Dangerously Dark (17 page)

“You know,” Danny said as he slung himself into the passenger seat, “if I were one of those douchey party guys, I would think this van was
awesome.
” He craned his neck to take in all the garish dude-bro touches inside. “This kind of thing doesn't happen by accident. This is strategy, right here.”

I remained skeptical. “Strategic ugly exclusionism, maybe. Doesn't it ever occur to men like Declan that there might be
women
in their target audience, too? Women who don't necessarily like looking at naked women?” I turned the ignition. Surprisingly, the van's engine purred like a sports car's. “I mean, if the chocolate companies I work for excluded half of their customer base, right from the get-go, with bad packaging . . .”

Wait a minute. Danny was right. This had to be strategy.

“Declan
was
trying to reach someone with all this.” I stopped with the van idling and time ticking. “But who?”

Danny and I gazed at each other, pondering it.

“Newspeople?” My bodyguard looked dubious. “If Declan made this thing indecent enough, it could stir up local controversy.”

“
And
attention,” I added, riding his train of thought to its logical destination. “That would result in free advertising. If Declan had a limited budget to launch Chocolate After Dark—”

“That would explain why he didn't take advantage of your consulting services.”
The way Carissa had alluded to at brunch.
Danny gave me a look. “Your expertise is stupidly pricey.”

“It's ridiculously valuable, you mean,” I rebutted automatically. I have my good points, but humility isn't one of them. “I wonder what Declan's financials were like?”

Our gazes swerved in unison to Declan's iPad. I'd asked Travis to look into my suspects' backgrounds, but it would be a while before my financial advisor sent me anything usable.

“There's only one way to find out.” Danny turned it on.

I wasn't optimistic about his chances of cracking Declan's password. Danny has a lot of skills, but mostly they have to do with real-world, hands-on illicit encounters. Thievery. Forgery. Bar brawls. Pickpocketing. Lock picking. Criminally high levels of confidence and felonious amounts of machismo. The usual.

I didn't think “hacker” was one of Danny's alter egos.

“It's okay if you can't crack the password,” I told him as I finally pulled away from the curb and drove the “Chocolate Orgy” into traffic. I tried not to cringe. “I have a plan B.”

“You don't need a plan B. It distracts from plan A.”

I liked his confidence, but... “Seriously, Danny. I can always—”

“Call Travis?” Danny muttered a swearword.
No way
was the subtext. As usual. Things were back to normal between them.

“Okay, but put your charm attack on standby,” I warned him, “because if we get stopped in this moving monstrosity—”

“I'll handle it.” His grin flashed at me. “Like always.”

“—or, God forbid, stalled at a construction site—”

I pictured dozens of burly construction workers catcalling our Chocolate After Dark van. “It would be a nightmare situation.”

Danny laughed outright. “I'll take care of that, too.”

“Good.” He thought he was winning. I knew I was buttering him up for later. This way, we both (sort of) won. “Thanks, D.”

“Anytime. You know that.” Danny looked touched by my old nickname for him. I'd used it back in the day, while trawling dodgy SoCal bars with him. We'd been each other's wingman.

Back then, we'd been dealing with argumentative drunks and would-be lotharios, inexpert pool hustlers and overly handsy dance partners. Now, we were dealing with a potential murderer. But the more things changed, the more they stayed the same, right? Because whatever we were facing, we took it head on.

With a side of subterfuge, whenever necessary.

 

 

Our history together was why, when Danny and I arrived at our destination a short while later, just as the Oregon sun was setting, I was able to look him straight in the eye and casually say, “Later we're going to pretend this never happened. But right now, I need you to pick a lock for me. Okay? Let's go.”

He didn't move. “You must have me confused with someone else. Someone you
don't
constantly badger about law and order.”

He had a point. I was concerned about Danny relapsing into unlawful behavior. Still . . . “We have twenty-four minutes. Go!”

“Sorry.” Wryly, Danny patted his jeans pockets. “I must have left my bump key and torsion wrench in my other pants.”

“Har, har. Pretend
not
to be a criminal another time.”

He looked hurt. “I've reformed. That's what you wanted.”

“Right now, I want you bad, sneaky, and capable of getting into Carissa's Churn PDX trailer so I can have a look around.”

“Oh, is that all?” Danny's cocky grin reappeared. “You should have said so. I thought this was an ethics test.” He nodded. “Give me four minutes, then meet me at Carissa's trailer.” He returned Declan's iPad to me, opened the van's door, then paused before getting out. “Try to be cool.”

“I'm always cool!”

My bodyguard cast me a skeptical look, then got out of the van. I swear, he swaggered all the way there, from my street-side parking spot to Cartorama, four whole blocks away.

The minute Danny disappeared from sight, I grabbed my bag, got out of the world's ugliest tour van, and followed him. I was impatient to get going, sure. We were on a tight schedule. But mostly I was worried that if I sat there, I'd draw a crowd of confused kids who'd mistake my van for an ice-cream truck.

The last thing I needed was a pack of hungry kids and a rioting throng of angry parents getting between me and what I was there for—any evidence I could find (or, more to the point,
not find
) to clear Carissa of suspicion. Because if I heard one more person cast doubt on my friend from college, it would be too soon.

Ten

I was late claiming my designated four minutes from Danny.

I had a good excuse, though. Because despite my bodyguard's advice, I opted to create a plan B for us. Maybe streetwise Danny was comfortable winging it, but I wasn't. After all, there was a killer on the loose. We had to be smart. If we got caught snooping around Carissa's trailer without a valid excuse (and the murderer noticed),
we
could wind up the next targets.

Thinking fast, I headed to Muddle + Spade first thing. Inside, Tomasz was busy at the bar. I gave him an artless wave and pretended to be going to the ladies' room. It was the only refuge I could think of. The cart pod provided bathrooms, but since Cartorama was essentially a parking lot with an assortment of vehicles parked on it, the pod's accommodations consisted of two Porta-Potties—
not
my preferred option for a comfort break.

I strode to the ladies' room, site of my encounter with Lauren. As you might have expected, there was a line of women waiting to use the facilities. (That's happy hour at a bar for you.) I wanted to stash Declan's iPad someplace that
wasn't
the chocolate-tour van. That way, if anyone challenged me about being in Carissa's trailer, I could claim to be looking for Declan's iPad. It was necessary for the tour, so it was a good excuse—just as long as Carissa wasn't the one doing the questioning. But she would be at home, mourning, right?

Biting my lip, I turned around, looking for a less busy location. I didn't want anyone else to find Declan's iPad during the few minutes I'd be leaving it. Decisively, I followed the path I'd noticed Janel taking to the bar's back room.

Yes.
With front-of-house service in full swing, no one was around to see me. I slung off my purse, took out Declan's iPad, and searched the spacious former warehouse for a hiding place.

To my right was a small, tidy office; to my left were a walk-in refrigerator and walk-in freezer. In front of me were rows of freestanding shelving units holding local and commercial foodstuffs, along with beverages. I moved toward them, mentally inventorying beer kegs, cases of wine, liquors, and food items. I was in a hurry, but I wasn't blind. It looked as though Muddle + Spade did a flourishing business. The bar even kept sixty-kilo burlap bags of cacao beans on hand. I noticed them stacked shoulder-high on the floor next to an antique continuous roaster.

Mmm . . .
I inhaled the aroma of roasted
Theobroma cacao
that lingered on the air. Those burlap bags of beans were just as picturesque as you'd envision, too, printed with their weight, their varietal, and their farm or wholesaler in rustic fonts. Unlike the antique bicycles and wooden stag heads out front, though, those bags and that roaster were being used. That telltale aroma said so. Most likely, I figured, the Cartorama vendors had pooled their resources to buy everything I saw, ensuring themselves a steady supply of high-quality chocolate.

Making bean-to-bar chocolate requires work and expertise—it's not something a casual chocolate lover can DIY. Cacao beans have to be removed from their football-size fruits and fermented (aged, but for a much briefer time than wine or coffee). After that, they still needed to undergo roasting, cracking, and winnowing—separating the flavorful nibs from the inedible shell. After that comes grinding, flavoring, conching, and tempering.

The process is labor intensive, sure, but the resulting aroma is
fantastic.
That's what went on in Muddle + Spade's back room. Maybe it was even what Janel had scurried in here to tend to the other day, since she'd mentioned having an interest in chocolate—an interest that had led to Declan's interest in
her.

Maybe chocolate making was what Janel was studying in her ever-present books and on her laptop. When we'd hung out in the bar together, I hadn't thought to take a good look at Janel's belongings for clues. She could have been downloading bank statements, learning to code JavaScript, or writing a potboiler.

For all I knew, a few days earlier, she could have been studying the uses and abuses of liquid nitrogen, boning up on how to freeze and suffocate Declan to death as revenge for his not wanting to see her anymore.

Just as I had that bleak thought, I almost stepped on some fallen cacao beans (they look similar to gigantic coffee beans) and experienced a burst of nostalgia for my less-complicated ordinary life as a chocolate whisperer. I didn't know how I kept getting mixed up in these dangerous situations, but I did.

The sound of footsteps interrupted my mental digression into my more carefree chocolate-filled days. I looked over my shoulder. Someone was coming. Out of time, I stashed Declan's iPad between the massive stack of cacao bean bags and the former warehouse's brickwork wall. I straightened just in time.

Tomasz walked in, a bar towel draped over his shoulder and a preoccupied expression on his face. He started with surprise.

“Hayden.” He smiled at me. “What are you doing back here?”

He seemed so pleased, I thought he might have gotten the idea I'd come there to seduce him—to create a
real
“happy hour” for us. He clearly had me confused with Lauren, in that case.

I had to think fast. “Janel told me about your roaster.” I gestured toward it. I hoped Tomasz couldn't see my hand shaking with urgency and pent-up jumpiness. Danny was still waiting for me. “I wanted to see it for myself. It's a nice specimen.”

It stood next to the more prosaic dal grinder that had been pressed into service for cracking the roasted beans and the nineteenth-century conching machine that used time, aeration, heat (and a set of heavy rollers set inside its predictably shell-shaped basin) to develop the chocolate's flavors. The roaster was the only possible one of the three that could have doubled as an attraction—even for a chocolate nerd like me.

“Ah.” Tomasz nodded. “I almost forgot your background in chocolate. I'm afraid that, to me, you're Carissa's superhot friend first and an expert second.” His smile broadened.

I didn't know whether to be flattered (he'd called me “superhot”) or insulted (he'd forgotten I had a brain). Tomasz's vivid smile nudged me toward the
flattered
end of the spectrum.

“I'd be happy to show you how it works sometime,” he told me. “We all own it in common. The vendors take turns using it.”

“Hmm, maybe.” I looked around offhandedly, hoping I'd stashed Declan's iPad with sufficient stealth. “That depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether you're making that offer to chocolate-whispering me or superhot me.” I nailed him with a look. “Which is it?”

Tomasz appeared trapped. With good reason. “Um, both?”

“Good answer.” I was tempted to flirt with him and enjoy myself a little, but I didn't have time. I clutched my purse, acutely aware of its diminished weight now that Declan's iPad was no longer inside it—
and
acutely aware of Danny waiting for me at Churn PDX. “Superhot me accepts your offer. Tonight after close?” I was a night owl, anyway. “What do you say?”

“I say it's a date. Last call's at two, though.”

If Tomasz expected to scare me off with the late hour, he was disappointed. His schedule and mine meshed perfectly.

I nodded. “No problem. I'll be there.”

His smile promised I would celebrate that decision later. He withdrew something shiny from his pocket. A key on a ring. “Here. Let yourself in if I don't hear you at the door.”

“I will.” I took the key. “That's trusting of you.”

“You seem like a safe bet to me. Besides, now I've got you—I'm pretty sure your taking that key means we're going steady.”

“Hm. How do you know I'm not afraid of commitment?”

A grin. “Because you're holding my bar key.”

Did that sound like a double entendre to anyone but me?

“Well, you don't know how much I like a good artisanal bean-to-bar operations tour,” I disagreed, just to keep him guessing. It was true. I did like a bean-to-bar operations tour. I also liked a chocolate tasting, a chocolate-recipe-development session, a chocolate product launch, an all-chocolate brunch....

Despite all the trauma at Maison Lemaître, I'd always have fond memories of the resort's delectable all-chocolate brunch. Not to mention the spa's cacao-nib-and-espresso-bean pedicure scrub. Enjoying that had been one of the highlights of my visit.

Just as I turned to leave Tomasz to whatever work had brought him to the bar's back room, I remembered something else.

I might as well take advantage of our growing camaraderie, I figured. “Hey, you have a good view of Carissa's cart.” I nodded toward the warehouse's windows. At the moment, the twilight view outside looked . . . ghostly. “On the day Declan died, did you see anything suspicious? I know everyone's sure his death was an accident, and I know it probably was, but”—I broke off for every woman's secret weapon: a self-effacing smile—“well, I like to imagine myself sort of an international crime-solving chocolate whisperer, so I'm kind of investigating.”

“Investigating?” Tomasz raised his brows. “Really?” I couldn't miss his patronizing tone. “Have you found anything?”

I'd be lying if I said his dismissiveness wasn't deflating. Looking into a (maybe) murder wasn't going to qualify me for a Nobel Prize anytime soon, but it didn't deserve outright scorn.

“Not yet.” I raised my brows and crossed my arms. “Well?”

It took him a second to catch on—to remember that I'd asked him a question . . . one he'd left unanswered.
Hmm.
I didn't think Tomasz was stupid. He seemed really smart. Although I do get the appeal of a dense-but-gorgeous “himbo” now and then, a man who's short on intelligence
and
curiosity just doesn't do it for me.

“No.” He seemed to be searching for patience. “I didn't see anything. Which is what I told the police when we all gave our statements and they decided that Declan had died accidentally.”

“What time did Declan go into the trailer that night?” I pushed. “Did you see him? Did you see him the next morning?”

“No. No. And no. Look.” Exasperation—and something else—crossed Tomasz's face. Even upset, he looked preposterously handsome. “If you only agreed to go out with me because you want to interrogate me, then do it now. Go ahead.” He spread his arms, giving me a pugnacious look. “I'm an open book.”

I was taken aback. “It's not like that. I like you.”

What was I going to say? That he was a suspect? That would have played well (not). Plus, I needed to get out of there.

“Well, I like you, too!” Tomasz burst out. The hubbub grew louder in the bar's front of house. Someone yelled for him. Despite that, he returned his attention to me. “I had a bad breakup a while ago. Asking you out was a big deal for me.”

Oh. The
something else
I'd glimpsed was interest.
In me.

Maybe self-consciousness and vulnerability, too, if Tomasz was out of practice with dating. That explained his cheesy come-on, I figured. Showing me his antique roaster was the twenty-first-century equivalent of inviting me up to see his etchings.

“You're kind of intimidating. You know that,” Tomasz added. “You keep everyone at a distance. I noticed that right away.”

I scoffed . . . then realized he was serious. Right then and there, I felt my flirtation with him heat up by a few degrees. It was irrational but true. I didn't mind seeming aloof. Or intimidating. Those weren't qualities most people saw in me.

I didn't let on, though. I was too cool for that.

“Give me a chance. You might be surprised,” I told Tomasz breezily. “But right now, there's someplace I have to be, so—”

“Right. I heard something about a chocolate tour?”

Oh yeah.
I was going to be late for Chocolate After Dark. Never mind Declan's porno-worthy tour van; if I didn't turn up,
I'd
destroy my credibility. It wasn't like me to get distracted.

Sure, I might procrastinate on writing a consulting report now and then. But I
do
deliver excellent work. Without fail.

“Yep. I'm late. So, see you tonight!” I turned to leave.

Tomasz's tentative expression stopped me before I could.

“If you really want to know what time Declan was supposed to fill those tanks for Carissa, ask Austin. He'll know.”

“Why's that?” I assumed he meant because Austin was crazy about Carissa. Chances were good he knew her schedule by heart.

Tomasz looked over his shoulder. I remembered there were customers waiting for him. “
He's
the one I saw lurking around that morning.” We both knew which morning he meant. For a moment, the barman looked troubled. Then, “Austin's cart is nearby, though. And he was usually the one who filled the Dewars for Carissa, anyway, so it's probably nothing. I'm just trying to get into Sherlock mode myself. Forget I said anything.”

As if I could.
With a solid lead, a date,
and
a hiding place for Declan's iPad, I was feeling pretty good about my (unwanted) future as an amateur sleuth. I nodded at Tomasz.

“I won't say a word to Austin,” I promised.

But I sure as heck was going to tell Danny thirty seconds from now, I promised myself as I made my getaway. Travis too. Because if Declan really
had
been murdered (and I still thought he had), I had several good ideas who might have done it.