Chapter 17 of 18The Booth by the Fountain

Simon Trent had sent the records request that morning, and Thea Quinn knew exactly what it cost. Ferncliff House would have to answer in writing now, and her name would sit on a county docket any neighbor could walk in and read. The only money that could answer it was the Hazelnut Festival booth the shop had kept every September since the gold letters went up on the window of The Gilded Truffle on Main Street.

Everything had a price. Her mentor's recipes had one, and she was paying it in Cascade Ridge, a town that had not yet decided whether it liked her.

The back kitchen smelled of cardamom and rain. Another batch of ganache was cooling on the marble, and the whole room held that warm, close quiet that came with a recipe nearly right.

"Taste it," Thea said.

Fina leaned over the bowl with a spoon, and her pink hair swung forward and nearly landed in the chocolate. "Oh. Wow."

"Don't wow it yet."

"Then I'll say it's better than the last one."

"The praline is hiding behind the rosewater. It should be in front, pulling the whole thing forward."

"So switch them?"

"You tell me which one you taste first."

Fina closed her eyes to sort one flavor from another, a habit Thea had stopped teasing her about. "Praline. Definitely praline."

"Then it's closer than I thought." Thea scraped the bowl down with a bench knife, and the smell of it — warm nut, cool flower, a thread of salt at the very end — rose up and stayed in the room like something remembered from a kitchen she had not stood in for a long time. She covered the ganache and carried it into the walk-in to set.

Fina wiped the marble. "That was Simon on the phone earlier, wasn't it."

"It was."

"Are you going to tell me what he said, or do I have to guess?"

"You'll hear all of it. Let me take the call first." Thea went to the wall phone by the office door.

"It's filed," Simon said.

"You filed it."

"This morning, at the county clerk's office. Ferncliff House has to answer, and they will, because that license leaves them no polite way out. Eleven dollars bought the certified copy and a file number that doesn't go away."

"Will they answer honestly?"

"They'll answer the way their lawyers allow them to. The license does the rest."

"And it's public."

"Everything at the clerk's office is public. That's the part that worries me." He paused, and she heard the rustle of his sleeve against the receiver. "Watch for a visitor today."

"I'll watch."

She hung up the receiver and stood a moment in the office, where the old tin ceiling held a stain shaped like a leaf. Then the front door opened and let in the wet cold of the street.

Harlan Voss ran the hardware store on Main Street, the same building where Simon Trent kept his law office upstairs, and he was the man the Merchant Association sent when the association preferred not to be seen sending anyone.

"Come in and wipe your boots," Thea said.

"I'll stand, thanks. This won't take long." He carried a festival program rolled in one hand, its corners soft from handling. "You've got the whole street talking about paperwork."

"I imagine I do."

"The clerk's office called the association this morning. That's how fast things move in a town this size."

"Then you know what's in the filing."

"I know what it says. What I don't know is why." He looked past her at the cases, the trays, the window with the gold letters. "Annelise Vogel put this town on the map. Every postcard on the rack at my counter has her shop on it. The whole autumn campaign is built on her name."

"I know what she built."

"Then you know what it's worth."

"I know what it cost somebody else."

That landed. He unrolled the program a little and rolled it back up. "I'm asking you to withdraw the request."

"No."

"You haven't heard what the association can offer."

"I don't need to."

"Thea." He used her first name and it sounded like a signature on a form. "You're a newcomer with a cloud over your name. Not one word about your old trouble has been printed in this town. That was a choice, and it was mostly mine."

"Then thank you. The answer is still no."

He looked at the ceiling a moment, at the unpainted tin, and huffed out a breath. "The association draws up the vendor list for the festival. The booth by the fountain has belonged to this shop as long as anyone at those meetings can remember. There are people who have waited a long while for that corner."

"Then they can wait."

"That depends on the committee." He set the festival program on the end of the counter and squared it to the edge. "A committee can find a reason. A shop with a tax notice outstanding, for instance. That came up at our last meeting. The county belongs to the association too."

"You're telling me my tax bill is a reason to keep me off the square."

"I'm telling you a committee can find one."

"There's a second name on that business license," Thea said. "It isn't hers."

"I know." Voss picked up his program and held it against his chest. "That's the trouble. This town has one story about Annelise Vogel, and it's a good story, and every motel and bakery and candle shop on Main Street lives off it."

"Then the story was never the problem. The record is."

"Same thing to a tourist."

She said nothing. The rain ticked against the window glass, and somewhere down the block a delivery truck shifted gears.

He got the door open, and the cold came in around his shoulders. "I'd hate for you to spend the festival on the sidewalk."

"Is that a threat, Mr. Voss?"

"That's a schedule." He stepped out. "The vendor list goes up before the festival. I'd fill out your form early, if I were you."

The door shut. Fina came out of the back with a tray of clean molds and set it down hard enough to rattle.

"What was that?"

"That was the town."

"What did he want?"

"He wanted the request gone."

"And?"

"And now I know what it's going to cost to keep it."

Thea pulled the vendor application out from under the register, where it had been sitting since the day she took the keys, next to the county notice. She filled in the top line for the shop name, and on the line marked applicant she printed her own name, in the place where Annelise's had always gone before. Then she slid it across the counter to Fina.

"Walk that down to the association office this afternoon," she said. "Before the list goes up."

Fina looked at the signature. "You're doing the festival anyway."

"I'm doing the rose truffles. Every one of them."