Read Drowned Vanilla (Cafe La Femme Book 2) for Free Online

wanted to sound out how I felt about the Annabeth French story, and I wasn’t up for it. I poured him a double espresso every time, and kept moving.
    He got the message too, and stopped asking. It’s good to have people in your life who know when not push.
    The push came after work. I lay on the couch with a book, to the comforting background noise of Ceege clicky clicking. Ceege at least had no interest in probing how I felt about the latest mysterious death in our lives.
    ‘Did you know that more than fifty percent of the desserts sold worldwide contain vanilla?’ I said to him, flicking pages.
    ‘Told you,’ he said without looking up. ‘Everyone loves vanilla.’
    ‘Yeah, yeah.’ The universe was telling me I had to learn to make the perfect vanilla ice cream. Ceege was being unreasonably smug about this. ‘Did you know that ninety-seven percent of vanilla used in food or perfume is actually not real vanilla at all?’
    ‘That must be what gives it that delicious plastic flavour.’
    ‘Philistine.’
    ‘Hey, you’re a chef who doesn’t appreciate vanilla, I don’t think I’m the philistine here. Isn’t that the sort of thing that gets you put in the stocks with people throwing bocconcini at you? Bad enough that time you banned capers and caused the Great Smoked Salmon Riot of 2011.’
    ‘If you ever bothered to look up from your keyboard, you would know I am sticking my tongue out at you.’
    ‘If you were reading my Twitter feed right now you would know how much that hurts my feelings.’
    ‘Did you know vanilla is an orchid?’
    ‘There are no words for how much I do not care. Busy here, Tabs.’
    ‘Busy playing games with your imaginary people! I’m a real person, Ceege, talk to me.’
    ‘My internet peeps are not imaginary.’
    ‘Apart from that guy in Auckland.’
    ‘We promised to never mention that again.’
    ‘You have to put up with my boring you senseless with vanilla trivia,’ I said. ‘You started me on this.’
    ‘I also like chocolate.’
    ‘Shut up.’
    The phone rang and I didn’t even bother suggesting that Ceege could answer it — that would mean moving two metres from his chair that was developing some very intense bum-cheek grooves. ‘Hello?’
    ‘Tabitha.’
    ‘Stewart.’ Apparently we didn’t even say hello to each other any more.
    ‘I’ve bin looking at the archives o’ The Gingerbread House website.’
    All the fun drained out of the evening, just like that. ‘I’m kind of busy…’
    ‘Aye, can ye suspend yer avoidance tactics fer a few minutes?’ he said abruptly. ‘Ye’ll be interested in this.’
    I sighed, returning to the couch and putting my feet up. ‘Okay, fine. Hit me. You have been looking at pictures of a dead nineteen-year-old because…’
    ‘She’s nae dead.’
    Okay, that I wasn’t expecting. ‘Come again?’
    ‘The dead girl in the lake wasnae French Vanilla,’ Stewart said simply.
    Well, fuck.

5
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    ‘You realise you sound ridiculous,’ I said to Stewart, which was something of a relief. Usually I’m the one who sounds ridiculous.
    ‘Check out the site, Tabitha,’ said Stewart. ‘I’m lookin’ at it right now, and there is nae way that French Vanilla is the same girl they pulled from the lake.’
    I blinked. ‘So which one did I talk to?’
    ‘Ye tell me.’
    I was already moving to Ceege, tugging on his T-shirt