Page 3 of Death of a Grill Master

“I don’t know. Forget it. It’s not important.”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Hayley said, crossing her arms. “You don’t get to start a conversation like that and then back out. Spill.”

“I’m serious, Hayley. It’s nothing. We’ll talk about it another time.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Is it Sergio? Are you two okay?”

Randy looked surprised for a moment—then something flickered in his eyes.

Guilt?

Worry?

“We’re fine,” he said too quickly. “Don’t start sleuthing on me. I just … had a thought, and it doesn’t matter. I’ll catch you later, okay?”

He kissed her cheek and vanished into the crowd before she could press him further.

Hayley stood there for a moment, watching him go.

Something was up.

She hated not knowing what.

By the time she made it back to the grill, Bruce had managed to blacken only half the shrimp. He handed her a skewer and leaned in.

“You talk to Randy?”

“Briefly. He was acting squirrelly.”

Bruce nodded, flipping a scallop with the ease of a man who’d learned not to let Hayley near fire.

“I think something might be up between him and Sergio,” he said softly. “I overheard a tense phone call earlier. Thought maybe I was imagining it, but …”

Hayley’s stomach turned slightly. Sergio was not only Bar Harbor’s police chief—he was one of her dearest friends. And he and Randy had always seemed solid. The kind of couple who bickered like sitcom characters but always came back stronger.

“You think there’s trouble in paradise?” she asked.

Bruce didn’t answer.

Hayley looked out over the backyard. Liddy was laughing with Doug; her other BFF, Mona, was holding court near the clam dip; and Betty and Kelton were dancing barefoot under the twinkle lights.

She should have felt content. But something—something she couldn’t quite name—was shifting.

And deep down, she knew.

This fall, paradise might not be as perfect as it looked.

Chapter 2

By the time the sun began to sink behind the tree line on their quiet residential street, Hayley Powell’s backyard had transformed from festive to borderline unhinged.

The Bluetooth speaker Bruce had dug out of the garage—“state-of-the-art in 2015,” he proudly claimed—was blaring dance hits from every decade from the newlywed playlist, culminating in an inexplicably passionate guest rendition of “Uptown Funk” that nearly took out the lemonade cooler.

Hayley, barefoot now and nursing a plastic cup of her signature Jack & Coke, was trying to decide if she had the energy to fish a crab roll out of the cooler or if she should just commit to chips and salsa for the rest of the night.

That’s when she heard it—a braying voice loud enough to send three blue jays flapping from a neighbor’s maple tree.

“Well, well, well! Looks like the party don’t start till I walk in!”