Criminal Confections

by Colette London

  Because only Bernard had also co-opted that phrase to threaten me with yesterday. Only he had been oblivious to its hidden meaning . . . just as I’d been. How had I missed that?

  Probably the same way I’d missed something else: the significance of Bernard purposely “redirecting suspicion.” The important part of Danny’s informative tip didn’t have to do with Bernard’s suspicions of Christian at all, I realized too late. It had to do with someone else who’d “redirected suspicion.”

  Nina. She’d pointed the finger at Danny—probably as a means of making sure I wouldn’t suspect her of anything untoward . . . such as searching my room for Adrienne’s notebook, then walloping me on the head with a lamp when I’d disturbed her by surprise.

  Alarmed, I backed up. I’m pretty sure my eyes went comically wide, too. How often are you faced with somebody’s obvious duplicitousness in real life? It’s terrifying stuff.

  “Don’t act as if you don’t know what’s in Adrienne’s notebook—what I’ve been up to with it,” Nina scoffed. “It’s too late for that. I know you were planning to tell Christian all about it. That’s why you set up this little meeting with him.”

  She’d never given my message to Christian. I held up my palms, hoping to placate her. “I wasn’t going to tell Christian anything about you,” I swore—honestly, as it turned out. “I mean, I have to admire your ingenuity, right? What a way to put one over on Christian. After this, he’ll be ruined for sure.”

  I tried to chuckle knowingly. I’m pretty sure I bombed.

  “That’s the idea.” Nina gave me a skeptical look. She scratched her arm again, then her neck. Her speckled complexion was getting worse. So was the twitch in her foot. “At least it was until you came along,” she said as she paced. “It was until Adrienne died! I had such a good setup going until then. Adrienne to write everything down . . . and me to benefit.”

  I got it. I thought. I wanted to be sure. “Christian suspected someone of selling Lemaître’s secrets.” I remembered him telling me so. “He thought it was Adrienne, but it was you.”

  “Of course it was me! Don’t think I don’t know that’s what you’re here to uncover. I needed the money after Christian took over and Calvin got downsized out of a job. Adrienne was too dumb to realize what a gold mine she was sitting on. But I wasn’t.”

  Reeling, I stared at Nina. No wonder she was riddled with nervous tics and a burgeoning rash. She’d been keeping a whole host of secrets. And she thought I’d been at Lemaître to uncover her espionage, not to consult on the nutraceutical line. That’s what I got, I guessed, for having clients who demanded “the utmost discretion.” That left my presence open to rampant (wrongheaded) speculation. I still needed to know more, though.

  “No wonder you and Rex were so cozy,” I mused. Leadingly.

  But Nina sneered. “Rex. He was just like you—”

  “Hey!” I couldn’t help protesting. I didn’t want to be a member of any club that included smarmy Rex. God rest him.

  “—always pestering me, threatening me, hounding me.”

  Too late, comprehension dawned. At the buffet that day...

  “He wasn’t comforting you over Adrienne’s death,” I said.

  Nina snorted. “He was demanding I give back the money he’d already given me—an advance payment for Adrienne’s notebook.” That partly explained Melt’s dire financials. Rex must have overextended himself when prepaying for Adrienne’s notebook—which Nina hadn’t possessed to deliver. “But I couldn’t do that.”

  I glanced at the treatment room door. It was open, but there was still nobody around. I doubted I could just laugh off Nina’s (partly) incoherent confession and sashay out of there.

  I needed to keep her talking. “You’d lost your partner.”

  “Adrienne wasn’t my partner! She was my golden goose.” Nina shook her head. “There was no one else like Adrienne.”

  “I could be.” Tensely, I nodded. “I know chocolate. I know Lemaître. Christian already offered me the head chocolatier job. Things can go on the same way they always have for you.”

  “You’ll help me sell Lemaître’s secrets?”

  I hedged. “You don’t think Danny is the only one who’s open to ‘unconventional’ business opportunities, do you?”

  Nina eyed me skeptically. She was right to look at me that way. I would be about as adept at corporate espionage as I would be at hockey.

  I tried to appear shady. “I already told you about Danny’s forgery skills,” I improvised. “We’re the complete package.”

  For a minute, Nina almost seemed to waver.

  Then she shook her head. “No. I’m retiring after this. I just want it all to be over with finally!” She sighed, then scratched her neck again. “Just when I’d dealt with Rex—”

  I froze, horror-struck by what Nina undoubtedly meant. I could picture her following Rex to the steep ridge trail, confronting him, pushing him off. Or maybe just pushing him.

  Most likely, Nina didn’t feel such a rapport with all her victims, I mused with a sickening feeling. Just me. I was special. Appalled and scared, I wanted to bolt. But I didn’t.

  Because if I didn’t make it out of this alive, no one would ever know what Nina had done to Rex. To Lemaître. To Adrienne?

  “—you had to come along and mess things up again!” Nina said. “I thought you’d eventually give in and give Adrienne’s notebook to Christian. God knows, I reminded him about it often enough.” Aha. That explained his constant badgering.

  But maybe I’d misunderstood. “You ‘dealt’ with Rex?”

  “I wanted out,” Nina explained. “I was willing to take what he’d already given me and forgo the rest. But Rex refused.”

  “So you . . . ?” I held my breath, not wanting to hear the worst.

  Nina shrugged. “It’s a pretty slippery ridge up there,” she mused aloud. “What happened to Rex could have happened to anyone.” She pawed at her blotchy neck, then frowned. “It wasn’t really murder, if that’s what you’re thinking. Not since it could have happened accidentally without me even being there.”

  “But it didn’t,” I couldn’t help pointing out, aghast.

  Nina gave me a merciless grin. “If people could see you now, struggling to figure out something so simple . . .” She looked away, then shook her head. “Mierda. You’d never get hired.”

  Mierda. That expletive gave me chills. It hadn’t been rude French I’d heard when surprising my lamp-wielding room-ransacker, after all. It had been rude Spanish. It had been Nina.

  “It was considerate of you to set up this nice deserted meeting place,” Nina went on next, looking around. The tiled walls had beaded with condensation. So had the floor. “That made things much easier for me. Easier than the chocolate-fondue body wrap equipment thing. It’s so hard to arrange an accident when a bunch of chocolate-retreat attendees are hanging around.”

  “That was you?” Then Nina hadn’t been at the spa to have a manicure at all. She’d come there to get me. “But why?”

  “Because I didn’t succeed the first time, of course.” Nina’s tone was eerily matter-of-fact. “It’s all your fault that it’s come to this. It was supposed to have been a simple overdose—”

  I felt my heart stutter, then kick into overdrive.

  Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. It had all been Nina, all along.

  “—but somehow the glasses got switched,” Nina went on jumpily. “You got Adrienne’s green juice, and she got yours.”

  This was all getting a little too real for me. I backed up again, scanning the treatment room for a weapon. I noticed that the hot-cocoa mud bath still burbled innocently away, as though Nina and I might patch things up and then become spa buddies.

  “It was supposed to have been you dead, all along. Not Adrienne. Now it’s going to be.” Erratically, Nina beamed at me. She hugged herself, free (for the first time I could remember) of her clipboards and phones. “I’ve tried to kill you three times now, Hayden, but you just ke
ep on getting away!”

  “‘Three times’?” I stalled. My throat was so dry, I could barely force out the words. The hypercaffeinated green energy drink, the killer chocolate-fondue body wrap machine, and . . . ?

  “I thought I had you with that lamp,” Nina explained conversationally, “but your friend Danny interrupted me.” She frowned. “That’s how I thought of blaming him for it.”

  Aha. “If it’s any consolation, I had a monster headache.”

  “It’s not.” Nina rummaged in her handbag. She pulled out something cylindrical, black, and compact. A collapsible umbrella? “Honestly, it’s kind of a relief to have it out in the open,” she told me. “I’ve been really stressed about this.”

  “No kidding?” I eyed her multiple nervous tics. Then I started panicking. I breathed in, forcing myself to regroup.

  “Well, you’d better get undressed.” With whatever she’d withdrawn, Nina gestured to the side. She’d (helpfully?) placed a Maison Lemaître spa robe on the closest hook. “Your accident isn’t going to be believable if you’re fully dressed.” She pointed at my crossbody bag. “Just leave me your purse.”

  I clutched it. Silently, I shook my head. I knew enough to try to delay her—to try to humanize us both. “It doesn’t have to be this way, Nina. We can both leave here safely! I can make sure everyone understands that Adrienne’s death really was an accident.” I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to gloss over the fact that I’d been the intended target. Details. “Let’s talk about this! I can see that you’re feeling pretty overwhelmed.”

  I backed up, all knowledge of my “brilliant” plan to flush out the killer falling out of my brain. I wondered if Danny and his friend had arrived—if they were somewhere near. If so, they were the most lackadaisical save-the-day cavalry ever. It looked as though I was on my own. Just in case, I scratched my head.

  Danny did not burst in to save me. I almost sobbed.

  “You won’t find what you want in my bag,” I warned Nina as I pulled it off my shoulder. “All I put in here is a decoy.”

  Everything felt surreal. I wanted this nightmare to end.

  Apparently, so did Nina. She reached into the hot-cocoa mud bath, withdrew a hefty handful of mud, then tossed it on the floor. Then another handful. She smiled at her handiwork.

  “There,” she announced. “That ought to just about do it.”

  With a sinking sensation, I understood. I was supposed to “slip” on that mud and fall—probably to my death. A well-placed blow to the head would do it, sending my noggin squarely against the tile. This time, I’d have much worse than a concussion.

  “I’m not just going to let you murder me,” I warned.

  Nina looked exasperated. “It’s not murder, remember? It’s an accident. You’re going to have a terrible, tragic accident.”

  I swallowed hard. “I’m tougher than I look.” I thought it was only fair to say so. “I have backup right behind me, too.”

  “Your macho buddy?” Nina laughed. “I think he’s late.”

  I did, too. Unfortunately. Goose bumps rose on my arms.

  “Besides,” Nina added, “I brought backup, too.”

  With a brutal gesture, she jerked the thing she’d brought. It telescoped outward with a horrifying sound. It was, I saw too late, an expanding baton—the kind police forces used worldwide.

  With as much franticness as Nina had, I scratched my head. But my “help!” gesture did not summon my burly bodyguard, Danny.

  “Come on,” Nina coaxed irritably, stepping nearer—probably to grab my bag. “There’s no point delaying the inevitable.”

  “I’m a master procrastinator,” I cracked, my voice warbling. “It’s always possible to delay the inevitable.”

  Nina didn’t appreciate my attempt at humor. But she did come close enough for me to take a swing at her. Because one thing I’d learned in Barcelona was to never take yourself closer to an attacker. Only defend yourself in ways that let you keep your distance.

  So as Nina came closer, her gaze fixed on my bag . . . I swung that thing as hard as I could. I caught Nina right in the face with my crossbody bag’s full weight. She staggered.

  I followed up with a sturdy kick, aimed right at the side of her kneecap. You couldn’t aim for the front—that hurt, but it didn’t throw an attacker (or streetwise mugger) off balance. As I’d prayed it would, my kick made Nina crumple. She went down.

  So did her baton—and my trusty bag. Her weapon skittered across the floor; my favorite bag flew into the tub full of hot-cocoa mud bath muck. But I couldn’t think about that just then. I was too busy mentally planning my next self-defense move.

  Swearing a blue streak of Spanish profanities, Nina tried to get up. She slid on the mud, which she’d dropped on the floor a minute ago. Breathing hard, full of wild adrenaline, I adopted a ready pose.

  Nose strike or eye gouge, I repeated to myself, arranging my arms and hands. Nose strike or eye gouge. Nose strike—

  “That’s enough,” Danny said calmly from beside me.

  I whirled. He knew enough not to touch me. Not then.

  He nodded at Nina on the floor. “Barcelona strikes again?”

  Shakily, I shrugged. But we both knew that’s what it was: the same fail-safe maneuver that had dropped that would-be mugger in Barcelona. Hey, I told you it was effective, right? I never said it was complicated. Sometimes it’s better if it’s not.

  Tardily, I noticed Danny’s uniformed friend dealing with Nina. It was a relief to have a police presence there—even if I couldn’t help noticing that said police presence was curvaceous, brunette, and dishy . . . in an authoritative, capable way, of course.

  “I thought you didn’t like the police,” I said to Danny.

  “Sometimes I do.” His gaze touched me, full of concern. “When it comes to you.” He traded a decisive nod with his attractive friend. “It was touch and go when I heard Nina’s baton go into action, but I’m pretty sure we got it all.”

  “Got all what?” Had they been outside the treatment room listening? “You couldn’t have gotten anything.” Suddenly, I felt overrun with fear and frustration. “You were late! Again!”

  Unable to hold back, I gave him a good smack to the arm.

  “I wasn’t late,” Danny argued, eyes widening from my blow. He held up his hands. “I was hanging back. Getting Nina’s confession. You were handling things okay.” He eyed my head. “You’d better watch that itch, though. Might be dandruff.”

  I couldn’t believe he was laughing about this.

  “We need a new SOS signal,” I told him sternly. Danny’s police officer friend’s radio burst to life. Raising my voice above the comforting sound of the SFPD deciding what to do with Nina, I added, “I think the old one is too complicated for you.”

  “I think you’re waiting too long to deploy it.”

  “‘Too long’? I was scratching my head like crazy!”

  “Like I said, you had it covered.” Danny slung his arm around my still-trembling shoulders. “Congrats, Hayden. You just caught a killer,” he said cheerfully. “How does it feel?”

  “It feels . . .” I paused. “Like I never want to do it again.”

  Then, at the officer’s instructive nod, we headed outside together to give our statements (I assumed) and formalize my first (and last) covert catch-a-killer operation.

  Chapter 17

  As you might have expected, word spread quickly about Nina’s arrest at Maison Lemaître. It might have helped that police cars came screaming up the resort’s long, luxurious driveway just moments after my encounter with Nina in the spa. Even as Danny and I stepped outside, more officers were there waiting to meet us. We spent quite a while talking with them.

  “This is serious stuff. And here I thought you were just making time with your hot detective friend,” I told Danny during a lull in the action. We watched as Nina was put into a patrol car. She looked dazed, defiant, and (obviously) irrefutably guilty. “You didn’t tell me your ‘ass
ociate’ was so cute.”

  “There’s a reason I was willing to hang out in the bar with her while you worked your way through our suspects.” Danny grinned at that reference to his role in our catch-a-killer plan, then nodded at his friend. “It wouldn’t have been so bad if the effort had taken two or three or four nights.”

  “It couldn’t have taken that long,” I protested. “I would have had to leave San Francisco without knowing who was after me.” I shivered, remembering that I had been the target, after all. “I guess I’m not as 100 percent well-liked as I thought.”

  “Nah. You’re very well-liked with me.”

  “Well, then. That’s all that counts, right?”

  “Damn straight,” Danny agreed.

  I was pretty sure he was being extra nice to me. I had, after all, just been through a traumatic experience. I’d been really brave about it all, too—even if I had to say so myself.

  “What I still don’t understand,” I mused, standing in the darkness with the police lights flashing over us and all the officers hurrying around, “is you. You liked Nina. You stuck up for her. You made me have breakfast with her while you jogged!”

  “All part of my cunning plan.”

  “Ha. As if.” I poked him. “You had a crush on a killer.”

  “I didn’t have ‘a crush’ on Nina. I was watching her!”

  “Mmm-hmm.” I folded my arms against the cold. “Remind me to be skeptical of your people skills in the future. Whereas I—”

  “Was totally fooled about Nina’s intentions all along.”

  Whoops. He had me there. “I can’t be expected to be good at sniffing out a killer. I’ve never done it before!”

  I hoped never to do it again, either. I hadn’t been kidding. This was not something I wanted to make a habit of.

  “Especially not when this is the result.” I lifted my still-soggy crossbody bag, which I’d fished from the hot-cocoa mud bath. It felt heavy with mud residue. “It’ll never be the same.”

  Danny shrugged. “It could have been worse. At least your overdue report wasn’t in there.”

  “My report isn’t overdue!” At least it wasn’t, as long as I delivered it to Christian tonight. “Plus . . .” Woefully, I eyed my bag. We’d made a lot of memories together. Vietnam, Wales, Denmark—I’d lost track of the countries I’d traveled through while wearing that bag. “You’re clearly not a woman, if you can dismiss the loss of a favorite bag that easily.”