Steamed

we speak. What happened here?”
    I sighed. “Brian isn’t the only person in major trouble here.”
    The detective looked to Josh.
    “No,” I said, “not Josh. Madeline.” I gestured behind me. “She convinced Brian to murder Eric. She promised to make him her executive chef. Her divorce from Tim wasn’t the amicable parting of ways everyone thought. She hated Tim. She wanted to see him suffer. She wanted Essence to fail. Getting Brian to murder Eric guaranteed that he wouldn’t put money into the restaurant, and at the same time, it tarnished Essence’s reputation. Brian admitted it before he passed out.”
    “Where’d she go?” he asked.
    I looked toward the spot where Tim and Maddie had been standing. They had disappeared.
     

TWENTY-ONE
     
    AT eleven o’clock the next morning, I snuggled up to Josh and kissed him awake. “Hi, sleepy,” I murmured.
    “Hey, babe.” Josh gave a stretch and growl of contentment. “Finally,” he sighed.
    “I know. I was starting to doubt whether we’d ever—”
    “Oh, but we did,” he cut in. “And it was goood!“ He laughed. To prove his point, he moved on top of me.
    When we finally emerged from the bedroom, I went to the kitchen and opened the new coffeemaker Josh had bought for me. When Detective Hurley had finally finished questioning us on the previous day, we’d left Magellan and both gotten into Josh’s Xterra. I’d been too shaky to drive and had yet again left my car illegally parked.
    “We’re going to get you a new coffeepot,” Josh had announced. “And then I’m taking you home, making love to you all night, and waking up to—what will it be? An improved cup of coffee. Among other things.”
    In fact, we decided to spend the entire day making coffee. So to speak. And other things. I called in sick to my field placement. I’d eventually have to return to Naomi and her miniature office, where I’d be drowned in syrupy hugs and forced to participate in hand-holding that I couldn’t face yet. As it turned out, Josh, on the other hand, didn’t even have a job to go to.
    Here’s why. When Tim and Madeline disappeared from Magellan, they didn’t flee to some exotic country or do anything else juicy and dramatic. Rather, the police found them together at Essence. In spite of everything Tim had just seen and heard, he refused to believe that Madeline had participated in arranging Eric’s murder. As Josh and I learned when Tim called on Wednesday, he was so outraged at the accusation against dear Maddie that he had hired the best criminal defense lawyer in Boston to represent her. Tim’s loyalty to his ex-wife failed, however, to stop him from begging Josh to come to work for him at Essence. On Thursday, when he again called to try to steal Madeline’s chef, we learned just how good the lawyer was: Madeline wasn’t even in custody. As Tim pointed out, it was Brian’s word against hers. Despite Brian’s injuries, he actually was capable of speech, or so Tim reported. Unlike Madeline, he was, however, in no financial position to hire a lawyer and was consequently in the hands of a court-appointed defense attorney. What’s more, the evidence against him was and remains strong. He’ll probably go to prison and, specifically, to a prison kitchen. At least he’ll have a chance to keep cooking, and the other inmates will no doubt notice a remarkable improvement in the food.
    On Friday, Tim quit trying to lure Josh to work at Essence, which he had finally decided to close. To my astonishment, he informed us that he was rejoining Madeline at Magellan. I assume that Madeline was taking back her ex as a ploy to convince everyone of her innocence. In any case, the newly reunited couple, angry at Josh’s continued insistence on Madeline’s guilt, immediately fired Josh.
    Madeline, with her usual spin-doctor charm, used all of her media contacts to play the story in her favor. She skillfully presented herself as a superlative restaurant owner who gave a troubled young sous chef a chance to work in a top restaurant. Unfortunately, the young man was more disturbed than she’d known and had gone to extreme lengths to climb the culinary ladder. In her version of the story, Brian was furious at her for not promoting him and killed Eric in an attempt to frame her. Oh, please. Tim was welcome to her. When asked why her executive chef was leaving, Madeline insisted that it was a mutual parting of ways and that she wished Josh Driscoll the best.