The Roommate Who Ruined My Revenge

How it begins

The cake was supposed to represent triumph. At half past six in the morning, it represented a plumbing problem.

Beside the contest timetable, she'd pinned a photograph of her first successful tart, taken before winning meant defeating anyone.

Red glaze had crept across the kitchen counter, reached the edge, and begun a dignified descent into Jo Neri's new roommate's left shoe.

He looked down. "Is this part of breakfast?"

"Don't move."

"I wasn't planning anything ambitious."

Jo slid a tray beneath the drip and glared at the cake. Six tiers. Sugar peonies. An internal support system she trusted more than most people. On the television final, it would stand opposite the man who had spent eight years presenting her recipes as his inspiration.

Nabil Navarro lifted his foot out of the shoe.

"Who are we murdering with this?"

"Nobody."

He waited.

"Professionally," she added.

The shared-flat advertisement had said he worked irregular hours, owned no scented candles, and believed washing-up was a complete task rather than a spiritual intention. She had not asked whether he possessed an irritating ability to look directly at things.

He opened the fridge, found an unglazed offcut, and glanced at her.

She nodded. He tasted it.

"That's extraordinary."

"The texture is wrong."

"For revenge, perhaps. For cake, it's doing very well."

Outside, the first bus sighed at the stop. Jo had been awake since two. Her hands smelled of orange peel and hot sugar, and for a moment she could remember enjoying those smells before every good thing became evidence in a case against someone else.

Nabil put the offcut on a plate instead of eating it over the sink.

"What happens after you win?" he asked.

"I win."

"Yes. And on the morning after that?"

She reached for her scraper. Across the counter, the red glaze had stopped moving. The question, unfortunately, had not.