Killer Comfort Food - Lynn Cahoon Page 0,2

invitation to Sunny’s wedding.” Barb sipped on her coffee. “They said they mailed one but it was returned because it was an old address. I was running with a hard crowd at the time. I wouldn’t have fit in anyway, especially not as the mother of the bride.”

“It’s never too late to change the future. We don’t have infinite time to make things right.” Angie shook her head. “But this isn’t about my wishes and dreams. You needed my help with something?”

Barb pulled out another picture. This one was clipped from a newspaper. It was a wedding announcement. “I’m sorry. This is the most recent picture I have of Sunny.”

Angie set the picture down on the bar, but only glanced at it. She needed to get back to the restaurant. Service was starting soon, and she had a lot to get done before the doors opened. “I’d love to stay and chat with you for a while, but I have to open the restaurant. This is going to sound shorter than I mean it to. What do you need?”

“Sunny’s missing. She always sends me, her aunt, a Christmas card, and she didn’t this year. I went by her house over in that new subdivision just north of town when her husband was at work, and no one’s there. My little girl has disappeared, and I think he’s behind it.”

* * * *

Felicia was cleaning up the banquet/training center when Angie got back to the restaurant. She looked up when Angie walked in, immediately setting down the towel she was using to wipe down the table, and made her way over to Angie. “What’s wrong?”

“Coffee first, please.” After Felicia had poured two cups of coffee, Angie told her what Barb had said. “I just can’t wrap my head around it. Barb must be out of her mind with worry.”

“Why doesn’t she go to the police?” Felicia sipped her coffee and glanced at her watch.

Angie knew it was almost time to start the final prep for service. They didn’t have time for this. They didn’t have time for the head chef to be freaking out. But she was. And Angie needed to tell someone else Barb’s story before she could just go on with her day. “She did. Sheriff Brown took a missing person’s report, but the husband said she’d gone off to visit her mother. Since Karen’s dead and Barb hasn’t seen her, his story doesn’t hold up. Unless he’s talking about the stepmom, and apparently, she lives here in Boise. Allen’s looking into the husband now.”

“I have a bad feeling about this. What if he killed her?” Felicia’s gaze moved to a spot on the wall that would show her the Red Eye if she’d had X-ray vision. “He must know something to lie like that.”

“Or Sunny lied to him.” Angie nodded to the waiter, who peeked into the room and then disappeared. She stood and moved to the doorway. “You’re needed out front, and I need to get in the kitchen. We can talk about this later. But thanks for letting me vent. I’m not sure I could have held that in for the entire service.”

Felicia fell in step with Angie. “I’ll finish cleaning this room tomorrow.”

“I feel bad not even staying for the end, but how did the class go?”

“You were here for most of it. I saw you in the back. You tell me?” Felicia turned off the lights to the room. She carried a tin of cookies out of the room with them.

“They were engaged, making notes, and chatting with each other. It sounds like it was wonderful.” Angie turned toward her office. She needed to drop off her coat and get on her chef’s whites. “You’re an excellent teacher.”

“Yeah, but this group knows me from yoga. They’re easier to talk to, I don’t have to put up a confident face.” Felicia took the coffee cup from Angie and put both into a dishpan. “Go have a great service. We’ll talk about everything either tonight, or if we’re too beat, I’ll come out and make you breakfast tomorrow. I’m needing a Dom fix.”

Dom was Angie’s year-old Saint Bernard. He adored Felicia almost as much as he loved Angie or Ian, Angie’s boyfriend. Angie tapped on the tin. “Is that what you’re doing with the cookies? Bringing them over to the house?”

Felicia shook her head. “I think now I’m dropping them off at the Red Eye. Poor Barb, she must be going out of her mind. Sugar