But before I could form another word, I noticed a particularly mouthwatering scent in the air. “What’s that smell?” I asked, sniffing.
A nervous laugh bubbled out of her. “What smell? There’s no smell.” She eased toward the kitchen as though to block me. She may have been bigger, but I could tackle a 225-pound tight end given the right motivation.
Then it hit me. The truth. The betrayal. I gasped. And gaped. And glared. For, like, a really long time, until she crumbled like the cowardly traitor she was.
“I was hungry,” she said, her shoulders deflating in shame.
“Really?”
“You were off doing whatever it is you do.”
“La Satilla?”
“And I didn’t feel like cooking.”
“You got chile rellenos from La Satilla?”
“Only a few.”
“And you didn’t feel the need to mention it?”
“I was going to. I swear. But it all happened so fast.”
“You know what their chile rellenos do to me.”
She finally let a saucy grin slip. “I got stuffed sopapillas, too.”
I dropped my bag and rubbed my hands together. “Looks like I moved in at just the right moment.”
She laughed as we went to her kitchen and started arranging the feast. Amber strolled in with a dimple-faced Quentin in tow, the two of them as charming as ever.
“Hey, Aunt Charley,” she said, giving me a quick hug. “Did you move in again? I saw your bag.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Sweet.” She signed the entire time she spoke for Quentin’s benefit, then she turned to him and explained, her movements quick and silent.
Quentin laughed and said I had a screw loose. Like literally. He signed, “Screw loose.” I pounced, attacking him for his insolence, using that as an excuse to give him a great big bear hug. He hugged back, wrapping his long arms around me. He was a really good hugger.
After the reunion, the two of them made a plate and headed for the family room.
“Should I talk to her tonight?” I whispered to Cook.
“Nah. We have some time to decide how to go about it.”
I nodded.
“Oh!” Amber shouted back from over her shoulder. “We’re still working on the video. We have a lead we’re checking out now, but it has over eight hundred thousand hits.”
“That’s so great!” I shouted back.
Cookie closed her eyes in horror. “That’s so bad.”
I chuckled and waited for Uncle Bob to walk in. He was in a mood. I could feel him the moment he got out of his car three stories down.
“Hey, you,” I said when he walked in and hung up his coat.
“Oh, hey, pumpkin. Moving in again?”
For the second time in as many minutes, I grabbed the first hug. “Yeah. I’ve named your sofa Fabio.”
“Fantastic. It looks like a Fabio.”
“Right? Blond and inviting with hills and valleys in all the right places.”
“But you know we have seven thousand guest rooms now. You don’t have to sleep on the sofa.” He walked around the island to give his wife a hug. And a kiss. A really long kiss that may or may not have involved tongues.
I fought my gag reflex and finally interrupted. “So, what’s going on?”
“Not much.”
“You seem agitated.”
He tore his gaze off Cook to look at me. “Nope. Is Amber home yet?”
I’d thrown Cookie with the agitated comment, but she recovered quickly. “Yeah. She and Quentin are eating in the family room. They’re working on a case.”
“A case, huh?”
“The video.”
“Ah,” he said as he made a plate.
“Is she in trouble?”
He stopped and looked up at me. “Why would she be in trouble?”
“I don’t know. You just seem agitated. And she’s a teen. Fits.”
“No, Charley, Amber is not in trouble. The day that kid gives us a minute of trouble will be the day I hang up my badge.”
I snorted and was on the verge of giving him a greatest hits compilation of the adventures of Amber Kowalski when Cookie cleared her throat and glared at me from behind Ubie’s back.
“Oh, right,” I mouthed. Thankfully, Ubie was studying the fare. I gave her a thumbs-up sign and changed the subject. “Did you grill Joplin yet?”
“Why would I grill Joplin? This smells incredible.”
“Because he’s the detective on our case.”
“Exactly. Your case. You grill him.”
“He hates me.”
“He hates everyone.”
“True.”
He was calming down. Cookie did that to him, but it didn’t make his earlier agitation any less concerning. Whatever had his hackles in an uproar could wait. It was probably work related, anyway.
He cleared magazines off the table, and we sat down to eat. The three of us at the table. The kids in the family room investigating a video of a possessed little girl. We were like the fallout of a nuclear family. I only felt a little guilty for eating without my love nugget. Then again, he was a spatula away from being a bona fide chef. He could fend for himself.
Amber came back in for seconds and gave him a hug. “Hey, Ubie.” She’d started calling him Ubie because calling her stepdad “Uncle Bob” sounded wrong on all kinds of levels. I agreed wholeheartedly.
She gave him a kiss on the cheek, grabbed another chile relleno along with more chips and salsa, and headed back to the family room. Before she got ten feet, she pulled a U-ey and stuck her head through the doorway. “I almost forgot. A blogger who goes by the name of SpectorySam would like an interview with you.”
“With me?” I asked.
“Yeah. About the video. He wants to do a whole feature and is pretty sure he can get it on Huffington Post.”
If I didn’t think Cookie would pass out, I’d have said yes. “That’s okay. Tell him I’m not giving interviews right now and to contact my agent. It’ll make me sound important.”
“Okay,” she said with a giggle as she pranced off.
“That girl should be in show business,” I said to Cookie.
“Oh, hell, no.”
“Not in a child-star capacity. Those poor kids. But more like an extra in a Tide commercial.”