Revenge of the Chili Queens Read online

  When she picked up the phone, I nearly breathed a sigh of relief. She was buying my story!

  Or at least I thought so until I heard her say, “Yes, Security? We have an unauthorized person here in the executive suite.”

  “Oh, come on!” When she hung up the phone, I tried to reason with her. “All I want to do is talk to the guy.”

  “That’s unfortunate because the guy . . .” Her tongue twisted over the words. “Mr. Montgomery isn’t in this morning.”

  “He must have forgotten our appointment,” I assured her.

  To which she did nothing but give me a knowing little smile.

  A second later, a couple beefy security guards showed up, and I threw my hands in the air by way of telling them they wouldn’t get a fight out of me. “Going,” I said and scurried toward the elevator. The two guards fell into step beside me, and the woman with the pearls brought up the rear of our little procession. “But I’ll tell you what, when Mr. Montgomery finds out how you treated me, he’s not going to be happy.”

  “Mr. Montgomery is always happy,” she replied, and I can’t say for certain, because I’d already stepped into the elevator between those two burly guards, but I could have sworn before the doors slipped shut, her lips pursed and she mumbled, “That’s one of the things I can’t stand about him.”

  • • •

  By the time I got back to the fairgrounds, the Showdown was in full swing. That day’s cook-off contest was for the traditional red category—that is, chili made with any meat and red chili peppers but with no beans or pasta added—and we anticipated a bigger-than-usual crowd. Texans are famous for liking their chili bean-less, and the contest that day would provide an opportunity for many of the state’s best to vie for the top prize.

  When I got to the Palace, Sylvia was busy with customers.

  But not too busy to notice my shoes.

  Her lips pinched. “The least you can do is put them back where you found them,” she said.

  I did when I went into the RV to change into the Chili Chick costume. Then, back out in front of the Palace, I finished forty-five minutes of hot and sweaty dancing before there was a lull in the crowd.

  We were doing well that day; even this early, Sylvia needed to restock the jars of Thermal Conversion on the front counter. Since the overhang at the front of the Palace offered a minimal amount of shade, I offered to help.

  “So?” Unlike so many of our patrons, Sylvia knew exactly where to look to see into the mesh at the front of the Chick. “What did you find out? You were out investigating, weren’t you?” she added when I didn’t answer either of those first two questions fast enough. “That’s the only reason I can imagine you’d get out of bed early. Where were you? And what did you find out?”

  It was a couple minutes before I could tell her, but that was because a big man in a big cowboy hat and big, big boots sauntered over. Like everything else in Texas, the fairgrounds was massive, and there was a rodeo going on for the weekend at the other end of it. From the look of the dust—and other stuff—on his boots, I guessed he was part of it.

  “Lookin’ for the hottest peppers you have,” he said, and unlike Sylvia, he didn’t try to see into the mesh. He was too busy checking out my legs. “Although from the looks of things,” he drawled, “I think I’m already seein’ the hottest thing to come around these parts in a long, long time.”

  “The peppers are over there.” I waved toward the counter and the display set up just behind it where we had bags of dried peppers arranged alphabetically (guess whose idea that was).

  With thumb and forefinger, the cowboy knocked his hat a little farther back on his head. “All right, then, I can take a hint. You’re all business and no fun, hey, little pepper?”

  Since I was not technically a little pepper, I figured I could ignore this.

  “If you’re looking for heat, you might want to try Scotch bonnet peppers,” I told him.

  He scratched a hand along his jawline. “Those are for sissies. I’m looking for something that packs a little more punch.”

  “Three hundred fifty thousand Scoville Heat Units.” I jiggled a bag of Scotch bonnets in front of his nose. “That’s plenty of punch. A bell pepper is—”

  “A bell pepper is zero. A banana pepper is somewhere around one hundred. You’re not dealing with an amateur here, little pepper. I know how Scoville Heat Units are used to figure the spiciness of a pepper. And three hundred fifty thousand . . .” His smile inched up a face that was as craggy as some of the desert we’d driven through on our way from Las Vegas to San Antonio. “Here in Texas, we can handle our heat.”

  “Then how about Red 7-Pot?” We didn’t keep a lot of these around, and I needed to rummage through the display for the right bag. “They’re from Trinidad, and there, they say one pepper is enough to spice seven pots of chili.”

  His eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. “SHUs?”

  “Seven hundred eighty thousand,” I told him.

  “Gol darn!” He screwed up his face. “That’s girlie stuff!”

  It was a shame he couldn’t see the sour look I shot him. “Then how about this?” I slapped another bag of peppers on the counter. “Moruga Scorpion. Two million SHUs.”

  He rubbed his hands together. “Now you’re talkin’! Anything else? Anything more?”

  There was. One more pepper. That last fiery step of the descent into spicy hell from which there was no escape. I sized him up. He wasn’t a kid, and that, at least, was in his favor. Young guys often think that how much heat they can take is a sign of their manhood. But we were in blistering territory here, and I didn’t like to think what kind of pain might result if some crazy cook decided that his manhood depended on the size of his SHUs. This guy was middle-aged. Old enough to be careful. At least I hoped so.

  I put one more bag on the counter. “Carolina Reaper,” I said. “Starts out sweet. Right before it demolishes your taste buds. It’s a little hotter than the Moruga Scorpion.”

  “I’ll take it!”

  He reached for the bag.

  I held it just far enough away so he couldn’t get it. “You’ll be careful?”

  The man threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, honey! This is Texas. Careful ain’t in our vocabulary!”

  It was all the advice I could offer, and he wasn’t going to listen, anyway. I turned him over to Sylvia and let her ring up the sale.

  Once he was gone, Sylvia slipped out of the Palace to stand at my side. “So? Where were you this morning? And what did you find out?”

  “Not much of anything.” I hated to admit it. “I tried to talk to John Wesley Montgomery, but his secretary claimed he wasn’t in this morning. Yeah, like I believe that!”

  Sylvia tipped her head. “Montgomery? That canned chili guy? He’s the one who’s been at the fund-raisers, right? The one who gets chauffeured around in that big black limo with the Tri-C plates?”

  I nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see me. “Yeah. Dom worked for him, and he stole some recipes from Rosa and Martha and Tri-C is making the chili and putting it in cans.”

  Sylvia, of course, did not understand the significance of this. Or feel the outrage that boiled through me at the very thought.

  She turned to scan the fairgrounds, and I didn’t know what she was looking for. At least not until she clamped a hand on my arm tight enough to cut off my circulation.

  “Well, of course his secretary told you Montgomery wasn’t in,” she said, pointing with her free hand. “It’s true. He couldn’t have been in his office. See! See, over there! That’s the fourth time I’ve seen it today. You do see it, right?”

  I did see, and my heart thudded at the same time my brain whirled over the possibilities.

  It was Montgomery’s black limo, and it was slowly cruising the perimeter of the fairgrounds.

  • • •
r />   Was Montgomery hanging around in the hopes of snaffling up a few more chili recipes?

  Or was there an even more sinister reason for his visit to the Showdown?

  This I did not know, but believe me, the thoughts twirled through my head until later that afternoon when, out of the Chick costume, I walked by the whitewashed fairgrounds building with the word Security written in red letters on the side of it. Until I talked to Montgomery, I couldn’t even begin to try to figure out what he was up to, and with that in mind, I made a vow to corner him at that night’s fund-raiser. He was bound to be there. Maybe if I made like a beauty queen, he’d actually give me the time of day!

  For reasons I can’t explain, this struck me as especially funny, and that would explain why Nick thought I was smiling at him when he walked out of the security builidng.

  “Promised I’d get Ruth Ann a cotton candy,” I said, showing off the five-dollar bill Ruth had given me to pay and pointing with it in the direction of the carnival midway that stood between the Showdown on one side of the fairgrounds and the rodeo on the other. “You want some?”

  He made a face and stepped closer. “You okay?” he asked. “I mean, after last night and having to climb down the balcony to get out of Dom’s apartment?”

  “Piece of cake!” I waved away his concern, but speaking of concerns . . .

  “You know, Nick . . .” Something had been bothering me, and I knew I couldn’t let it go. Not until I got it straight with him. “About the murder . . .”

  He puffed out a breath. “Now what? You think I killed Dom and I was also the person who walked in on us at the apartment? I’m good, Maxie, but I’m not good enough to be two people. There’s no way I’m the one who was watching us when we ran last night.”

  “You saw him, too, huh?” I was wearing black shorts and a Texas Jack Pierce T-shirt in habanero red, and I crossed my arms over my chest. “Obviously it wasn’t you, because you were with me. But I keep thinking about the night of the murder. Dom must have been killed soon after the fund-raiser ended that night. We need to get everyone’s timeline straight. Like, for instance, where were you?”

  His eyebrows rose just enough to make it loud and clear that my question was as unexpected as it was nervy. “Are you asking me if I have an alibi?”

  “I’ve already asked you if you have an alibi. You dodged the question. That means I have to ask it again. Do you?”

  “Do you?”

  “I don’t need an alibi. I’m not the one who was partners with a murdered guy who stole my wife.”

  He grumbled a word he shouldn’t have used in public. But then, I didn’t hold that against him, since I used the word plenty myself.

  “You’re impossible.” Nick turned away.

  “And you’re ignoring my question.” I stepped in front of him. “Where were you when Dom was killed?”

  “I was—” He clamped his mouth shut for a moment before he muttered, “I was busy.”

  “Busy killing Dom?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Then what were you busy doing?”

  “Busy being busy, all right? That’s what I was doing.”

  And before I could tell him that it wasn’t nearly the explanation I needed, Nick stalked away.

  “Busy being busy,” I grumbled and spun the other way; the five-dollar bill Ruth gave me for her cotton candy—and one for myself, too, she told me, if I wanted it—was in my palm, and I squeezed it so hard, I swear Abraham Lincoln had tears in his eyes.

  I was still grumbling when I got over near the midway and found myself at the back of a crowd of folks watching a juggling act. My mind was already plenty mixed up; the last thing I needed to see was juggling. I scooted around the crowd, darted between the Ferris wheel and a shooting gallery where folks could win giant teddy bears, and ducked behind the vendors who sold everything from corn dogs on a stick to ice cream cones that wouldn’t last two minutes in the afternoon heat, sniffing the air and hoping the aroma of cotton candy would let me know when I was at the right spot.

  It was a smart move; there was no one back there among the wires and whirring generators, and I could move far quicker than I could out in the crowd.

  And it was a dumb move.

  Because when someone came up behind me and threw a pillowcase over my head, there was no one there to see.

  Just like there was no one around when that same someone zapped me with a stun gun and I dropped to the ground.

  • • •

  I have no idea how long I was out. A minute or two? Longer? I only know that when I opened my eyes again, the world in front of me tipped and whirled. I was still down in the dirt, but I couldn’t hear the generators anymore. My head felt like it had been filled with those fluffy cotton balls that Sylvia used to remove her makeup every night. Since the pillow case was no longer over my head, I dared to look around.

  “No generators.” My voice sounded as if it came from a million miles away. It was as heavy as my eyelids, my words as slurred as if I’d guzzled a dozen margaritas.

  Margaritas!

  My mouth felt as if it was filled with sand, and I ran my dry tongue over even drier lips and checked out the area.

  It was no wonder I couldn’t hear the generators; I wasn’t where I’d been when I was waylaid. I was in some sort of fenced enclosure that was maybe twenty feet wide and just as long, and I was all alone. The ground beneath me was gritty, and somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of my head, I knew I should get up or I’d end up covered with dirt. Too bad I didn’t have the energy to stand, or even to drag myself over to the tall fence where I could prop myself until I figured out what was going on. Instead, I tried to make sense of what had happened and stared at the sort of pen in front of me. There was a gate in the center of it, and even as I watched, something moved behind it.

  Something big.

  Warning bells went off inside my head. At least I think they did. I was too woozy to listen, and too punch-drunk to care.

  That is, until that gate popped open and the ground shook. Instinctively, I got to my knees. I was still trying to steady myself when a two-thousand-pound brown rodeo bull emerged from the shadows, dipped its head, and charged.

  CHAPTER 14

  As if it were all happening in slow motion, I watched that gigantic bull rumble closer, its dark, beady eyes on me. He lowered his enormous head and came straight at me.

  I was paralyzed, and it wasn’t until I was looking right into those big brown eyes and felt the heat of his breath that something kick-started me into action.

  I dropped and rolled and squeezed my eyes shut, waiting to feel those hooves and all that muscle trample me like I was a rag doll.

  Lucky for me my timing was right and my roll was perfect. I skidded to a stop in the dust just as the bull ran by, kicking up a storm of dirt a foot or so away from me. Realizing how lucky I was and how little time I had until I’d have to try my luck again, I scrambled to my knees, pulled myself to my feet, and lurched over to that gate that the bull had come out of.

  It was closed. And locked.

  From the other side.

  “Hey!” I jiggled the gate and called out, and even to my own ears, my words sounded like they came from inside a thick coating of Bubble Wrap. “Hey!” I joggled the gate again, even though it hardly moved the first time, and I guess I would have gone right on trying to open it if I didn’t feel the ground tremble and hear that bull grunt right before it headed back in my direction.

  “Nice bull! Good bull!” My words bumped along with my breath when I zigzagged around him and over to the far side of the pen. The wooden fence around the enclosure was taller than me, and because the slats were so close together, it was impossible to see through. Was there someone nearby on the other side? Someone who could get me out of there?

  “Help!” I called out just in case there
was anyone around. “I’m in here. Help!”

  “Maxie?”

  I was so relieved to hear the voice call out my name from the other side of the fence, I nearly cried. As it was, I didn’t exactly have the time, since that bull made another charge at me and I took off like a shot to the other side of the enclosure.

  “I’m in here!” I yelled, though with all the noise of thundering hooves and bellowing bull, I wasn’t sure anyone could hear me. I pounded on the wooden fence with my fists and ended up with a splinter. “Help!”

  “Maxie?”

  Across the enclosure, something appeared just above the top of the fence, then disappeared again.

  “Is that you?” the voice asked. “What are you doing in there?”

  Again, the something appeared, then vanished, and I was left with a quick impression: hair the color of brandy. Collar of a white shirt. Knot of a killer (bad choice of words) blue tie. Like his eyes.

  “Nick!” This time, I did allow myself the luxury of a few tears, and hey, who could blame me? Right before I took off again to get away from the frenzied bull, I caught another glimpse of Nick just as he jumped to try and see over the wooden enclosure.

  “Is there a bull in there? Maxie, why are you messing around with a rodeo bull? Don’t you know that’s dangerous?”

  I pressed my back to the enclosure and imagined that where I stood, Nick must be right on the other side of the fence. Good, then he wouldn’t have an excuse not to hear me when I screamed, “Are you crazy? You think I’m in here because I want to be here? Get me out of here, Nick! This bull, he’s—”

  He’s what, I didn’t have the chance to say, because the bull charged again, I took off running again, and I was too freakin’ scared to get another word out of my mouth.

  This time, I ran toward the gate where the bull had come in. When I saw Nick on the other side of it, I would have sighed with relief if I had any breath left.

  “Get me out of here!”

  Both hands wrapped around the metal gate, he wiggled it and jiggled it just like I had. “Well, if there was a key, it isn’t here now. This gate is locked.”