Steamed

took my silence as ignorance and informed me that while working as a sous chef at the posh Langley Hotel restaurant, Josh had walked through the dining room shouting obscenities about the incompetent waitstaff and had promptly been terminated. Spoons, another well-known Boston eatery, had fired Josh for smashing a bunch of plates while cussing out the dishwashers for doing a terrible job.
    All news to me. My risotto was beginning to lose its flavor, but I nonetheless finished off half of the huge portion Josh had made for me.
    “He used to have a pretty mean temper,” Brian continued. “But he’s been totally great to me. Of course, he got angry today about the fridge and the mice and stuff, but usually he’s great. You just don’t want to piss him off, that’s for sure. If you ask me, all chefs are pretty volatile, but Josh is up there. Love him like a brother, though.”
    I watched Brian as he finished cleaning the counters, wrapped up meat to be stored, and sharpened the knives that had been used that evening. I’d had no idea about Josh’s history of losing his cool, and I didn’t know what to think. He took tremendous pride in his cooking and his kitchen; anything that threatened the quality of his work would certainly anger him. Josh’s temper must have been what Detective Hurley had been referring to when he’d said that I didn’t know Josh that well and had warned me to stay away from him. But Brian must be exaggerating. The restaurant business was so gossipy. The tales of Josh’s behavior must have blown up over time. At least I hoped so.
    As I watched Brian, I wondered whether Madeline would really replace Josh with someone so inexperienced. He grabbed Josh’s sharpening steel and began the chef’s ritual of honing the kitchen knives against the rod. Although I was almost mesmerized as he stroked the blades against the steel, I couldn’t help thinking how dangerous it was to repeatedly pull the blade toward himself. And he didn’t look half as cute as Josh did when he sharpened his knives.
    Josh finally finished work, and we stepped out of the restaurant and into the cool, dry evening air of mid-September. Since he had his car with him, we drove separately back to my place. Josh took a shower and changed into sweatpants. As attractive as he looked with his chest bare, I was remarkably uninterested in leaping under the covers with him. My head was swimming with information I’d acquired that evening, and I didn’t know what to make of any of it. We got into bed and lay there a foot apart. For the first time, something felt awkward between us.
    Josh looked at me. “I’m so tired. Do you mind if we just go to sleep?” I knew he had to get up before eight and go in to Magellan. The restaurant was closed tomorrow, but an upscale client was having a wedding reception for fifty people at five, and Josh needed to prep for it all day.
    He continued. “I’ve got so much to do for the party tomorrow, and for some stupid reason, I gave Brian the day off. Some of it’s prepped, and I’ve got a couple of the line cooks with me, but still...”
    “Sure. You need some sleep,” I said.
    I needed sleep, too; there was no point in staying up half the night trying to make sense of everything. Besides, I’d see Heather tomorrow at the spa, and she’d help me to think things out.
    I awoke at three in the morning with horrendous stomach cramps. I rolled over on my side in search of relief. I must be getting my period, I thought. But when I’d crawled to the bathroom on my hands and knees, I realized that the pain had nothing to do with my menstrual cycle—and everything to do with food poisoning.
    I spent two hours in the bathroom ridding my body of what I kept telling myself was some freakish parasite. Doubled over, all I could think was, The mussels. The goddamn mussels. My mind was racing. Oh my God! Josh gave me the mussels. He did this to me. That’s why he kept telling me not to call Detective Hurley, I thought miserably. He killed Eric, and now he’s murdering me with tainted mussels.
    Wait a minute. That didn’t make any sense. Although I was a little delirious from dehydration, I was able to understand that food poisoning was an unreliable murder method. Of course, I’d been sick for only a few hours. Maybe the illness would progress until I died right here on my ugly tile floor. While Josh slept peacefully in the other room. Or maybe the food poisoning was a warning? No! The health