Chapter 11
Amelie stood. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.
” She ran to her bedroom, to the only antique she’d kept from her parents’ estate, a cabinet they’d called a commode with the door on the front that could be locked with a key.
The key had been lost long ago, and the door remained unlocked.
She used it to store throw blankets. The drawer above the door opened by pushing in.
A spring engaged, and the drawer popped open.
She reached inside, pressed a hidden button and a hidden drawer popped out.
Lying in a plastic bag with several silica gel packets was the recipe book that had belonged to Armand and his parents before him.
She pulled it out of the bag, carried it into the living room and laid it on the table beside the photographs.
Luis ran his hand over the worn leather binding. “Is that my father’s recipe book?”
Amelie nodded. “He gave it to me the night before he died and told me to keep it safe. It had all the recipes he and his parents had created through the years.”
Luis nodded. “Makes sense that he gave it to you.” He glanced up, his lips twisting. “You were his protégé. I was still an angry kid.”
“Is there a Soufflé au Fromage recipe in that book?” Maurice asked.
Amelie nodded and turned the pages until she reached the Soufflé au Fromage recipe she’d made on numerous occasions in Paris.
“Did you find it?” Swede asked, reminding Amelie that he was still on speaker.
“She did,” Maurice responded.
Amelie stared at the page, noting the strange use of capital letters in the middle of words or oddly bolded letters throughout the list of ingredients and instructions. She wrote down all the letters and some numbers that stood out on the pad, then sat back.
Maurice came to kneel on the floor beside her. “NTH. That could stand for north.”
Amelie underlined the next word. “CLIMB.”
Luis ran his finger beneath the next word. “PASS.”
“VBWWALL?” Amelie shook her head. “I see WALL, but what does VBW mean?”
Maurice pointed to the next word. “That’s FIND.”
“US.” Amelie underlined the two letters and then the next word. “THERE.”
“What I’m hearing are the words north, climb, pass, VBW, wall, find, us, and there,” Swede said.
Amelie stared at the words, checked the recipe, and flipped to the next page, where the words didn’t have the weird capitalization and bolded letters. “That’s it.”
“If that’s the clue, we’re no closer to locating anything,” Maurice said.
“Sounds like instructions once you get somewhere,” Swede said.
“But where?” Luis asked.
“There has to be another clue to get us wherever there is,” Maurice said.
“Let me know if you discover anything else,” Swede said. “In the meantime, I need to get home to my wife.”
“Thanks, Swede,” Maurice said. “You’ve been a big help.”
“Wish I could be even more help. We’re not there yet,” Swede said.
Amelie sighed. “But we’re getting closer.”
After Swede ended the call, Amelie thumbed through the recipe book but didn’t find anything else that jumped out.
When her phone pinged, she looked up. “That’s the surveillance system.” She reached for her phone and brought up the camera views. “Pizza’s here.”
Maurice hurried out and down the stairs to collect the pizza.
They spent the next hour eating pizza, drinking beer and going over the words until they agreed to sleep on it and try again in the morning.
Mentally and physically exhausted, Amelie tossed a pillow and a blanket on the couch for Luis. “I’m going to get my shower and go to bed.”
“I’m pretty tired myself,” Luis said.
“You want to use the bathroom before I tie it up?” she asked.
“Yeah. That beer went right through me.” Luis walked through her bedroom into the bathroom and closed the door.
Maurice pulled her into his arms and kissed her briefly. “I can sleep downstairs in the bakery or on the floor in here.”
“That’s sweet of you,” she said. “But no. You’re sleeping with me. That is, if you still want to.”
“That’s a hell yeah.” He chuckled and kissed her again. “What about Luis?”
Amelie grimaced. “The walls are thin.”
Maurice nodded. “We’ll postpone any mattress gymnastics while he’s here. But I’d like a raincheck.”
“You got it.” She cupped his cheek. “You really are special, you know that?”
“I think I’ll take that as a compliment.” He winked and stepped away as the bathroom door opened and Luis emerged.
“It’s all yours,” Luis said and flopped on the couch.
“Goodnight, Luis,” Amelie said. She grabbed Maurice’s hand and dragged him into the room with her, closing the door behind her.
“Think he noticed?” Maurice whispered with a teasing grin.
“Yes, I noticed,” Luis called out from the other room. “I’m not a kid. What you do in your own bedroom is not my business. Just keep it down. Some of us don’t have a significant other at this time.”
Amelie laughed and whispered very softly in Maurice’s ear. “The shower will drown out some noise.” She reached for the condom between her breasts and held it up. Then she walked backward into the bathroom.
Maurice followed.
After making love in the shower, Maurice spooned Amelie’s naked body as she fell asleep. For him, sleep didn’t come easily. Breaking the code of the numbers on the watch was just the beginning. Where else would they find the rest of the clues?
They were on the right track. They just didn’t know where it was headed.
Armand had left so little behind. Had Luis donated a critical item that contained the rest of the clues leading to the location of the Monet?
Maurice stared up at the ceiling well into the night, making no headway on discovering anything of use or a new angle to pursue.
He must have fallen asleep, because the next thing he knew, Amelie’s alarm went off.
She silenced it quickly and started to ease out of the bed.
Maurice’s arm tightened around her long enough to steal a kiss.
She sighed and kissed him back. “You’re a bad influence,” she whispered.
“How so?”
“This is the first time since I opened the bakery that I haven’t wanted to get up and go to work.”
“Hmmm. I’d say that’s the best kind of bad,” he said and nuzzled her neck.
“It is.” Amelie draped her leg over his and rubbed her sex against his thigh. “How quiet can we be?”
“Instead of hard and fast, we could aim for slow and sensuous,” he suggested.
Amelie reached into the nightstand. “I have to be downstairs in fifteen minutes. Let’s do this.”
Slow and sensuous proved to be as good as hard and fast. It just took a lot more control. But it was worth it.
They were fully dressed and tiptoeing out the door with a minute to spare.
Luis didn’t budge from his position sprawled across the couch, sound asleep with his mouth open.
Maurice paused on his way past the coffee table and picked up the watch, the recipe book and the photos. He was convinced they were missing something.
While Amelie was busy baking, he’d give it another shot.
In between helping Amelie move trays of dough from the refrigerator into the ovens and out of the ovens to cooling racks, Maurice drank coffee and studied the photos, the watch and the recipe book.
Several times, Amelie would stop in passing and look over his shoulder for a few moments before a timer beeped and she was back at it. By the time the freshly baked pastries and bread were glazed, sprinkled and filled with cream, the sun had begun to rise.
Maurice moved the photos from the kitchen to the counter behind the display case and laid the watch beside them.
The watch still showed one o’clock. Maurice snorted. What good was a watch that didn’t work? It would only ever be right twice a day.
Amelie passed him on her way to flip the sign on the door from closed to open. She came to stand beside him and looked at the watch.
“Isn’t it strange that Armand kept that watch his father gave him for all those years and never got it fixed?” She shook her head. “It’s been one o’clock for decades.”
“Why wouldn’t he get it fixed?”
She shrugged. “Never had the time?”
“The man worked in a restaurant,” Maurice pointed out. “Did they serve breakfast?”
Amelie shook her head. “No.”
“What time did he go to work?”
“Between nine and ten each day,” she said. “It allowed him to sleep in after being up late the night before but gave him enough time to prepare for the lunch crowd.”
“Surely, he could’ve taken the time in the morning to drop the watch off to have it repaired.”
“I offered to drop it off for him.” Amelie’s eyes narrowed. “He said his father had given it to him like that, and he had no intention of changing it.”
Maurice studied the watch again, picked it up, turned it over and laid it down next to the photo of Germaine and Celine standing in front of the St. Louis Cathedral with its three steeples and the clock in the middle.
“Holy shit,” Maurice said and then laughed out loud. “That’s it.”
Amelie moved closer and looked down at the photo. “What’s it?”
“It was right there all this time, and we just didn’t see it.”
Amelie’s brow puckered. “What didn’t we see?”
“Armand refused to fix the watch.”
“So?”
“What time is it stuck on?” he asked.
“One o’clock.” Amelie looked from the watch back to the photo. Her eyes widened. “I’ll be damned. The clock on the cathedral was photographed at one o’clock.” She looked up. “Is that the clue?”
“It has to be,” Maurice picked up the photo. “That’s the where we were looking for. Don’t you see? Either the painting is hidden in the cathedral, or it’s where we’ll find another clue. We need to get to New Orleans.”
“I can’t leave the bakery. Not now.” She nodded toward the vehicle pulling into the parking space out front. “I have customers. Besides, the cathedral doesn’t open this early.”
Maurice pulled out his phone and looked up the St. Louis Cathedral’s hours of operation. “It opens at nine o’clock. If you can’t get away, I could have one of the guys come here to take over your protection while I run to New Orleans to see if I can find the location indicated in the clue.”