Is this what he came to say to us in the middle of the night?I’m not sure why he’s here.
“What can we do for you, Chef?”Vinnie asks.
“It’s my friend,” Chef says.“While I was thinking about all of this, I realized something.About him.”
“What’s that?”From Raven.
“Well, he was here recently.”
Vinnie raises his eyebrows.“Was he at your place the night of the sleepover?”
“He left the day before.No—” Chef shakes his head.“Two days before.I drove him to the airport midweek.”
“So he wasn’t there that night,” Raven says.
“Right,” Chef says.“But he was around last week, and if someone had been skulking around the cul-de-sac then, he might have noticed.”
“Did he mention anything like that?”I ask.“Anyone hanging around?Any car parked where it shouldn’t be?”
“No.”Chef spreads his hands.“He said what I told you, that it was quiet.Almost too quiet.He teased that he needed city noise to fall asleep.”
“Where’s he from?”Vinnie asks.
“That’s what I’m getting at,” Chef says.“He and I met at the Worldchefs Congress years ago.You go to these things and make small talk, sure, but sometimes you meet someone you can talk to for hours.He and I bonded over chocolate.South American varietals, fermentation profiles—the geeky stuff.”
My stomach churns.South American chocolate.Is this going where I think it’s going?
“We kept in touch,” Chef goes on.“We try to visit each other every other year, trade kitchens, so to speak.This was my turn to host.”
“Where does he live?”I ask.My heart ratchets up a notch.The girls in my head blur.My father’s office blurs.Even the thought of Belinda fades for a second.
Chef inhales.“In Colombia.”
I drag in a deep breath.“What’s his name?”
“That’s what I thought might be important,” Chef says.“Maybe you know him.You’re from Colombia.”
“What’s his name?”I ask again.My pulse is a drum.
Chef lifts his palms.“American name, strangely.I never asked why.I assumed his father was American, married a local woman, stayed in-country.You find histories like that in our industry.People move, and kitchens move with them.”
Raven shifts.Vinnie goes still as a guard dog who’s picked up a scent.
“What’s his name?”I say a third time.
But I already know.
Chef came back for a reason, because of something he didn’t think about until he started linking everything together.
In the space between my question and his answer, a dozen images flood my brain—stainless-steel countertops, a knife with a sapphire handle, a hand on the back of my neck, a thick and smelly cock burning down my throat.
“Gordon Brown.”
The room shrinks.
The buzzing rush in my ears gets so loud I almost miss the rest of what he’s saying.
Gordon Brown.
