Blood Ties in Chef Voleur

by Mallory Kane

“I can’t eat before a show, and besides, I’ll probably still be working on the finishing touches for the two pieces.”

  “Okay, then,” he said, and moved to kiss her on the cheek, but she intercepted him with her mouth and gave him a kiss that promised everything he’d ever wanted and more. He responded with a sense of surrender. He was going to be in big trouble if he had no more defenses against her than to get caught by such a simple ploy. He should have anticipated her last-second feint. Sometimes he was afraid she was much smarter than he was. Very afraid. If she was as smart as he was beginning to think she was, he probably didn’t have a chance of fooling her for very long. He needed to get the proof that would exonerate his grandfather and get the heck out of there before she started putting things together. All these thoughts zipped through his mind the one-tenth of a second between her stopping the kiss and speaking. Because while she was kissing him he hadn’t been able to think anything except More, more, more.

  “Bye, handsome,” she said, flicking him on the nose.

  “So long, beautiful,” he responded, not looking at her. He listened to her heels click on the hardwood as she walked up the hall. He heard her stop in the office, then turn around and come back to the bedroom.

  “By the way, when you were in my office, did you take down one of my grandmother’s journals?” she asked him.

  “No, why?”

  She sat down on the bed. “One of Grandmother’s journals is on the table instead of on the shelf. And it’s under my sketch of the cat.”

  “I saw it. I figured you’d left it there.”

  “No.” She stared at him for a few seconds. “So if you didn’t leave it there, then I’m worried that someone really is coming in when we’re not here.”

  “If I didn’t?” Jack repeated. “What the hell, Cara Lynn? Don’t you believe me?”

  She seemed taken aback. “No, of course I believe you. Didn’t you mention it earlier? About that bottle of water being missing?” She glanced up briefly, then turned her head to look toward the office. “But, you’re sure you didn’t forget—while you were looking at the sketch maybe?”

  “I didn’t move your stuff,” he snapped, a lot more irritated by her implication than he should have been.

  “Okay,” she said, irritation sharpening her voice as well. She stood and left the bedroom again. As she walked out, he heard her mutter, “I know it wasn’t me,” then heard the front door open and close.

  He’d thought he would need a cool shower after that kiss. But now he decided he’d better stick with hot and steamy so it would dissolve his anger at Cara Lynn. He was guilty of enough already. He didn’t need her suspicious of him for things he hadn’t even done.

  He showered quickly, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and felt a hundred percent better. In the living room, he opened the blinds and checked the parking lot to be sure Cara Lynn’s car was gone. Then he headed for the kitchen, thinking about her certainty that one of her grandmother’s journals had been moved, and a little worried that if someone were coming into the apartment, they might have tried to open his briefcase.

  With a sudden sense of apprehension, Jack checked its latch. It was locked. He breathed a sigh of relief. He realized with a sinking feeling that after staying up all night, he couldn’t have sworn in a court of law that he’d locked it.

  He glanced around the kitchen as he thought about the night before. When he’d come in, Cara Lynn had been hurrying out of the pantry with an armful of water bottles that weren’t needed in the refrigerator. The fact that a bottle was missing seemed to surprise her as much as it surprised him. So why had she brought three more from the pantry? She’d looked a little frazzled and a little guilty, as if he’d interrupted something.

  He stopped and closed his eyes, trying to remember just exactly what had happened right before the lights went out. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been looking in her direction when the room went dark. He’d been talking to Paul Guillame. So no, he hadn’t seen a thing.

  However, Paul had been looking that way. Then when the lights came back on and the journal and the tiara were missing, Jack had immediately jumped up onto the chair to see if he could spot the thief running away. It had only been when he’d heard Cara Lynn calling for him that he’d turned to her.

  Damn it. If he’d been more careful about staying in his role as loving husband, he might have seen her hide the letter.

  He understood that he was basing the existence of a letter on a tiny scrap of brittle paper and he knew that could be sheer folly. For all he knew, the scrap might have nothing to do with the journal. Cara Lynn could have been paging through ancient recipe books and come across one written on the back of an envelope. She loved reading her grandmother and mother’s handwritten recipes. Or it could easily be an old document she’d acquired for her genealogy. Actually, that was the most likely source, but for some reason, Jack couldn’t let go of the idea that the scrap had come from the same box that had held the journal and tiara.

  It seemed natural that Cara Lynn’s grandmother would have written her a note about the items she was leaving her. Even if it was nothing more than Best wishes. I love you.

  But if that’s what it was, then why hide it? What could be so secretive about a letter from a grandmother to her youngest granddaughter? Was Cara Lynn just a naturally suspicious person? The kind of person who would hide anything until she’d had a chance to read it? No. Cara was definitely not that kind of person. He’d known her intimately for two months. Granted that wasn’t long, but his impression was that she was as honest and open as the day was long. She seemed to him like the last person on the planet who would just decide to hide something on a whim. He didn’t think she’d had time to glance at it, not without a lot of people noticing and asking about it.

  Maybe where her family was concerned, she was secretive. If he were in a family filled with cops and lawyers and special forces operatives, he’d be damned careful about what he did and did not share with them.

  His first thought was that the letter had something to do with Con Delancey’s murder. But that was his obsession. Even if the letter was from Lilibelle Guillame and stated outright that Armand Broussard was not the murderer, there would be no reason for Cara Lynn to hide it or keep the information a secret from him or from her family. It would have been a topic of lively conversation and possibly heated arguments, at least for a short while until something else caught their imagination.

  But he could not think of another thing that could be in the letter. Unless it was just a Dear Cara Lynn, I wanted you to have this...note. Or possibly a letter Lili had written to her best friend Claire. Claire, please keep these safe for me. One day, perhaps when she marries, I’d love for the journals and the tiara to go to the youngest, Cara Lynn. She reminds me so much of myself when I was that age. Maybe she’ll read my journals and decide she wants to write. Maybe she’ll use the tiara to give herself a nest egg, so she won’t be trapped in a loveless marriage....

  Jack stopped his thoughts. He was drifting off into daydreams—or daymares. Why in the world would he think that Cara Lynn’s grandmother had feared—or prophesized—that her youngest granddaughter might be trapped in a marriage without love? That was just his own guilt coming out.

  Having interrupted his train of thought, Jack forced himself to continue thinking rationally instead of fantasizing. He had no business trying to find the letter. There was probably less than a one percent chance that it had anything at all to do with his grandfather.

  He sat down at the kitchen table and unlocked his briefcase. He wanted to review the police report from the first officer on the scene after Con Delancey was shot.

  He’d hired a private investigator a few weeks ago, hoping to get his hands on any unreleased police records regarding Armand Broussard. Jack was certain that there were forms or reports he hadn’t thought or known to ask for. It had b
een over a week since he’d talked to the P.I. and he was anxious to hear from him.

  He dug through the letters and found the stack he was looking for. As he pulled the letters out, his eye was caught by the baggie that held the yellowed scrap of envelope. He studied it for a moment, then glanced toward the pantry door. Cara Lynn had acted downright guilty when she’d come out of the pantry with the bottles in her hands.

  She had hidden the letter somewhere in there. Suddenly, it didn’t matter to him that there was a 99 percent chance that the letter was of no interest to him—or to anyone except Cara Lynn. There was always that 1 percent. What if there was something—even if it was one sentence or one phrase—that might give him a clue to help clear his grandfather’s name?

  He glanced at his watch. He needed to get to the police station and sign his statement, but right now he was alone in the house and was going to be alone all day. He might not have a better chance to search for the letter for a long time.

  He went into the pantry and eyed the shelves filled with cans, canisters, boxes and bags of food. Everything from staples like flour and sugar and cornmeal to gourmet items like escargot, Major Grey’s chutney, fancy crackers and aged balsamic vinegar. He glanced through the shelves, thinking if she’d been clever enough to hide a thin envelope amongst all the food, it would take him a lot longer than an hour or so to find it.

  So figuring it would be faster to eliminate obvious hiding places first, he started investigating the room. A loose floor board or baseboard or a cubby hole cut into the wall would make a great hiding place. At that instant, his toe hit something that rattled loosely. He bent down and looked underneath the bottom shelf. He had to move a case of bottled water from which three were missing, but when he did, he hit pay dirt. A piece of baseboard toppled over.

  He bent down and looked at the hole. He could see the corner of a yellowed envelope. His pulse raced. There it was. Whether it might be of any help to him, he had no idea. But at least he’d know.

  He slid the envelope out carefully and looked at it. On the front were the words for Cara Lynn, written in a beautiful, old-fashioned script. He turned the envelope over. The flap was held in place with two inches of brown, dried-out cellophane tape across the center. The right edge of the flap had been torn off. That was the piece he’d found. This was definitely the same envelope.

  But then he saw that there was a newer piece of tape that ran across part of the older tape. Someone had opened the envelope and closed it back. The tape wasn’t brand new—so it hadn’t happened recently.

  He tried to lift the edge of the new tape with a fingernail, but it pulled a crumbling piece of the envelope’s flap with it.

  “Damn it,” he muttered, as he carefully pressed the tape down again. He couldn’t get into it without destroying it and the tape that held it so precariously. He looked at the front again. The decorative handwriting had been penned with a fountain pen. There was a tiny bit of ink spatter underneath the C in Cara Lynn. Also, the pen had left thick lines in some places and needle-thin lines in others.

  That settled it. He couldn’t open the envelope without destroying it and he’d never be able to replace it. Sighing, he sank to his haunches again and started to replace the board. But his curiosity got the better of him. He reached into the hole again.

  The first thing his fingers touched was a roll of bills. He pulled them out and tried to estimate how much money was there. Maybe a couple of thousand, he thought. He reached in a third time and pulled out her passport. He flipped through it, stopping at the front to check the expiration date. The passport was good for ten more months.

  He stared at the date, thinking that their marriage would certainly expire before the passport would. How would she take it, he wondered, then immediately cleared his throat loudly and forced his brain to cut off that line of thought.

  The third thing he found in the hole concealed by the baseboard was a velvet jewelry case—a necklace case, by the shape of it. He opened it and immediately realized he was looking at probably twenty, thirty, even forty thousand dollars’ worth of real, mined emeralds. The necklace was exquisite, with small diamonds on either side of each larger emerald, and a two-inch long teardrop emerald pendant hanging from the center of the piece. He closed the case and stuck it back.

  He’d known when he started this venture that he and his family were paupers compared to the Delanceys, but looking at those ridiculously huge gemstones slammed his face into just how different they were. As he carefully replaced everything including the envelope, then put the baseboard back and rearranged the water bottles, he thought it was a good thing that he wasn’t serious about Cara Lynn.

  Because as soon as their honeymoon was over, the feelings of her family would begin to weigh on her mind, and eventually, they’d convince her that she’d made a big mistake. That she’d married way beneath her.

  As for him, he had sense enough to know he was so far out of her league he wasn’t even in her zip code. Yep, it was a good thing he was only in this for revenge and not for love.

  He glanced at his watch. He was going to have to wait to go over his granddad’s letter. He had to get to the sheriff’s office. As he stood and started to lock the case, his cell phone rang. He looked at the display.

  It was Greg Haymore, the private investigator he’d hired for an outrageous sum that he hoped would be totally worth it. Haymore was a good investigator, but his real value was in his connections.

  Haymore was a former police officer who’d been fired for suborning perjury in a court case involving the shooting death of his partner. He’d lied about whether his partner had a throwaway gun, afraid that if the jury knew that the officer was carrying a secret weapon, they’d assume the officer was crooked and let the killer off. Haymore’s good intentions got the killer acquitted and himself fired.

  “Hey, Jack, what’s going on?” Haymore said when Jack answered the phone.

  “Nothing much. What’s up?”

  “You enjoying married life?”

  Jack winced. He’d had to tell Haymore some of his plan, and their contract included a severe non-disclosure agreement, but damn it, he didn’t have to listen to the man’s ribbing. “Did you have something for me?”

  “Yeah.” The investigator’s voice took on a professional tone. “I’ve got a buddy on the Chef Voleur Police Force that’s—”

  “Whoa. You can’t go messing with them. I told you, a bunch of the Delanceys are police officers or detectives—at least two of them, twins, are in Chef Voleur—and they’re not stupid, not by a long shot. If you screw this up, man, there is nowhere in the world that you’ll be able to get another job.”

  “Listen, I know what I’m doing, and this guy is a sergeant. He’s a good guy and he never liked Con Delancey. He knows the two officers—as he calls them, the Delancey Bobbsey Twins—and there’s no love lost there, either. He was happy to take a look at this case’s evidence file for me.”

  “The evidence file?” Jack was interested in spite of his concern over Haymore taking unnecessary chances.

  “Yeah. He said there are unused samples of blood in there. Said if you could get an order for DNA, you might find out something that would help exonerate your grandfather.”

  “Blood,” Jack repeated thoughtfully. He thought about the implications of having blood samples from twenty-eight years ago. That was before DNA sampling was widely understood or affordable for anyone but the government. Today was a completely different story. DNA could be used to identify someone to a one in many, many billions of accuracy.

  “Okay. That could be promising. But Greg, I want you to sit on that for now. And please—I just hope your source is as trustworthy as you think he is.”

  “Oh, he’s good. His name is—”

  “No. I don’t want to know his name. Just make sure that nobody, and I mean nobody else knows about t
his. I’ll let you know if and when I want to use it. Okay?”

  “This might be exactly what you’re looking for, Jack. A DNA match might deliver the real killer right into your hands.”

  “I know. I’m just not sure how to go about it. You sit tight. I don’t want you doing anything else right now. Got that? I’ll let you know when I need you again. I’ll deposit your fees up to now into your account. And Greg? Thanks.”

  “No problem,” Haymore said. “I’ll be watching for that deposit. Talk to you later.”

  “Oh, hang on a second,” Jack said. “One more question. Did you hear about the robbery at the Delancey residence Saturday night?”

  “Yeah. Not much on the news, but there’s talk everywhere about it. Somebody just walked in and stole that Guillame tiara?”

  “He dropped the tiara—not on purpose I’m sure. But he did take a journal written by Lilibelle Guillame. Do you know anything about the thief? Or know anybody who does things like that? That bold I mean?”

  “Walk in, grab a million-dollar piece of jewelry and then run out, right through a crowd of rich folks and cops? Nah.”

  “If you hear anything, give me a call on my cell, okay?”

  “Sure thing, Bush.”

  After Jack hung up, he sat there, thinking about the idea of using DNA to prove who killed Con Delancey. DNA was proof-positive. One hundred percent. No more doubt. No more questions.

  For the first time in his life, Jack actually wondered if he was doing the right thing. For the first time in his life, he considered the possibility that his grandfather had killed Con Delancey.

  Chapter Five

  Cara Lynn smiled at the elderly couple who were walking hand-in-hand around the gallery, admiring the paintings, sculptures and other art pieces.

  She was waiting for Jack and about to scream. Her mother had just arrived and was talking to the gallery owner. Cara Lynn was doing what she was supposed to do, making herself available to the patrons and guests. But she thought if she had to stand there smiling and answering questions and listening to comments and critiques one more minute, she might have a psychotic break, right in the middle of one of the most prestigious galleries in the Warehouse District of New Orleans.