Criminal Confections (7 page)

“Hey. Chocolate contains valuable antioxidant flavonoids,” I informed him. “Cacao is
very
rich in phytochemicals. Those are good for you. They come from plants. Plus, a third of the fat in cocoa butter is stearic acid, which doesn't raise cholesterol levels.” Warming up to my lecture, I added, “Chocolate can help with chronic fatigue syndrome, improve arterial blood flow, ease depression,
and
help prevent heart attacks. So, technically—”

Usually, Danny did his best to nod and look interested when I went into professorial mode. Tonight, though, he only seemed worried. That wasn't like him. Nothing ever fazed Danny.

“So, technically, Adrienne should have been
less
likely to die of a heart attack, rather than more,” he finished for me.

For once, our synchronicity was scary, not simpatico.

“Well, chocolate isn't wheatgrass and quinoa,” I amended, feeling confused. But warmer. And
not
as if I'd just stepped off a Tilt-A-Whirl. My symptoms—if that's what they were—seemed to be subsiding. “But it's not going to kill anyone. Not right away. Plus, Adrienne was trying to be healthy. That's why she—”

“Drank that swamp juice. Just like
you
did. So, again—”

“I'm fine, Danny. I am.” I was spooked, though. Seriously spooked. Could someone
really
have overdosed sweet, responsible Adrienne? Or (gulp) me? I didn't think I had any real enemies anywhere—much less in the City by the Bay, among my chocolate peeps. “I'm sure what happened to Adrienne was an accident.”

“Maybe it wasn't the juice,” he persisted. “Maybe it was something else.” He turned to me. “What was she working on?”

A doomed project, thanks to my unfinished report.

Pricked with guilt, I looked away. “Nothing deadly.”

“Hayden.”

“A line of nutraceutical chocolates.” Maybe it was a good thing the official unveiling hadn't happened yet. I didn't say so, though. I didn't want Danny grilling me about my truffle-munching habits. All that caffeine might have explained why my heart had raced when I'd seen Adrienne, though. Why I'd been so chilled. Why I'd been dizzy, too. I didn't want to worry Danny any further, so I shrugged, instead. “More healthy stuff.”

“Healthy? Damn.” Danny quit pacing. For a nanosecond, his broad, burly shoulders relaxed. He looked nice, even sans suit jacket, in an open-collared shirt. “Why do I feel like packing down a huge double-bacon cheeseburger and fries right now?”

Him and me both. Suddenly,
healthy
felt
deadly.

“Don't worry. Maison Lemaître specializes in decadence. You missed the all-chocolate English tea this afternoon, but we can still make it to the all-chocolate brunch buffet tomorrow.”

He looked skeptical. “Do they serve until three
P.M.
?”

“Ha-ha.” Leave it to Danny to remember my notorious reputation as a before-noon zombie. I only survived
A.M.
consults by pretending I'd been up all night. There was a reason I was a freelancer who set her own hours. “We should try it tomorrow.”

That is,
if
I could behave normally, without collapsing into tears. My emotions were all over the place. I didn't know the status of the chocolate retreat now. It seemed likely that Christian Lemaître would cancel it. That would be the decent thing to do. But Christian was hardly the king of decency.

Danny indulged my non-homicide-related digression with a nod. “Sure. Brunch sounds like a good networking op for you.”

I stifled a groan. Danny was more obsessed with growing my business than I was. I chalked that up to his impoverished youth. “It sounds like chocolate-chip scones with chocolate butter to me,” I shot back. “Chocolate-dipped strawberries. Chocolate waffles with hot-fudge sauce. And cocoa-nib bacon.”

Unbelievably, he made a face. I'd forgotten that Danny didn't share my sweet tooth—or my adoration of chocolate. He preferred things on the savory-salty-hot “blow your doors off” side of the street. Nachos. Hot wings. Sriracha. Vinegar chips.

In critical ways, we were fundamentally incompatible.

Nevertheless, we had a date. For chocolate brunch.

Until then, I'd had all I wanted of analyzing a tragic death. I'd go crazy if I spent all night ruminating over it.

Besides, I was the kind of girl who moved on quickly. The stipulations of my uncle Ross's will ensured that fact for me.

To feel better, I needed to do something besides talk.

“Hey.” I gave Danny a poke as he passed by on his next patrol-my-hotel-room round. “Thanks for coming here for me.”

He only shrugged. Evidently, I felt mushier than he did.

Probably that was because
I'd
survived a potential attempt on my life tonight. That kind of thing probably wreaked havoc on a girl's sense of equanimity.
If
it was real.

I remained convinced it wasn't. But just in case . . . I figured I needed to take care of a few things. Downstairs. Without my makeshift bodyguard dogging my every move and asking questions.

The way I saw it, if I could get ahold of some of the things Adrienne and I had both come into contact with tonight (like a few nutraceutical truffles and/or some green juice) and send them to Travis for analysis, I could put my mind at ease. Maybe.

“Seriously, though,” I pressed, knowing there was only one guaranteed way to get Danny to quit hovering like a bossy big brother. “Why were you so late getting here? I expected you hours earlier. Then you strolled in, all light-fingered and—”

“Everything looks safe for now,” he butted in. “You okay?”

Bingo. He'd reacted just the way I'd expected he would. Danny liked being interrogated about being late (and being skilled at petty thievery) the way I liked wearing stilettos. Meaning, not at all. Not if it was avoidable. It always was.

“I'm fine.” It was an effort not to singsong those two little words. Because I had a plan. I needed him to beat it.

“Then I've got a few things to do.” He hooked his thumb toward the door, then followed its lead all the way there. Over his shoulder, he tossed me a strangely intense glance. “Okay?”

I hesitated. Just for a second, I understood why women flocked to Danny. All that intensity was probably intoxicating—to the right woman, at the right time. But that woman wasn't me. Not then and probably not ever. We both knew better than that.

“You don't have to babysit me, Danny,” I told him, meaning it. “I can take care of myself. I dialed up your suit-wearing friend services, not your übermacho security-man services.”

I was trying to flatter him with that
übermacho
stuff. He didn't bite. He only studied the suit jacket he'd hurled at me for warmth in the stairwell, now snuggled securely around me.

“Keep the jacket,” Danny said, then he was out of there.

The moment the door closed behind him, I shrugged out of his jacket, dropped it like it was hot, and got on my feet.

A quick trip to the window told me the retreat attendees had scattered, just as Danny and I had. They milled around the grounds of Maison Lemaître, talking in clumps of three or four. Some headed toward the discreet lobby bar. A few waited to retrieve their rides from the valets. It was evident that the welcome reception—which had run late, anyway—had broken up.

As soon as the coast was clear, I headed out myself.

 

 

Adrienne's death probably
had
been a heartrending accident, I told myself as I crept downstairs again. It had probably been a case of bad timing writ large. Whatever undiagnosed ailment Adrienne had suffered from—a heart murmur, a blocked artery, or something just as dire but unknowable—it had come up against the stressful, super-long Lemaître welcome reception and just . . .
popped.

I really,
really
needed to avoid stress in my life.

I couldn't shake the uncomfortable feeling that the whole thing might have been avoidable, though. It was that feeling that prodded me along the empty Maison Lemaître service hallways after getting Danny to scram, listening for potential homicidal maniacs even as I told myself I was being ridiculous.

Homicidal maniacs were probably quiet types, anyway.

Wasn't that what the next-door neighbors always told the media?
Sure, he turned out to be a machete-wielding lunatic,
they'd say on camera for the local evening newscast.
But he seemed so nice! He kept to himself most of the time, really.

Hoping that “most of the time” encompassed the hours between eleven-fifteen and midnight, I glanced at my cell phone. I gripped it in my fist like the lifeline it was, just in case I needed to call for help. I wasn't one of those daffy sorority girls in a slasher flick, heading down to the killer's basement lair in my lingerie. I was taking all the necessary precautions. All I wanted was to find my abandoned glass of green “energy” juice—aka the potential murder weapon du jour.

In my imagination, my juice had already morphed into a glass full of deadly toxic waste. I couldn't just leave it there, neon green and pulsing, waiting for its next hapless victim.

You know, just in case.

Just in case someone really
had
tried to kill me.

Trying to laugh off that overly dramatic idea, I squared my shoulders and pushed through the double swinging service doors into the ballroom-adjacent kitchen. Being there gave me the willies all over again. Inside, it was quiet and deserted. The worktables still stood cluttered with chocolate, knives, whisks, and bowls. It felt inhabited with the ghost of Adrienne past—a woman who'd been lively (if anxiety ridden), generous (if a little lonely), and far,
far
too young to die the way she had.

I guessed the police or Maison Lemaître security personnel or someone had shooed away the staff before they could clean up. It was almost as if Adrienne would rush in, hands aflutter and blond curls flying, to grab another tray of gilded truffles.

Spotting those platters full of gold-leafed nutraceutical chocolates, I strode straight toward them. A hasty head count told me they'd been left safely untouched—even, surprisingly, by Christian Lemaître. I guess he hadn't needed a caffeine buzz to greet his adoring public earlier? I knew he'd had access to the truffles. I'd run into him while fleeing the crime scene.

No,
scratch that.
Danny and I hadn't been fleeing. Had we?

Nope. No way. Not wanting to think about that, I grabbed one of the third-size stainless-steel hotel pans from a nearby rack. Familiarity with a professional kitchen has its perks; I knew the perfect pan—roughly the size of an A4 sheet of paper, if paper could be two-and-a-half inches deep—to dump all the caffeine-laced nutraceutical chocolates into with no spillage. I banged the pan on my hip like the waitress I was for a while (at a café near the Leidseplein in Amsterdam), then looked around.

Next up: killer green juice. Okay. I couldn't remember where I'd left my glass, so I mentally retraced my steps. First, Adrienne had filled both our glasses. I located the carafe she'd used to pour that swampy green slush, but all it held now were streaky remnants smudged with mashed-up kale leaves. It looked even more revolting than before. Maybe in the ballroom itself?

I had to focus, but the events of the day were getting to me. I still felt jumpy. Also, much too aware of every sound. The industrial flooring made my sneaky footsteps seem way too loud. If anyone found me there, I'd have a hard time explaining why I was looting the resort's kitchen. Partway to the other set of double swinging doors, I heard the walk-in refrigerator's motor kick in. I recoiled and walked faster. I was scaring myself now.

Calm down.
Hauling in a deep breath, I headed onward. At the last second, I remembered the anhydrous caffeine.

It was still in its tiny plastic Baggie near the scale. I doubled back and snatched it, just to be safe. I didn't want it falling into the wrong hands. Adrienne and I had studied how to use the stuff; other employees who might turn up to work in the kitchen wouldn't be so well informed. If they decided to add a haphazard scoop to their
A.M.
java, the results could be lethal.

Brought up short by the realization, I stared at the Baggie. The caffeine powder
looked
harmless enough— except for the warning, printed in microscopic eight-point type on a label stuck to the bottom edge of the bag, warning against overdose.

Given the circumstances, that Baggie might as well have been a loaded gun. My whole body went numb. For a second, all I could do was gawk at it. Then, newly freaked out, I shoved the caffeine powder into my hotel pan and kept going. I reached the other set of swinging doors and turned my back to them. Like the off-duty restaurant rat I was, I pushed my way through on the right side. The door swung into the ballroom without a sound.

Unfortunately, I couldn't say the same thing for me.

I turned around and started shrieking. Because, on the other side of the doors, a man was there waiting for me.

Lurking, you might say. Quietly. Threateningly.
Knowingly.
Recognizing him, I wanted to groan. “Danny! What the hell are you doing here?” I yelled . . .

. . . mostly in a whisper. Because, you know . . .
murder.

“Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” I hissed.

That gaffe silenced both of us.
Whoops.
I couldn't believe I'd accidentally been so insensitive. It was funny the things you noticed when one of your work pals had died just hours ago.