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CHAPTER 1

Marco

Some people loved a good mystery. Not me. I hated anything I couldn’t explain, categorize, and share with everyone around me so that it made the world a better place. Which was pretty ironic for someone whose mom had been a semi-famous mystery thriller writer back in Italy, but there you go. Mamma had always said I was the family contradiction.

Running a gourmet food shop wasn’t a mystery. At least not to me. I’d worked in retail and imports for ten years, since my first after-school job when I was seventeen, and I knew the business like the back of my hand. I had the sort of personality that made it easy to develop professional relationships with vendors and distributors from all over the world. I had a knack for finding cheesemakers that other retailers had overlooked, underrated vineyards that made the best wine anyone had tasted, and niche producers who roasted nuts or cured olives or generally made things delicious. It didn’t hurt that I was fluent in Italian and spoke passable French, too.

Years of making those connections and building up a name for myself, and I’d finally opened my own shop right in the heart of Glenside, Pennsylvania.

“Oh my gosh, what is this?” Linda, one of the locals who I’d gotten to know a bit since the grand opening of Provisions the week before, asked with her mouth half full of the tapenade and cracker she’d just wolfed down from the sample plate I’d put out earlier.

“It’s tapenade,” I explained with a proud smile. When she paused chewing to stare at me, I went on with, “It’s a French provincial delicacy made of olives and capers. The crackers also come from Provence. They’re hand-ground wheat and made with olive oil from the same farm that produces the olives for the tapenade.”

Linda resumed chewing again with an, “Mmm.” She swallowed, then took another one and went on with, “They’re so fancy and so delicious.”

“Thanks,” I beamed, pleased that the locals were enjoying the results of my painstaking efforts to bring only the best nibbles to Provisions. I didn’t even mind that Linda was on her fourth cracker. I had faith that she would buy something, if not today, then down the road, and that she would tell everyone she met how delicious Provisions was and convince them to shop here, too.

Yes, I was an optimist. Mamma used to say I’d been a little ray of sunshine since I was a baby, even before the family immigrated to New York City. She also joked that it was no wonder I was full of rainbows.

Mamma hadn’t batted an eye when I’d come out to her at fourteen. Papà, on the other hand, had had more than a few things to say about it. Every day. In every way. He’d done everything he could to make his son straight, from introducing me to the daughters of his friends to forcing me to go to the gym with him multiple times a week.

Poor Papà. All he’d managed to do by taking me to the gym was to instill in me a sense of care and conscientiousness about my body and to give me plenty of buff men to ogle as I worked out. He’d had no idea how many of those guys were also gay, or how willing they were to show a twink the ropes, if you know what I mean.

Unsurprisingly, he kicked me out after I graduated high school, though Mamma and my brothers were furious and, to this day, still give him hell about it.

I didn’t mind, though. I saw the whole thing as an adventure and a challenge. I found a job working at, you guessed it, a gourmet shop uptown, scored myself a scholarship to study Business at NYU, got a job with an importer even before I graduated, and voilà!

“Do we need more crackers?” Hugh, the guy I’d just hired to work the morning shift along with me asked pointedly, arching one eyebrow at Linda.

“Yeah, that would be good,” I said, fully aware of his real question but loath to do anything that might make Linda think she wasn’t welcome.

Fortunately, Linda swallowed her fifth cracker, pressed her fingers to her lips, and said, “Sorry, I’m eating you out of house and home. These are just so good!” She took one of the small plastic glasses of Italian wine I’d set out beside the crackers and downed it. “I really need to get back to work.”

“Come again,” I said, waving her out with my best smile.

As soon as she was gone, without buying anything, and the shop was quiet again, Hugh shook his head, smirked, and said, “You’re too nice, Marco.”

I laughed in reply. “There’s no such thing as too nice.”

“There is when it means people like the lovely Linda eat us out of stock before the rest of the neighborhood discovers us,” Hugh said.

“We’ll be fine.” I shrugged and headed back to the counter to get the open box of crackers so I could refill the plate Linda had decimated. “I’m sure we’ll get a ton of business from Common Grounds’s Halloween party next week.”

“I sure hope so,” Hugh said, a touch doubtful.

I chuckled at his pessimism as I refilled the plate. Hugh wasn’t a bad guy. I didn’t even think he was gloomy by nature. He was in his mid-thirties and had just gone through a messy divorce. He’d made a fortune working in tech, but he’d needed a change to a less stressful lifestyle, which was why he was happy working for a start-up, niche business that might or might not be a longer-term success.

“Speaking of the Halloween party,” I said, finishing with the crackers and taking the box to the recycling bin behind the counter. “I need to pop over to Common Grounds to check on how arrangements are going.” I had a few other questions for one of the Meyers brothers, or anyone over there who’d lived in the neighborhood longer than I had, but I was a little embarrassed about those questions, so kept my lips zipped for now. I grabbed the small wheel of Manchego I’d left out earlier. “You’ll be okay on your own until I get back?”

Hugh spread his hands and looked around the gorgeous but empty shop. “I think I can hold back the hordes until you return.”

I laughed and waved to him as I headed outside.

I loved October in Pennsylvania. The trees were all brilliant shades of orange and yellow. Glenside was a quaint suburban town that took its reputation as being an eclectic cultural hub seriously. The morning sunlight bouncing off the leaves gave everything a warm, cheery glow. Most of the businesses along Glenside Ave had put up Fall or Halloween decorations, giving the place a festive feel. The only place that looked dour and grim was Gorman’s Funeral Home across the street, but it made sense that a business like that wouldn’t be brimming with fun and festivity.

Common Grounds was one of the more richly decorated businesses on the street. As I stepped inside, the bell over the door jingled merrily, and I was greeted by clusters of small pumpkins and silk leaves on the tables, fall-themed strings of lights crisscrossing the ceiling, and fake spiderwebs tucked into the corners of the rooms. Someone had painted bats and spiders on the windows, too.

“Pumpkin spice latte with a shot of chocolate,” Diccon called out the order of the man at the counter just as I joined the line, tossing the Manchego from one hand to the other.