Ollie and I went back out on the street. The rain had become lighter as the morning had moved on. The sky behind the big downtown buildings was a swirl of storm clouds that didn’t look as though it was about to move off. All we could do was keep going and pray for a miracle.
Ollie had found a way to put the rest of the change into a money bag that he’d stuffed into the pocket of his waterproof jacket.
“What now?” He looked around.
The streets were as devoid of foot traffic as they were before. People from the food trucks stood around us trying to decide how to get a customer to come back with them. The cameras were rolling, even though Patrick wasn’t out there. I thought we must all look a little pathetic standing around holding our food and not finding anyone to sell to.
The rain had lightened to a drizzle. There were plenty of cars in the street, filled with curious people staring at us. An Atlanta police officer was out there keeping an eye on things. There wasn’t much to see, but for the life of me, I couldn’t think what else we could do.
“Give me two biscuit bowls,” Ollie said. “One strawberry. One chicken. Let’s see if we can’t drum up some business.”
I watched as he ran out into the street at a crosswalk as the light changed to red. He went from car to car with his captive audience. I couldn’t tell if he was selling or not until he waved to me.
I ran out into the street with him. The police officer shouted, “That’s what the crosswalk is for,” but didn’t try to stop me.
“Give me a strawberry biscuit bowl for this lovely lady in yellow.” Ollie rolled his eyes at me, but he was smiling as he made change for the woman.
“Thank you. This is wonderful,” she said. “Now I don’t have to go out for lunch.”
The light turned green. Ollie and I were stuck in the middle of the intersection with cars going by on both sides.
“This could work,” I enthused. “You’re the best for thinking of it.”
“I’m not just good-looking, you know. I’m smart, too.” He took two biscuit bowls from the tray.
By the time the light had turned red again, all of the food truck vendors were in the street. Ollie was working car to car. I followed him with the rapidly disappearing tray of biscuit bowls. When the light turned green again, we were out of product.
“I’ll run back and get more.” I was excited that we’d found a way around the problem.
“I don’t think you need to.” He pointed toward the sidewalk where a woman in a green Honda was parked. She waved to him. “I think we have our product review for the taste test! I told everyone who bought a biscuit what we needed. She agreed.”
Ollie told the woman where to pull her car, and we walked her to the cool-down tent like she was precious cargo. I could see she was flustered and embarrassed, but she went through with it, giving us a glowing video review for our strawberry biscuit bowls.
“We met the extra challenge,” he said after walking the woman back to her car and giving her a chicken salad biscuit bowl to say thanks. “That’s pretty good, right?”
“I don’t know. I guess we’ll see. It shows initiative, right? I think a lot of teams are going to be washed out.” I hoped so anyway.
We took our money to the cool-down tent as Roy Chow and Reverend Jablonski were taking theirs in, too. Some of the sponsors were there, along with the producers and Patrick Ferris.
I didn’t know how this was going to come out, since we didn’t make enough money but had completed the review.
After a few minutes of conferring and checking things out, Patrick announced what they’d decided. “Because of the bad weather, no team sold enough to meet the challenge. We had two teams who made the taste-test challenge, the Biscuit Bowl and Our Daily Bread.”
There was appropriate applause, mostly from the producers’ assistants.
“We have a question for the Biscuit Bowl team and the Our Daily Bread team,” Patrick said. “You can take your thousand dollars now or use that win to improve your standing in the race. Your decision.”
It was a no-brainer for me. “We’ll use the money to improve our standing.”
“So will we,” Reverend Jablonski said.
“Then it looks like we have a tie for the winner of the second challenge,” Patrick said. “No team will take home the thousand dollars for the taste-test challenge.”
“So what do we do in case of a tie?” Jablonski asked.
The sponsors conferred with the producers. They gave their decision to one of their assistants, who delivered it to Patrick.
“Come on. Come on.” Ollie urged them to move faster. “Who wins?”
“The decision has been made to break the tie using the taste-test videos from each of you. We’re going to show the videos again, and whoever has the best compliments about their food wins.”
“Like what?” Ollie asked.
“Words.” Patrick fumbled trying to explain. “Good. Excellent. Delicious. That kind of thing.”
We watched our video again and then Our Daily Bread’s customer video. I couldn’t tell much difference. But Our Daily Bread was declared the winner of the tie.
Ollie and Chef Art protested the decision. It still put us in the number two slot, so I was happy. All we had to do was hang in there until Reverend Jablonski messed up and the race was ours.
Chef Art, immaculate as always in his white linen suit, winked and nodded at me. I knew he was pleased despite his protests. It had been a difficult challenge in the bad weather. We were still doing better than the other teams, which meant someone else was going to be sent home.
There were high fives between the two ministers representing Our Daily Bread. Everyone was excited and congratulating one another.
Now that the challenge was over, I was starting to worry about Miguel. I thought we would have heard something from him by then. I had hoped he’d be back already.
It made me feel guilty. I’d been so worried about winning the race, I’d forgotten all about him until that minute. I wanted to help him, but I wasn’t a lawyer. I hoped he’d called someone who knew what to do. All I could think to do was to go to the police station and demand his release.
Ollie growled as we left the tent. “We weren’t prepared enough.”
“I suppose not, but neither was anyone else. We did okay. Let’s get cleaned up. I want to know what’s happening with Miguel.”
We walked back to the Biscuit Bowl and told Uncle Saul and Delia the news. We started packing up, even though we had to wait for the official word about who had won, and what they had won.
I went to the front of the truck and checked on Crème Brûlée. He didn’t like storms. His howling during the bad weather was usually even worse than the thunder and lightning.
He seemed okay. Maybe I needed to run out to the food truck with him next time there was a storm at home. I stroked his soft white tummy, and he purred for me before he started slapping with his paws.
“You are so crazy.” I kissed his little nose. “But I love you. I know I’m neglecting you a little, but I’ll make it up to you later.”
“Excuse me,” a woman’s voice said from behind.
I turned and faced Tina Gerard—for my money the one responsible for Miguel being questioned by the police. I would’ve blown her off. I felt like it was what she deserved.
Before I could, she said, “I know you’re Zoe Chase. I’m worried about Miguel. Have you heard anything?”
TWENTY
There was a tense sadness about her that I hadn’t noticed when I had seen her far away. She was beautiful and fragile, reminding me of a glass statue. Her clothes were expensive and well made. I felt sorry for her, too, knowing her husband had been trying to take everything away from her in their divorce settlement.
At least I hoped that’s what had been going on. She may have been lying about the whole thing to implicate Miguel in Alex’s death. I had to keep that in mind as I agreed to talk with her.