Lucky Catch by Deborah Coonts Read Free Book Online Page B

plate was full. “You can watch Mona leading the poultry parade for free. Basement Level Two, although the show is probably about over.”
    “And the homicide?”
    “Romeo’s problem.” I didn’t add that, given the players, it would most likely become my problem. At the moment, I lacked the fortitude to shoulder that little bit of fun. So, I feigned glibness and ignored the looming storms . . . all of them. “Now, what’s the problem that’s got your knickers in a twist?”
    “We have a tiny trifle with a truffle.” She delivered the words without even a hint of a smile. Impressive.
    “I think that’s redundant.” I boosted myself off her desk. “Alliterative, but redundant.”
    She shrugged. “Actually, it’s not a trifle with a truffle exactly.” A hint of a smile tugged at one corner of her mouth. “It’s really a problem with a pig.”
    “A pig?”
    “Well, Chef Gregor . . .” Miss P. ground to a halt, raising my caution flag.
    I probably didn’t want to know, not really, but my Pavlovian response to all problems goaded me into hurling myself into the fire. “Chef Gregor.” His name puckered my lips like a bad taste. For a moment in time, he had been the proprietor of the failed Italian restaurant occupying the space that now housed the Burger Palais. “He is a bit of a pig, but I’m not sure I’d be so cavalier as to call him that. I hear he has important friends and a bad habit of getting even.”
    Miss P. cocked an eyebrow at me. “Chef Gregor invited the truffler and the pig who found the prized truffle to the party.”
    I blinked at her for a moment, absorbing. “I need to sit down, I can tell.” I sank into one of the chairs against the wall of glass overlooking the lobby below. I stretched my legs out in front of me and leaned back, fighting the feeling that I might tip and fall through the glass—I knew I wouldn’t, but it made me nervous just the same. “The truffler?”
    “The truffle pig handler.”
    “Truffle pig?”
    “The pig that found the prized truffle.”
    “You said that already.”
    “Just making sure you’re following all of this. It’s important.”
    “I thought you said it was a trifle.”
    Over the top of her cheaters, she gave me the stink-eye. “You do remember we are holding a truffle worth a small fortune, and it is to be the key ingredient in the chef competition on Friday?”
    “I have my shortcomings, but I usually don’t forget televised affairs being hosted by the hotel, nor our participation in them.” I shot her a narrow-eyed look. “I wasn’t aware we were responsible for the care and feeding of the special truffle.”
    “Not technically.”
    “Then technically, it’s not our problem. And, just to clarify, don’t they use dogs to find truffles these days?”
    “Yes, but a pig is just more . . . prosaic, don’t you think?”
    “Clearly it doesn’t matter what I think, just don’t tell me there is a four-legged pig in my hotel.” I was well aware that, at any given time, there were several hundred of the two-legged, Y-chromosomed variety, hence the need to clarify.
    “It’s a very special pig.” Miss P. sounded hopeful, as if that might make a difference.
    “And where is this special pig . . . exactly?”
    Her eyes skittered from mine as she developed a sudden interest in something over my shoulder. She worried with a button on her cashmere sweater as she chewed on her lip, which didn’t make me feel very good. “Bungalow 7,” she whispered.
    I stared up at the ceiling as if praying for guidance from a higher power. My mother organizing a grassroots constituency of working girls. Turkeys running loose in the basement. My chef and his sister caught up in homicide and betrayal. The pig in the Kasbah was just the cherry on top of a real sundae of a Sunday. . . . At least I thought it was Sunday. Or was it Monday? In Vegas, day ran into night until one lost track of not only hours but also days and weeks and months. Some days,