Read Online Guilty as Cinnamon by Leslie Budewitz - Free Book Online Page A

had promised, on top of a small desk we’d found on one of our rare joint hunts. I stood at the foot of the stairs leading to the master suite we’d created from two small bedrooms and a bath best termed a water closet.
Don’t do it, Pepper.
    I did it. What can I say? I’d sweated blood and tears over that project. My fingers trailed the smooth pine rail as I climbed, remembering the terror on Tag’s face when an old storm window shattered in my hands and the shared relief as we realized I wasn’t badly hurt, despite the blood spatter.
    He’d swapped the double wedding ring quilt we’d been given for shirting striped linens and a navy comforter that went surprisingly well with the red-and-blue Persian rug and the unpainted fir floor. Tag did have a sense of style, despite his pokes at mine, but I sensed his mother’s hand.
    The closet door stood open. An icy spasm gripped my gullet. After I’d found him and the “parking enforcement officer” plugging each other’s meters, half a dozen signs of trouble had fallen into place. Including the time I’d picked up the cleaning—usually his task—and noticed shirts I didn’t recall him wearing.
    My breath snagged in my throat as I realized I was standing in my ex-husband’s bedroom searching for signs of Another Woman.
    You left him, Pepper. For good reason, yes, but you left.
He’s entitled to move on.
    Maybe he was dating and I was the Other Woman.
    That I didn’t know shouldn’t matter, but it did. Meaning—what?
    Meaning it was time to go.
    I gave up the plan to cut peonies in the backyard—the garden wasn’t mine anymore, either—and dashed outside.
    â€œGood boy.” I grabbed Arf’s leash, and we trotted to the curb. I opened the driver’s door, and he hopped in. For a small guy—about twenty inches at the shoulder—he’s a heck of a jumper.
    A few blocks away, I stopped for a light, my heart still in high gear.
What were you doing, Pepper?
What had I expected—booby traps for intruders? But that wasn’t the kind of danger I’d faced.
    The danger of my own uncertain heart.
    A movement at the bus stop caught my attention. A slender black kid grooving to his earbuds. No—not a kid. One of the line cooks from the First Avenue Café. Tariq something. We’d met when I’d dropped off Spice Shop deliveries, and a time or two when I’d joined Alex and the staff for family meal.
    I waved. He frowned, trying to place me, and approached, tugging one bud free.
    â€œTariq, right?” I said at the same moment he said, “You’re Posh. No, Pepper. That’s it.”
    Alex had dubbed me “Posh Spice” when he heard I grew up on Capitol Hill. No matter that my family were neither the landed old school nor the moneyed new aristocracy, but part of the hippie invasion forty years ago.
    â€œHop in. I’ll give you a lift downtown.”
    Arf jumped into the backseat, Tariq slid in, his pack in his lap, and the light changed. A car honked, and I shifted gears. Urban ballet.
    â€œYou work the line, right? Meat side?”
    â€œYes, ma’am. Started in the Eastside joint, moved over here a year ago when Alex shuffled kitchen staff.” His torso rocked back and forth as he spoke. “Original paint?” At my look of surprise, he added, “I like cars.”
    â€œI’m sorry about Tamara,” I said. “Must be rough on all of you.”
    Tariq stopped rocking and snapped his head toward me. “You found her.”
    My hands tightened reflexively on the wheel and my jaw pinched as I turned onto Highway 99, aka Aurora Avenue, and merged into the zooming midday traffic. “Mm-hmm.”
    â€œSucks,” he said, sitting back and gazing forward. “She was going places.”
    An innocent word choice? Staff changes are a constant in the biz, but her death only a day after her firing