To Brie or Not to Brie by Avery Aames

Author:Avery Aames
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Suspense
ISBN: 9781101619148
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2013-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

Zinging with good vibes, I hurried to A Wheel Good Time. During school hours, the shop wasn’t busy. A pair of women sat at a table dabbing paint on matching bowls. A mother and toddler nestled beside a counter filled with coffee mugs, teapots, vases, and more, searching for an item to paint. “Margaritaville” played through speakers. I zigzagged through the shop as Jimmy Buffett crooned, “Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame, but I know it’s nobody’s fault.”

In seconds, I found Jacky at the rear of the shop, bent over a turntable, working a palette knife beneath a clay vase. Her creations never failed to impress me, the current one broad at the base with grooves tooled around the narrow neck. Her gaze met mine as I rushed toward her. “Great news,” I cried. “My grandfather can corroborate your alibi on the night of the murder.”

“But I thought you convinced Urso that I wasn’t…” She paused. “Don’t be naïve, Jacky,” she whispered to herself then raised her gaze to meet mine. Sorrow flooded her eyes. “Of course he thought I was guilty. Everyone does.” With a heartfelt sigh, she lifted the vase, wiped her palette knife on her apron, and shuffled to a workstation. She set the vase on the shelf beside other items that were ready to be fired in the kiln. “Tell me what your grandfather said.”

I explained that Pépère hadn’t felt well, and he had gone outside often through the night. “He saw you and Cecily pacing. He didn’t come forward until now because Grandmère kept the news about the murder and everything else from him. But now, thanks to him, you’re cleared. Completely.”

The colorful hand-glazed clock over the kiln chimed once for the quarter hour. It resounded like a good omen, and yet Jacky heaved another sigh.

She swiveled away from me, but not before I noticed tears pooling in her eyes. “Time is so precious,” she said.

“Yes, it is.” I laid a hand on her shoulder.

She patted my hand and nestled onto a stool beside the counter. She touched the seat of another stool, indicating I should sit. “Did I ever tell you about the day that I first met Giacomo?”

She hadn’t. I knew only snippets of her past life from things Jordan felt he could reveal.

“Time stopped,” she said. “I couldn’t breathe. He was so handsome, so charismatic. Never in my life had a man professed love to me so quickly. Starry-eyed, I didn’t look beyond the surface. A few short months later, I met his cruel side. He had addictions—to food, to liquor, to women. He had affairs from the day we got married.”

“I didn’t know.”

“None lasted a long time. He quickly grew tired of the women, so I tolerated the missteps. But when he began to blame me for his shortcomings…” Jacky toyed with the ring on her right hand then released it and laid her hand on the counter. “All of the women looked like me: dark hair, dark eyes, but they were younger.

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