Page 101 of Death of a Grill Master

“I think he didn’t come here for the tide pools.”

Jeff leaned in. “If this becomes a limited series, I want to direct the pilot. And I want you in it.”

“In the murder story?”

“No, no. In my Bar Harbor promo video. You, cooking something rustic in a seaside kitchen while drone shots fly overhead. The people want authenticity, Hayley. They want salt air and sass.”

Hayley laughed. “We’ll talk.”

Maybe.

Someday.

At home that night, Hayley laid it all out on the dining table—Jeff’s flyer, Bruce’s court documents, Sal’s grumbling quotes. Leroy snoozed beneath her feet, belly-up and snoring softly.

It was all there:

Peter Baird had been part of Hank’s rise.

His design, his branding, had helped sell the sauce.

But Hank had cut him out, lied, and profited.

Like he had done to so many others.

But Baird sued.

And lost.

Then watched the sauce become a sensation in his own hometown. Then statewide. Regionally. And, eventually, about to be nationwide.

He vanished, reemerged in Bar Harbor, and slid neatly into the edges of the town.

Teaching at the College of the Atlantic.

Quiet.

Patient.

Watching.

Hayley opened her notebook and scrawled two words at the top of the page:

He’s hunting.

And in her mind, she heard it again—Baird’s voice in that lecture, calm and certain:

“Predators don’t announce themselves. They blend in.”

Only now, Hayley realized—he wasn’t talking about fish.

He was talking about himself.

So, what happens, she wondered, when a predator stops blending in?

And starts to bite?

Island Food & Spirits