Chase
Three weeks later, May
She hasn’t texted. It’s been all day.
My fingers tap the metal countertop in the kitchen of my restaurant before I break and pick up my phone for the three hundredth time in the last ten minutes to wait for bubbles or an answer.
Me:Heard from the cops. They found some kids breaking into the theater. Said it’s them. Punks. But it was a prank for sure.
Noah:Great news.
Goldie:Thank god. You’re the best Chase.
I thought she’d be happy with the news. I know I was.
It wasn’t that I thought shit was hitting the fan again. Lightning never strikes twice, so they say. But you don’t get chased by a fucking psychopath through a creepy old summer camp and not end up leaning into paranoia. I mean, the unbelievable happened, so now anything is literally possible.
Which means when you find a heart staked to a wall, there’s a call to investigate. Duh.
Plus, she was scared. I could hear it in her voice. So, I really wasn’t letting those cops go without answers. Or at the very least a promise of one.
I’m chewing the inside of my cheek, rereading the message again like that’s going to change the outcome.
What the hell. I even texted the family chat so she’d be forced to answer.Come on, throw me a bone.
“Chef?”
I glance over my shoulder, pulled back into the present by my new sous chef, Eddie, or Prince Willy as we call him because he has a British accent.
“Where’d you come from? What’s up?”
He looks at me expectantly, but I can’t remember what the hell I was just doing other than obsessing over Evie Monroe.
What is wrong with me? Lock in, Beckett.
Like a toddler, I need context clues, so my eyes immediately shift between the phone in my one hand and the spoon in my other. Which is hanging suspended in the air.Oh shit... with food on it.Got it.
“Sorry,” I breathe out before I shovel it into my mouth, immediately spitting it out. “Jesus. What the fuck is that?”
“Whoa.” He blanches, jumping back and wiping the Jackson Pollock of black from across his chest.
But I mumble, trying to wipe what tastes like possible shit from inside my mouth. “What kind of nasty garbage was that?”
His brows draw together as he flicks what’s smeared on his fingers to the ground, and I toss the spoon on the counter.
“It’s the anchovy paste for the sauce ...”
I blink, suddenly remembering I was making pasta for the crew dinner.Shit. No, double shit.
The butter.
I reach out in a rush for the saucepan that now holds very burned butter before he pushes my hand away and wraps a towel over the handle, moving it off the heat.
“Chef, are we feeling unwell?”
I shake my head, chuckling to myself as I tug my apron over my head.
Jesus, this woman has me off my game. I’m a mess. A complete fuckup, and not in the usual way because in here, in the kitchen, I’m infallible.
