Fiona Silk Mysteries 2-Book Bundle (16 page)

Heat a medium skillet over high heat. Add the butter and swirl to coat the pan. When the butter shimmers, add the bananas and the macadamias and reduce heat to medium. Sauté, stirring, until golden brown, about 8 to 10 minutes. Sprinkle brown sugar until just melted. Deglaze the pan with the rum then flambé the bananas and the macadamias. When the flames are extinguished, remove the pan from the heat. Scoop ice cream into martini glasses. Top with flambéed bananas.

Keep fire extinguisher handy. Do not attempt this in other people's homes.

Okay, so no luck ditching the pesky wallet at the Sûreté. Plus I couldn't get near the Wallingford Estate that morning. Cars and pedestrians were being turned away from the driveway of the building. According to the two people I asked, the place was off-limits because they were shooting
En feu!,
and the previous day, they'd had problems with overzealous fans.

I tried to talk my way in anyway, but Harriet Crowder's wallet wasn't enough to get past security. Strike two, and it was barely noon. I arrived home to find an urgent message from Hélène asking me to come over at once. Tolstoy preferred to remain in his cool basement space, so I headed down the road solo.

She met me at the door. “But, Fiona, I do not understand why you didn't tell me yourself that you were so worried about this little book.” Hélène Lamontagne looked down her elegantly restructured nose at me.

It wasn't hard to figure out that she was offended. Not just because of the nose thing, there was also the tapping of the designer shoes. The foot reminded me of the high-heeled blonde who might be undermining both of us. “Because I... Who told you I was worried?”

“Oh, no one.”

“Josey, I suppose.” My first clue was the sight of Josey standing behind Hélène and looking remarkably innocent.

“Josée is just trying to help you.”

“It's a bit embarrassing.”

“I can see that. You are already blushing.”

“Right. It's the curse of my life.”

“But why are you embarrassed?”

“I don't have the vaguest idea of where to begin. I'm reading these piles of cookbooks, and so far I have no idea where to start. Lola can really put on the pressure.”

“I am offering to help you. Sometimes, as Jean-Claude would say, you present quite a challenge.”

“Jean-Claude says that about me?”

“No, no. He says it about situations that present challenges. I would never discuss you with him.”

“For reasons that are obvious to both of us.”

“Malheureusement.”

Unhappily, for sure. “I'm not trying to present any kind of challenge, Hélène. I just really need the money, and I hate the idea of doing a book like this. It's so not like me. But I have no choice. And I can't really concentrate. I keep thinking about Marc-André and that accident I saw on Highway 5. The police think I am connected with it in some way. “

Hélène's face clouded.

I continued. “Maybe that's just an excuse. I know it's a matter of getting my head around the fact that some foods are supposed to be sexy or even aphrodisiacs, then getting some recipes that use those foods and linking it all together with a bit of text.”

“That sounds all right, Fiona.”

“No, it's really not all right. I have to get cracking before the municipality seizes my house or Hydro cuts off the power or my car conks out. Or I need to eat dinner.”

“Mais, voyons donc.
You are my friend, and I will be happy
to help you. I left some messages today, and I expect to hear from Rafaël and Marietta soon.”

“I appreciate that.”

“She also needs practice cooking,” Josey said, her head held high. “And she doesn't have any equipment. Or ingredients yet. Plus she needs to, um, ease into the situation. Get her confidence up for when she's talking to them.”

“I am standing right here while you two are discussing me. Maybe I'd be better off at home in the basement with Tolstoy.”

“Do you have a recipe that would fit in Miz Silk's cookbook?”

“Oh là là.”

“Come on, Hélène. You're a gourmet cook. You must have.”

Hélène shrugged modestly. “Well, I have always loved anything flambé.”

“Flambé?” I squeaked. “That sounds really complicated. Don't you have anything that involves opening two cans?”

Hélène shuddered. “There's no such thing as a flambé of canned mushroom soup and flaked tuna.”

“Huh. Maybe there should be,” Josey said.

Hélène merely said,
“Des bananes!”

Josey's eyes were like huge blue saucers. “You're kidding, right?”

“No, I am not kidding, Josée. This is a very elegant dish.”

“But is it sexy?”

“Mais oui!
Think of the symbolism.”

Don't! I thought. Please just don't.

“What symbolism?” Josey said.

“Never mind,” I said.

“It is very sexy when it is done right, in the proper atmosphere. I used to make these for Jean-Claude, on very very special romantic occasions.”

Josey said, “Ew.” I thought the same but managed to keep it to myself.

Luckily, Hélène missed Josey's comment because she was checking through the zillion cupboards. I gave Josey a look that was supposed to mean,
try to self-censor your comments given where we are.

“I have everything we need,” Hélène said. “Bananas, rum, macadamia nuts, brown sugar.
Allons-y!”

This was exciting. I had never witnessed Hélène's kitchen in use. It was more like something you'd see in a high-end photo shoot. There was the black granite countertops. Then there was the custom glaze finish on the cabinets, subtle and hand-done, a luscious grey-green that defied description. I couldn't even imagine what that work would cost, or why you would spend that kind of money. It hadn't occurred to me that Hélène actually prepared food in this dream room.

“What are macadamia nuts?” Josey said, seizing the moment.

“Think expensive,” I muttered.

Of course, Hélène had to give Josey a sample of macadamia nuts. Hélène is as kind as she is elegant. She makes up for the fact that Jean-Claude reacts to Josey like he found a scorpion in his shoe. Jean-Claude is the only person I've ever met who could take such a dislike to a young girl. Especially one like Josey, industrious, cheerful, loyal and honest in the things that really matter.

Perhaps that is why Hélène bends over backwards for her. She never refers to Josey's impoverished background or criminal relatives. Packages appear for Josey from time to time. Clothing that Marie-Eve, the Lamontagne daughter, has outgrown. Food that might go to waste. Sporting gear. Even Josey's now-rickety bicycle had come from Hélène at one time.

I've tried to get Josey to stop calling Jean-Claude “his
lordship”, but she still automatically curls her lip when she spots him. But Hélène had said Jean-Claude was off at a shareholders meeting, so the mood was light.

Josey and Hélène got the ingredients assembled as I stood there, useless as a garden gnome. Still, it was fun to watch them, and possibly even educational.

“Can I do anything?” I said.

“Better not,” Josey said.

“I feel a bit guilty, since this is all to help me.”

“Oh là là.
Just sit over there. Perhaps you can take notes.”

Taking notes sounded good to me. Hélène extracted a nonstick pan from a drawer that held dozens of pots and pans. She measured out the brown sugar into one designer measure and the rum into another. Josey poured the macadamia nuts into a third one.

“Voyons.
What can we serve this in? Oh, I know!” Hélène selected four long-stemmed martini glasses from a glass-fronted cupboard. “This will be elegant.”

“Are you sure I can't do something?” I said plaintively.

“We're sure,” Josey said.

“Can you get two tablespoons of butter, Josée?”

Josey scrambled over to the French-door fridge and opened it. She picked out a pound of butter, unwrapped it and flipped two tablespoons into the non-stick pan. Absolutely nothing went wrong.

I sulked. I could have fetched the butter.

“Don't look like that, Miz Silk,” Josey said. “You said yourself that cooking is not your best thing.”

“True, but I can't believe the two of you don't trust me to get the butter. I have to start small.”

Hélène glanced up. “Did you write everything down?”

I hesitated. I hadn't, of course. “I'll remember.”

She reeled off the few ingredients this recipe required. “You might not. What if you forgot the rum? It won't
flambé
without that.”

Josey shook her head. If her expression was anything to go by, this
flambé
experience was a big hit with her. “Are we really putting it in those fancy glasses, Miz Lamontagne?”

“As soon as it's ready. We have to flame it first.”

“Right.”

“And because this is supposed to be romantic, we will put it on a tray with something pretty.” She bent down and opened a drawer filled with table linens. She pulled out a piece of sheer, sparkly fabric.

“C'est beau,”
she said, arranging the fabric on a black lacquered tray. She set the martini glasses amid the folds, pulling them here and there to make a pleasing backdrop. A trip across the room, and three crystal candle holders with votives were added to the tray.

“That's neat,” Josey said. I imagined she was working out a plan for using that sort ofthing in
THE THRING TO DO
. Romantic desserts on request. “Do we put the glasses on that too?”

“And before that, we have to put the ice cream into the martini glasses. Here's the ice cream scoop. I have wonderful French vanilla ice cream, and this scoop makes a nice shape.”

“I can do that,” Josey said, racing back to the refrigerator and opening the lower freezer.

“Hang on,” I said, “are you telling me that you two don't trust me to carry a container of ice cream?”

“Take good notes!” Josey said. I did my best not to roll my eyes. She added, “Really good notes. I want to be able to do this again.”

I wrote down
Get ice cream from freezer.

Even though Hélène trusted Josey to get the ice cream, she
clearly thought that scooping appropriate scoops was a higher level job. I had to admit that Hélène did that as well as everything else she put her hand to. That is to say perfectly.

Josey lit the candles instead.

Hélène poured the rum over the bananas and swirled it around the pan. I was pretty sure I could have done that too. She took a barbecue lighter from a drawer and flicked it. Nothing happened. At last, something that Hélène didn't get right the first time. Three more attempts and still nothing.

“Oh là là.
They are supposed to be child-proof. What does that make me?”

“I'm really good at that, Miz Lamontagne! Let me.” Josey reached for the lighter and relieved Hélène of it. “There's a trick to it. You hold it here and then you press this, and presto.”

“Et voilà!”
Hélène said.

Josey leant forward to light the rum mixture. The sauce and bananas caught and flamed beautifully. “Wow!” she said. “This is cool!” She held the flaming pan in her hand.

“What the hell is going on here?”

I jumped from my perch at the sound of Jean-Claude's booming voice. Josey leapt sideways. Her arm hit one of the martini glasses, which toppled the next one. That crashed into the third. I raced across the floor as I saw the domino effect about to happen. Splintered martini glasses one, two, three.

Hélène stood still, her eyes wide, her hand over her mouth.

Josey hung onto the handle of the pan with the still-flaming mixture.

As I sprinted toward the tray, the third glass hit the first candle and knocked it over. The candle tipped, in slow motion it seemed. The gauzy fabric ignited in a whoosh. Flames snaked across the granite counter. Others shot up, licking at the cupboard doors. One leapt and caught Josey's sleeve. She
yelped and dropped the pan. Sauce, bananas and flames rippled across the floor.

Hélène shrieked.

I grabbed a pair of decorative dish towels and smothered the flames on Josey's sleeve. There were tears in her saucer-sized blue eyes. I slapped the towel at the rest of the flames, which were leaping up the cupboard surfaces. I shouted. “Where's your fire extinguisher? And someone call 911.”

Jean-Claude reached under one of the many sinks and extracted an extinguisher. He sprayed foam on every surface in reach. Josey grabbed the phone and dialed 911, gasping out where we were and what was happening.

Hélène still stood, hands still on her mouth, burgundy nail polish stark against her ashen face.

Jean-Claude hadn't lost his command of the situation. “What the hell are you doing? Trying to destroy my kitchen? Well, you are damn well not going to get away with it.
Tabernac. ”

Hélène gasped. If you add up all the swear words in the English language, they might equal
tabernac
in shock value. But probably not.

I said. “We are trying to stop Josey from being burned alive.”

“Exactly,” Josey said. Her eyes were still a bit teary, which told me that the burn on her arm must hurt like hell.

“Well, you had no damn business being in my house in the first place.”

I reached deep into my small store of courage. “Get a grip. We were all having fun here, and an accident happened. I'm sorry about the damage. We'll be leaving now. Josey should see a doctor.”

“You are not going anywhere until the police get here.”

“Wrong,” I said. “She needs medical attention fast.”

He sneered. “Let's let the police decide who needs what.”