Tonya pressed her back to the closed bedroom door and slid to the floor. Her hands were still shaking from the confrontation with Imani. If Philip’s wife made good on her promises, everything Tonya had feared and more would come to pass. The world would know that she’d slept with Nate in hopes of landing parts in his movies. At best, Layla’s classmates and parents would think her mom a sort of escort, willing to trade her body for opportunity and fame rather than money. At worst, they’d believe her a homewrecker who’d murdered a man after she’d grown sick of him denying her child.
She grabbed her suitcase from the closet, tossed it atop the bed, and pulled the zipper. The top flopped open. Frantically, she turned her attention to the dresser, yanking drawers free and gathering the contents in her arms. If she left, maybe Imani would keep quiet. Deep down, Philip’s wife had to realize that her theory of Nate’s murder was baseless. She had to know that the worst Tonya had done was have sex with a married man.
Tonya dumped a load of clothes into the bag and then stopped. The truth didn’t matter to Imani, she realized. The woman was trying to create reasonable doubt for her friend. Whether Tonya left or not wouldn’t stop her from offering police another explanation of the crime to explore. The truth wasn’t the point. Imani only cared about providing cover for Melissa.
Tonya rubbed her hands quickly over her face, using the friction to force herself to focus. If leaving wouldn’t help, perhaps appealing to Philip would. He couldn’t believe his wife’s crazy hypothesis. He knew her. Respected her, even. He would listen to reason.
Or bargaining.
Philip had killed his father. Tonya was nearly sure of it. In fancy restaurants, the garde-manger oversaw all the cold food: chilled soups, caviars, salads, smoked fish, and pâtés. He would have known if his father’s chicken liver had been fattened with peanut butter. He would have been the one to introduce the secret ingredient.
As much as Tonya liked Philip, she knew that he was prone to bursts of anger. She’d witnessed several in the time that she’d known him. And he’d indicated that his father had been physically abusive. Perhaps he’d added a bit of his dad’s allergen in hopes of making the man too sick and tired to start an argument later. Or maybe he’d decided that he’d had enough and wanted to inflict similar pain.
Tonya grabbed her coat off the bed where she’d thrown it earlier. She slipped an arm into a sleeve. With luck, she could catch Philip before the chefs started arriving to prep for the dinner service. As Imani would say, they could have a discussion.
* * *
The staff entrance was dark. Tonya passed through anyway, sliding her hands along the brick made oleaginous by aerosolized cooking oils. There would be a light switch somewhere within the first few feet. Chefs did not want to stumble into a dark kitchen on a daily basis.
As Tonya felt her way along the wall, she heard metallic taps coming from somewhere overhead. The pings sounded every few seconds, too steady to be random, not timed perfectly enough to be mechanical. Melting snow, maybe. Tonya supposed water could be seeping through the building’s roof and striking the ceiling pipes.
Finally, the tip of her finger snagged a different surface, smoother and more worn than the brick. Plastic, if she hazarded a guess. She pressed the bottom of the tab and braced herself.
Pot lights flickered on. Some of them were missing, Tonya realized. Several of the ceiling bulbs, including the one directly above her head, remained dark despite the fluorescent glow of their neighbors. It was dangerous to have burned-out bulbs in a kitchen. Chefs could cut themselves. She should tell Philip.
Thinking about her boss brought the reason that she’d come to the forefront of her mind. She would ask Philip to talk Imani down, explain that his wife’s grief over her friend’s actions had led her to develop insane theories. She’d ask him to let her remain in his home until her unemployment checks arrived and it became possible to rent elsewhere. If he said no, she’d bring up her own suspicions about his parents and subtly suggest that no one need know about ancient family history, providing that he help her for a few months.
He’d take the deal, she figured. Every other man in her life had been willing to pay for her silence. And she wasn’t even asking for money in this instance. She was simply buying time.
Tonya passed the mop basin and stepped into the kitchen. The stainless-steel countertops gleamed under the lights, a cloud-covered ocean waiting for the storm to come, the frenzy of blades and bodies, flames and animal flesh.
“Philip?”
Her own voice echoed back to her. He had to be here, Tonya thought. The world was shut down. There was nowhere to go but home, and Philip truly lived inside Banque Gauche’s kitchen.
She removed her coat and hung it on one of the hooks for staff garments. “Philip,” she called out again, advancing farther into the space. “It’s Tonya. Can we talk?”
The dull thud of a heavy door closing answered. The clicking of metal gears responded to it, a conversation between machines. Similar sounds had emanated from the dining room the prior day. They hadn’t come from the restaurant’s front entrance, Tonya realized. That was secured by an electronic dead bolt that slammed into place.
The only other door in the dining room was Coffre’s closed vault. But there was no reason for anyone to open it. The short-lived restaurant had been gutted months ago. Would Philip go inside simply for nostalgia’s sake?
Footsteps followed the noises. Tonya sidled up to the butcher block with the house knives. She didn’t plan on needing them. But blocking access to sharp objects was never a bad idea when confronting someone with an unpleasant proposition.
Philip strode into the room. His uncovered face was flushed as if he’d done something that required some amount of physical exertion. Tonya pulled down her own mask.
He frowned as he saw her face. “Tonya.” The name sounded like an epithet followed by a “you.”
“Hi. I know I’m early. Can I talk to you for a moment?”
Philip resumed his advance into the kitchen. “I have to prep for dinner service.”
Tonya wanted to quip that Philip had people for that. Chefs who earned far less than he did made sure that all the ingredients for the following night’s meals were chopped and stored in airtight Tupperware before the major cooking even began. But she stopped herself from disagreeing. He was trying to avoid speaking to her, probably because he’d known of Imani’s theories before she’d voiced them. Picking a fight over a silly excuse would only push him to further side with his wife.
“Imani spoke with me a few hours ago regarding her concerns about me and Layla temporarily living with you all. She seems to be under the impression that Nate and I had an affair and that letting me stay there would be a betrayal of her friendship with Melissa.”
Philip stopped mere feet from her, too close for comfort during a pandemic. She interpreted the proximity as a signal to continue.
“As I told Imani, I didn’t have a relationship with Nate.” She sighed. “I know you two are friends, and I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but because there’s clearly some misinformation going around, I feel the need to tell you what happened.”
Philip’s blue eyes zeroed in on her face, lasers trying to read the information off of a disc. The direct stare wasn’t simply giving her permission to continue, Tonya realized. It was challenging her to prove that she didn’t deserve forcible removal from his home.
“I auditioned for Nate Walker. He asked me to do things that made me very uncomfortable.” Tonya looked away from Philip’s clinical gaze. “I did many of these things anyway because I wanted a chance at being in one of his films. I guess I figured, in for a penny, in for a pound, you know?”
She forced a chuckle. The sound came out strangled, a desperate gasp rather than a guffaw.
“Anyway, what happened would have been embarrassing to both of us if it came out, but especially to Nate since he was married. As a kind of consolation prize, he wrote Layla a recommendation for school and agreed to put money toward her tuition.”
Philip’s stare turned cold. “Is Nate Layla’s father?”
Part of Tonya wanted to answer, to let the room reverberate with Layla’s dad’s real name like charged air after a thunderclap. But she couldn’t. The man’s identity was worth three hundred thousand dollars and then some.
“It’s not important,” she said.
“Does anyone know who he is?”
Tonya shook her head. “No.”
“Who does Layla think he is?”
Tonya shrugged. “Until recently, she thought he was a sperm donor.”
“What does she think now?”
A bitter snort escaped her as Tonya considered the question and realized the horrible, likely answer. “I haven’t told her the truth. However, I recently learned that she was taking Nate’s writing class and didn’t tell me. Given that he was paying for her schooling and other folks know about it, she probably thinks it’s him.”
Philip was on top of her before Tonya could react. He grabbed an arm and spun her around. She tried to reach for the knife block with her free hand. But he pinned both her arms behind her shoulder blades before she could do anything but scratch air.
“What are you doing?” Tonya screeched. “You can’t think that I killed Nate too.”
“No. But I think the police might.”
Tonya pulled forward. “What are you saying?”
Philip yanked her arms, jerking her backward. Something sharp pressed against her spine. She felt a wetness trickle toward her behind. “Walk,” Philip instructed.
Tonya did as told. If she stopped, the sharp point against her lumbar section might sink deeper into her skin, preventing her from ever walking again. “I don’t understand,” she said, continuing to march in a straight line as Philip steered her with rough pulls of her held hands. “Why are you doing this?”
“You had an affair with Nate for years, Tonya. You had a child with him. You’d hoped he’d leave his wife.”
“That’s not true.”
The knifepoint slid down her spine. She felt her long-sleeved top part in the back, chicken skin separating from the meat. “When he didn’t, you two got into an argument. You shot him.”
“I didn’t.”
The knife pricked her back. He pulled her pinned arms to the left, guiding her out of the kitchen and into the main dining room. She slowed her walk as she realized where they were heading—Coffre.
“Philip, please.” The knifepoint pierced her flesh, hushing her pleas. She gasped for air.
“Don’t stop walking,” Philip whispered in her ear.
She picked up her pace. “I didn’t do what Imani said. You have to believe me.”
“Then his wife came down,” Philip continued. “And you know what you did then?”
The tone in which he posed the question turned it into a joke. He wasn’t asking. He was setting up a punch line. Philip didn’t believe she’d killed Nate, Tonya realized. In fact, he knew she hadn’t.
Because he had.
“You won’t be able to pin this on me,” Tonya yelled. “The police will realize that Nate invested in your restaurant.”
Philip yanked her in front of Coffre’s closed vault door. The grip on her hands relaxed. “Turn the wheel and open it.”
Tonya stepped to the side, opting to make a run for it instead. A slash to her oblique changed her mind. Instinctively, her hand went to hold together her severed flesh. Hot blood poured through her fingers.
“Do it!” Philip roared.
Tonya turned the wheel. She knew that he intended to lock her inside, but she’d at least be alive in there. If she tried to run, he’d cut her into pieces.
Tonya’s hands shook as she gripped the wheel. She slowly rotated it. “The cops won’t believe I’m responsible.” Her voice was small and squeaky. Fear had wrapped around her throat like a boa constrictor. “They’ll realize what happened to your parents—that special pâté that you made for your father. They’ll figure out you killed him.”
If Philip reacted to her accusation, Tonya didn’t hear it. Metal pins popped from their locks. She felt the blade at the base of her back. “Open it,” he said.
Tonya closed her eyes and pulled on the wheel. The door inched back. As it did, a rush of hot liquid dribbled onto her thigh. Her exertion was speeding up the bleeding.
Philip pressed the blade into her back as he grabbed the wheel and pulled. The door retracted another foot. A new force slammed into both her shoulder blades. She stumbled forward, tripping over the lip of the vault door.
Her knees crashed into the hardwood floor. “Philip, please!”
The dull thud of the door answered her cry. She flung herself at it, releasing a fresh wave of blood down her side. “Don’t do this!” she screamed into the void enveloping her. “Philip. No! Please!”
A scratching noise sounded behind her. Something moved in this darkness, Tonya realized. She was not alone.