French Pressed - By Cleo Coyle Page 0,1

come in and talk to you.”

The killer’s right pocket was a holster now. Resting inside was the hard silver handle of the ten-inch blade, which poked through the lining. The coat was long enough to conceal the threat, old enough to be discarded after.

“I can quit my internship,” the boy pleaded. “I don’t have to go back to the restaurant. Not ever. How about that?”

“Did you tell anyone, Vinny? What you heard last night?”

“No! No one!”

“Then let’s sit down and discuss it. You don’t have to quit. I’ll just explain everything, and you won’t have to worry anymore.”

“Well…” the boy said, glancing into the empty hall. “Okay…I guess you can come in.”

“Thanks, Vinny.”

Gloved fingers slipped inside the coat pocket, grasped the silver handle. The French blade was steel, high carbon and stainless, sharp as a surgical instrument, manufactured for the utmost precision.

Precise, the killer thought, I must be precise. No flinching. No hesitation. Thrust down fast. Plunge hard and true…

Vinny turned his back, and the knife went in smoothly, past skin, through muscle, avoiding bone. The flailing was minimal, the noise a weak howl. It was done now—over. And so was Vincent Buccelli. The boy was just another piece of meat.

ONE

“UGH,” I murmured. “This coffee’s absolute poison…”

No, the lukewarm ebony liquid sloshing around my bone china cup wasn’t actually lethal, just bitter, old, and lifeless—the kind of adjectives I would have been mortified to hear uttered about my coffee, God forbid my person.

“It can’t be that bad,” Madame said. “Let me give it a try.”

Sitting across from me at one of Solange’s linen-shrouded tables for two, my ex-mother-in-law lifted her cup and sipped. “Oh, my…” With a frown, she brought a napkin to her gently wrinkled face, closed her eyes, and discreetly spat out the offending liquid—a routine gesture for an industry cupping, not for one of New York’s finest French restaurants.

Up to now, the meal had been astounding. My appetizer of oysters had been poached in champagne, lovingly sauced, and placed back in their shells with a flavor and texture that defined delicate. My entrée of butter-browned lobster—artfully arranged around a flan of porcini mushrooms and earthy foie gras—had danced across my taste buds with savory succulence. And for desert, a modern execution of a traditional tarte Tatin, with spicy-sweet cardamom-laced apples and a drizzle of ginger-caramel coulis, had been presented in a pastry so tender it melted on my tongue like newly spun cotton candy.

The entire experience had been orgasmic, a seduction by color, taste, and sensation, with bite after bite making me shiver. Not that I was a restaurant critic.

I, Clare Cosi, middle-class working stiff, was the manager of a landmark coffeehouse in Greenwich Village, and although my experience with food was long-standing—from my childhood years making stove-top espressos in my grandmother’s Pennsylvania grocery to my part-time catering work and culinary writing—it was small-time stuff in light of this four-star establishment.

In short, I was a cook, not a chef. I didn’t have the authoritative status to officially declare whether or not Solange’s particular take on nouvelle cuisine deserved its place alongside Per Se, Le Bernardin, and Daniel, the highest-flying stars in the Big Apple’s culinary circus. But even a long-haul trucker could have judged that Solange’s food was exquisite, while its coffee had all the appeal of Mississippi swamp mud.

“It’s like a seduction gone wrong,” Madame proclaimed. “A princely suitor who shows up with impeccable manners, romances you all night, and escorts you gallantly to the door, then lunges at your breasts with octopus hands and breath foul enough to choke a horse.”

A knee-jerk cackle bubbled up in my throat; considering the mannered dining room, I promptly choked it down. “Don’t hold back, Madame. Tell me what you really think.”

My former mother-in-law rolled her eyes to the chandeliered ceiling. “There’s no point in mincing words past your eightieth birthday. What good is being subtle when you might drop dead midsentence? If you’ve got a point to make, make it, for goodness’ sake!” She lifted her hand, and our waiter instantly appeared. “Please take this away. I’m sorry to tell you, it’s undrinkable.”

René, a somber Haitian gentleman with a heavy French accent, bowed slightly. “C’est dommage. I am profoundly sorry.” He snapped his fingers, and another uniformed staff member—a young Latino man—swept in to remove the coffee service.

“Perhaps I can suggest a dessert wine,” René said.

Madame glanced at me, but I tapped my watch and shook my head. “I’ve had enough wine. More will just put me to