Page 82

81

Elin

Parque Nacional, Portugal, October 2021

Isaac’s earlier description was right, Elin thinks, scrolling. For a while, Zeph Dosen was a name . Nothing so obvious as a celebrity chef, touting for publicity on talk shows, social media – but a name, nonetheless.

There are hundreds of reviews of the restaurants he’s worked at, feature pieces, blogs when blogs were a thing. Gossip about who he was and wasn’t dating.

Elin keeps searching, clicking now and then to scan the full articles, but it’s hard to get a proper read on him. Most of the articles are top line, vanilla, analysis of his ‘fiery’ personality, mostly paying lip service to the same story over and over – the sous-chef and his finger, the subsequent restaurant closure.

Nothing that gave a real insight into the person behind the headlines.

She flicks through photos, and most back up her earlier assumption: attractive, but fully aware of his appeal. Elin hovers over a photo of him outside his restaurant. No bandanna, like in most of the photographs, so she can see his entire face .

A new perspective.

Examining it, something catches at the very edge of her mind, an outline of an image. A voice. A face.

Still studying the photo, she tries to hold on to it, but it’s already evaporating.

She continues searching, hoping that the thread of the thought might come back, but only a lingering feeling remains, a frustrating sensation of having let something slip through her fingers.

Scrolling, she finds another series of photographs. Shots from a food festival, with a group of other chefs. Informal shots interspersed with close-ups.

Her gaze alights on an image of him posing in front of a studio kitchen.

Zeph’s arm is casually slung around another chef, his hand loosely sitting on his shoulder. Rings cover his fingers – thumb, forefinger, index – but one in particular draws her gaze.

A silver ring with a bold green stone.

Elin’s pulse quickens as she zooms in, takes in the intricate marbled pattern.

It’s the ring they’d found near the fire at the clearing, a few feet away from Kier’s clothes.