A Pie to Die For by Gretchen Rue

Author:Gretchen Rue
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

Chapter Eighteen

The morning flew by in spite of there being a relatively regular-sized crowd. All the usual suspects were present, with Vin and Eddie sitting at their usual booth and bickering with each other instead of actually doing their crossword puzzles.

I did notice, though, that once again a vague hush would sweep the room whenever I emerged from the kitchen, giving me the uneasy sense of walking into a room where people had just finished talking about me. I tried to pretend it didn’t bother me and that it was just a coincidence, but there was no doubt about it anymore: people were starting to think I was involved.

At least it didn’t seem to be hurting business, which was a relief. Perhaps the local population’s need for greasy diner food and tasty pies would outweigh their concerns over my potential guilt or innocence.

Though I wasn’t sure what it said about my neighbors that they might be willing to overlook me murdering someone if it meant they could still have a burger and a slice of apple pie.

Still, I stuck mostly to the back, letting Rosie and Marcel handle the front-of-house traffic. At about three o’clock things had slowed down enough that I figured it was okay to head home and leave Marcel to hold down the grill for the final supper rush, which would hit right before we closed at six. The islanders had figured out our rhythm over the years, and last season I’d started an experiment of having one day a week where we would stay open late—if one could consider eight o’clock late—so anyone who was keen to eat dinner in rather than grab it to go could come on a Friday. Honestly, since the age of many town regulars did skew a bit toward the senior side of things, our hours had never seemed to bother anyone.

I double-checked that my prep was done for the next day, but thanks to keeping myself basically locked in the kitchen all day to avoid awkward silences in the dining room, I had once again gotten more work done than I actually needed to. With that in mind, I grabbed a bundle of sweet pie dough from the fridge to do some recipe testing with when I got home, then took a piece of our daily special—key lime—to drop off with Grampy on my way to the cottage.

As I got outside, the light was dim, thanks to the oncoming evening and the overhead clouds. Just as I’d thought, a few fat snowflakes had begun to fall, and while the weather forecast didn’t predict any storms in the near future, it was an inevitability that the whole town would be covered in snow at some point in the next month.

There was a definite bite to the air that made me believe we were in for an early winter. Sometimes you just know, the way the chill prickles your skin and dives deep into your bones; it’s just a sensation that says winter is on its way and it isn’t messing around.

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