t see one, she decided the women either hadn’t
brought their purses with them or had them on their laps. Either scenario was a dead
end for her plan to learn more about the conversation she’d overheard in the restroom
earlier. Then Jordan noticed Casey was using her black clutch as a pillow. Blowing
out a frustrated breath, she scolded herself for thinking the hunt for clues would
be easy.

“What brought you two back?” asked Beau, his words slurring and his glassy eyes obviously
struggling to focus.

“No reason. We—”

“We wanted one last drink,” Rosie interrupted. “Unfortunately, we’re a little too
late.”

“Here,” Beau said, sliding Casey’s drink toward Rosie. “I don’t think she’ll miss
it, do you?”

Casey chose that moment to lift her head and give them a drunken grin. It gave Jordan
just enough time to edge the clutch out and shove a few wadded-up linen napkins in
its place before the inebriated woman dropped her head back to the table.

“I was afraid the clasp might hurt her face,” she explained when both Beau and Marsha
shot her a questioning look.

Beau grinned before chugging the rest of his drink. “She wouldn’t even notice. She’s
not feeling any pain right now. Probably won’t until morning when that headache hits
like a mother.”

Nothing like the proverbial pot calling the kettle black.

Rosie cleared her throat, and Jordan looked up in time to see her point to Casey’s
purse.
Get
the key
, she mouthed.

“So, Beau, tell me about your chocolate treats. I sure would kill to have one right
now,” Rosie said, in an obvious effort to distract the couple.

“Did you know Sinfully Sweet hit the international market this year?” He stretched
across the table and slid one of Marsha’s full drinks toward Rosie, even though she
hadn’t yet touched the cocktail he’d offered just a moment ago.

“Thank you. And yes, I did know the company was doing great. It was a brilliant move,
but then again, I’m not surprised a smart, savvy guy like you pulled it off.” She
gave him one of her sultry looks, designed to bedazzle an unsuspecting male, while
she lied through her teeth.

Sheesh!
Rosie didn’t have to lay it on that thick, Jordan thought as she maneuvered Casey’s
purse off the table and into her lap without detection. She unclasped the small black
clutch and immediately found the keycard in a side pocket, along with a wrapped condom.

Pulling her hand out of the purse as if she had touched a lit match, Jordan wrinkled
her nose. A condom? Casey had obviously started out the evening with big plans before
drinking herself into a stupor.

But big plans with whom? Or maybe it was only a case
of the frumpy chef dipping into her old Girl Scout training and showing up prepared
just in case she got lucky.

Jordan cleared her throat, and Rosie glanced her way. When Jordan nodded, the older
woman shoved the drink back toward Marsha. “As much as I love talking to you two,
I’d better mosey on up to my room and hit the sack. I just remembered I have to get
up really early to cook tomorrow. Thanks, anyway.” She motioned to Jordan. “Ready?”

They said their good-byes and headed out the door. Once they were in the hallway,
they quickened their pace, nearly sprinting by the time they approached the elevator.
Neither spoke during the ride down three levels to the deck where Marsha and Casey
shared a room. Only after she’d pushed the stolen key into the lock and they’d entered
did Jordan finally feel safe enough to breathe normally.

She’d never done anything like this before—unless you counted the time when she and
her best girlfriend snuck into the nun’s private kitchen back at Saint Anthony’s and
raided the refrigerator. Although she and her partner in crime hadn’t been caught
and had ended up with a fantastic plate of snickerdoodles, she knew in her heart she’d
have to pay the price at the pearly gates over those cookies. Unfortunately, just
like so many years before, Jordan’s inner voice was screaming at her to get out before
it was too late.

She wondered if the Gatekeeper was watching now.

“We’ve only got about ten minutes,” Rosie said, bringing her back to the task at hand.

“Okay. Okay. I’ll look through all the stuff on the table, and you rummage through
the drawers.”

Rosie nodded in agreement and moved directly to the
dresser. She sat on the bed and opened the first drawer. Before Jordan even made it
to the table, she spied the box labeled with the Sinfully Sweet logo. Unable to resist,
she took off the lid and let out a squeal at the site of huge chocolate brownies,
each individually wrapped.

“Shh,” Rosie cautioned.

“Sorry. Chocolate messes with my brain.” She turned her attention back to the goodies.
“So, Little Miss Hope-you-like-my-salmon Marsha did get the Kahlúa brownies, after
all,” she said, more to herself than to Rosie. “Wonder what she had to promise to
get them.”

“We don’t have time for that, Jordan. Hurry,” Rosie admonished.

Who doesn’t have time for chocolate?
Jordan thought as she unwrapped one of the brownies and shoved half of it into her
mouth. The sensation she got from the Kahlúa and chocolate flavors was enough to send
her over the edge.

“Jordan, hurry up.”

Rosie’s impatient voice caused her to jump, and she quickly popped the other half
of the brownie into her mouth before opening the top file on the table. The file contained
a lot of recipes but nothing that would implicate either Marsha or Casey in any wrongdoing
in Stefano’s death—assuming there even was a wrongdoing.

“Sweet Jesus!”

Jordan stopped chewing and spun toward Rosie, who was now holding up a small bottle
and grinning like she’d just opened the right door on
Let’s Make a Deal
.

“What is that?”

“You’re not going to believe it, but I think it might be the smoking gun.”

Jordan jumped up and ran over, reaching for the bottle. It was a small jar of cocktail
peanuts. Before she had a chance to comment, she heard the unmistakable sound of voices
trickling in from the hallway. It took only a second to recognize Marsha’s sexy giggle.
Jordan would bet money there was a follow-up hair flip and decided she could probably
learn a thing or two about flirting from the petite chef.

The voices stopped momentarily, and Jordan stood perfectly still, holding her breath.
Until she heard the click of the door as it opened.

Crap!

Her head snapped up at the same time as Rosie’s, and she saw that the older woman
looked as panicked as she herself felt.

“In there,” she whispered, grabbing two more brownies before following Rosie into
the small closet to the left of the two twin beds.

She pushed the sliding door almost shut at the exact moment that Marsha and Beau walked
into view—“walked” being the disputable word in Beau’s case. She wondered how a little
thing like Marsha could hold up the entrepreneur’s drunken six-foot frame.

“Come here, baby,” he slurred.

Jordan swiveled toward Rosie and mouthed,
Sex alert
, before Rosie rolled her eyes.

“In time, love. Make yourself comfortable while I freshen up a bit,” Marsha said in
a deep, throaty voice. Her words were followed by a sound that Jordan could only assume
came from a wet sloppy kiss.

“Don’t take too long, you sexy thing. Big Beau is missing you already.”

No, he did not just refer to himself as Big Beau.

Jordan clucked her tongue before Rosie shot her a disapproving glare and put her finger
to her lips to shush her. For a few seconds the only other sound in the room was the
faucet running in the bathroom—until Beau began to snore.

“The man is such a lover,” Jordan whispered, handing Rosie one of the brownies before
opening the other and taking a huge bite. She stopped chewing when she heard Marsha
open the bathroom door.

For a few seconds, she held her breath, thinking Marsha might open the closet for
a robe or something. Instead, she turned her back on Beau and stepped away from the
bed. With her cell phone to her ear, she began to talk in a hushed tone and asked
to speak to Casey. Jordan assumed the chef was still passed out at the lounge.

Like Beau could hear!

His obnoxious snoring shook the walls, reminding Jordan of the time she’d gone to
a monster truck rally with Victor. The entire crowd had worn earplugs that night.

“I need you to get down here as fast as you can,” Marsha said into the phone. “We
have a problem. Beau’s passed out on my bed, and we have to get him sobered up and
back in his room before his wife misses him.”

There was a pause before Marsha continued. “I told you not to worry about that. Nobody
has any idea we were anywhere near the kitchen this afternoon, and unless you open
your big mouth, no one will ever know. I made sure of it. Just get down here, so I
don’t have to explain this in the morning. That would totally blow our chances of
splitting that prize money.”

For several minutes after Marsha hung up, Jordan and Rosie stood in silence, afraid
to move with Marsha so close. As Jordan tried to figure out how they could get out
of the closet, she racked her brain for possible excuses why they would be in the
closet in the first place. No matter how this night ended, the fact that she’d just
overheard Marsha admitting she and Casey had done something in the kitchen before
the competition was worth getting caught.

Deciding to face the consequences and then run straight to Ray to tell him what they’d
heard, Jordan pushed the sliding door back and was surprised to find only Beau in
the room. He was sprawled sideways across the bed and still snoring like a chainsaw.
He could have passed for one of those big trucks himself, maybe even the brother of
the famous Grave Digger, one of the more popular trucks on the circuit. She peeked
around the corner and realized Marsha had gone back into the bathroom. After racing
to the table for one last brownie, she tiptoed past the bathroom door with Rosie following
close behind.

Quickly, she opened the door, and the two of them bolted down the corridor, passing
a steward along the way who was carrying a tray with a pot of coffee and several cups.
Beau’s wake-up call, no doubt. By the time they made it to their own room, they were
laughing out loud, celebrating their good fortune over not being caught by sharing
the stolen brownie.

“Mmm. These could be my new solution to not having a boyfriend right now.” Rosie licked
her lips. “I guarantee I’ll have this recipe figured out before we dock in Miami.”

Jordan high-fived her friend. “And we didn’t even have to entertain Big Beau like
Marsha did.”

That brought on another round of giggling as the two women got ready for bed.

“Rosie, are you thinking the same thing I am about what we heard Marsha say on the
phone to Casey?”

Rosie climbed under the covers. “I’m trying not to think the worst, but it really
did sound like maybe there was something going on before the competition.” She sighed.
“We need to tell Ray what we overheard.”

Jordan shot up in the bed. “Are you crazy? Now that we’ve escaped that compromising
position in the closet, I’ve reconsidered telling Ray what we just heard. We’d have
to admit we stole Casey’s key and broke into their room.” She shook her head. “No
way. Let’s just keep our eyes and ears open until we have something more solid to
go on before we go running to him with our suspicions.”

“What about the peanuts I found in the drawer?”

Jordan thought for a moment. That one was not as easily explained, but she had to
convince Rosie not to run to Ray just yet.

“You saw the way Casey can put away food. It’s probably just something she brought
with her for a late-night hunger attack.” She blew out a breath. “Come on, Rosie.
You know Ray will freak out when he finds out we’ve been breaking and entering. Let’s
wait awhile and see what happens. I promise we’ll go to him the minute our own investigation
uncovers something worth reporting.”

“I hate to admit it, but you’re probably right. I’m not in any mood to hear one of
Ray’s lectures.”

“So, we agree? Starting tomorrow, you and I will be on the lookout for any clues that
might indicate the women are up to something sinister,” Jordan said, satisfied she
had convinced her friend not to tell Ray just yet.

“Okay. It’s probably just our overactive imaginations, anyway. We’ll look like fools
if it turns out there isn’t anything suspicious to find.”

Jordan narrowed her eyes. “Then why were those two sneaking around in the kitchen
before the competition?”