Cook the Books

warmth as she could muster.
    Snacker lowered me to the floor, put his hands on his hips, and checked out our desserts. “How was everything? I know we’ve still got some kinks to work out.”
    “Everything was outstanding,” I said. It wasn’t true, of course, but I’d never have told Snacker about the snags in the service or the wavering quality of the food.
    “Christ, I hardly had any notice about coming on as the executive chef. Damn shame about Digger. I still can’t believe it. I probably wouldn’t even have taken the job, but my girlfriend really wanted me to accept. Have you met Georgie?”
    I nodded. “Um, yes. She seems... very... very nice.” If by very nice I meant that she was sleeping with most of the city.
    “Yeah, well, she wants us to move in together, and I need the money, so I went ahead and took the job. Thank God for Josh, though. Tonight would’ve been a royal disaster if he hadn’t stepped in and helped out in the kitchen.”
    “You’d never know there’d been problems. Honestly, it was a great meal,” Ade said.
    “I hate to run, but I’m supposed to walk around the dining room and schmooze everyone.” Snacker leaned down to give me another hug and whispered in my ear. “Chloe, have you and Josh talked?”
    I nodded weakly. “Sort of. There’s no point.”
    “Yes, there is. Don’t give up yet.” He squeezed my arm and then left to finish his executive-chef table duties. “Chloe? Are you okay?” Ade asked, concerned.
    I shrugged. “I guess so.” I quickly filled her in on what I’d seen and overheard.
    Ade’s jaw dropped open. “Josh and Georgie?”
    “It seems so,” I said morosely.
    “And Digger and Georgie.”
    “It seems so, too.”
    “God, what a whore.”
    “That’s about what Ellie said.”
    “Good for her. She should be pissed!”
    “Maybe she was too pissed. Maybe Ellie offed her boyfriend for cheating on her with her best friend. Or maybe Georgie killed Digger to get Snacker the job. She got close to Digger so she could talk him out of the job or have access to his house and burn it down.”
    “Good God. What the hell is going on with everybody? It seems like everyone is going crazy.”
    “I know,” I said, now halfheartedly eating my dessert. “At the rate things are going, I could be next.”
     

SEVENTEEN
     
    SATURDAY morning found me nursing a restaurant-opening hangover, not from alcohol, but from emotional overload. To avoid dealing with anything that had happened the previous night, I pumped myself full of coffee and got deliberately lost in the cookbook. It was much easier to focus on page-number styles, recipe formats, and chapter titles than on Josh’s fling with Georgie. I plowed through my notes, wrote speedily, and by mid-afternoon had e-mailed Kyle an outline of the book, a draft of the chapter about appetizers, and a handful of recipes. I recorded the number of hours I’d worked and submitted those, too.
    I took a long steaming-hot bath and distractedly pumiced my feet so overzealously that I doubted whether I’d be able to walk comfortably for a week; I had removed most of the skin from the soles and heels. I was a wrinkled prune when I finally I got out, wrapped myself in a thick robe, and put on heavy socks. Kyle called as I was running a comb through my knotted hair.
    “I just read through everything you sent, Chloe, and it’s fabulous. Really good work,” he complimented me.
    “Thank you,” I said, pleased that he could see how hard I had worked.
    “Did you have a good time last night?”
    “Yes,” I lied. “Restaurant openings are always so intense. You can feel the energy in the air.”
    “I thought that the food was fantastic and the company even better.”
    “You and Adrianna get along well, huh?”
    “She’s obviously a good friend. I can see why you two are so close. It was helpful to talk to her about my father. She really seemed to get how demanding he is.”
    So much for the thousands of dollars being spent on my social work degree! Maybe I just needed to have a baby, and then I’d magically become a better listener. But truthfully, I was glad that Kyle appreciated Adrianna. Typically, women envied her looks and didn’t see beyond her beauty, and men were so dazzled by her appearance that they couldn’t see her as a friend.
    “Anyway,” Kyle continued, “my father is here again, and he’d like to go over what there is of the book so far, mostly so that he can write his introduction. You