Page 33 of Holiday Cheese and Capers
“And they wouldn’t use your smash-and-grab, leave-evidence-everywhere approach, either.”
They glared at each other.
“Of course,” Bayard said after a moment, “atrulyclever saboteur might think outside the box entirely. Train mice to nibble only on certain molds. Or enchant the cheese to emit a frequency that disrupts thePenicilliumgrowth cycle.” He raised his eyebrows and cast her a sidelong glance, waiting to hear her retort. It was all he could do not to grin when she took the bait.
Exandra’s lips twitched. “Train mice? That’sabsurd,Bay!”
“You have a better absurd idea, Exxie?”
“Obviously. Convince the cows to produce milk with slightly altered fat content. That changes the entire texture from the source. Nearly impossible to trace.”
“Cows don’t negotiate with humans,” Bayard dismissed.
“Not with that attitude they don’t.”
“What about,” Bayard said, warming to the turn of the tide in their banter, “enchanting the aging rooms to play classical music that the mold doesn’t like? Studies show that bacteria are very sensitive to certain sound frequencies. Country music, for instance?—”
“So your grand plan is to annoy the cheese into quitting?”
“It’s theoretical!” Bayard cried.
“It’s ridiculous. What about training birds to flap their wings and scatter the mold spores before they can take hold?” Exandra suggested.
“Training birds? How would they even get inside the production facility? And you criticized my mice…” Bayard snorted.
“Birds are smarter than mice.”
“That is factually incorrect and you know it,” Bayard argued. They’d moved even further from the group now, almost hidden behind a large aging rack.
Nearby, Minerva had positioned herself and Zephyr where they could eavesdrop without being obvious about it.
“You know,” Exandra said, her voice dropping, “if we’d worked together in the field, we might have been unstoppable.”
Bayard went still. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that maybe if I’d been less reckless and you’d been less cautious, we might have found a balance working together. Instead of one person charging ahead and the other person getting—” She stopped herself.
“Getting hurt?” Bayard’s voice was tight. “You can say it, Exandra. Getting crippled. Getting benched. Getting relegated to desk work because I couldn’t keep up.”
“That’s not what I?—”
“Isn’t it? After my accident, you went on to become one of the Society’s best agents. And I became the person who answers the phone.”
“That wasn’t your fault. You didn’t have any other choice,” Exandra said, a hint of desperation in her voice. “Besides, you said you preferred research.”
“What else was I supposed to say? That watching you leave for missions without me was torture? That I felt like half a man?’“ He laughed bitterly. “That would have been pathetic.”
“It wouldn’t have been?—”
“Anyway,” Bayard said, cutting her off, “we’re discussing theoretical sabotage, aren’t we? Not ancient history. There’s no point in rehashing things that can’t be undone, no matter how much we might wish otherwise.”
Exandra looked like she’d been slapped. “Bayard?—”
“Come along,” he said, his voice suddenly formal. “I think Margot is about to show us where they age the cheese. We shouldn’t miss it.”
He walked away, leaning heavily on his cane, leaving Exandra standing alone among the cheese wheels.
Minerva watched Exandra’s face crumple for just a moment before the mask slipped back into place.
