Criminal Confections

by Colette London

  “She looks busy.” Indecisively, I lingered. Coming there had seemed like a perfectly innocuous idea . . . when I’d conceived of it. Now that I was there, though, I had my doubts. Should I really be poking into Isabel and Bernard’s private life? Or Hank’s? He could probably be fired for consorting with Isabel.

  “Look, either talk to her or don’t,” Danny said. “Just know that I’m blowing off something else to be here with you.”

  The blonde from the banquet. Duly poked, I took a step.

  Raised voices came from inside the cottage. I stopped, then cast a quizzical look at Danny. He’d heard them, too. In unspoken unison, we ducked behind the bush I’d stumbled upon.

  “You should have said so the other night!” Isabel yelled, sounding intoxicated (and infuriated). “I wouldn’t have wasted all this time with you!” In the window, she gave the man a shove. “I missed a good opportunity tonight, thanks to you.”

  Beside me in the sheltering darkness, Danny quirked his mouth. “Missed opportunity, huh? Isabel and I have something in common.”

  “Shush!” I kept still, listening harder. I could almost make out the man as he turned. He left the curtainless window before I could positively ID him. I know I shouldn’t have been snooping at all. It really wasn’t like me. But if I was going to, I reasoned, I might as well do a thorough job of it.

  “Fine!” Isabel’s shrill voice came next. “Just leave!”

  There was another indistinct voice, too low to make out.

  Then the cottage door smashed open. Danny and I flinched.

  Rex Rader appeared in the doorway, agitated and mussed up.

  He pointed at Isabel. “Don’t even think about telling him!”

  “You either!” Isabel jerked up her chin. “Don’t you dare!”

  Meanwhile, I was pretty busy boggling over the idea of the two of them together. As a couple. Isabel . . . and Rex? Really?

  Given their mutually unkempt appearances, it looked as though they’d spent much of the award ceremony getting frisky here in Isabel and Bernard’s cottage. It occurred to me that I couldn’t remember having seen Rex at the banquet earlier—but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been there. I’d been distracted.

  A concussion did not do wonders for your critical thinking skills, I was learning. Not to mention your sense of equability. Travis had only been asking questions. Looking out for me. That was his job. It hadn’t been fair of me to attack him for it.

  While I was contemplating the sorry state of my gray matter, Rex swore and stomped off. He strode in the opposite direction from my hiding place, audibly muttering in the darkness. From her cottage’s porch, Isabel watched him leave.

  She slurred a swearword in French, then slammed the door.

  Something about her use of that expletive niggled at me. It reminded me of... something I’d lost track of after my headache had started. Which, speaking of, I wished I had more painkiller for.

  “Well,” Danny prompted dryly, “here’s your big chance.”

  He nodded toward the cottage. Inside, probably, Isabel was still fuming. Confirming as much, I heard something smash.

  A second later, Isabel burst through the doorway, looking terrifyingly like a woman about to embark on a rampage. I thought better of my nascent plans to innocently question her.

  In fact, if Rex had been a meeker type—more like Adrienne—I would have been worried about his well-being in that moment. I didn’t ever want to be on Isabel’s hit list, that was for sure. It was a good thing I wasn’t personally into lingerie models.

  “Nah.” Casually, I waved off the idea. “We can chat later.”

  Wisely, Danny and I crept away and made our escape.

  I was still sacked out in bed—with a long-warmed-over ice pack on my forehead and Rex’s Melt portfolio still open on the other half of my king-size mattress—when Danny awakened me.

  At least he did so relatively civilly, by waving a coffee under my nose. “Hey, bedhead. Time to rise and shine.”

  Reflexively, I put my hand on my disheveled hair. “This is a very stylish look,” I argued. I dragged off my spent ice pack and opened my eyes to see my pal standing beside my bed wearing track pants and a T-shirt. Maybe sneakers, too. I couldn’t see his feet. “Unlike your ensemble, I might point out. Have you been exercising again? On purpose?” I made a face, groggy and confused. “Did somebody kick sand in your face at the beach or something? What’s with the get-fit routine, all of a sudden?”

  “I haven’t been exercising, but we’re about to,” Danny informed me. He shoved a banana at me with his other hand. “Eat this. Drink that.” He nodded at the coffee. “Let’s get going.”

  Blearily, I surveyed the so-called “breakfast” he was offering. “Thanks, but chocolate chip waffles sound better.”

  “If we’re going to stick together, we have to stick together,” Danny pushed. “I’m going for a run this morning. That means you are, too.” With a yank, he pulled off the comforter.

  “Whoa!” I clutched its luxurious puffiness, sending Rex’s portfolio papers flying. I kicked my legs, seeking cover. I didn’t sleep naked, but my habitual frayed long T-shirt didn’t provide much decency, either. “Just go! I’ll join you later.”

  Danny disagreed. “I can’t leave you here alone.”

  “Sure you can.” I gestured. “I’ll pay you to leave.”

  Danny’s face hardened. “Never mind. I think I just quit.”

  He strode away, taking the delectable scent of coffee with him. I didn’t think he was serious—until the door slammed shut.

  Alarmed, I sat bolt upright in bed. I blinked at the door.

  Any second now, I figured, Danny would come back. Ha-ha! Fooled you! he’d say. Then we’d laugh . . . and we’d have to jog. Ugh.

  I wasn’t supposed to exercise, anyway. Hadn’t the Maison Lemaître physician said no exertion? I had an ironclad excuse.

  That didn’t make me feel any less awful about what I’d said to Danny just now, though. I’ll pay you to leave. What was the matter with me? I couldn’t keep pulling rank on him with my fortune.

  In my own defense, though, it was roosters’ happy hour outside. Anyone who woke me up that early and expected coherence didn’t know me at all. I’m a late-night girl, not an up-and-at-’em type. For as long as I’d known him, Danny had been the same.

  But maybe I didn’t know Danny as well as I thought I did. Maybe Danny had changed. Shaken by that thought, I frowned.

  Nope. I wasn’t that fickle, I reminded myself. Unlike Travis, I believed in Danny—despite his disreputable past.

  Trying not to think about the fact that I was now on the outs with two of the most important people in my life, I leaned over and started corralling fallen papers. Some were on the carpeted floor. One had drifted beneath the nightstand. Most were scattered atop the comforter. I stuffed those I could reach into Rex’s portfolio, feeling put-upon. On the bright side, I tried to tell myself, at least I wouldn’t have to argue with Travis about hiring Danny anymore. Not if Danny had already quit. Similarly, I didn’t have to sweat mollycoddling Danny, because by the time I saw him again later, he’d be over it.

  Danny wasn’t the kind of guy who held a grudge.

  “I’m the kind of guy who gets even,” he’d joked to me once.

  But now, that joke held a new (and unwelcome) significance. Was it possible that Danny secretly resented my inheritance?

  He certainly seemed to feel that way sometimes. It was uncomfortable. Yet . . . a handwritten scribble on one of the fallen papers caught my eye. I must not have noticed it last night as I’d attempted to gather espionage clues by analyzing Melt’s portfolio. It looked like . . . chicken scratch. I squinted and leaned nearer.

  Christian is a brilliant and accomplished man, I read.

  Startled, I dropped the paper. What the . . . ?

  Heart pounding, I looked again. Closely. There was no question about it. In the same handwriting I recognized from Rex’s smarmily scrawled Call
me! (and phone number) on the inside of the portfolio, Rex had written . . . exactly the same thing that Bernard and Nina had said to me about Christian. The same thing that I’d said about him after “Name That Chocolate!”

  I’ll admit, I thought it was super weird. There had to be an explanation for that stilted phrase, I knew. But what?

  Wanting answers, I slid out of bed and got dressed, opting for the closest thing I had to workout gear—an upscale sweatshirt from a Parisian boutique, a pair of shorts, and my Chucks. I wanted to find Danny and apologize. After some water and a bite of Danny’s forgotten banana, my headache was gone, but I still felt fuzzy about yesterday. Except about one thing . . .

  Travis answered on the first ring. Sleepily. “Hayden.” He cleared his throat. Sexily. “Is everything all right?”

  If anything, my buttoned-up keeper sounded even huskier and more masculine first thing in the morning. Wowzers! I swooned.

  You know, repentantly. “Do you sleep naked, Travis?”

  “Everything is all right,” he judged. I’d swear he smiled.

  “It is if you’ll accept my apology,” I told him. “I’m sorry about last night. I want to go ahead with hiring Danny—but I’ll give you full ‘I told you so’ rights if I turn out to be wrong.”

  “Wow, that’s big,” Travis rumbled. “Especially coming from you.” There was a pause. “Do you want to know my counteroffer?”

  Of course he had one. “Nope. I’m not open to bargaining.”

  “Well, I’ve got to admire your loyalty, then.” The phone rustled against something. I wondered if he was in bed. I could certainly imagine Travis in bed. “Okay. Apology accepted.”

  With that, blissfully, I was ready to start my day.

  On my way downstairs to see if any of the Maison Lemaître staff were even on duty so early in the A.M., Nina intercepted me.

  More accurately, she scared the bejeezus out of me.

  “Hey, you!” The PR rep popped into the (usually deserted) service stairwell I’d taken to using, coming from within Maison Lemaître’s labyrinth of back rooms and staff-only areas. “You’re up early!” She eyed my shorts, Converse, and couture sweatshirt. “I was going to look for you later. Got a minute right now?”

  “Actually . . . I do,” I told her. I remembered that inexplicable scribble on Rex’s portfolio page and decided I might as well start digging right away. “Do you remember telling me the other day that Christian is ‘a brilliant and accomplished man’?”

  Nina’s smile remained bright. “Yes. So?”

  Clearly, whatever behind-the-scenes subterfuge I’d been imagining lay behind that affected phrase was only in my mind.

  “What does it mean?” I asked, feeling slightly silly. “Why use those exact words?” I paused. “Bernard used them, too.”

  “So did you,” Nina pointed out, checking her phone.

  That was true. “I know, but . . .” But I thought they might have an ominous meaning. “Oh, never mind. I’m being absurd.”

  “Yes, but that’s good!” Nina said perkily. Now that the awards banquet was finished, her stress levels seemed to have ratcheted down a bit. “That means that now I won’t feel so goofy telling you my news.” Nina leaned nearer. Then, confidingly, she added, “It’s not the least bit professional, either!”

  Touched by her gleefulness, I smiled. “Good for you! And . . . ?”

  “And Calvin and I can join you and Danny for that massage!” Nina’s voice echoed in the chilly, concrete-walled stairwell. I was reminded how my own voice had echoed similarly when Danny and I had taken to the back stairs on the night Adrienne had died. “I spoke with Calvin, and he was up for it, after all.”

  “That’s great.” Warmly, I touched her arm. Given the mess I’d made of my friendships lately, it was heartening to know I wasn’t a total screwup. I did still know what made people happy. Speaking of which . . . “I’m on my way to see Danny. I’ll tell him.”

  Enlisting him for a compulsory couples massage—even one that featured fragrant warm cocoa oil—wasn’t exactly an olive branch. But I had game. I knew how to persuade him.

  It could have been worse. It could have been a mani-pedi.

  “It probably won’t be until closer to the end of the retreat,” Nina warned me. “I’m still swamped at the moment.”

  “No problem.” I was disappointed that my supposed superclue hadn’t amounted to anything. After a few moments’ chitchat, Nina and I said good-bye. I couldn’t linger. After all, Travis wasn’t the only man in my life I wanted to make my apologies to.

  “Oh, and that phrase?” Nina stopped on her way upstairs. I was headed down. “It’s Christian’s new ‘power phrase.’”

  “‘Power phrase’?” I couldn’t help guffawing. Nina did, too.

  “He wants it to sound natural. I guess I blew it on the delivery,” Nina confided. “Please don’t tell him I told you.”

  “I won’t,” I swore. I liked bonding with Nina. She understood me. She was even more beleaguered by Christian’s idiosyncrasies than I was. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  Whoops! I think both of us shivered. It was funny how glib sayings had a lot more bite when there’d been a real murder.

  Or an accidental overdose, I allowed. But I didn’t think the police were right about their official “accidental death” ruling. Not given all I’d learned.

  “Hope not!” Nina said sunnily. “Take care!”

  Then she whirled up another flight of stairs, opened one of the staff-only doors, and vanished from sight, leaving me alone.

  In the deserted stairwell, I shivered. Time to get moving.

  By “get moving,” of course, I meant running. Probably at speeds a turtle would be ashamed of. Since I didn’t get much exercise beyond wrestling with industrial mixers, hauling bags of sugar, and chopping chocolate blocks into submission, I knew I wasn’t exactly at Olympian-level fitness. I could probably use some help—especially if I wanted to keep doing my chocolate-intensive job while still fitting into my favorite pants. So I emerged from the resort’s lobby onto the grounds, inhaled deeply of the fresh springtime California air, and looked for Danny.

  A jog wouldn’t be that bad, I told myself. My headache had gone, so I was probably cured of my concussion. I’d take it easy. I’d do what Danny wanted to do for a change—the better to make amends for my thoughtless comment earlier—then I’d make him go get some of those chocolate-chip waffles with me. With hot-fudge sauce. And cocoa whipped cream. And a strong black coffee.

  No sugar in that coffee, of course. I was getting healthy.

  Grinning at my own well-developed ability to mislead myself, I shaded my eyes with my hand and scanned the ridge.

  I couldn’t tell if Danny was there . . . but several other people were. Two uniformed EMTs. Two police officers. And . . . Christian?

  Given the flashing lights on the SFPD patrol car that I belatedly noticed parked on the landscaper’s path a short distance away from the ridge trail—right next to an ambulance—something serious was going on. I started walking toward the ridge, squinting harder as I tried to pick up more details.

  The EMTs knelt, examining something. I was still too far away to discern what it was. Growing concerned, I moved faster.

  Someone shouted to me from the grounds—Eden from Chocolat Monthly, I thought—but by then, I realized the EMTs were moving a limp body from the ground onto what looked like a waiting scoop stretcher. A few moments later, they lifted the stretcher.

  Whoever they’d put onto it didn’t move. Danny?

  I knew he’d been headed for a run. If he’d gone to the ridge trail again . . . Engulfed in panic, I started running. I didn’t care if I jostled my brain or wrecked my gimpy knee permanently. I had to keep going. I had to know if something had happened to Danny.

  Staring fixedly at those EMTs as they carried the stretcher to their waiting ambulance, I tripped on something. I kept going. I was close enough now to see the police officers’ faces as they
looked at me; close enough to see Christian’s stricken expression and shaking head. It seemed completely likely that my heart would burst with fear. It couldn’t be Danny. It couldn’t.

  The morning breeze chilled my legs. I felt dewy grass whisk past my ankles, dampening my shoes. Far below the ridge I was cresting, the bay water swirled against all those spiky rocks.

  I pictured them as I reached the top of the ridge, then veered down the trail. I’d almost fallen onto those rocks myself. I could imagine too well what that descent would feel like. I didn’t want to picture Danny’s lifeless body on those rocks, but I couldn’t help it. Had I distracted Danny too much? Had he left the resort—still steaming from our tiff—and fallen?

  My knees felt rubbery. I followed the EMTs, my chest heaving with harsh breaths. Efficiently, they reached their ambulance and loaded the stretcher inside. By the time I made it to their position, gasping for breath and shaking with fear, one of the EMTs was swinging shut the door. I couldn’t see inside.

  The other EMT got in. He didn’t turn on the siren.

  Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. My mind was a litany of jumbled fears and pleading as I grabbed the closest emergency worker.

  “What happened?” I asked. “Is he going to be okay?”

  The EMT looked startled. He shook his head, opened his mouth to reply—and then Danny strode in between us. He grabbed me, offering a curt wave to the EMT. “I’ve got this. Thanks.”

  His air of authority startled me—but not more than he did.

  Wordlessly, I threw my arms around him. I might have cried a little. I definitely got shaky—and I definitely did my best to bear-hug Danny into not ever getting away from me ever again.

  In my arms, he stood like a boulder, stoic and still. The ambulance drove away, crunching gravel beneath its tires. Its ordinary fading engine noise sounded extraordinary and surreal. So did the birds chirping in the trees. And my own heartbeat.

  “I thought it was you!” I cried with my face in Danny’s T-shirt. I balled up fistfuls of cotton from his back, clutching him harder. He felt completely hard all over. “Where were you?”