Red Flag

33. Cynthia

I looked up from my plate, and my stomach flipped. Dear God! Is she part of this? "Oh! Hi, Cynthia. What brings you to Whistler?"

"Killing a flock of birds with one stone." She chuckled. "Primarily, arranging the launch of a new restaurant. But also another planning session for Cornucopia, some bike runs and attending two of the writers' forums. Thought I might see you there."

"Ummm, been busy with other things. Working on a rewrite."

She grinned and looked back and forth between Lorne and me. "Love your choice of editorial assistant."

While I tried to think of an answer, Lorne asked, "A new restaurant? Up here?"

"No, down in Village Centre – the former Avanté, renamed Suprême."

Lorne pursed his lips and nodded. "When's the opening?"

"Thinking of doing the media launch next weekend – Saturday evening or Sunday noon. We were just finalising the details, and invitations will be emailed when we've set the date." She looked over her shoulder, then turned back to us, shaking her head.

"Is this the same group as La Luce and Bistro du Midi?"

"It is, Lorne. They've kept me busy with launches the past few months. Unfortunately, no follow-on promotion." She glanced over her shoulder again and grimaced.

"You appear distracted, Cynthia. Is there a problem?"

She turned and nodded. "My dinner companion got a phone call and left the table a while ago. Abrupt. No explanation. Well over a quarter-hour now. I wandered in here to see if he got lost. Spotted you."

Lorne followed her nod toward the next room. "Hmmm! That's strange."

"Fortunately, we hadn't yet ordered dinner – we were trying to settle the final details for the opening." She pulled out her phone and checked it, shaking her head. "Still nothing. Getting on half an hour, now."

"You negotiate with the same person every time?"

"Yes, and increasingly simple to set up, similar to working with a chain. They all have the same menu, so the only change is the selection of plates to serve at the promo dinners. Frank wants to rotate items to show the movers and shakers the full range."

"Frank?"

"Babbeona." She tilted her head toward the next room. "The other half of my dinner meeting."

"Are you working for him?"

"Individual opening contracts only with no ongoing marketing – they do their own." Cynthia raised her eyebrows and smiled. "You seem very interested, Lorne."

"We've revisited the restaurants after the openings. The same menu descriptions, but the dishes are fraudulent. The crab and lobster are replaced with surimi, the scallops with punched –"

"What?" Cynthia shook her head. "Surely not."

Lorne nodded and continued, "The chicken replaced with white slime, the pork with pink slime, and so on. Think about the menu items, Cynthia. The ease of substituting real with reshaped sludge, but still dress it up with the attractive plating."

She slapped a hand to her forehead. "Oh, dear Lord! What'll this do to my reputation?"

"How many have you done for them?"

"Seventeen." She blew a deep breath and held up a folder. "This was going to be my eighteenth."

"Someone exposed them in a blog post this morning, and it's gone viral." Lorne nodded across the room. "Likely why Frank left – just learned that their empire is collapsing."