Chapter Seven: The Guests Upstairs
Two attendees answered Thomas’s calls that night.
One remembered tasting a creamy appetizer but could not describe the ingredients precisely.
The other had taken only wine and bread because she disliked mushrooms.
Neither reported illness.
The third attendee, a food columnist named Celia Wren, did not answer her phone.
The fourth number belonged to Adrian Kroll himself.
Thomas left messages requesting immediate contact and encouraged the guests to seek medical advice if they had health concerns.
Simone notified the appropriate local food-safety authorities about the suspect shipments and the private tasting.
She gave them the available facts without claiming that a particular mushroom was dangerous.
The uncertainty made the call difficult, but she refused to minimize it.
Lily listened as Simone spelled out the number of boxes and the timeline.
The chef then stepped outside into the damp service courtyard to breathe.
“You did the right thing,” Lily told her.
Simone leaned against the brick wall.
“I did the late thing.”
“You questioned the first shipment yesterday.”
“I should have insisted that every sample be locked away immediately.”
“You couldn’t know Grant had set up a separate tasting.”
“I could have asked who else had access to the building.”
Lily remembered Grant’s expression when he fired her.
“He liked making everyone afraid to ask questions.”
Simone looked back through the kitchen window.
“He was successful.”
For a few moments they listened to rain ticking against the metal ventilation hood.
“Are you going to let Thomas hire you back?” Simone asked.
“He hasn’t offered.”
“He will.”
“I don’t know what I want.
”
“That’s a more useful answer than pretending you do.”
Inside, Priya was closing out the evening registers.
Lily helped carry clean glasses to the storage racks before leaving the building.
Thomas stopped her near the host stand.
He held her pale-blue apron, now neatly folded.
“I owe you an apology, Lily.”
“I know.”
His eyebrows rose at her bluntness.
“I’m sorry I let Grant treat people as though the uniform made them disposable.”
“He didn’t start doing that today.”
“No,” Thomas admitted.
“He didn’t.”
Lily waited for him to continue.
“I should have seen it,” he said.
“You had people telling you,” she replied.
“Priya submitted a complaint in March, and Ben asked for a meeting in June.”
Thomas looked startled.
“Those complaints never reached me.”
“Your system made Grant the person who decided which complaints were important enough to send you.”
Thomas said nothing.
“That’s why everyone stopped bothering,” Lily added.
She reached for her apron but did not put it on.
“Please don’t turn tonight into a story about one old man who showed you a problem.”
“What should it be about?”
“The people who kept telling you, before Walter ever walked through the door.”
Thomas accepted the criticism without defending himself.
He promised to contact every current employee through a channel Grant could not screen.
Lily asked for written confirmation of her termination, her final pay, and the circumstances of the extra shift she had just worked.
Thomas agreed and instructed Olivia to provide them that night.
It was not a triumphant conversation.
It was an awkward, practical one, and Lily preferred it that way.
She finally left the steakhouse shortly before midnight.
On the sidewalk, she discovered Walter sitting beneath the awning with a paper bag in his lap.
“Amina made me take chicken for the walk home,” he explained.
“She put enough in here for three people.”
Lily smiled for the first time since her dismissal.
“Where do you live?”
“Not far from the old observatory.”
“That’s a long walk in the rain.”
“I called a cab after Thomas found my wallet at the survey office.”
“So you’re not stranded anymore.”
“Not tonight.”
He looked at the apron tucked beneath her arm.
“You don’t have to decide your whole future before breakfast, you know.”
“I might have to decide whether I can afford breakfast.”
He understood the difference immediately.
“Then I hope Thomas keeps his promise about the wages.”
A car stopped at the curb, and Walter climbed inside with his dinner.
Before shutting the door, he leaned out.
“I came here because I feared somebody had placed a name on food they couldn’t identify.”
“And you found out they placed your name on the food, too.”
“Yes,” he said.
“That’s the part that will keep me awake.”
