A Cookbook Conspiracy (35 page)

“Oh, God,” she moaned, and dropped the knife. It fell to the counter with a loud thud.

I let go of the breath I’d been holding. “Tell me about Baxter blackmailing you.”

She visibly deflated. As she pushed her hair back slowly with both hands, I could
tell she was utterly exhausted. “Fine. I’ll tell you, but I don’t want anyone else
to hear it.” Her gaze darted around the kitchen and she pointed to the walk-in refrigerator.
“Let’s go in there.”

There was no way in hell I was walking into a giant icebox with this chick. “Look,
just tell me what Baxter tried to do. The police will give you the benefit of the
doubt if he was blackmailing you.”

“You’re as bad as Baxter,” she said, her tone an uncomfortable mix of anger and defeat.
“Forcing me to tell you what happened to my locket. It’s like blackmail all over again.”

“I’m nothing like Baxter,” I said irately, not bothering to mention that she had been
pointing a big, scary knife at me a minute ago. “I just want to hear the truth from
you for once.”

She began to pace along the service counter, then stopped suddenly and looked at me.
“Baxter got me pregnant with my first child.”

My mouth opened, and then closed. I had not expected that. But it was a really good
reason for blackmail. “Does Raoul know?”

“Of course not,” she said, sounding irritated. “That’s why Baxter was trying to blackmail
me.”

“I see.”

“There’s more,” she admitted.

“What is it?”

Reluctantly, she said, “He’s also the father of my second child.”

Wow, that was creepy. “So I guess you liked him a lot.”

“No! I hated him.”

“But it sounds like you’d been having a long-term affair.”

“You. Don’t. Understand.” With every syllable, Colette pounded her hand against the
counter. She definitely had anger management issues. “He threatened to tell Raoul
about the boys.”

“Oh.” I frowned at her. “So he was blackmailing you for sex?”

Her shoulders dipped. “Yes.”

“Colette, did he rape you?”

She reacted with horror. “No!”

I was relieved to hear it, but it was still strange that she had continued to sleep
with Baxter. I would’ve rather come clean to my husband—but that was me.

She struggled to continue. “No, it was mutual.”

“But why?” I knew it was none of my business, but I had to say it. “You had Raoul.
I mean, he’s awesome and he loves you.”

Her bottom lip began to quiver. “He was having an affair with Margot.”

I couldn’t imagine it. True, Raoul could have any woman he wanted, but it was crystal
clear that he only wanted Colette, even if she was a harpy. “How did you find out?”

“I heard it from a very good source.”

“Who?” I demanded. “Margot?”

“I’m not saying.”

Damn, I smelled a six-foot-tall, redheaded rat. “Did you confront Raoul?”

“Why? So he could rub my nose in it?”

That didn’t sound like something Raoul would do, but what did I know about the inner
workings of their marriage?

“Anyway,” she continued, “I was so upset about their affair and Baxter was there for
me and he was so sympathetic and so giving, we just…well, that’s when it started.
We carried it on for a few years, but when I finally tried to break it off with him,
he pulled that blackmail baloney.”

“Creep,” I muttered. “But are you sure Raoul doesn’t know the boys aren’t his? I mean,
he and Baxter look nothing alike.”

She shrugged. “The boys look like me. There was never a question that they weren’t
Raoul’s.”

“I see. So it’s no wonder you killed Baxter.”

“I didn’t!” She smacked her fist against the poor defenseless counter again. “But
I’m glad he’s dead. He was ruining our lives, turning me into a nervous wreck. The
night after he died, I got my first good night of sleep in years.”

“He was really awful,” I said in all honesty.

“He was a son of a bitch.”

“So who killed him?”

Her eyes widened and she looked away quickly. “It wasn’t me. It was probably someone
else he was blackmailing.”

“Probably.”

She pinched her lips together stubbornly. “Now I want my locket and you’re going to
get it for me.”

“Okay.” I pushed away from the counter. “I’ll go tell Derek to give it to you.”

“Wait.” She grabbed my arm. “I don’t want Raoul to know any of this.”

“I won’t say anything to him.”

“I—I’m going with you.”

“Fine.” We crossed the kitchen and I shoved the door open in time to see Derek and
Dalton and the rest of the chefs scramble backward.

Derek grabbed me as the chefs all began to talk at once. Raoul rushed forward and
took Colette in his arms.

“Thank you for sticking close by,” I whispered in Derek’s ear. “Did you hear any of
that?”

“Every word,” he murmured.

“Why did you have that knife, Colette?” Raoul asked in a low voice.

“I put it down,” Colette cried.

“Not right away,” I said.

Colette wrapped her arms around Raoul. “She was going to tell everyone I lost my necklace,
but I didn’t, Raoul. I swear. It’s missing, though. And…and she thought I killed Baxter.
I had to try and keep her quiet.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” I said heatedly, tugging away from Derek to glare
at her. “Tell the truth for once.”

“Yes, my love,” Raoul crooned, as he held his wife and stroked her hair as if she
were a little girl.

“Noooooo!” Colette howled.

He squeezed her lightly. “It is time for the truth.”

“Please, Raoul, don’t!” Colette cried.

“What’s the truth?” Savannah wondered aloud.

Raoul met our gazes one by one. “Baxter Cromwell had to die.”

Colette sagged against him. “No, no, no.”

Whoa
. Was that a confession? Did Colette know or had she merely suspected? I spun around
and looked at Derek. He didn’t appear quite as surprised as I probably did. Darn!
Had he deduced before now that it was Raoul? Why didn’t he say something before I
was forced to confront that knife-wielding wench?

“The honor of my family was at stake,” Raoul said, with one of his unruffled shrugs.
“It was as simple as that.”

“Not quite that simple,” I said. Derek yanked me closer to him, probably trying to
keep me quiet.

“No, not quite,” Raoul said, gracing me with his sexy smile, though it no longer held
much charm. “But when Baxter attempted to blackmail me, I knew I had to do something
about it.”

Colette blinked at her husband. “He tried to blackmail you, too?”

“Yes, my love.” Raoul took hold of her shoulders to explain. “He showed me a document
from a laboratory service that proved his paternity.”

Colette emitted a high-pitched keening sound and then
collapsed against his chest. I couldn’t blame her. Not only was Raoul aware of her
multiple indiscretions, but worse, he would be thrown in prison, leaving her without
a husband and a father for her two boys.

“Baxter had proof of paternity?” I asked Raoul.

“Yes, apparently he planned ahead.” Raoul scowled. “A few months ago, I invited him
to stay with us for a few days. While he was in our home, he took samples of our boys’
hair follicles to be tested for DNA. He showed me the lab results the night of his
restaurant opening. He ridiculed me, called me a cuckold while boasting of his own
prowess.”

“What an awful man,” Savannah whispered.

“Yes,” Raoul said, absently flicking a crumb from his chef’s coat. “I could live with
his disdain, but then he mentioned that he had tried to extract money from my wife
and she refused. He insisted that I pay him instead and threatened to ruin Colette’s
reputation as well as my sons’. That was when I took it upon myself to end it. Any
man would do the same.”

He sounded like a Spanish nobleman from the eighteenth century, dueling for his lady’s
honor. Did he really believe he had the right to take Baxter’s life?

Derek cast a quick glance my way, then looked at Raoul. “After you killed Baxter,
did you take the lab results with you?”

Raoul’s jaw clenched. “No. When he admitted it to me, he shoved them in his pocket
and walked away. But later that night, after Savannah gave him that lovely gift, I
saw him slip a piece of paper inside the box and I suspected strongly that it was
the laboratory results.”

“Inside the leather gift box?” I asked, just to clarify.

“Yes. After everything happened, I looked for the box, but I couldn’t find it.”

My eyes were wide as I met Derek’s gaze. Dalton had been poring over the cookbook
for a full day now. Had he found the lab
results and tossed them aside? We needed to get home and find it, but there were still
more questions to be answered.

“You could’ve called the police and sent Baxter to jail for all the blackmailing he’d
done,” Savannah said. “Why did you have to kill him?”

Raoul paused for a moment and seemed to argue with himself. But since we all knew
what he’d done, it was useless to hold back information. With a sigh, he said, “The
night of Baxter’s first dinner, after the diners had left, I found Baxter in the private
dining room arguing with Colette. I almost burst into the room, but I hesitated. The
door was partially opened and I saw him snatch the locket from her neck.”

With tears streaming down her cheeks, Colette touched her throat as if she was reliving
that moment herself.

“For that alone,” Raoul said, staring down at Colette as his hands bunched into fists,
“he would have had to die. But then I heard him refer to his bastard children, heard
him laugh, and saw you cry. I could barely restrain myself from ripping his heart
out right then, but I knew I would have to wait. I left you all early that night,
but returned later and waited at the back door until Baxter was alone. It only took
a moment to kill him, but I made sure he knew why he was dying.”

I exhaled slowly, only just aware that I’d been holding my breath. I was doing that
a lot these days.

“And Montgomery?” Derek asked, breaking the silence.

Raoul sighed wearily. “When I heard him make that phone call to the police the other
night, I confess I didn’t know what to do. He told the police he knew who the killer
was. I moved closer to hear his words. As he spoke, he pulled Colette’s locket out
of his pocket and smiled as it glittered in the light. He must have found it somewhere
in the kitchen and I believe he’d made up his mind that Colette had killed Baxter.”

Colette leaned against his strong chest and wept quietly.

“It wasn’t Colette, of course, but at that moment I knew what he was about to unleash
on my family. It was too much to bear.” Raoul tightened his hold on Colette. “I felt
betrayed and couldn’t think, could only act on impulse. The meat injector was in the
dishwasher. The poison was under the sink. I’m not proud of what I did, but I would
do it again to protect what is mine.”

Like so many other mornings, I woke up in desperate need of coffee. Today was different,
however. It was not going to be an easy one for so many reasons, but the sooner I
got started, the faster I would get through it.

As I washed my face and brushed my teeth, I thought back on the terrible night we’d
been through.

It had been painful to hear Raoul admit his guilt. He truly believed he’d done the
right thing for his family. Maybe that would help lighten his sentence somehow, but
I couldn’t condone what he’d done. I had thought he was a good man, a good husband,
but he had killed two people in cold blood. Even though Baxter was a son of a bitch,
that was no justification for murder. But it was Montgomery’s death that really struck
home and left me feeling nothing but contempt for Raoul. And sadness, damn
it. He had broken all of our hearts and I would never forgive him for that.

And what would happen to their two little boys? Colette had been arrested, too, for
wielding that stupid knife at me. I figured she would be released shortly, but not
Raoul. Had he even considered what his children would do without him? No, he hadn’t
considered anyone or anything beyond his own stupid vengeance.

Sometimes people really sucked. I had a long list of the ones who did, and Baxter
was on it. Margot was on it, too, because it was obvious that she’d tried to cause
trouble between Colette and her husband. But Raoul topped the list. Besides killing
Monty, he had almost killed Peter. He needed to pay for that.

Last night, Derek had asked Raoul to fill in the blanks regarding Peter’s attack.
Raoul had rubbed his eyes, clearly exhausted. Finally he had told us what happened.

“Montgomery began reacting to the poison almost immediately,” Raoul said. “It was
a hideous death, but I was determined to watch and wait until it was over so I could
search him for Colette’s necklace. But then I heard someone coming and I ran from
the building. I went back the next morning to search for it, but others had arrived
before me. Margot told me that Peter was the first to find Montgomery. So I took a
chance, went to Peter’s hotel room to ask if he’d found the locket. By now I was crazed
with worry. When he said that, yes, he had taken the necklace, I demanded it. But
he began to ask questions about Colette. I let a few of them pass until he suggested
that she must have killed Baxter. He wanted to call the police. I simply lost all
control. I grabbed the nearest weapon and he ran. I chased after him and hit him.
I regretted it immediately. I didn’t plan to do it. I have no more excuses.”

I wondered what Raoul would have done if he’d found the cookbook in Peter’s luggage.
Had he even thought to search for it—or the locket, for that matter? He hadn’t found
what he was looking for, thank goodness, but I wondered if he’d tried.

“Did you look for Colette’s locket in Peter’s room?” I asked.

“I began to,” he muttered. “I turned over his backpack and his tools went everywhere.
Before I could search more carefully, I heard someone open the front door of the suite.
I escaped out the bedroom door and down the hall.”