Blood Rubies (25 page)

“Perhaps,” Ana said through clenched teeth, “but it's mine to make.”

Stefan's smile faded. “Let me sit in.”

“No.”

His eyes remained fixed on Ana's face.

Ray stood up. “Ana?” he asked.

“It's all right, Ray,” she said, her eyes holding steady on her father. “Dad's just trying to help.” She smiled at her father. “I'll call when we're done.”

Stefan glanced around the room. Everyone except Maurice was looking at him.

“You'll excuse me, then,” he said to Suzanne with another half-bow.

“Of course.”

He left, and Ray sat down again. Maurice shifted his gaze to Suzanne's face.

“So,” Suzanne resumed, “let's jump in. We're here to discuss how we, the Blue Dolphin, can best do business with Ana's company. Let me begin with a brief statement describing where we are now and where I want us to end up. We all want the same thing. We want our guests to have the best desserts money can buy. To that end, Chef Ray hired Maurice as pastry chef. To this point, all our desserts have been made in-house, except for Ana's cakes.” Suzanne leaned back in her maroon leather chair, her elbows on the arms, her hands folded together in her lap. She smiled. “I can officially report that Ana's creations sell like hotcakes. People love them. Therefore, we want to carry them.” She turned to Maurice. “In other words,
whether
to carry them is no longer up for discussion.” She paused, waiting to see if he'd flip out. He didn't speak or, as far as I could tell, react in any way. She let her eyes move, taking us all in. “The question on the table, the only question that matters, is how to best organize our relationship going forward. I'd like to hear your thoughts.”

Ray tapped the stack of papers in front of him. “What we're doing now is working. I've been looking at our past orders. Not one has been missed. All the cakes have sold.” He smiled. “If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Let's just keep ordering them.”

Maurice slapped the desk. “And more and more people will buy them because they are a novelty. A child's gimmick. And soon there will be no orders for anything else. It is an insult!”

Suzanne tilted her head. “Perhaps you weren't listening, Maurice,” she said, her tone icy. “We're keeping the cakes.”

My phone began vibrating. “Sorry,” I said softly. Ellis had texted, “Milner's computer is missing. Any thoughts?”

Maurice stood up and took two steps toward the door, rigidly stiff, like a soldier on parade. Chef Ray stood.

Maurice turned back to face Suzanne, raised his chin, and lowered his eyes, looking down at her. “Then I have no choice. I quit.” He marched from the room, slamming the door.

“I'll go talk to him,” Ray said, starting after him.

Suzanne held up her hand to stop him. “No. Don't try to talk him into something he doesn't want. Enough is enough. If you feel the need to say something, you can tell him how much you've enjoyed working with him, but that's it. Don't engage. Don't debrief. Don't let him rant. Make certain he only takes what belongs to him. Get his key and ID. Tell him he'll hear from corporate HR by the end of the day. If he won't go, or if he makes any trouble, buzz me immediately.”

Ray looked incredulous. “I shouldn't try to smooth things out?”

“No. Let him go.”

“Okay,” Ray said, semishaking his head, as if he couldn't believe his ears.

Ray touched Ana's shoulder as he passed. Ana looked wary and worried. I needed to leave, to call Ellis, to think.

Suzanne smiled. “May I make a suggestion, Ana?”

“Of course.”

“Expand your role. Become the go-to source for high-end desserts. If the dining establishment can support it, provide an on-site pastry chef who works under your supervision. If not, do what you've done for us—sell cakes. Do you have a pastry chef available? Someone who can create half a dozen desserts in addition to baking your cakes?”

“Yes.”

“Can he or she start today?”

Ana's mouth opened, then closed. Her eyes were round. “Really?”

“Yes. If you like the idea, the Blue Dolphin will be your first customer.”

After several seconds, Ana said, “I'm speechless.”

“Say yes,” I told her. “That's my official counsel.”

Ana laughed and squeezed my arm. She looked at Suzanne. “Yes. Thank you. I'd love it.”

“Good. Let's work out the pricing.”

I stood up. “You don't need me for that, and I have a call I need to make.” I smiled at Suzanne, then Ana. “Congratulations to you both. If you do need me for anything, I'll be in the lounge. I'm meeting Ty later, so I thought I'd just stick around.”

Ana stood up and hugged me. Her eyes were fiery bright with, I was certain, equal parts excitement and relief and terror. “Thank you, Josie.”

“You're welcome. Although all I did was sit here and look smart. When you're done negotiating, come to the lounge and I'll buy you a drink.”

“Another time,” Ana said. “I need to get a chef down here, meet with Ray to figure out what we need for tonight, and—well, you know.”

Suzanne stood up. “Come to think of it, can we agree that we'll be fair with one another and negotiate the specifics tomorrow? I ought to go with you to explain our arrangement to Chef Ray and the kitchen staff. I'd also better check that Maurice isn't tearing up the kitchen.”

Ana extended her hand. “Business on a handshake. That's how it ought to be.”

They shook, and Suzanne opened the door and headed down the corridor that led to a small anteroom. One door led to the back of the kitchen; another opened into the dining room. Ana followed closely.

“I'll peel off here,” I said.

“Good seeing you, Josie. Follow me, Ana. Let's get ready to rock and roll.”

Ana paused at the threshold and impulsively kissed my cheek. “You're the best, Josie. Just the best friend.”

I walked through the empty dining room to the lounge, wishing I could put my doubts about Ana aside. I liked her as much as anyone I'd met in a long, long time, but the questions surrounding her possible involvement in the theft of her Fabergé egg and Jason's murder—and maybe Milner's death—were like pebbles in my shoe. They simply couldn't be ignored.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Since it was still shy of four o'clock, I expected to be the Blue Dolphin lounge's only customer, but I wasn't. An older couple sat in a corner having an earnest discussion about something or other. They wore slacks and sweaters and sensible shoes. They were drinking highballs. A young man in a suit kept glancing at his watch. He sipped what looked like an iced tea. Jimmy was behind the bar slicing limes.

“Josie!” Jimmy said as I walked in. “Good to see ya. What can I getcha?”

“I'm in a tea mood, Jimmy. How about some Earl Grey?”

“You got it.”

I took my favorite seat by the window and looked out over the river toward Maine.

A middle-aged man in jeans and a flannel shirt entered the lounge and looked around. He smiled at the young man who'd been looking at his watch and joined him at the table. The younger man looked relieved.

I pulled out my phone. Ty had texted that he thought he'd get to the Blue Dolphin by six. I responded
xxoo.
I called Ellis and got him in his car.

“Drake Milner's laptop is gone?” I said, half as a question, half incredulous.

“Yup,” Ellis said. “The gal I spoke to, Julie, said it's not unusual for him to take his computer home with him, but it's not there. We checked.”

“Does he have a girlfriend?”

“Evidently not. He's long divorced.”

A small brown bird landed on a birch tree. It fluttered its wings for a moment, then grew still.

“Any chance he slipped it in a kitchen cabinet or something for safekeeping?”

“Not likely. He lives in a condo by the State House. It's a high-end renovation of a classic town house. Two bedrooms, two baths, open concept living room/dining room/kitchen. There's only a few places he could have put it, and we searched them all—including the kitchen cabinets. The Boston police and techs are still going over it—and his office—but I don't expect them to find anything. Let me rephrase that: I don't expect them to find the laptop. You saw how many books Milner had in his office, right? When I left, three recruits were going through every one of them page by page. With any luck, Milner hid something in one of them.”

“Like the combination to a safe. Did you look for a safe?”

“Yeah. We removed all the paintings on the walls, tapped for hollow spaces in closet floors, checked canned goods for fake bottoms. No safe.”

“And you're certain the laptop wasn't in his car? Couldn't it have floated away?”

“The windows were up, so no.”

Jimmy brought my tea, and I mouthed “thank you” to him. He gave me a thumbs-up and spun away.

“Where else would you look if you were me?” Ellis asked.

The little brown bird appeared to be resting, its head tucked under its wing.

I swished the tea bag around for a few seconds, then pulled it from the pot and set it aside.

“Milner went to meet someone,” I said. “Whoever that was stole his laptop. Milner was so upset, he got turned around and ended up in the pond.”

“Who?”

“I don't know. Maybe the client who had him appraise the Fabergé egg, who may or may not be Ana.”

“How can I identify that person?”

I laughed. “The irony of that question appeals to my sense of humor.”

“I'm serious. I know that's what we've been trying to learn this whole time, but that doesn't make the question not worth asking again.”

“Fair enough, but I still don't know the answer.” I added sugar and a thimbleful of milk to the teapot and stirred. “What about the appraisal itself? Surely the client is named.”

“Julie tells me they no longer keep hard copies of appraisal records. Everything is electronic.”

“Makes sense. We do the same.”

“What happens if your computer is stolen or lost?”

“We're networked, and everything is stored on an offsite server. In addition, everything is backed up once a day.”

“At Marlborough Antiques, they're just talking about going to a cloud system. You know how that works, right? You think you're working on a computer, but you're not—your files and everything are stored somewhere on the Internet, not on a physical computer. Right now, though, each person is responsible for backing up his or her own work.”

“That's crazy! I could never do that. People forget things. Computers crash. They get viruses. I'd never sleep, I'd be so worried.” I looked back toward the river. The bird was gone. The water was dark, more blue than green, and running fast. “Do they use a file-sharing site of some sort? Graphics files—like appraisals because they always include a bunch of photographs—are huge, too big for e-mail. We upload ours to a site, then give each client a unique password so he or she can access it.”

“I'll ask. What else?”

I poured tea, watching the mahogany brew swirl around the cup. I felt a memory tickling the edge of my consciousness. I knew something that would help, but I couldn't think of what it was. I looked around. The older woman was laughing, pressing her fingers into her cheeks, an expression of joyful shock on her face. Her companion was chuckling, looking pleased with himself, like he'd done a good job telling a joke. The two men had left. Jimmy was polishing wineglasses with a white cloth.

“Any chance he used an old-style appointment book?” I asked, thinking that was a good question but not what I'd been trying to recall.

“Yes. I have it with me. I'm hoping you'll look at it.”

“Of course. Does anything stick out?”

“Not to me, but what do I know. What else?”

I looked out the window again. Wispy dark clouds were blowing in from the east. “Can you tell if he called someone right after I left his office?”

“We're getting the phone logs now. The shop owner is cooperating, so we don't need a subpoena. I should have them by the time I get back to Rocky Point.”

“What about the stuff he was carrying in his pockets or in the car?” I knew Ellis wouldn't tell me what they'd recovered unless I could help with it. He never gossiped.

“We're still cataloguing his personal effects.”

“Oh, my God!” The memory I'd been trying to recapture landed with a thud. “Ellis, I just remembered something. Drake Milner backed everything up onto a flash drive. Did you find it?”

“One. In a kitchen drawer. Nothing in his office. We checked it. It's loaded. Forms, docs, photos, everything nicely labeled, but all dates are three months ago, or earlier.”

“When I was with him, he saved a document, removed the flash drive, and dropped it in his shirt pocket.”

Ellis paused. I could hear him breathing. “Thanks, Josie.” Another pause. “Any chance I can run this calendar by you as soon as I get back?”

*   *   *

Just before six, Zoë came running into the lounge. Ellis walked at a more leisurely pace, taking in the scene with cop's eyes, assessing the faces and attitudes. He carried a tawny brown leather briefcase.

Zoë swooped in and hugged me, then plunked down on the window seat. “Hey, cutie!” She swept aside her long black hair and patted my arm.

Ellis greeted me and sat next to Zoë, across from me. Under the dim amber lighting, I could barely see his scar.

Jimmy came over, and Zoë and I ordered watermelon martinis. Ellis opted for a Dewar's on the rocks with a twist. I asked about Zoë's kids and how her kitchen renovation was progressing. She asked about being on Ana's TV pilot and Fabergé eggs and Hank. When Jimmy delivered the drinks, Ellis reached for his briefcase.