French Pastry Murder (A Lucy Stone Mystery) Read Free Page A

pictures on the screen changed, and it now showed a professional-style kitchen and a chef wearing a tall white toque. “While enjoying all the attractions of the world’s most beautiful city, they will also get a week’s worth of lessons at Le Cooking School from renowned pastry chef Larry Bruneau!”
    Lucy glanced at Sue, thinking that her friend looked as if she’d died and gone to heaven. “I can’t believe it,” mouthed Sue, nudging the others.
    Sidra must have been behind this, thought Lucy. Only Sidra would have known how much Sue, a gourmet cook, would enjoy lessons from a genuine chef. And Paris, that was another of Sue’s enthusiasms. Sidra had come up with the idea for her mother, and the rest of them were tagalongs. But that was okay with her. She didn’t care about cooking classes; she was more interested in gardens and museums. But she was finally going to get her dream of seeing Paris, and more importantly, she’d be able to spend time with her unhappy daughter. She was smiling, she realized, and she couldn’t seem to stop. Now she was actually jumping up and down, right along with her three friends. They were all holding hands and jumping up and down like sorority sisters who all had dates for Spring Fling. They were going to Paris!

Chapter Two
    I t was the light. There was something special about the light in Paris, thought Lucy as the minivan rocketed along the Seine River. Maybe it was the time of year, April, or maybe all the gray buildings and the stone embankments that bounded the Seine, but the sunlight wasn’t at all like the hearty, dazzling blast you got in Maine. It was thinner somehow, gentler and more liquid, as if it were coming through a filter.
    “That’s Notre-Dame,” said Sue, poking her in the ribs and pointing out the window.
    So it was. Lucy had seen the cathedral only in pictures, but there it sat, solid and massive, complete with those amazing flying buttresses, right on an island in the middle of the river. “I can’t believe I’m really here,” she said.
    “Well, you are,” said Bill, who was seated behind her in the crowded van.
    The van driver had been waiting for them when they got through immigration, holding a sign that read TINKER’S COVE EIGHT . A touch of humor from Norah, Lucy had thought, or, more likely, Sidra. The driver, Henri, had led them through the chaotic terminal at Charles de Gaulle Airport and through the automatic doors to the even more disorganized scene outside, where roadway repairs were forcing buses, cars, taxis, and vans to jostle for space at the curb.
    “This would never happen in the U.S.,” Sue’s husband, Sid, had declared when a tiny Renault simply stopped in the middle of the single open lane to discharge a passenger, who took his own sweet time saying good-bye to the driver, heedless of the tie-up he was causing. Sid’s voice was full of disapproval. At home he designed and installed closet systems and liked everything to be in its proper place.
    The four American couples had followed Henri, pulling their wheeled suitcases to a quiet parking area, where he’d helped them load their luggage into the van, arranging it like a puzzle. Then they had all squeezed inside, fitting their American-size bodies into the European-size van.
    “I give you tour of Paree, no?” Henri had said, flooring the accelerator and zooming into traffic to be greeted with a chorus of beeps from the other drivers.
    The first part of the drive had hardly been scenic. It was the sort of grimy autoroute that you’d find in the United States, leading into Boston or New York. But then they were in the city proper, and it looked exactly like Paris ought to look, with parks and shops and six-story buildings with tiled mansard roofs, French windows, and tiny balconies. Lucy could hardly take it all in.
    “La Tour Eiffel,” announced Henri, pointing at the iconic structure. Then they crossed the river and were whizzing around the l’Arc de Triomphe, where