gala schedule, Gabriel was supposed to sign documents transferring the remaining Pier Twelve property into a new redevelopment partnership.
Once that transaction was complete, the foundation would no longer directly control the site or its surviving archives.
Elise needed the register preserved before then.
Celeste looked up and caught the waitress watching her.
“What?” she snapped.
“Nothing, madame.
Would you like me to explain the menu?”
Celeste gave an exaggerated laugh.
“Explain it? Darling, I doubt you could read it.”
She held up the heavy cream-colored card.
“Gabriel, look at her.
She’s practically frightened of a piece of paper.
She can’t even read the menu.
What kind of establishment hires people like this?”
Conversation faltered at the surrounding tables.
Elise felt heat rise behind her face.
She had heard insults about her uniform and her shoes before, but she had trained herself not to react.
She needed her wages, and her mother needed the money Elise sent home each month.
Tonight, however, her job was no longer the most important thing at risk.
Gabriel looked at her for the first time.
“Can you read it?” he asked.
Elise slowly set down the pitcher.
“Bien entendu, monsieur.”
Her accent changed instantly.
Her words flowed with the precise, natural rhythm of someone who had spoken French since childhood.
“Le turbot rôti au beurre noisette, accompagné de fenouil confit.
Ensuite, la perdrix aux figues et au vin rouge.
Pour terminer, une poire pochée à la vanille.”
She explained the preparation of each course and its ingredients, then offered a brief explanation of the regional culinary traditions that inspired the menu.
Celeste stared at her.
Gabriel’s expression shifted from indifference to genuine interest.
“You speak French,” he said.
“Yes, monsieur.”
“Where did you learn?”
“At home.”
Celeste recovered enough to interrupt.
“Well, congratulations.
Someone taught you a few restaurant phrases.”
Elise met her eyes.
“Actually, madame, I also understood what you told your assistant.”
Celeste’s smile stopped.
Elise repeated the instruction in flawless French, then translated it into English.
“Take the register out of the display case.
Lock the north door before eleven.”
Gabriel turned toward Celeste.
“What register?”
“She’s inventing things,” Celeste answered quickly.
“I was discussing the exhibition arrangements.”
“Then why lock the door?”
“To protect the artifacts, obviously.”
Elise opened her apron notebook and removed a photocopied page.
She placed it on the table beside Gabriel’s folder.
“My father was Luc Fournier.
He died at Pier Twelve.
On his last inspection sheet, he recorded shipment 614 and wrote that the north door had been locked from outside.”
Gabriel looked down.
The numbers were handwritten in dark ink, with several corrections and one carefully circled cargo code.
His face hardened.
“Where did you get this?”
“From his belongings.”
“Are you accusing me of killing your father?”
“I’m asking why the original register was said to have burned when it is upstairs in your foundation’s exhibition.”
For several seconds, no one spoke.
Then Gabriel looked at Celeste.
“Who told you shipment 614 was destroyed?”
Celeste’s fingers closed around her wineglass.
“Gabriel, don’t entertain this.”
But Gabriel was already opening the leather folder.
Inside lay an equipment-release authorization connected to the waterfront redevelopment project.
His signature appeared at the bottom.
Elise leaned forward.
“That shipment was supposed to carry emergency generators for three clinics,”
