Page 15 of The Hampton Beach Café 6
“We're forgetting someone,” Frances cocked her head to one side as she worked on pushing her thoughts together.
With a moment of clarity that felt like a physical slap to the face, Frances realized that several of the strange occurrences had happened after they had met Lauren Daniels, the art dealer from Boston. The hate comments had spiked after her visits. In fact…Frances whipped out her phone and navigated to one of the trashy gossip blogs she had learned to ignore. Flicking back through the archive of posts, she found a shot of her and Clarkson having a drink with Vincent and Lucinda—though they had cropped the other two out of the frame. That was the day they went out to celebrate a particularly big commission that Lauren Daniels had brought in from some bigshot in New York. Squinting at the photograph, Frances now saw that there was no possible way that it had been taken from outside the bar they had been in. She cast her mind back. Lauren had gotten up from the table to go to the bathroom…
“You know, Lauren Daniels? The art dealer woman you never liked,” Frances said.
“Yes, I remember her. What about her?” Alex asked.
Frances held back a triumphant tone because, after all, they couldn't be sure yet.
“I think it's her,” she said. “Look, she visited here, here, and here.”
With every 'here', Frances laid a red X on the timeline on the whiteboard.
“Plus, this photo that caused a scene with Clarkson's followers was taken at drinks we were all at. She was the only one who left the table alone and was not in it. Look, you can see feet belonging to Lucinda and Vin even though they've cropped the shot to exclude them. Lauren was sitting on the same side as Clarkson and me.”
Alex took the phone and looked closely for the aforementioned feet. He nodded slowly. “You know what, you might just be right.”
“You did always say you thought she was a bit slimy,” Frances said, knocking him gently on the shoulder with the back of her hand.
“I did…what do we do? Call her?”
“Don't need to,” Frances said. “She's coming down this week to talk about the planning for this so-called auction we've been discussing.”
Alex blinked hard, like he had something in his eye.
“Oh…I'd forgotten about that.”
Frances shrugged. “So had I, almost.”
With everything that had been going on, she really had almost forgotten entirely about the auction for Vincent. If Lauren was the spy, though, would that still go ahead?
It felt wrong to do business with her, but it also felt wrong to deprive Vincent of the biggest opportunity he'd had so far in his career…
She was going to have to talk to him. It had to be his decision. After all, Malcolm already knew where she was—what information could Lauren Daniels still be providing him with?
Frances jumped as her phone began to rattle and chime. It was five thirty. Her alarm was going off.
“Oh, look at the time!” she exclaimed.
“We need to start rolling these croissants or they'll over-prove and taste awful,” Alex said. “You want to help me out?”
Doing her best not to let a triumphant grin break across her face, Frances nodded.
“Sure,” she said quietly. “Just tell me where to get started.”
Alex was already preheating the oven on low for the croissant's second rise. “Unwrap the plastic from the top and prep the bench.”
It was really nice to be back in the kitchen with Alex. Even though it wasn’t completely fixed between them, it was a really good start.
TEN
The breakfast rush was always exhilarating, but the end of the season was coming, and the mornings were getting cooler, which meant that the tourists were more motivated than usual to get their hands around a warm cup of coffee. Even though Café Bruno had been busier in the last few months, the customers were pushier and grumpier when they came in.
“Sure thing, extra hot and no sugar,” Frances said to the back of an older man as he walked away, a crumpled ten dollar bill on the counter between them.
“Keep the change,” he barked.
Not a bad tip, considering the coffee was only five dollars.
