Going, Going, Ganache [05] by Jenn McKinlay

Author:Jenn McKinlay
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 0425252078
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2012-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Nineteen

Angie looked in the direction that Mel was pointing, and she gasped.

“What is it with you?” she asked as they hurried across the grass towards the foot. “You attract bodies like bees to pollen. It’s not right.”

“Hey, it’s not just me,” Mel said as she pulled out her phone, getting ready to call the police. “You’ve been with me for most of the bodies. And it’s your fault we’re here now looking for Tate, so this one is on you.”

“Hey!” Angie protested.

They rounded the sculpture to see a scruffy-looking man in khaki shorts and a grungy T-shirt lying down with his head on a backpack. His eyes were open and his chest was moving up and down. He was not dead.

“Do you two think you could keep down?” he asked. “I’m trying to nap.”

Mel squinted at the man. Beneath his day-old beard growth was a familiar square jaw and laughing eyes.

“Tate?” Angie asked. She rushed forward, and he sat up, opening his arms to hug her, but she shoved his arms away and got right in his face and shouted, “Have you lost your mind?”

He looked surprised and then shrugged and reclined back on his backpack. “No.”

“No?” Angie yelled. “That’s all you have to say for yourself—no?”

“You asked me a question,” Tate said. “And I answered it.”

Mel could see that Angie was about to pop her cork, so she kneeled down beside her, and said, “Tate, what’s going on?”

“Presently, I’m being accosted in the park by two ladies while I try to read,” he said. He lifted a book from the grass beside him. “And you?”

Now Mel could feel her temper heat up. If Tate was going through something, that was fine, but his attitude was really becoming annoying, as if he were the only one who had something going on.

“Well, let’s see,” she said. “We’ve been frantically searching for you only to find out that you’ve moved out of you apartment—”

“—quit your job—” Angie added.

“—and not told anyone, us or your parents, what is going on,” Mel finished.

“You spoke to my parents?” he asked. He lowered the book.

“Uh, yeah,” Angie said with a nice dollop of sarcasm that was the verbal equivalent of a slap upside the head.

“Are they mad?” he asked.

“And worried,” Mel said.

“You need to let them know you’re okay,” Angie said.

“I sent them an e-mail this morning,” he said.

Angie shook her head in disgust.

“What?” he asked. “We’re not like your family. We don’t shout everything out.”

“Well, maybe you should,” she snapped.

Tate looked mutinous and to Mel’s surprise, instead of yelling, Angie crossed her legs and put her hands on her knees palms up. She took several deep breaths as if trying to channel an inner calm.

“Why didn’t you tell us what you were doing?” Angie asked, her voice low and soft, letting him know without words how worried she’d been. “We’re your best friends.”

Tate gave her a sad look, as if he knew he’d hurt her but he hadn’t seen any other option.

“I didn’t want you to talk me out of it,” he said.

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