The Semi-Sweet Hereafter (28 page)

The detective constable didn't deny it. “Mrs. Wright has powerful friends—including members of the police department,” she explained. “I had to use Constable Smith to expose them before I could build an unassailable case in Jeremy's murder.”

“Otherwise, Phoebe would have gone free,” I surmised.

Her nod confirmed it. “Thanks to you, now she won't.”

“That's why Phoebe wasn't arrested at the TV taping.” With new concern, I looked to DC Mishra. “My phone? My evidence? I gave everything to Constable George, along with my statement.”

“We got it. We were watching him.” She consulted her paperwork. “We got the A/V equipment from the Hambleton & Hart filming, too. George and his associates had taken it elsewhere.”

“Wow.” I shook my head. “George was always so nice to me.”

“Niceness doesn't mean anything, Ms. Mundy Moore.”

Danny eyed her with new respect. “That's what I keep telling her.” He actually smiled. “She doesn't ever listen.”

I had to stand up for myself. “The world needs nice people,” I pointed out. “People who don't bludgeon someone to death. People who don't try to push other people into trains.”

“Ah.” Satya appeared to remember something. “About that—”

I listened, eager to learn who'd tried to kill me.

“It was an accident,” she informed me. “We reviewed the CCTV footage. Someone bumped you in the crowd. As far as we could tell, they didn't know they'd done it. It was a chain reaction—one person bumping another, and another, and so on.”

So I hadn't been forcibly discouraged from looking into a murder. Not this time, at least. That was food for thought.

In the future, I'd have to be careful not to overreact.

Although even if I
had
overdramatized that push on the Tube platform, I'd still have been right about everything else.

“That's a relief. Thanks for letting me know.” I reviewed everything in my mind, knowing this might be my only chance to hear the official explanation for what had happened. “Are you sure you can't tell me who your three final suspects were?”

Satya Mishra looked amused. “I can tell you who it wasn't.”

I swear, Danny and I both leaned forward while the detective constable began ticking off suspects on her fingers.

“It wasn't Ellis Barclay next door,” she said. “He was seen in his box at the symphony on the night Jeremy died. It wasn't Nicola Mitchell. She didn't like Jeremy, but she never handled the murder weapon. We did have forensic evidence from it.”

I hadn't had access to that. I frowned, considering it. My prints must have been all over that metlapil, along with Phoebe's. Maybe Hugh's, too. I pegged
us
as the “final three.”

“It wasn't Claire Evans. She was having dinner with Andrew Davies, trying to smooth over things for Jeremy at Hambleton & Hart. They'd gone to the restaurant directly from the pub in Chelsea. The staff at both locations confirmed it.”

“Well, the staff would have no reason to lie for them.”

“No. Who else?” DC Mishra frowned. “It wasn't Liam Taylor—he was at the dog track, cashing in winnings. Those funds are tracked and verifiable. Unfortunately, he lost not long after.”

Aha. A gambling habit would explain Liam's modest car—not to mention Goldie, the lovable retired greyhound he'd adopted.

It was too bad
I
didn't have police-style access to alibis, forensic evidence, and witness interviews. If DC Mishra hadn't been so hostile to me from the moment we met, I might have been able to finagle some information from her. Next time, I decided, I needed to make friends with the investigating officer.

What was I saying? I
really
hoped there would never be a next time when it came to me and murder investigations.

“It wasn't Amelja, the Wrights' housekeeper,” the detective constable continued crisply. “We confirmed her presence at her second job, a part-time position at a hotel in Kensington.”

Two jobs? Poor Amelja. That couldn't be easy.

Danny cleared his throat. “What about Gemma Rose?”

Satya glanced at him. “Never seriously a suspect.”

I frowned at the two of them, half suspecting they were colluding with each other, just to pester me. “Why not?”

“She was on a flight home from America when Jeremy was killed. However motivated she was, she couldn't have done it.”

I was impressed by DC Mishra's resources. I could never hope to match things like forensic evidence and flight rosters.

Satya noticed. “Don't be too hard on yourself, Ms. Mundy Moore. Without your intuition, your presence, and your wits—”

I shot Danny a proud glance, then perked up my ears.

“—and your utter disregard for my instructions to you, we would not have solved Jeremy's murder.” The detective constable leaned across her desk, scowling. “Do
not
interfere again.”

“But you just said it worked,” I protested.

“Maybe the third time's the charm,” Danny cracked.

But DC Mishra wasn't entertained. “This is a dangerous pastime you've picked up. I strongly advise against it.”

“Well, I wouldn't call it a ‘pastime' per se,” I argued. “More of a sixth sense for murder that I'm developing, whether I want to or not. It's coming along slowly. It's similar to my sense for when a particular chocolate is right—you know, for a truffle or a—” I caught her quelling look and zipped it. One thing still bugged me, though. “Is Phoebe Wright left-handed?”

Satya looked confused. “Maybe. I'm not sure. Why?”

“Because I was told that whoever had killed Jeremy was—”

Left-handed. I broke off, belatedly understanding. George.

He'd purposely misinformed me, to throw me off the trail.

More than ever, I believed Phoebe's influence would have helped her get away with murdering her husband . . . if not for me.

And Danny. He sat beside me wearing an uneasy look.

I could have hugged him for having accompanied me there.

“You're free to go,” DC Mishra said, scattering my fond thoughts of my longtime pal. She folded her hands. “Unless you have further questions for me, we're finished here.”

Danny shot to his feet. “Have a nice day, DC Mishra.”

I tried for a more lingering departure. “I'll be just across the Channel, in France, if you need anything else.”

A faint smile. “We won't.”

“I promise I won't make a habit of this,” I went on.

Meaning murder, of course. All I wanted was to take my dozens of chocolate chip cookies (and all that international chocolate) to Jeremy's Jump Start Foundation and be on my way.

“See that you don't,” the detective constable said.

“And Phoebe won't be released from jail?” I pressed.

I'd be having nightmares about metlapil
-
wielding daughters of British peers for weeks. I suspected there would be a lot of handily distracting chocolate whispering in the days to come.

I had to call Travis and line up something new right away.

“Mrs. Wright will not go free,” Satya reiterated with a sigh. “Not if I have anything to say about it.” Bluntly, she added, “Do you need help finding your way out?”

“No, we've got it covered.” Danny grabbed me and bolted.

In the hallway, I protested. “Danny! We were talking.”

“No, you were fishing.” He strode onward, holding my hand to keep me with him. “Nobody's going to congratulate you.”

I slowed. Was that what I was after? Had I been fishing for accolades? If I was, it was understandable. I'd risked murder.

“Travis will congratulate me.” I cheered up at the thought. “He always knows what to say.” More importantly . . . “And how to say it.” I couldn't wait to hear his sexy tones, telling me how brave I'd been, how clever, how determined and how persistent.

The minute we reached the sidewalk, Danny stopped. He faced me. He cleared his throat. He wore the deepest possible frown.

“Congratulations,” he said roughly. “You did it.”

I smiled. “There. Was that so hard?”

He didn't quit frowning. “Given the circumstances? Yes.”

I examined his face. “I knew it. You only said that to beat Travis to the punch, didn't you?” With an annoyed exclamation, I swatted his arm. “Danny! You're supposed to mean it.”

“I mean everything I say to you,” he said.

“That's more like it. Come on.” I started walking toward the closest Tube station. I'd glimpsed an iconic roundel nearby, and I refused to be scared away from such a useful form of transportation. Although, since my push had been accidental—

“You mean too much to me to keep risking you like this,” Danny said from behind me. Too late, I realized he hadn't followed me. “If you keep this up,” he warned, “I'll quit.”

What?
I turned to face him, openmouthed. “Quit? You can't quit. You're just upset.” Right? “You don't mean that.”

He crossed his arms. I couldn't read his face. “Try me.”

I didn't want to. “Fortunately for us,” I said, “that won't be an issue, since I'm not running into any more murders.”

Danny gave me a cynical look—the same look he'd been giving me for years now, for just as long as we'd known one another. He didn't back down or agree. But then, I hadn't expected him to.

I could always count on him for sheer stubbornness.

Well, I could match him on that. “I sneaked Jeremy's dimpled pub mug out of the guesthouse in my luggage. I'm going to give it to Liam. I think he'd appreciate the keepsake.”

Danny only looked at me. I thought he was waiting for me to cave in to his (unlikely to be enforced) demand. But I wouldn't.

A tense moment ticked past between us. We both stood there.

Finally, Danny sighed. “I'm the one with the shady past, here. If you start stealing things, where does that leave me?”

At his grudging acceptance of my change of subject, I almost went weak with relief. I guessed a part of me
had
feared he meant that threat. But Danny
not
help if I were in trouble?

It was unthinkable. Both of us knew it.

“My little slip leaves you reformed, just the way I like it.” I gestured for him to catch up. Together, we walked. “What else do I have to do?” I mused, taking in the only-in-London mixture of skyscrapers, centuries-old buildings, Routemaster buses, and black cabs. “Oh yeah. Call Claire and tell her I
won't
be writing a tell-all book about the chocolate industry.”

“At the commercial taping with Gemma, Claire asked me if ‘chocolate whispering' was a real job,” Danny confided with a twinkle in his eye. “I told her you made it up.”

“
You
made it up!
You
came up with the name, too. Remember?”

Danny offered me an exaggeratedly thoughtful look. He furrowed his brows in confusion. “No, I don't remember that.”

“Yes, you do. That night in New York, when we decided I could make a living at chocolate? You said I'd be great!”

Doubtfully, my security expert shook his head. “Nah, that doesn't sound like me. You must be thinking of Harvard.”

“It was you.” I knew it was. “I remember as if it happened yesterday. Danny, I'm doing this job because of
you.
”

There were a few other factors at work, of course. But my longtime friend and sometime source of frustration was the main reason I'd found my purpose in life. I owed him for that.

I
always
would owe him for that. Just as much as I owed wonderful Uncle Ross for giving me the world in a suitcase.

But Danny wasn't in the mood for reminiscing with me. Probably because he'd just threatened (inconceivably) to quit.

I just couldn't believe it. Maybe he was feeling grumpy.

“Gemma is planning to buy out Phoebe's share of Primrose,” he said affably, shooting down my “grumpy” supposition with his hand on the small of my back as we headed down into the station. “She told me so last night. She has enough money now. So if you're worried about the chocolaterie-pâtisserie continuing . . . don't.”

“I wasn't even thinking about that,” I said honestly.

Danny gave me a skeptical look as we neared the ticket barriers. “You were there a whole month. I know you, remember? I know when you're worried about the people you care about.”

Yeah—and I'd known Danny a lot longer.

But I didn't want to think about whatever lay ahead of us—up to and including the danger of losing Danny to another (implausible) murder. Just then, all I wanted was to unwind before running my errands, catching my Eurostar train, and visiting my parents. All I wanted was to move on. As usual.

I may have told you before that I like being on the move.

Playfully, I nudged Danny. “Hey, you wanna go celebrate? We did this together, you know—you, me, and Travis.”
As usual.
“I know a place near here that serves a wicked ice cream sundae.”

“Oh no.” With faux alarm, my security expert held up his palms. “Here it comes. Don't do it, Hayden. Just don't.”

“It's got Tahitian vanilla-bean ice cream, dark-chocolate ice cream, and hand-churned cookie-dough ice cream,” I said as we reached the escalators. “It's drizzled with bourbon caramel, espresso ganache,
and
house-made white-chocolate whipped cream—”