Death of an Italian Chef by Lee Hollis

Author:Lee Hollis [Hollis, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2021-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

When Hayley dragged her weary bones through the back door into her kitchen after driving home from the restaurant, it was already a few minutes past eleven. Leroy was there to excitedly greet her as she stumbled in. She opened the cupboard, grabbed a box of doggie treats, and tossed one toward him, which he ably caught in his mouth. Then, after trying to call Bruce and getting his voice mail, she slowly made the trek up the staircase, an attention-starved Leroy eagerly scampering behind her, and took a long, hot, scalding shower to wash off the dirt and grime and smell of food in her hair.

She knew her night was far from over.

Usually on the weekends, Hayley would get a head start on her columns for the week so she wasn’t so slammed during office hours while tending to her other duties. But with all that had been going on, she had failed to even crack open her computer. Once she toweled off and threw on some gray sweatpants and a ratty pink T-shirt, she climbed into bed with her laptop and popped it open.

She stared at the blank screen, impatiently waiting for inspiration to strike, but it never came.

Leroy snuggled up beside her, instantly falling asleep. As she stared down at him, his little body heaving up and down as he snoozed peacefully, his eyes shut tight, her own eyes became heavy and she couldn’t resist setting her computer down on Bruce’s empty side of the bed and wiggling deep down underneath the white goose-down comforter, joining her little dog in dreamland.

She had no idea how long she had drifted off to sleep when her buzzing phone on the nightstand next to her suddenly snapped her awake. Hayley shot up in bed as Leroy fitfully shifted his position with a sigh. She grabbed her phone.

It was Bruce returning her call.

“Bruce?”

“Hi, babe. Sorry I missed your call earlier. I was in the middle of a subway tunnel with no service on my way back to Manhattan from Brooklyn.”

“Are you at your hotel now?”

“Yeah, I just got back.”

“Sounds like a long day.”

“It was, and I have to be at the courthouse in the morning by eight.”

“I’m sorry,” Hayley said guiltily. “I know today was supposed to be your one day off.”

“I have a number of ways you can make it up to me when I come home after the trial,” Bruce said.

She could picture him in her mind leering.

“Did you find anything useful?”

“Oh, yeah, I had coffee with Alonzo this morning, and he gave me the names of a bunch of people in the neighborhood to talk to, childhood friends, former restaurant employees. I spent most of the day tracking them all down. Some refused to talk to me for whatever reason, but a few turned out to be fountains of information. I just emailed you some news articles that corroborate what I found. But the bottom line is, Luca Esposito, aka Chef Romeo, ran a very successful restaurant in Bensonhurst.

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