Recipe for Murder (9 page)

“You will get what you deserve,” Slesak spat out. “The board will make their decision.”

DuPres's face was flushed with anger. “The board will see you for the fake you are!” he volleyed back.

“You insult me for the last time!” Slesak roared and grabbed a cleaver, brandishing it in front of DuPres's face. His eyes glittered dangerously.

“Chef Slesak—” Nancy shouted, yanking the door open. But neither man paid any attention to her.

DuPres swept up a wicked-looking butcher knife. “We will decide this here and now!” DuPres yelled. As Nancy looked on in horror, he swung his knife at Slesak's head!

S
TOP
!” N
ANCY SCREAMED.
She rushed forward and grabbed hold of Slesak, pulling him back. Her hand wrapped around his wrist until the cleaver clattered to the floor.

“Get back, Nancy!” Ned yelled.

DuPres's face was dangerously flushed. He took another step toward Slesak, his weapon held high.

“He is a crazy man!” Slesak sputtered. “He tried to kill me!”

“That's not the whole story, pal,” Ned said,
grabbing DuPres by the shoulder. “We saw you pick up the cleaver first.”

Suddenly DuPres's arm dropped as if the knife had grown too heavy. Nancy dropped Slesak's arm and walked up to the other man. DuPres looked totally defeated. He wiped a trembling hand across his face.

“What's going on?” a voice said from the doorway.

Nancy turned. “Jacques!” she said.

Bonet's gray eyes sized up the situation in a glance. He walked straight to Claude DuPres and put a supportive arm around him.

“He was searching my office. He tried to kill me,” Slesak said in a surly voice. “He is not fit to run this school!”

“I was looking for you!” DuPres shouted with a momentary return of spirit. “You followed me here to attack me!”

“Hah!” Slesak spat disdainfully and stalked out, slamming the door behind him.

Jacques regarded Claude soberly. “What was that all about—really?”

DuPres sighed. “Slesak did not tell the truth. I came to his office to find him. He was not there, so I went to the freezer to make certain the door is working again. And then I came here.”

“Why did you come here?” Nancy asked.

“To make certain everything was safe.”

Jacques's eyes met Nancy's over the top of
DuPres's head. “You look tired, Claude. Let me drive you home,” Jacques said.

“I would appreciate that,” DuPres said formally.

By unspoken agreement Nancy, Ned, and Jacques walked the older chef outside. “I'll be back with my car,” Jacques said, and he took off toward the hotel.

Nancy and Ned lingered with DuPres.

“It is only a matter of time before the board replaces me,” DuPres said quietly. “My health is failing. So is my reputation,” he continued. “But I cannot bear the thought of Paul Slesak taking over my school.”

“What about Jacques Bonet?” Ned asked. “He seems to have the right reputation.”

“He is too young. And anyway, he is too restless. He wants much, much more than just one school.”

Jacques's sports car pulled up, and Nancy watched as the younger chef helped the older one into the car. As the sports car made a tight U-turn and sped away, Nancy turned to Ned. “Let's not go back yet,” she said. “I want to walk around awhile and do some thinking.”

“All right.”

They strolled down the pathway in silence. After a few minutes Nancy stopped short. “I've got an idea.”

“What? No, don't tell me. Can it wait until after dinner?” Ned asked.

Nancy continued as though she hadn't heard him. “Do you think Slesak's left the school yet? We never really got a chance to talk to him.”

“You want to go wait around his office
again?”

“Just for a little while. Look, if you go with me, just for an hour or so, we'll go get burgers or pizza or take-out Chinese—whatever you want, my treat.”

“Well, okay. But I'm watching the clock.”

Slowly they went back into the building and returned to Paul Slesak's office. “The light's on,” Nancy said. “Maybe he's here.”

Ned grabbed her arm. “Yeah, but look who's coming!”

Nancy turned around and looked out the hall window. She could see Jacques Bonet's sports car wheeling into the school parking lot.

“Come on,” Ned said. “Let's get out of sight.”

They ran past Slesak's office and turned at the nearest branching corridor. As she pressed against the wall, Nancy could hear Jacques's determined footsteps pounding up the stairs.

She heard a door open, then softly shut. She peeked around the corner. “He must have gone into Slesak's office,” she said excitedly.

She tiptoed down the hallway, then crouched in front of Slesak's door. Ned kept a lookout.

Paul Slesak was speaking, but Nancy could only catch about one word in ten. “Information . . . in the wrong hands. If maintenance—”

Bonet's answer was lost to her entirely. Then
Slesak suddenly shouted, “You had no right to steal the recipes!”

Nancy's lips parted. She wished she dared look through the window in the door.

“Psst,” came a soft warning.

Nancy glanced at Ned and read his signals. Someone was coming! She straightened, looking around for somewhere to hide. There was no place. We'll have to bluff our way out, she realized as she tiptoed to where Ned was standing. “I can't find it,” she said out loud, seeing a chef just a few feet from her. “I've looked everywhere, and I just can't find it! I guess I'll have to come back and try to find it tomorrow,” Nancy said, heaving an exaggerated sigh. “Let's go.”

Ned chuckled as they stepped into the warm evening air. “It's a good thing that chef didn't ask you
what
you were trying to find. Did you hear anything at Slesak's door?”

“Not much, but one thing may be important.” She reported the pastry chef's words. “Why do you suppose Jacques stole Slesak's recipes?”

“Maybe he wants to take a shortcut to success, like Trent Richards. He figured he could use Slesak's recipes.”

“But that doesn't make sense. Jacques already has an excellent reputation. And Claude DuPres made it clear he thinks Slesak is second-rate.”

Ned shrugged. “Then you've got me.”

Nancy took Ned's hand as they began walking back to the hotel. “What is the deal with those
recipes?” she mused out loud. “I wish I'd gotten a better look at them.”

“You said they were just recipes.”

“They were. But there was something about them. . . . ” She sighed. “I'll think about it tomorrow. For now, let's go take a swim.”

They got back to the hotel and split up. “I'll meet you down here in ten minutes,” Ned told her.

“Make it five,” Nancy answered, smiling. She walked quickly to the south wing. There was no one around. As she approached the elevator, movement caught her eye. She looked up in time to see a man hurrying around the corner with some kind of wooden sign.

The elevator doors opened. Nancy stepped inside and rang for her floor. She leaned against the railing as the doors closed again.

But instead of making a smooth start, the elevator jerked. A dreadful clanking noise accompanied its progress upward. A sick feeling spread in the pit of her stomach. Something was terribly wrong.

At the fifteenth floor the car started to slow down. Heart pounding, Nancy squeezed her fingers between the doors, trying to wedge them open. Nothing happened.

Then the elevator jerked to a bouncing stop. Nancy pounded her fists against the doors. “Help!” she screamed. “Help me!”

The car shuddered once. Nancy pulled on the doors with all her might. Then something snapped, and the car plunged downward at dizzying speed. The elevator cable must have broken!

She was racing to her death at the bottom of a black abyss.

N
ANCY SCREAMED.
T
HE
lights were a blur outside the elevator window. With every second the car gathered momentum, plummeting toward the ground below.

I'm going to die, she thought, terror-stricken.

All of a sudden the lights went out—every light, inside and out. The elevator hurtled downward in total darkness.

Nancy closed her eyes. She was so scared she couldn't breathe. An eternity seemed to pass in a few seconds.

Then the car suddenly jerked. Nancy was
thrown to one side. She opened her eyes. Was it her imagination, or was the car starting to slow? Nancy dared not even move a muscle.

It
was
slowing! Nancy was so relieved she felt tears sting her eyes. Her mouth trembled as the elevator finally crawled to a shuddering stop. She didn't move. She was afraid—afraid the car would begin its downward plunge again.

She was still rooted to the spot when the doors slid open. The elevator hadn't stopped exactly at the first floor, Nancy realized. It was out of line, and Nancy was standing slightly above the small crowd of people who stood outside. Arms shaking, she jumped down just as Ned, Bess, and George raced forward.

“What's going on?” Ned demanded.

“I—I don't know.” Nancy tumbled into his arms. “It just started falling.”

“Where's the sign?” a man asked.

“What sign?” Ned looked at the man.

“The warning sign.”

Nancy's mind suddenly flashed back. “I saw a man taking something, but I didn't know what it was. It must have been the sign.

“Someone's definitely trying to kill me,” Nancy whispered to Ned.

He pulled her away from the crowd just as a maintenance man in blue coveralls appeared.

“Who used this elevator?” the maintenance man demanded.

“I did.” Nancy took a deep breath.

“Can't you read?” the man demanded. “This thing's been out of order all day.”

“There was no sign,” Ned explained grimly. “Someone removed it.”

The maintenance man turned pale.

“Why wasn't the elevator turned off?” George asked him.

“It was. Ever since it started jamming this morning. In fact, I'd turned off the operation switch and was checking it out. Then it suddenly broke loose.” He inclined his head toward Nancy. “Your friend there wouldn't have survived if I hadn't been on top of things.”

Nancy shuddered. “How could the elevator break loose if you'd thrown the operation switch?”

“That's what I don't understand. Someone had to turn it back on,” he muttered. “But I'm the only one authorized to do it.”

“Something's up,” Nancy said. “And somebody thinks I'm getting too close. Let's get out of here.”

“Who was the man who stole the sign?” Bess asked as they walked away.

“I don't know. But it wasn't Paul Slesak or Jacques Bonet. Neither of them could have made it back here from the cooking school in time.”

“So who does that leave? DuPres?” George asked.

“No!” Nancy was adamant. “We saw Jacques take him home.”

“We saw Jacques drive him out of the parking lot,” Ned corrected her. “We don't know where he went after that.”

“It's all connected somehow,” Nancy muttered, her thoughts churning. She checked her watch. “I'm going back over to the school.”

“Tonight?” Bess and George chorused.

“What better time? Bonet's office is there. If he's got Slesak's recipes, it's a good bet he's keeping them there.”

“Then I'm coming with you,” Ned said.

“Okay. I think I'd better bring my camera too.”

“Bess and I will do our best to get into Bonet's room and search it,” George said.

“What?” Bess stared at her cousin in dismay.

“Maybe we can get ourselves invited over.” George ignored Bess's affronted look. “Flirting is your specialty, Bess. See if you can't wangle an invitation out of him.”