Read Topped Chef A Key West Food Critic Mystery for Free Online

episode? Less, yellow? But definitely no horizontal stripes, darling.”
    Sam Rizzoli snickered loudly enough so that everyone on the set heard him.
    As color and heat rushed to my face, I felt myself shrinking into a puddle of humiliation. Then I got mad. The Key Zest shirt might very well be a fashion faux pas, but it was my faux pas. And that of my friend and ally Wally, who’d stood up for me this morning in the face of a raging bully.
    “You wanted someone to represent Key Zest on your show,” I heard myself say. “The shirt comes as part of the package.”
    Peter looked stunned but then he burst out laughing. “Brava! I didn’t think you had it in you.” He tossed his head, the white mane flying. “That’s it, people. Until tomorrow.”
    I plastered on a smile, then gathered my backpack and sunglasses, and walked out. Wally owed me big-time for this.

4
I’ll have what she’s having.
—Nora Ephron
    I was already antsy about having dinner with Detective Bransford later this evening. But even though I’d stood up for myself in the end, Peter Shapiro’s “guinea hen” comment magnified my nerves times ten. I tore through most of the items in my closet before settling on black jeans and a black sweater. According to my mother, who knows these things, sticking to one color was supposed to be slimming. And then I added my lucky red cowboy boots, which, as far as I was concerned, went with everything and took five pounds off, too. At least six times I checked my phone to reread the exchange of text messages I’d had with Bransford last night.
    Him: I made a reservation at Michaels.
    Me: Been dying to try Michaels. Sounds great.
    Him: Steak from Chicago and Hayley from New Jersey, a perfect menu.
    He’d even added a little smiley face, which seemed utterly, nerve-wrackingly out of character. Once I was ready—too early—I paced in tiny circles around the living area, yelling out answers to Jeopardy! before the contestants could get to them.
    “You’re making me woozy,” said Miss Gloria from her seat in the galley. “Come sit with me and try a bite of dinner. I used to fix this when the boys were little but I couldn’t remember all the ingredients. I’d love a professional opinion.” She patted the chair beside her, her smile a little quivery.
    So I grabbed a fork and a small saucer from the dish drainer, plopped down in the seat at the kitchen table not occupied by sweet old ladies and pushy cats, and nibbled at her tuna casserole.
    “What do you think?” she asked, grinning hopefully. Either Miss Gloria was terribly out of practice or had never really enjoyed cooking. I was betting on both, but especially the latter. Mayonnaise, pasta, and dark tuna in oil, all mixed together and heated through—something you might find on a college student’s hot plate. Both cats were standing sentinel on the couch, drawn, I was sure, by the fishy odor.
    “Delicious,” I said, shuttering my eyes closed for dramatic effect. “It reminds me a bit of one of the chefs’ dishes we chose this morning. Let’s see…cheddar cheese, a hint of pickle relish, overtones of mayonnaise, a dash of dehydrated onion flakes?”
    She giggled and ladled another spoonful onto my dish. “You forgot the Worcestershire sauce. That’s my secret ingredient.” She rested her elbow on the table and put her chin in her palm. Her eyes twinkled, set offby the rhinestones on her pink sweatshirt. “Do you think Nathan Bransford is the one ?”
    I shivered and let my fork clatter to the table, then crossed my arms in a big X to ward off that thought. “I have no idea—I’m really bad at this. I thought Chad Lutz was my destiny and you know how that worked out.”
    Chad and I had lasted five short weeks after I moved to Key West to live with him last fall. But to be painfully frank, I barely knew the guy when I followed him the length of the eastern seaboard—as my mother and my closest friends were fond of pointing out. In the end,