Unknown Diners

Chapter Forty-Seven

Lorne and Catherine stood on the balcony a while later, surveying the scene below. Two tugs were moving a barge with a crane into position beside the wreck. Down on the waterfront walkway, activity seemed normal except for the people stopped at vantage points to watch.

"See anything unusual? Anybody checking out people?"

"Not yet. You?"

"No."

They watched for a few minutes longer, then he looked at her. "Anything strange?"

"Nothing except you in my kimono." She sniggered.

He glanced down and laughed. "Yeah, I am a bit large for it."

A while later as they were showering, he asked, "Can we trust Cynthia?"

"How do you mean?"

"I don't know... thinking. She represents some of the restaurants that... Whatever you call it. That are like Molly's."

"Like that dinner at La Luce."

"Yeah. That and Greystone, Zack's, Gavroche, others. They're all similar. I was at her opening promotions, then back later, but I haven't been able to write reviews on them."

"I've missed those. My hermit phase. Last of her soft openings I did before La Luce was Dalliance down in Gastown."

"That's another of those. Kept going back, never could —"

"Fuck! Oh, my fuck..." Catherine froze.

Lorne held her. "What? What is it?"

"Oh, my God. That's probably where Nathan was going the night that..."

They stood holding each other under the shower nozzles, still and silent.

"You think?" She looked up at him a long while later.

"Think what? Dalliance? Cynthia?"

"Yeah, both."

"We need to find out. Come, let's finish here." He kissed her, then squirted soap into his hands and started washing her. "You look at your relationship with Cynthia, I'll run the strange restaurants through my head."

Later as they sat sipping their espressos at the kitchen island, after she had rambled through her friendship with Cynthia, he nodded and said, "Unless she's a great actress, she seems straight. No change? You've noticed no change in her behaviour, her attitude toward you?"

"Nothing that pops out. Same easy sharing."

"She share much about her business?"

"Not much, we didn't talk work. That's one of the neat things. She's always been a good break from work. We celebrate our victories and blow off our frustrations, but no details."

"Like what? Frustrations, what were hers?"

"Finding a man. Cynthia was constantly on that." Catherine ran her finger around the rim of her cup. "Always bemoaned her lack of anything long-term. All short flings, no follow-on. Like her restaurant opening promos." She nodded and tilted her head. "Yeah, I can see that."

"Interesting."

"The only business stuff she mentioned was her concern for the future. She was getting fewer long-term marketing contracts, her business was becoming mostly opening promos."

"She knows you're K ate?"

"Yeah."

"Who else?"

"My parents, my editors, you. That's it."