“This sounds like a story that’s going to be so epic, we will need cannelloni,” Darla decided.
“I love cannelloni, but I need to be able to walk so I can do rounds.”
“We can order smaller plates so we aren’t too stuffed.”
I scoffed. As if that would happen. I, for one, was going to eat a regular sized portion of lasagne and garlic bread.”
“Come on, not even a clue?”
I pursed my lips. “You will see I am actually wearing three pieces of jewelry and that’s all I am going to say for now.”
The two women zeroed in on my bracelet and necklace.
“Three pieces of jewelry, all different,” Darla mused.
“Three weddings…oh my God, did you guys have three weddings?”
I simply cocked my eyebrow at the pair of them, set my lips in a firm line, and refused to say anything else until we were sitting at Mama Rosa’s and we’d given our food order.
“Now?” Amy prodded.
I gave them an evil grin and then started from the beginning, watching them melt into puddles of romance infused goo as my tale unfolded.
CHAPTER50
JOLAR
I sawMitchell the moment he arrived at Taco Taco. It wasn’t the most romantic place to have dinner, but, well, it was Tuesday, and he’d started a tradition at home he called Taco Tuesday where we had tacos for dinner if it was a Tuesday. Klora and Peterson had told me that Taco Tuesday was a revered tradition when I asked if I should change the type of restaurant, so I was not about to rock the boat any more than I had to. I winced at the human analogy I'd just used. If I was being honest, what I was going to say would not only rock the metaphorical boat, but capsize it completely.
Mitch smiled as saw me, hurrying over to our table.
“I already ordered. I hope that’s okay,” I said.
“You know what I like, so it’s less time to wait,” he said happily, eyeing the pitcher of margaritas on the table.
“So, what’s up? We celebrating your case?”
“Well, it is true that we had quite a successful result,” I hedged.
“Oh yeah?” He poured himself a drink, then took a long sip with a beatific look on his face. I just hoped he was still this happy after I told him the real reason we were here instead of at home with Neal.
“Yes. Ito confirmed that he first met Linda after he stole her identity to commit credit card fraud online. She told him she wouldn’t prosecute him if he helped her with another matter worth a lot more money for both of them. She co-signed his mortgage application for the cabin to prove just how much money she was privy to, with more to come after the scheme was brought to its conclusion.”
“Oh, wow. That sounds wild.”
The waitress came over, setting out tortilla chips, guacamole, and salsa on the table for us. “Your food will be ready shortly. Please enjoy while you wait.” She zoomed away to go seat another group of customers.
I picked up a chip, dipping it into the salsa.
“It gets even more brazen,” I confided. “Ito said it was Linda that killed the lawyer, then she killed her husband with a drug she bought off the internet. He said he didn’t help her with that, but Linda told him she’d done it and then drove the body to some pig farm after first stripping it of its clothes and donating them to various charities in the city.”
“Whoa! Talk about soap opera level crazy evil shit.”
“She’s being charged with both crimes and Ito as an accessory. He maintains the boating accident that killed the brother and sister in law was truly an accident as far as he knew, but that Linda was cagey about talking about it and he said it was possible she didn’t trust him with the truth after he flipped out over her killing her husband.”
“But not the lawyer?”
“I thought that was odd, too, but that is what he said. However, Sachuu is petitioning the Council to charge her with murder for staging the boating accident, as it is simply too coincidental and the forensics couldn’t tell one way or another if the accident was staged or not.”
