Read Online Pastrami Murder: Book One in The Darling Deli Series by Patti Benning - Free Book Online Page A

went to the mall. What’s up? You sound worried.” The mall was a good forty-five minutes away. Could she wait that long to go to the police? She would have to. She didn’t want to worry her daughter right before a long drive on snowy roads.
    “I just need to talk to you. It’s not an emergency, but can you head back?” she asked.
    “Alright, just let me pay for my clothes and I’ll be on my way.” Candice paused. “Is everything okay, Mom?”
    “I think I made a break in the case,” her mother replied honestly. “And I need to talk to you about it.”
    Just then, there was a knock at her door. Moira said goodbye to her daughter, and then walked to the foyer. She unlocked the deadbolt and let the door swing open, her mind on what she was going to tell her daughter when she saw her.
    Her breath caught in her throat when she saw Danielle standing on her porch. Her normally cheerful employee had a tear-streaked face and eyes red from crying. Moira was about to comfort her when she looked down and saw the gun in her employee’s hand.
    “Danielle? What are you doing?” she asked, automatically taking a step backwards.
    “I’m so sorry, Ms. D. I don’t want to go to jail.” The young woman choked back a sob. “I thought that they would just arrest you and it would all be over, but you kept making things worse.”
    “It was you. You killed him.” Moira backed up further, putting her hands up as she’d seen people do on TV. The entrance to the kitchen was right behind her. What could she do in there? Grab a knife?
    “I just don’t understand… why?” she asked, trying to bide for time while she tried to come up with a plan. “Why would you throw your future away? Why would you kill someone?” Moira’s voice broke on the last sentence. She had never felt such hurt and betrayal, not even when her ex-husband had filed for divorce.
    “What future?” the girl gave a short, harsh laugh. “I should have been the rich and famous one, not him. It should be me in all of the town papers, me who opened stores across the state. He took away my chance at success, so I took away his.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “All of those soups that made the Soup Shoppe so famous? They were my recipes, Ms. D. I did all of the hard work, I poured my soul into cooking, and he claimed it all for himself.” Her face twisted with anger, Danielle continued, “every single time someone mentioned his restaurant, or his franchise, or how good his food was, they should have been saying my restaurant, my food.”
    “He claimed all of the credit for the things that you did? I’m sorry, sweetie.” And she was. She knew how much went in to creating a new recipe, and how wonderful it felt when someone enjoyed it. But that came nowhere near excusing Danielle’s crime. Not in the eyes of the law, and definitely to Moira. “I don’t understand; why didn’t you just tell someone?”
    “Who would believe me?” The young woman asked in a defeated voice. “I was just some kid that was good with soups. He was the rich businessman with a team of lawyers. When I finally got fed up with it and told him I was going to stop coming up with new soups for him, he fired me.”
    “So you came up with a plan to kill him.” The level of hatred and resentment that had gone into this murder astounded Moira. Danielle had always seemed so sweet and quiet. “But why did you try to pin it on me?” She had kept backing up slowly, and now felt the back of her legs press into the kitchen cabinet. She didn’t dare look behind her for a knife or, better yet, her phone. Was there anything here that could save her? Her gaze drifted past Danielle’s shoulder to where her front door was still standing open. If only she could make it past her employee, she might be able to escape.
    “I didn’t, at first. But once the police started being all suspicious of you, I thought that it would be an easy way to get them off of my trail. All I really did was leave