Blood Ties in Chef Voleur Read Online Free Page A

from between the pages of the journal and sliding it into her clutch when the lights had gone out.
    Touching the slightly yellowing paper, she wondered if anyone else had noticed its corner sticking out between two pages of the journal. She didn’t think so. When she’ d lifted the journal out of the box she’d instinctively covered the corner with her fingers.
    She wasn’t sure why her first instinct had been to keep its existence secret. She just knew she felt compelled to do so.
    Then the lights had gone out and someone jerked the journal out of her hand. She’d held onto the envelope and her clutch with all her strength as a pair of rough hands pushed her down. She’d stumbled, hit her head and almost passed out, but she hadn’t let go of the envelope. Just as she was slipping it into her clutch, the emergency generator had growled and the lights had come back on. She was pretty sure no one had seen her.
    She should have given it to the police. She should have told her brothers. But for some reason, with the journal gone, she felt as though this letter was hers. Hers and nobody else’s. Not that she knew why she felt that way, or had any inkling of what was inside it.
    She was looking at the back, with its sealed but crumbling flap. She turned it over and her heart gave a little leap. There was her name, written in the distinctive and utterly beautiful, yet almost impossible to decipher, lovely handwriting of her grandmother, Lilibelle Guillame. For Cara Lynn.
    Most likely it was a sweet and rambling message about the sentimental meaning of the tiara and her journal. No matter what it was, she wanted to keep it secret at least until she had time to read it thoroughly. Right now, there was no time to look at it without the chance of Jack coming in.
    So she went into the pantry and pulled on a loose baseboard underneath the bottom shelf. She tucked the envelope into the hollow space behind it, where she kept two thousand dollars in small bills, her passport and the beautiful emerald necklace her mother had given her when she graduated from college. The necklace had belonged to Betty’s mother, who had been a diplomat’s wife and traveled all over Europe with her husband. Just as she was replacing the baseboard, she heard Jack’s bare feet coming down the hall.
    Quickly, she got the baseboard into place, grabbed three bottles of water, then stepped out of the pantry into the kitchen.
    Jack was opening the refrigerator, his bare toes sticking out from his dress pants. He’d removed his jacket and tie and unbuttoned his shirt. It hung open, revealing a hint of his excellent abs.
    “What are you doing?” he asked.
    “Putting some more water in the fridge,” she said, wishing she’d grabbed something else. She’d restocked the water just that morning.
    “Sparkling water? What for?” he asked, gesturing toward the top shelf of the fridge. “There are—” he stopped. “There were three regular and three sparkling waters in here this morning. Now there’s only two sparkling, counting this one.” He held up the one he’d just picked up. “I thought you were gone all day.”
    “I was,” she said, putting the three bottles on the shelf. “I was in a hurry so I didn’t stop to get one. You must have drunk another one.”
    “Nope.” He closed the door. “That’s odd.”
    Cara Lynn thought about that morning. She’d rushed out so quickly she hadn’t grabbed her usual bottle of water. “Well, if you didn’t drink it and I didn’t drink it—”
    “What? You think someone came in here and drank our water?” he asked, his mouth quirked slightly. “Who’s got keys?”
    “Nobody, except the woman who cleans, and she had foot surgery three weeks ago.”
    Jack twisted the top off the water and took a long drink. “Maybe she came by.”
    “If she did, it was just for the water, because she certainly didn’t clean,” Cara Lynn said wryly.
    “How can you tell?” Jack retorted.
    She swatted at him