What happened after passed by in a blur. Kat recalled rushing over to Aaron’s side and asking him what was wrong. He hadn’t replied, seeming incapable of speech. Someone must have called for help, but by the time it arrived it was too late.
Now, Kat watched from the counter as the ambulance drove away. The lack of lights and sirens caused her already heavy heart to sink even lower. “I can’t believe he’s dead.”
Jessie sagged against the counter. “Me neither.”
Lisa patted Jessie’s shoulder, her face as colorless as the peroxide blond curls stuffed under her hairnet. Kat had worked with the cook back when she’d waitressed at Jessie’s. She had always acted slightly standoffish around Kat, but she and Jessie seemed to get along well, maybe because they were closer in age.
“Ya just never know,” George said before grabbing his fork and working on finishing off the half-demolished pecan pie in front of him. Seeing a man carted off by the EMTs clearly hadn’t affected George’s appetite.
Kat’s gaze drifted toward the windows lining the front of the restaurant. Tiffany Reed stood outside, pacing as she talked on her cell phone. Every couple of seconds she would nod or shake her head or throw her free arm into the air. It was almost as if she were on stage.
Tiffany finally yanked the phone from her ear and ran back inside. “Guess what,” she said, rushing over to join everyone at the counter.
George reared back on his stool. “Who’re you?”
“Tiffany Reed, sir.” She took a step toward him, her hand extended. “I’m a reporter for the Cherry Hills Courant.”
George stared at her hand, making no move to shake it. “Never heard of you.”
Tiffany didn’t seem fazed by George’s rebuff. She merely dropped her arm back to her side. “I’m new.”
“Everything okay?” Jessie asked Tiffany. “You were outside for quite some time.”
“I just broke the news to Bill, my editor.”
“I’m so sorry,” Kat said. “I know you and Aaron only worked together a short time, but it—”
“I’m hoping this will be my big break,” Tiffany interrupted with a squeal.
Kat’s condolences died in her throat. If she didn’t know better, she would say the young reporter almost looked happy that her colleague had died.
“I told Bill what happened, and he’s on his way over here right now.” Tiffany clutched Kat’s arm, her lips curving up into a huge smile. “With any luck, he’ll let me report on Aaron’s death.”
Kat took a step back, easing out of Tiffany’s grasp. “You mean you want to write his obituary?”
“I mean I want to investigate his murder.” Tiffany danced a little jig, as if she couldn’t contain her excitement.
“Murder?” George squinted at her. “You one of them crime reporters or somethin’?”
“Not yet, but I hope to be soon.”
“Well, you just stay away from me then.” George scooted to the edge of his stool. “You too, Kat. I don’t need you women with a knack for courtin’ death hangin’ around me. At my age, I’m already pushin’ my luck.”
Kat ignored him, focusing instead on Tiffany. “I don’t think Aaron was murdered. It’s more likely his heart gave out.”
“Kat’s right,” Jessie chimed in. “He was sitting there, and then he fell over. Classic heart attack.”
“It wasn’t a heart attack,” Tiffany said. “I talked to one of the EMTs. He said Aaron went into anaphylactic shock.”
Jessie lifted her palm to her chest. “Anaphylactic shock?”
“You mean he ate something he was allergic to?” Kat asked.
Tiffany bobbed her head. “He had a nut allergy.”
“A nut allergy!” George looked appalled. “Can’t fathom not bein’ able to snack on nuts.” As though to punctuate his point, he broke off a huge chunk of his pecan pie and shoved it into his mouth.
Kat shifted her gaze to Aaron’s booth. Her eyes landed on the water glass that had shattered on the floor before traveling up to the half-empty milkshake glass still sitting on the table. “All Aaron had was a vanilla shake. There’s no nuts in that.”
“You’re right.” Jessie relaxed a little. “If he ate something with nuts, it didn’t come from my restaurant.”
“I’m not saying you killed him,” Tiffany assured her. “I’m just pointing out that somebody did.”
“Tiffany,” Kat said, “I think maybe you’re jumping to conclusions. There’s no evidence that anybody killed Aaron.”
“There’s no evidence somebody didn’t either.”
Jessie folded her arms across her chest. “Well, if he did eat nuts, he didn’t get them here.”
“But you admit they came from somewhere, right?” Tiffany pressed. “And if we find out where, we’ll know who murdered him.”
“Or, we’ll discover this was a tragic accident and Aaron wasn’t murdered at all,” Kat countered.
Tiffany shook her head. “This was no accident.”
Kat and Jessie exchanged skeptical glances.
Tiffany tilted her chin up. “All right, then. If you guys are so convinced this was all a big mistake, where’s Aaron’s EpiPen?”
George scrunched up his nose. “Epic-what?”
“EpiPen,” Tiffany repeated. “It’s this thing you use to inject something into your thigh when you go into anaphylactic shock. Anybody with a severe allergy knows you don’t leave home without it.”
“Maybe he couldn’t get to it in time,” Kat proposed.
Kat expected Tiffany to issue a rebuttal, but instead she spun on her heel and stomped over to Aaron’s table.
Jessie trailed after her. “What are you doing?”
Tiffany plopped into the booth seat Aaron had occupied only twenty minutes earlier. “Checking his briefcase.” She pushed the milkshake glass aside and dragged the still-open briefcase closer.
Kat and Lisa crossed the room to join Jessie. The three of them watched while Tiffany flipped through a stack of papers. After a moment she flung the papers aside and reached into the case’s inside pocket, coming up with a handful of items ranging from business cards to prescription bottles to pens. From what Kat could see, the pens all looked to be of the ink variety.
Tiffany sat back, a satisfied quirk to her lips. “No EpiPen.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t on him?” Jessie asked. “Maybe he kept it in his jacket pocket.”
Tiffany shook her head. “The EMTs would have found it.”
“In that case, maybe he didn’t have one,” Kat said.
“I just saw it in his briefcase this afternoon,” Tiffany informed them.
“Then he took it out and forgot to return it,” Jessie said. “It’s probably sitting somewhere in his office.”
Tiffany draped her arms along the back of the booth. “I can check his desk, but he wouldn’t have left it there. We work out of cubicles. Nobody keeps important stuff there. That means whoever killed him had to have taken it.”
“Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s say somebody did want Aaron dead,” Kat said, knowing they wouldn’t get anywhere until they addressed Tiffany’s theory. “They’d not only have to take his EpiPen, but they’d also have to get him to ingest nuts, right?”
Tiffany jumped out of the booth seat. “Right.”
Kat spread her palms. “Then how did they get him to eat the nuts? He’s not going to put them in his mouth willingly.”
Tiffany rolled her eyes. “Obviously they slipped it into something without him knowing.” She looked around before aiming her finger at the milkshake glass. “Like that.”
“You don’t think he would notice if there were nuts in his milkshake?” Kat countered. “Even if they had been run through the mixer, there would still be little chunks left to clue him in that something wasn’t right.”
Tiffany traced the edge of her lower lip with one knuckle before snapping her fingers. “Or they used some kind of nut oil. That would be virtually undetectable.”
An all-consuming silence settled over the group. Tiffany’s idea had merit, Kat had to concede. How hard would it have been for someone to add a little oil to Aaron’s milkshake?
The others appeared to be asking themselves the same question. Jessie had blanched. Lisa’s lips were parted, her eyes fixed on Aaron’s milkshake glass. George was the only one who didn’t seem concerned. Kat wasn’t even sure he was still listening to them. His pecan pie had commanded his full attention.
Something moved across the room. Turning, Kat saw the orange tabby was back, taking shelter under the same table as earlier. She wondered how long he had been there. Given the commotion that had ensued after the paramedics showed up, it would have been easy for him to sneak back inside undetected.
His paws were crossed in front of him, and his nose was tilted up. If Kat didn’t know better, she would say he looked smug. Was it possible he understood what had happened to the man who had protested his presence so vehemently?
Goosebumps broke out over Kat’s arms as she surveyed the group gathered around her. She didn’t know if Aaron’s death had been facilitated by someone here, but she had the eerie sensation at least one other person felt just as smug about his passing as the orange tabby.