Croissant Murder (A Patisserie Mystery with Recipes) (2 page)

Arthur snorted. “Please, it’s the media. When did they ever go through sensitivity training?”
 

Clémence looked up at Arthur from her menu. She’d fallen in love with him earlier that summer. Sure, he had his flaws, but it didn’t matter. She was smitten, which made it all the more painful for her that she had to break some rather sensitive news of her own.
 

“So, uh…” She cleared her throat. “I have something to tell you.”
 

Arthur frowned at the change in her tone. “What is it?”
 

“I took an unexpected call this morning, too. My ex-boyfriend Mathieu called me.”
 

Chapter 2

That very morning, Clémence had woken up with a dry mouth and a feeling of dread. Arthur was an early riser, and he’d emerged clean and dressed from the bathroom before she was even fully conscious. He kissed her goodbye because he had to go in to J&D Consulting Agency, where he worked part-time.
 

Alone in the apartment with Miffy, her white Highland Terrier, Clémence played with her a bit, then poured dog food into her bowl. Aside from Arthur, Miffy was her rock. While Clémence was still reeling from the aftermath of a kidnapping, Miffy cheered up with her mere presence.

Miffy was her parents’ dog. Clémence was house sitting and dog sitting for them while they were in Asia until at least October, splitting their time between Tokyo and Hong Kong to oversee the new Damour patisseries that had just opened in those two cities.
 

When her parents had found out about the kidnapping, they’d called Clémence and told her they were boarding the next flight back. She had to spend over an hour on the phone to convince them that everything was under control. She had to admit to them that Arthur had moved in with her so they wouldn’t worry about her living alone. She’d also installed a more advanced security system, which she turned on with a remote when she went to sleep.
 

It had been a stressful week, indeed. Every time she thought she had her life together, something happened. The culmination of everything that had happened during the past few months instilled more fear. She was afraid of losing everything that mattered to her. Being so close to death could do that to a girl. That, and seeing countless dead bodies.
 

She also questioned who she could trust.
How well could you know a person?
The most recent example was Sophie and Juan. And what about Rose and Pierre? All betrayals. Maybe the girls could have read the signs and prevented these tragedies from happening.

Her relationship with Arthur was new, but it might not last. Arthur could get tired of her. It had happened before, with Mathieu. If there was one thing she learned from her short career as an amateur sleuth, it was this: trust no one.
 

The division between the good guys and bad guys was not clear-cut; the world wasn’t so black and white. The reasons some people killed and some people died weren’t a matter of evil people versus victims. There was always the possibility that somebody would betray her. She could succumb to ego and selfish desires herself and betray somebody she cared about.

Adding to the stress was the matter of her birthday. It was almost three weeks away. She was turning twenty-nine this year. It wasn’t too bad, she kept telling herself. She’d accomplished quite a bit and she lived a fruitful life—a good job, great friends, travels around the world behind her, and now a hot new boyfriend. She didn’t know why she was feeling uneasy.

Birthdays always did that to her. It sharpened the things that were usually out of focus. It happened every year, this familiar dread and the need to get incredibly drunk. She hope it didn’t mean anything—age was just a number, after all. But she didn’t quite believe it.
 

All her life, she’d aspired to be a painter. She always told herself that it didn’t matter whether she made it as an artist, but the truth was that she was nearly 30, and she’d never done anything to realize her dreams. All she had accomplished in her life, really, was to work in a fun, cushy job at her parents’ patisserie and get lucky with a few murder cases.

All these negative thoughts were weighing her down. It was one of those days when she questioned everything. She thought too much, and it gave her a headache.
 

She sighed, and Miffy looked up at her with her curious, dark eyes as if to ask what was the matter.

“It’s nothing.” Clémence felt the need to shrug it off and maintain a strong front, even to her family’s dog. “It’ll pass. Don’t worry about me.”
 

Miffy made a high-pitched squeal and her lips upturned, as if she wanted to smile and cheer her up. Clémence smiled back. She got down on the floor and patted Miffy’s head.
 

As her mood lifted, her cell phone rang. Clémence had been her screening calls all week, only answering when she recognized the number. The previous night, she’d cleared over fifty messages on her voicemail without listening to most of them.
 

He’s a cheater and a LIAR!!!
flashed on her smartphone screen. Clémence’s heart sank. She knew who it was.
 

She’d changed her ex-boyfriend Mathieu’s name on the contact list to
He’s a cheater and a LIAR!!!
to prevent herself from drunk-texting him when she was feeling vulnerable. She should’ve deleted his number altogether, and she wondered why she didn’t. Maybe she’d expected him to call one day. And today was that day.

“
Allô?
” she answered tentatively.
 

“Clémence Damour,” Mathieu’s deep, confident voice boomed from the other end. “
C’est
Mathieu. It’s been a while.
Ça va?
”
 

“
Oui, ça va? Et vous?
”
 

“
Vous?
” Mathieu was quick to catch the formal way she addressed him. “I thought we would be beyond the formalities by now.”
 

“Right.” Clémence let out a forced laugh, mainly to calm her own nerves. “So…what’s up?”

She cringed at how uptight she sounded. Why couldn’t she be cool and suave like he was?
 

“First of all I wanted to see how you were doing,” he said, concern in his voice. Of course he knew she’d been kidnapped and he just wanted to reach out to her. “I heard you’ve been through a lot lately. How is everything?”
 

“I’m alive,” she said, forcing another laugh. “Everything’s okay.”
 

“I wanted to check up on you, see how you’re doing. You’re okay with that, right?”
 

“Of course. I appreciate it. How are you?”
 

“Oh, the same old. I’m set up here in Les Lilas. Finally have a proper space to work on large canvasses.”
 

“Wow, that’s great.”
 

“I just moved in three months ago, and I share a space with someone. He’s not an artist, but wants to learn, so it’s a good trade-off.”
 

Clémence wondered where Sarah fit into the picture. She was the gorgeous nude model he’d dumped her for, and they had been living together, the last she heard. Not that she cared much anymore.
 

“Sounds amazing,” she said.
 

“Listen, I was wondering if you wanted to catch up sometime. Have a coffee.”
 

“Catch up? Oh, I don’t know—”

“I feel like there was never closure between us. I know you have a boyfriend now. It’s all over the tabloids. But since we were a big part of each other’s lives, it can’t hurt to have a friendly chat, right?”
 

“I suppose it would be okay,” Clémence said slowly.
 

“Great! And something strange had happened to me recently that I thought you’d find interesting.”
 

“Strange? How do you mean?”
 

“Oh, it’s a long story. I’ll tell you later. Is tomorrow afternoon all right? Say, four o’clock at Café Dennis?”
 

It was the café they used to go to all the time when they went to art school together. She hadn’t set foot in that café for years.
 

“Okay. Sure,” she replied.
 

Clémence tried to gauge Arthur’s reaction. Sometimes the man was unreadable. His expression remained stoic, unchanged, but she knew him well enough to sense that he was annoyed. His eyes betrayed more than he’d like. He was like a poker player who needed sunglasses to guard his hand.
 

“Are you cool with that?” she asked.

“Is this the boyfriend who cheated on you?”
 

She nodded. “Yup. The very same.”

Arthur knew what had happened between her and Mathieu. She’d gone to art school with Mathieu and had the biggest crush on him. All the girls did. When they graduated, Mathieu finally noticed her and they began going out. They even lived together for years until he dumped her for one of his nude models, as cliché as that sounded.

“Do you really want to meet him, or are you just trying to be nice?” Arthur asked calmly.
 

“I think he mainly wants to apologize. And I’d be open to hearing it. But only if you aren’t uncomfortable with the idea.”
 

He shrugged. “I’m okay with it. Go ahead.”
 

“Besides,” she added quickly. “He said there’s something strange he wants to tell me, but he said it was a long story.”

“I guess he knows you. Knows that you like a bit of mystery and intrigue.”
 

“I just want to be clear that I have no remaining feelings for Mathieu. What he did to me was unforgivable, and I’ve moved on, with you. Sometimes I do feel a little bitterness about what he did. Okay, a lot of bitterness. I want to get past it, get some closure, you know. Not be friends exactly, but friendly. You know you’re completely over somebody if you talk to them and know that they have no effect on you whatsoever.”
 

Arthur nodded again, very careful to conceal his feelings. The fact that he couldn’t just tell her how he really felt annoyed her. They used to be more open before they got together, and now they were always fighting and butting heads.

“Okay,” he replied. “Tell me how it goes.” No hint of annoyance in his voice.
Could he really be this cool with it?
 

She tried to consider whether she’d be okay if it were his ex wanting to have coffee with him. No, she wouldn’t be cool at all. But she’d act the same, to avoid appearing jealous.
 

She couldn’t help feeling guilty. She looked up, and Arthur was smiling at her, to her surprise. She loved the way his eyes crinkled when he did. Even though she knew a few customers were probably watching, she stood up and leaned over the table to kiss him.

“
Je t’aime beaucoup, tu sais?
” she muttered.
I love you, you know that?

This man was still looking at her with adoration despite the fact that she was going to meet her ex-boyfriend tomorrow afternoon for coffee. And she was grateful to him.

Still, she had this nagging feeling. Speaking to Mathieu had made her feel uneasy. Meeting him felt wrong. Could she honestly say that she had no feelings for him?
 

Chapter 3

“I’m starting to think Sebastien’s gay,” Berenice Soulier said matter-of-factly.

On Clémence’s balcony, she took a drag of her cigarette. She and Ben, who lived on the top floor of Clémence’s building, were over at her apartment for lunch. With the sunny weather streak they’d been having lately, she thought it would be nice to make the most of the sunshine with her friends.
 

Ever since Ben and Berenice started dating a few months ago, they’d been inseparable. Ben was a writer from England, and Berenice worked alongside Sebastien Soulier, her brother, as a baker at Damour.
 

The fact that “B Squared,” as Clémence referred to Ben and Berenice now, got together because Clémence introduced them on a night out had given her hope at first that she had the talent to be a matchmaker. But it was a hit-or-miss venture. Celine had gone out with Sam, Ben’s friend, and they had been hot and heavy for a month, until Sam cooled off and began looking for greener pastures. Celine had moved on as well with an indie rocker.

“He’s not gay,” Clémence protested. “Why do you think that?”
 

“It’s obvious,” she said. “Why didn’t I come to this conclusion earlier? This explains all the secrecy, doesn’t it? Sebastien even missed family dinner a couple of weeks ago for the Paris Gay Pride parade. He claims he went to support his friend Ted.”
 

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Clémence said. “There are lots of straight people at that event.”
 

Clémence happened to know that Sebastien was in fact straight, and did have a new girlfriend named Maya. He just didn’t want his sister and his family to know. Even Clémence wasn’t supposed to know, but she had run into him at the Spinoza Atelier, where she took art classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and discovered that he was taking adult ballet classes with Maya.