* * *
As I drove Antoine to the hotel, he texted the crew asking them to meet him in the conference room. They’d reserved it for the entire time they were expecting to be at the hotel. I was going to drop him at the door and go home, but he asked me to come inside with him for a few moments. Then he insisted on holding the door for me and having me walk into the conference room first. It sounded gentlemanly, chivalrous, courtly. Maybe it was. I was also fairly certain that part of his motivation was to make his entry more gasp-worthy. The crew would turn, see Sprocket and me, be disappointed. Then I would step aside and they would see him and they would go wild.
Which is precisely what happened.
Antoine was a good chef. No. That’s not right. Antoine was a great chef. There were, however, lots of great chefs in the world. Not to take anything away from him, but there were other people who were absolutely one hundred percent as good or even better than him in a kitchen.
I’ve already mentioned Antoine’s charisma. That didn’t hurt him at all. He walked into a room and people were instantly drawn to him. Not all of them were charmed, but no one could ignore him. He also knew a lot about presentation, on the table and the plate, but in life as well. He knew how to stage an event and he definitely knew how to stage an entrance, which is what he had just done.
In seconds, the crew was in a circle around him, laughing and crying and hugging. I thought Lucy might faint for a second. Antoine was the eye of the storm, the calm center of the swirl of emotions, the glue that held the group together, the person they couldn’t live without.
Watching it from the outside was . . . instructive. I’d been well aware that I’d been manipulated any number of times during my marriage to Antoine and, frankly, after my marriage to him as well. I wasn’t aware of how completely innate it was to him. I wondered if he even knew he was doing it or if it was as much of a reflex as blinking when you sneeze.
“Come, everyone,” he said. “Let’s sit. We need to talk. We have plans to make.”
Everyone settled around the conference table, but each crew member managed to touch Antoine in some way as they went to their seats. Jason clapped him on the shoulder. Brooke gave his hand a squeeze and Lucy rested her hand on his back for a moment. I took a step backward toward the door, hoping to make an unobtrusive exit.
“Rebecca, my darling, come to the table,” Antoine said, making that dream a non-reality. “This will affect you as well. We will need your input.”
Sprocket and I trudged over to the table and sat down at the far end, well out of hand-holding distance.
“Obviously,” he said, “we are behind schedule. What have you been able to accomplish while I was . . . detained?” Leave it to Antoine to find a classy word to describe being locked up for murdering your thieving assistant.
Both Lucy and Brooke started talking at once. Antoine held up his hand and pointed to Lucy. “You first.”
Lucy sat up straighter. “We’ve done several shots of Rebecca in her kitchen with her assistant Dario. The shots of people coming through the shop have been trickier because the place has been so mobbed. We’ve also gotten a lot of video of the area. It would have been better with you in the shots, but you can do a voice-over for them.”
Antoine put his hand over hers and said, “Excellent.”
I thought she was going to swoon.
Then he nodded to Brooke. “Now you.”
“We’ve interviewed Anastasia Bloom, Barbara Werner and Mayor Allen Thompson to hear about POPS’s effect on downtown Grand Lake. We also interviewed her sister about what it was like to have Rebecca come back.” She glanced over at me and then away. “Her brother-in-law, the sheriff, has refused to do an interview.”
I hadn’t known that, but wasn’t terribly surprised. Dan’s idea of a good television interview was the one he’d done in front of the hotel the other night. Basically someone would ask him questions and he would say “No comment” until they got bored and went away.
“Good. Very good.” He rubbed at his chin for a moment, thinking. “So really all we need is a segment with Rebecca and me together in the kitchen?”
“That’s right,” Brooke said. “We can do the rest in the studio at home.”
Antoine sighed. “Yes. Home. In some ways, I will not be sorry to leave this town. It has brought us all a great deal of sorrow. How have all of you been operating without Melanie?”
“It’s been okay,” Brooke said. “We’ve managed.”
“I can see that. Perhaps you would like to take on the scheduling and arrangement of the shoot at Rebecca’s shop, Brooke?” Antoine asked.
Brooke flushed to the roots of her hair. “I . . . I would be honored, Antoine. Thank you for your trust. I’ll make sure it runs completely smoothly.”
Antoine laughed. “There is no such thing as a shoot running completely smoothly. I’m sure you know that by now. I appreciate the sentiment, though. Now let’s set the schedule.”
“I think it would be best if we shot at Rebecca’s kitchen in the morning. The light is tricky in there,” Lucy said, not looking up from her notepad.
Again, Antoine put his hand over hers. “That is Brooke’s decision to make, Lucy.”
“Of course,” she said. “Sorry.” There was a little plopping noise. It took me a second to realize that it was a tear that had dropped from Lucy’s face to her notepad. She was crying. Was she still that overcome about Antoine being home and about him touching her? Her hand gripped harder around her pen. Or was she upset that Antoine had chosen Brooke instead of her to succeed Melanie?
“Brooke?” Antoine prompted, not turning to look at Lucy.
“Lucy’s right. We should shoot in the morning. Will tomorrow work for you, Rebecca?” Brooke asked, also not looking at Lucy.
Tomorrow wasn’t completely convenient, but I was pretty sure that the sooner Antoine and his crew finished shooting at POPS, the sooner they would be out of my way if not out of town. “Sure. We can make that work.”
“Excellent. How about our equipment situation?” Antoine asked.
I hazed out of the discussion about cameras and lights. I really didn’t care what they used to light my kitchen.
“So that’s it, then?” Antoine finally said, snapping me back to the present.
“I think that covers it,” Brooke said, nodding while checking over her list. Lucy still had not looked up from her paper.
I nearly leapt to my feet. “So see you bright and early tomorrow then. Can’t wait.”
“Wait,” Antoine called as I headed to the door. I stopped. He walked over and stood next to me at the conference room door. “If it were not for you, I would be still locked in that cage.”
“I’m not so sure about that. Dan would have realized eventually that he had the wrong man.” He might have leapt to some conclusions about Antoine, but he was a thorough man. He would have seen that there were other people involved.
“Maybe. Maybe not. At the very least, you led him to that conclusion faster than he would have gotten there himself. You brought me food. You kept my spirits up, and tonight with you in the kitchen . . .” He dropped his shoulders and looked up at the acoustic tile ceiling. “Tonight was magic. I cooked better and with more heart than I have in months. Maybe years. Thank you for helping me find my soul again.”
“Antoine, that had nothing to do with me.” Even as I said the words, I wondered if they were true. I’d felt the magic that the two of us made in the kitchen, too.
“You are wrong. You are a wonderful person, but you are wrong. Thank you, my sweet Rebecca. I will see you tomorrow. Sleep well.” He kissed my cheek and returned to the crew at the conference table.
He might as well have told me to grow wings and fly.
Fourteen
There hadn’t been anyone waiting for me on the porch when I got home. I took Sprocket for a quick walk
since he’d been cooped up inside most of the evening. While we walked, I received a text from the “You’re welcome” and “Good job” number. This one had a photo of Antoine and me in POPS’s kitchen clearly taken from the alley with a note that said, “Careful.”
I texted back: Srsly who is this?
No one answered again.
I got back to my granny flat and fell into bed completely exhausted. When I woke up, bleary and sticky-eyed, I had the idea that maybe it had all been a dream, but the dirty dishes waiting for me in the sink when I got to POPS made it clear that the whole thing had been an absolute reality.
I sighed, filled the sink with hot water and started scrubbing—not that there was that much to scrub. Shakshuka doesn’t make a lot of dirty dishes. Dario arrived about ten minutes later and we got to work on the real preparations for the day.
“Good news about your . . . ex,” he said, as he sprinkled coconut into a big mixing bowl.
I nodded. “Maybe this will all be over soon.”
I would remember those words later when Antoine and his crew showed up to shoot.
“Um, Lucy, could you please move that light over to that corner?” Brooke pointed to the corner of the kitchen by the pantry.
Lucy grimaced, her hand resting lightly on the light’s stand. “Are you sure, Brooke? I think that might throw too much shadow on Antoine’s face.”
“I’m sure, Lucy.” Brooke’s voice had gotten a hard note in it. The tension in the room was getting as stiff as whipped egg whites.
Lucy moved the light, setting it down in the corner with a hard thump. “Fine,” she said in that tone of voice that made it clear that it was anything but fine.
I glanced over at Antoine, but he seemed oblivious to the tension. I suspected he wasn’t, but I was fairly certain he wasn’t going to do anything about it, either. At least not at the moment.
It didn’t stop with the lighting. It went on to mikes and when we should have close-ups of the food and when we should have shots of our hands. At one point Jason walked behind me and whispered, “I kind of wish you’d let them lock me up. Prison time would have been less unpleasant than this.” I snorted, which got me dirty looks from Antoine, Brooke and Lucy and a wink from Jason.
* * *
Finally, it was over. I retreated to a corner with Dario while they packed up. Jason, Antoine and Brooke headed to the door. Lucy said, “I’ll catch up with you guys.”
“What’s up, Lucy?” I asked after they’d gone.
“Nothing. I just needed a little space.” She sat down at the table and looked at me expectantly.
“Would you like some hot chocolate?” I asked.
She practically clapped her hands. Dario took off for the day while I was making our drinks. Finally, I sat down across from Lucy, each of us with a full mug.
“I can’t believe Sunny was going to let Antoine take the rap for a murder he committed,” Lucy said.
I shook my head. “I’m not one hundred percent sure that Sunny did it.” I would have said that he wasn’t capable of violence, but watching him try to attack Cynthia made me reconsider that. Still, it was a long way from there to premeditated murder, and it had to be premeditated. No way you could alter a blow-dryer like that on the fly.
“Who else could have?” Lucy asked, wide-eyed.
“I don’t know. It seems like every time I turn around there’s a new suspect. Melanie pissed a lot of people off along the way.” I hoped that when I left my kitchen for the final time not so many people would be cheering.
“You know Melanie’s whole goal from the start was to replace you,” Lucy said, taking a long sip of hot chocolate.
“Excuse me?” I said, startled by what felt like a change of subject.
“That stunt in Minneapolis? Stranding you there? That was all her,” Lucy said.
I’d had my suspicions, but I also knew her stunt wouldn’t have worked if Antoine had spared any thought about me. “That’s water under the bridge now, Lucy.”
“Her hair wasn’t even curly,” she blurted out.
“What?”
“That was a perm. She did it so she would look more like you.”
“Lots of women get perms,” I said.
She shook her head. “Lots of women in the eighties had perms. Maybe even the nineties. Nobody does that now. She permed it and dyed it so she’d look more like you.”
“There are lots of reasons people perm and dye their hair, Lucy.” Just because someone had her hair done like yours didn’t mean she was trying to Single White Female you.
Lucy leaned her elbows on the table. “She told me.”
That stopped me short. “She what?”
“One night when we were working late, she opened a bottle of wine and got kind of . . . loose,” Lucy said.
If this story was going the same direction that Jason’s story about Melanie getting soused after work hours went, it was going to add quite an interesting twist to the story. “And?”
“And she told me that when she got the interview with Antoine, she looked for pictures of you and then made herself look as much like you as she could.” She sipped her hot chocolate and looked at me with her brows arched over the rim.
I remembered when Melanie interviewed for the job. Antoine had gone on and on about her qualifications and her references. She didn’t get the job because of her looks. “That’s weird, but it didn’t help her.”
“It didn’t help you, either. Did you ever wonder why so many of your evenings with Antoine were interrupted with work emergencies? Or how often your plans had to be canceled because something came up with the show or with the products or with the books?” she asked.
Antoine’s work was demanding. You didn’t marry a chef without knowing that things like that could happen.
“She did it on purpose. She wanted you out and her in.”
“Why are you telling me all this now?” I didn’t know if it would have made any difference if I’d realized all this sooner, but I knew it definitely didn’t make any difference now. Antoine and I were over.
“You cleared Antoine. The charges against him were dropped. Why keep pushing to figure out who killed Melanie? What difference does it make? Whoever did it did all of us a favor, Antoine included.”
I drew back. “You can’t mean that, Lucy.”
“I’m only saying what everyone else is thinking. You know why there are so many suspects? Because everyone hated her. You know why everyone hated her? Because she was a bad person. It’s that simple, Rebecca.” She stood up from the table. “You should leave it alone. Or if you figure out who did it, you should give that person a medal.”
Then she was gone.
* * *
Dan stopped by the shop in the afternoon. I made him a cup of coffee and got him a big plate of my newest addition to POPS’s menu: bacon pecan popcorn. I set it down in front of him.
“I don’t think Sunny killed Melanie,” he said, staring at the popcorn but not eating it.
I had my doubts, too, but wanted to hear his first. “Any particular reason?”
“I don’t think he would be able to rewire that blow-dryer.” He took a bite of the popcorn. It made me feel warm inside to see his eyes close for a second. I’d gotten it right that time. I’d take some to Garrett before my late afternoon rush started.
“Sunny has a television show like Antoine’s. He has to know some of that stuff.”
Dan washed his popcorn down with a slurp of coffee. “I interviewed some of his crew. They all said they do everything they can to keep Sunny away from anything electrical. Or mechanical.” He frowned. “Or really almost anything that isn’t cooking. They said he’s a menace on the set.”
That didn’t totally surprise me. Antoine’s persnickety ways might seem anal-retentive to some, but it also kept everyone on his set safe. If Sunny’
s approach to mechanical and electrical things was like his approach to cooking, all hell could break loose at any point. “Also,” I said, pulling out my cell phone to show Dan the text I’d gotten the night before, “Sunny was locked up when I got this.”
Dan took the phone and looked. His eyebrows shot up. Then he started scrolling through. “This isn’t the first text you’ve gotten from a blocked number.”
“Yeah, but the other ones were all nice. You know. Good job. You’re welcome.” I liked praise. I wasn’t always fussy about where it came from.
“And you don’t know who it is?” He stared at the photo as if it might hold some kind of answer.
I shook my head. “I asked, but whoever it is didn’t answer.”
He jotted a note down then took out his phone and held it next to mine. “And I got that photo of Jason and Melanie from a blocked number.”
An uncomfortable prickling sensation ran up my spine. Someone was watching us. Someone who was damn good at staying hidden. “Do you know who it is?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Huerta’s checking into it. So far all we know is it was a burner phone purchased with cash in Cleveland.”
The phone rang in Dan’s hand. He looked at the caller ID and frowned, then handed the phone to me. Antoine. I considered letting it go to voice mail, but then I would dread retrieving that. I might as well deal with it like ripping off a bandage. Do it fast and get it over with.
“What?” I asked.
“Good afternoon, darling,” he replied. “Would you be able to stop by the hotel this evening?”
“Why?” I was starting to sound like a Journalism 101 class.
“Just one last meeting to make sure we have everything we need.”
I really didn’t want to go, but anything I could do to wrap things up faster seemed like a good idea. “What time?”
“Seven.”
I hung up. Dan shook his head. “Just make sure you leave your cell phone on or Haley will go supernova.”
Pop Goes the Murder Page 21