Al Dente's Inferno by Stephanie Cole

Author:Stephanie Cole [Cole, Stephanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-02-25T00:00:00+00:00

11

Did you kill him?” This time it was better framed than when I had yelled at her about braining Bu, and I honestly didn’t know what I’d say or do if she told me she had. But for some reason—maybe I was as gullible as Ember had been with the dear departed—I felt Ember Weston and Nell Valenti were founding members of the Wish I Had Killed Buford Kaplan club.

“No,” she said musically, drawing out one of those long notes of self-awareness, “I didn’t have the stuffing for it.”

“The cops might think you did.”

She widened her eyes at me. “The cops might think you did.”

“Why? Because I had a thing with Bu?”

“Bu?”

“Buford.”

“Did you hate him?”

I had to think about it. Then I answered, “I disdained him.”

She snorted. “Try telling the Italian cops that difference.” She topped herself: “In Italian.”

“I will not underestimate them. These are subtle people.” I pictured gangly old Joe Batta, sucking on a hard candy he’d had to be reminded to unwrap.

“Who want to make an arrest.”

“A just arrest.”

“Are you sure there is such a thing?” It was a warning look she gave me then. “Chalk it up, lesson learned, make no mistake.”

“Well”—I lifted my hands in a way that meant nothing whatsoever—“there you are.”

Then she declared, “I’m forty-two, Nell.”

“You don’t look it.” She shot me a look. “I mean it. I took you for ten years younger.”

She tossed her phone up, caught it, slipped it into a pants pocket. “I’ve got holes in my ears and cartoons on my skin, and I wonder why nobody at Netflix takes me seriously.”

“You don’t know that.”

She gave me a flat look. “You heard the call.”

“It doesn’t mean they won’t let you finish up the project, just the way you want.”

“Not if I can’t be fancy-free in Albarracín in three days, they won’t. If I can’t get out of here, they’ll shelve the whole thing.” I didn’t want to keep flinging around easy answers, so I said nothing. “I need a smoke,” she declared. “In fact, I need several smokes. Then”—she sucked in a big breath—“I think I’ll check out of your room, nice as it is, and into the inn in town, and I’ll let my hair grow in gray. How’s that for starters?”

“Let’s have a drink later.”

“Sure.” She stuck out a hand, and we shook. “We’ve got some time to pass.”

“Well—”

“All right, all right. You’ve got your list of suspects. Very healthy approach, I must say. Me, on the other hand . . .” Together we headed for the door to the courtyard. “I’ve got some time to pass. And maybe a career to pass. Sometimes,” said Ember, “I think I only try so hard because I think that’s what I’m supposed to do.”

As she shouldered the door open for the two of us, Ember Weston worked a mangled pack of Marlboros out of her pants pocket. She squinted in the bright sunlight. “Only I’m so old now and I’ve been doing it so long that I honestly couldn’t tell you whether—really deep down—I even care.

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