Written in Stone (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

A squall had swept in from the Atlantic, soaking her within seconds. Her pigtail braids had funneled water down her thin chest and skinny legs and her sneakers had squelched as they sank into the boglike sand.
    When she’d finally returned home, her mother had run her a hot bath, plied her with hot chocolate brimming with plump marshmallows, and then wrapped her in a towel warmed by the living room fire. She’d then brushed Olivia’s hair until it gleamed a pale gold while she sang
“Ballade à la Lune”
in French.
    Standing in her bathroom, decades later, Olivia could smell the lavender of her mother’s favorite hand cream. She could almost believe that her mother was there, an invisible force, still promising love and protection. Love and protection. These were things, thanks to her mother’s sudden death and her father’s disappearance a few years later, that Olivia knew little about.
    “I’ll go,” Olivia spoke to her reflection, knowing how much she favored Camille Limoges, though her mother hadn’t lived long enough to earn laugh lines around the eyes or a pair of parentheses around the mouth. Camille had been like Edna St. Vincent Millay’s candle. She hadn’t lasted the night, but she’d been a beautiful light to many while she’d lived.
    Loading Haviland into the Range Rover, Olivia headed off to The Boot Top Bistro. In the quiet, air-conditioned cabin, she sang the first verse of her mother’s lullaby.
    C’était dans la nuit brune
    Sur le clocher jauni,
    Sur le clocher la lune
    Comme un point sur un i.
    Ho la hi hi, ho la hi ho
    Ho la hi hi, ho la hi ho.
    Haviland made a keening sound in the back of his throat and Olivia switched to English for the second verse, which sent him into a full-fledged howl.
    Moon, whose dark spirit
    Strolls at the end of a thread,
    At the end of a thread, in the dark
    Your face and your profile?
    Ho la hee hee, ho la hee ho
    Ho la hee hee, ho la hee ho.
    Unable to compete with her poodle’s singing, Olivia fell silent, allowing the last two verses to float through her head in her mother’s voice, which was far more melodious than Olivia’s.
    Memories of Camille Limoges were swept aside the moment Olivia walked into the kitchen of her five-star restaurant. Michel, her head chef, rushed to meet her, grasping a cleaver in one hand and piece of raw chicken in the other.
    “Whoa!” Olivia made a sign of surrender. “If you want a raise, you could just ask.”
    Michel glanced at the cleaver as though wondering how he came to be holding it, tossed it and the chicken in the nearest sink, and said, “You’ll never believe who called!”
    Knowing Michel’s flair for the dramatic, Olivia replied, “Must be someone special to have you in such a state.”
    It wasn’t Michel’s appearance that indicated something significant had happened. The kitchen, which Michel ruled over with an iron hand, was a mess. The worktables were covered with fruit and raw vegetables, flour was strewn across the butcher block, there was a tower of dirty mixing bowls and frying pans in the deep sink, and the sous-chefs were unusually edgy. They shot nervous glances at Michel and plaintive ones at Olivia. Her chef wanted something and he wanted it badly. If she didn’t give in, he’d pout, rage at his underlings, or unwittingly add too much salt to the entrées.
    “Someone special?” Michel scoffed. “How about an executive producer of the Foodie Network? He wants us to act as the celebrity judges at the Coastal Carolina Food Festival.”
    Olivia made it clear that she wasn’t impressed.
    “That’s just the beginning!” Michel added breathlessly. “If we agree, they’re going to tape an entire segment here at The Boot Top. Do you know what kind of name recognition that will bring us?” He was so excited that he was speaking in a high whisper.
    “It would be good for business,” Olivia agreed, and her head chef performed a little jig of triumph. Olivia watched him in amusement. “But they’re asking us at the last minute. Is there more to this story?”
    “There
is
. They want us to step in because the original celebrity judge had a massive heart attack and isn’t well enough to travel. I’ve shed many tears for him since I heard the news.” The last phrase was delivered with biting sarcasm.
    “Ah, the ailing judge must be the rich and famous Pierce Dumas, your nemesis,” Olivia guessed.
    Michel’s face darkened. He and Dumas had attended culinary school in Paris