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Everyone answered no immediately as they shook their heads. “That’s messed up, Chef,” Malick said.
Tobias, who had taken over Ricardo’s position, frowned. “I can’t believe he did that to you because he wanted your job. I’m glad you smacked him. If you hadn’t, I would have slugged him.”
“Yeah, that wasn’t right,” Ben called out. “ I can’t believe he hurt people to make you look bad.”
A few others voiced their thoughts, and I felt a little better knowing that they all disapproved of what he had done.
The meals were done, and we were starting our cleanup for the night when there was another bang at the back door, and I sighed. “Good god! What now?” I muttered and then raised my voice. “David, will you get that?” I called over my shoulder as I prepared to break my station down.
“Got it, Chef!” He opened the door, and I expected police to come rushing through again, but no one did. Instead, Dave stood at the back door for a moment, talking to someone. He glanced toward me, grinned, and then spoke to someone before he took something from them and closed the door.
I didn’t see what was in his hand, and he held it behind his back until he reached me. “Chef, you have a delivery,” he said as he attempted to hide a smile as he held an envelope out.
It looked strangely familiar, and as I took it, my heart fluttered nervously. I pulled the card out, and the original words that were written were scratched out with new ones written under it. “May I have this dance, Ali Davidson?”
My eyes snapped to the back door, and before I even consciously knew what to do, I was moving toward the door, shrugging out of my chef’s coat as I went.
I threw open the door, expecting to see Harvey standing there, but instead, there was no one. Well, no one that I could see right away. What I did see was a large spotlight pointing at the center of the alley.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Harvey
As much as I wanted to hurry things, I didn’t dare. If everything went as I hoped, I’d have a lifetime to be with Ali, and two days wouldn’t matter much.
I was preparing to head over to Mike’s when I got a call from him. I hit the speaker. “I was just getting ready to head over.”
“Yeah, well, I think Ali might have something big to celebrate tonight.”
“What’s that?”
“Trevor and I were watching the video in the kitchen tonight, and Trevor noticed one of the guys go into the locker room, then come out, and he was wearing a glove. He approached his station, touched the food, then slipped the glove off and into a baggie before he deposited it into the trash.”
“What was with the glove?”
“I can’t say for sure, but I’m pretty sure he probably had some type of container in his things that held the E. coli bacteria in the locker room, and put it on his gloved hand, touched it to the food, and bam, contaminated it.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“We already did. As soon as we saw it, we called the police and EMS and told them what was going on. They took him into custody, and he admitted he was doing it to get Ali fired so he could have the Head Chef position.”
“Are you kidding me? He was after her job, and that was worth almost killing people?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Mike said. “So, Ali’s probably ready to celebrate.”
“Then I guess this is good timing.” I paused. “That is if she accepts my invitation.”
“She will. I have no doubt. The only problem is going to be that it is raining.”
“I don’t care about a little rain.”
“You sure you don’t want to do it another night?”
“No, I’m ready.” I chuckled. “Actually, the first time I ran into Ali, it was in a rainstorm.”
“Really?”
I proceeded to tell him about it quickly, and then told him I was heading down to the restaurant.
