Read Chapter 10: The Fire

Camille had the fire extinguisher in her hands before the smoke alarm finished its first wail.

She’d been in the private dining room, measuring the distance between the service hatch and the wall where she planned to install a new pass, when the acrid scent of burning oil drifted through the crack under the door. By the time she’d crossed the kitchen threshold, flames were licking up the side of the old cast-iron stove, hungry orange tongues consuming a rag that had been left too close to the burner.

Étienne was already there, his chef’s coat off, his forearms slick with sweat. He had a pan in his hand, water splashing toward the fire—the worst possible instinct.

“No!” Camille shouted, yanking the pin from the extinguisher. She shouldered past him and sprayed a thick white cloud at the base of the flames. The fire sputtered, hissed, and died in a matter of seconds, leaving behind a scorched stovetop and the smell of burnt grease and chemicals.

The kitchen fell silent except for the wheeze of the ventilation hood.

Étienne stared at the extinguisher in her hands, then at the blackened rag on the burner. His chest was heaving. “You—” He stopped, swallowed. “You came from the dining room.”

“I heard the alarm.”

“You heard it. From behind a closed door.”

Camille set the extinguisher down on the floor with a clatter. “I have excellent hearing.” She crouched, inspecting the rag. It was a thick kitchen towel, the kind they used for lifting hot trays. It lay crumpled over the burner grate, half consumed. “This wasn’t here when I left the kitchen an hour ago.”

Étienne ran a hand through his hair, which was already disheveled. “It was. I was testing a new reduction. I set it aside to cool.” He gestured vaguely toward the far counter, where a pot sat crusted with dark residue. “I must have—I don’t know. Knocked it over.”

“You don’t know.”

“It was late. I was tired.”

Camille rose, dusting chemical residue off her palms. She studied the stove. The rag had been placed directly on the burner grate, not fallen haphazardly. A knocked-over towel would have draped over the side, or landed on the floor. This was folded, laid flat, positioned with intent.

She said nothing.

Étienne turned away, bracing his hands on the stainless steel counter. His shoulders were tight, the muscles of his back straining against his thin undershirt. “This has happened before.”

Camille’s attention snapped to him. “What?”

“Two years ago.” He didn’t look at her. “Same stove. Same time of night. Same—” He gestured at the charred remains. “Same kind of fire.”

She waited.

“Lucas was my sous-chef then. Young kid, talented. Worked with me for three years.” Étienne’s voice dropped. “That night, a fire broke out after service. Small, like this. Lucas was alone in the kitchen. He said he’d been testing a new plating technique and left a rag too close. The damage was minimal, but the insurance company made a fuss. They wanted someone to blame.”

“And Lucas took it.”

“I tried to protect him. Told them I’d been in the kitchen all night, that it could have been me. But Lucas—” Étienne exhaled, a ragged sound. “He insisted it was his fault. He said he couldn’t live with the shame of having endangered the bistro. He quit the next morning. Left Paris. I never saw him again.”

Camille frowned. “He disappeared over a singed rag?”

“He was always dramatic. And ashamed, I think. Not about the fire. About something else.” Étienne shook his head. “I never found out what. He wouldn’t tell me.”

The ventilation hood hummed overhead. Camille looked at the rag again, then at the stove. A similar fire, two years ago. A young chef who vanished rather than face the consequences. A mentor who died weeks after signing a buyer agreement with a shell company tied to her own firm.

None of it added up.

“Is your insurance still active?” she asked, keeping her voice level.

“Yes. Why?”

“Because we’re going to need it.” She turned, scanning the kitchen. The fire had been small, contained to the stove, but the smoke had blackened the ceiling tiles above. The walls were streaked with soot. “The inspector visit is in two weeks. We can’t have a kitchen that looks like a crime scene.”

Étienne finally turned to face her. His eyes were tired, but there was something else there. Something wary. “You think I did this on purpose.”

“I think—” Camille paused. The words sat heavy on her tongue. *I think someone set that fire.* But she didn’t know who. Étienne had been alone in the kitchen. She’d been in the private dining room. The only other person in the building was Sophie, and she’d left an hour ago.

Unless the rag had been placed before she arrived, waiting for the right moment. Waiting for someone to turn on the burner.

She shook her head. “I think we need to be more careful. That’s all.”

Étienne studied her for a long moment, then nodded slowly. “I’ll have a cleaning crew in tomorrow morning. By lunch, you won’t be able to tell anything happened.”

“What about tonight?”

“Tonight we clean it ourselves.”

He handed her a scrub brush and a bucket of soapy water. Camille looked at them, then at him. “You want me to clean your kitchen.”

“You want to win this bet?” He grabbed a second bucket for himself. “Then yes. You clean.”

They worked in silence for the next hour. Camille scoured the blackened ceiling tiles while Étienne disassembled the burner assembly, inspecting the gas lines for damage. The rhythmic scrape of their brushes filled the space between them.

It was nearly three in the morning when Étienne straightened, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist. “This stove. It’s older than me. My grandfather bought it when he opened the bistro in 1948.” He ran a hand over the chipped enamel surface. “It’s survived two world wars, three renovations, and more chefs than I can count.”

Camille set down her brush. “And two fires.”

“Yes.” Étienne’s jaw tightened. “And two fires.”

She watched him, seeing the way his fingers lingered on the burn mark. There was grief there, she realized. Not just for the stove, but for Lucas. For whatever had driven his sous-chef away.

“You mentioned,” she said carefully, “that Lucas wouldn’t tell you what he was ashamed of.”

“That’s right.”

“Do you have any idea what it might have been?”

Étienne’s hand stilled. He looked at her, and for a moment, his mask slipped. She saw something raw underneath—fear, maybe. Or suspicion. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because I don’t like coincidences.” Camille met his gaze. “And two fires in the same spot, two years apart, on the same stove, is a coincidence I can’t afford to ignore.”

Étienne was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “Lucas was close with Auguste. Closer than I was, in the end.” He turned away, rinsing his hands in the sink. “He spent a lot of time in my grandfather’s office. Looking at paperwork, he said. Learning the business side of things.”

Camille’s pulse quickened. Auguste Bernard’s office. The buyer agreement. The shell company.

She kept her face neutral. “Did Lucas ever mention anything about Auguste’s finances?”

Étienne laughed, a bitter sound. “He barely spoke to me in the last few months. He’d come in, do his job, and leave. I thought he was angry at me for something. Or—” He shrugged. “Maybe he was just ready to move on.”

The back door of the kitchen creaked open. Both of them turned. Sophie stood in the doorway, bleary-eyed and wrapped in a coat that looked too big for her. She blinked at the soot-streaked walls, the buckets, the two of them covered in grime.

“I got a text about a fire,” she said slowly. “Is everything—what happened?”

“False alarm,” Étienne said. “We handled it.”

Sophie looked at Camille, who gave her a small shake of the head. The message was clear: *I’ll explain later.*

But even as Camille watched Sophie’s face shift from confusion to quiet understanding, she couldn’t shake the image of that folded rag, placed with care on the burner grate.

Someone had wanted the bistro to burn.

And Camille was beginning to suspect they weren’t finished yet.