“Tell her when she gets back,” I said. “I don’t care. I’ve had TV cameras all but rammed down my throat the last few days.”
“It’s too late now. We’ll have to make it work.”
I could see the fear in Marsh’s eyes as he glanced around the kitchen. He had to know there was little or no chance that he was going to get out of here. I hoped we both survived his run for freedom.
Chef Art caught my eye as he handed me a filled biscuit bowl. He glanced toward a large, sharp knife that was on the edge of the cutting block beside him.
I wasn’t sure what he expected me to do with it. Knives didn’t stop bullets. I wasn’t an expert knife person. Yes, there was a knife at hand—several, in fact. What good were they?
I shook my head in what I hoped was an imperceptible movement.
“What?” Marsh picked up on it. “Are you two plotting something? Don’t forget this gun could go either way.”
And that’s where he made his mistake.
He swung his body with the movement of the gun toward Chef Art and completely away from me. The knife Chef Art had tried so hard to get me to notice was too far away for me to easily pick up. I would’ve had to lunge for it across Marsh.
Chef Art’s cane was closer. I grabbed it as Marsh was swinging back toward me, the gun pointed toward the open food window. I used it to rap his gun hand as hard as I could.
In that moment of surprise, he dropped the gun and roared out his pain, putting his hand to his mouth.
“Oww! What are you doing, Zoe?”
I dropped to the floor and yelled for Chef Art to do the same. It took him what seemed like forever to get down there beside me. Marsh was still standing, nursing his hurt hand.
“Put the gun down, Detective Marsh.” Patti stood in the open doorway with another uniformed officer.
Two more officers appeared in the food window. All of their guns were trained on Marsh.
He slowly raised his arms. “I don’t have a gun. And I think Zoe broke my hand.”
– – – – – – –
The uniformed officers led Marsh away. Patti took the gun from my hand and smiled at me. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. A little shook up, but I’ll survive.”
“Good. I’m gonna need a statement from you about this.” She glanced at Chef Art and Ollie. “Both of you, too.”
“But not yet,” Chef Art said. “We haven’t lost the race yet.”
“I’ll leave you to get back to work.” Patti put the gun into a plastic bag. “We’ll talk when this is over.”
“Thanks for rescuing us,” I said before I turned back to three ruined biscuit bowls in the deep fryer.
“It looked to me like you had the whole thing in hand,” she said. “Good luck, Zoe.”
Chef Art stayed with us in the Biscuit Bowl until a real producer’s assistant came by to tell us that Shut Up and Eat had already sold their quota. Ollie put his head down on the order window. Chef Art rolled his eyes and mumbled a lot.
We stopped working and went out to the stage with Bobbie, Delia, and Uncle Saul.
Chef Art complained about the circumstances and told everyone what had happened to us. “You can’t expect someone to win a race with a killer threatening their lives. I demand a redo. I am a sponsor.”
But nothing he said made any difference. In fact, Patrick Ferris joked that he wished they’d thought of putting a stranger with a gun in each food truck for one of the challenges. He was only sorry there was no video footage of Marsh holding a gun on me.
I just realized—there was no sign of Allison. I’d been too involved with everything else going on to notice that she never came back. I complained about that since it violated the direct words of the challenge.
“She didn’t come back to me, either,” Bobbie argued. “It’s not like she was any help. When I catch that girl, we’re gonna have words, believe me.”
The sponsors and producers talked it over and decided that even though Bobbie’s daughter had left, technically, I had help from Chef Art and Marsh, which could’ve been a violation of the challenge, too. They didn’t care that Marsh had held us hostage.
In the end, the big check went to Bobbie Shields of Shut Up and Eat. She cried and wailed on stage, telling everyone about the money she was going to use to put her daughter through college.
I stood on the street with Ollie, Uncle Saul, and Delia. We were all holding hands and trying not to cry—at least I was trying not to cry.
“There’s still the Caribbean cruise,” Delia reminded me.
Like I could leave my business long enough to do something like that at this stage.
We’d tried as hard as we could, and made it through some difficult circumstances. I was happy for Bobbie, in a way, even though Ollie told me I was crazy.
So that was the interview I gave as the loser of the Mobile challenge.
It was embarrassing that I’d lost the challenge at home. I knew I’d hear about it for months to come. No matter. I knew Monday morning I would get up early and go out in the Biscuit Bowl to keep working toward my dream.
That was good enough for me.
– – – – – – –
Miguel was released from the hospital on Saturday morning. The police were done with his Mercedes, so I called Cole and he took me to the impound lot to pick up the car.
Crème Brûlée was difficult that morning, probably still trying to get over the trauma of the race. He didn’t want to eat and kept rolling around on the bed when I tried to get him up.
That didn’t stop me from spending a few extra minutes getting dressed up and coaxing my curls into doing what I wanted them to do. I wore a short white skirt and white and red striped top that looked great on me. I used a little extra eye makeup and wore a pair of white heels.
I looked at myself in the mirror at the diner and approved. I was hoping, if Miguel felt well enough, that we could have lunch out—alone together. We could always do dinner later.
It took forever to get him released from the hospital. We sat around and talked about everything that had happened.
“I know it didn’t end up the way you wanted.” He held my hand. “But I hope you don’t regret it.”
“Not at all. I’m sorry about what happened to you, but I hope you don’t regret it.”
He kissed me. “Not at all.”
Finally, the nurse came in with his release papers. He had to endure the trip to the front door in a wheelchair, but he’d already told me that he wanted to have lunch.
My heart was fluttering in anticipation of a tiny little booth at my favorite café, Lavender Blue. The food was very good there, and I knew the manager would give us a quiet place off by ourselves.
“I like your car,” I told him as he got into the passenger side. “It’s older, but it’s classy.”
“Are you equating me with my car?” He smiled.
“No. It may only be that I’d like any car right now. The Biscuit Bowl can be uncooperative sometimes.”
“What did you have in mind for lunch?”
“I really love Lavender Blue. Would that be okay with you?”
“Sure. It may sound corny, but as long as we’re together. You know what I mean?”
I knew my face was a little pink at his words. I didn’t care. Pink looked good on me. I squeezed his hand and headed across town for the café.
When we got there, there was a big sign in the window that said Closed. I didn’t know why it was there. The café was always open on Saturday.
“I’m sorry. Something must be wrong.” I knew the owner lived right upstairs. “I’m going to pop up there and see what’s going on.”
Miguel waited in the car. He said he wasn’t sure if he could do the three flights of stairs. I got to the front door of the café and peeked inside the window. The door flew open and loud voices yelled, “Surprise!”
I took a step backward, having had all the surprises I’d wanted for a while. Miguel was out of the car and behind me, urging me inside.
I saw both of my parents there, also Ollie and Delia. Wonderful smells were coming from the kitchen as Chef Art, in his cooking whites, waved to me.