The Chocolate Pirate Plot by JoAnna Carl Page A

age.”

Chapter 10

    M y impulse was to go around the desk and give Maggie a big Texas hug. Then I remembered we were sitting in my fishbowl office, with all the world and Warner Pier able to look at us, so I restrained myself. I didn’t want to call the attention of Warner Pier to the fact that Maggie had teared up.
    I knew Maggie had many regrets about whatever had happened to her in California twelve or fifteen years earlier, but she had never confided the whole story to me. I also knew her real dread was that her husband, Ken, would find out all the details. If she had a good cry in my office—in full view of Fifth Street—the word was sure to get back to Ken, and he’d ask her about it.
    Warner Pier is a small town.
    So I shoved a box of Kleenex closer to her, and I tried to sound sympathetic. But I didn’t give her a big hug.
    â€œMaggie, you know you need to talk to some sort of counselor about this issue.”
    She nodded, but she didn’t speak.
    â€œI’ll be happy to listen, just as a friend, any old time. But you need to put all that behind you, and I don’t know how to help you do that.”
    She nodded again and blew her nose. “I’m sorry, Lee. Most of the time I handle it. But when I see somebody else headed over the same cliff I fell down, I tend to lose it.”
    â€œI hate to trot out the platitudes, but we all have to make our own mistakes.”
    â€œI sure made mine. But Jill is the same kind of girl I was at nineteen or twenty. She’s ambitious. And she wants success now. Now! She’s not willing to wait.”
    â€œAnd you think she’d be tempted to take a shortcut?”
    â€œI’m afraid so. Especially since she’s also absolutely fearless.”
    â€œAre you saying Jill might take a shortcut—seduce the director or something—if she had the chance? Or do you think specific shortcuts are being offered to her?”
    â€œI don’t know. Maybe I’m imagining things.”
    I sighed. “It’s like we tell children: If you feel as if something’s wrong, something probably is. You must have some evidence. What is it?”
    â€œOh, crazy phone calls. Stuff like that.”
    â€œIs Max involved? He’s the director-producer. Do you think he might be in on some sleazy deal?”
    â€œHe hasn’t shown any sign of it to me. Max doesn’t seem to be the problem—he keeps his distance from the cast and crew. Spends most of his off time out in the community. I simply have an uneasy feeling about the situation at the Showboat. And I can’t quite put my finger on why.” Maggie leaned forward. “Anyway, no matter what’s going on, I can’t quit and leave’em to it.”
    â€œContract?”
    â€œRight. I have to work through August thirtieth. So I just try not to notice the clique.”
    â€œClique? As in small group of people who hang together?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œSo you think there’s a small group of—is ‘troublemakers’ the right word?”
    â€œâ€˜Conspirators’ might be a better one. But I don’t know what they’re conspiring about.”
    â€œMaggie, anytime you have more than a half dozen people working together or studying together or whatever they’re doing together—well, don’t cliques of some sort develop?”
    â€œSure. But this is different. It’s the stop-talking-when-a-nonmember-comes-in type of clique, not the let’s-all-go-for-a-beer-and-not-invite-Maggie clique.” She laughed. “I told you—it’s probably my imagination. It’s just a group of people you wouldn’t think had anything in common, and they don’t seem to socialize, but they all seem to have some secret link.”
    â€œWho’s in this group?”
    â€œJill, Jeremy, and Mikki, mainly.”
    â€œBut not Max Morgan?”
    â€œNo, he stays aloof from all of