“That too.”

  “To be fair, getting the truth out of my employees was always going to be a tall task. They always get tense around me. Probably because they are afraid of saying the wrong thing.”

  “That makes sense. At previous jobs, I tried to avoid talking to my boss. I was afraid of getting in trouble, even if I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “That’s why you’ll be the perfect person to uncover what’s really going on at my restaurant.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. What makes you think your staff will be more open with me than they were with you? If they find out that a private investigator is poking her head around, they might completely clam up.”

  “That’s why I want you to go undercover.”

  I did a double-take. “I’m sorry. Did I just hear that correctly?”

  “I want you to spend the rest of the week posing as a new employee at my restaurant.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “The way I see it, that will give you the best chance of getting my employees to talk to you. If they feel like you’re just like them, maybe they’ll give you the scoop on how they are feeling.”

  “That might work.”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “I think this has a really good shot of working. The question is, are you up to it?”

  “I can certainly give it a try.”

  “Great.”

  “Don’t get too excited. There’s a very real chance that I’m not able to uncover anything crazy by the end of the week.”

  “In that case, I’ll just have you come back next week.”

  “That brings up an interesting point. Normally, I just do surveillance. Stakeouts are my specialty. If you legitimately want me to go undercover, I charge extra for that.”

  “I’m fine with that.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Ms. Clue, this is my business we’re talking about. My livelihood. I’ve spent over a decade building an incredible customer base for my bistro. I’m not going to let all of that be put in jeopardy.”

  “All right.”

  “Great. It’s settled then. Get ready to go undercover.”

  Chapter Four

  A few hours later

  I felt like I was going to pass out. Not because I had been drugged, or beaten, or anything crazy like that. Although, given the fact that I was a private investigator, none of those things were out of the realm of possibility for my profession.

  The reason I was on the verge of passing out was because I was dead tired. Physical exhaustion wasn’t something that I experienced very often while working on a case. That was because most of my investigations involved me performing surveillance from afar. Conducting a stakeout was traditionally a sedentary activity. Occasionally, during the course of an evening, I would creep up in the shadows or hide behind a bush. That was rare, however.

  This particular case was far different than anything I was accustomed to. Going undercover was not something I was terribly comfortable with. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the added cash, I wouldn’t have taken this assignment.

  What I failed to realize until I arrived at Steven’s restaurant was just how physically demanding this case would be. You see, there were a number of different positions within the bistro that he could have assigned me to. For example, hostess. Or bartender. Or line cook.

  That wasn’t what he went with. He elected to have me work as a waitress. I could have argued with him, but it was the right call. At least, for the investigation. My aching muscles did not agree with that decision.

  Despite the protest from my body, it was a good call for me to wait tables. Unlike the other positions in the bistro, I was able to move freely throughout the restaurant. That certainly wasn’t the case with a cook. They spent most of their shift in the kitchen. Meanwhile, bartenders spent most of their shift in a confined area as well. A hostess was able to have far more mobility, but they still spent the majority of their shifts in the front of the restaurant.

  Other than managers, servers were the only employees that were able to cover every inch of the restaurant throughout their day. While waiting tables gave me the freedom of movement, being on my feet for eight solid hours was grueling.

  Halfway through my first shift, my feet were as sore as could be. I thought I had properly prepared myself. After all, this wasn’t my first time being a server. I had waited tables back in college. Even though that was a while ago, I didn’t believe that much had changed in the profession over the years.

  Other than the new computer system for inputting orders and cashing out guests, the job itself was the same as always. I was just a lot different than I was back in college. More specifically, I was nearly as limber or spry as I used to be. In addition, my muscles got sore a lot quicker.

  It also became clear that I had forgotten how stressful waiting tables was. Or, maybe I had intentionally blocked that part out. One thing was definitely for certain. Waiting tables was a younger person’s game.

  I said that knowing all-too well that I wasn’t exactly old myself. But in restaurant terms, thirty-nine was getting up there in age.

  It didn’t seem to matter that I was wearing the most comfortable pair of shoes that I owned. Apparently, no amount of memory foam in the soles of those sneakers would give my feet the cushion they wanted.

  If there was ever a time for a case to get wrapped up quickly, it was right then. I desperately wanted to catch a break. If I had to stay undercover all week, I would need the world’s biggest foot massage by the time the weekend arrived.

  Unfortunately, even though I prayed for this case to end sooner rather than later, it didn’t seem like that would happen. In fact, during my entire first shift, I spent all of my time trying to absorb the new information that was being thrown at me.

  Julie Norton had been assigned to train me. The slim brunette was my age. Time had not been kind to her, however. She looked ten years older than me. There was a world-weary look in her hazel eyes. I didn’t blame her. This was a tough way to make a living. Servers dealt with a lot of mistreatment from customers. And wait staff didn’t get tipped nearly well enough.

  All I had to do was take one look in Julie’s eyes to know that she had some stories to tell. Whether I’d be able to get any useful information out of her was another matter. It wouldn’t be easy. I kept trying to make inroads with her by throwing questions her way, but she didn’t bite on any of them.

  I had to hand it to her, she wanted me to be as well-trained as possible. That afternoon, she had no time for gossip. She was too busy going over the menu items with me. And explaining the different stations at the restaurant. Not to mention detailing the various side duties that servers were responsible for. She also spent a good deal of time going over the various table numbers with me. If that wasn’t enough to process, we also had actual customers to wait on.

  With everything that was taking place, the first four hours of my shift went by in a blur.

  ***

  I was so thankful when a break finally arrived. Julie then headed out to the alleyway that was beside the restaurant. She immediately lit up a smoke.

  I figured this might be a good opportunity to get her to open up to me. It turned out that I was wrong.

  “Do your feet hurt?” I asked.

  Julie grimaced. “Can I answer that question later?”

  I shrugged. “Why later?”

  Julie pulled out her phone. “I was hoping you could give me a few moments alone. We only get ten minutes for our break and I want to call my boyfriend.”

  “Uh, sure. Take all the time you need.”

  “Thanks.”

  Julie walked away and dialed her boyfriend’s phone number.

  At that point, it was hard not to feel a little discouraged. I had been trying so hard to get her to open up to me. This seemed like a golden opportunity.

  Even though I didn’t smoke, and never had, I remained in the alleyway.

  This seemed like a place where a lot of the employees would congregate on their breaks. I would keep that in mind for the future.

  There was another reason that I remained in the alley that evening.

  It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that I would overhear something interesting in Julie’s conversation with her boyfriend.

  Imagine my surprise then when Julie spent eight minutes not saying a single word about her workday. Instead, her conversation was solely focused on events that were taking place in her boyfriend’s life. What a shame.

  By the time Julie got off of the phone, break time was over. We headed back inside and resumed waiting tables.

  ***

  A number of minutes later, an interesting interaction took place in the kitchen of the restaurant. I don’t know if you’ve ever worked in a restaurant, but the kitchen was a place where a lot of yelling took place. Typically, that screaming involved the head chef barking orders at line cooks. Occasionally, the head chef would target individual servers.

  When it came to the Majestic Cove Bistro, Dietrich Muller was the resident hot head. Dietrich wasn’t just the head chef. He was a man who radiated arrogance.

  At that particular moment, his target was Julie. Dietrich yelled at my co-worker the moment he spotted her entering the kitchen.

  “Julie, what do you think you’re doing?” Dietrich yelled.

  Julie put her hand up. “Calm down.”

  “Don’t you dare talk to me that way. Where have you been?”

  “Waiting tables.”

  “You mean, you’ve been letting my food get cold.”

  Julie scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. How long has this order been up, sixty seconds?”

  “Every second counts. I do not cook amazing food to have it sitting on the shelf.”

  “How about you stop lecturing me? The longer you ramble on, the colder your food is getting.”

  “You’d better come right back. Your order for table five will be ready in a minute.”

  Julie grabbed the plates that were on the shelf. “Hold your horses.”

  “I will do no such thing.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m coming right back.”

  “Good,” Dietrich said.

  Julie headed back toward the dining room. I followed her.

  As Julie walked away, I heard her groan.

  Throughout the work shift, Julie had done a commendable job of keeping her cool. That said, I could tell that Dietrich had gotten under her skin. It seemed like a good time to throw a couple of questions her way. She might be taken off guard and give me an incredibly candid answer.

  “Is he always that unpleasant?” I asked.

  “Unfortunately,” Julie said.

  “Yikes. How do you deal with that, day in and day out?”

  “What other choice do I have? Dealing with Dietrich is just an occupational hazard.”

  “Have you ever complained to Steven about Dietrich?”

  “Why would I waste my time doing that?”

  “What makes you think it would be such a waste of time?”

  “Stick around a little while. You’ll see. Steven let’s Dietrich handle the kitchen however he sees fit.”

  My nose scrunched. “Why?”

  “Wait. You haven’t heard? Dietrich is a culinary genius.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “Is that so?”

  “Those are Dietrich’s words, not mine. But Steven definitely believes that Dietrich is some sort of a food magician.”

  “So, Dietrich just gets to yell at whoever he wants?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “How does the rest of the staff feel about that?”

  “Like I said before, dealing with Dietrich is an occupational hazard. Speaking of which, we need to get this food to table eight right now. Otherwise, the culinary genius is really going to let us have it.”

  I wanted to ask Julie another question, but I couldn’t get it out in time. Julie was on a mission to serve that food. What a shame too. The conversation was finally heating up. I couldn’t believe that it was fizzling out so quickly.

  Then again, there had been a lot of starting and stopping so far. That was just the nature of the restaurant business. I had to face the facts. The food industry did not lend itself to having long conversations. The best I could hope for were the occasional snippets.

  One thing was clear. Going forward, I would definitely be keeping my eye on Dietrich. Was he truly a force of nature? Or was he also a thorn in the side of every employee at this restaurant? Perhaps he was a bit of both. As the head chef, he wielded power. And he commanded attention. That was often a dangerous combination.

  Chapter Five

  The rest of the evening was very much a blur. There was just so much being thrown at me that it was hard to keep track of it all. Julie and I just rushed from one table to the next.

  It was safe to say that the end of my shift could not come soon enough. During the peak of the rush, it seemed like things would never quiet done. Thankfully, they did. But even after the last customer left the bistro, there was still work to be done.

  Each server had a list of closing duties that had to be taken care of before they could clock out. With Julie and I splitting up those duties, there was a chance that we could get everything done in half the time.

  Normally, that would be good news. In my mind, that was quite unfortunate. Why? Because with customers no longer in the building, things had finally quieted down enough that I might be able to have a regular conversation with Julie. Since she was so exhausted, perhaps she would let her guard down.

  Just as I was about to lob a question at her, Steven approached me and asked how my first shift went. Throughout most of the evening, I had managed to avoid speaking with Steven. That was a good thing. I didn’t want him to let anything to slip out by mistake. All it would take was one careless sentence and someone on the staff might become suspicious of me and why I was truly here.

  With all of that in mind, I tried to keep my conversation with Steven brief. I told him that my first shift had gone fine. We then exchanged a few more words and pleasantries before a clang was heard in the kitchen.

  Steven grimaced when he heard the clanging sound.

  “Oh no. What now?” Steven asked.

  He then whirled around and barreled toward the kitchen.

  When Steven walked away, I turned to Julie and asked her, “Is Steven always so stressed out?”

  Julie didn’t even blink. “Pretty much.”

  “Wow. What a rough job he’s got,” I said.

  “That’s why he gets paid the big bucks.”

  “Yeah. But at what cost? His sanity?”

  “I don’t know. I have my own problems to worry about.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the fact that customers sure are cheap tippers sometimes.”

  “I hear you. I don’t think they realize how hard you work.”

  “Is it that they don’t realize? Or that they don’t care?”

  What a weird situation to be put in. Julie was finally opening up to me. It just wasn’t about the subject that I was looking for.

  I wanted to steer the discussion to Steven once more.

  “Back to Steven, would you say he’s a good boss?” I asked.

  “I think he tries to be,” Julie replied.

  “Does he succeed most of the time?”

  “I’ll say this. I’ve had worse bosses. Far worse, actually. I worked for this one guy who was an absolute nightmare. In fact, a shiver goes down my spine every time I think about him.”

  Yikes. Julie sure liked going off on tangents. I needed to find a way to get her to focus.

  “Don’t get me wrong. I’m very sorry to hear that. But I’d like a little more information on Steven. Does the rest of the staff get along with him?”

  “Hold on a second. Why are you asking me so many questions about our boss?”

  “I just want to get the lay of the land. If I’m going to be working here, I want to know about all of the potential land mines that I need to avoid.”

  “I hear you.”

  “So, are there any red flags that I need to look out for?”

  “You want to hear about a red flag? Here’s a big one. My bed is calling me. And I want to answer as soon as possible. Can we get this side work done as soon as possible?”

  “Sure.”

  “Great.”

  As Julie began to start folding napkins, I was struck by how quickly that conversation fizzled out. The question became, was it truly because Julie was desperate to get home? Or did she just not want to gossip about work?

  Chapter Six

  That night, I slept like a rock. In fact, less than five minutes after I plopped my head down on my pillow, I was out cold. The next morning, I woke up feeling incredibly sore. I could easily soak in a tub filled with warm water for hours. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option that was available to me. Another shift at the restaurant awaited me. I just needed to find a way to peel myself out of bed first.

  It took some effort, but I finally managed to convince my muscles to work correctly. A few hours later, I pulled into the parking lot outside the bistro. As I stared at the restaurant, I wondered what was in store for me.

  It didn’t take long to find out. Even though it was only day two of my investigation, I already had my hands full. Literally. Within five minutes of arriving at the bistro, I was carrying a large tray of food. My work load only got heavier from there. As my work day kicked into full gear, one thing became abundantly clear—I had not done this much strenuous labor in a long time.

  I soon discovered that the heavy lifting wasn’t just related to the physical items I was carrying around the restaurant. Procuring useful information was proving to be far more difficult than I thought it would.

  It wasn’t because I couldn’t get the bistro employees to talk. In fact, the chatter throughout the day was nearly constant. The conversation just happened to be strictly related to what a customer wanted at any given time. Or what lousy tip a server just received. Or what order was finally ready in the kitchen.