Page 99 of Death of a Grill Master

Bruce flipped the page. “Doesn’t matter. Baird signed a waiver. Classic boilerplate—work-for-hire, no royalties. The court tossed it. But get this—Sal covered it at the time. Just a blurb in his column, but it proves there was history.”

Hayley blinked. “Sal wrote about it?”

Bruce smiled. “You might want to bring an offering.”

Hayley groaned. “I didn’t bring him anything.”

Leroy barked once, as if shaming her.

Sal’s office door was slightly ajar, so Hayley knocked and stepped in. Sal looked up from a molasses Whoopie Pie—half-eaten and precariously close to a pile of press release printouts. His eyes immediately narrowed.

“You came empty-handed.”

“Nice to see you, too.”

“No muffin? No lemon square? No peanut butter bar?”

“I brought Leroy,” she offered weakly.

Sal gave the dog a squint. “Can he be filled with raspberry jam?”

Leroy growled, insulted.

Hayley sighed and pulled out the court file. “I’m here on business. You wrote about this case—Baird suing Hank Desmond in Rockport.”

Sal snatched the page and read with one raised brow. “Well, well. I remember this. Hank had just started pushing his new sauce in stores up and down New England. Baird flipped when he saw it on a grocery shelf—Shaw’s in Gloucester, I think.”

“So Hank used Baird’s design.”

Sal grunted. “A modified version. Baird helped create the look—color, tone, font. Hank launched with it and cut him out.”

“Why didn’t the lawsuit go anywhere?”

“Because Baird had no case. He signed away his rights. But that’s the thing—he didn’t let it go. I heard from a mutual friend that Baird couldn’t stand seeing Hank’s face in the condiment aisle. Would go out of his way to avoid it.”

“And then he moved to Bar Harbor not too long ago.”

Sal leaned back and sucked sugar off his fingers. “Right when Hank was considering expanding distribution, not just throughout New England, but nationwide. You think he moved here on purpose?”

Hayley looked down at Leroy, who was chewing on a rubber crab he’d found under Sal’s desk.

“I think he’s been blending in. Waiting.”

Back in the front office of the Island Times, Hayley slid into the desk that used to be hers, back when she juggled office management, vendor invoices, and reporters who thought deadlines were more of a suggestion. The desk technically belonged to Tucker now—the overzealous twentysomething who labeled everything in emojis and once tried to pitch a TikTok series about bar trivia night—but Bruce had waved her over like she still owned the place.

She didn’t argue.

It still felt like hers.

Leroy, having grown bored of his rubber crab, emerged from beneath the copy desk with a cracked ballpoint pen in his mouth like it was a victory cigar. Hayley stared down at him.

“Well, that’s comforting,” she said. “He’s escalated from plush toys to office supplies.”

Bruce leaned against the desk, arms folded. “Let him express himself. We’ve all chewed a pen or two under deadline pressure.”

Hayley gave him the side-eye. “Is that how you write your ledes now? Gnawing on a Bic until inspiration strikes?”

“Only the retractable kind,” he said. “I like a little danger.”