Beyond here there be dragons, less than pretty language, and malevolent prose. People of the same sex get frisky with other people of the same sex. Alcohol happens, what happens when alcohol happens (that's violence, if you're not familiar with the phenomenon). That said, there's nothing too graphic in here. And there's a lot of made up stuff that I didn't have time to research - that's why I'm calling it fiction.

Thanks to the finest beta reader a part-time bard could ask for. She's a rockin' beta gal. And thanks to anyone, anywhere who's had anything to do with getting and keeping the show on the air. It's been a hoot.

Creme Brulee: cremebrulee@myrealbox.com

Part 7

'The cook was a good cook as cooks go; and as cooks go she went.' - Saki

When Fry walked into work the next day she didn't know whether to be amazed or furious. French was there working. Severely bruised, occasionally leaning on her station for support, but working.

The crew was more subdued than usual, everyone keeping a close eye on French who hadn't said more than was absolutely necessary and looked like she'd met with the wrong end of a bat. To their credit, they rallied to support her. They pulled their weight and then some, trying to take as much off her plate as possible.

Maybe it was the bruising, bruises always got a lot of attention. French didn't care what was keeping the crew quiet, she was just glad of it. The last thing she wanted to deal with was nosy line cooks.

Fry appeared before her shaking her head. 'What kind of pain killers are you on?'

'I'm taking those pills your friend gave me. Now get to it. We're expecting a crowd out there.'

Fry stared at her an extra beat, then walked away. She couldn't bear stoicism, and she couldn't bear people who pushed themselves when they should rest, mainly because she knew that usually made things worse and she could never see the point to that kind of pig headed behavior. She also knew that when you encountered it in full bloom, there wasn't likely to be a darned thing you could do about it. So she didn't try. Maybe when French dropped from exhaustion, internal bleeding or whatever else could stop her, then Fry might, just might, help her.

The day went on. French barely responded to any of Fry's looks or smiles. It took her a while to figure out that it wasn't the pain that was bothering her, but something else. She was acting flat, like she'd been the night before. After Julia had mentioned Giselle. Whoever that was.

Fry was astounded at the chef's physical resilience. She'd thought that after a while French would give the kitchen over to Brian. Poor Brian who practically never got to do what a sous chef was supposed to do.

During a lull Barbra asked Fry if she knew what had happened to French. Fry told her about the fight, leaving out a few details, like the part where her friend Ronnie pulled a gun, but Barbra got the gist.

'Well, I guess I can tell everyone you didn't slug her then.'

'What?!' Fry was astonished. But it made some sense, everyone had been giving her a wide berth all shift. Miguel had just stared at her. 'You couldn't have thought I did that.'

'I told them you hadn't, but you know what they're like. Loony, the lot of them. They think you have French under a spell or something. From what happened the other day, I'm beginning to believe it.'

'But what was so strange about the other day?'

'You know, the thing that threw this whole place into a tizzy. French leaving in the middle of a shift to go apologize to you. Something Miguel assured me she'd never done in all of the years he's known her.'

'Oh. That.' Fry had the good grace to blush.

French was good and tired. It was how she wanted to feel. Maybe she wouldn't dream about Giselle again tonight. She knew that was a futile wish, but why not give it a try? Ever since Julia had mentioned her name French had felt like a wound had opened wide. A wound deep within herself, bleeding anew.

It was what motivated her to clear up the playing field some. It was what motivated her to call Skippy.

She worked through the following day as well. She could barely face Fry. Every time she saw her she felt like crap. Nothing was going to make her feel better. Nothing except feeling Jasper's worthless life slipping through her fingers. But that wouldn't cheer her up for long. Still, it was something.

There were too many players on the board. She couldn't keep them all straight. She wasn't even sure she knew who they all were. But Jasper and Uncle Max were two too many. Not to mention the distasteful company they kept. All of this brought her to where she was that very evening. Standing in a small room, in the dock office of Kilby's Marina Launch Service, next door to the Hoberman Warehouse. She had lifted her shirt and Skippy, whom she now knew as Agent Martha Hayes, was taping a small transmitter and some wires to her torso.

'We'll be able to hear everything.' she explained. 'But try to speak clearly and face whomever is talking.'

'Yeah, yeah. I got it the first time.'

'That's a mean looking bruise on your ribs.'

'You don't have to poke at it.' French sucked in some air. She'd pretty much gotten over the pain. She'd always been a quick healer. But if someone was poking her right in the areas in question, it still stung. She wondered if Agent Hayes didn't enjoy her pain a little too much.

'Touchy this evening, aren't we?' Martha didn't have patience for the criminal element. She didn't care what kind of packaging they came in. She was looking forward to seeing the look on Max Godfried's face when he realized that he'd finally be going up the river with his malicious nephew. They weren't likely to be heard from for a very long time to come.

'All we need is for you to get him to talk about the deal. Get him to mention as many of those names on the list as you can.'

French caught herself before she'd answered, 'Roger Wilco'. That was the kind of thing Fry would've said. Instead she answered, 'Uh huh.'

'Are you always this articulate, or did he beat you that bad?'

'Listen, Martha. I'm not here to do you any favors. If I remember correctly, you threatened me with every trick in the book to get me in on your little shakedown. And the added touch of threatening me with a daily Health Inspection for the rest of my life shows that you have an ugly turn of mind yourself. So don't get all self-righteous and preachy with me, Miss Law Enforcement.'

'If I remember correctly you told me to take a long walk off of Tinker pier. What changed? Does it have anything to do with the mess someone made of your face?'

'Point me in the direction of a criminal and roll your damned tape. I have better things to do than sit here and make small talk with you.'

'Just remember, if we come in there, hit the dirt. I don't want that face anymore bruised than it already is.'

'I'm touched by your caring, truly.'

Getting people to talk had never been a problem for French. Getting them to shut up was becoming more of a challenge, especially since she'd been spending time with Fry. But scumbags like Max, even cunning scumbags like Max, couldn't talk enough about how smart they were. It helped that he thought she was there to cooperate. It also helped that he thought she was afraid of him.

They were standing in the warehouse. A cavernous building, near empty. There were piles of crates and wooden palettes stacked against the walls and some piled high around the space. She was talking to Max. There was a wall of muscle behind him. She recognized Medium Sized Guy from the other night. Otherwise they were the usual faces in an unattractive crowd.

She'd gotten most of the names on the list and a few besides. They'd talked about the deal and how it was that she'd come to pull out. She told him that she'd been feeling pressured by Mitchell, a name curiously missing from the list. She said they'd had a falling out over percentages and it had had a domino effect in their relationship. She got choked up as she explained that she'd thought he was different and that it hadn't just been all about business. Then she sounded spiteful and tough when she explained that that's when she thought she ought to teach him a lesson.

Max seemed to buy it. And French would have felt a lot better about the whole thing if she'd known how Jasper felt about it too, but he wasn't there for her to gauge a reaction. Max assured her he'd be along presently.

'You know French, you overreacted to this situation. I don't think you would have been disappointed had you stayed in. I try to stay out of people's personal lives, and I never mix business with pleasure, but you ought to know that Mitchell wasn't trying to stiff you. There are details that you may not have been aware of, things he was taking care of that caused him to neglect you a little. Perhaps he wasn't entirely attentive to your needs, but maybe you ought to try seeing it from his point of view. A man has to take care of his business. If he doesn't, then where is he?'

French bit down on her tongue. Was this psycho actually giving her relationship advice? Thoroughly sexist relationship advice? And she wasn't supposed to go over there and rip his throat out for it?

'Max, I tried. But he wouldn't listen. He's always got a damned meeting, or his mother wanted him at a party. They never accepted me as one of them, I was never invited.' She knew this would resonate with Max, a self-made scumbag who'd risen through the ranks of a particularly exclusive gang of scumbags.

'It's tough kid. I know how it can be. But you can't turn tail and run, first sign of trouble. His mother's a high and mighty bitch, no question. Why she wouldn't give someone like you a shot is beyond me. I know women like that, no one's good enough for their little princess. Fuck 'em, just get in there and take what's yours, that's what I did.'

A door opened at the side of the warehouse, she couldn't see anything over there because one of the piles of crates obscured the view. One of the big guys stepped forward and whispered something in Max's ear. He nodded and the guy stepped back, signalling someone near the door.

'You've been a great help to me tonight French. I was getting nervous about the deal and that wouldn't have been good for anybody. My organization has always been heavy into hotels, but I've always wanted to be in the restaurant business.' His eyes began to glaze over and French bit harder on her tongue to suppress the groan that she was sure would come out. 'I know that you're the only chef I'd trust to run this operation. You have what it takes. I'm really glad you decided to come talk to me. And I'm sorry that Jasper had to mess up your face. I'm sure he's sorry too. But it's all worked out right?'

'Sure.'

'But here's my boy now, and I think he may have surprise for you.'

There was a scuffling noise at the door. And then she saw Jasper hauling someone into the room. She had a hard time holding her eyes in her head. She hadn't seen Dil in days. She hadn't missed him, her heart hadn't grown any fonder. He was tied at the wrists and there was a piece of duct tape over his mouth. Jasper struck her as the kind of guy who'd have it on hand, in case of emergency.

'Uncle Max, I found this piece of shit out back. I told you he'd been following us.'

'And I told you he wasn't anything to worry about. But since you've gone to the trouble, why don't you bring him over. Maybe he can be your peace offering to French.'

'Sure, he's all yours French. I was going to pop him in the groin and watch him walk funny, but you can have dibs.' Jasper grinned and shoved Dil in her direction.

'I'm at a loss without my knives, you go right ahead.' While she'd been able to keep her eyes in her head, she didn't think Dil was going to be able to manage it. He was trying to scream, but the tape muffled the sound.

'We should be able to dig something up for you. Boys, find the lady something to work with.' Max commanded. The boys rummaged around and Max had a few of them pile some crates up in the center of the room. One of the muscle came back and handed something to Max.

'It isn't much for an artist like yourself, but it does have an edge.' He presented her with a rusty old hatchet. She saw all of the men in the room reach for their holsters as the weapon was placed in her hand. No one was taking any chances. Friends or no, she had a reputation.

She tested the edge. It wasn't entirely gone. Nothing she could work with, not with any precision. 'I'm sorry Max, but this just won't do. I can't get inspired.'

'Fine.' Jasper cut in. 'I'll make him walk funny.' He pulled his gun the rest of the way from his holster and pointed it at Dil's crotch. Dil had frozen and didn't have the sense to try to move, or faint.

French saw the tendon of Jasper's trigger finger begin to stand out and she made her move. Just as Agent Martha Hayes and about forty of her rowdy underlings came crashing through every opening of the building. Including the huge doors at the front that seemed to get blown off the hinges with the impact of whatever they used to get through them.

The firing of weapons was nonstop. She could hear Martha shouting over a loud speaker insisting that they all freeze and put down their guns and why didn't she just invite them all to tea while she was at it?

French had one objective and she almost felt sorry for Jasper. He was the one thing she knew deserved her wrath. It was simple. She'd been feeling like shit for a couple of days. That didn't adequately describe the depths of the suffering she'd experienced, but hey, she was new to those depths and someone had to pay. Plus, he'd beaten her senseless. He was going to die.

She swung the hatchet back-end first, up under Jasper's hand with the gun. The impact forced it upwards, where the gun discharged a shot harmlessly into the ceiling. She'd used her right hand with the hatchet, so her left fist was free and clear to smack directly into Jasper's sternum. It stunned him. That was nothing to what the hatchet did when she swung the flat of the blade across his cheek. She felt a dull crunch through the handle as it hit home.

She turned to see Dil, still standing where they'd all left him, unharmed. She shoved him to the ground. Out of the way of any stray bullets.

Her attention was drawn back to Jasper who was writhing on the floor, but that wouldn't last for long. She had a full fledged bonfire burning in her chest and that son of a bitch was going to pay. And she was ready to do it too. Ready to take that step, when something occurred to her. She hadn't known Jasper when she'd met Giselle. And that technically, if you wanted to get technical at such a time, she hadn't been feeling like shit because Jasper had beaten her up. It'd pissed her off, sure, she'd had to miss two workouts. But she knew it wasn't what had bothered her.

The real thing that had bothered her was knowing what she'd done. Was knowing that there was nothing she could ever do to change it, no matter how many scumbags like herself she managed to knock off. At the end of the day, she was still the problem.

And besides, if she cut his head off, it'd gross Fry out.

That's when Martha tackled her to the ground yelling, 'Get down! Are you trying to get yourself killed!?'

Chapter 32

She wasn't a moper by nature, so she didn't have the slightest idea how to go about it. She avoided Fry as much as she could. That wasn't easy because they were working the same restaurant and well, there was a part of her that wanted to see her. A lot.

She let Brian take over the kitchen as much as she dared and hid in her office. But it was hard to hide from someone as small as Fry, she could get in all those tricky places. And there was this pressure French could feel building up in the small woman. Fry hadn't said anything, but French could tell by looking at her. And she knew what it was. It was the pressure building from all of those unasked questions. Sooner or later they'd explode out of her and French would be buried under their weight.

She sat at her desk, pushing a pencil around, thinking over the last couple of days. She'd had another e-mail from Snitch. It had come a few days ago, but French hadn't been keeping up on her digital correspondence. She'd been kind of busy these past few days. The message was less cryptic, but still corny as hell. It had come the day after Julia's party. It read, 'I tried to warn you, but you wouldn't listen. Stay away from Julia Harding, she does NOT have your best interests at heart. Uncle Max and Jasper are in on it too.'

Not any more they weren't. They weren't going to be in on squat, not for a long time. The papers had had a big story about a drug bust on the waterfront. There wasn't a lot of information or detail provided about the event that French recognized. The end result was to her liking though and had been part of the deal she'd struck with Agent Hayes.

It had been a 'surgical manoeuvre' as far as the government was concerned. French considered that this was the same government that paid thousands of dollars for toilet seats and small fixtures, so why shouldn't their concept of the word surgical be screwy as well. They wanted Max and Jasper as part of a cleanup they were doing in some of the larger crime organizations. They weren't interested in Mitchell, they didn't care about Julia. She found that interesting.

As in all things, it helped to have connections. She wondered how much Mitchell's father Zachary had to do with it. He was one of the biggest movers and shakers of all time. Though he rarely moved two blocks from Wall Street, when he did parts of the world shook. Portia had threatened him with divorce once if he didn't come to the island for a week one summer. The currencies of three nations fell while he was gone. He hadn't left Wall Street since. But his reach was long.

She wondered if Max and Jasper had been born higher up the food chain if it wouldn't have been Mitchell or Julia in that warehouse. No matter, it wasn't. Mitchell was on the loose, as was Julia. One or both of them had probably killed Louisa for getting in their way and all she had to do was prove it.

Dil, who was as low on the food chain as you could get, had come out of the warehouse relatively unscathed. Agent Hayes had gotten all aflutter over him being there. French put her worries to rest. While she seriously thought they could get away with telling him he'd had a bad dream, she figured the guy could use a break. He'd had a tough night. She told Martha that he'd believe almost anything and used the arson gang she'd dumped in Cezar's kitchen as an example. Martha got uptight about her dealings with Polly Weems and her goons, but was convinced that Dil would swallow any story she fed him. French suggested she add a secret handshake and if possible dig up a decoder ring.

And here she was, back to Fry and the keys and the whole mess that had landed her on the floor of a warehouse with a spook on top of her explaining that, 'He wasn't worth it. She could get some help and probably live out a normal life if she'd just give it a chance.' She hadn't figured Martha for a sap. Even Monica was tougher than that.

Or Monica was something. French wasn't sure what she was. Some kind of bird watching librarian, with a thing for her grill man. She'd nearly choked that night in Monica's kitchen when Andre had blushed as Monica gently brushed one of his tattooes. That had been a bit much.

There was a knock at her door. She yelled for whoever it was to get lost. Fry poked her head in. 'Do you want me to get lost before or after I bring you this?' She held up the drink French had called the bar for.

French felt caught. She should have known. Fry was like water, or some other unstoppable substance that people took big insurance claims out for.

French motioned her over and pointed at the corner of her desk. She would have pretended she was busy on something on the computer, but it wasn't on. And because she was as anal retentive with paperwork as she was at keeping her station clear, there wasn't anything on her desk but a pencil. So the natural thing to do was to look at Fry.

It wasn't that hard to do. To look at Fry. There was that sick feeling she'd been getting for the last few days, but there was something else too. 'Busy out there?'

Fry looked surprised. 'Sure. It's Saturday.'

'I know what day it is. Are you busy yet? You know, all your tables full?'

'Almost, I'm waiting on a reservation. Barbra says they'll be late.' Fry smiled.

'Ask me a question.'

'You want me to ask you a question?'

'Yeah, it'll be my good deed of the day, go ahead.' It might also be a distraction from the noxious churning in her gut.

Fry had so many questions she didn't know where to start. Near the top of the list was, 'Why have you been avoiding me?' and 'Did I do something wrong?'. But French didn't look like she really needed to take on her insecurities at the moment. She went a little further down the list and considered, 'Did you have anything to do with that big gang thing over on the other side of town night before last?' or 'What happened to all of that bruising? Didn't anyone ever tell you that they usually last longer than that?' But French didn't look like she needed to be grilled on any of that either, so she settled for something else that had been worrying her. 'Aren't you going to cook tonight?'

'Nah, I'm giving it to Brian tonight. Like you've said, he hasn't had a lot to do around here.'

'Oh.' Fry hadn't liked the sound of French's voice. If possible, she'd lost even more range and was talking in a monotone nearly all of the time. Not to mention the fact that it had been days since the chef had asked her to try so much as a cracker to see what was in it. They hadn't talked about the spices, or the flavors, the colors, the textures or even the aromas of anything in the kitchen. French seemed to be withdrawing from their fledgling relationship like the fog from the town in the morning. Quietly, but surely.

'You still want to get that stuff from City Hall?' French asked.

'Of course.' Fry perked up, if French was asking her to break the law again, things might be looking up.

'We're on then.' French decided that forward was the direction of choice. Besides, her butt was getting numb from all of the sitting she'd been doing.

Skyler was feeling exceptionally good that evening. She'd managed to ditch her baby sitters, Tim and Paul, and had what may have been one of the nicest dates she could remember. Alyssa was wonderful, once they'd gotten beyond some vehement disagreements about social issues and protest tactics. Turned out, they'd both been arrested at two of the same protests. They had a lot in common.

She'd dropped Alyssa at her home and was walking back to her house. It was late and kind of dark and deserted on the street, but she didn't feel like she had much to worry about now that Uncle Max and Jasper had disappeared. They'd given her the creeps. There was someone else she should have considered being worried about.

Without warning, that someone stepped out of a shadowed doorway, and grabbed her by the ear. She was dragged around a corner, off the main street she'd been on.

'Ow! Ow! Ow! French, cut it out!' French released her ear and Skyler rubbed at it to relieve some of the pain. 'If that's the kind of thing you're into with Mitchell, fine, but I'm not interested.'

'Cute. But I'm not here to make passes at the world's most inept double agent. I'm here to tell you to butt out. I don't know what's going on around this island, but for some reason a lot of people who should know better keep poking their noses in where they don't belong. So quit it.'

'I have no idea what you're talking about.' Skyler schooled her features. She was thinking of Ingrid Bergman in Notorious. It was the greatest old film and Bergman personified hot for her time. Or possibly all time, excepting French, of course.

'Okay Snitch. But you're not fooling anyone but yourself with that transparent game face.' And she thought Fry was bad. 'What I'm saying is this and I want you to listen carefully. Julia Harding is a dangerous and apparently bitter woman. Do not, and I repeat, not, mess with her. I don't want you following her, watching her, or even thinking about her. Got it?'

'Is that why Mitchell says she's one room short of a hotel?'

'Definitely.'

'He misses you.' Skyler said.

'He's got a funny way of showing it. I know he's your brother, but he's cracked too.'

'Don't tell me you're just figuring that out.'

That Skyler would have anything approaching perspective in regard to her elder sibling was news to French. 'It hadn't just occurred to me, no. But it's beyond over between us.'

'I know. But he does care about you. In his own, oldest sibling, gotta have it my way kind of way.'

'Well, maybe that's our problem. Two control freaks in the kitchen is one too many. Stay out of this. All of it. When it blows over, we can analyze my shortcomings and anything else that may cross your mind, but in the meantime...'

'I get the picture.'

'Any friends you can visit in Europe or the city?'

'I'm not leaving the island!'

'Alright, alright. But watch yourself. And keep an eye on that little activist you're dating. I think she may be playing fast and loose with you island girls this summer.'

'Alyssa?' Skyler was glad that the dim lighting would hide the blush that was working it's way up her neck. It hadn't done anything to disguise the squeak in her voice. 'She's... I don't think she's...'

'I've seen her with someone else. Not too long ago.'

'You mean Violet, your waitress friend? They're not dating. Alyssa wasn't attracted to Violet.'

'What's wrong with her?'

Skyler wasn't sure if French meant Alyssa or Violet, but she sounded defensive. She went for the more obvious conclusion. 'Nothing, it's just that Violet helped her see that she'd been repressing her desires in a prejudicial manner.'

'Sounds like Fry.'

'Besides, Violet, or Fry, or whomever, is interested in someone else.'

'Who?'

'Alyssa didn't say.' French was peering at her through narrowed eyes. Skyler wasn't sure if they were having the same conversation. French, who'd seemed kind of distant for most of their exchange, had gotten edgy.

'Well, I've got to go take care of things. You stay out of your brother's business and leave it to me.'

Chapter 33

'Whoa.' It was a simple word to describe French's reaction to the layout of the room before her. They'd made it into the basement filing room of City Hall. Not a feat of any merit with a set of keys and a sleeping security guard.

The room was about fifty feet long, twenty feet wide, and full of five and a half foot high filing cabinets. The ones along the walls reached the ceilings. Jason was one paranoid little snipe.

'Where did he say it was?' Fry asked.

'Under 'C'. You'll never guess where?'

'If I'll never guess...'

'Conspiracy.'

'Well, that makes sense, really. When you think about it. Who'd ever look for it there?'

French shook her head and went in search of the 'C's. Bureaucrats had no imagination.

'Where would you have put it?' Fry was following closely. She had a light, but it was easier to follow French who had this nifty light mounted on a thing on her head.

French didn't have to consider it for long. 'Under 'F'.'

'Why 'F'?'

'For 'fucked up'. Which is exactly...' She felt rather than saw Fry stop. 'What is up with you and cursing? Anyone so much as utters a profanity and you get a twitch. Why is that?' More to the point, French would have liked to know how it was that that twitch seemed to deter even the most hard boiled of kitchen crews from so much as saying the word 'crap' in Fry's company.

'I've always had it.'

'You mean it's not on purpose?'

'Well, it's not like I want to go around censoring people.'

'You're telling me that this is some kind of unconscious anal-retentive semantics thing?'

Fry shrugged, 'I guess.'

They found 'C', and then they found 'Civ-Cou', it was in the back of that drawer. A fairly thin black box. Metal. They took it and headed for the stairs. They were about to re-enter the hall when French heard footsteps. Someone hadn't stayed asleep long enough. She felt a tug on her sleeve and followed Fry over to a window. It was ten feet off the ground, and the alarm had been turned off, so why not?

They got out of the window in the knick of time. French had hung on the sill and closed the window before dropping into the bushes below.

'French?' Fry hissed up into the dark.

'Yeah?'

'I wouldn't want to say something that would throw your body image into question, so I say this in the most respectful way I can. But you're huge! Get off of me!'

'Oh. Sorry.' French rolled to the left. She hadn't realized that Fry had been under the bush she'd dropped into.

They made it out of the shrubbery intact. Fry had had to rub her arm to encourage circulation in that limb, but everything else seemed to be in working order. French was fine, but then she'd had a soft landing. All of her problems appeared to be internal. She hadn't shared what was bothering her. Fry doubted she would. She just wished that French could find some way to express it, work through it, or come to peace with it. Fry considered that French may not have the necessary tools at her disposal. And as much as she would have loved to help, she didn't think she'd be welcome.

They'd walked a couple of blocks when French spoke, 'I know this is going to sound awfully redundant, but remember One through Five?'

Fry was all ears, and she looked sharp. She saw them. It was late, most places had closed but the street wasn't empty this time and they weren't in a deserted part of town. 'There are people around. Can't we make a break for it together?'

'Harder to catch two going separate ways. And I think this may be what they're after.' French meant the box.

'I've got an idea.' Fry said.

'Yeah? What?'

Fry snatched the box from French and ran like hell in the opposite direction from the bad guys. French, not one to be left not holding the bag or anything else, ran to catch up. What Fry didn't know is that when French caught her, she might regret her idea.

Lucky for Fry she knew the layout of that town like the back of her own hand. She'd worked in almost every corner of it, and knew a few others besides. Mostly from visiting friends who'd worked the one's she'd missed in her own travels. She made a dash for Linnux Lane.

When French came tearing around the corner, closely followed by a few guys she recognized as Mitchell's boys, she saw why. It ran along the back of a row of shops and restaurants, there were a million places for a small, sneaky runt like Fry to go. She barreled down the lane and took a sharp right down a narrow alley. When a sporting young man who was in better shape than his comrades turned into the alley after her, he met the lid of a metal trash can. Face first. Then he felt a pain in his abdomen and doubled over.

French pushed his body into the guy who'd caught up to them and beat it down the alley with two others chasing after her. They weren't hard to lose. Problem was there were only a few people around, staying lost might be difficult. She doubled back carefully, avoiding the men who were still looking for them.

She walked slowly and carefully down the lane keeping to the sides, in case she had to blend into a shadow on short notice. Fry could have jumped into a dumpster, in which case she could have the damned box, or she could be behind a pile of crates. It was also possible she'd left her original hiding place and gone elsewhere, but French doubted it.

'Hey!'

French heard the quiet voice from somewhere near her feet. She crouched down and saw Fry lying flat under a dumpster.

'Looking for this?' Fry asked.

'Not anymore. The way it'll smell when you get out from under there, you can wash it first.'

'Give me a hand, pull me out.'

French did. They were going to sneak all of the way down the lane and make a break down Admiral Pilmut Street for the restaurant when French spotted two of the guys turning down an alley and heading their way.

'In here!' Fry half dragged, half pushed French toward a pile of crates that made an easy step up to a window.

'I'm not going in there.'

'Come on. This way you don't have to beat anyone up and I don't have to hide under another dumpster.'

French gave up having an opinion, it was too much trouble. She let Fry drag her into her latest hiding spot. At least it didn't smell. They'd just gotten through the window when the two guys passed underneath it. She didn't know where they were, she'd stopped caring. She'd run out of steam. Here she was, thirty some odd years old, a chef with a killer rep, a great career, built mainly on scheming, but also on solidly established talent. She should be feeling pretty good about herself. Fact was there was so much more to that story, to how she'd gotten to her ripe old age and she wanted little to nothing to do with any of it. She was good and sick of herself. She laid her head back on something that felt familiar and was soft enough. She was getting a headache. She wasn't going to move again for a while. She didn't care who showed up.

Fry felt around the small room. She knew there had to be a switch somewhere. French wasn't being much of a help, but what was new?

The door to the room swung open and light flooded Fry's eyes.

'You!' An indignant voice boomed into the small space. Fry's eyes adjusted to the glare and she could make out the details of the room. She was right, they'd made it into the dry goods room of Cap'n Hola's. And the mountain of a woman standing in the doorway pointing at French's stretched out figure was the chef, Diane Pinsk.

'Hi Diane...' Fry's greeting was cut short as Diane rushed past her, reached down and grabbed French by the collar. Without pausing she dragged her from the room. French hadn't offered any resistance. Fry thought she'd heard French sigh and quietly say, 'Hi, Diane.'

French's voice had had a quality to it Fry wasn't sure she liked. Had French, her chef, her deluded mentor and maybe, possibly friend lost her sense of self? Had something from her past rocked her to the core and shaken her absolute egocentric focus? Or was she doing the thing that Fry couldn't abide in the least? Was it, could it be that French was feeling sorry for herself?

Fry followed them out into the brightly lit kitchen. Diane must have been doing last rounds because they were the only people in the place. She had French pushed into a wall and was asking her a bunch of questions. Fry winced. If Diane pushed it with the questions, she knew that'd piss French off. But maybe then French would snap out of her gloom.

'You here to torch me? Huh? You worthless piece of rubbish! I know all about you. Wish you'd hired me while you had the chance don't you? Now that my place is so popular, you're threatened. Want to burn me down, right?'

Fry was getting worried. Diane was usually a normal kind of person. Normal for a woman who was bigger than any other Fry had ever met, had tattooes all over her body, and rode a Harley to work, even though she lived eight blocks from her restaurant.

It hadn't occurred to Fry that Diane too might have some history with French. If it had, she would have assumed that something like this would have happened. It was a foregone conclusion at this point.

'What's to torch?' Was French's almost bored reply to Diane's inquiry. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was praying for Diane to smack her in the head with a skillet, preferably copper. That would be a fairly honorable way to go, considering her line of work.

Her remark had an instantaneous effect on Diane. She swung French around by the collar and threw her into the stainless steel doors of a fridge several feet away. Diane had her before she slid to the floor though and hauled her up onto one of the prep counters.

She was a large woman, no doubt. But she was comfortable with her size and knew how to use it. She was more than motivated to use it on French. To say that the chef was one of her least favorite people would be an understatement of titanic proportions.

French knew Diane hated her. She'd turned down her services at Bachanal several summers ago when the greenhorn had shown up on her doorstep expecting to impress the seasoned chef with her moves and muscle. Diane had left, rejecting what she perceived as French's humiliating offer to start out at her salad station.

What French didn't know was that Diane had another more powerful motivation to crack her skull. How could she? Diane had landed in Comstock several summers ago and lost her heart on the pier where she stepped off the ferry and first set eyes on Michelle Fern. The somewhat shy, slightly older, lanky brunette was passing by on her way to work as a dental hygienist over at Daly Dental. Diane made it her goal to get to know the lovely woman over the summer. Michelle showed no interest in Diane whatsoever, but not for lack of trying. Michelle, it turned out, had a raging crush on French. The snotty, overrated slut who'd humiliated Diane and laughed when she insisted that she could work the grille at Bachanal.

It wasn't until after Michelle had been jilted by French that she finally gave Diane a chance. Michelle had taken French home one night and found a bliss so wondrous that she was distraught when she woke several hours later and found herself alone. Or so Diane inferred from the way Michelle called out for French at times in her sleep. Each utterance twisting the knife already deeply embedded in her chest. Diane wasn't sure what pissed her off more, the fact that Michelle had actually slept with the bitch, or that French had had the nerve to dump the extraordinary creature who'd stolen her own heart.

Diane had gotten her position at Capn' Hola's and made a name for herself as a first rate line stud who could be counted on in a pinch. She'd shown French that she could handle the pressure and then some. Capn' Hola's was one of the most popular restaurants and hang outs on the island and had become even more so since Diane had taken over as chef last summer. The fun atmosphere and good food brought people back again and again.

And here she was now. Enjoying the prospect of actually giving a little back to the Whore of Sutter's Wharf. Things were getting better by the minute.

She had French pinned to the counter. Both hands tight behind her back. She applied pressure to give her some pain. She felt a simple and pure satisfaction at the sound of French grunting. There was one thing in all of this that hadn't made sense. Diane looked over at Violet Spark who had her head tilted and was staring closely at French. Kind of scrutinizing her, it looked like. Diane couldn't help it, her curiosity had been piqued, she let up on French a touch.

'Violet, you've always been a little odd, but I thought you had more sense than to get messed up with a vicious user like this. What's the deal?'

Fry ignored Diane and spoke, 'French?'

French couldn't believe that Fry was going to take this lull in the festivities as an opportunity to ask a question. But she couldn't resist either, 'Yeah?' It was hard to speak with her cheek pressed into the stainless steel counter.

'Are you going to let her get away with that?'

'With what!?' French exclaimed. Diane chuckled.

'Calling me odd. She said, 'You've always been a little odd.' Are you going to let her get away with that?'

'In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not really in a position to do much about it Fry.' She winced as Diane demonstrated her point by jerking her arms up higher and laughing. 'And isn't the idea of me defending your honor a little old hat, if not outright objectionable to your progressive sensibilities? Why aren't you over here pounding at this hulk trying to defend me!?'

'Because you wouldn't be in that position if you didn't want to be.'

'What!?' Diane and French responded vehemently to this reproach.

'You gotta be kidding right?' Diane asked. 'You passed up Michelle for this cracked nut? You're sorrier than I thought. You're all show French, I've known it for years and I finally get the chance to whip your ass and you're so easy it's insulting.'

Seeing that she'd gotten a small, albeit tiny rise out of French, Fry tried again. 'There's no way you'd let anyone, much less a chef who mixes New England and Mexican cuisine, get you in a position like that. You hate fusion cooking.' She didn't want to insult Diane, even though the big woman was ticking her off. French looked so glum, so not herself. Fry was attempting to jump start that intense drive she'd come to love. So she'd appealed to the chef's innate snobbery, hoping for the best.

French's headache had gotten decidedly worse in the last few minutes. Diane's beefy shoulder jamming it into the counter wasn't any help. And Fry had surprised her by displaying a real nasty streak when she was in a crappy position to do something about it.

It was when Diane began patting her prone figure for the incriminating matches that French decided she'd had enough. Besides, who the hell was Diane calling odd? She was the one with a menu that had the Capn's Lobster Fajita and Sizzlin' Salsa Chowder on it, not Fry. And Diane wasn't just an overrated line stud, she had a culinary degree to top off the insult.

French kicked out viciously with her right foot, catching Diane in the shin. When the larger woman's weight shifted slightly, French jerked her body forcefully in the same direction, using her tormenter's momentum to reverse their positions, almost. She was on her back, half on, half off of Diane who was trying to recover from the surprising move and grabbing at French. But it was over as far as French was concerned. Using her whole body as a spring she pushed off of Diane, spun, grabbed her by the belt and yanked her to her feet. That wasn't hard, because Diane was already trying to follow her up, the extra help kept her off balance. When she felt French grab her collar to pull further forward, keeping her momentum rolling, Diane too could see it was near over as she was pulled past the chef and slammed face first into a stack of empty crates. There was a loud crashing noise and she felt a brief surge of pain as the lights thankfully went out.

French stood there, catching her breath. Fry ran up to her, 'Do you think she's okay?' The waitress bent to pull away crates from the fallen figure. French looked on in disbelief. Surely this wasn't how it was supposed to be. Wasn't Fry supposed to be checking her for broken bones, scratches that needed attention? She looked at Diane's uncovered body and saw blood running down her face from a couple of places. She sighed. She hadn't been knocked around that badly, and Diane had every reason to suspect the worst when she'd found them there. She sucked up her dented ego and moved to help clear the debris.

They got Diane in a chair and cleaned her face. Fry was trying to apply band-aids as artfully to the small cuts as she could.

'Don't worry about me, it's just a scratch...' French had had enough of Fry pawing at Diane, she looked fine.

Fry turned to look at French's wound. She didn't see one. 'Where?'

'It's nothing, but it does sting a little... Right here.' She pointed at her temple.

Fry took a closer look. 'I still don't see any... French, there's nothing there. You're jealous!'

'I am not! I have a wound damn it.'

'Admit it. You were feeling neglected.'

'Give it up. Where's that box?'

A groan from the chair interrupted their exchange. 'Tell me I'm dreaming. Tell me I didn't just hear French whining. God, and I thought her cooking was bad.'

Fry restrained French who had started for the chair. She guessed the chef had begun to regain whatever approximated her center.

'Get over yourself Pinsk. We're not here to burn down this sorry refuge for confused cuisine. We've got more important things to do.'

'Only you would break into someone's place to insult their menu.'

'Please Diane, we wouldn't have broken in if we weren't being chased by some really bad guys.'

'She probably deserved it, who else did she insult? Cezar after your worthless hide again? He thinks Mitchell was trying to torch him the other week, but that caper had your name written all over it. I've been watching you, I know your style.'

French snorted, 'You can't know much if you thought that was my style.'

'How's that?'

'I don't get caught.' French turned at the sound of breath being sucked in sharply. She didn't look at Fry, just continued with a little amendment, 'If I were ever to do that kind of thing. Which I don't.' To herself she added further, 'Not anymore.'

Diane snorted again and rubbed at her aching head.

Fry sputtered. 'That night! You... Them...'

French thought, 'Uh, oh!' Then walked over to Fry and said, 'Could we discuss it later? Whatever it is you're thinking about?'

'But... they were all on the floor!' The images came flooding into her head. She'd seen most of the fight, but not consciously. And there wasn't a whole lot she could remember. Some noises and blurry images. The lighting hadn't been good.

'Yeah, sure they were.' French shrugged at Diane, trying to play on that 'odd' comment she'd made earlier. Diane shrugged back and rolled her eyes as if to say, 'Just like a Spark.'

Chapter 34

The box. It wasn't much to look at. Black, narrow, not too heavy. French placed it on the counter in the kitchen of Grains and Goodness. They'd parted with Diane, the fusion chef begrudging that their story sounded like it had merit. If there was a thing in that town Diane hated more than French, it was Portia Redmond. She had refused to taste Diane's 'Ole Crabcake' at last year's Hilltop Festival Tasteoff. If French and Violet could cause her and her family even the least bit of worry, Diane was all for it.

Fry yawned and put on a kettle. If she was going to be up for a while longer, she might as well have some tea. 'You want anything to eat or drink?'

Standing in the kitchen of a vegetarian restaurant kitchen was unpleasant enough for French, she didn't think Fry had to rub it in. But Fry, it had been revealed, had a malicious bent and French was beginning to re-evaluate her previous assessment of Miss Spark. 'No.'

'You sure? Can't interest you in some Tahini Baked Tofu? Barbequed Tempeh or...'

'No. I'm fine, thanks.'

French was looking positively nauseous. Fry was having fun, but considered she ought to let up. It'd been a long night. 'So, let's see what's in there.'

French had been staring at the box. She hated surprises. She took the keys from her pocket and popped the lock. Fry came over to get a better look. Inside they found the video tape French had been expecting. There were a couple of envelopes, there was also a stack of papers that she flipped through. Copies of internal company documents from JCE International, and Darflock, Inc.. But it was a larger packet of folded papers that caught French's attention. 'Caught' may not have adequately described her attention to the details of the papers once she had them unfolded and spread on the counter. Two large sheets, that she ran her hands over.

Fry watched as French's finger circled one of the areas on what looked like an architectural plan.

French stood up straight, but kept staring at the plan. 'Son of a bitch!'

'What is it?' Fry couldn't figure it out. Whatever it was was big, she could see that. There were all kinds of rooms and measurements, but she'd never looked over a plan like this before.

'He's not trying to torch me. He's trying to bury me. They both are.'

Fry didn't think French was talking to her directly. She saw the chef's jaw clench and she was balling her hands into fists. 'Big mistake Mitchell, big mistake.'

'But what is it French?' Fry tugged on her sleeve trying to bring her back from whatever brink she was about to jump off of.

French looked at Fry as if she was surprised to see her there. 'It's a building plan.'

'Oh, really, is that what all of those measurements and squares mean? Thanks, I couldn't have figured that out for myself.' She backhand slapped French on the arm and went to get her tea.

French had no idea what had gotten Fry so pissy all of a sudden. She watched her walk over to the stove. Not a bad setup in that little place. Not a bad wait staff either. But she was supposed to be pissed at Mitchell and Julia, livid really, ready to make their miserable lives more miserable. Actually, she did feel that way, and she'd get right back to it in a second, when she'd figured out what was up with Miss Pissy. 'What's your problem?'

'Nothing.' Fry could barely believe French had interrupted a full fledged, almost rage, to check in on her feelings, but she couldn't also believe the manner in which she'd done it.

'Oh sure, I know what that means. I don't figure out what's eating you, three days from now you slug me and say it's because I put too much cream in your soup. Been there, done that. Pony up.'

'Try asking me like you care and aren't just getting it off of your extensive 'Things To Do' list so that you can get back to what you think is really important, and I might, I just might consider telling you.'

French groaned. 'Fry please tell me what's bothering you. I care. I may not know why, but I care. How's that?'

'It stunk. But in a sweet sort of way, so I'll tell you. I know it's a plan, I'm not stupid. I seem to have to remind you of that a lot. I know you're new to the whole sharing thing, so maybe you're not aware of the fact that I can't read your mind. I'd appreciate it if you'd try not to operate under that assumption all of the time. I want to know what that is and why it made you so upset.'

'Well, why didn't you say so? It's a casino Mitchell and Julia want to build on Sutter's Wharf. You know, that place you work, in my restaurant.'

'But where would it go? There's no more room there. Are they going to put it in the Mill? And gambling isn't even legal in the state. If it was, this could be good for your restaurant though. A lot of people gamble. Lot of money in it, isn't there?'

'Come here.' French motioned Fry over and pulled the bottom sheet out for her to look at. 'See this dimension here?' Fry nodded. 'And look at this.' French was pointing out the boundaries of the plan. 'It's not going next to Bachanal, it would go on top of it. It would all be gone. The Mill, the restaurant. Much like the Fisherman's Prize went. Only I'd have to be dead, or at least seriously impaired before I'd let that happen. This is a plan for a five star hotel/casino with one hell of a kitchen setup. Probably the flagship enterprise of Mitchell's new venture.'

'Wow...'

'Yeah, 'wow'.'

'That's not very nice.'

'You're summing it up well.'

'So what do you think is on the tape?' Fry asked.

'I'm not sure. Let's take a look at it.'

'Good idea, do you have a VCR?'

'Yeah, but don't you?'

Fry shook her head. 'No, my parents don't like TV, or popular culture in general. We don't have a TV or VCR.'

'Of course not. What ever made me think that you would?'

'Don't get sarcastic.'

'Sorry.'

'You are not.'

'Yes I was.'

'Whatever.' Fry stirred her tea.

'No, I really think I was.' French mused.

Fry smiled. French really was trying. They were quiet for a minute. French looked over the room, Fry sipped her tea for a few minutes.

'I know!' Fry exclaimed. She folded the papers and slipped them back in the box. She took French's hand and pulled her along. 'C'mon. Follow me.'

They went out the rear door of the kitchen that exited into the back yard. Fry led her around to the side of the house and down a stairwell to a door. She released French's hand, crouched and pulled a key out from under the doormat.

They entered and Fry flipped a switch. It was a small apartment and they were standing in the living room part of it. A few strides more would have had them in the kitchen, and if they leaned sideways, they'd almost be in the bathroom.

'Audrey has a VCR.'

'Who's Audrey? And won't she mind us in her place?' French asked.

'Not Audrey. She's a friend who's staying with us for a while. She's over at her boyfriend's most of the time. She and Doug are inseparable.'

They sat on a sofa that had seen better days, but wasn't entirely uncomfortable. Fry popped in the tape. It wasn't much of a film. There were no creative shots, there was only one shot. They watched for a few minutes until French got impatient and relieved Fry of the burden of the remote control. She hit the fast forward button. Fry had obviously been unable to manage such fine motor skills. She couldn't admit to being surprised to know that French was the kind of person who felt that much more comfortable holding the remote.

She decided to choose her battles. 'So, what is it?'

'A security tape. It's from the Fisherman's Prize.'

'How do you know that?'

'Educated guess. We're just waiting for a cameo.'

Not long after she said it, there was a blur in the previously empty room on the screen. French rewound to where it had appeared and rolled the tape again.

Fry gasped. 'That's Nigel! What's he doing?'

'Manufacturing an accident.' It took him longer than it would have taken her. But he got the job done. Moments later the room was awash in smoke and flame.

Fry felt chilled. She'd never seen anything like that before. It was awful. She'd known Hal Mackney for years. She'd eaten at the Fisherman's Prize plenty of times with friends.

'Looks like Louisa had the goods. I wonder what she was after? I wonder if she asked for money?'

'Asked who?'

'Whichever one of them killed her. Or all of them.'

'But why would they kill her over these things?'

'Nigel's motive is obvious. But my guess is we put all of these papers together, and look up the names I didn't recognize on some of those sheets and we've got a nice little criminal enterprise. Neatly documented. I'll give Louisa this much, she was no slouch. She knew what a paper trail was. She may not have had a clue what to do with it, but she certainly did the research well. I wonder how she got access.'

'Jason's good with computers. He always won stuff at school in Computer Science.'

'He'd have to be very good to get at this stuff, very good.' This, French knew from experience.

Fry shrugged. 'So what's the criminal enterprise? Besides burning down the Fisherman's Prize? And trying to burn your place down too.'

'My guess is they're also working overtime to get that gambling bill passed. Whosimiwhatchit and Whatchitmahoosey. There are some names we'll need to match up to prove our point. You'd probably recognize them, if they're your representatives.'

'But what names?'

'Brian Forney, Joseph Cottman, Gene Milliken...' French recited.

'Where'd you get those names? They're all state reps.'

'From those papers.' French pointed at the folded stack peeking out of the box on the coffee table in front of them.

'But you just glanced at them.'

French shrugged. 'That's how I read.'

'You have a photographic memory?'

'Something like that. I can glance at some things and take in detail quickly. Works well for names.'

'And faces in crowds I bet.' Fry figured out how French could gauge a room so quickly.

'That too. But you know the names?' She tugged a sheet out and pointed out a memo with a couple of them on it.

'Those are all reps.'

'Then what we have here is a bonafide criminal enterprise on paper. The tape's the icing.'

French leaned back on the couch and rested her head. 'We'll have to spend some time connecting the dots. See if this stuff could hold up as real evidence.' French knew too well how accusations of the most obvious doings could be riddled to death before they ever saw the light of day.

Fry poked around in the box and took out one of the thin, letter sized envelopes. It was unmarked. She opened it and found two xerox copies inside. One was of a photo of a group of young men. They were well dressed and standing together with their arms around each other's shoulders. There was water in the background, a stream maybe, and some older looking architecture. The group looked cheerful. She didn't recognize anyone in the picture. From the style of the clothes, it had been taken before she'd been born.

The other piece of paper was a copy with two newspaper clippings on it. The name Julia Harding caught her eye and she gasped. French opened an eye to see what was up. Fry was looking at her and holding the piece of paper for her to see. French read the two short pieces. One was a review of a student play at Oxford by Julius Emery, and the other was a notice of Jay and Julia's marriage in the Times.

French put her hand to her head and fell back onto the couch. She groaned aloud. Couldn't things stay simple? Her head began to ache again. It wasn't fair, but then, what was? She wasn't in a good position to whine. Why couldn't she shake this feeling that kept coming up and curdling her mood? She took a deep breath. She knew why. Things kept reminding her of Giselle.

French's gaze came to rest on her hands, she sat like that for a few minutes. Fry was looking at the photo, trying to figure out which of the young men was Julius. She thought she recognized Julia's smile on a tall young man looking right at the camera.

'Julia's wrong, you're nothing like her.' French started. 'She talked a lot, but she was younger. She wanted to be a chef. It's all she wanted. I used that.'

French looked up, she turned her head to look over at Fry. 'I never thought... All I wanted was to make the deal. It was a great setup. Julia had it all planned. And there was Giselle, right in the middle of it without a clue.

She was a kid, eighteen, but her father's pride and joy. That was useful too. She had drive, and a talent I hadn't seen before, or since. It was stunning to watch her in a kitchen. She burned with curiosity and a unique approach that gave a remarkable essence to her cuisine. She was beyond her years in skill. She was beyond my years in skill.

Julia wanted to break into the international market and used Renaldo, Giselle's father, and his families' chain of hotels in Brazil as a jumping off point. I assessed the business for her. I worked for him for a while, or so he thought. I used his daughter, bought people in his organization, and generally set him up for Julia's none too friendly takeover. But somehow, Giselle figured it out. She came to me one night and accused me. She said that I should end the whole thing, that she was in love with me and we could have our own place somewhere if I'd give it all up for her. I told her that she was wasting her time and why would I want to be with a provincial hack who didn't know classic cuisine from peasant food. She didn't take it very well. She killed herself later that night.

And I went on with the deal. Renaldo fell to pieces after that, his business was easy pickings for Julia.'

They were surrounded by silence, as French paused.

'She would have liked you. She liked anyone who could really appreciate food.'

'She sounds like she was very special. What an awful tragedy.' Fry said.

'She was special. And I killed her. She was in the way.'

Fry didn't think arguing with French right then was a good idea. She doubted that she'd ever talked about this before. And pointing out inconsistencies in the narrative might not go over well. French had withdrawn again, Fry could tell from the tone of her voice. She leaned over and took the chef's hand. They sat like that for a while until she thought it might be okay to give French a hug. If anyone needed a hug right then, it was French.

French may have needed a hug, but she had no idea what to do with one. There was Fry, wrapped around her midsection, crying. She wasn't sure what to do with that, so she put her arms around her and patted her back. It felt good. The painful ache deep down in that pit that passed for her internal self-reflection, eased somewhat as she touched Fry. The wound that had opened wide at Julia's mention of Giselle's name, felt less raw too.

It had been awkward leaving Fry. She hadn't wanted to. But staying wasn't an option either, so she'd gone to the restaurant. She wanted to cook.

She spent the rest of the night in the kitchen. It was good for what ailed her.

At around three thirty in the morning Silvie showed up. French wasn't surprised, it's when Silvie always showed up, along with Humberto and a couple of other guys who cleaned. Silvie wasn't on the cleaning staff, she was French's Saucier. She was the only other artist French would tolerate in her kitchen. She could tolerate her fairly easily, because she rarely worked along side of her.

While Silvie was lost to the rest of the world, she was a treasure to French. A French restaurant revolves very much around its sauces. Its wines and its sauces. Silvie was a master. Even French admitted that. That's why she'd hired her. The other reason she hired her was that Silvie had absolutely no ambition but to be left very much alone to her work. French made that absolutely possible.

Silvie had given up her lust for a normal life the minute she'd stepped into a classroom at La Cordon Bleu cooking school many years ago. Her Congolese mother and Nigerian father had worked ceaselessly in their small Parisian cafe to send her to the best school. They had called her the Little Alchemist. She could make butter and wine do things that defied the imagination.

Nothing had ever felt like the calm that entered Silvie's soul when she tied her apron strings and set to work. And with French she'd found a kindred spirit who understood her one love, her one peace.

French took care that Silvie's groceries were purchased. Otherwise, she might forget to eat. She paid her rent and invested her money - none of those things mattered to Silvie. Though she rarely saw the woman whose list of directions she followed almost every evening for years, she knew that they worked together. Whether French acknowledged it or not.

Silvie enjoyed her solitary life, it was bliss for her. She didn't care much which town or city they were in. Sometimes she didn't work directly with French for months. The chef would be off in some remote corner of the globe or working on one of her deals, but she always returned. French was as driven by the desire for food as any chef Silvie had ever met.

So when she arrived for work that evening and found French there in the kitchen, she wasn't surprised either. She set to work and quickly forgot that she wasn't alone.

French liked that singular focus in an employee. She also appreciated having another person nearby who understood. They cooked together in silence for hours. It was a balm to her soul.

Chapter 35

There was something different in the air that day. It was a kitchen, there had better be. Otherwise, it wouldn't be the kind of place you wanted to eat food from. Each day there were the usual smells Fry had come to love. The pots of stock and sauces prepping. The bones and vegetables roasting. The fresh ingredients being prepared. Parboiling, baking, mixing, chopping, pounding... she loved that place.

She entered the breakroom and suited up.

French stood before the stove gazing at the pot. There was nothing remarkable about it. That's if you worked with twenty-five gallon stainless steel stock pots on a regular basis. What had happened inside it was another matter. Could have been the lamb bones... but she didn't think so. The vegetables were a possibility. Most likely, it was everything, conspiring together. It wasn't a conspiracy she minded, it just would have been nice to know what made it happen. That's how you repeat something to get the same effect a second and third time, and have a menu and a restaurant as a result.

She'd intended to make a stock. Nothing fancy, nothing she hadn't done once or twice and couldn't do in her sleep. But here was something subtly different. Stock may have been a magical ingredient to many dishes and sauces, but it was also a fundamental thing in a kitchen. A backbone kind of thing, a foundation. Consistency was a good idea in a stock and this stock wasn't doing what it ought, which was curious considering she hadn't done anything out of the ordinary to it.

Nevertheless, it was extraordinary. Something that was supposed to be simple, had become something more. The more she thought about it, the more it reminded her of someone in particular.

Fry walked through the kitchen and French motioned her over. She dipped a spoon in the pot and held it out for her to taste. Fry had become accustomed to French's abbreviated manners at work. She was pleased that the chef seemed back to her usual self.

Fry blew on the liquid in the spoon. This tasting procedure was one of the reasons Fry wasn't surprised at French's grab for the remote the night before. She'd given up trying to take the spoon from French the first couple of times they'd done it and French had slapped her hands away. Fry gave a nod and sipped the stock from the spoon.

Her mouth filled with a deliriously velvety tone. She'd never tasted something that had such a richly vibrant quality to it. Her eyes closed involuntarily and had she been paying attention to irrelevant details, she would have heard herself moan.

Fry popped her eyes open. 'More.'

French would have laughed at Fry's enthusiasm had it not been for a nagging feeling she'd developed about the spoon. It was odd to suddenly have a feeling about a spoon. She put it down and selected another. They tried it again.

This time Fry took the whole spoon into her mouth. She wasn't going to miss a drop. Her eyes closed for a second time.

French was riveted. Her whole focus was on that spoon and she knew damned well what that feeling was. She was jealous.

Fry was lost in a haze of sensation. That stock had overrun her palate and trampled her senses, in the most delightful way. It had depth, that liquid did. It was beautiful, it was bold. It was French. No, it was an extension of French, distilled and prepared for her. She needed more, but knew instinctively she wouldn't ever be satisfied until she'd tasted the source. Without it, she might starve. She opened her eyes.

French stood before her. Not looking at her, so much as at her mouth, or was it the spoon? She realized she'd not let it go. She let French take it out. There was a quiet 'pop' as it came free of her lips. Fry wasn't completely out of the haze that had gripped her and a mantra of 'More' had picked up of it's own accord in her head. As if in a trance she reached up and grasped French behind the neck and pulled her down to her mouth for another taste. She wasn't disappointed.

If the broth was in any way a distillation of French in liquid form, she'd added a lot of water. What hit her when she moved her greedy tongue into French's mouth without so much as a 'Howdie do, may I come in?' was a full bodied, no holds barred, knee melting flavor experience.

Good thing French's reflexes were on auto pilot. Because her manual drive was offline. She'd caught Fry as she'd begun to drop and held her fast by the waist, giving her free reign in the kissing department. French appreciated a skilled employee, and she knew when to help and when to stay out of the way.

As Fry kissed her deeply, French's dormant impulses began to stir. They stretched after their long hibernation. Sure, she'd felt something when she'd kissed Fry in the alley last week, but that had been more of an unconscious reflex, the rest of her body hadn't been awake for the experience. It was waking up now.

She felt a warmth spreading through her body. It was intensifying exponentially with each stroke of Fry's tongue into her mouth. It was making her own knees go less than solid. Without letting Fry slip, she leaned back onto the counter to support them both. No sense letting anything so meddlesome as physics get in the way of a good kiss.

French recognized the feeling building up in her long unaroused body. It was an urge alright.

The rest of the staff worked on as if nothing was happening. Or so it would have looked to the unseasoned eye. Andre had almost dropped the piece of the grille he'd removed to clean. As it was, he'd applied more of the cleaner to his jacket than the scouring pad. Sonny and the others weren't faring much better. No one knew what to make of the sudden display of affection in their midst. It was kind of distracting.

Barbra walked into the kitchen. She'd wondered why there was a group gathered at the door and no one had come in or out. She wasn't sure she was glad of the answer.

'Well, I thought I might find you in here. I just didn't expect you'd be in there.' She said to no one in particular, because Fry sure as hell wasn't hearing her.

She shrugged and left. There was only so much of that kind of thing she could look at and last an entire shift before getting home to Michael. 'There better not be a damned fire in this town tonight,' she muttered. 'My fireman will be otherwise detained.'

It wasn't that Fry hadn't heard Barbra, it's that her words took a real long time to line up in her mind in any way that approximated sense. With a start, she dislocated her lips from French's. 'We're at work!' she squeaked.

French gave her a look. 'And?'

Fry looked around at the staff, half trying, half failing to look preoccupied. Then she saw her coworkers in the doorway. Eddy gave her a thumbs up. 'Ohhh...' She groaned and let her forehead fall onto French's chest. The chef had let her down so that she was standing on her own feet again.

'Well, I guess you're all fired up to get out there and get to it then.' French was amused that Fry was trying to hide in her cleavage. She wasn't that well endowed. Everyone could see the lovely shade of red that had overtaken Fry's features. French looked up and directed a heated stare around the room and over her shoulder. It cleared the air and the doorway and made the atmosphere a little more normal, for Bachanal anyway.

Fry peeked around again and felt less crowded. She looked up at French to gauge a reaction. French smiled and leaned forward again, perfectly happy to pick up where they'd left off.

Fry put out a halting hand. 'I'm going to run along now. Maybe we should talk later? Okay?'

French's nose twitched. 'Tease.'

Fry slipped out of French's grasp and beat it for the door. Before she was out entirely she looked back and said, 'Great stock.'

It was a long morning. Fry wanted to hide half the time and revisit French and her lips the other half. It made for an interesting mind state. Barbra kept an eye on her and Miguel tried to distract her by picking on her relentlessly. She'd come to recognize this as one of his many nervous ticks. It wasn't helping.

Every time she had to go in the kitchen she tried not to look at French, but that was useless. French smiled that predatory smile that as much said, 'Tease me will you?' as it screamed it. She should have known French would take it personally.

Fry was getting a lot of challenging tables. This was Barbra's strategy to keep her preoccupied. At the height of the lunch rush she had a table of six that she couldn't believe. It was as if the cast of '90210' decided to make her life hell. What had she ever done to them?

There were six young men and women. Kit, Brent, Chip, Bunny, Winnie and Muffin. Winnie wanted to know if any of the beef that was used in the restaurant might have Mad Cow's disease. Chip couldn't abide anything on the menu, mainly because he was having trouble pronouncing any of it. Brent looked like a nice guy until he opened his mouth and told Winnie to shut up and stop being such an environmentalist. Bunny whined that he was always picking on Winnie and if they liked each other that much they should get a room. Fry was sure that Kit had his hand somewhere inappropriate. And either Muffin had a pronounced tick in her eye, or she wasn't the kind of girlfriend Brent thought she was.

Fry rested her head back on her locker. She had calmed down some and gotten a better handle on her senses. She couldn't believe what she'd done with French earlier. It's not like she wasn't passionate by nature and didn't enjoy getting sweaty. It's that the idea of doing it for a crowd wasn't her thing. Work had brought her back to earth. Her tables had thinned out. She was taking a breather.

She needed one after the entitled gang of six had finally moved on to terrorize someone else. Their tip had stunk, until she'd found a $50.00 bill and a note tucked under Muffin's plate. Luckily, she'd seen it before the table had been bussed. She couldn't imagine the kind of thing she'd have had to put up with if someone else had seen that note. She wondered if French would be jealous.

Why wonder, when the object of her mental wondering was bearing down on her that very moment.

'Got'cha.' French said as she leaned down and kissed her. Fry was easy to sneak up on, her head was in the clouds half the time.

Fry let herself be kissed and then some. She'd asked for it, apparently. No one kissed French and walked away without repercussions. She would gladly suffer them at any time. French had the most wonderful way of touching her hair as she kissed her, it added to the whole mind blowing experience. But this time, Fry knew for sure they were at work.

Well, she knew it after she returned from the mini mental holiday she'd been on. In that time French had her tie undone and was working on the buttons of her shirt. You might think that this was a long way to get before Fry had been able to pull the busy fingers from her shirt front, but French wasn't playing fair. She'd ducked her head and kissed the soft sensitive skin of Fry's earlobe. Fry gave a shove and was able to move French off of her an inch.

'I'm not sure we should be doing this. My boss is pretty strict.'

'Not to worry. She's a pushover. Everyone says so.' French couldn't figure out why Fry was squirming around so much.

'She's also going through a lot right now, and I'm not sure that this is the kind of thing she needs to help her mood.' Fry caught one of French's hands as it was tugging at her apron strings.

'I disagree. This is very life affirming. She's all for it.'

'What happened to you being confused?'

'I'm not confused.'

'Remember, a couple of days ago you said, 'I don't know what I want anymore.' Sounds like confusion to me.'

'I didn't then, I do now. Crisis over, problem solved. Come here.' French pulled Fry to her, using her undone tie as a grip. She should have guessed nothing would be simple with Fry. Not even this.

Fry put her hands out to arrest French's progress. 'I want to take it a little slower.'

'Fine. I'll let Brian take over and we can take a long lunch break.'

'French!'

'What?!'

'I meant like maybe talk a bit, go on a date or something. Slower, like that.' Fry was getting flustered.

French looked at her dumbfounded. The woman couldn't be serious.

'I know it's a new concept for you.' Fry pressed on. 'But I think it might be fun. Please? We could go out to Gillman Rock and take a picnic. Maybe pick some strawberries while we're there.'

It wasn't the worst euphemism French had ever heard. But if Fry thought she was waiting for a date to pick her strawberries she was out of her mind. Then something Barbra said came back to haunt her aroused and insistent thoughts. Something to the effect that not everything revolved around her own needs. But for cryin' out loud, did that have to apply to sex too?

Maybe being a half decent person would be easier without a sex drive. If she pushed Fry and she wasn't ready she'd have to see that embarrassed, uncomfortable look on her face afterward. Things had been so much simpler before, she hadn't given a damn about people's facial expressions then.

'I suppose I could try it.' French conceded.

'You won't regret it. Not by a long shot.'

Before Fry knew it French was up close, looking her right in the eye. 'I better not. As long as we're getting to know each other, you should probably know I'm not the kind that likes to be teased.'

'Lucky me. Now could you let go of my tie? It's getting hard to breath.'

'Oh, sorry.' French released it and buttoned up the few buttons she'd managed to undo before Fry's family values attack. She carefully took the tie up and began to tie that as well.

'What are you doing?'

'Fixing your tie, what does it look like?' French asked.

'I can't go out there with your knot in my tie!'

'Why not? It'll be neat for once. You really know how to murder a Windsor knot, know that?'

'Exactly. I go out there with a neat knot and everyone will think we've been... well, you know.'

'Newsflash. They already assume we are. So let me tie it for you.' French said.

Fry groaned again and gave up. 'Great. I can't wait for Miguel to notice it. It's like you've marked me or something.'

French gave her a slow smile and reeled her in again. 'Fry, when I mark you, you'll know it. Trust me. Now quit squirming and let me finish or I'll truss you up like a game hen. Then you'll keep still.'

'Oooh goody, culinary bondage.'

French finished the knot and poked Fry in the side for good measure. She enjoyed the resulting squeal so much, she did it again. It was even more fun when Fry doubled up on herself, she really did look like a hedgehog then.

A knocking sound brought them back from the brink of Fry's wetting the carpet.

It was Barbra, discreetly standing off to the side of the open door. 'I don't know what you're doing to my waitress in there, but it had better not be permanent. We've got two parties of ten. Do you want me to send them away, or are you going to give Miguel a break? His age is showing.'

'Her waitress!?' French started for the door to correct Barbra in person, but Fry had grabbed her and pulled her back.

'I'll be right there.' She called over French's shoulder.

'Says who?' French wanted to know.

'Says me. I may be the chef's new plaything, but I'll be damned if I'm a docile one. Miguel is going to die when he sees my shirt.'

'You always look a bit rumpled. No one will notice.' French smiled.

To be continued...