Half-Price Homicide by Elaine Viets

these brownies.” Margery had the brownie plate in her hand when her kitchen phone rang. She put it down and picked up the phone.
    “You!” she said into the phone. “I thought you were gone.” Her face was taut with anger. She listened for a moment, then said, “You want to speak to Helen? I’ll see if she’s here. Just a minute.”
    Margery pressed the mute button.
    “Sorry you got that call,” Helen said. “I bought a cell phone after Rob tracked me here so you wouldn’t have to take my calls. I figured there was no point in hiding anymore.”
    “Maybe not from Rob, but what will you do when that Hendin Island detective finds out you’re running from the court?” Margery asked.
    Helen didn’t want this discussion. “I can’t leave my mother now. I gave all my friends my new cell number.”
    “This is no friend,” Margery said. “Brace yourself. It’s Rob.” “He’s back?” Helen said.
    “I’m afraid so. Do you want me to stay here with you?” “No, thanks,” Helen said. “He’s as hard to get rid of as athlete’s foot. Go take the brownies out. I’ll take his call.”
     

“Hi sunshine.” Rob’s voice was slick with contempt.
    “I’m sorry about your wedding.”
    Stay cool, Helen told herself. Don’t lose your temper. He’s not worth it. She remembered a sign a secretary used to keep over her desk: only you can let someone ruin your day.
    She was not going to let Rob ruin hers.
    “What do you want?” Helen’s voice was freezing rain on a winter day.
    Remember the last time you fought with him, she told herself. You nearly were arrested for murder.
    Helen pictured Rob the way she’d seen him that night at the Superior Club. It was midnight, and a thunderstorm was rolling in. Flashes of lightning lit the sky. Helen had worked twelve hours straight, wearing the ugly polyester uniform reserved for servants. Sweaty, tired and rumpled, Helen was forty-one and looked it.
    Rob had seemed sleek and smug. He’d looked tanned and lean, thanks to Marcella’s personal chef and fitness trainer. Even his bald spot was gone now that he could afford Rogaine. His skin glowed from frequent facials. Naturally, he was wearing a Tommy Bahama shirt. It was almost a uniform for players: Team Swine, the big-league cheaters.
    Rob had taunted her that night and she’d punched him in the mouth, an indulgence for which she’d paid dearly. Now her hand itched to hit him again, though he wasn’t in slugging distance. She took her red-hot temper and sealed it into an ice cave.
    “Hey, you don’t have to be that way.” Rob’s words seemed to slither out of the receiver. Her ear felt soiled listening to him. “I was trying to be polite. I heard your wedding didn’t come off and I’m sorry. That’s all. I also wanted to know how your mother was. She’s in a nursing home in Florida, right? That’s too bad. Dolores always liked me. I can’t help that.”
    Helen’s hot temper shivered and stirred, but the ice cave held.
    “Who told you about my mother and my wedding?” Helen asked. “You haven’t talked to my friends.”
    She had surrounded herself with people she trusted. Margery wouldn’t have said anything. Neither would Phil. Helen’s sister, Kathy, couldn’t abide Rob. Marcella, the Black Widow, didn’t know what Helen was doing these days and didn’t care.
    “Your mother’s second husband told me,” Rob said. “I’m the son that old Lawn Boy Larry never had. I stopped by his place and we shared a couple of brews. Larry gave me the news about your mother. He’s worried about her.”
    “So worried he never bothered to see her in the nursing home,” Helen said.
    Oops. She could feel the ice cave cracking. A burning red tentacle tried to break out. She stamped on the ugly thing and sent it scuttling back into the cave.
    She took deep breaths in Margery’s cozy, brownie-scented kitchen. The polished copper kettle, the microwave, the bowl of fruit on the kitchen table, were all