Death by Devil's Breath Read Online Free Page B

topped with a white (how did he keep it so clean?) apron. I watched him mix, sniff, and add a little salt to the chili pot, thinking that he looked more like a model in a cooking magazine than a contestant at a cook-off.
    But hey, who was I to judge? I’d had people tell me I looked more like a bartender at a biker spot than a woman who sold chili spices.
    The fourth and final contestant . . .
    My gaze swung toward the woman who chopped peppers down at the far end of the table. Tall and in her forties, she moved with ease, like she was perfectly at home with a knife in her hands. For a couple seconds, I watched her graceful movements: the quick, efficient way she diced the peppers and the way she swept them off the cutting board and into her chili pot. She blew a curl of dark hair out of her eyes, put a hand to the small of her back, and stepped back for a moment’s rest.
    That’s when she looked up and her eyes met mine.
    What was that I said about her being good with a knife? Well, she was plenty good with daggers, too, because that’s exactly what she shot in my direction. If looks could kill, I wouldn’t just be dead, I would have been drawn, quartered, and buried deep.
    I sucked in a breath and glanced over my shoulder, sure she must be aiming that death ray look at someone behind me, but there was no one else around.
    No one but me in the crosshairs of a perfect stranger.
    Or was she?
    My eyes narrowed, I exchanged her look for look, thinking there was something vaguely familiar about the set of her shoulders and the tilt of her nose. She was taller than me, I could tell that all the way from over where I stood, and quickly, I rummaged through my mental Rolodex. Tall, middle-aged women. Tall, middle-aged women with dark eyes and hair. Tall, middle-aged women with dark eyes and hair who looked like they would like nothing better than to see me go up in flames.
    Just like her pot of chili was just about to do.
    The woman realized her pot had boiled over just a second after I did, and she snapped to attention to take care of it and released me from the tractor-beam hold of her Evil Eye.
    Fine by me. I didn’t have a clue who she was, but believe me, I intended to find out.
    I would have done it right then and there, too, if just as I stepped toward the stage, I didn’t hear The Great Osborn’s voice ring through the auditorium.
    “You really should mind your own business, Dickie.” Osborn and Dickie Dunkin stood toe to toe, and hey, I was never one to miss out on any excitement. Anxious to find out what the beef was, I scooted toward the stage, where just the night before, they had both performed for the Showdown crowd. “And while you’re at it, why don’t you take those stupid jokes of yours and stick ’em where the sun don’t shine!”
    “That would be at my Saturday night show,” Dickie countered. This morning he was dressed in khakis and an oatmeal-colored golf shirt that made his face look pastier than ever. He propped his fists on his hips. “There won’t be room for sunshine in here on Saturday,” he purred. “Because my show is going to be sold out. Unlike the shows of the rest of you losers.”
    This time, he wasn’t just talking to The Great Osborn. Hermosa was there in a flowy purple caftan and Dickie shot a look her way as well as one toward Yancy, who was already seated at the judges’ table.
    “Not talking about you, Reverend!” Dickie called out when Linda Love walked onto the stage and slipped into her seat. “You, you’re not a loser like the rest of ’em. You’re a real doll!”
    Reverend Love smiled in the polite sort of way people do when they’re not sure what they’ve gotten themselves into.
    Hermosa, it should be noted, did not. In fact, she marched around to the front of the table, shot one look at the reverend, and poked a finger into Dickie’s stomach. “Watch it, Dickie.” Another poke for good measure. “If you’re going to call anybody a