Free Drowned Vanilla (Cafe La Femme Book 2) by Livia Day Page A

going to spend the rest of his life mooching around Flynn? I was the last person to disparage serving latté as a living, but I wouldn’t go around telling a seventeen-year-old it was the pinnacle he could achieve in his life. Not unless he owned the damned coffee machine, anyway.
    ‘What’s Jason’s Mum doing?’ I asked. ‘While Greg Avery is transforming Flynn.’
    Shay eyed my custard mix like he hadn’t eaten in a week, despite the fact that I had thrown two bacon sandwiches and half a cold quiche down his throat since we got back from our beach walk. I found him a spoon so he could taste it.
    ‘Cheers,’ he said, digging in. ‘Jase’s Mum shot through years ago. Greg married Pippa last summer — she’s a bit nuts, but cool. Into all this hippie shit, you know, but wicked smart. She’s been pushing the council for us to get an online centre, and she did great things with the Avery Grove website.’
    ‘How does Jason get on with Pippa?’
    ‘You mean apart from getting into a fight with two guys who reckoned they saw her sunbathing topless?’ Shay had a touch of that spark back, as he grinned. ‘Wouldn’t have minded seeing that myself. Don’t tell Jase, but his stepmum’s way hot.’
    ‘No more sugar for you,’ I said firmly, confiscating his spoon. ‘So how’s Jason doing now? With everything that’s happened.’
    ‘The police never charged him,’ Shay said sourly. ‘Held him for questioning as long as they could, but they didn’t have enough evidence to arrest him.’ That part at least I knew from the newspapers and Stewart. ‘I went up there the other day and he couldn’t even look me in the eye. Told him I knew he hadn’t done it, but…’ He shrugged again. Poor kid was all shrug.
    ‘Why did you come to see me?’ I asked finally. It was a long way to come for curiosity, for pouring your words out to a stranger.
    Shay didn’t say anything for a while, watching as I poured the ice cream mix into a metal tub for freezing. ‘Want it to make sense, you know? You didn’t make sense.’
    ‘I rarely do,’ I admitted.
    ‘Nah,’ he said with a grin. ‘Now I’ve met you and all. You’re all right. Don’t know why you care, but it’s good someone does, you know?’
    I gave him the spoon back, so he could scrape the bowl out. ‘Yeah.’
    I did care, damn it. That meant it was time to get more involved. And that meant…
    Time to square things with the person I couldn’t even admit I’d been avoiding.

9
    Gingerbread House Forums Q&A, cont.
     
    Vampsparkle8829: French_vanilla, how did you join The Gingerbread House?
    French_vanilla: Actually, I answered an ad too — though the one I answered was a bit different, I imagine!
    Gingernutz: Wanted, extra person to live inside a web peep show. Must be willing to take top off in front of 50,000 people and do own laundry.
    French_vanilla: You know, I remember you being more subtle than that…
    Cherry_ripe: hee, it was something like ‘broke, need somewhere to live, amazingly open-minded? Call this number, girls only.’
    French_vanilla: What can I say, it spoke to me.
    Gingerbutz: It was great, we interviewed twelve people, and they all had so many questions. Vanilla just wanted to know — can I keep my cardy on.
    Cherry_ripe: We said yes you can, and the rest is history.
     
     
    At noon the next day, I kidnapped my plain clothed non-boyfriend from under the nose of the entire Hobart police service. No one seemed particularly alarmed. I miss my days of being a suspicious character.
    Who am I kidding? I was never all that suspicious. Once you feed a police officer, they’re yours for life. In my case, multiply that by several hundred. If I ever wanted to go into organised crime, I could own this town with three dozen peanut butter cookies and a well-timed spit roast.
    ‘You cooked for me?’ said Bishop, as I dragged him down on the grass in St David’s Park, and repeatedly smacked his hands to keep them away from the