Pizza, Paradise, and Murder (Papa Pacelli's Pizzeria Series Book 24) Read online

  “Hello?”

  “Ellie?” Her friend’s voice was so weak that it was hardly recognizable.

  “Linda? What’s wrong?”

  “Sandra and I were in an accident. You need to come. I’m in the hospital.”

  Ellie felt her stomach drop. “Oh, my goodness. Are you okay? What happened?”

  “The car hit us… it came out of nowhere. It’s all my fault.”

  She realized that Linda was crying and tried to think fast. How could she offer enough comfort over the phone?

  “You’re okay, that’s what matters,” she said. “How badly are you injured?”

  “My arm’s broken, and the doctor said I have a concussion. My brain doesn’t feel right, and it’s hard to focus, but Sandra… and I can’t open the pizzeria, the two girls can’t handle it on their own. I don’t know what to do.”

  “It’s okay,” Ellie said, trying to soothe her. Her mind worked fast. If she could change the flight for tomorrow, they might be able to get a layover in Florida, and then she could visit Linda and Sandra in person. She would hate to delay her honeymoon, but she knew that she could never enjoy her vacation knowing that her coworker and friend was in the hospital. “I’ll get a flight down there. We’ll figure out what to do together. Right now, I just want you to rest and focus on getting better, okay?”

  By then, Linda was barely coherent. Ellie knew that she must be on painkillers, and that trying to get anything more out of her would be nearly impossible. She managed a quick goodbye, then hung up to dial Russell’s number. It might not be the ideal beginning to their trip, but she was certain that he would understand the need for a temporary delay.

  CHAPTER THREE

  * * *

  They managed to get a room at the same hotel that Ellie had stayed in during her last trip to Florida. Russell hadn’t complained once about the sudden change in plans, and Ellie didn’t think she had ever loved him more.

  “It might not be St. Lucia, but there are still palm trees,” she said as she drove the rental car through the sunny streets. “This is just a detour. Tomorrow, we’ll be at our island paradise.”

  “I don’t want you to feel rushed,” Russell said. “I know they’re your friends. Take as much time as you need. We did say that we could take time out for work if there’s an emergency, and this fits the bill.”

  “I know. I just feel bad. We should be flying over the ocean right now.”

  “Don’t feel bad. This is still a vacation. I don’t see snow anywhere, do you?”

  “No.” Ellie smiled at him. “Just sandy beaches and enough sunlight to make me wish I hadn’t left my sunglasses in my suitcase.”

  They stayed at the hotel just long enough to find their room and drop off their luggage. Ellie confirmed the eleven in the morning checkout time for the next day, then she and Russell got back into the car and she searched for the hospital on the built-in GPS.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to book another night?” Russell asked. “We might have to stay for more than one day. Plus, wouldn’t it be nice to visit your grandmother while we’re down here? It would be a fun surprise for her.”

  “We can always book another night this evening if we have to,” she said. “I’m going to hold off on booking the plane tickets until after we see Linda and Sandra at the hospital, but I want to get going on our real trip as soon as possible.” She smiled. “Though visiting Nonna is a good idea. We can stop by before leaving tomorrow. She’ll be shocked to see us.”

  The hospital was a good twenty minutes away. Ellie fell silent as she concentrated on navigating the unfamiliar streets. Now that the chaos of changing their flight last minute and booking a hotel room were over, she could focus more on her concern for her friends. Just how bad had the accident been? Had the other driver been injured? She had so many more questions, but silently promised herself not to overwhelm either woman. Being in the hospital was bad enough. They didn’t need her to make them relive their memories just because she was curious.

  She was relieved when she saw the signs for the hospital at last. They had to wind their way up the ramps of the parking garage before finally finding parking on the fourth level. Then it was a matter of following the myriad of signs inside the building until they reached the visitors’ desk. She gave the woman behind the counter Linda’s name.

  “She’s expecting us,” she said.

  “She’s in room two-hundred and three,” the woman said. “Down that hallway, to your left.”

  “Thank you.”

  Ellie was glad to have Russell by her side as she walked down the brightly lit hallway. She had never been completely comfortable in hospitals — was anyone? — but not knowing what to expect when she entered the room made matters worse. Would Linda be covered in bruises? Would she even be recognizable? She had mentioned a broken arm and a head injury, but she had been out of it the last time Ellie had spoken to her on the phone, and she didn’t know if there might be something more.

  “Here,” Russell said. “Why don’t you go in first? She knows you better.”

  “Okay.” Ellie took a deep breath, then knocked on the partially open door.

  “Come in.” The voice was weak, but Ellie was relieved to hear an answer at all.

  “Hi, there,” she said softly, pushing the door open and walking into the hospital room. “We changed our flight as quickly as we could. How are you feeling?”

  Linda was laying in the hospital bed with her arm in a cast and a bandage over a shaved spot on her head. She had one bruise that radiated out from under the white bandage, but other than that she looked the same as she had last time Ellie had been in town.

  “I’m either in pain, or on so many painkillers I can’t focus on anything,” the other woman said. “It could be worse, though. That’s what I keep telling myself.”

  “I’m glad you’re okay.” Ellie glanced at the cast on Linda’s arm. “Well, for the most part. I didn’t know what to expect. How’s Sandra?”

  She was shocked when Linda’s face crumpled. “I didn’t tell you? Oh, I knew I shouldn’t have tried to talk to you when I was so out of it.” She took a deep breath. “Sandra’s dead.”

  Ellie felt a hand on her shoulder; Russell had come into the room and was standing behind her. She blinked, trying to wrap her mind around what the other woman had said. Sandra couldn’t be dead. Linda must have said something else, something that Ellie had misheard, but she could tell by the look on her face that she hadn’t misheard.

  “Oh,” she breathed, the air rushing out of her lungs. She took a slow breath in, feeling cold all over as she tried to think of something to say. “Linda, I’m… I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t even know what happened,” Linda said, tears forming in her eyes. “I remember talking to her — we were on our way back from a food convention on the other side of the city, and then I saw the car through her window. That’s the last thing I remember until waking up in this hospital bed. Everything else from that day is fuzzy. The doctor said short term memory loss is normal, but I’m not too sure I want my memories to come back. It was bad enough when they told me she was dead. I don’t want to remember seeing it happen.”

  “Whatever you need, I’m here for you,” Ellie said. “I’m going to think of something I can do for Sandra’s family, too.”

  Sandra had been the assistant manager of the Florida Papa Pacelli’s location and had been just as instrumental in getting the restaurant up and running as Linda had been. Ellie knew that the two of them must have been close after working side by side on the same goal for so long.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Linda said. “Even when they release me, I don’t know if I’ll be able to go back to work right away. How could I? I’ve never lost a friend like this before. How will I tell the employees? What will I do when the customers ask where she is? I’m going to be a wreck for a long time.”

  “I can take care of that,” Ellie said. “You just focus on getting better. I�
�ll gather the employees and tell them what happened, and we’ll figure out a plan for reopening. I might even be able to ask my grandmother to come in and help out until we hire more people.”

  A knock sounded at the door, and Ellie turned to see a police detective standing in the doorway. “Pardon me,” he said. “I just have some questions.”

  Linda nodded. “Come on in.” To Ellie, she said, “I wasn’t with it enough when the police came the first time to answer their questions. I’m feeling less foggy now, so I might as well get it out of the way.”

  “We’ll come back later,” Ellie said. “Hang in there, okay? Don’t push yourself too hard.”

  She and Russell left, both of them somber and silent as they walked through the building to the parking garage. Ellie had no idea where to go or what to do next. Sandra was dead, and Linda was injured. Her honeymoon suddenly didn’t seem as important as it had that morning.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  * * *

  “What now?” she asked as they sat on the bed in their hotel room. Their suitcases were still sitting on top of the comforter, and she didn’t know what to do with them. Unpacking would be a sign that they were going to be there for a while, and she didn’t want to make that decision without talking to her husband first.

  “You should contact the employees,” Russell said. “They need to know what happened.”

  Ellie nodded; Russell was right. Right now, all the employees knew was that there had been an accident, and their bosses were out of commission. The pizzeria had been closed since yesterday, and Ellie would have to figure out whether the employees could run it by themselves for a short while or not. They were all newer hires, and she didn’t know any of them well.

  “I’ll see if they can meet us at the restaurant tomorrow morning,” she said. “I’m not looking forward to breaking the news to them.”

  “I’ll do it, if you want me to.”

  She shook her head. “No, it’s my responsibility. I have to be the one to tell them about the accident. Better me than Linda. I’ve never seen her like this.”

  “Are you sure it was an accident?” Russell asked. When she looked at him in surprise, he added, “Didn’t you have some trouble with another restaurant when this one first opened? Could this be a continuation of that?”

  “I doubt it,” Ellie said. “The person responsible for those troubles went to prison. Why do you think it wasn’t an accident? Linda hardly told us anything about it.”

  “I don’t necessarily think it was anything but what it appears to be, but it’s my job to consider the possibilities, remember? They were on their way back from a restaurant related conference when the accident happened, and I knew that you had had issues with this location before, so it seemed like a logical leap to make.”

  “I’ll ask Linda if anything odd has been going on if she seems up to it next time I see her,” she said, trying not to let Russell see how doubtful she was. “I don’t want to get ahead of myself, though. It’s going to be harder for her if I make the accident into something it’s not.”

  He nodded. “That’s understandable. Just let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  “I don’t know how long I’ll have to stay,” she said. “Our honeymoon —”

  “We’ll put it on hold for the time being. You just lost a friend. Don’t worry about our trip, just focus on what you can do here. I’ll call the hotel in St. Lucia to let them know what happened.”

  “Thank you, Russell,” she said with feeling.

  “Of course. Like I said, I’ll help with whatever you need. Now, let’s go get some food and unpack our clothes while we go over what we’re going to do tomorrow.”

  Ellie and Russell woke early the next morning to make their way to Papa Pacelli’s. Even with the circumstances, she still got a little thrill when she saw the familiar sign over the door. Opening the second restaurant had been one of her proudest moments. Now, however, she had a new heartache that dampened her pride considerably. Would Sandra still be alive if she hadn’t opened the restaurant? Probably, she thought as she reached for her keys. Even if Russell’s theory is wrong, there’s still the fact that she and Linda wouldn’t have attended the convention if it weren’t for this pizzeria.

  It was a sobering thought, and she carried it with her as she opened the doors. The interior of the pizzeria was dim, lit only by what light streamed through the window from the street outside. She remembered working side by side with Linda to get the place ready for its grand opening, and felt her chest constrict. How could so much grief come out of something as simple as a restaurant?

  “I’m going to go turn the lights on,” she told her husband. “I want to make sure everything’s in order before the employees get here. It’s too depressing as it is.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll take a look around. Holler if you need anything.”

  Ellie made a beeline for the panel of light switches in the storage closet and flipped all of them other than the one that controlled the neon open sign in the front window to ON. Now that the building felt more alive, she went to the kitchen and familiarized herself with all the appliances. Most of them were similar to the ones in the original Papa Pacelli’s kitchen, but some were slightly newer models.

  An idea sprung to her mind, and she began doing the one thing that seemed to calm her down whenever something bad happened; she cooked. She and Russell would need something to eat anyway, and she didn’t know whether the employees would eat before they came or not. The pizzeria didn’t usually open until eleven, so an early morning meeting like this was unusual. Food wouldn’t lessen the blow of the bad news that they were about to hear, but it couldn’t hurt.

  She grabbed two balls of dough from the refrigerator and began rolling them out as the oven preheated. She didn’t want to make too much of a mess in the kitchen, so she decided to make simple pizzas that wouldn’t require her to prepare any special ingredients; one cheese, and one pepperoni pizza should be enough to feed them all, or to supply her and Russell with food for the evening and the next morning if they didn’t finish the pizzas there.

  It didn’t take her long to get the pizzas in the oven and to clean up her work station. Once she was done cleaning, she sat on a stool and pulled out her phone, wondering if anyone had left any messages on the pizzeria’s website about their unexpected closing the day before. She didn’t want Linda to have to deal with a flood of people asking her what happened when she got back; it would be the last thing that the injured and traumatized woman would need.

  Why is the rating so low? she wondered, looking at the measly three stars on the review page. She had gotten out of the habit of checking the website daily and had relied on Linda’s emails and sales records to tell her how the pizzeria was doing. Now, as she clicked on the link that led her to the reviews, she frowned. Over the past two weeks, there had been an influx of one-and two-star reviews. The oddest part was that they all said almost exactly the same thing, with only a small change here and there; Poor customer service and terrible food. We won’t be eating there again and do not recommend it.

  Ellie frowned. None of the bad reviews included anything more specific, and their similar phrasing made her suspicious. The names of the reviewers were all different, though, and she couldn’t imagine why someone would hate their restaurant enough to go to the effort of making so many fake accounts.

  The oven buzzed, and she put her phone aside for the time being. She would show Russell the reviews later, but right now, she had bad news to deliver to the employees who would be arriving at any minute.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  * * *

  “I just don’t know what to do,” Ellie groaned as Russell pulled their rental car out onto the main road. “Lanie and Xandra might be able to handle the day to day running of the business, but Lila has only been working there for a few weeks. Even if they can keep the pizzeria running smoothly without a manager, I can’t expect all three of them to show up every single day. Thre
e employees can’t keep the pizzeria running seven days a week without being worked into the ground.”

  “Do you think Linda will want to go back once she has recovered?” her husband asked.

  “I don’t know. The pizzeria means a lot to her, but even so, she might not be able to handle it for a while. She will be reminded of Sandra every time she steps through the door. The two of them worked together to make the place what it is, and it’s going to be hard for her to work there without Sandra. Even if she does come back, we would still need to hire someone else. They’re busier than the Papa Pacelli’s in Kittiport, and five people working there was barely enough as it was. How can I ask her to train someone else without having her feel like she’s replacing her friend?”

  “I’m sure there’s a solution,” Russell said. “Just keep the restaurant closed for now. You’ll be able to handle the loss of sales, won’t you?”