Cold as a Witch's Toffee Read online

  “You didn’t do an online reservation?” she asked.

  “No. I was hoping you could help me.”

  “Step over to the kiosk, ma’am,” she said and pointed to a bright green and yellow column with a computer screen in the middle. “You’ll need to do your online reservation first and then come back to the desk with your reservation number.”

  “Can’t you just help me with that?” I asked. “I’ve got my credit card ready to go.”

  “Ma’am, I’ll need you to step over to the kiosk to make your reservation and then come back when you’ve got a reservation number.”

  She was an unpleasant-looking woman with a long face and crown of dark curls. Her glasses perched on the edge of her nose, and when she finished talking, she pushed them back up with the tip of a long, bony finger.

  “Okay.”

  The reservation system was fairly easy to navigate even though I wasn’t used to doing those kinds of things myself. I normally had my assistant, not-really-Nancy, do menial tasks for me. That reminded me that I hadn’t told her I was leaving town. I’d need to send her a text telling her I wouldn’t be into the office for a while. I could send her a list of things to do later.

  Unfortunately, the only car available was another blue Impala. It was like I was being stalked by stinky middle-grade sedans. I’d wanted to rent something a little nicer, but there was nothing, not even a Cadillac Escalade. I would have settled for that in a heartbeat over a stupid sedan.

  The kiosk emailed my reservation number to me, and once I had it in hand, I walked back over to the desk. “Reservation number?” the woman behind the desk said as if she’d never seen me before.

  I gave it to her, and she printed out a contract for me to sign. Once the paperwork was done, she disappeared for a few minutes. When she came back, she had a set of keys in her hand and an even bigger scowl on her face.

  “This is our most popular model. The rental cannot be extended beyond your reservation.”

  “I wasn’t planning on it,” I said.

  “You can pick up the vehicle outside in bay five.”

  The scent of orange disinfectant was overpowering when I got into the car, and I had to crack the window. At least it didn’t stink, I told myself. Orange disinfectant was far better than feet and old hamburgers. I put the address to the lawyer’s office in the car’s GPS and took off. At least I knew how to do that for myself.

  If I could get the paperwork signed in time, I could still squeeze in a weight training session, followed by a Pilates class, before I had to do a YouTube video on meal prep for my channel. I hated doing YouTube because it felt so amateur, but my agent said it was good for me to grow my organic following or something. He said the more viewers I brought to the table on my own, the better my network deal could be.

  The drive to Knox Hills wasn’t bad. I turned the music up and the air conditioning on. It only took a few minutes for the orange smell to fade, so I was able to roll up the window on the highway and avoid a hair nightmare.

  I rolled into town around noon, and my stomach grumbled. It was then I realized I hadn’t packed a lunch. “I’m fine,” I told myself. “I can make it a few more hours.”

  But my stomach growled again. That time it was embarrassingly loud. I couldn’t imagine having to sit in a meeting with the lawyer listening to my stomach do that. Besides, it was bad for my brand. One of the key selling points of my fitness methods was that you didn’t have to starve.

  “Ha,” I said as I pulled into a parking spot a diner called Mama’s Fat Cakes. “If only they knew how much you have to sacrifice to look like this.” That thought almost brought me to tears. “Stop being stupid, Allegra. Discipline is good for you. You are fortunate to be who you are.” The thought that at least I wasn’t Mama Fat Cakes was an uncharitable one at best, but much to my future shame, it did cross my mind.

  The name of the diner didn’t bode well for me finding the kind of meal that would fit into my plan, but I reasoned they probably at least had a chicken breast. You could get a chicken breast almost anywhere. I’d just have to ask them to cook it without butter, oil, or sauce. I convinced myself it wouldn’t a problem at all. I did that a lot.

  When I went inside, the smell of pancakes, not the protein kind, and frying bacon hit me like a freight train. I actually stumbled a little, and embarrassingly enough, let out a tiny moan at the heavenly scent. But fortunately for me, the sound of my stomach growling like a bear covered up the moan.

  Every head in the place swiveled around to look at me. My stomach’s urgings seemed to happen right at the moment that everyone’s conversations hit a lull. At least as far as I could tell, no one took out their phone to start taking a video. My little moment wouldn’t end up on social media. That was almost enough to make me smile.

  “Well, come on in,” a loud voice boomed from behind me. “You sound like you could use our help.”

  I turned around and a plump woman with bright red curls tied up into a ponytail was smiling at me from behind a podium. “Table for one,” I said.

  “Sure thing, darlin,” she said. “Right this way.” She showed me to a small two-person table by a window that overlooked the parking lot.

  “Menu’s right there.” Her nametag said Holley and she pointed at a laminated menu stuck in between the ketchup and mustard.

  “Thank you.”

  “Annabelle will be your waitress. Can I start you with a drink while you wait?”

  “I don’t suppose you have Fiji water?”

  She laughed. “No, that we do not have. How about a Diet Coke? You look like a Diet Coke girl.”

  “I gave up artificial sweeteners two years ago. They’re bad for your skin. I’ll just have black coffee.”

  “Comin right up,” Holley said. “No cream or sugar, then?”

  “Just black,” I said with a smile.

  She gave me a nod and left me to peruse the menu while I waited for my waitress. It was kind of sticky, and I immediately searched my purse for a bottle of hand sanitizer.

  The menu didn’t have anything I could eat, but there was a fried chicken salad and a grilled chicken sandwich. That meant they could probably give me a salad with grilled chicken. I wasn’t exactly sure what would be in the chicken, but it was the best I could do. I told myself that even if it wasn’t free-range, organic chicken, I would probably be okay. That was what I was always telling people. Do the best you can with what you have.

  I didn’t believe that, but it played well for people buying my videos and programs. What I really believed was that people should do meal prep and be prepared for any situation if they really cared about their goals. They should just stay out of restaurants that didn’t specifically cater to the health-conscious. But, there I was sitting in a small-town diner with my stomach eating itself and the lightheadedness kicking in again because I hadn’t packed my lunch.

  “What can I get for you?”

  The waitress startled me. I’d spaced out staring at the menu and hadn’t seen her walk up. She set a cup of coffee down, and I gulped down half of it despite it scalding my tongue and throat. The hot liquid burned, but it helps silence the hunger pangs for a second.

  “Can I get a salad with grilled chicken instead of fried?”

  “Sure, we can do that. What kind of dressing would you like?”

  “Uh, do you have any vinegar? Preferable apple cider?”

  “We’ve got vinaigrette.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I’d really prefer just plain. I don’t really have room in my calorie budget for any kind of salad dressing.”

  “We’ve probably got some vinegar back there. It might not be apple cider,” she said with a smile.

  “I’ll take it. And, please leave the walnuts, croutons, and cheese off the salad too.”

  “So, you want a bowl of lettuce with grilled chicken and vinegar?”

  “Yes, and if you could ask them not to put any butter, oil, or sauce on the chicken, that would be great?”

>   “Okay,” she said, but her smile faltered a little. “Uh, you want me to add tomatoes to the salad? They’re locally grown. I know for a fact that Dotty grows them organic too.”

  “Thank you, that would be nice. But just a half cup. They have a bit of sugar in them. I have to watch that.”

  She just stood there blinking at me for a moment. A nervous smile spread across her face almost like a grimace. “Coming right up.”

  “Thank you.” I was used to it. Most people didn’t understand my dedication to my health goals, and I accepted that.

  The salad came a few minutes later, and while the chicken did have a bit of oil on it, I devoured it anyway. I did try to dab some of the fat off it before I ate, though. I’d anticipated them having to use a little to keep it from sticking to the grill, so it wasn’t shocking. I just ate the salad and reminded myself to track the extra calories for the oil later.

  When I was finished eating, I paid the bill and made sure to leave a twenty percent tip. I imagined waitressing wasn’t an easy job, but more importantly, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t end up the subject of nasty social media posts about what a jerk I was for stiffing my waitress after putting in such a specific order.

  You were darned if you did and darned if you didn’t in my business. If someone saw you eating something fattening and gross, they told the whole internet what a slob you were, but if you were too picky about your food, then you were obsessed. The only thing worse than gaining weight was for your audience to decide you had an eating disorder. You were canceled if that happened. I did not want to be internet canceled.

  Back in the car, I rolled the rest of the way into Knox Hills. I passed the ice cream shop on the way to the lawyer’s office. The bright pink exterior was impossible to miss as was the line that went nearly out the door. The last person was standing there with the front door to Nutties Sundae Shop propped halfway open, and I could see the line extending to the counter.

  “Ugh,” I said. “All that fat and sugar. Knox Hills is going to be a town full of diabetics someday, but at least I’ll make a decent return on the sale.”

  Yeah, I was a smug little bit… Jerk. Let’s get on with the story.

  Roth and Sons Attorneys at Law was a hole in the wall a couple of blocks down from Nutties. There was a small parking lot next to the row of buildings it was wedged in, but there was a sign at the entrance to the lot that said:

  No Parking for Roth and Sons Attorneys at Law. Violators will be towed at owner’s expense.

  So instead, I parked the rental Impala on the curb a block away. I briefly considered parking even farther away so I could get some more steps in for the day, but I wanted to get the whole dead uncle’s inheritance thing over with as quickly as possible.

  I hadn’t even seen my uncle since I was a teenager. I’d spent a summer in Knox Hills early in high school, but the next year was when I started my first diet and exercise regimen. I’d become obsessed with what I would later think of as my craft, and my memories of ever spending time with my uncle were almost entirely gone. Though some memories of him and of Knox Hills began to creep into the outer corner of my mind.

  A little blip of panic rose in my chest because I realized I didn’t have any quarters for the parking meter, but I looked around and there were no meters. For a moment, I’d forgotten I wasn’t in the city anymore.

  While I hated being underprepared, it didn’t make sense that I was so nervous. After all, I was going into the lawyer’s office so he could give me money and a business. My money and my business. My business to sell. I had to remind myself not to mentally associate the ice cream shop with myself. Still the whole thing had my stomach tied up in knots, and it wasn’t hunger pangs.

  Maybe it was that somewhere deep down inside, I knew I didn’t deserve it. But, at the time, the thought never crossed my conscious mind. I didn’t deserve my uncle’s kindness, but right then, there wasn’t anything I believed Allegra Darling didn’t deserve.

  Inside Lukas Roth’s office was a small receptionist area with a hallway behind it where I guessed the attorneys’ offices were located. There was no one at the receptionist’s desk, and it looked like no one had occupied it for a long time. There were no papers, a dated computer, and a layer of dust at least a few weeks’ thick over everything on it.

  “Hello,” I called out.

  “Just a minute” a man’s voice called back from the back of the building.

  I looked around and there weren’t any seats, so I stood there in the small office waiting for Lukas. I expected him to come out and get me, but he just called out again.

  “Okay, please come back.”

  In my opinion, it was a bit rude that he hadn’t come out to get me, but I had to remind myself I was just there to collect my inheritance. He wasn’t my lawyer, and I hadn’t hired him.

  “Please sit down,” Lukas Roth said without standing up.

  He waved his hand to indicate a red plastic chair crammed into the only real open space in the office. The computer on Lukas’s desk didn’t look much newer than the one on the receptionist’s desk, but a big difference was that his desk was piled high with paper and folders.

  “I have the paperwork here for the dispensation of the will. We won’t need to do a reading or anything like that as he’s left everything to you. You can read over the papers before you sign them, and then I’ll take you over to the shop and introduce you to the manager and employees.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” I said. “I’ll be selling the shop soon. I’m working on lining up a buyer as we speak. As far as the cash dispensation, what do we have to do get the money deposited in my account as soon as possible?”

  “I’m afraid that will be an issue,” Lukas said with what I could have sworn was an arrogant smile.

  “An issue?”

  “I believe your uncle thought you might try to sell the shop, so he put a clause in the will. The cash portion of your inheritance is in a trust, and if you sell the ice cream shop in less than five years, you lose it all.”

  “What?” I couldn’t have heard him say what I thought he said.

  “There is good news, though. If you work at the shop for a year, you get the whole thing.”

  “Whoa. What? He wants me to work there? In the shop? For year? And then I get what? A few thousand dollars? This is ridiculous.”

  “It’s $2 million.”

  “I’m sorry. Say that again, please?” I’d been standing up to… I don’t know… Storm out? Pace? There was nowhere to pace, but as soon as he said $2 million, I fell back into the chair with an unfeminine plop.

  “Allegra, your uncle’s business is quite lucrative, and he was good with his money. When he died, he had $2 million in the bank, and he’s left it all for you, but you can’t sell the shop. And if you work in the shop for a year, you’ll get the shop and the $2 million. If you don’t work in the shop, then the trust will be released to you in five years. The good news is that there’s a small salary included in working at the shop. Have to be able to get by, after all.”

  “I’m…” I wasn’t sure what to say, but the whole thing felt like a nightmare. “I don’t know what to say.”

  It wasn’t as if I had $2 million in my bank account. I had money, well, Dane had money in what would become our joint account, but not enough to just turn away from that. Still, if I started selling ice cream, my career as a fitness celebrity was over. The logical part of my brain knew there was no guarantee I’d ever make that much money as a celebrity trainer, but still. How could I just give it all up? It wasn’t just a career for me. Allegra Darling Fitness was who I was. My identity. Everything.

  My agent had said the offers from the networks were coming, but I hadn’t had any yet. I needed to talk to Dane. I needed a lawyer of my own. There was no way that this was legal. There had to be a loophole where I could get the money without jumping through these ridiculous hoops. I needed to find a way to get the inheritance, sell the shop, and move on with my life
. I had plans.

  “I wasn’t prepared for this. I think I need to get my own lawyer.”

  “I can answer any questions you might have,” he said. “I wouldn’t want you to waste money on a lawyer if you don’t need one.”

  “No, thank you,” I said. “Please give me the paperwork, and I’ll get back with you as soon as I’ve had my lawyer take a look over it.”

  “Here you go,” he said and handed me a file folder. “If you give me your email address, I can send you digital copies as well.”

  “Thank you,” I said and wrote down my email address for him.

  When I left the office, I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t want to drive back to the city and then have to turn around and come back to Knox Hills. I also needed to talk to Dane and see if he knew a lawyer I could call. I supposed I could try my lawyer too, but he was strictly an entertainment lawyer and it was nearly impossible to get him on the phone in less than three days unless you were A-list. Which I wasn’t yet. Plus, his fees were astronomical. I didn’t have the $2 million yet, and Dane wouldn’t be pleased if I ran up a big legal bill talking to a lawyer that didn’t even specialize in estate law.

  It was a nice day, and I had on plenty of sunscreen, so I decided to go for a walk. The small-town air was clean and cool, and I welcomed the opportunity to clear my head. While I was walking, I tried to call Dane. He didn’t answer. I knew he was busy, and I hoped he didn’t get angry with me for trying reach him. But I needed him. I couldn’t figure something like this out without consulting him first.

  I tried to call my lawyer too to see if anyone in his firm could help me, but his secretary told me he’d call me back. I knew that would be a while too. So, I called my agent. When in doubt, I always called my agent.

  “Hey, Allegra,” my agent, Stan, said when he picked up. “I don’t have any news for you today from the networks. You’ve just got to hold tight.”

  “That’s not why I’m calling,” I said. “I was actually wondering if you could recommend an estate lawyer. I think that’s what I need. I tried to call Dane to see about someone at his lawyer’s office, but he’s busy. I tried to call Brock, but you know how long it takes him to return phone calls.”