Free The Da Vinci Cook by Joanne Pence Page A

it!”
    Cat archly lifted her eyebrows. “No, he doesn’t know that I know. In any event, as a realtor, I am thorough.”
    And as a sister, Angie knew when Cat was lying through her teeth.
    With each question, the tension between them increased.
    It was time to go. As they paid for the meal, Angie was surprised to see that the tables around them were now empty.
    They were the last to leave that night.

Chapter 11
    Paavo drove Bianca to Flora Piccoletti’s house in his Corvette. Angie had given it to him for Christmas because she was worried about the old car he’d been driving. He’d once mentioned that, years ago, he enjoyed watching the TV show Miami Vice, in which Don Johnson played a cop who drove a Corvette—rather ridiculous in hindsight. He guessed those comments stayed with Angie. When he let himself think about the car, it seemed an awful indulgence. Most of the time, though, he simply enjoyed it.
    Bianca was still fussing, even as she sat in the car. She took out a Kleenex and used it to shine the knobs on the heater and radio controls. Paavo half expected her to start washing windows—the outside ones. He asked her about Flora Piccoletti, hoping to distract her.
    Flora was in her late seventies and in good health. The family was large, but not close, and she had lived very much cut off from the others since her favorite sister became afflicted with dementia. No one knew what Flora’s sons were up to, and the daughter, Josie, had been estranged from her mother for years.
    “She’s a tough old thing,” Bianca said. “She and Mamma were friends years back, but then she got more and more sour about the world. Mamma found her tiresome, especially as Papa’s money grew. Flora was always bitter that her husband died before he became rich. I think she expected her children to make it up to her.”
    “Did they?”
    Bianca opened his glove compartment and started to stack the papers inside it neatly—maps on the bottom, registration next, gas card receipts on top. “I never heard that they did. In fact, I think they all pretty much took off and left Flora on her own. Mamma hasn’t heard from her in years, but then, leopards don’t change their spots, do they?”
    “No,” Paavo said, “I guess not.”
    “Do you need to keep two-month-old receipts?”
    He reached over and shut the glove box. “Leave them.”
    She folded her hands and stared out the side window. “You’re worried about Angie, aren’t you?”
    “Shouldn’t I be?” he asked. “She’s following someone who well may be a murderer. It’s insane. Sometimes, I don’t understand your sister at all.”
    “Don’t worry about her,” Bianca said. “She knows what she’s doing, and she’d never take an unnecessary chance. Besides, Cat is with her.”
    “Oh, that makes me feel a whole lot better,” Paavo said.
    “I’m glad.” Bianca smiled, and Paavo wondered if she really didn’t understand sarcasm. “Are you eating all right? Getting enough sleep?” She wrapped a fresh Kleenex around her forefinger, dabbed spit on it, and began to rub it along the seam where the dash and windshield met—that little groove where dust and dirt could collect and was impossible to get out short of using a toothbrush. She used a fingernail.
    Paavo drove faster.
    “Angie said she really likes your little house, by the way,” she said, her brow furrowed in concentration as she tried to get out some infinitesimal grit that lodged in the groove.
    “Once we’re married, we’ll have to move,” Paavo said. “My place isn’t big or modern enough for Angie.”
    “When she was a little girl, she loved to make cute little cardboard houses for her dolls. For herself, she’d draw chalk marks as her ‘house’ out on the sidewalk or in our backyard. I guess that’s what came of living with four older sisters and always sharing a bedroom. She wanted her own space.”
    He thought about what Bianca had told him. “Are you saying she might be happy