Waffles at the Wake Read online

  She knots up her lips as she gets to me, and her eyes narrow over mine. Fiona is as razor sharp as she is gorgeous. She won’t want me mucking up her jury. I already know she thinks I’m a ditz. Fiona flicks a smile my way before gliding right past me and nodding to Annie.

  “Juror fifteen, have you ever been in a relationship with a man that’s ended on less than savory terms?”

  Annie snorts. “Which one of us hasn’t?” She glances to Everett then the prosecutor. “But I’ve never held it against the male population. I would never let one bad apple ruin the bunch.”

  Fiona cocks her head. “Let’s say your sister wanted to date the man. Would you feel protective over her in that situation?”

  “You bet your one thousand dollar stilettoes I would. There’s no way I’d let that louse get anywhere near my baby sister.”

  Fiona’s blood red lips stretch tightly. “That’s all.” She clip-clops her way back to her seat, and a breath hitches in my throat.

  “Wait,” I call after her, and she turns around. “What about me? I mean, don’t you want to ask me any questions?”

  Fiona’s brows hike as her face fills with amusement. “No, I don’t. Judge Baxter vouched for you himself. Who am I to contest wise counsel?” Her lips curve as if she took pleasure in the fact she was cementing my fate for God knows how long.

  Poop. The window is closing on my opportunity to get out of this potential month-long legal debacle. I need to start clawing at my neck, at Annie’s neck, at everyone’s neck, or eating potted plants at random to get myself out of this mess. And just my luck, there’s not a potted plant in sight.

  Fiona and Mr. Wolfe confer before walking up to Everett, and the three of them hem and haw while sneaking glances our way.

  Mr. Wolfe steps this way and dismisses about half of the jury pool before Everett taps his gavel lightly over the marble counter in front of him as he nods our way.

  “I’ll see the rest of you bright and early tomorrow for opening statements.” Everett offers me the same stern expression as he gives everyone else. “Once the trial begins, you’re not to speak to anyone regarding what’s said inside this courtroom. Don’t pass any judgments until you’ve been instructed to do so. And defer your right to weigh the evidence until you have all of the information. You are dismissed for the day.” He sounds his gavel once again, and the jurors begin to file out.

  Annie gives both Everett and Mr. Wolfe a cheeky wave before heading on out while shaking her hips so hard you’d think her legs were disjointing with every step.

  Mr. Wolfe shakes his head at Everett. “I’ve got to give it to you, Judge Baxter. You could have dismissed your wife.”

  “I wouldn’t dare,” Everett says without missing a beat.

  Mr. Wolfe chuckles. “Believe me, I was only following your lead. I’ll see you both in the morning. And congratulations on the baby.” He takes off, and it’s Fiona alone with Everett and me.

  “Well, well, Essex”—she muses—“it looks as if you finally found the right flavor lollipop.”

  “It’s Lottie.” I don’t mind getting snippy with her since she’s just as culpable for me remaining in the jury pool as Everett is.

  “As far as I’m concerned, you’re juror number twenty-three.” She grins over at Everett. “We’ll have drinks when this is all over. It’ll be just like old times.” She winks as she takes off and I scoff in her wake.

  “What does she mean ‘just like old times’?” I’m still choking on a river of words as Everett steps down and takes me by the hand.

  “I’m not interested in old times.” His lids hood low as his lips curve with wicked intent. “Besides, I had a first happen today. I had very naughty fantasies about a juror sitting in my courtroom. I should be ashamed.” That budding smile widens because clearly he is not.

  “You should be punished.” I glide my hand down the front of his chest. “And disrobed. Now take me to your chambers so I can do both.”

  Everett does just that, and I make good on both of those threats.

  Everett Baxter is going to rue the day he locked me into a month-long sentence in the confines of his courtroom, but for now he’s very much enjoying himself.

  I never said I was going to make him suffer.

  But someone has to pay.

  And whoever killed Angel Face Flo is as good a candidate as any.

  Chapter 6

  “You got picked for jury duty?” Carlotta riots as if it were the greatest offense, and in a way it is.

  Everett and I stopped off at the bakery on the way home, and he’s seated at a table noshing on a stack of waffles while going over plans for our new home with Bear while I regale Keelie, Carlotta, Evie, and Flo by default, with tales from the legal eagle’s nest.

  Keelie clucks her tongue. “I’m sorry, Lottie. You should have squawked like a chicken or started taking your clothes off. Or puking. You are with child. You’ve gotta learn to use this sort of thing to your advantage.”

  Carlotta shakes her head as she looks over at Everett. “I can’t believe Sexy is holding you against your will. I think it’s high time you withhold something yourself.”

  “That’s gross,” Evie says as she cuts off a piece of that golden waffle in front of her, doused in fresh Vermont maple syrup. “But if Dad tried to pull a stunt like that with me, I’d never speak to him again. We all know he had the power to send you back to the bakery.”

  “No way, Lot.” Flo breaks off a piece of Evie’s waffle, and to my horror pops it into her mouth, so I quickly mimic the motion before both Keelie and Evie realize that jury duty is the least of my problems. “You keep that man satisfied. In fact, you’d better work double time at it. When you’ve got a hot commodity like that, you have to work twice as hard to keep him from straying.”

  “Mom.” Evie looks as if she wants to kick me. “Get your own waffle. I’m half-starved after the day I’ve had. Dash and I went out to Fallbrook and raided Cressi-duh’s ridiculous closet boutique. Can you believe she actually has armed guards patrolling the place? Trying to watch us change?”

  My eyes bulge wide. “Evie! Those were nothing but perverts with guns. Why would you change in front of them?”

  “Don’t worry.” She sets her blue eyes to mine. “Once I saw how interested they were in watching a sixteen-year-old take off her clothes, I started filming the whole thing and told them I was making a documentary for my class on child predators. Then I mentioned the fact my uncle was a top cop and my dad was a judge who likes to make people suffer. And what do you know? They suddenly had to go out for a smoke.”

  Flo honks out a laugh. In all seriousness, it sounds as if the horn on my minivan went off three times fast.

  “This girl’s got hutzpah.” Flo takes another bite from Evie’s waffle, and I’m left filling in as the guilty, albeit hungry, culprit. It turns out, Flo has hutzpah, too.

  Evie gives me the stink eye. “Do it again and die.”

  Flo titters. “I like this kid,” she says as she snaps off another bite, and for a second I consider letting Flo take the heat on her own, but for the sake of everyone’s sanity, I bite the bullet and risk my own demise.

  “Mom!” Evie wails. “Fine.” She slides the plate my way. “It’s as if that kid has you possessed. I forgive you.”

  Keelie belts out a laugh. “Don’t worry, Evie. I’ll get you another stack.” And she quickly does just that. “You can’t really blame your mom. She’s programmed to eat everything she can for the next two months.” Keelie pats her belly. “And maybe a little beyond that. Who knew it would take so much energy to be a mom?”

  Carlotta waves her off. “Who cares about being a mother?” She turns to Evie. “Tell us about the loot you snagged from the Bentley vault. Did you get jewels? Cash and prizes?”

  “Just a stupid hot dress.”

  Flo nods. “She means stupid in a good way. I have a niece who taught me all the new lingo.”

  Evie pulls out her phone and flashes her screen our way
to reveal a picture of her in a sheer lace number that stops about mid-thigh, low-cut, no back, and leaves almost nothing to the imagination.

  “Conner and Kyle are going to have heart attacks when they see me in this.” Her lips curve with pride. “And then their brains are going to melt.”

  I nod. “Your dad’s brain is going to melt, too.”

  “Ooh.” Flo pokes me on the arm. “If we off the judge, maybe jury duty will get canceled and you can focus on my case instead?”

  I shake my head at her. “We’re not offing the judge,” I whisper.

  Carlotta nods. “Don’t forget the heart attack.”

  “Geez, Mom.” Evie takes back her phone. “If you really think Dad will bite the big one just because I’m showing a little skin, I won’t let him see me in it. But Conner and Kyle? Face it, with a dress like that, I’ll have those boys eating out of the palm of my hand.”

  “That’s where you went wrong, Lottie,” Flo says while picking up my fork and stabbing at my waffles, and I quickly cover my hand with hers. “You need to show some leg to that judge boyfriend of yours.”

  “Husband,” I correct, and Everett looks my way from across the room.

  “That’s a thought,” Carlotta says. “Why don’t you wear something skimpy and show some leg in court, Lot? I bet Mr. Sexy will send you home for good before the other men in the room fall in love with you, too. You’ve got my stems, Lot Lot. And believe me, I’ve used them as weapons of mass destruction before. All you gotta do is grease ’em up with some baby oil. Once they’re good and shiny, you’ll be slippin’ and slidin’ your way to freedom.”

  “She’s right.” Evie nods into the lunacy. “But don’t forget to shave.”

  “I can’t shave my legs,” I grunt. “It’s too hard.” I look to Keelie. “Will you come over and shave my legs?”

  Carlotta waves me off. “Don’t worry about it, Keelie. Lot Lot has Foxy to do her dirty work. That boy has been sweating it out on the sidelines. You might just make his whole year by asking him to do it.”

  Everett and Bear pop up.

  Everett looks so alarmingly, vexingly, handsome in his dark inky suit, it’s proving impossible for me to stay mad at him. And Bear looks as if he fell into a cement mixer with his dirty blond hair slicked back and coated with the gray stuff and his clothes encrusted and shredded.

  “What’s going on?” Everett nods my way.

  Evie lifts a finger. “Mom is plotting to have Uncle Noah shave her legs so she can get kicked out of jury duty.” She winks my way. “You’re welcome.”

  My mouth falls open. “Not true,” I tell him. “Mostly.” I make a face. “What’s going on with the house?”

  Keelie gasps. “Did we get the job?”

  Everett bows his head in my direction, and my lips invert because I know as soon as I agree to this I’m going to regret it. Oh heck, I regret it already.

  I look to Bear and nod. “I think you have the job.”

  Both Bear and Keelie whoop up a storm, sending half the customers running for the door.

  “But”—I hold up a hand, and Flo swipes a cruller from the pasty shelf—“I need this house finished in an acceptable time frame.” More like an acceptable decade.

  Keelie gives a frenetic nod. “Don’t worry, Lottie. You won’t have to wait a million years to move into your new house. I’ll have him do a rush job.”

  I suck in a quick breath. “No rush job!” Visions of my brand new home collapsing like a house of cards ignite a whole new fear in me. “Take your time, Bear. Take all the time you need.”

  Evie rolls her eyes. “So much for me moving in before I move out to go to college.”

  “Don’t worry, kid,” Bear looks her way. “You’ll be enjoying that en suite bedroom of yours before senior year. My goal is to finish some time next summer.”

  Flo steps over. “Speaking of next summer, are we going after my killer or not? Wrap this up, girls. I know for a fact my witches are meeting up at Gia’s House for a sit-down and a pizza. We gotta get over there before we miss the good stuff. And believe me, Lottie Lemon, I don’t like being on a spiritual leash, so you’ll get a move on if you know what’s good for you.”

  I don’t bother to hide my frown. I’m not sure which is worse, having a rush job done on my house or being threatened by the very ghost whose murder I’m trying to solve. On second thought, it’s jury duty that takes that horrible cake.

  “It’s dinnertime.” I look to Carlotta. “We’d better get a move on.”

  “Don’t worry, Lottie.” Keelie helps untie my apron. “I’ll close up shop with Lily tonight. You go enjoy yourself.”

  “Keelie, you don’t have to do that,” I say. “You should get home to the baby.”

  “No way.” Keelie shudders. “He won’t be in bed for another hour and a half. And he gets real mean about it, too.”

  Bear nods. “We like to steer clear until my mother has the situation handled.”

  “That’s right,” Keelie says. “Then we sneak in the back door and don’t make a sound, just hoping he’ll sleep through the night. But he doesn’t.” She looks despondent at the thought. “And I don’t think he ever will.”

  Carlotta grins up at me. “See whatcha got to look forward to? A baby bomb going off at all hours of the night.”

  Evie glances back at Bear. “I want soundproof walls. Spare no expense on top-of-the-line materials. I can’t risk my beauty sleep.”

  Carlotta slaps her hand to the counter. “I second that.”

  Bear takes a breath. “Okay, but it’ll cost you twice as much for the drywall.”

  Everett’s eyes widen a notch as he looks to Bear. “We’ll talk.” His chest expands as he looks my way. “Lemon, let’s do dinner.”

  We wrap it up and head into the icy cold night as I try to think of a way to lose Everett and Evie so Carlotta and I can get to Gia’s house, whoever that may be.

  And here I was hoping having Flo around would make this investigation a breeze.

  I also thought I was going to get out of jury duty.

  Turns out, I was wrong on both counts.

  Chapter 7

  Gia’s House is a restaurant out in Leeds that sits about a block from Red Satin Gentlemen’s Club, the Canellis’ famed hotspot.

  Gia’s House is more or less a club or a lounge with a dimly lit smoky interior. The floors are comprised of dark-stained plywood, the walls are covered with gilded frames filled with pictures of the old country—people, places, animals with their faces shoved in a plate of spaghetti—and Sinatra blares from the speakers. The thick scent of garlic and roasted tomato sauce hit us hard as soon as we stepped into the place, and oddly enough, it didn’t send me running in an effort to bow down before the nearest porcelain throne. Hey? Maybe my nausea up and did a disappearing act?

  A waitress walks by with a platter full of pasta with tentacles sticking out of it every which way, and my stomach does a quick revolution to remind me who’s really in control.

  A dull moan comes from me as I clamp my hand over my belly.

  “Lemon?” Everett gives my hand a squeeze. “Everything okay?”

  “I’m fine.” I take a deep breath and force myself to power through it. “I just need to get my bearings.”

  We dropped Evie off at the house for an impromptu study group she has meeting there. As soon as she heard her parents would be gone for hours, she suddenly had a hankering for geometry—and her boyfriends. Dash will be there, too, but that didn’t make me feel any better.

  Of course, once we found out Gia’s House was some hopping club in Leeds, Everett wasn’t about to let me venture off to the dark side on my own. And knowing Carlotta was going to be with me didn’t make him feel any better either. Can’t blame him for that one.

  “Trust me, I’m fine,” I say as a waitress comes over and stops cold once she sees Everett.

  “Holy mother of all things fried,” the woman in the short green skirt quips. She has dark curly hair that looks wet
and yet crunchy to the touch at the very same time, and her face is made up to the nines with two-inch long lashes and red-hot lips.

  I don’t need to be a mind reader to know where she’d like for those red-hot lips to end up.

  She bats her lashes up at my hubby. “How’s it going, hot stuff?”

  Flo grunts, “That’s Nab Your Man Nicole. Tell her you’ll seat yourself and then give her the evil eye so she doesn’t come sniffin’ around again.”

  Flo’s hair is teeming with tiny onyx-colored stars tonight, her face glows like the moon, and her beauty looks ever so much sharper as if she, too, dropped by home to spruce up for dinner.

  “We’ll seat ourselves,” I tell the woman as I pull Everett in close by way of his arm. But as it turns out, I don’t have the heart to give her the evil eye.

  “Have it your way, honey.” Nab-Your-Man Nicole whips out her notepad, scribbling something over it before handing it to Everett. “Here’s my numba. Use it, don’t lose it. I’m certified in Pilates. I specialize in six way stretches.” She gives a sly wink before taking off.

  I can’t help but scoff in her wake. “Can you believe that?”

  Flo rolls her eyes. “Oh hon, you’re not in Kansas anymore. You should have left that hottie at home to warm the bed. And yet you’ve brought him right into the lion’s den.”

  Carlotta takes a breath. “Why do you think I didn’t bring Harry? I know this bunch. Things are gonna get messy, Lot. I’d stamp your lip prints all over his face and collar if I were you.”

  Flo shakes her head. “Not gonna help. Half the women here aren’t even interested in a man until he’s taken. You’ll just up his value.”

  A dark chuckle rumbles through Everett’s chest. “Don’t worry, Lemon. I’ve only got eyes for you.”

  Flo laughs at the thought. “Oh sweetie, your eyes are nice, but they’re the last thing this crowd is after.”

  Flo leads the way, and soon we’re taken to a round table in the back buzzing with women with matching long dark hair, furry lashes, bright painted lips, and matching inch-long nails. Four large pizzas sit between them, and dotting the center of the table is a ceramic replica of the Pope’s head in a glass box. Seems about right.