Read Two Cooks A-Killing for Free Online Page B

the person who’d be giving him recipes and expecting him to help her cook— if the director agreed to give her the job.
    She needed to find Tarleton. Once she had the job, she didn’t care how much the cook yelled. He wasn’t keeping her out of her kitchen.
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    As Angie passed by the dining room in her search, she stopped and entered. In this room, TV cameras would film the food she’d prepare, her creations, her delectable joys—she ran her fingers over the solid mahogany table—here, for millions and millions of people to see.
    Her gaze stopped at the ornate mirror over the buffet, and an earlier, troublesome conversation rushed back at her. She looked over her shoulders, even stuck her head into the entry hall. No one was around. This was as good a time as any.
    She darted to the mirror and studied her image.Up close, back further. What did Dr. Waterfield think was so wrong with it?
    She remembered reading that a lot of movie stars were putting collagen in their lips to make them thicker. Maybe that was the problem. Her lips, though, weren’t thin. In fact, her mouth was usually described as “full,” although possibly not full enough. Not Warner Brothers full.
    She stuck her tongue under her top lip to see if that might give her an idea of what she’d look like with a puffier mouth.
    It told her what a fat lip looked like in a boxing ring.
    She protruded her lips and tried folding back the upper one. All it did was hit her nose and make her gums show.
    â€œMiss Amalfi? Is something wrong?”
    In the mirror, she saw another tall, tanned, thin Hollywood-type heading her way. Did everyone have a tan who lived in that part of the state? Hadn’t they ever heard of sun block?
    This man was L.A. personified with a short-sleeved tangerine shirt that had the first three buttons open. His gray chest hair was a lot fuller than the few similarly colored strands that stretched across the top of his head. A gold-chain necklace winked at her. It seemed so dated, the costume of an over-the-hill, only-in-his-own-mind swinger.
    She frowned. “Who are you?”
    Voice icy, words clipped, he replied, “Emery Tarleton.”
    The director! She spun around, blushing furiously. “Oh! I’m so sorry. I…I just wanted tomake sure there was no food stuck between my teeth. I hate it when that happens.” If the floor had opened up, she would have gladly sunk into it.
    Tarleton adjusted his thick black-framed glasses, studying her as she did him. “I wish to talk to you about your role,” he said. “The Eagle Crest Christmas Reunion will be aired during the December sweeps. Already, the buzz is that it will be the most watched show of the year—if not the decade. Inspiration got the cast together again.” An eyebrow arched. “Inspiration and genius.”
    His genius was clearly what he was thinking. His good luck, she thought, that the two members of the cast who’d gone on to become popular movie stars—Kyle O’Rourke and Gwen Hagen, aka Adrian and Leona Roxbury—were available and still affordable.
    â€œYes, sir,” she murmured.
    â€œYou will present the Christmas dinner—mouthwatering, somewhat-traditional-but-not-overly, entrées and desserts,” he declared. “The Roxburys put on airs to show off their money. They might serve frogs’ legs, but none of them would actually eat one. Same for escargots. You get the picture. That’s the kind of food I want.”
    â€œNo problem.” A few tweaks here and there in the dinner she’d planned, perhaps by adding sea urchins, sweetbreads, eel, or other equally gourmet-but-squeamish foods, and she’d have it.
    â€œYou will serve a different wine with each course. Waterfield wine.”
    â€œWaterfield?” The word fell from her lips. Did the man have no taste? Could she tell the director,on their first meeting, that Waterfield wine was only