Criminal Confections (8 page)

My grim-looking friend crossed his arms. In the shadowy ballroom, littered with napkins and wineglasses and round tables still set with tablecloths and abandoned dinnerware, Danny gave me a perceptive look. “Did you really think I bought your get-lost tactics upstairs? I knew you wouldn't be able to resist.”

Flustered and feeling as if I might keel over any second, I clenched my hotel pan against my hip. Its stainless-steel edge bit into my fingertips, grounding me. Details tended to do that.

That's why I'd needed to get out of my head and into motion earlier. Too much sitting around—too much thinking—and I'm like a Labrador Retriever at a park full of flying tennis balls. I don't know where to go first. But moving on . . . that's my oeuvre.

“Caught me,” I joked. “I needed a nosh, and there was all this chocolate, just waiting for me down here. Guilty.”

“I knew you wouldn't be able to resist having a look around after everything that happened,” Danny clarified, coming closer in the shadows. The security lights brightened the ballroom's corners—and did a pretty spectacular job of highlighting his squared-off jawline, too. For a onetime thug, he cleaned up nicely. “You like knowing the
hows
and
whys
of things, Hayden,” he told me. “Including
this.
That's why you're so good at your job.”

He was right. I appreciated details and relished a chance to troubleshoot. But I'd rather have been plunked down in the middle of the
chupinazo
in Pamplona wearing fire-engine red than admit it just then. A running bull didn't sound that bad next to Danny in this moody mood of his. How had he beaten me there?

I laughed and got down to the point, raising my chin for added moxie. “That doesn't explain what
you're
doing here.”

“I'm here because you're here.”
Dummy,
his tacit but affectionate connotation added. “Do you think I was patrolling your hotel room just for shits and giggles? You're in danger.”

“You're too suspicious. Your security work is getting to you.” I strode onward, looking around for my lost green-juice glass. With my free hand, I pantomimed holding it, trying to jog my memory. I'd had it when Adrienne and I had left the group photo session. I
hadn't
had it when I'd spotted Rex smarming it up near the ladies' room entrance. Sometime between those two events, I must have set it down. “Lighten up, Rambo.”

“What are you looking for?” Danny asked.

His tone suggested he already knew. Damn him.

I raised my chin a notch higher. Pride. Again. “My juice glass. I was worried it might fall into the wrong hands.”

Hearing myself, I squashed another impending groan.
Fall into the wrong hands?
Really? Now who sounded paranoid?

“It's already taken care of.”

“How could it be? Obviously, no one's been here to clean up this place.” I kept looking. “I hope no one else picked it up.”

“It's not here.” Danny kept watching me, wearing the inscrutable expression he'd patented for his clients' benefit.

But I wasn't one of the corporate whackos or scaredy-cat actors he escorted to public appearances. He wouldn't need that mean face
or
a skeleton-style, two-way radio earpiece with me.

I rounded on him. “Are you trying to tell me you took it?”

“I'm telling you it's not here anymore.
You
shouldn't be, either.” His gaze dipped to my truffle cache. “Chocoholic.”

“Dictator.”

“Control freak.”

“Oh yeah? Takes one to know one.”

With that juvenile rejoinder, Danny grinned and slung his arm around my shoulders. I knew he was worried about me.

But too much intimacy could only lead to trouble. I ducked away from his sheltering muscles and gave the ballroom one final sweep. Then the patio. “How come there isn't any police tape?”

“Because this isn't a crime scene. Adrienne overdosing is sad, but it's not illegal.” Danny waited a beat. “According to Nina, the police think Adrienne had too much of the powdered caffeine she was using for some new line of Lemaître truffles.”

Pointedly, he
didn't
lower his gaze to my pile of chocolate. He was too smart for that. He kept his attention locked on my face, instead. “Do you know anything about that?”

“I don't discuss my consulting work with nonclients.”

“Then Lemaître
is
your client.” Oh, man. He beat me anyway. “You didn't say. When you dangled this trip my way, you only said you'd been invited to the retreat and needed a plus-one.”

“I had. I did. And I'm still not saying.”

His face tightened. “I'm not at your beck and call, Hayden. I deserve to know everything. Especially now.”

Ugh.
Not this. Not tonight. At the best of times, Danny had a bad attitude about my life, my wealth, and his place in both. I hadn't inherited until after we became friends. My undeserved fortune was awkward for both of us. I preferred ignoring it.

Purposely, I swung off-topic. “You saw Nina?”

A nod. “She was locking up when I came downstairs.” For a second, Danny's expression became almost soft. “She's really broken up. She tried to save Adrienne. I know what that's like.”

I knew he had to be referring to the dicier side of his life—the side he kept hidden from me. “You like redheads, huh?”

He jolted, then grinned. I think he was grateful for the reprieve. We both knew I was only needling him about Nina.

“She's married,” Danny said—meaning
it's a no go.

I nodded, not surprised he knew. “Her husband is a CPA, I think.” I adjusted my hotel pan of chocolates, then headed to the kitchen while it was still
my
decision to do so. “I'll have to ask her for tips on dealing with numbers guys. Like Travis.”

Danny made a face. He and my sexy-voiced keeper didn't get along very well. Unlike me, they'd even met once or twice.

“
I've
got a tip for you.” Danny caught up to me at a loping jog. I didn't usually get a head start with him. “Learn to use some bookkeeping software. You won't need that nerd anymore.”

I laughed. “I'll
always
need Travis.”

Danny grumbled. “What you need is a less deadly workplace.”

“I need a good night's sleep.”

“I need a snack.” He made a play for the gilded truffles.

With effort, I managed not to slap away his hand out of fear that he'd drop dead after one bite. But Danny saw. He knew.

Pursing his lips in thought, he pulled away his hand.

Maybe the police hadn't classified Adrienne's death as suspicious—but Danny obviously had his doubts. More and more, so did I.

All the same, he laughed, taking both our minds off that worrisome thought. “As if I'd waste time with chocolate.”

“Hey! Don't bad-mouth my specialty. That's sacrilege.”

In the hallway, we fell into companionable silence. Up the stairs, we kept perfect time. At my room,
I
produced a keycard.

I waggled my fingers at him. “You might as well give me yours, too,” I said. “You're not going to need it anymore.”

“When I'm sure of that, I'll hand it over.” Then Danny swaggered over to the door of the adjoining room, stuck in his keycard with nimble pickpocketing fingers, and waved good night.

I didn't think I'd sleep much, but I was going to try.

Chapter 5

The interesting thing about chocolate is that, like people, it can take on so many personas. It can be sugary or savory, sweet or bitter, white or dark or milky brown. It can be whipped into an airy mousse, baked into a dense brownie, or drunk straight. It can be served hot, cold, or somewhere in between.

At Maison Lemaître's famous all-chocolate brunch, almost all of those chocolate iterations were on offer. I intended to try every last one of them before I skipped San Fran. After all, it was my professional duty. Besides, I was owed
some
recompense for dragging myself out of bed near dawn on a non-workday.

It was so early, I'd barely perused the buffet so far. But the lush scent of cocoa butter drifted up to me anyway from the five-spice drinking chocolate I'd ordered as a wake-up jolt for my taste buds. Coffee was nice. Essential, even. But chocolate was
le meilleur.
Fortunately, I had room in my life for both.

Just like I had room in my life for Travis
and
Danny.

“You know,” I told the latter as I slumped at an outdoor patio table with him, wearing sunglasses and a haphazard bun (the most effort I'd been up to expending on my hair after tossing and turning all night), “the thing about brunch is that it's
brunch.
It's supposed to come
later
than breakfast.
Between
breakfast and lunch. That's the whole idea. Because people sleep in.”

He sat uncommunicatively across from me, arms and legs spread in full command of his ironwork patio chair, gazing across the resort's manicured grounds. I was undeterred, though.

“Speaking of my hotel room—where I'd
rather
be snoring right now,” I went on, trying not to wrinkle my cotton skirt, tank top, and Edinburgh cashmere sweater as I dug around in my handy crossbody bag, “did you get one of
these
in yours?”

I slapped the flyer (for lack of a better word) I'd found under my door that morning onto the table. Danny glanced at it.

THE LEMAÎTRE CHOCOLATES FAMILY REMEMBERS ONE OF OUR OWN,
it read in flowing faux-calligraphy script across the top of its heavy cardstock. In the middle was a photo of Adrienne, taken sometime during the scavenger hunt yesterday. At the bottom, it read,
IN MEMORIAL: ADRIENNE DOWLING. PLEASE JOIN US TODAY TO CELEBRATE HER LIFE.

“‘Join us'? That's
it
? After everything that happened to Adrienne?” I smacked my hand on the table, making the Bernardaud china, fancy cutlery, and glassware jitter. “We were all going to be ‘joining' one another for the retreat's opening session, anyway.” I nodded at the identical time shown. “Lemaître isn't canceling the retreat. They're shoehorning in a memorial service for Adrienne, instead. Then I guess it'll be business as usual.”

“So? That's a nice gesture. The show must go on, right?”

“Not like this, it mustn't.” The whole thing struck me as a little heartless. Didn't
anyone
want to mourn Adrienne? I knew she'd been single. She'd lived alone. She hadn't even had pets. She'd never mentioned having any family living nearby, either—not to me—not during the three weeks we'd spent hanging out together. Still,
this
took the cake. “The chocolate business can be cutthroat sometimes,” I acknowledged to Danny, “but come on!”

“They didn't have to do anything at all.” Danny eyed the adjacent buffet with undisguised skepticism. How could he not be tempted by caramel-mocha pancakes and cocoa whipped cream? “It's in Lemaître's best interest to downplay what happened.”

“It would be in their best interest to
find out
what happened,” I argued as a few retreat goers meandered onto the patio and chose tables nearby. “
Exactly
what happened.”

“They already know what happened.” Danny's opaque gaze met mine. “So do you. You just don't want to admit it.”

He had to be referring to the off icial theory that Adrienne had overdosed on something. Stubbornly, I remained silent.

Too late, I realized I was playing right into Danny's hands. “Companies don't want it known they're employing druggies, especially ones who OD on the job,” he reminded me, graciously refraining from dishing out an
I told you so.

“Adrienne wasn't a druggie!” Exasperated, I shook my head. I wasn't naïve. I knew restaurant kitchens had their share of users—chefs and line cooks who snorted something here, drank something there, and smoked something after every shift. But Adrienne hadn't been a hardened grunt on the line. “Maybe she OD'd,” I admitted, “but if she did, it was an accident.”

“Most overdoses are.” Danny's gaze looked flinty.

Uh-oh.
I'd slipped into a place he didn't like discussing.

I left that touchy subject for now and frowned again, still irritated, at the memorial flyer instead. It wasn't far removed from the consumer come-ons that auto sellers and dry cleaners bulk-mailed to their “valued customers” every week, right alongside the supermarket circulars. Didn't Adrienne deserve better than the treatment given to two-for-one manicure specials?

This had to be Christian's doing, I knew. He'd assembled his cronies for the retreat and didn't want to let them go. Not even in the face of potential poor publicity for his company.

Not surprisingly—given the stature of the retreat attendees and Lemaître Chocolates' longtime contributions to the San Francisco area—Adrienne's death had received media attention already. The complimentary newspaper I'd received outside my door this morning had contained a short article about her death.

It hadn't offered any insights aside from the standing accidental-overdose theory. Despite that fact, I'd scoured every word. I'd welled up at the memories it had provoked, too.

Then I'd dried my tears, thrown on my best somber attire (something I hadn't worn on my most recent trip to Brazil, since black attracts the sun's heat
and
pesky mosquitos), and come downstairs to the (then) unoccupied patio for daybreak brunch.

Now it was getting busier. The low hum of conversation combined with the discreet clank of cutlery, joining the scents of coffee, orange juice, and pervasive chocolate. I wish that familiar, beloved chocolaty smell cheered me up a bit more.

“They could have at least found a nicer photo of her.” Grumpily, I studied it. “Adrienne looks totally flustered here.”

“She did in real life, too. Pictures don't lie.”

Danny's attitude was an anathema to me.
Of course
pictures lied! Otherwise, there was no explanation for the assorted snaps of me, all around the world, looking like a coked-up Teletubbie.

Before I could say so, though, Danny waved at someone.

When I craned around to see who, squinting past the patio's topiaries, flowers, tables, and extravagant ultra-chocolate spread, I almost spit out my last sip of nutmeg-y, gingery, star anise-y drinking chocolate. I swiveled again. “Nina Wheeler?”

“Be nice,” Danny grumbled. “She's having a hard time.”

“But she's
married
!” I reminded him, having difficulty reconciling this touchy-feely side of my taciturn friend. I knew he had a strict hands-off policy when it came to other people's wives. Yet Nina clearly seemed to expect to see him. Had she and Danny arranged something last night? I wondered. “
You
can't—”

“Comfort her?
I'm
not going to.
You
are.” Danny stood.

While I processed that, he greeted Nina with a sort of lazy chivalry. I was fascinated by watching the two of them together. Honestly, I was touched, too. No kidding. I liked thinking that Danny had gone out of his way to help Lemaître's PR exec—until I remembered that he'd volunteered
me
for the job instead.

Irked, I flagged down a server for a chocolate refill.

Nina turned to me, tremulous and delicate. With her blazing red hair, slight frame, and businesslike attire, she looked like an exotic bird—one that hadn't slept well, if at all. Those were serious shadows under her eyes. You could have driven a truck into the hollows beneath them. Despite her flawless makeup job (one whose expertise escaped me, Miss Chapstick and Maybe Mascara), her cheek sported a single, obvious pillow crease. For whatever reason, that one detail made my heart go out to her.

“Have a seat, Nina,” I invited. “Won't you join us?”

Maybe I could peer-pressure Danny into caving in.

Or not. “Not me. Sorry.” He held up his phone. “Emergency.”

Liar,
I mouthed to him as he took off and Nina sat. But by then, I was stuck, exactly the way he'd intended I would be.

For all I knew, Danny was off to score a salty, fatty, junk food-y Egg McMuffin and hash browns. That was more his speed, anyway. Me, I'd started considering attacking the buffet in earnest. A girl needed sustenance, right?
Chocolate
sustenance.

“Thanks, Hayden.” Nina flicked an errant strand of hair from her eyes with shaky fingers. Her gaze darted around the patio, then settled on me. “I just wanted to touch base with all the attendees. Make sure everyone is okay. Because there's nothing to be afraid of, you know. Last night was awful, of course, but it was a complete aberration. At Lemaître, we—”

“Are
you
okay?” I interrupted, frowning with concern. She was obviously under a lot of stress. I didn't want Nina keeling over, right there beside the buffet station featuring chocolate fondue, brioche croutons, and fresh strawberry skewers. I'd had enough tragedy for one lifetime. “This must be very difficult for you. I don't imagine Christian is a very forgiving boss.”

“Christian is a brilliant and accomplished man.” Her words sounded rehearsed—especially since that particular man hadn't given a single day off to the only employee who'd tried to help Adrienne last night. But then, Nina was a
PR
exec. Her job was to smooth over any disruptions and make Lemaître look good. “He wants everyone to know how truly sorry he is about Adrienne.”

With a sob, Nina broke off. Seeming appalled by her own lapse in politesse, she clenched her hands. She looked away.

I couldn't help feeling affected by the obvious difficulty she'd been having. And still was. “Look, you don't have to put on a brave front with me,” I assured her. “I know you did all you could last night.” I tried not to think of any specifics. “Adrienne must have been glad to have a friend by her side.”

As I fumbled for a polite way not to bring up any morbid details, Nina nodded. “I did try to help her. I called for help as soon as I realized something was wrong! But it was too late.”

Nina went on to describe how she'd found Adrienne vomiting blood . . . inadvertently lending credence to Danny's overdose theory. She described the same kinds of sweaty, chilled feelings
I'd
experienced . . . accidentally lending a sense of terror to
me.

So much for omitting any morbid details.
I got the impression Nina needed to talk, though. So I listened. Still, the whole exchange was pretty awkward. I didn't know Nina very well. Plus, her skittish gaze kept jerking around the patio as she spoke, as though she needed to get busy with something else—probably reassuring all the other retreat attendees of Lemaître Chocolates' undying concern for their well-being. One by one. For that personal touch. I knew what a taskmaster Christian could be. Which reminded me, unhappily, of my overdue report.

Prompted by the anxiety that thought provoked, I glanced again toward the all-chocolate buffet.
Speak of the devil.

Christian Lemaître had arrived, wearing a “business casual” getup composed of gray trousers, mauve oxfords, and a pink pique polo with the collar turned up. Very “Preppie Meets Eurotrash.”

His whole look sported that distinctive sheen that only gobs of money could provide—of course—along with a fat gold Rolex. For all his faults, Christian had taken an outdated, dying company and turned it into a screamingly profitable one.

One that was going to do even better, with my expert help.

Back to Nina. “Were you and Adrienne close?” I asked.

I faced her fully, feeling guilty for woolgathering.

“Yes, we were. Very.” The PR exec gave me a weary smile. “Before the changeover, a lot of us were close. We lost so many people, unfortunately.” She had to be referring to Christian's takeover of Lemaître, when he'd ousted his kindly (horny) uncle, Bernard. “But that's business, isn't it? It's all for the best.”

Frankly, that speech sounded pretty rehearsed, too. But I couldn't fault Nina for giving it. She had a job to do, just as I did—and that job
wasn't
gorging on
pain au chocolat,
the way I'd been considering doing ten minutes ago. Despite that fact, though, Nina did accept a demitasse cup of drinking chocolate from the server. We listened as he outlined the buffet by rote.

Kindly, Nina didn't point out to that nervous-looking waiter that she, as a Lemaître exec, knew everything there was to know about the all-chocolate buffet, down to the last muffin.

My estimation of her went up a notch. People who are kind to wait staff get the thumbs-up from (former wage slave) me.

After he nodded and left, Nina's gaze fell on the flyer about Adrienne's memorial service. I'd left it between me and Danny during my tirade. “Ah. You're coming today, aren't you?”