“If your person was able to find out overnight, it can’t be that well hidden,” I said.

“The officer who found the information has connections in the Upper Peninsula. When René Sartin popped up as a U.S. citizen, not French, he followed the trail and called his contact,” Mac said. “That guy remembered the story—but it’s been wiped from any easy search engine—even the local newspaper has deleted all references to the accident.”

“Maybe that’s how a Cordon Bleu chef ended up at a small bed-and-breakfast in Western Michigan instead of a big city. Maybe he was hoping no one would ever look into his credentials. I think Jessica has a right to know what she’s getting herself into before she marries him.”

Then I remembered my strange conversation with Linda the night before. I told Mac that she suspected Clarissa and René might have been involved somehow.

“It sounds like René had all sorts of trouble headed his way. Maybe we’ll be doing her a favor by letting her know,” I said.

“You’re right, but we should talk to him first.”

I slipped back into my room and quickly got dressed. As I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, it hit me. What if Clarissa had found out about the real René? She didn’t strike me as someone who would balk at a little blackmail, especially if it also messed around with her cousin’s life. If she was blackmailing René, that gave him a pretty good reason to kill her. Maybe there wasn’t an affair, as Linda seemed to think. But Clarissa could have ruined his whole life if Jessica was unaware that he’d been passing himself off as his brother.

I quietly slipped back out into the hall. I opened my mouth to tell Mac when I noticed a new gleam in his eyes.

“What if Clarissa was blackmailing René?” he said.

“Just what I was thinking,” I said. “It seems like a pretty good motive for murder.”

Mac took my hand. “Let’s go have a chat with the chef.”

We walked down the stairs, cut through the dining room, and knocked on the kitchen door before entering. René and Emmett were busy cooking eggs, bacon, and pancakes. My stomach growled.

“Mr. Sartin?” Mac said. “Can we speak with you a moment?”

The chef glanced up with a scowl on his face. He rearranged his expression when he saw us. He gestured at Emmett to take over pancake duty, wiped his hands on a towel, and followed us out into the dining room.

“What can I do for you?” he asked after we sat.

Mac took a breath, but I cut in ahead of him.

“One of the hardest parts about a murder investigation is that we have to look at everyone. Unfortunately, many secrets are revealed whether they relate to the crime or not.”

René sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. “I told you everything I know. I was busy in the kitchen when Clarissa was killed. I don’t know anything.” His accent was in full force and I almost felt admiration for his acting skills.

I leaned forward.

“But you do have a secret,” I said. “We have to ask you about your past.”

He rubbed his arms and glanced toward the kitchen door.

“There’s not much to tell.” He shrugged and didn’t meet my eyes. “I grew up in Paris and went to the Cordon Bleu school—”

He stopped when Mac held up a hand. “Please, don’t make this worse by lying.”

René’s cheeks turned pink. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do,” Mac said. “We have no interest in revealing your secret to anyone unless it relates to Clarissa’s murder.”

“You think I killed Clarissa?”

“We think you aren’t who you say you are, which makes us wonder what else you’re hiding,” Mac said.

Loosening the collar on his chef’s tunic, René let out a breath of air.

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Maybe you should just tell me what you think you know.”

I was impressed by the way he stuck to the story. It almost had me thinking Mac’s source had made a mistake. That’s probably how he’d gotten away with it for so long.

“Okay,” I said. “We know that officially René Sartin is dead.”

The chef’s face went from pink to white almost instantly. He seemed to shrink into his chair.

The door from the kitchen opened and Emmett came through, his arms full of serving platters and food. He grinned in our direction, unaware of the tension around the table.

René lowered his voice.

“How did you find out?” he asked. The accent fell away, and I felt like I was meeting him for the first time.

“We’re detectives,” Mac said.

“It’s not what it looks like,” René said. He put his hands up as if to hold us back.

“It never is,” Mac said. “Why don’t you tell us your story?”

Fake René leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.

“René was my brother,” he said. “My grandmother raised us all on her own in the Upper Peninsula. She was from Quebec and had come to Michigan when she married my grandfather. She was an incredible cook and taught us all the old recipes from the time we were both young.” He stopped and cleared his throat.

“My brother worked three jobs to save enough money to go to France and train there as a chef. I was only nineteen when he left. He went to the Cordon Bleu school and came home with his certificate. About two weeks after he got home, he was in a car accident and died.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He tilted his head at me, and cleared his throat. “My grandmother and I knew that René wouldn’t want all that work to go to waste and she said she always thought I was the better cook. We arranged to cover up his death and I would take his name and his credentials so that I could get a job as a chef.”

I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms. How did he think he would get away with it?

“Who else knows about this?” Mac asked.

René shook his head. “No one. I took a job in Traverse City and learned everything I could. Then my grandmother died of a stroke.”

He passed a hand over his face. “She was so proud that a Sartin was working in a ‘fancy’ restaurant. After her death, I headed south and ended up here. Linda and Jessica were wonderful to me. They let me have free rein in the kitchen to set the menu and experiment. It was a dream come true.”

“They have no idea that your credentials are fake?”

He shook his head. “After a while, I decided I should tell them, but then Jessica and I started spending more time together and she was so impressed that I had grown up in France . . .”

He held his hands out to us. “I just didn’t want to disappoint her and by that time, I didn’t want to lose her. I was in too deep and felt like I couldn’t tell her the truth without her feeling like our whole relationship was a lie. So I kept quiet.”

“And no one ever found out?” I said.

“No one until Clarissa,” René said to his shoes. “She went through all the employee files when she came here six months ago. I guess Linda had never looked into my credentials, but Clarissa did. She traced my brother’s information and found out that he didn’t grow up in France, which led her to discover his car accident. She must have put the rest together somehow.”

“Was she blackmailing you?” Mac asked.

René nodded, and studied the floor.

“She wanted to renovate the whole hotel and open a fancy spa. She threatened to expose my secret if I didn’t take her side. I told her there was no way Jessica would buy it. I’ve worked for the past five years for our reputation. Jessica knows I wouldn’t give it all up to open a spa, but Clarissa wouldn’t listen.”

“So you tried to convince Jessica to go along with the spa plan?” I asked.

René hung his head. “I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t want to lose Jessica even more than I didn’t want to lose the restaurant. I think she thought Clarissa and I were having an affair. She got very touchy over the past couple of months and criticized Clarissa every chance she got.” His hands went up in a placating gesture and he briefly met my eyes. “Don’t get me wrong, I had nothing good to say about Clarissa, either, but it put a strain on our relationship. So, ironically, my plan to go along with Clarissa and buy her silence was backfiring and causing more trouble with Jessica.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees, and rested his head in his hands.