Danger in Plain Sight

Prologue

Cash was humming, a fiery local singer’s version of Willie Nelson’s Crazy. In his mind, he was picturing this fine-looking, vampy gal singing her heart out. Yeah. Cash sang the words now—walking down the alley, smoking a premium Havana and feeling breezy, at the top of his game. Crooning a final chorus, he stepped under a French-blue awning with Le Cochon Bronze written on it in beige script. He unlocked the back door to the restaurant. Four steps led up to a landing and an old cherrywood Dutch door that swung into the restaurant’s big, bright country kitchen.

When Cash cleared the kitchen door he stopped, tense—afraid he’d passed through the gates of Dante’s twisted northwest Hell. Buying time, he stubbed out his half-smoked Havana in the drain of the black cast-iron sink, then carefully set it on the counter. Frosty—his pet name for his boss—had eight of his ancient Japanese ivory carvings lined up on the long prep table. They were rare nineteenth-century erotic netsuke (because their kimonos had no pockets, people used netsuke to suspend bags from their sashes), and of course she had them lined up just so, all in this neat row. Orderly, like everything else in her restaurant. Which was kind of funny since there must have been six or seven different sexual positions on display right there. The one with the moving parts was sweet, better, even, than he’d hoped for.

And there Callie was, crimson spots darkening her cheeks to the color of beet borscht, wanting to scream but talking instead in that quiet, deliberate, chilly way she had. Terry, how could you do this? How? What were you thinking? Damn it, Terry.

She was the only one in the world who called him Terry. He still wasn’t used to it. I didn’t do anything to you.

You’re smuggling into my restaurant. My restaurant. Where I live…My home.

Cash raised a large, weathered palm, as if gentling a frightened animal. Easy. Hey. Whoa. No one was hurt.

"I trusted you. I was hurt."

He looked at the netsuke on the worn maple table. They’d been hidden in her regular order of Chinese vegetables from Vancouver. He should have known that she came downstairs when she couldn’t sleep. But you weren’t hurt, he finally said. And you can trust me not to hurt you. Which was, he thought, the whole point.

She closed her eyes, opened them again. Cash thought he could see little beads of sweat on her brow.

He took a step forward. He was big—six feet, two inches tall, 240 pounds. Hard and intimidating. When he smiled, though, when he did that, people felt better. You have to admit, they’re very cool. Did you see the one that moves? He leaned over, demonstrating how the carved figures could make love. Smiling again.

The Chinese cabbage caught him square in the head. He was around the table, pinning her arms to her sides, before she could grab a hefty bamboo shoot.

Please don’t touch me.

Cash could feel her shoulders trembling.

Please don’t touch me, she repeated.

Try a slow breath, he suggested. When she ignored that, he stepped back. Callie, please. Hear me out. No one knows. No one has to know. No one was caught. I won’t do it again.

Wrong. I know. You’re caught. And you can’t just act like nothing happened.

Okay. Cash nodded. I’m sorry.

And I’m sorry, but the police have to know.

The lines in his big face deepened. Listen. That would be bad. His tone changed. Really bad for me.

I’m sorry, Terry, but this isn’t like a tasteless prank or hitting on women half your age when you’re tending bar. Smuggling is illegal, a federal crime, and ivory is banned in the United States. If I don’t report it and you’re ever found out, they can close my restaurant.

Cash took a breath, looking around. Her kitchen was a warm-feeling space. Copper pots, ladles and cast-iron skillets hung on pegs above the stove and in a nook between cupboards. His eyes came back to Callie’s. Please slow down. Reconsider this, he said, dead serious now.

I trusted you, and you took advantage of me. My restaurant is all that I have—

Okay…this one time, can you try to let this go? You don’t need to lay some Callie James all-or-nothing homespun morality on me. No one was hurt. This is a restaurant, not a holy place.

Say your buyer, or your supplier, is arrested next year and gives you up—I could lose everything. Think about this: the restaurant is all that I have for me and my son.

Cash scratched his uncombed sandy-colored hair. "Look. I’m asking for a favor here. We can agree that you don’t know about this. It’ll never happen again, that’s a promise. Please don’t do something we’ll both regret."

Callie took another breath, and near tears, she repeated, Try a slow breath?

It was meant as a helpful suggestion. Callie, I’m in a jam. I was ripped off on a very big deal, and I owe more money than I have. Truthfully, right about now, money really matters. Can you understand that?

For a second, he thought he’d reached her. Then she picked up the phone. Yes, and I’m sorry, but it doesn’t change my dilemma. She dialed 911, gave them the name of the restaurant.

Cash closed his eyes. How can you be so—I dunno —unforgiving?

Please spare me the critique.

He pointed a twisted, twice-broken forefinger at her. Then spare me the righteous, mean-spirited, silver-spoon-up-the-ass moral rectitude.

She looked out the window, tried to ignore him, turned back. When you get out of jail, don’t ever come back here.

Chapter One

Two years later

Callie wasn’t sleeping much. It was a chronic problem, and lately, it was getting worse. She often found it harder to sleep when she was doing well. She knew that much—and no more.

At 6:00 a.m., she’d taken a shower, thrown on jeans and an out-at-the-elbows, navy wool sweater, then she dragged herself down the back stairs to the landing and finally through the Dutch doors to her restaurant’s kitchen. She often made her breakfast surrounded by the burnished hardwoods, the copper pots, her three-quarter-ton, eight-burner, black-iron stove and the hand-painted, sea-blue-on-white tiles she’d found in Portugal. She’d eat at the long maple prep table with a view that sloped over the alley and down the hill to the waterfront below. She could watch the people go by without being seen.

She liked being in the restaurant kitchen and in the restaurant; it was her place. Everything was as it should be, just so. Here, she wasn’t so anxious. The restaurant was soothing—she’d discovered this empirically, on many edgy mornings—especially after a sleepless night.

She’d carefully chosen light wood for the tables and chairs, dark mahogany floors, white linen tablecloths and oak-brown Italian leather for the booths along the back. Ten years ago, she’d found the long brass-and-mahogany bar at a tiny café in rural France. The owner had run off to Morocco with a buxom, backpacking Lakers girl, and his wife had put his bar up for sale that very day. Callie had hurriedly shipped the magnificent bar to Seattle, intact, before she’d even chosen the site for her restaurant. She’d never looked back. She bought a warehouse on First, north of the Pike Place Market, and three years later, she opened Le Cochon Bronze. She named her restaurant for the market’s prominent bronze pig, Rachel. A smaller replica of the proud pig stood beside her canopied entry. Callie called her pig Lulu, after a girl she’d known at cooking school in Paris.

She ran long fingers through her shoulder-length blond hair, glancing through the open kitchen door toward the staircase that wound up to the loft bar. The L-shaped second floor was cantilevered out over the booths along the back. It was accessed from the entry by a gently curving mahogany stairway with handsome black-iron rails. The loft had been her idea, and it had turned out so well that it still made her smile.

Callie made herself a double Americano, sat back down. Blue-eyed and fair-skinned, she was a classic Northwest beauty. People said it was hard to read what was brewing beneath her cool Nordic exterior. From time to time, her reserve was punctuated by an outspoken observation, and Callie was secretly pleased to offer these measured hints of heat stirring under the surface. She had her goals, her routines and her priorities. She worked at staying steady: progressive, practical and positive. She didn’t honk, she didn’t jaywalk, she insisted that the rules be fair, and she played by them.

As she sipped from a large, colorfully painted mug, Callie liked that in this place, at least, she knew what was what.

She watched a homeless teen checking out her garbage in the alley. With her left hand, she rubbed the back of her neck and thought about Lew, her thirteen-year-old son. Lew was asleep upstairs, and since it was Saturday, he’d sleep in. Callie went through her checklist of Lew worries, as she did every morning: Could he get a B in advanced algebra? Was Lakeside, his elite private school, too much pressure? Did he have a girlfriend? Was it bad for him to eat dinner in the restaurant kitchen? (It was the only way she could sit with him, and she wanted that time together.) And so on. As she did most mornings, after completing her checklist she decided that he was good—yes, he was fine.

She’d worked hard to get it right with Lew. She’d decided early on that she had to be there for him, so she made the effort. Since she wasn’t a talker, she did what she knew how to do—holidays, hand-sewing his carefully-chosen Halloween costumes, soccer games, patient, as-needed help with homework, even elaborately planned trips to Disneyland. Whatever time she took away from her restaurant was for Lew. Like her restaurant, their relationship made her happy.

When she was ready, Callie opened her laptop and began her own checklist, the things she’d do herself, and for herself, before opening her doors for dinner.

◆◆◆

José, the busboy with the stud in his tongue, was checking his watch, while Elise, a slender server with a complex love life, was making animated hand gestures and loudly whispering sexually graphic French insults into her cell phone. Will Jackson, Callie’s gracious, Charleston-born host, general manager and sommelier, had his eye on their new dishwasher, Jean Luc, a hockey player from Quebec. He breaks beer bottles on his forehead, Will was telling her. I saw him do it. Will could be outrageous while keeping a straight face. She tried to ignore him, but his stories were often true.

It was 4:05 p.m. and her people were on. They could look at whomever they pleased, say whatever they wanted, so long as she was ready to open her doors at five. And at her restaurant, ready meant perfect. They knew that; that was the deal. Period. Callie stood back, watching the September sun break through the clouds, pushing a burst of light through a cherrywood picture window with large, square mullions. The sunlight warmed the floors, gleamed in the long-stemmed wine glasses, highlighted the rails that gently curved up to the bar, and just as suddenly it was gone, washed out by another milky cloud.

She adjusted the recessed lights, then she was in the kitchen, checking in with Césaire. He nodded, ready, as he gave her a taste of his signature hot pear sauce for the seared foie gras. Césaire was atypical, a low-key chef. When things got tense, even crazy, he just stayed calm. Césaire ran his kitchen as well as Will ran the dining room or Jill managed the bar. Callie had chosen her people carefully, and they understood her program. And they stayed. On her way out, José caught her eye, tilted his head—he wanted a minute. She met him near the south-side window.

Can I step out for an hour, please? I got to meet Angela at the Planned Parenthood. Five o’clock. That’s five sharp. Elise will cover for me.

On your day off.

My day off? Wednesday? Is impossible.

Fifteen minutes. And you work late tonight. And José, when you get back, keep your mouth closed. Every single second. Breathe through your nose. I don’t want my customers to even think there’s a nasty silver stud in your mouth. You know that if you take it out, it’ll heal—close right up—overnight. Think about that—it’s an open wound.

Thank you. I always breathe through my nose. Thank you. José squeezed her arm as he took off his apron.

Callie nodded. His unmarried sister, Angela, was pregnant, unsure what to do. Callie knew something about that. She’d considered having a child in France fourteen years ago. She was twenty-seven years old, just married and deeply in love. She still remembered the day that she caught Daniel Odile-Grand, her husband of seven months, with another woman.

She’d gone for a long walk afterward. On that walk, she decided that she wasn’t ready to have a child with him. She also chose to tell him that she’d leave him if he ever cheated on her again. It was a painstaking decision: she loved him, in ways that were, for her, often incomprehensible, and sometimes so intense it was hard to bear. After less than a year together, she couldn’t even picture a life without him. Three months later, Callie caught Daniel with the same woman. He asked, in his disarmingly sincere French way, if their marriage could be overt, that is to say, open.

Callie went home to Seattle—heartbroken—where she filed for divorce. That same month, she discovered that she was pregnant. She told Daniel after their son was born. He came to Seattle. They had a horrible fight—how could she have their child without consulting him?—and she decided that she’d raise Lew alone. She hadn’t seen Daniel since. Even with regular psychotherapy—she frowned, rueful; therapy had been, for her, endless and anxiety producing; talking about herself, her feelings, argh, nails on a chalkboard—it took years to put him behind her, to move on.

Callie glanced at her reflection in the front picture window before she did her rounds to check the flowers. She was wearing a black skirt and a patterned black-and-white silk blouse she’d found in Milan. She looked good, she thought, as she turned to check the tables inside. Routinely, she forced her head back into the restaurant. It was Saturday night, and that’s where her head belonged.

She worked to focus. This was her time, walking through the tables, checking the flowers, the settings, the music, even the angle of the setting sun. A special evening for each and every guest. Unlikely, she knew, but that’s where she set the bar—her standard for her restaurant. She planted herself at the front door, fingers lightly tapping the top edge of the old maple lectern where she kept her leather-bound reservation book. She looked out over the restaurant, picturing in her mind how given moments of the evening might turn. If one of these snapshots felt too noisy, or too crowded, or too chaotic, she’d adjust her seating plan until she was satisfied. She wasn’t prescient, but she got it right more often than not.

She took an iPad from the shelf in the lectern, and at ten to five, as always, Callie reviewed the chart with Will. As always, he wore a black suit with a colorful silk bow tie. Tonight, his tie had beige polka dots on a French-blue background. Though he’d never say so, she was sure he’d had the bow tie made to match the awning over their entry.

They adjusted a few late seatings, and then she went to work at the door. Sue Reynolds and her guests were pleased to be seated by the window. The Tomlins were in from Bainbridge Island. Bill and Marge were lawyers, and they dined out litigiously. They asked for endless substitutions, then invariably sent things back. She sat them in a quiet booth.

Callie glanced up at the loft. By six o’clock, the bar would be crowded. She headed up the staircase. The loft was large—deeper than it seemed from below. It easily accommodated the long bar, with room for seven small tables along the railing.

In the far corner, beyond the bar, was Callie’s table. It was set back, unobtrusive. From her corner, she could see the length of the bar and look out over the restaurant. Once the evening was well underway, she’d sit alone at her table, enjoying the varied life of her restaurant.

At the bar, Callie said hello to several people she recognized, then told the Simpsons that their table would be ready in minutes. She was distracted by a young man who put his hand on Jill’s arm as she rounded the bar with a tray of drinks. Jill nicely asked him to let go. When he put his hand on her waist, Callie was right there, deftly moving it away.

And who might you be, sweetheart? He was a little drunk. And he was English. His accent was irritating.

I’m Callie James. Callie extended her hand. I’m the owner, and I’m pleased to welcome you here.

Jimmy. Jimmy Pearson. Buy you a drink, Callie the owner?

No thanks. Here’s how it works here, Mr. Pearson. If you touch a woman who works for me again, you’ll be asked to leave.

Go on. Jimmy looked feisty.

This is my place. Those are my rules. She held his eyes.

Brian, a busboy and occasional bouncer, had materialized behind her.

Rules? This is a fucking bar, lady. People turned.

Callie smiled, chilly.

Before Jimmy knew what was happening, Brian was leading him out the stairway behind the bar, down to the alley.

Bloody bitch, he yelled from the stairway.

Callie ignored that as Brian firmly closed the door behind him.

At the bar, Jill nodded thanks, and all was right with the world. That is, until Callie looked downstairs and there, standing in her doorway, was—unmistakably—Daniel Odile-Grand.

After fourteen years, she’d still recognize her ex-husband anywhere. He wore blue jeans, a black tee shirt and—could it be? Yeah—that same beat-up brown leather jacket. He looked older: he’d be fifty-six, she realized, fifteen years older than she was. But he looked good—tall, tan and lean. He’d always looked good. Damn it.

Why was he here? He wanted something, she knew that much. Something hard to do, that he couldn’t get from anyone else. Callie considered turning him away. It would be a scene, she was sure of that, and she didn’t want a scene at her restaurant on Saturday night. She decided to wait before calling Lew. Tonight, he was staying overnight at his best friend’s house. If she called him, he’d be here in a flash. She’d see what was what before making that call. This was going to be hard.

She watched Will greet Daniel. Daniel wanted Will to do something—to find her, she was sure—and when he wanted something, he expected to get it. Will had no idea who Daniel was, but he’d met impatient, imposing Frenchmen before. She could see how he was leaning in, confiding his little secrets, hanging on Daniel’s every word, making him feel important. Daniel was becoming aware he was being managed, and it was making him even more insistent. She could imagine his do-you-know-who-I-am stuff. And she could imagine just what Will would say later, deadpan—"Sweet pea, why does this good looking Frenchman, who seems to know you, think he