Pies & Peril by Janel Gradowski Page B

pasta. "Since you are my gorgeous, human wife that means you need to eat. Running on fumes isn't going to do any good. You need to stay on your toes with a psycho roaming around."
    He was right. The killer had to be a lunatic to connect her with a vindictive walking temper tantrum. They weren't adjacent points in a dot to dot puzzle, so how could the person go from knocking off Mandy Jo to threatening her with the same fate? "I am being careful, watching the people around me when I'm in town, triple-checking that I turned on the alarm system. I even bought one of those little bottles of pepper spray while I was out running errands this morning. It's more portable than my industrial-sized hair spray bottle." She sniffed. "If anybody messes with me they're going to get a habanero pepper facial."
    " I'm glad you are being so vigilant." He grabbed her free hand as she shoveled a forkful of tomato sauce covered noodles into her mouth with the other. "I think we need to take more precautions, though. I'm sure your mom would love to have you visit for a while."
    " Oh, hell no!" The mellow mood from being fed and fondled evaporated. "For one thing, I can't leave because I am part of an active homicide investigation. And two, the only thing staying with my mother will do is piss me off. I can't handle her, and you know that."
    Her alcoholic mother had moved to south Florida 10 years earlier, after becoming a widow courtesy of her father losing his battle with liver cirrhosis. She lived in a trailer house in a retirement community. The paneled living room walls were covered with clocks, all set to different times. The names of cities around the world were written on masking tape stuck to the face of each one. During their last visit her mother had explained that she liked to see what time it was in other parts of the world. The following day the chronological obsession showed its true colors as her mother made a Moscow Mule cocktail, complete with the copper mug, at 8 a.m. to toast happy hour in Moscow.
    " I'm sorry. I know you don't get along with your mother, but I figured you would be safe there."
    " I'm being very careful. I'll be safe here." She leaned sideways and rested her head on his shoulder. "That nice detective said he has been in the homicide division for 10 years. I'm sure he'll figure out who the murderer is. Besides, the note didn't specifically say the person wanted to kill me. It said I would end up like Mandy Jo."
    " She ended up dead, sweetheart. How else can you possibly take that statement?"
    Great. Everyone was turning into brainiacs and making her feel stupid. First Carla pulled out her medical trouble-shooting skills and figured out Pogo ate the missing pie. Now Alex was flaunting his deductive skills to squish her attempt at rationalizing she wasn 't the target of a killer. Just because her family could only afford to send her to cosmetology school instead of a university didn't mean she was dumb. She had made the honor roll almost every semester in high school. "You know, I had to learn things like anatomy and hair color chemistry in beauty school. It wasn't a cake walk. "
    " I…" He held up his index finger and took a long drink from his beer bottle. "You are an awesome hair stylist, and I know you worked very hard in school to get to that point. I'm sorry, but what does that have to do with the note?"
    " I was just trying to intelligently point out that there could be different interpretations of the note. I'm just not sure what any of those would be at the moment." She drummed her fingers on the oak tabletop. "Maybe the person who wrote the note meant I would end up mean and ornery, not dead."
    One of Alex 's signature, high-wattage, heart-stopping, movie star-quality smiles spread across his face. "You are the most optimistic person I know. One of the many reasons I love you." He kissed the back of the hand he was still clutching. "One of the other reasons is that you have a wonderful sense of style. Do