bones_GEN

by Lila Dubois

  Taking a deep breath, Tristan exhaled. “You think the ghosts did this?”

  “Wasn’t us.”

  The words were faint, echoing slightly. Tristan waved his hand to the side, ignoring his brother’s amused comment.

  “No, Chef,” several of his staff murmured.

  “Is there a vandal in my kitchen?” he asked the room.

  Jim, the friturier or “fry chef” as the inelegant called him, looked up from where he was cutting potatoes. “Maybe, Chef. Do you want me to call Sorcha?”

  Tristan waved his hand again. Hopefully Sorcha was still with Séan Donnovan—James, the butcher, had made the meat delivery this morning, not Séan, which Tristan saw as a hopeful sign.

  “She’s not working right now. She stopped by this morning and asked me to put together some breakfast to-go.” The pastry chef opened the oven doors and slid in a tray of tart cups.

  “Bien.” Hopefully she was sharing breakfast with Séan. “We will deal with this ourselves.” He turned back to the large pot of water. Someone had snuck into the kitchen, dumped the fresh-baked bread out of the large plastic bins they kept it in and put his largest stock pot on to boil.

  “Perhaps the servers have lost their minds and decided to interfere with my kitchen.” Stripping off his apron, Tristan went to the staircase that led down to the underground hallway that connected the kitchen and the pub. As he descended, he heard someone say, “God help them, the poor bastards.”

  A quick interrogation of the bartenders and servers who were prepping the pub revealed nothing. When he was satisfied that no one was lying to him, Tristan exited through the pub’s front doors. The morning light was bright after the dim interior. Holding his hand up to shield his eyes, he stepped away from the building, letting the sunlight sink through his clothes to his skin.

  “Give up already?”

  Tristan looked over his shoulder at the shimmering outline of a figure that stood there. His brother’s ghost was barely visible in the sunlight.

  “No, just thinking.”

  “Is it cold here?” his brother asked.

  “Only a bit colder than Paris.”

  Tristan crossed the drive and took a seat on the stone bench across from the main doors. Once in the shadow of the trees, his brother was much more visible. He wore the clothes he’d died in—designer jeans and a trim button-down shirt. Jacques had always been a stylish dresser.

  “I know who did it.” Jacques grinned.

  “And you won’t tell me,” Tristan grumbled. His brother was no more helpful dead than he had been alive.

  “No.”

  Tristan rolled his eyes, ready to say something more. A car came around the corner, following the drive to the parking area. Tristan closed his mouth, waving casually.

  Jacques looked sad. “You don’t want them to know you’re talking to me.”

  “They can’t know about you. We talked about this, mon frère.” Tristan hated the look on his brother’s face. There had been such sadness in Jacques when he was alive. Tristan’s brother had been brilliant, funny, mischievous and troubled. Nothing had changed after his death.

  “It can’t be like in Paris.”

  “No, it can’t be like in Paris,” Tristan agreed. He didn’t like to think about what had happened, what he’d done, after his brother’s death.

  Morning light drenched the stones of the castle, making them pale, pearly gray. The glass of the hallways that connected the east and west wings to the main castle sparkled. The east wing was coming alive as the pub opened for those who wanted an early lunch. Above it, a few of the hotel rooms had the windows thrown open. Though the castle was climate controlled, the breeze carried the scent of the glen, and it was hard to resist letting that sweet smell in.

  A flash of something dark caught Tristan’s eye. A figure walked between the now-closed west wing and the main castle. For a moment, Tristan assumed it was one of the many ghosts that haunted this place, but it was moving too fast and was strangely bulky. Tristan narrowed his eyes and caught a glimpse of blonde hair though the glass. It was the pretty English woman, the scientist, who seemed to be carrying something. Tristan snorted. She was probably looking for breakfast. If she thought she’d bully him into letting her eat in his restaurant before it opened for the evening, she was mistaken. It wouldn’t happen again.

  Just before she passed into the main castle building, he saw that she was carrying large plastic tubs—the kind he kept bread in.

  “Non,” he said, blinking. “She would not.”

  Jacques laughed in delight. “Oui, oui.”

  “Merde.” Tristan jumped up and raced for the front doors.

  Kristina, a pretty blonde woman wearing a trim suit and gold nametag, was in the lobby at the registration desk. “Good morning, Chef Fontaine. How are—”

  “The English woman?” Tristan said.

  “Um, she went that way.” Kristina pointed toward the restaurant.

  Tristan bolted down the hall, sighing in relief when he found the restaurant doors locked. As he was walking away, Kris opened the doors from the inside.

  “Chef?”

  “Kris. Is the English woman here?”

  His maître d’s lips thinned. “She knocked and demanded to be let in. At least she’s in the kitchen and not messing up my dining room.”

  Tristan bolted into the restaurant and raced between the tables, leaving a startled Kris in his wake. He burst through the kitchen doors.

  A scene of horror greeted him.

  Melissa had commandeered the counter beside the gas range on which the pot was now boiling cheerfully. The missing bread tubs were neatly stacked on the floor. Heavy gloves, tongs, small round dishes and bags were laid out on the counter. A large sheet of plastic was draped over shelves at her back, creating a makeshift barrier between where she stood and the rest of the kitchen. Melissa lifted one of the bread tubs onto the counter and popped the top off.

  “What are you doing?” Tristan shouted.

  She didn’t even pause. Her gloved hands reached in to the tub and withdrew two long bones. She turned and lowered them into the pot.

  There was a moment of stunned silence. The pastry chef whispered, “Are those human bones?” voicing what they were all thinking.

  Tristan was shocked—not by the fact that she was making broth out of human bones, but by her audacity in invading his kitchen.

  “You.” He stalked toward her, ignoring how pretty she looked with her hair pulled back and her trim body revealed in the simple jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt she wore. “You will take this out of my kitchen.”

  “Don’t worry, I wiped everything down with alcohol first. I can put up more plastic sheeting. I’m not familiar with health code standards.”

  “Health standards do not allow for the cooking of human remains in a kitchen.” Tristan motioned to Jim. “Get more plastic up. Throw away anything that is out on a counter and clean this place. Tell the pub we can’t take food orders for now, but don’t tell them why. We’ll have to start again.”

  No one grumbled, despite that it meant they’d lost a morning’s work. Melissa didn’t even acknowledge the order. She dipped tongs into the water, lifted a bone out and then used long tweezers to pick at the tattered bits of black that dangled from the bone.

  “Is that human flesh?” Tristan asked. He wasn’t squeamish—if time allowed, he’d prefer to kill and butcher the animals he cooked, just to assure himself of their treatment and quality—but there was something very disturbing about a human femur boiling in the pot he used to make soups.

  “No, the flesh has been gone for years. This is the remains of the clothing they wore. The fabric is adhered to the bones. I need to clean them off in order to get a better look at them.” She took the clean, white leg bones out, laid them on the table and then picked the ribs out of the box, carefully setting them in the water.

  “And why are you doing this in my kitchen?”

  “I needed boiling water.”
>
  “This is a kitchen, not a scientist’s lab.”

  “There’s not a large difference in the basic set up.”

  She still hadn’t looked at him, and seemed to have no idea how close he was to strangling her. “Non? We prepare food here. Food for people to eat. Dead things have no place in a kitchen.”

  She paused, looked at him. “That’s stupid. The meat and vegetables you cook are all, by default, dead.”

  “A dead cow is different than a dead person.”

  “This isn’t really a dead person, it’s just their bones.”

  Tristan sucked in a breath through his nose, then cursed in French.

  Melissa took the rib bones out one by one, then said, “I’m not a crazy bitch.”

  “You speak French.”

  “Of course.”

  “Then I will apologize for my language.” He turned off the burner under the pot. “I’m sorry. Now, get out.”

  “What are you doing?” She reached for the knob, but he kept his hand on it. She tugged at his wrist with her left hand.

  “You cannot cook humans in my kitchen.”

  “I’m not cooking humans. I’m sorry if it’s caused you trouble, but look, now it’s all sectioned off.” She motioned behind them where the other kitchen staff had used clamps and heavy plastic to isolate this wall of the kitchen.

  “You soiled my bread, made me throw away a morning’s worth of food, and you took my best pot.”

  “I set the bread neatly on a counter—you can still use it. These containers were perfect.”

  “Perfect for bread.”

  “I’ll be done in an hour, tops.”

  “And you think people want to come here to eat food made in a place where a crazy scientist is cooking bones?”

  “I guess crazy scientist is better than crazy bitch.”

  “The common element is crazy.”

  “I’m hardly crazy.”

  “It’s true, she’s not.” Jacques peered over Tristan’s shoulder into the pot.

  Tristan bit his lip to keep from responding to his brother. “This is a place of business. There’s an event this evening that we need to cook for.”

  “I heard.”

  “You will take these bones and leave.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Then I will remove them, and you.” She was still tugging on his hand. He grabbed her left forearm, forcing her to release him.

  Melissa hissed, right hand grabbing her left arm just above where he held her. Tristan released her, frowning.

  “I did not mean to hurt you.” It was the second time she’d flinched when he touched her.

  “She’s hurt,” Jacques said.

  “I’m fine. Let me finish and then I’ll be out of your way.” The words were pushed out between her clenched teeth.

  “What’s wrong with your arm?”

  “Nothing.”

  Tristan tsked. Taking her left hand in his, he gently pushed her sleeve up. Halfway up her forearm was the start of a horrible, thick scar. “Mon dieu,” he whispered when he had the sleeve up to her elbow. “What happened?”

  Melissa was holding very still, watching him as he looked at her arm. Her face was shuttered. “I was hurt on my last job.”

  “How?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I don’t care. Tell me.”

  “No, not now. If you won’t let me finish this here, I’ll need to take the bones and find another place to work.”

  Tristan pulled her sleeve down. “Ask me.”

  “Ask you what?”

  He raised one brow. “This is my kitchen. Ask.”

  She looked between the pot and him. “Chef Fontaine, may I please use your kitchen to do some work on the bones?”

  “No.”

  “Seriously?” she said, face scrunched up with indignation.

  He smiled. “Fine. You have already ruined this morning’s work. But you only have thirty minutes.”

  “I can have it done in thirty minutes if you help me.”

  Tristan looked into the pot—the water was murky, with bits of stuff floating in it. “You have an hour.” He turned the burner on.

  “Thank you, Tristan.”

  “You are welcome, Dr. Heavey.”

  Chapter 4

  Rory Mac Gabhann burst into the shared office Tristan used to plan and place orders. “There’s a blonde woman cooking human bones in the kitchen.”

  “Oui.” Tristan examined next week’s menu of modern takes on classic English and Irish dishes. Good, but boring. He needed to try something new.

  “No, not ‘oui’. You’ve to say something more than that when I say someone is cooking human bones in your kitchen.”

  “It’s the scientist Seamus hired to deal with the dead bodies from the secret room.” Maybe something classically French—duck à l’orange, perhaps.

  Rory, the acting special events manager as long as Caera Cassidy was on leave, ran his hand through his hair. “But we have an event.”

  “And the food will be ready.”

  “You’re not going to cook the food while she’s doing that?”

  “No. She has—” he looked at the clock, “—ten more minutes.”

  “Are you going to ask her about her arm?” Jacques said. He was hovering half-in and half-out of the wall.

  Rory frowned, looking around. “Did you…never mind. So you’re sure we’ll be okay for the event? We already had to move everyone out of their rooms in the west wing. I don’t want anything else to go wrong.” With Caera gone touring with her American boyfriend, Rory bore a heavy workload, but he was determined to do it alone and hadn’t let Elizabeth, the general manager, hire anyone else.

  “Nothing else will go wrong. The food will be glorious.”

  “I don’t think she believes in ghosts.” Jacques was clearly bored—he hated it when Tristan did paperwork, and didn’t care if Tristan was having a conversation with another live person.

  Tristan bit down on the urge to tell Jacques to shut up.

  Rory sat forward. “Do you hear something?”

  Tristan’s head snapped up, his heart hammering in his chest. He examined the other man’s face. “Do you?” Could Rory hear Jacques?

  Rory shook his head. “I’m imagining things. The mood around here is strange ever since Séan went nuts and took down the wall.”

  Tristan still had trouble believing that the mild-mannered and quiet Séan, who seemed happier with his animals than with people and who rarely entered Glenncailty, had ripped down the wall hiding the bricked-over nursery door with his bare hands. From what Elizabeth had said, it seemed Séan had been possessed. Tristan knew ghosts were real, but possession?

  “I’d better get back to work,” Rory said, rising.

  “I will see you later,” Tristan said. After Rory left, Tristan turned to Jacques. “Could he hear you?”

  Jacques was looking at the door. “I don’t know.”

  * * * *

  “Um, Chef Fontaine? She’s back.” The sous chef’s voice was tinged with alarm.

  Tristan looked up from the tray of desserts he was putting the finishing touches on. They were nearly done with the event food and had done all the prep they could. Everything else was being cooked at food stations in front of the guests or started once the guests began arriving. Tristan himself was done after this. He did not enjoy working directly with the public. All in his world was back under his control. The pub’s lunch service was underway, and they’d changed up the dinner menu to reflect the morning’s loss of both food and time.

  “Who is back?” he asked without looking up.

  “The scientist—she’s cooking something again.”

  Tristan’s head jerked up—he handed off the bag of white chocolate mousse. “I’ll deal with her.”

  Pushing through the wall of plastic that they’d left up, he saw Melissa dripping something onto a scrap of fabric she held with tweezers. She touched the fabric to the flame of a lit burner. The fa
bric burned purple, letting off a truly horrifying smell. Tristan grabbed a towel and held it over his face before reaching up and turning the extractor fan on to max.

  “What is that? It’s terrible.”

  “Just needed to confirm something.” She smiled widely.

  “It smells like rotten meat and old milk.”

  “Oh yeah, sorry about that.”

  The rest of the kitchen staff were coughing and turning on fans.

  “Out, out!” Tristan shouted.

  Melissa threw her supplies into a plastic box—was that a silverware caddy?—and hurried away.

  “I’m not done with you,” he said, following her. “You cannot invade my kitchen.”

  “I was only in there for two minutes.”

  “And you stank up the place.”

  “You could light a candle.”

  Tristan felt ridiculous arguing with her as he followed her across the dining room, but the infuriating, pretty woman was not going to get away from him until she got a piece of his mind.

  They stalked across the lobby, still arguing. Tristan followed her to the west wing.

  “Dr. Heavey.”

  “You called me Melissa before.”

  “Melissa, stop and face me.”

  She was halfway up the stairs when she turned. He was one step below her, bringing their faces even.

  “You have classically Caucasian features.”

  “What?”

  “Your face.” She touched his forehead, then his cheeks. “Caucasian.”

  Tristan sucked in a breath—he wanted her. As soon as she touched him, the attraction he had for her, which he’d tried to mask under his irritation, roared to life.

  She pulled her fingers back, looking uncertain, then turned and bolted up the stairs.

  “I don’t think so,” he muttered.

  * * * *

  Melissa tried to ignore the butterflies in her belly. She shouldn’t have touched Tristan. The man was devastatingly handsome. It was ridiculous. No one should have such a well-balanced face, good body and sexy accent. She knew that her attraction to him was genetic—his features were nearly perfectly symmetrical, and he had the air of command and dominance that made him a desirable mating partner. Still, knowing why she found him so attractive didn’t lessen the feeling or account for her enjoyment in their verbal sparring matches. If she were being completely honest, she’d admit that she liked him being irritated at her—he was even sexier when he was annoyed.