Chili Con Carnage (2 page)

“Until the next woman comes along.” I was long past judging, so I was just reporting facts.

Another laugh out of Tumbleweed. “Your mama never held it against him, though, did she?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. He didn’t need to. Tumbleweed spit a long stream of tobacco juice on the ground. “Nope, none of them ever did except maybe Norma.” He glanced toward where Sylvia was setting out a pile of shopping bags with Texas Jack’s face on them. “Always thought Sylvia’s mama was too high-strung to be the Chili Chick. After all, Chick . . .” He gave me a friendly pat on the . . . er . . . chili. “The Chili Chick is a legend on the cook-off circuit. Has been since your daddy thought of her as a way to attract attention and bring in customers. Sylvia’s mom . . . the way I remember it, Norma was a last-minute fill-in when the Chick before her found out she was pregnant. Oh, Norma, she could dance passably well. But she never had that right spark. Then when your mama came along . . .” Tumbleweed whistled low under his breath, and I understood why.

In many ways, my mom and I are a lot alike. Except that instead of being cute (oh, how I hate that word!) like me, Pam is drop-dead gorgeous. The story says that Jack took one look at her in those fishnet stockings and lost his heart right on the spot. Too bad he was married to Norma at the time, who was back home in Seattle and heard the news long-distance that he wanted out.

My mom and dad have been divorced going on twenty years, but I thought about the way my mom still looked when Jack’s name came up in conversation. Wistful. And about the way Sylvia’s mom had looked the one time Jack and I showed up at her door to pick up Sylvia and take her on the road.

To say hell hath no fury was putting it mildly.

I turned to Tumbleweed. “You don’t think Norma’s still so angry that she might have—”

“Stop that right this instant.” He tried for a stern look, but with Tumbleweed, that’s always a long shot. I blame his flapping jowls, his too-big ears, and that mile-wide grin that erupts at the most inconvenient times. “You remember what the cops in Abilene said, honey, when I first realized Jack was gone. No sign of foul play. And nothing missing from the stand so they didn’t figure on a robbery. And Jack’s things weren’t left behind. Wherever he went, he went willingly.”

It was what I’d told myself a thousand times since I got the call. Years before, Jack had given Tumbleweed an order: If anything ever happened to him, he was to get in contact with Sylvia and me so we could take over the business.

Take over, we did. Me, because I was convinced if I stayed on the circuit long enough, I’d find out what had happened to Jack. And besides, it didn’t hurt that the call came right at the time I needed to get far, far away from Chicago, my broken heart, and the debt collectors who were calling at all hours.

Sylvia . . .

From inside the Chili Chick, I slid her another look and, even though I was sure she couldn’t hear me, I leaned closer to Tumbleweed, my voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. “Why do you suppose she’s really here?”

He sucked on his bottom lip. “I’d like to say it’s because she’s just as interested in finding Jack as you are.”

“Except you know that’s not true.”

Tumbleweed rocked back on his heels. “Well, she did mention something the other day. Told me she was thinking of writing a cookbook.”

This is not as odd as it sounds, since before she got the call about Jack and how we needed to take over the Palace until he returned, Sylvia was a writer for a foodie magazine back in Seattle. “I thought she only ate tofu and weeds.”

“And chili, apparently.” When he looked Sylvia’s way, Tumbleweed’s eyes were beady. “Said she’s even preparing a special recipe. You know, so that she can enter the contests.”

Suddenly, Sylvia mixing up spices the night before made more sense. “Well, that explains why she was mixing up a batch of chili to bring to the meeting tonight. She’s going to use us as guinea pigs, perfect a couple recipes, then when she gets a few wins under her belt, I bet a publisher would pay more attention to her cookbook. Opportunistic little b—”

“Now, now, Chili Chick.” Tumbleweed wagged a finger at me. “Don’t you go and let that famous temper of yours get out of control. You ain’t gonna find Jack if you’re so busy fightin’ with your sister—”

“Half sister.”

He didn’t dignify this with a response. In fact, all Tumbleweed did was pull one corner of his mouth into a humorless smile. “Ain’t gonna get you nowhere if you two kill each other first.”

Murder? One look at Sylvia behind the counter all cool and composed and not sweating from standing in the sun, and I considered the suggestion. But honestly, only for a second. Then again, I saw that she had a case of spice jars to unload, so I got my own little bit of revenge by pretending to be busy practicing my little heart out.

I wonder if I would have kept right on dancing if I’d known that within twenty-four hours, talk of murder would be as impossible to escape as a dose of heartburn after a great big bowl of Texas Red.

“Where’s that bitch, Maxie Pierce?”

Call me paranoid. When I heard the shriek that echoed up and down the midway, I froze mid–dance step, and not just because whoever was screaming sounded as mad as a stuck pig and spit out my name like a mouthful of vinegar. From behind the red mesh insert at the front of the chili costume, I watched—half curious, half terrified—as a woman with wild dark hair and wilder eyes marched into the center of the wide walkway that separated the vendor booths on one side of the fairgrounds from the other. She was dressed in cutoff shorts that did nothing for her skinny legs, and a tank top that showed off the tattoo of a bright red firecracker on her upper right arm.

Fists on bony hips, she glanced around. “I’m looking for Maxie.”

As fate would have it, the folks who traveled the Showdown circuit were busy with setup, and in spite of the fact that she sounded as demanding as she did pissed, they didn’t exactly come running. Then again, chili cook-off people have a whole lot in common with carnies (minus the creepiness and the missing teeth). They mind their own business, keep their noses (mostly) out of trouble, and when it’s smart, they keep their mouths shut, too.

Her eyes spewing fire, the woman looked around, and when nobody showed up, her gaze landed on the only other living person in sight.

Me.

She wasn’t even winded when she closed in on me in four long, effortless strides, and that made me think she might be a runner. Or maybe a pole dancer.

Eyes narrowed, she stomped one flip-flop-clad foot in the dust and pinned the Chili Chick with a glare. “I know she works here,” she yelled. “And somebody better tell me where that damned Chili Palace—” It was at this moment that she caught sight of the sign above our trailer. Her gaze swung from it back to me.

And hey, I’m not exactly a shrinking violet, but I’ve gotta admit, it was tough getting my act together while being bushwhacked. I was still scrambling to come up with some kind of strategy that would not result in bodily harm when she stabbed one finger toward the couple feet of blacktop that separated us.

“Maxie,” she growled. “I want her here, and I want her here now.”

I have been called a lot of things in my life. Coward was never one of them. But stupid had never been thrown in the mix, either. Until I had time to assess the situation and the woman whose dark eyes blazed like the Southwestern sun, I knew to play it smart.

Smartly, I shrugged.

When her top lip curled, it left a smudge of sunset-red lipstick on her teeth. “You don’t know her? Or you haven’t seen her?”

I managed another shrug along with a prayer of thanksgiving that Sylvia had given up on the hope of me helping and gone back to the RV for another load of spice jars. I knew her well, see, and I knew if Sylvia was there, she would have been only too happy to throw me under this crazy-woman bus.

I lifted my chin, a courageous gesture completely lost on this woman thanks to the costume. “I haven’t seen Maxie for weeks,” I said, and for good measure I added a gone-somewhere-unknown sort of wave in some gone-somewhere-unknown direction. “I think she quit the Showdown back in Abilene.”

The woman’s left eye twitched like a son of a gun and the silver ring in her eyebrow winked at me. “The bitch was still here in Taos last night,” she said. “I know that for a fact, so don’t you lie to me. And she’s still in Taos now. I know she is. I’m going to find her and when I do—”

“I can let her know you stopped by.” Oh yes, that was me, sounding as smooth and fake friendly as Sylvia does when she’s behind the counter of the Palace and hoping for a big sale. “If you’d like to leave a message—”

I guess she didn’t want to, because rather than say anything, the woman stomped over to the Palace and swung out an arm. The jars of Thermal Conversion and Global Warming that Sylvia had so carefully arranged on the front counter flew in every direction. Even before the last one landed, the madwoman spun back my way, one finger pointed directly at where she figured my face was.

She was a little off, but I guess the stilettos made me look taller than I really am. Her finger was aimed at my forehead.

That didn’t make it any less threatening of a gesture.

“That’s my message,” she growled and tossed a look over her shoulder at the mess around the Palace. “You tell Maxie that Karmen is looking for her. You tell her that when Karmen finds her, what I did to those stupid jars, that’s gonna be the least of her problems.”

And just like that, she stalked away.

I was so busy watching her disappear around the side of a booth where a fellow vendor sold salsa and chips, and hoping she wouldn’t make another appearance, I didn’t hear the footsteps behind me.

“Heard the commotion. Friend of yours?”

I was glad I was wearing the Chick costume. That way, Nick Falcone couldn’t see that I sucked in a breath before I spun to face him.

I crossed my arms over my chest. Or at least I tried. Bulky costume, remember. Which, I reminded myself, was a real plus. At least Nick wouldn’t catch on to the fact that my heart was drumming a mile a minute.

Then again, Nick always had that effect on me.

Even when I wasn’t getting threatened by a crazy person.

Rather than let my libido get the better of my common sense, I reminded myself of what I’d reminded myself of so often since I’d fled Chicago—no more broken hearts. No matter how vulnerable this breakee might be feeling or how tempting the potential breaker happened to be.

And Nick Falcone was plenty tempting.

I fixed an image of Edik in my mind—Edik and my empty bank account—and that pretty much took care of the temptation.

“Never saw that loony woman before in my life,” I told Nick.

He turned a steely eye on the vendor booths around us, scanning the grounds, and when he came up empty except for the couple vendors who were peeking around the corners of their booths now that the coast was clear, he hit a button on his walkie-talkie and asked Darien, the security assistant, to keep an eye out for Karmen the Crazy Lady. Business done, he looked my way. “What did she want?”

“Me, apparently.”

“If you don’t know her, why was she looking for you?”

I hate those sorts of questions, the kind that hint you’re not telling the truth without coming right out and saying it. Then again, what did I expect? Rumor around the Showdown was that Nick was ex-LAPD. That didn’t come as any big surprise. Like every cop I’d ever met, he had attitude galore and a chip on his shoulder a mile wide.

Pity they were such delicious shoulders. Then again, the whole package that was Nick Falcone wasn’t so bad, either.

Chestnut brown hair.

Eyes that were such a vivid blue, I found myself getting light-headed every time he looked my way.

Muscles that wouldn’t quit, and not the bulky, showy kind that so many guys think are the emblem of manhood. Nick was whip thin and wiry, every inch of his six-foot-something frame hardened by years out on the streets.

Or at least that’s the way I figured it in the backstory I imagined for him. Nick being Nick, he never said very much about himself or his background. In fact, he’d signed on to head security for the Showdown right after Jack went missing, right before I showed up to take over the Palace.

Me and Sylvia.

As if the very thought of her not-so-pleasant self was enough to conjure her presence, Sylvia came around the corner struggling with a couple cases of spice jars.

I guess it says something good about Nick that he didn’t hesitate for a second, damn him. He hurried right over and took the boxes out of her arms.

“Oh, Nick!” In her better moments, Sylvia is hard enough to stomach. When she’s trying to impress a guy . . . let me go on the record here and say it’s absolutely nauseating. As soon as her hands were free, she stepped back, tipped her face up to Nick’s, and passed a hand over her forehead. “Thanks. Those were awfully heavy. But not . . .” She batted her eyelashes. “You’re handling them as if they’re as light as feathers.”

“Hmph.” That was me. I mean, really, it was the only comment suitable for the situation.

Nick was either a really good actor or he honestly didn’t pick up on the bad vibes traveling from Sylvia to chili and back again. “They’re not all that heavy.” He set the boxes down on the countertop that up until Karmen’s whirlwind arrival had showcased our most popular spices.

She’d been so busy simpering, it was the first Sylvia noticed the mess. As if on cue, her cheeks paled and one of her hands flew to her mouth. “Maxie, did you—”

“Maxie didn’t do anything.” I wasn’t sure Nick believed this, but I was grateful for the assist. “There’s a troublemaker lose on the grounds.”

Sylvia stepped forward and put a hand on Nick’s arm. “Are we in any danger?”

“Please!” I made sure I sawed the word into two syllables, just so she’d know that I knew what she was up to. Didn’t Sylvia get it? Nick was so not her type.

What type was he?

Well, my type. If I was looking for a type. Which like I said, I wasn’t. Having had a type who I thought was my type who turned out to be no type but the wrong type.

But if I was looking, I might just look Nick’s way. After all, from what I’d heard, he left Los Angeles under a cloud of suspicion, and me and suspicion, we go together like ancho peppers and tamales.

Sylvia and suspicion?

Not so much.

Of course, that didn’t keep her from trying. While I fumbled for the zipper at the back of the giant chili, Sylvia practiced her come-and-get-it smile on Nick. It wasn’t like I was vying for attention, and it sure as hell wasn’t like I thought I had to compete with Sylvia. Not for any man. But I pushed the costume down to my waist, anyway. The Chick’s costume was made of canvas stretched over a wire frame, and after an hour in it, I probably looked like hell, but I was willing to take the chance. In a T-shirt, denim shorts, and with an hour of accumulated sweat dampening my hair, I might not look as put together and proper as Sylvia, but at least I was no phony-baloney.

I stepped out of the costume, scooped it up into my arms, and while I was at it, I kicked off the stilettos, too.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” I told Sylvia. “Karmen wasn’t looking for you. How could she be? Somebody who doesn’t have a life has a hard time making enemies.”

Sylvia sneered.

In the prettiest sort of way, of course.

I sneered right back.

And Nick, smart guy that he is, knew enough to steer clear.

He took another look around the area. “We’ll keep an eye out for the woman,” he said to neither one of us in particular. “And when we find her, I’ll talk to her before I escort her off the property. Maybe that will help explain what she’s up to.”

It wasn’t my imagination. He emphasized the word
that
just the teeniest bit. The meaning was just as obvious to me as if he’d come right out and said, “Since you won’t tell me what’s going on, maybe Karmen will,” but before I had a chance to call him on it, an RV twice the size of ours and a hundred times fancier rolled around the corner.

I heard Nick mumble something that sounded like, “Oh good, they’re here,” before he hurried over to the side of the Palace and directed the super-duper-sized vehicle to park right next door.

“That’s no good!” I scrambled over to Nick’s side, waving to my right to get the RV to move farther away from our booth at the same time he waved to the left to get it to park closer. “You can’t let him park there,” I told Nick. “He’s going to mess up the flow of traffic to our booth. Tomorrow when the show opens—”

“Not to worry.” When the driver stopped exactly where Nick indicated, Nick gave him the thumbs-up. “It’s only for today. It’s Carter Donnelly’s motorhome, the one he uses as a dressing trailer.”

“Carter Donnelly!” Before, Sylvia’s eyes had sparkled with what might, in some alternate universe, have passed for a come-hither look. Now they gleamed with sudden interest. She scampered over, already craning her neck to check out the driver of the RV and whoever else might be inside it. “He’s not supposed to be here until Sunday. That’s when he’s judging the Homestyle category of the cook-off.”

“That’s when he’s judging Homestyle, but not when he’s arriving. He’s supposed to be here . . .” Nick checked a watch that looked more pricey than a cop should have been able to afford. “He’s going to be here in a couple hours,” he said. “He wants to get some filming done today, before the Showdown gets too crowded.”

“And this Donnelly character is . . . ?”

It was the most logical question in the world, so Sylvia had no cause to give me an eye roll. The condescending little laugh she tossed my way along with it didn’t do much for my mood, either. “Come on, Maxie.” I couldn’t help but notice that she stepped closer to Nick at the same time she gave me a look that said she pitied the fool who was me. “Everybody knows Carter Donnelly. He’s got his own cable cooking show, his own restaurant in LA, a string of popular cookbooks, and another new book out that’s about wooing a woman with food. Everybody’s reading it. Everybody’s talking about it. It’s on the best-seller list.”

“Oh, that Carter Donnelly.” I wouldn’t have known him if I tripped over him, but I wasn’t about to admit that to Sylvia. “I thought it was the other one. You know, the anchor on the network news.”