Foods, Fools and a Dead Psychic, Maria Swan [reading list TXT] 📗

of course, the food had to be fantastic. After all, Brenda was in charge of the menu. Sunny was leaving with a stack of files under her arm. She gave me a thumbs up, without slowing her pace.

“We have a closing date.”

No need to explain. My heart summersaulted. We were closing Tristan’s horse ranch in Tucson. Bittersweet news. I was about to get a nice chunk of money. Then again, this meant the end of my business-related connection with Dumont.

“Why the sad face?”

I didn’t hear Kassandra sneaking up on me.

“Everyone is gone. Get your stuff and I’ll switch the phones to the answering service. Let’s go party,” she said with a wicked grin.

“Seriously Kassandra? It’s Monday. Tomorrow morning we are back here.”

“Aren’t you a barrel of fun? Let’s go somewhere with outside tables, and I don’t mean North Italia. Somewhere with loud people and music. You are not going to believe what I found out today. Let’s go. You’ve got ten minutes to get to your car before I set the alarm.”

She turned around and left me there wondering what had she been doing. Bathing in Red Bull?

Seven minutes later I unlocked my Fiat 500. What was that old saying? “Curiosity killed the cat?” No cat here, just Monica Baker, dying of curiosity.

TEN

“I NEED TO get back to my tarot cards. Every morning, before starting the day, I would pull a random card from the stack. It helped me mentally. Haven’t done that in a while and now my whole life is going down the toilet.”

This from the girlfriend who demanded a place with loud people and music and outside tables, etc. Wow! What’s next? Crying in her drink? “I never pulled any card,” I said, “and my life isn’t any smoother than yours right now. But what happened with Celine?”

How did we end up here anyhow? I had no idea El Chorro offered happy hours. Of course it wasn’t like the happy hours we were familiar with. I did get a glass of generic white wine at a reasonable price, but the food was a little too upscale right at this moment. I couldn’t even pronounce some of the items on the menu. And even the building was different. Bigger? More modern? I couldn’t be sure. The only other time I’d been there was with Tommy, my ex, and we were newlyweds. While I perused the architectural wonders of the lodge, Kassandra ordered a dirty martini. Not a good thing. I finally settled on my go-to when in doubt: Calamari, hold the sauce, lots of lemon.

“Oh, that bimbo in high heels.” She wiped olive juice from her lips. “She showed up on Dumont’s trail, as usual. Somehow she didn’t find him right away. I don’t know, maybe he used the john. Eventually she chased him to the parking lot but he drove off. I assume she then noticed your can of Pepto-Bismol parked there, and no trace of you at the office. Of course, I wasn’t about to volunteer that you borrowed my car.” She giggled. “Way too much fun to watch her come unglued. I knew she had visited the fair, and had suspicions about why, but kept it to myself. Then while she’s looking around to see who she can harass next, her mother summons her to her office and before the door closed on her sweet cheeks, I heard something about ‘you at the Psychic fair.’ I swear, she didn’t get it from me.” She gulped down her martini.

Too embarrassed to ask why her cocktail was called dirty, I focused on squeezing lemon wedges on my calamari when she ordered another martini. “Kassandra, you are eating olives and drinking hard liquor. You won’t be able to drive home.”

“It’s okay, my Kia is like a horse; she’ll take me home, no problem.”

“Yes. Problem. For starters, we are in Paradise Valley, with the most organized and effective police force. Seriously, why are you drinking so much? What happened while I was gone from the office?”

“Aren’t you the cutest little curious Italian?” She reached over to poke me and spilled her drink all over the table. I took that as a blessing until the waiter who had been circling the table ever since we got there with his eyes on Kassandra, hurried over and brought another martini. Courtesy of the house, he said. Or something just as stupid. Kassandra didn’t hear him. She was head down trying to find the olive that had rolled under the table.

“That’s it,” I said. “Get up, I’m driving you home. We’ll leave your car here. You can get it in the morning. I’ll talk to the manager.”

“No one goes home with me, no one.” Was she crying? “It’s all my fault. Poor Miss Fortune. No, no, not Fortune her name is — was — Peg. Peg Campos. I like Fortune better; what do you think, Monica?”

“I think that it’s time to go. Can you walk? No, wait. Let me go pay and make sure we can leave the Kia parked overnight. Do you need to get something from the car? Is it locked? Damn, I don’t even know where you live.”

“I’m not telling you.” She reached over and grabbed my glass, drinking whatever little was left. “Everybody lies. That Bill Smith lied. He didn’t even live in the house where I left my bra.” Kassandra was getting louder and louder. Well, we did accomplish something. We were in a place with loud people, that’s for sure. I left her at the table, mumbling to herself and went to pay the bill. I asked if I could leave Kassandra’s vehicle there. The answer was yes but the whole compound would be locked up until around eight a.m.

I didn’t care; anything was better than Kassandra attempting to drive home. I still couldn’t understand how she got drunk so fast. Unless she was already drinking at the office.

Getting her to sit in my Fiat was another chore. I pushed the passenger seat as far back as