Chapter 3 - The Photograph
Marco arrived twenty minutes later.
He didn't enter through the restaurant.
He met me behind a closed bakery across the street.
The first thing he did was look at my face.
“You need a doctor.”
“I know.”
“You're still working the case?”
“Yes.”
He sighed.
“You've got burns.”
“I've got evidence.”
“That doesn't make the burns disappear.”
I handed him my phone.
The pastry chef's photographs were clear.
My face.
My jacket.
The spilled broth.
The stainless-steel floor.
Most importantly, the timestamp.
Marco studied the images.
Then he stopped.
“What?”
He zoomed in on the floor.
“There.”
A tiny smear near my shoe.
At first it looked like ordinary broth.
But underneath the orange liquid was a thin gray residue.
“What is that?”
“I don't know.”
Marco took another photograph and sent it to his laboratory contact.
While we waited, I told him what had happened.
When I mentioned the soup, he became unusually quiet.
“Clara.”
“What?”
“Don't taste anything from that kitchen again.”
“I haven't.”
“I'm serious.”
His phone vibrated.
He read the message.
His face changed.
“What?”
He turned the screen toward me.
The preliminary analysis showed traces of an industrial cleaning compound mixed with the broth.
Not enough to prove deliberate poisoning.
But enough to prove that something had gone terribly wrong.
I stared at the result.
“Could that have come from the kitchen?”
“Yes.”
“Accidentally?”
“Possibly.”
“But?”
Marco looked at me.
“But the concentration doesn't look accidental.”
My stomach tightened.
The soup hadn't just been thrown at me.
It might have contained something dangerous.
That changed everything.
We returned to the restaurant separately.
I went back through the kitchen entrance.
Beatrice was nowhere to be seen.
The staff had already started working again.
Nobody looked at me.
Except the young pastry chef.
His name was Ethan.
He approached quietly.
“I took the pictures.”
“I know.”
He swallowed.
“There is something else.”
I waited.
“Beatrice keeps a second inventory book.”
My heart stopped for half a second.
“Where?”
Ethan glanced toward the manager's office.
“She keeps it under the bottom drawer.”
Then he whispered something that made the blood leave my face.
May you like
“Your name is already written inside.”
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