“We’ll just stop by the restaurant to make sure.”
We reached Eighteenth Street and waited for the light to turn green. I tossed my hair back, grateful for the cool night air after sweating on the dance floor for the last hour. When the light changed, we crossed the street and headed west toward Dolores Park, where we’d left the car. Baxter’s restaurant was on the way.
Once past Guerrero, the street grew darker. We stopped talking and Derek urged me to walk a little faster. A few minutes later, we reached the corner where Baxter’s restaurant stood.
“Closed,” I said.
Derek nodded. “Definitely closed.”
I cupped my eyes to get a better look through the glass-fronted door. “There’s a light on in the back. She might still be in the kitchen.”
Without much thought, I reached for the doorknob. To my surprise, it opened, so I walked in.
Derek grabbed the back of my jacket. “Where are you going?”
“Just checking to see if Savannah’s here.”
“Brooklyn, stop,” he said sharply. “You don’t know who’s in there.”
“It’s probably some of the chefs,” I whispered. “And if not, you’ll protect me, right? It’ll only take a second to check.”
He scowled but followed me inside.
The door eased shut behind him and the first thing that hit me was the complete silence. There were no bustling waiters, no trickling waterfall, no cheerful chatter or clinking of glasses or tapping of silverware against plates. Not that I expected to hear any of that in a closed restaurant, but the sounds of the waterfall would have been nice.
With the next step, I felt a chill. The darkness of the room gave me pause. It was silly to be afraid with Derek right here, I thought. Giving my eyes a few seconds to adjust, I ventured forward, first tiptoeing past the front podium, then stepping down into the dining room.
I barely avoided plowing into a table, thanks to a passing car’s headlights bouncing off the coffered ceiling and casting odd shadows on the walls. Liquor bottles lining the bar caught the light, too, creating multicolored crystal shards that shimmered across the high-gloss oak floor.
I made it to the far end of the room and turned down the short hall that led toward the kitchen. A pale glow of light shining through the porthole on the swinging double doors guided me the rest of the way.
As I pushed the door open, a horrific scream erupted.
Derek tried to yank me backward, but my forward momentum caused me to stumble into the room instead. That’s when I saw my sister Savannah kneeling on the tiled floor, a huge triangular bloodstained knife clutched in her raised hand.
She whipped around and the sudden movement caused her scarlet beret to slip off her head. Her eyes were wide and her cheeks were stained with tears. She was still screaming, so I took one more step toward her. That’s when I saw someone lying on the floor beside her.
It was Baxter Cromwell. His eyes bulged open and his white chef’s coat was torn and spattered with blood. He lay unmoving on the cold, hard tile, as dead as he could be.
I’m no chicken, but the sight of all that blood splashed on his coat, along with the bloodstained knife, was enough to make my knees wobble. My vision blurred and things began to spin. I couldn’t breathe.
“No, you don’t,” Derek scolded as he grabbed me.
“Y-yes, I do,” I mumbled, and sagged into his arms.
*
Ten minutes later, after Derek had smacked my cheeks a little too eagerly and muttered, “Snap out of it” a few dozen times, I was back on my feet and pacing the length of the bar while we waited for the police to arrive. I was still breathing a little heavily, but I was fine. Alive, anyway.
Savannah sat on one of the barstools, looking dazed and confused. Thanks to Derek’s quick thinking, she now wore thin rubber gloves over her bloodied hands. He’d seen the box of disposable gloves on a shelf by the industrial dishwashing machine and had urged her to put them on to protect any blood evidence on her hands.
I forced a glass of water into Savannah’s glove-sheathed hand and told her to keep sipping it.
“I didn’t kill him,” she whispered.
“I know, sweetie.”
She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand and strained to look at me. “How do you know?”
“Because you’re a vegetarian.”
“Really?”
“No, you twit,” I said softly. “It’s because I know you. You don’t step on spiders. You wouldn’t hurt a bug to save your own life. And you wouldn’t stick a knife in someone’s gut and kill them in cold blood, no matter how big a jerk he was. So I know you didn’t do it, but I just wish you’d seen who did.”