Read Online Espresso Shot by Cleo Coyle - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Cleo Coyle
Tags: Fiction, General, detective, Suspense, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths, Mystery, Mystery Fiction, Mystery & Detective - Women Sleuths, Fiction - Mystery, New York (N.Y.), Weddings, Coffeehouses, Cosi; Clare (Fictitious character), Divorced people, Brides, Brides - Crimes against, Cookery (Coffee), Attempted murder
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up from the table and walked to the window, out of the shadows and into them again. Thinking it over, I had plenty of doubts. But for Matt’s sake, I was willing to take his theory for a test drive.
“Do you know anyone who might want to hurt Breanne? What about this Randall Knox character you mentioned earlier? Didn’t you tell me he had a history with her?”
“Yeah, but . . .” Matt shook his head, “it’s no big secret how Knox wants to hurt Breanne. He wants to publicly humiliate her, catch her or me in some kind of embarrassing scenario before the wedding to boost his own career. Knox’s assigned stalkers have cameras, not guns.”
“Is there anyone else you can think of who might be angry with her? Someone who’s threatened her lately?”
“ Yes. I can . . .”
Matt opened his laptop and struck a button to bring the computer out of hibernation.
“What are you doing?”
“I want you to see a Web site.” He logged on to the Internet via the Blend’s wireless connection and began typing into his browser. “Not long ago, Breanne’s magazine did an exposé on a restaurant, and the chef and owner of the place has been posting some pretty disturbing things about Breanne on his blog.”
“What sort of things?”
Matt slid his computer toward me and pointed at its screen. A maroon banner across the top of the Web page read, “The Prodigal Chef.” Standing next to the letters was the caricature of a man with a dark brown goatee on an exaggerated chin. A tall chef’s hat half covered his spiky platinum blond hair. He wore a white chef’s jacket and a ridiculously broad smile. In his left hand was an open bottle of wine, in his right a meat cleaver.
Below the banner was the headline of the blog’s latest entry:
10 WAYS TO SERVE BREANNE SUMMOUR
“Serve Breanne,” I murmured. With a headline like that, I expected the article that followed would be about tastemaker Breanne’s favorite cocktails or finger food, something along the lines of how to make the powerful Trend editor-in-chief happy when she visited your nightclub or restaurant.
But that’s not what the Prodigal Chef meant by serving Breanne.
The first clue was the large picture below the headline. The chef had cut Breanne’s face out of another picture and plastered it to the body of a plucked chicken. Recipes were posted below it, which included methods of frying, broiling, and roasting “the Breanne” over red-hot coals, among other things. Finally, there were instructions for cutting her up so her parts could be used when other tasty recipes called for something especially bitter. “And, don’t forget,” the rambling blog entry finished, “Breanne Summour makes the perfect tart.”
I turned to Matt. “Who is this guy? Sweeney Todd?”
“His name’s Neville Perry. Look . . .”
Matt clicked on a link that read, “About the Prodigal Chef.” A brief bio popped up. “Two years ago, this guy had some sort of short-lived reality show attached to his restaurant. The place was extremely popular. Then Trend did an exposé. The World Wide Web spread the word, and Perry’s business never recovered.”
I knew—from my own daughter’s recent experience—how cutthroat the New York restaurant industry could be. Still, I doubted a chef who’d publicly expressed hatred for Breanne would hire a sharpshooter to off her. How dim a bulb would you have to be to do that?
“Look, Matt, if the man was savvy enough to open a New York restaurant, I can’t see him stupid enough to advertise himself as a murder suspect—”
Matt opened his mouth to argue, but I quickly added: “On the other hand, I do think we need to tell Soles and Bass about your suspicions. This is pretty disturbing, and we should definitely see what they think.”
“Clare, I’m really freaked about this.”
“I know you are, but listen , even if this killer was after Breanne, this person’s not going to know who was shot for a while. I
“Do you know anyone who might want to hurt Breanne? What about this Randall Knox character you mentioned earlier? Didn’t you tell me he had a history with her?”
“Yeah, but . . .” Matt shook his head, “it’s no big secret how Knox wants to hurt Breanne. He wants to publicly humiliate her, catch her or me in some kind of embarrassing scenario before the wedding to boost his own career. Knox’s assigned stalkers have cameras, not guns.”
“Is there anyone else you can think of who might be angry with her? Someone who’s threatened her lately?”
“ Yes. I can . . .”
Matt opened his laptop and struck a button to bring the computer out of hibernation.
“What are you doing?”
“I want you to see a Web site.” He logged on to the Internet via the Blend’s wireless connection and began typing into his browser. “Not long ago, Breanne’s magazine did an exposé on a restaurant, and the chef and owner of the place has been posting some pretty disturbing things about Breanne on his blog.”
“What sort of things?”
Matt slid his computer toward me and pointed at its screen. A maroon banner across the top of the Web page read, “The Prodigal Chef.” Standing next to the letters was the caricature of a man with a dark brown goatee on an exaggerated chin. A tall chef’s hat half covered his spiky platinum blond hair. He wore a white chef’s jacket and a ridiculously broad smile. In his left hand was an open bottle of wine, in his right a meat cleaver.
Below the banner was the headline of the blog’s latest entry:
10 WAYS TO SERVE BREANNE SUMMOUR
“Serve Breanne,” I murmured. With a headline like that, I expected the article that followed would be about tastemaker Breanne’s favorite cocktails or finger food, something along the lines of how to make the powerful Trend editor-in-chief happy when she visited your nightclub or restaurant.
But that’s not what the Prodigal Chef meant by serving Breanne.
The first clue was the large picture below the headline. The chef had cut Breanne’s face out of another picture and plastered it to the body of a plucked chicken. Recipes were posted below it, which included methods of frying, broiling, and roasting “the Breanne” over red-hot coals, among other things. Finally, there were instructions for cutting her up so her parts could be used when other tasty recipes called for something especially bitter. “And, don’t forget,” the rambling blog entry finished, “Breanne Summour makes the perfect tart.”
I turned to Matt. “Who is this guy? Sweeney Todd?”
“His name’s Neville Perry. Look . . .”
Matt clicked on a link that read, “About the Prodigal Chef.” A brief bio popped up. “Two years ago, this guy had some sort of short-lived reality show attached to his restaurant. The place was extremely popular. Then Trend did an exposé. The World Wide Web spread the word, and Perry’s business never recovered.”
I knew—from my own daughter’s recent experience—how cutthroat the New York restaurant industry could be. Still, I doubted a chef who’d publicly expressed hatred for Breanne would hire a sharpshooter to off her. How dim a bulb would you have to be to do that?
“Look, Matt, if the man was savvy enough to open a New York restaurant, I can’t see him stupid enough to advertise himself as a murder suspect—”
Matt opened his mouth to argue, but I quickly added: “On the other hand, I do think we need to tell Soles and Bass about your suspicions. This is pretty disturbing, and we should definitely see what they think.”
“Clare, I’m really freaked about this.”
“I know you are, but listen , even if this killer was after Breanne, this person’s not going to know who was shot for a while. I
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