by Joanne Fluke
“Well, it’s pretty clear that Helene Stone liked our cookies,” Michelle said, once they’d finished straightening their workstation and were on their way to the greenroom. “At least it seemed that way to me. What do you think?”
“I agree. Of course, both of us could be wrong about that.”
“I don’t think so.”
Hannah smiled at her youngest sister as she opened the door of the greenroom. It was deserted, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t feel like making polite conversation with anyone else right now. Being the first to present their entry was a big advantage as far as she was concerned. It gave them a little breathing space before the other contestants presented their entries, straightened their workstations, and came to the greenroom.
“Brooke’s up,” Michelle announced, watching the large monitor on the wall in front of them. “Her cookies are really pretty.”
“Good. I hope she does well,” Hannah said, and she meant it.
“Do you think she did it?” Michelle asked.
The question was ambiguous, but was Michelle referring to Brooke’s cookies, or something more ominous? Hannah thought she knew exactly what her sister was asking. But was it another case of sisterly telepathy, or was she reading more into the question than Michelle had meant when she’d asked it? There was only one way to find out, and Hannah turned to her sister. “Are you talking about Chef Duquesne’s murder?”
“Of course. What did you think I was talking about?”
“Chef Duquesne’s murder, but I didn’t want to assume that without asking. No, I don’t think she did it. I like Brooke. I don’t want to think she did it.”
“But you’re planning to question her anyway?”
“Of course I am. I can’t let my likes and dislikes get in the way of a murder investigation.” Hannah glanced at the screen and smiled. “Look at the judges, Michelle. All four of them are smiling. That’s a good sign for Brooke.”
There was a close-up of Brooke’s cookie platter, and Michelle glanced at Hannah. “Are those cookies deep fried?”
“Yes. Brooke used a rosette iron. Do you remember that metal, flower-shaped iron with a handle on the end that Great-Grandma Elsa used to make pretty cookies sprinkled with powdered sugar?”
“No. I guess I was too young to remember.”
“I’ll show you what it looks like when we get back to the condo. Great-Grandma Elsa gave me hers when she stopped making rosette cookies. I haven’t seen those cookies in a long time. They’re very fragile, and taking them off the rosette iron without breaking them is difficult.”
“Do you think Brooke’s cookies have a chance of winning?”
“I don’t know, but I think they’ll certainly place higher than her last entry.”
“Because no one makes cookies like that anymore?”
“That would be part of it. But Brooke’s cookies are unusual in another way. It looks to me as if they’re chocolate. The dough is a lot darker than the recipe that Great-Grandma Elsa used. If they’re chocolate, that’s a real advantage. I’ve never seen a recipe for chocolate rosette cookies before.”
“Brooke’s going back to her station and she’s smiling,” Michelle commented. “I think she’s pleased with what happened.”
“And Jeremy Zales just took another cookie. That bodes well for Brooke.”
Gloria Berkeley was up next, and Michelle turned up the volume on the monitor so that they could hear about her entry. After Gloria had finished describing her cookies, perfectly shaped rounds with colored bits of fruit on top, Michelle turned to Hannah. “LaVonna Brach just took a bite, and I don’t think she looks impressed.”
“Neither does Christian Parker. And look at Helene Stone. She put her cookie down after only one bite.”
“Maybe she’ll come in last this time,” Michelle said. And then, when she noticed Hannah’s expression, she began to explain. “I know it’s not very nice of me, but I haven’t liked Gloria ever since I found out about Brooke’s marshmallow sauce.”
The door to the greenroom opened and Brooke walked in. She was holding a plate with two cookies on it, and she was smiling. “I brought these for you,” she said, setting the plate down on the coffee table in front of Hannah and Michelle.
“Thanks!” Michelle said, reaching for one of the cookies immediately. “They looked great on the monitor and they look even more delicious in real life.”
“Chocolate!” Hannah exclaimed as she picked up the remaining cookie on the plate, took a bite, and confirmed her earlier speculation. “These are wonderful, Brooke! My great-grandmother used to make these, but she didn’t make chocolate. She just used the recipe that came in the box with the rosette iron.”
“That’s a good recipe. It’s the one I’ve always used in the past. And the only reason these are chocolate is because of Loren.”
“Loren Berringer?” Michelle asked.
“Yes. We were talking about the competition, and I told him I was going to make rosette cookies. Just like you, Loren knew what they were right away. He said his grandmother used to make them for Christmas. He told me he’d tried it once with his grandmother’s rosette iron, but he could never get them off the iron without breaking them. And then he asked me what recipe I was using.”
Hannah wiped her hands on one of the napkins Brooke had provided. The chocolate rosette cookies had been sprinkled with powdered sugar just like the vanilla ones that Great-Grandma Elsa had made. “What did you tell Loren?” she asked.
“I said I was using the recipe that came in the box, and I was a little worried about that. I mentioned that I wanted to make chocolate rosette cookies, but I wasn’t sure how to do it.”
“And he told you how to make them?” Michelle guessed.
“No. He said he didn’t know either, but maybe we could figure it out. And we did! If I do well in the judging tonight, Loren is the one who deserves all the credit.”
Hannah shook her head. “The two of you collaborated on the recipe. And Loren said he’d tried to make them, but he couldn’t do it without breaking the cookies. It sounds like a joint effort to me.”
“Me, too,” Michelle said. And then she looked slightly worried. “You didn’t tell the judges that, did you?”
“No. Loren told me not to say anything like that when the judges interviewed me, that as far as he was concerned, the idea for chocolate rosette cookies was mine since I was the one who’d made it work. He said that all he’d done was encourage me and that was what friends should do for each other.”
Hannah exchanged glances with Michelle. Brooke had been much more animated than usual when she’d talked about Loren, and she looked much happier than she had earlier in the competition. It sounded as if there might be a bit more than simple friendship involved in Brooke and Loren’s relationship. She gave a little nod to Michelle and got up to get herself a glass of water from the cooler at the far end of the greenroom.
“You like Loren, don’t you?” Michelle asked Brooke.
Hannah turned slightly, so that she could see Brooke’s face, and she saw the blush that began to color Brooke’s cheeks. If Delores had written this scene in one of her Regency romance novels, she would have described it as a telling blush.
“Yes, I do,” Brooke admitted. “He really helped me out.”
“Loren seems like a really nice guy,” Hannah said, walking back so that she could join the conversation. “He was very supportive when he helped you with the rosette cookies you made tonight.”
“That’s true, and he was also very supportive after . . .” Brooke stopped and took a deep breath. “I might as well tell you what happened. Maybe you can help me decide what I should do.”
“We’d be happy to try,” Hannah told her, and then she fell silent. It was a psychological tactic that had been used in one of the books Mike had given her to read. She glanced at Michelle, and Michelle gave her a slight nod to let her know that she’d realized what Hannah was doing.
There was a long sil
ence. The only sound in the room was from the television monitor, and Hannah had deliberately turned down the volume.
The tension grew, and Hannah had almost come to the conclusion that the interviewing tactic she’d read about hadn’t worked when Brooke gave a deep sigh.
“Alain Duquesne was my father,” she said.
Chapter Twenty-six
Both Hannah and Michelle were shocked speechless for another long moment. This was a development that neither one of them had expected. Brooke’s statement had all the conversation-killing power of a bug bomb on a colony of ants.
Hannah was the first to recover. “Tell us about it,” she said.
“I didn’t know anything about it for years.” Brooke’s voice was shaky as she began to explain. “I always thought that my father was . . . my father. I had an older brother and a younger sister. There was no reason for me to doubt that it wasn’t true. Honestly . . .” she stopped and cleared her throat. “You’ve got to believe me. I didn’t know!”
“We believe you,” Hannah reassured her. “How did you find out that Chef Duquesne was your father?”
“My mother told me. It was after my older brother entered my name in the Dessert Chef Competition and the Food Channel sent me a letter saying that they’d chosen me as one of the contestants. My mother was . . .” Brooke stopped speaking and took a deep, shuddering breath. “She was in the hospice ward at the hospital, and I thought . . . I thought it would make her happy. And instead it . . . it really upset her!”
“Oh, Brooke. I’m so sorry.” Hannah moved over to give Brooke a hug. “But it really wasn’t your fault. How could you have guessed that telling your mother about the competition would upset her?”
“That’s true, but I still feel terrible about it. I would never have guessed that I had a different father. You see, my mother hadn’t told anyone. My brother didn’t know. My sister didn’t know. And my mother said that she’d never told my father. None of us knew. She was the only one who knew, and she would have kept that secret forever if I hadn’t been chosen as a contestant!”
Hannah gave Brooke another hug and moved back a bit. “What did your mother want you to do about all this?”
“She wanted me to make up some excuse to drop out of the competition. You see, it says right in the rules that relatives of the judges or the organizers are ineligible. And at the same time, she made me promise to keep her secret and never to tell my sister and brother that we had different fathers. She thought that if they knew, it would break up our family. And she said that when she was gone, the three of us would be the only family that was left and we would need each other.”
“Did you try to drop out?” Michelle asked.
“Of course I did! It’s what my mother wanted. I told my brother and sister that I was too nervous to be a contestant in a big competition like that, and I was sure that something bad would happen if I competed. And that would generate negative publicity for the restaurant.”
“Your brother owns the restaurant?” Hannah asked, even though she remembered Brooke telling them that.
“Yes, and my sister and her husband helped him to finance it. I really thought I could convince them that I might hurt business if I stayed in the competition and they’d be happy to see me drop out.”
“But they didn’t see it that way?” Michelle asked.
“No. It was . . . just the opposite!”
Hannah could see that tears were gathering in Brooke’s eyes so she quickly asked another question. “What did they say when you told them you wanted to drop out?”
“They were . . . very supportive. Too supportive. They said they had faith in me, that I was a good dessert chef. And then they told me that it didn’t matter if I came in last, that it was a national competition and just being a contestant would increase business at the restaurant.”
“Oh, boy!” Michelle shook her head. “That put you between a rock and a hard place.”
“It did! And I couldn’t tell them the real reason because I’d promised my mother I wouldn’t.”
“Have you heard from them since you’ve been here?” Michelle asked.
“Yes. They call me every night after the competition airs, and they give me a pep talk. And it turns out that they were right. Business at the restaurant has increased by sixty percent. They told me last night that they had to hire four new waitresses for the evening shift. And the bar business is way up because they record the competition and show it again, two hours later, in the lounge on the big-screen television.”
“Let’s talk about Chef Duquesne.” Hannah brought the conversation around to the point where she could ask the questions that she needed Brooke to answer. “Why did you go to Chef Duquesne’s room on the night he was killed?”
“You know about that?” Brooke looked astonished.
“Yes. The housekeeper saw you run back to your room, and she said you were crying.”
“She’s right. I had to tell someone why I had no business being in the competition. The lie I was living was just killing me. So I decided to ask Chef Duquesne for advice. I mean . . . he was my father, after all, and I thought he should know who I was.”
“He didn’t know before?”
Brooke shook her head. “My mother never told him. And I don’t think he ever guessed, because she stopped working at the restaurant right after it happened between them. You see, my mother and my dad were having problems in their marriage and they separated. My mother went to live with my grandmother and Dad stayed in their apartment. My mother got a job at Chef Duquesne’s restaurant as a dessert chef, and a second job as a fry cook at a truck stop. She told me that Grandma was living on a fixed income and she didn’t want to be a financial burden on her, especially since Grandma was taking care of my brother while my mother worked.”
“Your mother was working two full-time jobs?” Michelle asked.
“Yes. And helping Grandma take care of my brother when she was home. One night my mother was baking desserts for the next day at Chef Duquesne’s restaurant when he came in. And he found her crying because she was so lonely and so tired. He asked her what was wrong and she told him, and she said that he was a good listener, and . . . well . . . you can guess the rest.”
“So your mother had an affair with Chef Duquesne?” Hannah asked.
“No! She told me it was just that once. And she felt so guilty, she ended up calling my father and saying that she wanted to work things out with him. She packed up my brother and they went back home to my dad. They saw a marriage counselor, and they were doing great working things out when she found out that she was pregnant with me.”
“That must have been a shock,” Michelle commented.
“She said it was. She didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t sure whether Chef Duquesne was my father, or if my dad was my father. So she . . . she never mentioned it to Dad. They had a happy marriage, and they were together until the day he died.”
“And your mother never told anyone about this?” Hannah asked.
“No one knew. She would have taken that secret to her grave if I hadn’t told her about the Dessert Chef Competition . She said that she’d decided that a confession on her part wouldn’t do anyone any good, but she had to speak up, now that I was a contestant.”
“What did Chef Duquesne say when you told him?” Hannah asked, bringing them back to the point.
“He said that it was impossible, that he’d never had anything to do with my mother. He told me that he knew trouble when he saw it . . . and . . . he accused my mother of . . . of playing around with every man on his kitchen staff!”
“I’m so sorry.” Hannah’s heart went out to Brooke.
“But that’s not all! When I started to cry and told him that my mother was dead, he wasn’t sympathetic at all. And then he said that this was a first for him, that nobody had ever tried to shake him down for a higher score in any competition he’d judged by claiming to be his illegitimate child!”
Hannah knew the next part o
f the story. “So you ran out of his room, crying.”
“Yes! I ran straight back to my room. And I double-locked the door, and I cried and cried. And then Loren heard me crying and knocked on my door.”
“You told him what had happened with Chef Duquesne?”
“Yes! And he called room service, ordered a bottle of wine for me, and let me talk until I fell asleep. When I woke up in the middle of the night, Loren was there, curled up and sleeping on the little couch in my room. And he was still sleeping right there when I woke up the next morning.”
“Loren’s a good friend to have,” Michelle said.
Brooke smiled. “Yes, he is. I was feeling so terribly alone and upset when I got back to my room. Thinking about it now, I really don’t know what I would have done without Loren.”
Hannah glanced at the monitor and smiled. “And speaking of Loren, there he is now. I’ll turn up the volume. We were so busy talking, I guess we missed Gloria.”
“Good!” Brooke said. “I didn’t want to see her anyway.” She paused for a moment and then she smiled. “Look at Loren’s cookies! They’re just beautiful!”
Hannah and Michelle exchanged amused glances. Loren’s cookies looked very good, golden brown on top and artfully arranged on a cobalt-blue platter that made them look even more golden and delicious. Handsome, yes. Good-looking, yes. But neither Hannah nor Michelle would have described them as beautiful. It seemed that their friend Brooke was now seeing one person in the world through rose-colored glasses, and only one emotion could cause a phenomenon like that to occur. Perhaps Brooke didn’t know it yet, but they did. Brooke was definitely falling in love with Loren.
It was time for the judges to tally the scores and Hannah had to admit that she was more nervous than she’d been in any of the other challenges. Coming up with a good score in the cookie challenge was of paramount importance to her business.
“Smile,” Michelle urged her, as the judges took their seats and the cameras began to pan the contestants.
