“This is true. Yes.” He had the nerve to look repentant. “I must smash the glass containers that the salt comes in. So no one will see and discover what I have been doing.”

“Then it’s not a secret recipe?” I should have gotten that part through my head by now, but some legends die a hard death. “There’s nothing rare and exceptional about Vavoom!?”

Monsieur’s shrug was answer enough.

“And you didn’t have anything to do with Drago’s death?”

This time, he didn’t shrug. He jumped as if he’d touched a finger to an electrical line. “Me?” Monsieur’s cheeks got red. “You thought I-?”

“You have been acting mighty suspicious.”

Another shrug. He glanced at the seasoned salt. “And now you see why.”

“And youwere having an argument with Drago that first night of cooking class.”

Monsieur nodded. “This is true. He came into the shop. He demanded that I let him upstairs. I did not think it would hurt until he said something about one of the students. The beautiful woman, Beyla. He said he must talk to her. And when I saw the fire in his eyes…” Lavoie shivered. “I did not think this was a wise thing. I told him no. I sent him away.”

“And he was so mad that you didn’t cooperate, he almost mowed me down at the front door.” I nodded, too. It all made sense. “And the Vavoom!?”

Monsieur held a jar out to me. “Lifetime supply,” he said. “If you do not breathe a word.”

I didn’t take the jar. I had enough at home to last at least a half a lifetime. Besides, now that I knew what it really was, how much I’d overpaid and for how long, the bloom was off the spice.

My illusions shattered, my faith in human nature (at least Monsieur Lavoie’s human nature) shaken, I headed back to class.

I didn’t say a word to Eve about what I’d discovered, partly because I was embarrassed and partly because I didn’t have a chance. Luckily, we weren’t actually making the venison stew, just talking about it. I’d missed the beginning of the discussion, but at the end, just as we began our cleanup, I managed to tell Eve that I’d eliminated Monsieur as a suspect. Fueled by the thought and the realization that it left us with only one viable culprit, I watched Beyla work at the other end of the big sink where we washed up the pots and pans and dishes that we’d dirtied in class.

“She’s in an awfully big hurry,” I told Eve, and it was true. Beyla had whisked through her dishes and her pots and pans in no time at all. (Then again, from the praise I’d heard her get from our classmates and from Jim, I don’t think she had scorched orange sauce to deal with.)

Eve’s gaze followed mine. “Suppose she has a hot date?”

I wiped up the sink and tossed my sponge. “Suppose we should find out?”

“You mean…” Eve’s eyes lit up. She always was up for an adventure, but she was blown away by the thought that for once, maybe I was, too. “Annie, are you talking about following her?”

Was I?

The new bold and daring Annie Capshaw warred with the person I used to be, the play-it-safe woman who didn’t have a thing to show for thirty-five years of doing just that. Except an ex who’d left her for greener pastures, a bank account that would never support a house payment, and a job that was safe, dependable-and completely boring. Oh yeah, and a whole lot of jars of seasoned salt that she’d been conned into buying because the roly-poly Frenchman on the label had seduced her with promises of culinary wonder.

I threw back my shoulders and stood as straight and tall as a short person can.

“You’re darned right I’m talking about following her,” I told Eve. Right after Beyla walked out of the classroom and headed downstairs, I grabbed Eve’s hand.

“Let’s go.”

THEY MAKE IT LOOK REALLY EASY ON TV BUT IN reality, the whole following-the-bad-guy thing is about as tricky as cooking and as sticky as my failed orange sauce.

It also takes a whole lot of logistical coordination.

Lucky for us and for our investigation, I might have been a disaster when it came to cooking, and I was definitely a chicken when parallel parking was the name of the game, but I was a crackerjack organizer.

I was also quickly becoming a pretty good liar.

Remembering my promise to Jim-the one about how I wasn’t going to investigate anymore-I made up a convincing (if I do say so myself) excuse about how I had to get home quickly because I was expecting a phone call from my folks in Florida. With that taken care of, we were out of the cooking school and downstairs in the shop in a flash.

By then, I already had a plan. And the moment we stepped out the door and into the humid evening air, I put it into action.

First, I sent Eve to follow Beyla so we could find out where she was parked and what kind of car she was driving. Then, because I’d driven that night, I hurried to get my car, leaving Eve with specific instructions to keep an eye on Beyla so she could point the way if Beyla up and left before I returned.

Of course, thanks to a parking lot tight on spaces, a series of one-way streets, and traffic that was as dense as peanut butter, Beyla up and left before I returned.

Was that going to stop me? No way! The excitement of the chase pumped through my veins like fire. I was hot in pursuit and on top of my game.

I knew Eve was feeling the exhilaration, too. When I finally cruised by the front of Très Bonne Cuisine where she was waiting, she jumped into the car before I had a chance to come to a complete stop. Breathless, she pointed directly at my windshield. “That way! She went that way!”

I flicked on my signal and turned back into traffic with far more daring and far less civility than I usually displayed. I claimed my patch of street right between a dark sports car and a light-colored SUV, the driver of which had a few choice words to describe both me and my driving skills. Any other time, I would have been appalled, not to mention upset. But tonight, I didn’t care one bit. I was on a mission, one the SUV driver couldn’t possibly understand. And I wasn’t about to let a little thing like traffic stand in my way.

Up ahead, the traffic light turned from red to green, and I scanned the cars in the line in front of us. “What kind of car?” I asked Eve.

She buckled her seat belt. She was as jazzed as I was, and her eyes sparkled when they met mine. She gulped in a breath, so proud of her part in the hunt, she looked like she would burst. “Green.”

Good thing traffic was moving like molasses. We didn’t jerk (at least not too much) when I slammed on my brakes.

“Green? As in green sports car? Or green minivan? Or green sedan? What make of car is it? What year? Did you get a look at the license plate?”

Eve shrugged, and her smile wilted. “Green. It was green. You know, the same color as that winter coat I bought a couple years ago. The one I never wore because it made me look fat.”

The way I remembered it (and I knew I remembered it correctly), the coat in question never made Eve look anywhere near fat. But there was no use getting into that discussion again. We’d gone a few rounds at the time she bought the damn thing. What mattered now was that I remembered the coat. I knew exactly the color she was talking about. It was green, all right. Dark green. Like a Christmas tree.

Which was great, and actually might have been helpful if the traffic in front of us wasn’t as thick as flies at a church picnic, if it wasn’t just past sunset, and if, between the glow of the streetlights and the glare of the headlights from the cars headed toward us from the other direction, every car in the sea of cars didn’t look the exact same dark color.

I scrambled to come up with a plan B.

“Which lane did she get into?” I asked Eve.