by Harper Lin
She could take Ben’s advice and paint what she was passionate about. Desserts and pastries could be incorporated. Clémence had a few ideas about what she could do, but it had been a very long day and she didn’t have the energy to dwell on them.
Clémence gave Miffy a kiss and began to make spaghetti Bolognese for dinner. It was fast and easy, and she just wanted to eat and get some rest.
As she waited for the water to boil, she looked into the mirror at her reflection. It was true that she wasn’t looking her freshest. She had dark under eye circles, and her skin was paler than usual. But haggard?
She refused to be insecure about it. She was human. She couldn’t look beautiful all the time. And if a jerk like Arthur couldn’t accept that, well, she didn’t need to talk to him. Ever.
Why did she have to give so much weight to what boys said? Ralph had called her beautiful, and Arthur had said she’d looked horrible on the same day. Maybe she should be the one to decide whether she looked beautiful or not.
Right now, beauty should’ve been the last thing on her mind. She needed to eat, and she needed rest. She had a murder case to solve.
CHAPTER 9
When Clémence went into work the next morning, Sebastien had already finished a tray of their newest éclair flavor. He’d been piping in the cream when she came in, and he handed one to her.
“Try it,” said Sebastien. “And give it to me straight.”
“When do I ever not?” said Clémence.
She took a bite. The pastry was still a bit warm and the cream filling fresh. She almost moaned in pleasure, but she restrained herself.
“What did you do?” she said. “This is amazing.”
Sebastien crossed his arms and smiled proudly. “You said you wanted a hazelnut flavor, so you got it.”
“But there’s something else that’s going well with this. What is it?” Clémence took another bite. “Orange?”
Sebastien nodded.
“It tastes so fresh,” said Clémence. “You’re a genius.”
Sebastien smiled and flushed with pride. “I knew you’d go crazy for it.”
“Get over yourself,” Clémence groaned. “We can launch this flavour next week. Give me the recipe and I’ll send it off to the bakers in the other locations.”
“Even Tokyo and Hong Kong?” Sebastien asked, referring to the two new patisseries that had opened recently in Asia.
“We’ll see,” said Clémence. “I’ll send the recipe to my parents, and they can decide if it’ll do well for the market. Right now they’re still doing market research and collecting information on what’s doing well and what’s not. I’m not sure if they’ll want new flavors so soon, but I’ll ask them.”
“So my experimental savory flavored éclairs will just have to wait too, huh?”
“Yes,” said Clémence. “We’ll see if it works in Paris first. Simon really liked it though.” She referred to the head chef in charge of the menu for the salon de thé. “We’ll have to see if there’s enough demand for it to be featured permanently on the menu.”
“It should do well,” Sebastien said confidently.
“Probably,” said Clémence. “But is it possible for your head to swell any bigger?”
“No, it’s not.”
His sister came in.
“Hey Berenice,” said Clémence. “Any sight of that guy in the patisserie?”
“Nope, but when Marie calls you, I want to come out too. I want to see just how hot this guy really is.”
“What guy?” asked Sebastien.
“The potential murderer,” Berenice said.
“What?”
Clémence had to explain how she found out about this guy through their surveillance company.
“I didn’t know we had surveillance.” Sebastien looked around the kitchen. “Are we being filmed right now?”
“You didn’t know about the cameras?” said Berenice. “It’s up there, see?”
Berenice pointed to a black dome on the high ceiling.
“Oh,” said Sebastien. “I thought that was some sort of light or something. High tech.”
“I hope you’re not doing anything here you shouldn’t be doing,” Clémence teased.
“Of course not,” Sebastien said.
“I’d like to install some cameras in your apartment.” Berenice turned to Clémence. “I never know what he’s up to, even when he was still living with us. Sebastien would just hide out in his room all the time.”
“I need time to myself,” Sebastien said. “It doesn’t mean I’m doing anything weird.”
“Yes, but you’re always so private, even to your family. We always get this impression that you’re hiding something.”
“You guys are just too nosy,” said Sebastien. “You and mom. Maybe I just don’t want to give you a play-by-play of everything I’m doing during my day.”
“Take for example Tuesday and Thursday nights,” said Berenice. “Where do you go? We notice that you don’t ever answer your phone around that time. Do you have a girlfriend now or what?”
“That’s none of your business,” said Sebastien.
“If you’re seeing someone, you’ll have to present her to us you know.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you care what we think?”
“No,” said Sebastien.
“So you are seeing someone,” Berenice asked.
“I didn’t say that either.”
Berenice gave an exaggerated sigh. “See? You can’t get anything out of this guy. He doesn’t even have Facebook or any kind of online presence.”
“Well, I don’t have Facebook either,” said Clémence.
“You don’t?” Sebastien gave her a high five.
“Sometimes I post on the Damour fan page,” said Clémence. “So I’m not entirely social network-free.”
“That’s different if you’re just using it for business,” said Sebastien. “But I don’t really care what people eat for lunch or other mundane status updates, you know?”
“Unless they’re eating at Damour,” said Clémence. “But I get what you’re saying. I’d rather get to know people face-to-face.”
Clémence used to have a Facebook profile, but she deleted it when she started seeing photos of her ex Mathieu with his new girlfriend. She had been so distraught that she blocked him. Still, his pictures showed up in the feeds of their mutual friends, and she just had to delete her profile altogether and start living in the real world by taking off for her travels. She didn’t miss being online one bit.
“You’re just as hard to get to know offline,” Berenice said to Sebastien. “As your sister, how am I suppose to give you guidance on relationships if I don’t know what you’re up to?”
“Maybe I don’t need your guidance,” Sebastien retorted.
Clémence shook her head at the brother and sister. They looked alike, but they were so different. It made her miss her older brother and sister, who were living outside of Paris. Her brother was in Deauville in Normandy and her sister was in the south of France. She hadn’t seen Henri and Marianne since her birthday in January, when they’d all visited her in Malaysia.
“I very much doubt it,” said Berenice. She turned back to Clémence again. “Did you know that Seb was in a relationship for three years and I didn’t even know it until two years in? I ran into them at the movies once and that was when I found out.”
“You’re really annoying me,” said Sebastien. “I’m not one of you girls. I don’t kiss and tell.”
Clémence laughed. It was true that Berenice and Celine were boy crazy. They could spend entire lunch hours talking about boys with Clémence. But she understood Sebastien’s discretion. Lately she’d been guarded about her love life too, although there wasn’t much to talk about to begin with.
Celine came into the kitchen.
“Pssst,” she called to Clémence.
Clémence walked to her. “What is it?”
“He’s here,” Celine said in a
loud stage whisper. “Your main man.”
“The murderer guy?” Berenice asked.
“Yes. He’s in line right now. I just saw him walk past the door and into the patisserie.”
They turned to Clémence.
“What are you going to say?” Sebastien said.
“I think I’m just going to follow him for now,” said Clémence. “I don’t want him to know that I work here.”
“Own the place you mean,” Berenice said.
“I’ll follow him to his workplace, see what he does, and I’ll figure out how to talk to him after that.”
“Clémence, come on,” said Sebastien. “If this guy has killed someone, you have to be careful.”
“I am careful,” she said. “I’m not following him into alleys. It’s Friday morning. It’s safe.”
Celine went back to her post. Clémence took off her apron and checked herself in a small mirror on the wall before she went out. The salon de thé was already full with customers eating breakfast. She traversed over to the patisserie section, which was divided by a half-wall. She could see the man’s back. Marie and another cashier, Charlotte, were working and Marie gave her a meaningful look. Clémence inched closer to get a better view. The man was looking at all their treats under the glass display.
He was looking at the éclairs, then the croissants. She was sure it was him, because he was the only man in a business suit in line.
Clémence waited, watching him from behind the wall opening. He ordered a pain au chocolat. As he paid, Clémence got ready to follow, but someone else came in through the patisserie door.
At the sight of her, this new arrival called out her name.
It was Arthur.
CHAPTER 10
“Clémence!”
Startled, Clémence ducked back into the salon de thé. She hoped that her suspect hadn’t spotted her.
“Hey, Clémence.”
Arthur came through to the salon section with a puzzled look.
“Didn’t you see me? Are you trying to hide from me?”
Clémence shushed him.
“Stop calling my name,” she said in a loud whisper. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“I wanted to talk to you,” said Arthur.
Clémence snuck another look into the patisserie.
“He’s leaving,” she exclaimed.
She watched the man push the door open and turning the corner.
“Who’s leaving?” Arthur asked.
“Nevermind.” She moved towards the door. She should follow at a good distance behind. “Arthur, this is not a good time.”
She pushed the door open.
“You’re not seriously stalking some guy, are you?” Arthur said. He came out after her.
Clémence groaned. “No. I mean yes, okay, I am following someone, but it’s not what you think.”
“How do you know what I think?” He was walking next to her now, as Clémence turned onto Avenue Raymond-Poincaré.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Clémence asked.
Arthur was carrying a briefcase. “Yes, I was going to go to the library to work on my thesis, but I thought I’d stop by and talk to you first.”
“Pourquoi? What do you want to talk about?”
“I’ll tell you if you tell me what exactly it is that you’re doing following some guy in the early morning.”
Clémence sighed. He could be quite persistent if he wanted to be. “Fine. I’m trying to solve another murder case, all right?”
“Oh. Don’t tell me it’s for the guy we found in the bush.”
Clémence nodded. She gave him the quick rundown of what she’d found out so far.
“If he’s been coming in the store consistently, doesn’t it mean that he just likes your baked goods?” Arthur asked.
“He’s my biggest lead, so I have to check this out. What if he poisons someone else?”
“This is insane. You’ve already gotten seriously injured the last time you tried to find a murderer.”
“Yes, but I found out who the murderer was, didn’t I?”
Clémence didn’t know why Arthur had to be so argumentative. “Now I’ve told you what I’m up to. What did you want to tell me?”
Before he could answer, the man went inside a bank. It wasn’t the bank that Clémence was a client of, but she wondered if he worked there, or whether he was just there to make a transaction.
“Act casual,” Clémence said. “Pretend we’re just walking by and I’m going to look inside the window to see if the guy’s there.”
“Fine.”
They walked by, but Clémence didn’t see him. The receptionist was sitting at the front desk, and there were no one else in sight, not even clients.
“I’m going to have to go in to find out,” said Clémence .
Before Arthur could object, Clémence went into the bank. The attractive brunette receptionist greeted her, and Clémence smiled back, but moved to the cash machine. She would make a withdrawal. If the man didn’t reappear, it either meant that the man worked there, or had an appointment.
She should have went in after him immediately. She would’ve been able to tell by how the receptionist greeted him whether he was a client or an employee. That Arthur really set back her investigation.
By the time the euros came out of the ATM, the man still hadn’t appeared. She considered asking the secretary, but she might refuse to tell her who the man was if she didn’t have a good reason to know.
When she went back outside, Arthur was still hanging around, waiting.
“Why are you still here?” She asked him.
“I have better things to do, obviously,” he replied haughtily. “But you’ve made it difficult.”
“I’m making your life difficult? You’ve just set my investigation back.”
Clémence explained that she had to wait around now for the man to come back out.
“Okay, Clouseau, I didn’t mean to.” Arthur’s face softened. “Come on, let’s just go across the street and I’ll buy you a drink.”
Clémence wanted to reject his offer because she didn’t want to spend any more time with him, but this made the most sense. The café across the street did have a solid view of the bank and she’d be able to keep an eye on the scene without appearing suspicious.
“Fine,” she said.
They sat down and Arthur flagged down the server.
“Un café, s’il vous plait,” Clémence ordered.
