Criminal Confections (29 page)

“I
knew
you had,” she told me before I could interrupt, pacing near the mud bath. Her businesslike pumps clicked on the sleek tiled floor. “You couldn't resist taunting me about it, could you? Christian said you were the best. He was right.”

Ordinarily, I liked hearing praise. Who didn't?

But Nina's odd behavior bothered me. She was obviously upset about something. Her belligerent attitude seemed out of place, especially in such a tranquil setting—even for someone forced to act as Christian's (unwilling) one-woman entourage.

“He was more right than he knew about you,” Nina told me. “I guess when he gets his ‘report,' he'll get more than he counted on. Unless
you
never give it to him, that is.”

Was that a dig at my procrastination habit? Confusedly, I shook my head. “Christian will get a pretty typical report from me,” I assured her. “I just finished writing it today.”

“I heard you two talking about it at the scavenger hunt,” Nina said. “You and Christian.” She said his name as though it disgusted her. “The two of you were so
gleeful,
discussing your ‘fascinating' assignment and the ‘problems' at Lemaître.”

Loosely, I remembered the exchange I'd had with Christian. He'd seemed determined to pester me about my overdue report. I remembered Nina leaving abruptly during our conversation.

At the time, I'd thought she was annoyed, like I was, by Christian's overbearing ways and heavy-handed tactics. But now, I couldn't help wondering . . .

“You knew we were talking about Lemaître? You guessed I'd been consulting for Christian?”

So much for my super-stealth undercover MO.

“I knew you were talking about
me
!” Nina corrected.

Her eyes looked a little . . . wild to me. What was going on?

“I knew, at that moment, that you'd figured out what was going on.”

“I wish I could say the same thing,” I cracked, wanting to go back to the easy camaraderie I'd had with her. I shook my head, then softened my voice. “You seem upset, Nina.”

I knew it wasn't because of Calvin. Maybe Rex?

“Of course I'm upset! You've been rubbing it in my face all this time. You think you're so clever, Hayden, with your world-traveler ways and your expertise about chocolate. But you don't know anything about
me.
You don't know how hard I worked.”

“I do,” I tried to soothe her. “You told me, remember?”

“I didn't tell you half of it,” Nina all but sneered. “Did you find out, anyway? Did you go back to your shady friend afterward and find out? Did the two of you laugh about it?”

Danny.
I remembered him . . . and kind of wished I'd sent him an SOS text instead of an innocuous “I'm in!” message.

I may have been being a little overconfident at the time. I'd thought I'd been about to come face-to-face with Christian.

“Of course we didn't laugh about you,” I assured Nina, wishing I hadn't jumped
quite
so eagerly on the idea of a deserted location for this meeting. I'd thought an out-of-the-way locale would encourage Christian to confess. He wasn't likely to do that amid all the chocolate-retreat attendees. “I wouldn't do that. I haven't been rubbing anything in your face, either. I don't—”

I don't understand what you're talking about,
I wanted to say. But Nina's abrupt, humorless laugh cut me short. “You haven't? What do you call ‘Christian is a brilliant and accomplished man'? Huh? You stood there with me and
threw it
in my face!”

I frowned. “I asked, sure. But I just wanted to know—”

“If I'd crack? Close to it!” Nina paced. Absently but furiously, she scratched her arm. “That ‘sympathetic listener' routine you pulled on me at breakfast today was the last straw, though. I liked you, you know. In spite of everything, I did.” Her pleading, fast-blinking gaze met mine. “I thought maybe if I explained my situation, you would understand. I thought maybe you would leave me alone. Because you knew what it was like to be browbeaten by Christian. You knew how difficult it was!”

“Your situation . . . doesn't seem that bad,” I tried.

Another harsh laugh. “Oh no? Getting demoted, losing my office, losing part of my salary, having my stock options cut.... None of those things sound ‘that bad' to you?” Nina put her hands on her hips, then whirled to face me. The enmity in her expression startled me. “How about having all those things happen and
then
having your husband lose
his
job? How about that, huh? How about having
everything
fall on your shoulders?”

Aha.
Now I knew where Calvin's unemployment came in.

“That sounds . . . I'm sorry, Nina. That sounds awful.” I still didn't understand what she was driving at. “If you just want to vent until Christian shows up, I guess I get that, but—”

“You ‘get that'? How very generous of you.” Again, Nina sounded almost beside herself with hostility. “You're not as smart as everyone thinks you are. I already told you—Christian's not coming.”

“He's not?” I wasn't sure what to think. “Why not?”

Maybe he wanted Nina to handle all the dirty work? But Nina couldn't possibly know about Christian killing Adrienne.

“Because he still doesn't know what I did, and I intend to keep it that way.” She inhaled, then held out her hand. “Give it to me.”

“Adrienne's notebook? But why? You don't know anything about chocolate.” She'd told me so before. “Why do you want—”

Christian is a brilliant and accomplished man.
The phrase I'd supposedly taunted Nina with. Belatedly, I remembered her referring to that phrase days ago. I remembered Bernard mentioning it. I remembered seeing it in Rex's Melt portfolio.

That was a
watchword,
I realized—a phrase that let all the players know who was in on selling chocolate secrets.

“Adrienne's notebook has Lemaître's recipes in it, doesn't it?” I asked as the truth dawned. “All those formulas, all those techniques . . . they weren't the result of years' worth of Adrienne's personal chocolatier experience. They were all of the trade secrets that Lemaître uses to dominate the market—all handily written down for a competitor to use.”
For Melt to use.

“You can't stall me by stating the obvious,” Nina said.

But it hadn't been obvious. Not to me. So far, I'd only heard two people say that phrase aloud: Nina and Bernard. A third person had written it down: Rex. But only two of those people had been using it to coordinate corporate espionage.

Because only Bernard had
also
co-opted that phrase to threaten me with yesterday. Only
he
had been oblivious to its hidden meaning . . . just as I'd been. How had I missed that?

Probably the same way I'd missed something else: the significance of Bernard purposely “redirecting suspicion.” The important part of Danny's informative tip
didn't
have to do with Bernard's suspicions of Christian at all, I realized too late. It had to do with someone
else
who'd “redirected suspicion.”

Nina.
She'd pointed the finger at Danny—probably as a means of making sure I wouldn't suspect
her
of anything untoward . . . such as searching my room for Adrienne's notebook, then walloping me on the head with a lamp when I'd disturbed her by surprise.

Alarmed, I backed up. I'm pretty sure my eyes went comically wide, too. How often are
you
faced with somebody's obvious duplicitousness in real life? It's terrifying stuff.

“Don't act as if you don't know what's in Adrienne's notebook—what
I've
been up to with it,” Nina scoffed. “It's too late for that. I know you were planning to tell Christian all about it. That's why you set up this little meeting with him.”

She'd never given my message to Christian.
I held up my palms, hoping to placate her. “I wasn't going to tell Christian anything about you,” I swore—honestly, as it turned out. “I mean, I have to admire your ingenuity, right? What a way to put one over on Christian. After this, he'll be ruined for sure.”

I tried to chuckle knowingly. I'm pretty sure I bombed.

“That's the idea.” Nina gave me a skeptical look. She scratched her arm again, then her neck. Her speckled complexion was getting worse. So was the twitch in her foot. “At least it was until
you
came along,” she said as she paced. “It was until Adrienne died! I had such a good setup going until then. Adrienne to write everything down . . . and
me
to benefit.”

I got it. I thought. I wanted to be sure. “Christian suspected someone of selling Lemaître's secrets.” I remembered him telling me so. “He thought it was Adrienne, but it was you.”

“Of course it was me! Don't think I don't know
that's
what you're here to uncover. I needed the money after Christian took over and Calvin got downsized out of a job. Adrienne was too dumb to realize what a gold mine she was sitting on. But
I
wasn't.”

Reeling, I stared at Nina. No wonder she was riddled with nervous tics and a burgeoning rash. She'd been keeping a whole host of secrets.
And
she thought I'd been at Lemaître to uncover her espionage, not to consult on the nutraceutical line. That's what I got, I guessed, for having clients who demanded “the utmost discretion.” That left my presence open to rampant (wrongheaded) speculation. I still needed to know more, though.

“No wonder you and Rex were so cozy,” I mused. Leadingly.

But Nina sneered. “Rex. He was just like you—”

“Hey!” I couldn't help protesting. I didn't want to be a member of any club that included smarmy Rex. God rest him.

“—always pestering me, threatening me,
hounding
me.”

Too late, comprehension dawned. At the buffet that day...

“He wasn't comforting you over Adrienne's death,” I said.

Nina snorted. “He was demanding I give back the money he'd already given me—an advance payment for Adrienne's notebook.” That partly explained Melt's dire financials. Rex must have overextended himself when prepaying for Adrienne's notebook—which Nina hadn't possessed to deliver. “But I couldn't do that.”

I glanced at the treatment room door. It was open, but there was still nobody around. I doubted I could just laugh off Nina's (partly) incoherent confession and sashay out of there.

I needed to keep her talking. “You'd lost your partner.”

“Adrienne wasn't my partner! She was my golden goose.” Nina shook her head. “There was no one else like Adrienne.”

“
I
could be.” Tensely, I nodded. “I know chocolate. I know Lemaître. Christian already offered me the head chocolatier job. Things can go on the same way they always have for you.”

“
You'll
help me sell Lemaître's secrets?”

I hedged. “You don't think Danny is the only one who's open to ‘unconventional' business opportunities, do you?”

Nina eyed me skeptically. She was right to look at me that way. I would be about as adept at corporate espionage as I would be at hockey.

I tried to appear shady. “I already told you about Danny's forgery skills,” I improvised. “We're the complete package.”

For a minute, Nina almost seemed to waver.

Then she shook her head. “No. I'm retiring after this. I just want it all to be over with finally!” She sighed, then scratched her neck again. “Just when I'd dealt with Rex—”

I froze, horror-struck by what Nina undoubtedly meant. I could picture her following Rex to the steep ridge trail, confronting him, pushing him off. Or maybe just pushing him.

Most likely, Nina didn't feel such a rapport with all her victims, I mused with a sickening feeling. Just me. I was special. Appalled and scared, I wanted to bolt. But I didn't.

Because if I didn't make it out of this alive, no one would ever know what Nina had done to Rex. To Lemaître. To Adrienne?

“—
you
had to come along and mess things up again!” Nina said. “I thought you'd eventually give in and give Adrienne's notebook to Christian. God knows, I reminded him about it often enough.”
Aha.
That explained his constant badgering.

But maybe I'd misunderstood. “You ‘dealt' with Rex?”

“I wanted out,” Nina explained. “I was willing to take what he'd already given me and forgo the rest. But Rex refused.”

“So you . . . ?” I held my breath, not wanting to hear the worst.

Nina shrugged. “It's a pretty slippery ridge up there,” she mused aloud. “What happened to Rex could have happened to anyone.” She pawed at her blotchy neck, then frowned. “It wasn't really
murder,
if that's what you're thinking. Not since it
could
have happened accidentally without me even being there.”

“But it didn't,” I couldn't help pointing out, aghast.

Nina gave me a merciless grin. “If people could see you now, struggling to figure out something so simple . . .” She looked away, then shook her head. “
Mierda.
You'd never get hired.”

Mierda.
That expletive gave me chills. It hadn't been rude French I'd heard when surprising my lamp-wielding room-ransacker, after all. It had been rude Spanish. It had been
Nina.