“All right. Okay.” Gia pulled out a stool and guided Savannah to sit. “Take a few deep breaths. It’s probably just anxiety making you feel sick, but maybe I should take you to the hospital just in case.”
“No. No, please. I definitely don’t want to go to the hospital. After last summer, I’d be happy never to set foot in another hospital.” Savannah nodded and sat. “I’m okay. I don’t think I’m sick or anything. It was just a lot to take in, you know?”
“I do, but if you start to feel even the slightest bit off, let me know.”
Savannah nodded. “I will, but I’m really okay.”
Gia ran through the timeline in her head as she grabbed a water bottle and set it in front of Savannah. Could you dilute poison with water? Probably not, but she needed something to do. “You only left the kitchen a few minutes ago, then got the call from Leo and had time to get in touch with Willow, so Leo couldn’t possibly have told you much.”
She wiped her eyes. “No, you’re right, he didn’t. Just that she didn’t make it and they suspected there was poison in the cake.”
“Okay, so they just suspect it. They don’t know for sure.” No sense panicking just yet. There would be plenty of time to panic when they actually knew what was going on. Considering how fast Robyn fell ill after eating the cake, Savannah would be showing symptoms already if she’d been poisoned. “Besides, even if it was poisoned, maybe it was just Robyn’s slice. I’m sure you’re fine.”
Savannah sucked in a shaky breath and nodded, cradling her forehead in her hand. “You’re right of course. I just let my imagination run away with me for a minute.”
“You just sit, drink some of that water. I’m going to get these dishes out to the customers.” As much as she hated to leave Savannah, she couldn’t leave the dining room with no one working. And even if she closed, there were still customers eating and waiting for their food.
“No, no. I’m okay now.” She offered a quick laugh. “I just overreacted for a minute. I’ve got this.”
“Are you sure?” With the dining room filling up and Hunt on his way to ask questions, she had to either get moving or close.
“I’m positive.” Savannah hefted the tray onto her shoulder and headed out.
Gia watched her through the cutout.
Though she’d taken the news hard, she seemed to pull herself together as she moved smoothly through the room, apologizing for the delay, serving plates, and taking orders. Within minutes she posted several orders above the grill. Gia got started on them. She still couldn’t wrap her head around the fact Robyn hadn’t made it. She’d really hoped she would. And poisoned. It was sad enough that she’d passed away just when she should have been moving on to an exciting new chapter in her life. But to think someone had murdered her. The scent of the food sizzling on the grill sat heavy in her gut, turning her stomach.
“Hey, you.” Hunt kissed the side of her head and snatched a piece of bacon. “Did Savannah tell you what’s going on?”
“A little. I don’t think she knew much. Have you and Leo eaten?”
He leaned a hip against the center island and took out his pad. Apparently, it was going to be work before pleasure. “Haven’t had anything since the stale cereal I ate for breakfast. Dry, since my milk was spoiled.”
“What would you like?” She scanned the tickets and gathered what she needed for two steak and egg orders. Since she’d changed the steak to a thin sliced London broil, she’d noticed an increase in sales.
“I don’t have time to eat right now.” He tilted his head from side to side, stretching his neck. “We’ve got to take yours and Savannah’s statements and get back to the caterers.”
She grabbed a meat lovers breakfast pie from the fridge and cut two large slices, popped one into each microwave, then paused and studied him for a moment.
A five o’clock shadow Gia found beyond sexy stubbled his face. His dark eyes captured her gaze, sending a rush of heat through her cheeks and straight down to her heart.
She ignored the flush. No sense letting him know the effect he still had on her. Though they’d fallen into a comfortable routine, often spending what little free time they had together, usually having dinner or watching a movie at her house so Thor and Klondike wouldn’t be left alone, they hadn’t shared an actual date since…Huh, she couldn’t remember when.
“Gia?” Hunt frowned.
“What? Oh, sorry. I guess I got sidetracked.” A quick survey of the grill told her at least she hadn’t burnt anything while she’d zoned out. “So, uh…was the cake really poisoned?”
“We’re still waiting on results, but it looks that way. The doctors believe she ingested atropa belladonna.” Hunt dropped onto the stool that Savannah had recently vacated and tapped his pen against his leg as he studied something on his pad.
“Atropa belladonna?” She’d heard the name belladonna before but couldn’t place it. “What’s that?”
“A poisonous plant. Also known as deadly nightshade.”
Still didn’t ring a bell. She’d have to look it up later. “And you think it was in the cake?”
“The cake is at the lab now, and tests are being run, but that’s what we suspect.”
Fear prickled the back of her neck. Maybe she should have insisted on taking Savannah to the hospital. “Did Savannah tell you she ate a piece of the cake?”
He nodded. “Belladonna is a fast-acting poison. If she’d ingested enough of it to be harmful, she’d be sick by now. And there is an antidote; it was just too late to administer it to Robyn.”
She swallowed the lump clogging her throat. Would Robyn have made it if Gia had acted sooner, if she hadn’t hesitated after the first scream?
“Right now, that’s our theory. According to Alyssa and Carlos Rinaldi, all of the decorations on the cake should have been edible, made from some kind of icing and sugar.”
“Yes, she told us the same thing, everything was edible.”
“Well, Mallory Levine, the other woman who was present at the tasting and Robyn’s maid of honor, is adamant there were real leaves and berries on the cake.”
Gia tried to remember her slice of cake. She hadn’t really been as interested in the cake as she had in Savannah’s reaction to the cake. “I don’t remember any real leaves or berries on my slice. Or Savannah’s. The mistletoe in the picture and what was on the small slices we ate were beautiful, but you could tell they weren’t real.”
He looked up from his notes. “Any chance they could have been mistaken for the real thing?”
She shook her head and slid three plates onto the cutout for Savannah or Willow to serve. “No, I don’t see how. What about Mallory? Did she eat any?”
“Nah.” He flipped a page. “Robyn finished her own slice, and Mallory wasn’t eating hers, so she pushed it over to Robyn. Said she was a big stress eater.”
No surprise she’d eaten two slices of cake then, considering the amount of tension she must have been under. The microwave dinged, and Gia handed Hunt a plate with one of the breakfast pie slices. She set the other slice aside for Leo.
“Thanks.” He grabbed a fork and a napkin, then poured himself a cup of coffee before sitting back down and digging in. “Do you remember hearing a scream?”
“Yes.” Caught up on orders, Gia washed her hands, grabbed a diet soda from the fridge, and took the stool across from him.
“What can you tell me about it?”
Gia shrugged, not sure what exactly he was trying to figure out. “I heard a scream. I’m pretty sure it was a woman. I assumed it was the other woman in the room, Mallory.”
“What made you think that?” He took another bite, giving her time to think.
Why had she been so sure it was Mallory and not Robyn? Actually, she hadn’t been. “I didn’t know who it was at first. I think I just figured it was Mallory after I ran into the dining room and found Robyn unconscious.”
He pulled his notebook closer, flipped a page, and ran the back of his fork down a few lines. “According to Mallory, Robyn ate the cake and then moments later started screaming.”
Guilt once again dug its claws into her. “That was Robyn screaming?”
“Yeah, that was confirmed by everyone.”
Her stomach turned over. Even though she was terrified of his answer, she had to ask, had to know. “So if I’d gone back to her right away, she might have been saved?”
He paused mid bite and lowered his fork to the plate. When he reached out to her, she placed her hand, which had gone ice cold, in his. “I doubt that few minutes would have made a difference, Gia. She was gone by the time they got her to the hospital. If you hadn’t tried to save her, she’d have been gone sooner. Sometimes all you can do is give someone the chance, and you did that. Actually, there was a roomful of people there, and you and Savannah were the only two who made any attempt to save her or summon help.”
She nodded, holding her gaze steady on the counter to keep any of the threatening tears from falling, though she had no doubt she’d rehash the moment Robyn had screamed over and over again in her mind, and what ifs would surely chase her through her quiet moments for quite some time.
He tilted his head to look up into her eyes “You okay?”
She nodded again. The best she could do for Robyn now was give Hunt whatever information she could to help him solve her murder. “Yeah, I am. I just feel bad that I didn’t go to her sooner.”
“I understand that. I’m curious, though, why didn’t you go back when you heard the scream?” He set his plate aside and sipped his coffee. “That was great, definitely hit the spot, thank you.”
“Any time.” She stood and put his dish in the sink with a few others, then started cleaning up. Doing something helped her think. She’d heard the woman’s scream, and had started to go back, but Alyssa had reached out and stopped her. “Alyss…uh…”
Uh oh. That might not bode well for the other woman.
“It’s all right, Gia. Just tell me what happened.”
There was no way Alyssa could have had anything to do with Robyn’s murder. She’d been with Gia and Savannah when it happened. “Alyssa had just brought out two slices of cake for Savannah and me to try. She said she’d just served it to Robyn’s group. A couple of minutes later, we heard a scream. When I started to go back to see what was going on, Alyssa stopped me, said they’d been screaming like that since they got there, fighting with one another over everything.”
Hunt nodded absently as he scribbled notes in his notebook. When he was done, he flipped the page. “That’s what Alyssa told me too. What happened after that?”
“There was another scream and someone yelled to call nine-one-one, so we—Savannah, Alyssa, and me—all ran into the dining room and found Robyn on the floor.” She shook her head. “I think that’s when I first assumed it was the other woman who’d screamed.”
“Do you know who yelled to call nine-one-one?”
She’d heard Isaac speak when he argued with his mother outside the caterer, but she couldn’t recall his voice, couldn’t be sure one way or the other if he’d been the one to issue the demand. “No, it was a man’s voice, so either Isaac or Jeremy, but that’s all I can tell you. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Carlos, since he came into the dining room after we were already there.”
“Okay. Anything else?”
She tried to recall all of her observations while she and Savannah were trying to save Robyn, but the only thing that stuck out in her mind as unusual was Jeremy’s proximity to Alyssa. And, of course, the fact that no one tried to help, but they could have been in shock, and everyone reacted differently to stress. Had it been a spider coming toward Gia, her irrational phobia probably would have made her freeze. Perhaps that’s what had happened. It wasn’t up to her to judge.
“Gia?”
Oh, right, he’d asked her if she’d noticed anything else unusual. Though Jeremy’s hand on Alyssa’s back could definitely seem inappropriate, it also might have been completely innocent. Perhaps he’d lost his balance or was simply trying to see past her to where his fiancé lay on the floor. Or maybe he was offering comfort he thought Alyssa might need. It was possible Gia was making more of the gesture than necessary, maybe because of the rumors that were flying. Honestly, though, how many times had Trevor touched Gia or Savannah, always in a completely platonic, friendly way? He was just an affectionate person. Probably better not to mention anything since she couldn’t be sure.
“Whatever you’re thinking that has you so frazzled, do share.” Hunt lifted a brow and stared at her. Either he knew her too well for her to keep secrets from him, or his detective skills were that spot on. Probably the former.
“I’m not really sure of anything, but at one point, Jeremy put his hand on Alyssa’s back, and the gesture seemed…I don’t know…somehow inappropriate…too…um…familiar, maybe? Kind of intimate. But I could be thinking that only because Isaac was carrying on about the two of them.”
“Fair enough.” Hunt flipped his notebook closed without writing anything down. He stood and stuffed it back into his pocket.
Gia took a quick peek through the cutout into the dining room where Willow was taking an order. Savannah must have taken Leo to Gia’s office to answer his questions. She turned to tell Hunt she was going to take Leo his dinner before the orders picked up again and ran right into his chest.
His dark eyes fixed on hers. He slid his hand along her cheek, then tucked a strand of hair that had come loose from her bun behind her ear. His fingers lingered, caressing her neck, before sliding around to cradle her head as he kissed her.
Her insides melted as she kissed him back.
“Okay, enough of that now.” Savannah whistled from the doorway.
They jumped apart.
Savannah grinned. “There’s a time and a place, y’all. And this here ain’t it.”
Heat burned in Gia’s cheeks.
Hunt just laughed.
Wanting to get off the subject quickly, Gia grabbed Leo’s dinner and set it on the counter for him, then gestured for him to sit down and eat.
“Yeah, well, now’s definitely not the time.” He took a forkful of the breakfast pie but didn’t bother to sit. “A nine-one-one call just came in, and we’ve got to go.”
Hunt frowned. “What’s up?”
“Seems Jeremey Nolan and his friend, Ethan Cater, walked into a bar…”
It sounded like the set up to a bad joke, and Gia held her breath waiting for the punchline. She had a feeling it wasn’t going to be funny.
“Isaac was there drowning his sorrows, and there was an all-out brawl between the three.” He took another quick bite.
Hunt sighed and gave Gia a quick peck on the cheek. “Don’t wait up.”