Free Croissant Murder (A Patisserie Mystery with Recipes) by Harper Lin

unannounced, to pick up some things that she’d left after she moved out. Sarah had been hanging around. Clémence wouldn’t have been surprised if Sarah had already moved in to replace her. It’d been a dramatic experience for Clémence, to say the least. While Sarah had been soft-spoken and polite, Clémence still hated her. She resented her long, luscious hair, her Scarlett Johansson curves, her pouty lips, and how Mathieu was simply obsessed with her.

    Mathieu was a charmer. He could flit from girl to girl like a bee flitted between flowers. Of course, he dropped Sarah in the end, when the novelty wore off. In that, she sympathized with Sarah.  

    On the front steps of the Palais Garnier, she waited for Madeleine to show up. Clémence had told her that she’d be dressed in black, in case she failed to recognize her.

    A cab pulled up, and Madeleine stepped out and waved to Clémence with a big smile. The eldest Seydoux sister had long brown hair styled in loose waves, large doe eyes and porcelain skin. She wore a soft pink designer pants suit, a silk cream blouse, and black Louboutin heels, looking every inch the chic working girl-slash-socialite she was.

    “So good to see you!” Madeleine greeted her with bisous . “No pesky paparazzi at your back today?”

    “Nope. Good riddance.”  

    “All this extra attention is draining Sophie, too. She can’t go to therapy without being harassed. But she’s making the most out of it. She signed a book deal to tell her story. Maybe it’ll be therapeutic for her. I heard they asked you too, but you said no.”  

    “There’s nothing to tell.”

    “You’re modest. You saved her life.”  

    “Oh, it’s pure luck.” Clémence waved her compliment away. “Anyway, you’re looking fab.”  

    “Speak for yourself, fashionista. You were Best Dressed on the Paris Social blog this month. They love you.”  

    “Well, they’ve been a pain in the ass.” She explained how they’d managed to snap her going into her ex’s house two days in a row.  

    “They’re just desperate for a good scoop. At least the paps aren’t around right now, but let’s get walking since this is a photo hotspot.”  

    “So Sarah said she was coming at five thirty p.m.?” Clémence asked.

    Madeleine nodded. “That’s what she agreed to. She says she has a break from work at that time. I don’t know what to expect. I haven’t seen her in ages. It might even be a year. Time passes so fast.”  

    “The important thing is to ask her what she thinks about Mathieu’s new girlfriend, and also to find out what she was doing last night.”  

    “Got it. God, what if she’s actually the murderer? I mean, I’d be talking to a murderer, then!”

    “We’ll see. We don’t know anything, so we can’t jump to conclusions. Who knows? Maybe she might know something about Mathieu and Charlotte that nobody else does. Just ask questions, without sounding like you’re interrogating her.”  

    “It’s okay. I’m the nosy type and she knows it, so she won’t suspect anything out of the ordinary.”  

    “I figured you’d be the perfect person for this gig.” Clémence smiled. “You’ll be a good partner-in-crime.”  

    They reached the café that was on a side street from Galerie Lafayette.

    “Perfect,” Clémence said. “There are plenty of empty seats outside. I’ll be inside that crêperie, watching from the window. Call me as soon as she comes, and leave the phone on.”  

    The girls took their places and waited. Madeleine lit a cigarette and smoked, along with everybody else who was sitting outside. There were still fifteen minutes to go until Sarah would show up, so Madeleine played around on her smartphone.  

    Clémence was tempted to order a chocolate crepe. But she’d already eaten a pain au chocolat that day, so per her one-dessert-a-day limit, she settled on a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice.  

    When she’d drunk most of the juice,