Chapter 2 - The Reason Clara Took the Job
Three weeks earlier, nobody at the restaurant knew who Clara Moretti really was.
To them, she was simply another young cook trying to survive inside one of the most expensive kitchens in the city.
That was exactly how I wanted it.
I had deliberately accepted the lowest position available.
No impressive résumé.
No family connections.
No mention of the restaurant investigation I had spent six months preparing.
Because the rumors surrounding Maison Dubois had become impossible to ignore.
Three former kitchen employees had quietly left within a year.
One had suffered severe burns.
Another had been fired after complaining about food storage.
The third had signed a settlement agreement and refused to speak.
Then came the illnesses.
Two line cooks had developed unexplained stomach problems.
A dishwasher had collapsed during a shift.
And one young pastry chef had told a friend that the restaurant sometimes served ingredients that were not listed on the official kitchen records.
That friend was Marco.
He worked in food-safety compliance investigations.
He had asked me to go undercover because nobody inside Maison Dubois trusted outsiders.
My job was simple.
Find out what was happening.
My first month produced almost nothing.
The kitchen looked immaculate.
The ingredients were expensive.
The menus were prestigious.
Beatrice controlled everything.
She checked deliveries personally.
She approved every supplier.
She kept the inventory records in her office.
And she hated questions.
Then I noticed something.
Every Tuesday morning, Beatrice received a small refrigerated delivery that never appeared on the main inventory sheet.
The boxes were always marked as specialty seafood.
But the labels were removed before anyone else could see them.
I couldn't investigate without exposing myself.
So I waited.
And waited.
Until the afternoon she threw boiling soup into my face.
Now I had something I hadn't possessed before.
Photographs.
Witnesses.
A contaminated floor that hadn't been cleaned.
And a manager who had just fired an employee immediately after physically assaulting her.
But I still didn't know what was inside those mysterious deliveries.
That was the part that frightened me.
Because Marco had one more piece of information.
The restaurant's former head chef had disappeared two days before his final complaint.
And the last person seen arguing with him was Beatrice.
I stared at the phone.
“Marco,” I whispered.
“What?”
“I think the soup wasn't the reason she attacked me.”
“What do you mean?”
I looked down at the saffron stains covering my jacket.
May you like
“She was afraid I'd notice something.”
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