Turn up the Heat by Jessica Conant-Park, Susan Conant Read Free Book Online Page B

in my truck! Why is she there? What the hell is she doing there?” He stopped moving. “Chloe. You have to help me get her out of there. We have to move her onto the ground. Then we’ll call nine one one, okay? She can’t be in my truck! Do you know what kind of trouble I’m going to be in?”
    I stared in horror at Owen. “Are you crazy? We can’t move her!” Owen stepped back to his truck, and I managed to stand upright without fainting. Then I grabbed his arm tightly, as if I meant to squeeze some sense into him. “No, you are not moving her, Owen! She must have, I don’t know, locked herself in there somehow and died from lack of oxygen, right? Don’t do anything stupid. This must be some freak accident, and you’ll only make things worse if you move her around.”
    “I’ve got deliveries to make. I’ve got this job now! I can’t. . Owen faltered. He looked at me in desperation. “What am I gonna do?”
    I knew Owen felt like the whole world was crashing in on him, and I realized that he was more tightly strung than I’d thought. He had everything riding on this new job, but even for his sake, I wasn’t about to help him move poor Leandra’s body to a more convenient place. As an explanation to his boss and his clients of why he was failing to make his deliveries, the discovery of a dead body in his truck would be more than sufficient; it wasn’t some dog-ate-my-homework excuse. “Owen, it’s going to be all right.” Turning to face Simmer’s back door, I was happy to find it still propped open. I needed help from someone other than the panicked Owen. “Snacker! Snacker!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
    The cleaning woman, Belita, appeared. Instead of hollering that there was a dead body in the back of a truck, I tried to use my social work tact to convey the information in a calm and appropriate manner. “Belita, there’s been an unfortunate accident. Someone has passed away. Could you get Snacker for me? And please call the authorities.” Unfortunate accident was such a stupid phrase; fortunate accidents don’t leave people dead. And why had I said passed away and authorities'}
    Belita shook her head at me, not understanding what I was saying. Tossing aside my incomprehensible social work-ese, I tried again. “Belita, Leandra is dead. Call the police. Get Snacker.” If my online Spanish course had covered forensic terms, I’d forgotten them.
    But plain English worked.
    “Dios mio!” Belita vanished, I hoped, to go get Snacker.
    “Owen, you’d better call nine one one, too.”
    Owen reluctantly pulled his cell from his pocket and punched in the emergency number.
    Snacker, followed by Santos, Javier, Belita and her assistant, and Isabelle, flew out the kitchen door. “Chloe? What’s going on? Belita said something about—” Snacker stopped speaking as I pointed to Owen’s truck. He bounded down the stairs and rushed toward the truck.
    “Snacker, don’t go in!” I hollered.
    He came to an abrupt halt in front of the open door. “Is that Leandra? Oh, my God!” He turned back to face me, his hand over his mouth, and walked away from the truck. “Did you call someone?”
    I nodded. “Owen just did. I’m going to call Josh.”
    I went to retrieve my cell phone from my car while Snacker talked to Simmer’s employees. Chefs have a show-must-go-on mentality; they believe that if food can be prepared and served, then it must be prepared and served. A typical chef, Snacker insisted on the need to continue prep-ping for lunch.
    I called Josh repeatedly until he finally picked up his phone.
    “I’m up, I’m up!” he grumbled into the receiver. “Is Snacker mad I’m not there?”
    “No. There’s a bigger problem.” As I told Josh the little I knew about the unexpected appearance of Leandra’s body in Owen’s truck, a police cruiser pulled into the alley. As it did, Santos and Javier vanished. I wondered, of course, about their immigration status. “Josh, police cars