Deadly Chocolate Addiction (Death by Chocolate Book 6)

by Sally Berneathy

  I climbed the four steps to my front porch. Light was out again. I turned to wave at Fred who always watched until I got inside where he could watch over me through the hidden camera he claims doesn’t exist.

  A shadow moved on the other side of the porch. I froze then sneered at myself. Porch swing on that side. Wind moving it.

  Except there wasn’t any wind.

  “Lindsay, it’s me. Don’t be scared.”

  In the depths of the shadows I saw a darker shadow with bright blue eyes and streaked blond hair that shone even with no moonlight. “Damn it, Rick!” I’d rather have seen a burglar or a serial killer. “What are you doing here? Did you turn off my porch light so I wouldn’t see you?”

  “I just unscrewed it.”

  “So I wouldn’t see you. Where’s your car?”

  “I parked up the street.”

  I spread my hands in frustration. “So you turned off my light and hid your car because you knew I wouldn’t want to see you, then you waited on my front porch to ambush me? If I’d wanted to talk to you, I’d have answered one of your dozen calls.”

  “Lindsay—”

  “Go away!” I unlocked my door and pushed it open.

  “This is about chocolate!”

  I hesitated. I couldn’t help it. Automatic reaction to that word.

  Rick saw my hesitation and swooped in for the salesman’s close. “You always use quality chocolate. I’ve found a source where you can get same quality chocolate for half what you’re paying now. As much chocolate as you use, that’s going to be a significant savings.”

  Don’t listen to him! a voice inside my head shouted. Go inside and lock the door! Blockade it with a bookcase! Put your hands over your ears!

  I froze in place, seduced by visions of all that lovely chocolate.

  Rick moved closer and whispered a few brand names. “It’s the real thing, just seconds. A bar of sixty percent cacao with one corner broken. Chocolate chips that aren’t uniform size. You don’t care about that sort of thing since you’re going to melt the bars and put the chips in cookies and cakes.”

  “What about cocoa?” I was done for! I’d shown an interest. I’d talked to him. My signature was almost on the dotted line.

  “Absolutely. Tons of it. Dark and pure. Let’s go inside and talk.”

  The visions of chocolate crashed to the ground. “No. You are not getting inside my house. It’s too hard to get you out! Five minutes inside and it’s like you’ve established squatter’s rights!”

  I turned to face him.

  From the corner of my eye I saw a ghostly form sliding along the ground through the darkness, approaching the porch at a rapid rate. King Henry. Just in time to rescue me.

  He dropped a mouse at my feet then snarled at Rick. My cat has much better insight into people than I do. He never liked Rick.

  “That’s disgusting.” Rick took a step backward, away from the mouse and—though he’d never admit it—away from Henry’s half inch fangs. Rick fancies himself a lover, not a fighter. Speaking from experience, he’s not very good at either.

  “It’s late,” I said. “I have to get up early.”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow and we can continue this discussion.”

  “Or I can call you.”

  “You seem to have memory loss when you say you’ll call me. I’ll call you.”

  He would. And call me. And call me. He didn’t get to be top agent at Rheims Commercial Real Estate by giving up.

  If I called him, at least I could control the time.

  “I promise I’ll call you tomorrow as soon as I get a minute. But if you start calling me over and over, I’m not going to answer, and I’m not going to call you.”

  “If you haven’t called by closing time, I’m coming over.”

  I thought about pointing out that threatening me was not a good way to get me to agree to his scam, but I’d wasted enough time talking to him.

  “Okay.” I slipped into my house, grateful to have escaped, albeit by a narrow margin.

  Henry gave one final snarl and followed me in.

  I closed the door and leaned against it, listening to Rick’s footsteps as he left the porch.

  Henry wound around my leg.

  I scanned the immediate area to be sure he’d left his evening’s catch on the porch. With any luck, some other critter would steal it during the night.

  “Thank you,” I said. “You deserve some catnip. But you did wait until the last minute, until he had time to weave a spell. You could have run him off before I got home.”

  Henry heard only the catnip part. He trotted toward the kitchen, tail waving happily as he contemplated his drug of choice.

  As soon as my cat was properly stoned, we went upstairs to bed. I took off my blue jeans and chocolate-stained shirt. I wore an apron while baking but somehow I always got chocolate on my clothes.

  The stains reminded me of something Ransom had said. Now the worst that happens is a smudge of chocolate on my shirt that everybody but me notices.

  He’d been wrong. The worst that happened was his murder.

  And Fred thought the key he left could be important.

  I lifted yesterday’s jeans from the hamper and extracted the small key then sat on my bed and studied it.

  Had Ransom known he was going to die and left a clue to his murder?

  He had seemed upset after he looked out the door. Had he seen his murderer?

  Had Kathleen been spying on him?

  Maybe he left it with me so Kathleen couldn’t get her hands on it. Maybe he didn’t want her to find…what?

  It would have been nice if he’d left a note with the key, a note telling me what to do with it.

  His visit to Death by Chocolate had not been a coincidence. He knew who I was.

  Fred was probably right. I should give it to Trent. Ransom had questioned me about my relationship with his former friend. We’d discussed Trent’s honesty. He would have been sure Trent would do the right thing with this key.

  Whatever that might be.

  I sighed and leaned back on my pillow.

  More likely it was an unimportant key that had slipped from his wallet.

  I wanted it to be significant, wanted it to be a clue that would incriminate that woman.

  I wanted an excuse to call Trent and find out if she was still at his apartment. The key was the perfect excuse.

  From the foot of my bed Henry gave a soft snore. I took that as approval.

  But I needed to do one thing first.

  I called Fred.

  “Are you in bed yet?” I asked.

  A moment of silence.

  Had I interrupted something? Was Sophie from across the street with him? I’ve never been able to catch them doing anything interesting together, but that doesn’t mean they’re not. It just means I haven’t caught them yet.

  “No, I’m not in bed. Do you have a reason for asking?”

  “Yes. I need you to make a copy of Ransom’s key before I give it to Trent.”

  “You do realize you called your neighbor, not the local hardware story.”

  “I would not call the local hardware store and ask if they were in bed. I’ll bring you the key in about ten minutes, as soon as I call Trent and tell him about it. You can keep it overnight and make a copy.”

  “All right.” He hung up. Fred’s a busy man. He doesn’t have time to say good-bye.

  One of these days, I’m going to figure out what he’s so busy doing.

  Now to call Trent. I usually call his cell number, but he’d be the only one to answer his cell. If I called his land line and Kathleen was there, she might answer. He only has one phone for that land line and it’s on the nightstand beside his bed.

  Trent answered on the second ring.

  “Hey,” I said. “You busy?”

  “Hi, lady.” His voice had a slight lilt, as if he was glad to hear from me. That was a good start. “Just watching a little TV. What’s up?”

  “Ra
nsom left a key yesterday.”

  “A key? A key to what?”

  “I don’t know. I found it under his plate after he left. I think maybe he wanted to get it to you. This may sound paranoid, but I don’t think he came into my place by chance.”

  I waited for him to say I sounded paranoid, that Ransom had come to my place because he used to drink at Percy’s, because he liked chocolate, because he was in the neighborhood.

  “Go on.”

  “He knew Paula’s name before I introduced them, he called you a detective instead of an officer, and he knew your first name.”

  “You didn’t mention any of that when you gave your statement today.”

  “I didn’t think about it. I had other things on my mind.”

  “And the key.”

  “I forgot about it.” The only key I was thinking about during that time was the one he gave Kathleen, and I wasn’t going to tell him that. “Do you think the key may be important?”

  “I’ll drop by your place tomorrow and pick it up.”

  Tomorrow was the logical time. It was late, I had to get up early, and I needed to get the key to Fred tonight. But I wanted Trent to assure me Kathleen wasn’t there without asking him directly. “Or you could come by here tonight and pick it up.”

  “I could. Do you want me to come by tonight? It’s already past your bedtime.”

  Even if she was there, he was willing to leave her. “No,” I said. “It’s late. Tomorrow’s fine.”

  “Then I’ll see you tomorrow.” He paused. “Now that Kathleen doesn’t have to worry about the possibility of Jeff coming after her, she went to a hotel.”

  I didn’t realize how tightly my gut was clenched until it unclenched.

  Henry gave a short burst of purring. Having a happy dream or had he heard Trent? Cats have exceptional hearing, plus they’re psychic.

  “You and Ransom…Jeff…were friends. Do you believe he hit her?”

  “I don’t know. Two days ago, I’d have said no. The Jeff I knew was a soft-spoken, gentle guy, but people change.”

  “Obviously. I’ll bet when you two were picking out tuxedos for your wedding, you never expected him to steal your wife.”

  For a long moment he said nothing. Was my comment too personal? Was I being too nosy? I’ve been accused of that, but Trent and I have a personal relationship so I felt entitled to ask personal questions.

  “You’ve met Kathleen,” he finally said. “He didn’t have to steal her. She went voluntarily.”

  “So you’re not angry with Ransom? You didn’t lie awake at night and plot his downfall?”

  “Do you plot the downfall of the woman Rick left you for?”

  “Ending up with him was enough punishment for her. But she was a stranger. Ransom was your friend.”

  “Yeah, that hurt. We grew up together, the four of us…Jeff, Kathleen, Gary, and me.”

  “Gary?”

  “Gary Durant. He’s a lawyer with the same firm Jeff worked for. He’s still with the Kansas City branch.”

  “He and Ransom were both lawyers?”

  “We were all going to be attorneys, move up in the world.”

  “All of you? Kathleen too?” Somehow I couldn’t see her slogging through law books, doing research for a brief, appearing in a courtroom in front of a judge in her four inch heels, tight jeans, and low cut blouse.

  “Not Kathleen. She didn’t have the grades or the desire to get into law school, but she did have the desire for a better life. None of us had a lot, but Kathleen had it the hardest. Her dad left when she was ten. There were five kids in her family, and her mom had a tough time making ends meet.”

  If he was trying to make me feel sorry for her, it wasn’t working. “So she decided marrying an attorney would be the next best thing.”

  “We got married my first year of college.” His response validated my theory. “I have to give her credit,” he continued. “She worked as a waitress while I was in school.”

  “But then you decided to be a cop instead of a lawyer,” I guessed, “and Kathleen left you for someone with more earning potential?”

  “It sounds pretty cold when you say it like that.”

  “Yeah, it does. How would you say it?”

  He was silent for so long I thought we might have been disconnected.

  “Never mind,” I said. “You don’t have to tell me. I’m not trying to be nosy.” Not like I’m your girlfriend and entitled to know things like that. I was torn between wanting to feed him stale brownies or cry.

  Maybe both.

  “I wasn’t a great husband.”

  I waited a few seconds and finally realized I’d be waiting a long time if I expected him to expound on that statement. “Can you be a little more specific? Did you eat crackers in bed? Criticize her cooking? Sleep in the other bedroom?”

  “I was going to school and working as many hours a week as I could delivering pizza. That didn’t leave a lot of time for Kathleen.”

  “Are you seriously making excuses for that woman?”

  “I guess I feel a little guilty about what happened.”

  Henry snorted in his sleep. Definitely psychic.

  “I do not believe you just said that. Your wife left you for another man, and you feel guilty?”

  “It worked out all right for her. Jeff made partner fast and was sent to St. Louis to start a branch firm. She got to be a rich lawyer’s wife for a few years.”

  How special for her. “What went wrong?”

  “I don’t know. I hadn’t heard from either of them for years until he called yesterday afternoon and left a message. Said he was in town and wanted to get together.”

  “You didn’t mention that you’d talked to him.”

  “I didn’t call him back.”

  I clenched my phone so tightly I expected it to break or at least bend. He didn’t want to talk to his friend. He hadn’t forgiven him for stealing Kathleen. Did that mean he regretted her loss?

  “You didn’t return his call?”

  “I thought about it. I thought too long. She showed up at my front door claiming she was terrified that Jeff had followed her here, checked into the same hotel she did, and was going to kill her.”

  “And you believed her?” I didn’t. I’d only met Ransom once, but I didn’t believe he planned to kill his wife.

  “He followed her to Kansas City. He came to town and checked into the Pleasant Grove Manor. His parents didn’t even know he was here. This wasn’t a regular visit.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. “Why did she come to you? I wouldn’t go to Rick if I was being pursued by a zombie and Rick had the only house with a door on the entire planet.”

  He chuckled. “You’d stand your ground and kick that zombie’s butt. Kathleen’s not as strong as you, and she doesn’t have the friends you do. I’m the only person she felt she could turn to.”

  Because I have friends and I’m not weak and wimpy, Kathleen was entitled to special treatment? I bit my tongue to keep from saying that. “Okay, I just have one more question.”

  “Yes, she gave me back the key to my apartment.”

  “I wasn’t going to ask that.” Though I’d wanted to. “My question is, who bought the boobs, you or Ransom?”

  He laughed. “Jeff did.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m making Raspberry Chocolate Bundt Cake. I’ll save you a piece.”

  We hung up and I headed to Fred’s house. The night was chilly and I probably should have grabbed a jacket, but I only had to go a few feet.

  He was waiting at the door when I got there. I handed him Ransom’s mysterious key.

  “Come on in for a minute.”

  I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself. “Thanks, but I’m going to run home and go straight to bed. It’s been a long day.”

  “You need to come in. I made you a cup of hot chocolate.”

  Fred’s hot chocolate may not be as good as mine, but it’s close.

  I went inside. />
  Two steaming mugs waited on the coffee table. I sat down and lifted mine in both hands, savoring the warmth and aroma before tasting.

  “Kathleen Marie Gabler began life as Kathy Ann Johnson.”

  “Her name’s as phony as her boobs and eyelashes.”

  “She had it legally changed when she was eighteen.”

  “How old was she when she had her boobs changed?”

  Made him blink, but only once.

  “Twenty-four. She was the youngest and only girl of five children. Dad left when she was ten.”

  Trent had already told me that, but I didn’t want to appear ungrateful for Fred’s efforts. I nodded and sipped my cocoa. Extraordinary. Somehow he’d found my recipe. Probably hacked into my brain.

  “The mother had no marketable skills. Actually, I should say she had no legal marketable skills. She was arrested a couple of times for prostitution, but they let her go. Two older brothers dropped out of school and left home.”

  Damn! I was starting to feel sorry for Kathleen. I didn’t want to feel sorry for her. I wanted to feel justified in hating her.

  “After she married Jeff Gabler, her fortunes improved dramatically. While he was working and schmoozing with the clients and other partners, Kathleen partied, traveled the world, bought expensive clothes and jewelry. About a year ago Jeff sobered up and realized they were broke and in debt. He took away her credit cards and started working to get things straightened out, but she still racked up the bills. Two weeks ago he filed for divorce.”

  I drank more hot chocolate and considered this new information. “So she married him for money, and now the money’s gone and he filed for divorce. If that happened, she’d get nothing because they’re broke right now but he could continue to work and earn money. I think we’ve found her motive. Did he have life insurance?”

  Fred nodded. “One policy from work for a million and another personal for a second million.”

  “There you go. She killed him for the insurance.”

  “Only a few hours ago you were upset because she was sleeping with Trent when her husband was being murdered. Have you come up with a way she could have been in two places at one time?”

  “Easy. She hired a hit man. With two million dollars at stake, I’m sure she could find somebody. I can’t wait to tell Trent. He’s going to freak out that he let a murderer spend the night with him.”