Lucky Catch

by Deborah Coonts

  I wanted to hate her. Actually, I wanted to turn and run, but neither was appropriate. Instead, I extended my hand. “I’m Lucky.” At a loss as she raised one eyebrow, I stammered on. “I work here. I mean not here here. I work for the Babylon.”

  She smiled and took my hand in a firm grip. “Yes, my brother, my daughter, and my mother have told me about you.”

  “A legend in my own time.” I shrugged as my cheeks reddened—I could only imagine the conversations. Chantal, Desiree’s daughter, had also been witness to my morning attire and presence in her uncle’s house. Being sixteen, she’d connected the dots.

  “It is a pleasure.” Desiree nodded as she let go of my hand.

  “Likewise. I knew Jean-Charles had a sister, I just didn’t know you were twins. You both are stunning—so much alike.”

  “Yes.” Jean-Charles leaped off the sidelines and into the fray. “And we fight like animals—like we are one mind and one heart but two persons.”

  “That’s not so bad.” I looked first at him, then to her.

  “You have brothers or sisters?” Desiree asked, cocking one eyebrow at me, her mouth turned down at the corners in mock amusement.

  “Sort of. I have Mona.”

  She looked confused.

  “My mother, fifteen years older than me. She is more trouble than I can handle.”

  “Ah.” Desiree nodded. “This happens many times in my country as well.”

  I doubted anyone in France could rival Mona, but I kept that assessment to myself. “I didn’t know you were coming to town; Jean-Charles didn’t mention it.”

  Desiree glanced at the floor, then back to focus on something over my left shoulder. “He did not know. I had some . . . business . . . to take care of.”

  Jean-Charles explained. “Her company is providing the truffles for the Last Chef Standing competition. They are very special truffles, but there is a problem.”

  “I see. You will be ready for the competition, right?” I didn’t know a truffle from a trifle, but I figured all my experience with problems might be of use. “Anything I can help with?”

  Desiree muttered under her breath. Jean-Charles silenced her with a look. Ah, siblings. To be honest, I had no desire to get between the two of them—I could still sense their tempers, barely contained, like the flow of hot lava under a thin, cool surface.

  “We can handle it. Thank you,” Desiree answered.

  Jean-Charles gave me a reassuring look, although I thought I caught a hint of waver in it.

  At second glance, he looked confident. Relieved, I nodded. “Well, I’ll let the two of you get back to your . . . conversation . . . as long as you promise there won’t be any bloodshed.” Then, turning to my chef, I explained with a shrug as a perfunctory apology. “As usual, life has gotten the better of me. Duty calls. I thought I could keep Christophe longer, but I’ve got to go. Detective Romeo . . .”

  Jean-Charles’s tentative smile dimmed.

  I waved away his concern. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Thank you for delivering my son. Had you called, I would’ve been delighted to fetch him.” A hint of worry flickered across his face, snapping his brows into a frown, and the conversation stumbled into an awkward pause.

  These moments confounded me—I always felt like flinging an inanity into the empty air to keep the conversation going. Then there was the whole hug-or-not-to-hug question. To kiss or not to kiss. Mixing business with pleasure . . . . I shook my head and moved to go.

  Luckily, a hurtling body flew into the room, saving me from myself. Even though I ducked out of his way, he still smacked into my shoulder.

  Spiked black hair, tats, kohled eyes, dressed in all-black kitchen whites, a vaguely familiar young man skidded to a stop in between brother and sister. Neither Jean-Charles nor Desiree looked excited to see him. A moment of quiet, then a torrent of three raised French voices as each of them peppered the others, gesturing wildly.

  Christophe abandoned his aunt and clutched his father’s leg, his eyes wide and scared. I’m sure he followed the conversation. The odd man out, I caught about every fourth word, which made understanding a trifle difficile.

  I reached for Christophe, pulling him to me, and frowned as the three of the nominal adults screamed and gestured, stomping a foot every now and again in emphasis. Jean-Charles should know better, but his anger had run away with him. Half of the kitchen staff had circled in behind me when Rinaldo entered the fray.

  With his meat-hook-sized hands, he grabbed the newcomer by the arms, lifted him, then deposited him on the stool in front of Jean-Charles’s desk. “Stay there,” he ordered. “I ran your girlfriend off earlier. Didn’t I tell you not to come back?”

  Looking at the other two, he said, “Desiree, I told him you were coming into town, and he’d be wise to steer clear. I’m sorry.” He shot Jean-Charles an I-told-you-so look.

  Jean-Charles, his face crimson, his breathing labored, nodded as he visibly fought for self-control. His arms at his sides, clenching his hands, he was winning the battle.

  His sister stilled for a moment, then launched herself at the seated interloper. Her fingers curled into wicked claws, she raked at him. The young man leaned to one side, avoiding the worst of the attack, although one fingernail left a reddening line down his forearm.

  Rinaldo grabbed Desiree, preventing further bloodshed. He whispered in her ear and she quieted, although her eyes still threw daggers. She moved beside her brother, and the room fell quiet.

  “Everybody back to work. Show’s over.” Rinaldo shooed away the gathered throng, leaving the five of us in the small office . . . well, the four of us adults, using the term loosely, and a small, wide-eyed child clinging to my leg.

  Jean-Charles ruffled his son’s hair, then bent and picked him up. He pressed the boy to his chest and whispered to him.

  Desiree seethed in the corner, but had lost the look of murderous intent. The young man whose presence had been the catalyst hugged himself and pouted from his perch on the stool.

  Rinaldo gave each of us a look, then settled on Jean-Charles. “I told you nothing good could come from this. But you had to go charming snakes. Well, this one is going to bite you in the ass.” Before he drifted back toward the kitchen, Rinaldo said to me, “If I were you, I’d steer clear. When these three are together, only bad things happen.”

  No response sprang to mind, so I just looked at him wide-eyed.

  “Told you a Taser would come in handy,” he whispered as he turned, then headed back into the kitchen.

  “Chicken,” I whispered at his back. Well, so much for my quick exit stage left. I watched his retreating back for a moment, summoning courage, then I turned back to the group. On the theory that the best defense is a good offense, I clicked into corporate mode. “Would someone mind telling me what this is all about?”

  Three raised voices started at once, only one in English—the newcomer had shifted continents. I held up my hands and closed my eyes until I had silence restored. “One at a time.” Opening my eyes, I fixed them on the man on the stool. “Who are you?”

  “Adone Giovanni.”

  “The young Adonis?” My voice rose with my surprise. I thought I’d recognized him—a young chef, a rebel. Unable to get legit work in an important kitchen, I’d heard he’d taken to the underground. “The pop-up guy?”

  Adone gave me a slight bow and a rueful smile.

  “Pop-up.” Jean-Charles grimaced. “Such a demeaning name.”

  Desire jumped in. “Pop-up? Underground? What means this?”

  “Illegal, unlicensed, with a changing location each week.”

  She gave a derisive snort as she rolled her eyes. “A new low.”

  “Maybe so,” I said, “but he’s all the rage in the underground foodie world. Word has it he is working with the backing of one of the big-name chefs in town.”

  Jean-Charles tossed a worried glance at his sister. He set his son back on his feet, holding the boy against his legs. I’
d have thought he was using him as a shield if I didn’t know better. Desiree’s face reddened as she clenched her fists.

  I ground to a halt. “You?” I whispered.

  Jean-Charles tried to shrug it off. “It is nothing.” He waved his hand with Gallic disdain. “Along with his own dishes, he is preparing some of mine in the food truck.” Jean-Charles had bought a gourmet food truck, and was using it to try some recipes for his new restaurant at Cielo to see which blew folks out of the water, and which garnered only a tepid response. “He is truly a culinary genius—but alas, he is also an idiot.” He shot Adone a withering look.

  “You’ve given him your recipes?” Desiree’s voice went cold and quiet. “What else have you shared?”

  “You shared your bed with him.” Jean-Charles’s frustration boiled to the surface. He sliced the air with his hand as if striking red-hot iron with a hammer, banging it into shape.

  Desiree bristled. “That is hardly your business.”

  “You have now made it my business, haven’t you?” Jean-Charles lowered his voice to a menacing growl. “I can only think what the, how do you say it, bed talk was like.”

  “Pillow talk,” I corrected before I thought about it. Jean-Charles and his trouble with American idioms. “Sorry,” I added, when the two of them turned on me. A feeble attempt at placating, and one that was about as effective as trying to tame lions with a garden hose.

  After glaring at me for a moment, both of them resumed peppering each other with rapid-fire French.

  “Enough!” I guess I scared them, as they both swallowed their next comments and whirled to face me. Inserting my bulk between brother and sister, I put one hand on Jean-Charles’s chest, holding him at bay. With the other hand, I grabbed Desiree’s arm, anchoring her where she stood. When I was sure they’d stay rooted for the moment, I reached for Christophe, setting him on my hip as I shot his father a look telegraphing my displeasure. I kept a wary eye on his aunt—her thinly veiled lust for dismemberment didn’t give me warm fuzzies, but I understood. My father’s recent shenanigans with Teddie had my hand itching for something sharp . . . in well-honed surgical steel.

  “Why don’t you bring me up to speed . . . in English?” I directed the question to the happy little band assembled in front of me, hoping one of them could muster the control to answer.

  Desiree took the bait. She gestured grandly toward Adone. “He is the Satan . . . the Devil. He will be my ruin.” She placed her hands on her hips and leveled her gaze at her brother as if she was leveling a gun. “And now, my brother . . . . Men!”

  “They should not be allowed to live.” The words were out of my mouth before the filter of self-preservation had a chance to capture them.

  Jean-Charles shot me a startled glance, which I answered with a benign smile.

  Then, I studiously ignored him. “However, I haven’t met a man yet who was worth jail time. So, what’s your beef with Adone?” As I glanced at the young chef with his whole punk rock thing and the attitude to match, I figured he was probably pretty good at setting people’s teeth on edge.

  “He is stealing my business.” Desiree spat the words, each one a bullet.

  Adone huffed and answered with a sneer. “That is absurd.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  Hatred etched her every feature as she glared at him. “He is my husband.”

  “Of course he is.” Why was it that, lately, no matter what the problem was, I failed to see the final twist, the last turn of the knife?

  Adone jumped in. “It is not me.” As he shot his wife a wary glance, he pressed a hand to his chest in emphasis. “It is Fiona.”

  At the woman’s name, Desiree made some feline, guttural sound.

  I stilled her with a glare. “Fiona?” I asked her husband.

  “His mistress,” Desiree purred, which had me worried. “She is a stupid cow. Not only does she have poor taste in men, but she also thinks she knows truffles.”

  “She wants your husband and your business.” I gave one of those half-smile snorts of appreciation. “I’ll say this for her, she’s got balls.”

  The room fell quiet.

  I cringed. “I said that out loud, didn’t I?”

  Jean-Charles smiled a tight smile. “Yes. But you are right, the woman is brazen.”

  “A real bitch,” Adone and Desiree said in unison, then glared at each other, refusing to be amused.

  “And lately,” Adone continued, “she is acting crazier than normal, making all kinds of threats.”

  “What kind of threats?”

  “She is crazy. She is wishing us all to Hell, that sort of thing.” Adone shrugged.

  “Any idea why?”

  The three of them looked at me, wide-eyed, as if I’d just disproven the old adage that there is no such thing as a stupid question.

  “She wants what we have,” Desiree added, saving me.

  “Fiona,” Jean-Charles said with a note of finality. A look passed between him and Adone.

  “All want and no work,” I summarized for myself, since no one else paid me any attention, caught as they were in their own battle.

  Desiree put her hands on her hips and stared between the two men. “I will deal with you later,” she said to Jean-Charles. “And that man, salaud!” She gestured dismissively toward her future former husband. “He is the ruin of me.”

  “Aren’t they all?”

  That got another interesting look from Jean-Charles. My cynicism was apparently peeking its ugly head through the thin “yes, dear” veneer.

  Jean-Charles stepped toward Adone, prodding the young man’s chest with his forefinger. “I have, how do you say, moved to the end of the branch . . .” He glanced at me.

  “Gone out on a limb.”

  “This, yes.” He turned back to Adone. “I have gone out on a limb for you, extending my reputation to you. And this is the thanks I get? You try to ruin my sister?”

  “It’s not me . . .” Adone wilted under his brother-in-law’s frown.

  “You must fix this,” Jean-Charles growled, each word heavy with conviction. “I am giving you a chance when all others had turned their backs. Don’t fuck it up.”

  He may have trouble with idioms, but he got that bit of American vernacular just right. Christophe clutched my neck so tightly I had to loosen his hold so blood trickled to brain and I could muster a thought or two.

  “And if Fiona comes within shouting distance of my family, I will kill her myself.”

  “You wouldn’t be referring to Fiona Richards, would you?” Detective Romeo pushed into the small space, followed by a couple of uniforms who crowded in behind him. Brusque and businesslike, the young detective focused on Jean-Charles.

  “Romeo?” I blurted, startled at the intrusion. “I thought we were supposed to meet on the back lot.”

  He ignored me. Rumpled and stick thin, he wore a tired trench coat, dark slacks, his tie loose around the collar of a blue shirt, and a serious expression. His sandy hair was a bit mussed and longer than normal—I liked the look. Well, other than the cowlick that stood at the crown of his head like a flag in the wind.

  Jean-Charles nodded. “Fiona Richards, yes. She—”

  “Does not deserve to live,” Desiree spat as she cut him off.

  “Really?” Romeo cocked an eyebrow at her, then glanced around the group, his eyes coming to rest on mine. “Well, then, you’ll be happy to know Ms. Richards was found dead . . .” His eyes shifted to Jean-Charles. “. . .in your food truck.”

  For a moment, the world stopped turning, I was sure of it, as my heart fell to my feet. Desiree’s mouth hung open. Jean-Charles paled. Only Adone seemed nonplussed.

  Christophe piped up. “A dead lady? Cool.” The boy’s fluency in English still surprised me—I kept forgetting he’d spent most of his life with his father in New York while he opened his restaurants there. At last count, he had three.

  All the adults, using the term loosely, started talking at once. Jean-Charles
plucked his son from my arms, swung him to his hip, and turned to leave.

  Romeo stopped him with a hand on his arm. “We need to talk.”

  “Oui.” He drew in a deep breath, composing himself. “Not in front of my son, please.”

  Romeo nodded and let him go.

  I watched him, holding his son tight and nuzzling him as he found Rinaldo in the kitchen. A few words passed between the two men, then Jean-Charles off-loaded the small boy into the waiting man’s arms.

  Jean-Charles returned, snaking an arm around my waist. I could feel him shaking. Murder could do that.

  My pulse restarted, and I grabbed Romeo by the shoulder and pulled him around to face me. “The food truck? Where exactly?”

  “On the Babylon’s back lot.” He kept his eyes roaming over our small group. “The door to the truck was open. Security checked it out, then called us.”

  “How long ago?”

  “An hour, maybe a bit more.” Romeo paused. “She hadn’t been dead long. The body was still warm.”

  Three excited voices started babbling in French. Romeo raised his hand, silencing them. “In English, or I’ll arrest all of you.”

  They fell silent.

  “No cameras on the back lot,” I muttered, thinking out loud. “Convenient.”

  Jean-Charles scowled his displeasure. I couldn’t blame him—the situation wasn’t exactly making my day, either.

  Romeo turned to the other three, leaving me out. “I’m going to need to get statements from each of you.”

  Jean-Charles’s feathers ruffled. “You cannot be serious. I have a restaurant to run.”

  “And I have a dead woman in your food truck.” Romeo, with dark circles under his eyes and skin so sallow it appeared almost translucent, looked like the walking dead. He stuffed his note pad back where he’d found it. “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Your choice.”

  Jean-Charles flushed with barely controlled anger. As I turned to go, he grabbed my arm. “I am having some trouble with the new oven in Cielo. You will meet me there later?”

  I fixed him with a steady gaze.

  “Please,” he added, perhaps remembering too late that I was not one of his minions who took orders. “I know it is not convenient, but I am meeting a friend there, and I would like you to take a look. You always know what to do.”