Lisa Jackson's Bentz & Montoya Bundle: Hot Blooded, Cold Blooded, Shiver, Absolute Fear, Lost Souls, Malice, & an Exclusive Extended Excerpt From Devious (207 page)

What was the priest trying to tell her? Obviously to back off. But there was more, she knew, secrets he wasn’t about to share.

Her heart was beating like crazy as she swung off the bike and locked it against a post. Tearing off her helmet and wiping the rain from her face, she headed inside—and straight into the heart of chaos. The Bard’s Board was filled with the brunch crowd, people standing and waiting for tables, the line cooks working like mad, the wait staff searching for orders and hurrying through tables, the bus people clearing tables as soon as they were vacated.

One of the ovens had given up the ghost the night before and one of the fry cooks, who considered himself a handyman, was trying to fix it. He was on his knees, head inside, his big size-thirteen feet sticking in the small galley so that everyone had to step over him.

Kristi whipped on her apron, washed her hands, and grabbed her notepad. She didn’t have time to think about what had happened at Wagner House.

“Thank God you’re here!” Ezma breezed by with a tray of water glasses. “The new people can’t keep up.”

“I thought I was one of the new people.”

“I’m talking about Frick and Frack,” Ezma said under her breath. “They’re useless.” She slid a glance at two waiters. One, Frick, was a tall thin boy who looked no older than sixteen and was really named Finn. Frack was a girl somewhere around twenty with rosy cheeks, springy brown curls, and curves she didn’t bother to conceal. Her real name was Francesca, but it didn’t seem to fit. Even during this mad rush, Frick-Finn was taking time to flirt with her and Frack-Francesca was eating it up, ignoring her tables.

Kristi scanned the specials. “This is it?” she asked, noting that some of the more popular items, shrimp crepes, crab cakes, and crawfish etouffee had been erased from the chalkboard, the faint outline of their Shakespearean names still visible.

“With the oven on the fritz we’re down to a lot of the stuff that was made earlier or can be sauteed. Push the jambalaya and catfish fritters.”

“Okay.”

“Can I get a clean table?” the harried hostess asked of the kitchen staff. She was standing a few steps from the front desk and door where patrons were clustered, waiting. “What about thirteen? Or eleven? I’ve got people who’ve been waiting out front for a half hour!”

“I’m on it.” Miguel, one of the busboys, hurried past and was picking up dirty plates, glasses, and flatware before Kristi finished tying her apron.

Francesca looked up, spied Kristi, and immediately went into complaint mode. “It’s about time you showed up,” she chastised, breaking up her tête-à-tête with Finn. “It’s been a nightmare this morning, let me tell you,” she said, as Finn, with a quick look over his shoulder, turned back to the tables in his section of the restaurant.

Francesca’s cheeks were flushed as she untied her apron, further showing the area of her blouse where the fabric gapped, offering a peek at her lacy bra and cleavage. “People with kids, and I mean
young
kids, babies, and the tips have been miserable. Just awful. I should have stayed home and called in sick.” She stuffed her dirty apron in the laundry basket and reached for her jacket.

Waa, waa, waa,
Kristi thought, wondering if the lousy tips had anything to do with the girl’s obvious lack of interest in her job.

Unfortunately Ezma and Francesca’s evaluation of the situation was spot on. With one oven disabled and a cook out of commission as he tried to fix it, the finished orders were slow to reach the window where the waiters were to pick them up.

Worse yet, in Kristi’s section, she saw familiar faces. Dr. Croft, the head of the English Department, had just been seated along with Dr. Emmerson, her Shakespeare 201 instructor with the biker dude persona. Today, though, he’d shaved, his usual T-shirt given up in favor of a gray sweater, his hair still a carefully planned mess. The third member of the group was Dr. Hollister, Jay’s boss, head of the fledgling Criminal Justice Department.

A toxic trio
, Kristi thought as she greeted them, handed out menus, and smiling, rattled off the specials that still remained. “…and if you’re interested in jambalaya, I hear it’s wonderful today.”

“Is it hot?” Dr. Emmerson asked, his eyebrows lifting, almost flirting. “Spicy?”

“No more than usual, but yes, I think it’s got a little kick to it.”

“Just the way I like it.”

“Down boy,” Natalie Croft said, her lips twitching a bit.

Yuck,
Kristi thought. But at least it drove out all thoughts that she was way behind in his class, and she had several assignments that she hadn’t yet read.

“Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Mmm. I’ll have sweet tea,” Dr. Croft said. She was a tall woman, with porcelain skin, dark hair, with just the beginnings of crows feet showing in the corners of her eyes. Her nose was patrician, her demeanor a little standoffish.

“Coffee for me,” Dr. Hollister said, slipping a pair of rimless reading glasses onto her nose as she studied the menu, tucking a wayward strand of black hair behind her ear.

“Yeah, me too, the coffee. Black.” Dr. Emmerson looked up at her and a spark of recognition touched his face. “You’re a student of mine, aren’t you?”

Kristi nodded. That was the trouble with this damned job, located as it was, so close to campus.

He snapped his fingers. “Shakespeare, right? Two-oone?”

“That’s right.”

Kristi didn’t want to get into a discussion here in the middle of rush hour at the restaurant, but she didn’t have to worry as Dr. Hollister inadvertently came to the rescue. “Oh, I’d like cream with my coffee. No, make it skim milk, is that possible?” She gazed questioningly at Kristi over the tops of the half-glasses perched on her nose.

“Not a problem. I’ll be right back with it.”

“Miss!” a petulant man’s voice called from a table in the next section. “We’ve been waiting here for ten minutes and would like to order. Can you help us?”

Kristi nodded. “I’ll get your server.”

“Can’t you just take the order?” he asked, checking his watch. He was seated with a grumpy-looking heavyset woman and two preteen kids who were already beginning to fiddle and slap at each other.

“Stop that!” the woman said sharply.

The older kid ignored her and stuck his tongue out at his sister. She shrieked as if he’d slapped her.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Marge, control them, will you?” the man insisted as Kristi flipped the page of her notepad.

“Sure, I can take your order,” Kristi said to stem the tide of pandemonium that was about to erupt amongst this happy little family. “What would you like?”

“Strawberry waffles!” the girl yelled. “With whipped cream.”

“It has a different name. It’s called—” her mother said.

“That’s okay, I’ve got it.” Kristi managed a smile as she hurriedly finished taking the order. In the kitchen Finn was nursing a cola and looking as if he’d just run a marathon. “No time to rest,” she warned him, tearing off the page for his table. “Take care of this. Table seven. And you’d better not mess around. The natives are getting restless.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Figure it out!” She slapped the order into his hand, tried to ignore his I-didn’t-do-nuthin’ expression, and grabbed the plate of drinks for her table, even remembering the small pitcher of nonfat milk. After depositing the drinks at Dr. Croft’s table, she took their food orders, then stopped by several other tables as well, including a surprise birthday party for an elderly woman with a walker who had trouble understanding the Shakespearean lingo her equally old, but spry, husband found so amusing. Somehow the cook-cum-electrician got the oven working again and with him on the line, orders came up faster and tables could be turned. Even Frick-Finn, after a scolding, pulled his act together.

All the while she worked, Kristi felt as if the professors in the diner were watching her. She passed by their table several times and heard snatches of conversation.

“…might have to make a few changes…” Natalie Croft said as she bit into her beignet and wiped the extra honey from the corner of her mouth.

A few minutes later, she was still speaking. “…well, I know, but it was Father Tony’s idea. Trying to make the school more interesting and Grotto’s a natural. I don’t know why Anthony’s so insistent that we continue with the courses, but it is popular….” She lowered her voice as Kristi stopped by to refill the coffee cups.

The conversation caught Kristi’s interest but she couldn’t eavesdrop as her tables, though clustered near each other, were filled with noisy patrons needing service. However as she carried out trays of plated food, refilled glasses and tallied up bills, she noticed that the three professors were deep in discussion, serious and unsmiling. They declined dessert, gave her a reasonable tip, and left as the crowd finally began to thin.

She was about to close out her section when Jay strolled into the restaurant, big as life. He spoke with the hostess and landed one of the small two-person tables in her part of the restaurant.

Kristi propped one fist against her hip. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Didn’t get much to eat at your place,” he said with a wink.

“Neither did I.” She’d been so busy she hadn’t noticed how hungry she was, but now that things had slowed down, her stomach rumbled.

“So what do you suggest?”

“That you wait for me outside and take me somewhere
else
for lunch.”

“Better yet, we’ll order from the to-go menu and take it back to your place. There’s something I want to show you.”

“Give me fifteen minutes to close out the section,” she said as he scraped back his chair, catching the evil eye from the hostess who had seated him specifically where he’d requested.

Kristi finished up in no time, untied her apron, tossed it into the laundry hamper, and waved good-bye to Ezma, who was pulling a double shift. A few minutes later, getting soaked by the rain, she steered her bike to Jay’s pickup, tossed it into the back, and pushed Bruno out of the way as she climbed inside. The cab was already filled with the spicy scent of tomatoes, garlic, and seafood. “Don’t tell me, the hostess suggested the jambalaya.”

“Sounded good.” Jay backed out of his parking space while Bruno shifted on her lap and they headed to her apartment.

Just like a married couple,
she thought idly while the windshield wipers battled the rain.
The husband comes and picks up his wife after work.

“I was late for my shift today,” she said as the radio played some country song, “because I stopped by Wagner House.” She gave him a quick, abbreviated version of what had happened and Jay listened quietly as he drove the short distance to Kristi’s place. When she’d finished, ending with Father Mathias’s warning, his expression was sober. “Maybe it’s time we went to the police.”

“With what? Some kind of warning about me not trespassing? I don’t think either Georgia Clovis—oh, excuse me, Georgia
Wagner
Clovis—and Father Mathias Glanzer are any big threats.”

“I’ve met Georgia,” he said. “I wouldn’t underestimate her.”

“You met her?”

“At one of the faculty/administration meet and greets. She was there, along with her sister and brother.” He glanced at Kristi. “As far as I could tell, there’s no love lost between the Wagner heirs. They avoided each other all night. Georgia seems like the alpha dog of the group.”

“Is that your way of calling her a bitch?”

One side of his mouth twitched. “The rest of the clan wasn’t all that much better. Her brother, Calvin, looked uncomfortable as hell, as if he were at the get-together under duress, and the younger sister, Napoli, kept to herself, but I had the distinct feeling she didn’t miss much. An odd group. All hung up on being ‘Wagners’ like the name held the same weight as Rockefeller or Kennedy.”

“Like them, did you?” she teased.

“They were a laugh riot.”

She grinned and scratched Bruno behind his ears. “So what are your plans for the rest of the day?”

“I have to work this afternoon. Grade some papers.”

She groaned, knowing hers would be among them. “Give me an A plus, would ya? I could use one.”

“I told you I’m grading you the hardest.”

“Hmmm. What can I do…to change your mind?”

His lips curved and he pretended to think hard for a minute. “I’ll take sex.”

“Sex for an A plus?”

“No. I’ll just take sex.”

Kristi made a strangled sound. “I’m not that easy, Professor McKnight. You might want to call Mai Kwan. She was all about you this morning. I think she’s got a crush.”

“A ‘crush,’” he repeated thoughtfully. “How about you…Student Bentz?”

“Nah.”

“You’re a bad liar. You’ve got a major crush on me.”

“A complete fabrication.”

He grinned like a dope and she had to look away, her heart tripping over itself with stupid joy. All too fast she knew she was falling in love with Jay, something she’d sworn to herself she would never do. And damn it, he knew it. She saw it in the smug smile that settled over his sexy, in-serious-need-of-a-shave jaw. Damn him to hell and back.

Adjusting the wipers to a quicker pace, he said, “So, I thought I’d work from your place.”

Kristi smiled faintly. The thought of being cooped up with him for the rest of the afternoon with rain beating on the eaves, maybe a fire in the grate, sounded like heaven. She needed a break, needed to quit thinking about missing girls and vampires and vials of blood. “Sounds good.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll look very studious, very professorish on camera.”

“On camera?”

“Yeah, film,” he said enigmatically, obviously enjoying her consternation as he turned a corner and the apartment house came into view.

“You want me to, what? Take a movie of you? I don’t have a video camera and even if I did, I really don’t have time—”

“Not you.”

“What’re you talking about?”

The truck bumped its way into the parking lot and Jay pulled into an open space by her car, then cut the engine. “You’ll see,” he said, and suddenly there wasn’t a trace of laughter in his eyes. “Come on up.”