There was a beat of hesitation and then he took them from her, dropping a kiss on her cheek before turning toward the sinks. “Really glad you’ll let me help.”
Maylin paused. Blinked. When was the last time she’d let anyone help her cook in a kitchen? She couldn’t remember. Usually if they were catering, she’d assign simple dishes to the staff but did special dishes on her own. Declining help.
Trying not to ruin it by thinking too hard, she nabbed the carton of eggs from the refrigerator and bustled over to the counter, peeking into the cupboards to see if someone had stocked them with a few basics.
“Car is still burning itself out?” Gabe asked Lizzy as the sound of running water started.
“For the time being. Authorities will probably wait until danger of fire is gone before letting their investigative teams near it.” Lizzy snorted. “I pulled the remnants of both your bags out of the trunk to avoid identification, but none of it was worth saving. Too much damage.”
“Interior?”
Lizzy shook her head. “Too hot and too much fire and smoke damage. No way is a forensics team going to lift prints out of the interior.”
Maylin looked up from her mixing bowl. “You make it sound all sorts of easy. Like the car couldn’t explode more.”
Was that even a thing that could happen? It seemed like it could. Lizzy had taken an extreme risk going anywhere near the thing and she made it sound like no big deal.
Fear squeezed her chest at even the thought, so she walked over to the sink to splash water from the tap into her bowl of flour, corn starch and baking soda, then started beating the contents hard. Taking her worry out on the mixture until it became a thin batter seemed like a practical thing to do.
“They’re not going to blow up the car after we’ve left it behind,” Gabe stated, his gaze focused on the bowl tucked into the crook of her arm.
She set it down with an audible thump and cracked an egg, carefully separating the egg white into her batter and tossing the yolk and shell into the garbage disposal. “How do you know?”
Picking up the bowl, she resumed her beating. Earlier in the day, being yanked out of the car and running for the woods counted as the strongest fright she’d experienced in her life. Mostly because Gabe had been scared. And she couldn’t imagine much he’d be afraid of, but whatever it was would end her without much effort.
Lizzy looked from Gabe to her and back. “It’s one thing to blow up the car with you two in it. It’s Jewel’s special kind of twisted to take out the tire, then set an explosion to incinerate the inside of the vehicle. She obviously wanted to give you a chance to get out. So there’s no reason to have set a third charge to wipe the car off the map. Waste of valuable explosives.”
Maylin pressed her lips together. Neither of them had said Jewel wouldn’t have blown up a car with a person in it. She added a bit of vegetable oil and finished combining her mixture. Hesitated, then added a tiny pinch of salt. Another few seconds of beating gave her a smooth, light batter and a little less anxiety.
Setting it aside, she rummaged for a large pan. Somebody had bought the kind of wok with a flat bottom you could set directly on a burner. Handy. She pulled it out, wiped it down, and poured a large amount of oil into it. As she set it on the stove to heat up for frying, she glanced back at Gabe. “You don’t think you’re worth it to her to blow up?”
He met her gaze, his expression very serious. “She had the opportunity to kill me from a distance. She didn’t. If she does in the future, she’ll make it up close and personal.”
His statement had the kind of ring of truth to it that sent a cold shiver down her spine. She headed to the sink. The shrimp were mostly defrosted, and she drained the water from the bowl and patted them dry with a paper towel before seasoning them liberally with salt and pepper. Then she went back to the fridge and pulled out green onions and a jalapeno.
“Someone really did some shopping.” She needed a change of topic. For just a minute.
Lizzy laughed. “Victoria and Marc figured if you could make breakfast out of nothing but leftovers, getting you a little bit of everything from the grocery store could only mean good things in our future. The internet may have been involved in assembling the shopping list most likely to tempt you into making stuff we all like.”
Maylin smiled, some of the tightness leaving her shoulders. It made her happy when people enjoyed her food. Really, it was why she did what she did. “I’ll make something nice for tomorrow morning.”
“They’re doing some recon. Won’t be back until late morning.”
“Even better.” Maylin pondered. “I’ll have time to make dim sum.”
She cleaned and chopped both the green onions and jalapeno fine, then washed her hands. She’d have to remember not to rub her eyes for a few more hand washes. Once wasn’t enough to get the burn of the pepper off her fingertips, and it transferred readily.