Sweet Revenge Read Online Free PDF Page B

also pleased at Brock’s words. He was eyeing Brock with an expression that seemed to say, So you can’t handle it, huh?
    â€œBrock, you can’t go!” Samantha pleaded quietly, grasping his arm. “We need you here! Please promise you’ll stay.”
    â€œWell—” Brock paused. “I really don’t know—” Then he smiled at Samantha and put his hand over hers. “Maybe for a little longer—just to help a friend in need.”
    A waiter was hovering over his shoulder with a sundae in his hand, but Brock waved him away.“Can’t waste the calories,” he explained. “I’d love some coffee, though.”
    As the waiter moved on, Brock explained to his dinner companions, “I brought my own low-cal sweetener—my nutritionist recommended it.” He pulled out a small glass jar to show them. “Conscience, it’s called. Great stuff.”
    â€œAs he’s told everyone in this inn since he got here,” Tim grumbled under his breath. “Waiters included.”
    As the conversation began to pick up at their table, George leaned forward and spoke to Nancy in a low voice. “Aren’t these accidents getting a little suspicious?”
    â€œDefinitely,” Nancy whispered back. “As soon as lunch is over, I’m going to look around a little. Those ants didn’t just find that cake. Someone put them there. If I’m lucky, I’ll find a clue or two to tell me what happened.”
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    â€œCan I help you, miss?”
    Nancy looked up with a start from where she had been peering behind the refrigerator. A bus-boy had paused in the kitchen doorway, his arms full of dishes and a questioning expression on his face.
    â€œHave you had problems with ants before today?” Nancy asked him.
    The busboy shook his head. “You can’t believe how clean this kitchen is,” he said, stepping over to the counter and setting the dishes down with a clatter. “Mrs. Tagley is a real— I mean, everyoneat the inn keeps an eye on the kitchen. The trash is taken out six times a day just so we don’t attract any pests. Besides, how could ants crawl through tile walls and a tile floor?” he asked, then seemed to forget she was there.
    No way that Nancy could think of. That made her more certain that someone had brought the ants into the kitchen. But in what?
    She’d already checked under the steam tables and behind the huge glass-doored refrigerators. The shelves, with their neat rows of kitchen supplies, had turned up nothing. Nancy had even stirred through the industrial-size garbage cans at one end of the kitchen with no success. And now she was starting to worry that the kitchen staff would kick her out soon.
    Nancy let out a sigh, brushed back her reddish blond hair, and started to leave, bumping into a stainless-steel worktable on the way. Then it occurred to her that she hadn’t examined the rows of pots and pans under the huge worktables.
    In the bottom of a two-gallon double boiler, Nancy found what she’d been looking for.
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    â€œAn empty jar wrapped in an apron? Why are you showing me that, Nancy?” Samantha asked. She was staring blankly at the bundle Nancy had plopped down on the desk in her office.
    â€œLook more closely,” Nancy urged. “This is what held the ants we saw on the cake.”
    It was a large half-gallon glass jar. It had probably been a mayonnaise jar, Nancy thought,but there was no mayonnaise in it now. There were only ants—a few sluggish ones crawling sleepily around the bottom of the jar.
    â€œI found it hidden in the kitchen,” Nancy explained. “I think whoever put those ants on the cake brought them into the kitchen in this.”
    â€œBut—but where would someone get ants?” Samantha asked, confusion in her dark eyes.
    â€œThat wouldn’t be too hard,” Nancy