Page 13 of Scripted for Love and Poison (Sol and Luke Mystery #2)
W hile Sol was having a not necessarily comfortable conversation with filmmaker Victor Lago, Luke was making his way to the offices and central kitchens of the catering company that had provided the food at the event on Sunday evening, where critic Travis Wise had ended up poisoned.
Before Luke left Sol’s friends’ house that morning, Alex—Lola’s precocious thirteen-year-old kid—had warned Luke that the catering company was in an extremely inconvenient part of town.
Luke, once again, didn’t know what to make of that information. So far, he’d had to take a car there like everywhere else, the traffic had been atrocious like every other time since landing in California, and absolutely nothing in the landscape of that urban sprawl reminded him of an actual city.
He still wasn’t sure whether he hated Los Angeles solely because of its complete lack of convenience and traditional urban planning, or because the trip had started morphing into a nightmare from hell .
Luke was now not only still jet-lagged and tired, but also extremely irritated.
He missed Sol. Even though they’d spent more time together than usual over the past few days, it hadn’t been quality time.
He was starting to really resent the lack of verbal—and sexual—communication with her.
He just hoped they’d be able to fix that before their return to London—mainly because there was no date in sight for said travel back.
Throughout his late twenties and early thirties, he had a recurring nightmare in which he waited in a nondescript airport terminal and was denied boarding a London-bound flight every single time he tried leaving.
He felt he was now living through that scenario.
Only here there was no chance of waking up and finding himself comfortably abed in his London studio flat.
“Can I help you?” An attractive woman in her thirties, dressed in a pristinely white chef’s jacket, took Luke out of his thoughts when he entered the offices of the catering company.
“I’m looking for Chef Gill García,” Luke said.
“Then you’re in luck, because you found her,” the woman told him with a smile.
“I’m Luke Contadino,” he said, extending his hand and not knowing if the famously germophobic Americans still practiced that manner of formal greeting post-pandemic.
There was a reason Luke didn’t like working outside of London—not mastering the behavioral code of the place made his job harder.
“I called earlier. I’m investigating the incident at the awards ceremony. ”
“Ah, the alleged poisoning,” Gill said, taking his extended hand in a firm, warm handshake and giving him an appraising look he was almost tempted to interpret as seductive .
“The alleged poisoning,” Luke conceded.
“The police have called me about it,” Gill said. “But they definitely didn’t sound as sexy as you.”
Alright, perhaps working outside of London had some advantages. He had found exactly zero people there more willing to talk to him just because of how he sounded.
“I can talk to you now, if you follow me to the kitchen and promise to give me your honest opinion.” Gill quirked an eyebrow. “I’m testing a new spinach and artichoke appetizer and need fresh taste buds.”
“Sounds promising,” he said and followed Chef Gill García to the interior of an industrial kitchen, where at least half a dozen other cooks were already hard at work.
“Were you working at the venue on the night of the awards, or is your job done beforehand?” Luke asked Gill as she served three small glasses of fragrant, chilled, creamy green soup from three different containers on top of the kitchen counter.
“We did a lot of work before, but I was there that night,” Gill said. “Try this one first,” she added, pointing at the slightly paler of the three glasses.
“And you oversaw each one of the dishes being served?” Luke realized he had somehow agreed to try the food cooked by a person of interest and potential poisoner.
That would have never happened to him in London.
He’d be fully awake and alert if they were in his hometown.
He wouldn’t have slept on a half-deflated mattress in the middle of a too-bright living room if they were in London.
What was he thinking when he’d taken this job?
Right, he was broke.
“Relax, I’ll also have a taste of that,” Chef Gill said, as if reading his mind, ladling some of the same soup into a small glass for herself.
“And no, obviously I didn’t oversee all sixteen hundred plates being served.
I had a team of ten cooks and an army of waiters working there with me that night. ” She sipped delicately from the glass.
Any of them could have tampered with the food.
“Creamy,” he offered after tasting the subtle notes of artichoke but no spinach in the soup.
Chef García made a note in a big notebook, and Luke couldn’t avoid thinking he should be the one taking notes.
And yet he’d completely forgotten about packing the most basic tools in his profession.
In his defense, not in his wildest dreams had he imagined he’d have a case to solve and notes to take in Los Angeles.
“What about this one?” the chef asked about the greener of the soups. She also tasted it.
“Too much celery,” Luke offered after just one sip. “But it could be just me. Not a fan of celery.”
“Such a pity. You were showing so much potential,” Gill said with a slow, knowing grin.
“And there’s something else there, but I can’t place it,” he said, taking another sip and not minding the celery this second time around.
Gill gave him a teasing glance. “Secret ingredient, but I’d be willing to reveal it if you ask nicely.”
Luke ignored Gill’s insinuating gesture. “Any chance you know who in your team plated and served the food for Travis Wise?”
“Is that the dude who got allegedly poisoned? Nobody tells me anything around here,” Gill said, and Luke couldn’t help but feel the chef was extremely relaxed, considering she was being interviewed by a private detective and her reputation could be on the line.
What chef wants to be associated with food intoxication?
“It is.” He confirmed Travis’s identity, which had been all over the news, as the event had been packed with journalists. So Chef García’s not knowing about it rang a bit improbable.
“You wouldn’t happen to know where he was sitting, right?” Gill said as she unlocked her cell phone and started looking for something.
“I do because I was also there. Table 13.”
“You were, huh? Fancy party you were attending.” Gill continued searching her phone, her tone laced with flirtatiousness.
“I was there with my partner. She’s a member,” Luke felt compelled to say.
He had flirted his way out of many interviews before in the name of making progress and getting information but didn’t feel like that would be the right approach with this particular subject.
For one, the chef was too willing to charm him, and he didn’t buy it.
“You are too hot to be off-limits. Tell me you’re not exclusive,” Gill continued, and even if Luke felt flattered, he couldn’t fully believe the overtness of the chef. Could she be concealing something from him, opting for such a distracting technique?
“Very much exclusive,” he said, the smile not quite reaching his eyes as he tried deciphering the woman in front of him and deciding whether she was hiding something and why.
“Try the third one while I find this,” Gill said, and Luke took a shot at the third glass of soup, the tastier by far and also bearing notes of something he couldn’t quite place. “It looks like I took care of table 13 personally and Travis Wise’s food in particular. As he reported a nut allergy.”
“You’re sure?” Luke said.
“It says so in the schedule for the day. And I always oversee personally all the food allergies,” Gill said. Luke felt grateful she was finally answering questions and not trying to divert.
“And you don’t recall lacing Travis Wise’s food with a few drops of cyanide?” Luke asked, his most seductive smile now at play.
“I don’t.” Gill returned his gesture. Did he believe her?
“Who else could have touched the food that night?” Luke asked.
“From my team, you mean? Because anyone could have tampered with that food once it was placed on table 13. It looks like Travis didn’t start eating until two hours into the ceremony, and we served it before it started. So there was plenty of opportunity for others to touch the food.”
“I’m aware,” said Luke, and he was. “But how do you know Travis didn’t start eating until late in the ceremony?”
“Every adept whodunit fan out there knows cyanide poisoning symptoms occur within minutes of ingestion,” Gill said, smiling, and Luke preferred not to pry. “But you can talk to Vinny.”
“Vinny?” Luke finished the last of the soup from the third glass. “And this is definitely the winner for me.”
“I noticed you didn’t finish the other two,” Gill said. “Vinny Green. He was the waiter in charge of serving table 13. I’ll give you his contact details as he isn’t working today.”
“That would be great, thanks so much,” Luke said. “But why am I feeling suddenly light-headed?”