The Semi-Sweet Hereafter

by Colette London

  Join you in your snazzy four-poster bed was what I assumed.

  I relented. “Just as long as Gemma doesn’t warn Phoebe—” I broke off, considering it. “You don’t think she will, do you?”

  Danny studied me. “No.” But he didn’t sound certain. As though realizing it, he rushed on. “We can’t be sure about Phoebe,” he insisted. “She has a confirmed alibi, remember? The police checked. Everyone said Phoebe was at some chichi party on the night Jeremy was killed. Eyewitnesses vouched for her.”

  I arched my eyebrow at him. “Now who’s being naïve?”

  He scowled. Not me, his expression said. “Police,” Danny reiterated. “Eyewitnesses. Proof. What have you got?”

  “Plenty. But before I remind you, let’s break this down,” I hedged. “You honestly don’t believe any of Phoebe’s upper-crust friends would have lied to protect her? Or maybe just not have noticed whether she was at that party the entire night or not?”

  I knew Phoebe had been there for part of the evening. She’d been there when the police had come to tell her that her husband was dead. She’d even convincingly collapsed at the news.

  “Yeah, I think they would have lied to cover for Phoebe.” Danny conceded that argument, then gave me the ghost of a smile. “But I’m a cynic. I think everyone is willing to lie.”

  I’d already known that about him. But our differences weren’t the point here. The chronology of the evening was.

  What came next was the clincher—the linchpin that had pulled together everything else, last night at the advert taping. If I’d had my old phone with its cracked screen, I’d have brandished it to make my theory more airtight. But since I’d already surrendered it as evidence to Constable George . . .

  “You might be right about that,” I told Danny willingly enough, “but those lies from Phoebe’s friends won’t be enough to save her. Not when I’ve got the phone call that Phoebe made to me on that night, moments after Jeremy was killed, asking me to rush over to Primrose and make sure the chocolaterie-pâtisserie was locked—something she’d never asked me to do before then.”

  Danny gave me a blank look. “So?”

  “So Phoebe knew I was staying here at the guesthouse—the scene of the crime,” I reminded him. “But she didn’t know when I’d be home. She must have wanted to make sure she—and maybe Hugh—could get away and set up alibis before I arrived. So Phoebe called me and sent me on a wild-goose chase to the shop.”

  I hadn’t even batted an eyelash at her request, I recalled. At the time, I’d become so used to Phoebe being difficult and autocratic that I’d accepted her demand as par for the course.

  As it turned out, it had been anything but routine.

  “By the time I arrived to find Jeremy’s body,” I continued, “Phoebe was gone, safely at her party, establishing an alibi.”

  “Which the police accepted,” Danny pointed out. “So why don’t you? Phones are portable these days, you know. Phoebe could have called you from the party to send you to Primrose.”

  “She could have,” I agreed, “but she didn’t. I know because of the music. Because of the party sounds. Because of the chattering and glass clinking and all the rest. They were exactly the same as the background noises playing during your second Hambleton & Hart advert yesterday. Exactly the same.”

  That’s when everything had clicked into place for me. I’d heard that same set of inauthentic party sounds, and I’d known.

  I’d known that Phoebe had killed Jeremy. I’d known that she’d used me and my errand to Primrose to help cover for it.

  “Phoebe had heard that track before,” Danny mused, “sometime while Jeremy had been filming. So she turned on the A/V equipment and played it, knowing you’d think she was at her party—when really it was moments after she’d killed Jeremy.”

  I nodded, unable to stop picturing the scene. The truth was . . . chilling. Even more so than I’d expected it to be.

  I couldn’t believe I’d given a phony statement myself about Phoebe’s whereabouts that night. I thought I’d been being truthful, when instead, I’d been purposely deceived. By Phoebe.

  “I don’t know why Phoebe thought it would be perfectly fine to frame me, but she did,” I added, still miffed about that. “Unfortunately for her, she picked the wrong chocolate whisperer to throw to the wolves.” Phoebe must have known I’d become the police’s top suspect after I’d found Jeremy, but she hadn’t cared. “If not for her ‘clever’ strategy of calling me to send me to Primrose—if not for her augmenting her call with that soundtrack—I would have had a much harder time figuring it out.”

  “Phoebe should have tried harder to get rid of that A/V equipment when you asked about it.” Danny grinned. “It doesn’t pay to get between you and your to-do list. Everyone knows that.”

  We both looked at the corner where the equipment had previously stood, along with the lights and boom mics and all the rest. The people from Hambleton & Hart had taken it away yesterday, after Danny and Gemma’s advert shoot had finished. I imagined now that it was only a matter of time before the London Metropolitan Police Service arrived to take possession of all of it as evidence.

  “I wish I hadn’t been so swayed by the promise of that claw-footed tub and four-poster bed,” I grumbled, only semi-jokingly. “If I hadn’t been staying here in the guesthouse in the first place, I wouldn’t have had to be involved at all.”

  Danny gave me a knowing look. “You would have been involved. You would have made sure of it. At this point? Yeah.”

  He was probably right. “Well . . . there really weren’t any other lodgings available.” Thanks, Wimbledon. “So there’s that.”

  I didn’t want anyone thinking I wanted to sleuth around. Especially Danny. He was endangered by my “investigations.” Risking myself was one thing. Risking my loved ones (and Danny definitely counted as one of those) was something else.

  Speaking of which . . . “Anyway, you should probably go say good-bye to Gemma. Travis is booking you a ticket for tonight.”

  “Are you nuts? I’m not leaving you here by yourself.”

  “I’ll be fine. Phoebe is at the TV taping at Primrose, remember? She won’t ever be coming home from it, either.”

  Danny scrutinized me. “You don’t want to go?”

  “To watch Phoebe be arrested?” The idea of seeing justice done did appeal to me, but I couldn’t do it. “If Phoebe sees me at the chocolaterie-pâtisserie, she’ll know something’s up. I already told her I was leaving to visit my parents today.” I pointed at myself. “No poker face at all, remember?”

  I’d thought it was prudent to cook up an excuse in advance. I’d barely been able to eke out the words last night—not while looking her in the face and knowing what she’d done to Jeremy.

  “Are you really leaving to visit your parents today?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think . . .” My security expert studied me. For a heartbeat, I feared he’d detect the truth—that I was sending him away on purpose until all this was over. “You really are.” He grinned. “You’ve got ‘chocolate croissant’ written all over your face.”

  “I do love those.” I shooed him, wondering if my ability to bluff had grown alongside my newfound skepticism. “So go on.”

  Danny hesitated. “What are you going to do?”

  Call George and find out why nothing’s happened yet.

  A glance at the clock told me it was past time for Phoebe to have been arrested. Things must be happening at that moment.

  “I’m going to pack.” I shrugged. “I don’t have much, but everything I own fits in those two bags. I’m taking them.”

  My musclebound buddy still didn’t budge. “If you’re sure . . .”

  “Danny! Just go. I have my phone, thanks to Travis.” That would help prod him along. “I’ll call you if anything happens.”

  I pulled out my new phone as assurance. Danny shot it a disgruntled look. “Tell Captain Calculator he got you last year’s
model. I would have gone for the latest and greatest.”

  “You are the latest and greatest. Get lost so I can pack.”

  It only took one little shove and another sworn reassurance to make it happen. Danny finally set up a rendezvous with Gemma Rose over the phone and then left. I watched every step as he swaggered across the Wrights’ garden and out the back gate.

  Then I dialed my phone and called George. Again.

  * * *

  The things a person collects while globe-trotting are pretty esoteric, I reflected as I went through my packing ritual after Danny left. Innumerable plastic baggies (some of them spares) to ensure I made it through airport security. Odd bits and pieces from hotel amenity packs (hello, miniature sewing kits). So many tiny shampoo bottles I could have opened a boutique.

  Sorting through everything, I methodically set aside the discards as I went. The toiletries I’d donate to a women’s and children’s shelter—they can always use soap, toothpaste, and all the rest. The other things . . . well, how many eye masks can one person use, anyway? And those foam earplugs they give you on international flights—do those things multiply in a Dopp kit?

  Adding to the usual detritus were items unique to my profession. Chocolates of all types were crammed into my single wheelie bag and accompanying duffel. There were dark-chocolate samples slipped into the interior pockets, single-origin varietals tucked into the side pockets, and elegantly wrapped assorted bonbons wedged ignobly next to my spare shoes. (Don’t worry; both were wrapped.) There were chocolates from abroad, chocolates from Lemaître in the Marin Headlands, and chocolates from the Cartorama food cart pod in Portland, Oregon. There were powdered hot-chocolate mixes from a potential consultation client and raw cacao beans from a grateful past consultee.

  It’s not that I’m a pack rat. Far from it. But lately I’d been traveling from place to place with even less of a break than usual. My luggage was starting to show the strain.

  With nothing but time on my hands, I did my best to focus on whittling down my unwanted collection of confectionary and knickknacks. There was a tiny chocolate knife with a cartoon kitten on it (China), a packet of chocolate-covered seaweed (Korea), and a random, bullet-shaped N2O charger (U.K.). Not much bigger than a lipstick container, it could work magic.

  You know those pressurized containers of “whipped topping” found in the supermarket’s cold case? With a special cream whipper that uses nitrous-oxide cartridges, you can make your own (dairy) whipped cream, complete with fancy swirls and loops.

  That didn’t explain why I had an orphan charger (the cartridge) and no special cream whipper to hold it, though. I frowned at it, unsure where it had come from. Primrose? The chocolaterie-pâtisserie used cream whippers to top desserts. Whatever . . . I had to ditch it. Eurostar security—like airport security—frowns on pressurized gasses. I didn’t want to wind up surrounded by angry guys with guns, refused boarding privileges.

  With a sigh, I set aside the N2O charger, then glanced outside. No sign of Danny. I looked at my phone. No word from George. I hadn’t been able to reach him earlier, but I’d left him an urgent message to call me when things were wrapped up.

  Back to sorting. I separated all the edible items, then set them aside for donation to Jeremy’s Jump Start Foundation. The kids might not go wild for the chocolate-covered seaweed (you never knew), but they might like some of the rest of the candy. I’d already arranged for a big endowment via Travis. Sometimes, though, there was nothing like an in-person donation of goods.

  Just as I was about to run out of diversionary tactics, I felt something between the lining and the outside fabric at the bottom of my bag. I fished around and pulled out a baggie full of white powder. At the sight of it, my heart almost stopped.

  Not for the reasons you’re thinking, though. This wasn’t anything illicit or illegal (at least as far as I knew). It was a bag full of powdered caffeine. I’d used it to help create caffeinated “nutraceutical” truffles at Lemaître Chocolates.

  My job there had gone horribly awry (to say the least). I’d forgotten I’d even had that bag. When used inexpertly, its contents were nearly as lethal as the powdered cocaine it resembled—that’s why I’d grabbed it one night from the ballroom kitchen at the chocolate-themed Lemaître resort spa. I’d wanted to make sure no one (else) was hurt by accidentally using it.

  Awash in sadness at the memories evoked by that overlooked bag, I stared at it. I missed Adrienne, one of my coworkers in San Francisco. I missed not having personal knowledge, as I did these days, of how horrible people could be to one another.

  I wasn’t sure what to do with it, though. If Amelja found that bag while cleaning the guesthouse after I left, she might get in trouble just by having it. If I tried taking it with me . . .

  From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed Phoebe.

  She passed by the bedroom window and strode down the garden path without a care in the world, plainly not arrested.

  Oh, God. What had happened? I stared at her, feeling my heart start to race. I gripped the baggie I’d been holding, no longer worried about powdered caffeine and its proper disposal.

  I had to leave. Could I slip out without her seeing me?

  I gauged my chances and quickly decided against trying. The Wrights’ town-house terrace was faced with pristine windows. Through them, I knew, the whole yard could be seen. Even though Phoebe didn’t know I’d turned her in to the police, she might still be dangerous. I already knew she was prone to deadly impulsiveness. To murder. What if, as Danny had suggested, Hugh had warned Phoebe about . . . everything (me)? Or what if, as I’d hypothesized, Gemma had warned Phoebe about everything (still me)? I had to get out without her seeing me. Somehow.

  No. I had to call George. Maybe Phoebe had slipped away from him before he and his colleagues could arrest her?

  Partway through dialing, I felt my hair stand up on the back of my neck. Abruptly, I hung up my cell phone. I’d already called George. Multiple times. Something had obviously gone wrong. Maybe that something wrong had to do with George.

  Maybe Constable George really was the corrupt officer. Maybe he’d been suspended from the department for good reason.

  Whether he had or not, I couldn’t trust him. With my mind racing, I hauled in a breath and dialed Satya Mishra. The detective constable had given me her number when she’d warned me to not leave London. I hoped now that she’d pick up my call.

  She didn’t. Oh, God. I left her a (possibly incoherent) message, then bolted to my feet. My breath felt strangled. My heart still clattered wildly in my chest. Should I call Danny?

  Except I couldn’t wait for my security expert to get there, I saw as I peeked out the other window and glimpsed Phoebe in the town house. She’d taken out her own (designer) luggage. She was currently scurrying around, packing it with far less deliberation and organization than I’d just employed.

  I’d have bet a million pounds she was headed for Venezuela or Costa Rica—or any other sunny non-extradition country.

  I had to do something. At the best of times, I’m no good at waiting—my long night with Danny was proof of that. If I didn’t act, Phoebe Wright would get away with murder. Jeremy’s murder.

  I stuffed a few things into my trusty crossbody bag, then slung it over my shoulder as though I were on the verge of leaving. I picked up the folder containing my consultation report, put on a smile, and then headed toward the town house.

  I didn’t know if my plan would work, but it was all I had.

  Nineteen

  I knocked on the terrace door.

  Phoebe startled, then stared in my direction. For a second, I thought I saw murderous intentions cross her face. Then I realized that the Honourable always looked slightly annoyed.

  There was nothing special about this situation except that now I knew Phoebe was a murderer. Other than that? Piece of cake.

  I flexed my grip on my report folder, trying to keep my hand from shaking as I watched Phoebe glide gracefully across
the dining area. She frowned at me through the terrace door.

  It would have been her right to simply ignore me.

  I gave her my biggest, cheesiest American grin and waved my folder. “I forgot to give you my chocolate consultation report!”

  That did it. With evident reluctance, Phoebe opened the door. “Hayden, shouldn’t you be on your way to France by now?”

  “Yes, and I would have been too.” Ignoring all the expected British etiquette, I barged inside. “But there’s been a strike. You know French rail workers! I’ve been delayed.” I gave her an elaborately disgruntled face. “Better to wait here, I figured, than cram in with everyone else at St. Pancras, right?”

  At my boldfaced lie, Phoebe didn’t even blink. “Oh, that is tiresome, isn’t it? That’s so selfish of them, to inconvenience everyone that way. They should all be sacked, wouldn’t you say?”

  I wouldn’t. But I should have known someone like Phoebe wouldn’t be a supporter of workers’ rights. While it was true that travel abroad and in France itself was sometimes disrupted by unionized workers, all they wanted was fair treatment. But I wasn’t there to debate social and economic issues, was I?

  I was there to keep Phoebe from getting away. Somehow.

  First, I tried stalling her. “How did it go today?”

  While you weren’t being arrested by the police?

  “Oh, brilliant!” Phoebe bustled around some more, gathering paperwork and stuffing it into her luggage. She was not an organized packer—probably because she usually had Amelja to do such things for her. “You should have been there. The reception was very positive. The Bakewell tart was a tremendous success.”

  “I’m happy to hear it.” I wasn’t. “How were the hosts?”

  “Tediously chipper, as always. But that’s their job, isn’t it?” She scrutinized her luggage, then glanced up at me. “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m in a bit of a rush. If you’ll just put down that report someplace, I’m sure I’ll get to it later. Just be a dear, won’t you? Right there is fine.”