do, I was moving toward the door, shrugging out of my chef’s coat as I went.
I threw open the door, expecting to see Harvey standing there, but instead, there was no one. Well, no one that I could see right away. What I did see was a large spotlight pointing at the center of the alley.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Harvey
As much as I wanted to hurry things, I didn’t dare. If everything went as I hoped, I’d have a lifetime to be with Ali, and two days wouldn’t matter much.
I was preparing to head over to Mike’s when I got a call from him. I hit the speaker. “I was just getting ready to head over.”
“Yeah, well, I think Ali might have something big to celebrate tonight.”
“What’s that?”
“Trevor and I were watching the video in the kitchen tonight, and Trevor noticed one of the guys go into the locker room, then come out, and he was wearing a glove. He approached his station, touched the food, then slipped the glove off and into a baggie before he deposited it into the trash.”
“What was with the glove?”
“I can’t say for sure, but I’m pretty sure he probably had some type of container in his things that held the E. coli bacteria in the locker room, and put it on his gloved hand, touched it to the food, and bam, contaminated it.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“We already did. As soon as we saw it, we called the police and EMS and told them what was going on. They took him into custody, and he admitted he was doing it to get Ali fired so he could have the Head Chef position.”
“Are you kidding me? He was after her job, and that was worth almost killing people?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Mike said. “So, Ali’s probably ready to celebrate.”
“Then I guess this is good timing.” I paused. “That is if she accepts my invitation.”
“She will. I have no doubt. The only problem is going to be that it is raining.”
“I don’t care about a little rain.”
“You sure you don’t want to do it another night?”
“No, I’m ready.” I chuckled. “Actually, the first time I ran into Ali, it was in a rainstorm.”
“Really?”
I proceeded to tell him about it quickly, and then told him I was heading down to the restaurant.
He told me he’d meet me there, and we disconnected the call. I was nervous about what I was going to do, but Ali had told me to come to her. She had told me to ask her to dance, so that is what I was going to do. I owed her this plus a huge apology.
When I arrived at the restaurant, I parked out front on the street and walked down the alley. Mike was parked back there, and he was setting up some speakers and the spotlights that he had brought under a little tent. We were going to start with one light, and then he would turn on two more to brighten the entire area so we could see in the alley. It wasn’t a spiffy hotel ballroom, but I hoped that she would appreciate the gesture.
The rain was coming down lightly, and I hoped that it didn’t stop her from taking me up on my offer. I had a feeling that it wouldn’t, but I could be wrong. I sure had been wrong about things before.
Mike knocked on the back door to the restaurant, and a younger guy opened it. He wore a t-shirt and messy apron around his waist. I could just make out what Mike was telling him.
“We need you to do us a favor. Can you give this to Ali Davidson?”
“What’s this about?” he asked as I stepped out of the shadows. The kid grinned. “Oh, man! Yeah, I’ll give it to her.”
“Thanks.” The kid turned and disappeared into the restaurant again. Mike dashed off to the side where his car was parked, and I stepped back into the shadows again. Last night in the middle of the night, I had come here and walked the dance, making sure we would have the room and that it wouldn’t be a safety issue. It was perfect.
It was a minute before the door flew open, and Ali stood there. Her chef’s coat in one hand, the invite in the other, as she searched the darkness. When she noticed the spotlight, a smile began to slip over her face.
“Ali Davidson, I owe you an apology,” I called out from the other side