Free Rooms to Die For by Jean Harrington Page A

rather than just give up, I thought I’d see what you think.” I waved an arm around his display room. He’d fitted it out with custom kitchen installations in various styles from ultra-sleek to Cape Cod quaint. Each one perfect right down to the carefully selected hardware. “How can I even come close to anything like these?”
    “Well, ten’s not going to buy a custom kitchen, that’s for sure.” Tiny’s eyes narrowed as he fumbled with the suspender straps. “You’ll have to fake it.”
    “Oh, no.” I groaned. “Not another fake.”
    “You got one going already?”
    “It’s a long story that I won’t get into. Just tell me what you mean.”
    “You want to share the limelight? Put my name on the credits along with yours?”
    “In exchange for your help? Of course.” Broad jokes aside, Tiny was a businessman and a darned good one. I respected him for that and for his lifetime of expertise.
    He lifted his bulk off the long-suffering stool. “Come on out back. I got something to show you.”
    He held the door open for me, and we stepped into his workroom, a combination warehouse and craft shop where a half dozen finish carpenters were busy working various projects. Sawdust drifted in the air, its sweet, woodsy odor mingling with glue and wood polish. A saw buzzed. Rather than shout over its din, Tiny crooked a finger, and I followed him to the rear of the workshop. He led me to a large rectangular object covered with a padded tarpaulin secured with webbed straps.
    Mercifully the saw that had all the charm of fingernails on a blackboard stopped shrieking. In the sudden quiet, Tiny, grinning like the Cheshire cat, asked, “Ready for this?”
    Mystified, I just nodded. He unbuckled the straps. Why so many? Was what lay under the wraps so valuable?
    Like a magician flourishing a cape, he released the last strap and, with a wave of his arm, swept the tarp away, letting it drop to the concrete floor.
    The saw started shrieking again, drowning out my shocked intake of breath. And maybe a scream.
    “It’s a beast!” I shouted over the clamor. And it was—a custom-designed La Cornue stove, the most gorgeous kitchen beast imaginable.
    “A beast all right,” Tiny said when the saw stopped once more. “A white elephant’s more like it...well, a burgundy one.”
    “What’s it doing out here?”
    “Last year a customer asked me to special order it. Then her husband’s business went belly up, and she cancelled. She lost her down payment, but I’m out a bundle anyway. Maybe if somebody sees it in the showroom they’ll take it off my hands.”
    “The woman must have been heartbroken to lose this,” I said, looking at the La Cornue with lust in my eyes.
    “Yeah, she was pretty bummed out. Me too,” Tiny added, snapping his suspenders for emphasis. “It retails for forty-six thousand. I’d let it go for twenty-three.”
    I stepped forward and ran my hands over the slick surface. A La Cornue stove in the flesh with double ovens—one electric for dry roasting and baking and one gas for damp roasting and casseroles—gas jet burners on the top surface, a center grill, warming pans and every other bell and whistle a stove could possibly have. That it would also perform with calibrated finesse all the while looking absolutely glorious, I had no doubt. What movie star could do as much?
    “I’m in love,” I murmured.
    “With me?” Tiny pretended to be hopeful.
    I arched my eyebrows at him. “Do you have a burgundy finish, solid brass hardware and knobs of stainless steel?”
    “No knobs of steel.” He snapped his suspenders. “Not anymore.”
    “Doesn’t it hurt your chest when you do that?”
    “Nah, makes me remember I have one.” He thought a moment. “Had one.”
    “Why did you show me this?” I asked, nodding at the stove. “It’s way out of my range. No pun intended.”
    He shrugged. “Ten grand, even fifteen’s not going to get you very far. I thought if you want to borrow the beast,