Harper Lin - Patisserie 07 - Madeleine Murder Read Online Free PDF Page A

newspapers and books on the benches.
    She kept up with Miffy at a jogging pace, glad that she’d worn comfortable quilted black Chanel flats that morning. She laughed as Miffy dragged her from bush to flower to tree. Sometimes Miffy was too curious of a dog; she’d put anything in her mouth. Clémence had to drag her away from a bag of pretzels that had been spilled on the ground. One of the reasons why she hardly ever took Miffy into Damour was that sometimes the customers wanted to feed her. Once, a sweet old lady almost managed to give Miffy a piece of a chocolate éclair. Chocolate was lethal for dogs, and Miffy could’ve been a goner if Clémence hadn’t come to the rescue. 
    As she looked around the peaceful park, she felt a tinge of sadness that summer was ending. While the murders around Paris had caused a lot of stress and chaos, she’d had the best summer of her life with Arthur and all of her friends. She took a deep breath, taking in the fresh air that was already tinged with autumn’s crispness, and then began walking back to her home. 
    After she dropped Miffy off in the living room to play with her toys in a corner, Clémence left for the Athena Hotel. The luxury hotel was only a ten-minute walk from her place, so she walked some more. Clémence didn’t mind the exercise. Her thighs had gotten stronger after all the biking in the Netherlands, plus now that she was back working at Damour, she was surely going to be eating more sweets, so any exercise was good in her book. 
    The Athena Hotel had beautiful red flowers on every balcony, and as Clémence approached, she couldn’t help but look up to admire the vivid color against the beige facade. Some of her friends and distant relatives stayed at the four-star hotel whenever they visited her in Paris. Clémence had drunk in the hotel’s famous Blue Bar, its high class but cozy bar with plush, blue velvet seats and mahogany walls adorned with black and white headshots of movie stars from the golden age. 
    As Clémence walked, she texted Rachel to confirm that she was coming, but Rachel didn’t text back. They had made the rendezvous only yesterday, so Clémence assumed Rachel would keep her word. Rachel had already given her the room number she was staying in, so Clémence could go there directly.
    Passing porters in elegant red uniforms trimmed with gold, and smartly dressed hotel staff, Clémence took the elevator to the third floor. 
    She knocked on the door of room 305 and waited. After a few seconds passed, Rachel didn’t come to the door, so Clémence called her on the phone.
    She heard the phone ring on the other side of the door. It kept ringing and ringing. Clémence wondered if Rachel had been called onto the set at the last minute and had forgotten her phone at home.
    If Clémence had known where exactly they were filming, going there might’ve been an option. Since she didn’t, she decided to go back downstairs and wait in case Rachel were to come back. Since Clémence was already at the Athena, she could have a drink at the Blue Bar and try to search the gossip blogs on her phone to see where the crew was shooting. 
    When the elevator door opened on the ground floor, Clémence came out and ran into a young woman with a short pixie haircut. The woman had a precious face with large doe eyes and dimples. 
    “Clémence!” Sophie Seydoux exclaimed. 
    “ Salut , Sophie.” Clémence greeted her with a bisou on each cheek.
    Sophie was heiress to the famous gourmet chocolate stores, Chateau du Chocolat , along with her sister Madeleine. They were both It girls and socialites who were often stalked by the paparazzi and appeared in fashion and tabloid magazines. After Sophie’s infamous kidnapping incident, their fame rubbed off on Clémence for a while before the paparazzi got tired of her boring life and got distracted by the real celebrities who’d shown up in Paris for the summer to shoot Hollywood films. Clémence was now good