Read Chef Maurice and the Wrath of Grapes (Chef Maurice Culinary Mysteries Book 2) for Free Online Page A

currently, with her fingers numb and her toes having cut off communications several hours ago, she was mostly looking forward to the fire.
    She knocked on Le Cochon Rouge’s back door and stepped inside to be met with a rather odd scene.
    Alf was crouched under the main kitchen workbench, clutching a tea towel, while Patrick paced back and forth. He always looked so good, thought PC Lucy, when he had that darkly serious, knitted-brow look going on . . .
    “Is something wrong?”
    Alf pointed an unsteady finger towards the dining room. “He’s got a gun. A gun! You gotta go save chef!”
    PC Lucy peered under the table for a moment into Alf’s unfocused eyes, then looked up at Patrick.
    “Has he been drinking?”
    “All night. He’s been testing the mulled wine recipes.”
    “Ah, well that explains that. He’s drunk as a skunk. What’s this about a gun?”
    Alf clutched at her leg. “He’s gonna shoot chef!”
    PC Lucy looked at Patrick again. “Is he?”
    “I don’t know, I didn’t see any gun. Alf went looking through one of the customers’ briefcase when he went outside to take a call. Yes, I know,” he added, seeing her appalled expression, “but anyway, I stalled the guy at the door and got Alf back here to the kitchen.”
    “And what’s all this about shooting Maurice? I know he rubs people up the wrong way sometimes, but it’s a bit of an overreaction, no matter what he’s done this time.”
    “I don’t think he’s done anything,” said Patrick, rubbing his forehead. “And the guy did seem weirdly interested when we tried to give chef a call up at Bourne Hall.”
    “He wanted to talk to him?”
    “I don’t know, the line was down. We told him that, and he dashed out to make a call.”
    “Hmm. Odd.”
    PC Lucy stuck her head into the main dining room to get a look at the lone visitor. If he was going for the hired-killer look he was doing a good job of it, she thought. Black jacket, black polo neck, black jeans, black boots. Close-cropped white-blond hair. He was staring intently at his watch, as if waiting for it to explode.
    He looked up at her, and she ducked back into the kitchens.
    “Well, he’s not doing anything particularly suspicious. Apart from sitting in a restaurant on the coldest night of the year with a snowstorm blowing outside. Is he stuck here?”
    Patrick shook his head. “He kept refusing to let me call him a taxi. Can you at least, uh, go out and search his briefcase?”
    “Patrick, I can’t just randomly search members of the public for no good reason. Not without ‘reasonable grounds’, and I’m afraid Alf really doesn’t qualify at this point.”
    Alf tugged on her trouser leg. “But what about chef?”
    PC Lucy sighed. “Okay, I’ll go have a word with your mysterious stranger, find out what he’s waiting for, make sure he’s got a home to go to. Maybe he’s been stood up for a date or something.”
    Unlikely, she added to herself. Who’d stand up a man with a jawline like that?
    She shrugged out of her parka and pulled off the bobble hat—not a good look when aiming to command authority—and headed into the dining room.
    It was empty.
    “He’s gone,” she said, returning to the kitchens.
    “What?” said Patrick and Alf in unison.
    Rather than relief, both their faces registered sudden alarm.
    Alf scrambled out from under the table. “He’s gone after chef!”
    “Do you really think he’s gone to look for Maurice?” said PC Lucy to Patrick.
    “I got the impression he was more interested in Bourne Hall. Like he was trying to get hold of someone there and couldn’t.”
    Alf had run out into the backyard and was pointing into the distance. PC Lucy and Patrick followed him, trudging through the knee-deep snow. In the field behind the restaurant, picked out by the faint moonlight, was a tall dark figure trekking steadily across the whiteness.
    “We’ve gotta follow him! That’s the way to Bourne Hall!”
    PC Lucy and Patrick shared a