Dangerously Dark, page 11
“Plastic wrap might have been an important clue?” Danny crossed his arms, appearing unconvinced. He studied me, unsmiling now. “Travis was right. I was right to come here.”
“Wait a minute.” Incredulous, I stared at him. “Did you just say, ‘Travis was right’?” I shook my head, pantomiming knocking something out of my ear with the heel of my hand. “I must be hearing things, because that’s impossible.”
“He was right to call me. I was right to come here.”
“You—” I broke off, speechless with confusion. “You never agree with Travis. He never agrees with you. Those are laws of nature, like ‘water is wet’ and ‘gravity is constant.’”
“And ‘Hayden is procrastinating.’” Danny had the audacity to smile at me. But I didn’t want to trade jabs just then.
“Or ‘Danny is late again.’” Okay, maybe I did.
Then I realized that Danny wasn’t dead, and I wasn’t going to stumble across his lifeless body the way I had Declan’s yesterday. All the fight went out of me. Temporarily, at least.
Just seeing someone familiar made me realize how tightly wound I’d been. Hoping Danny wouldn’t notice my lapse into sentimentality, I scowled at him. Elaborately. With gusto.
He laughed and shook his head, catching on instantly. “You quit arguing pretty quickly there, boss. It’s that bad, huh?”
Darn him and his perspicacity. I suddenly felt like crying. That’s what being understood does to me. Being truly known is pretty rare in my life, given all the places I travel and the strangers I meet. I’m proud of my independence. I cherish my freedom. But Danny knows how to get to me like no one else does.
“So, what’s with you and the dead bodies all of a sudden, huh?” Danny’s dark-eyed gaze roved over me, seeing all. “Travis said you stumbled onto another one and called him all aflutter.”
“Aflutter?” Now I was really offended. “I was never ‘aflutter.’ Concerned, yes. Freaked-out, okay. But ‘aflutter’? No.”
“Granted, he also said you sounded pretty loaded at the time,” Danny went on nonchalantly. A few of the Cartorama vendors emerged from Muddle + Spade and began walking toward the pod. “Even so, we both decided it would be best if I—”
“Hang on.” I held up my palm. “You ‘both decided’?” This didn’t compute. I must have misheard him, just as I had thirty seconds ago. “Are you and Travis collaborating on something?”
Danny scoffed. Then he shrugged. “Well, actually—”
“Oh, my god. You are. The apocalypse has begun.”
“—we’re collaborating on you,” Danny finished with a quirk of his mouth. Some women would have found it attractive. I knew better. “It seems pretty obvious that you’re struggling.”
“I don’t have to listen to this.” My mind raced a zillion miles an hour. Danny and Travis had collaborated? But they were sworn enemies. They always had been. My world had tilted. Nothing good could come of this. I started walking, kidding myself I could somehow outrun it. “You shouldn’t have come.”
I remembered the SFPD detective he’d started seeing in San Francisco. She’d been nice. Now I’d accidentally taken Danny away from her—and all for a nonsense mission that he and Travis had concocted. They were too protective of me sometimes.
“I’m here because you need some help. Some perspective.” Danny broke into a jog, easily keeping up with my tromping footsteps. “Maybe some relaxation. Like a trip. A nice, relaxing trip to Aruba.”
I keeled to a stop at the sidewalk. Behind us both, the cart pod was gradually coming to life, its vendors unaware of the world-shattering event happening just a few yards away.
Danny and Travis really were getting along. What the. . . what?
“Aruba is where Travis has always dreamed of traveling,” I broke in, crossing my arms. “You know, if he ever shakes his rampant airplane phobia. Exactly what’s going on, Danny?”
He hauled in a deep breath. “We both think you need—”
“You ‘both think’?” I groaned, then stomped onward.
“—a vacation.” Danny pursued me. His athletic strides ate up the ground between us. He’d taken up running while in San Francisco (or sometime before), and it showed. He cornered me at my rented Civic, pinning me between his arms and the driver’s-side door. “You’ve been under a lot of stress lately,” he told me. “That’s why you’re seeing murder around every corner. You need a break.”
“You need to quit being so patronizing.”
“You need to quit being so defensive.”
“Stop overreacting!”
“You go first.” My sometime bodyguard gave me a headshake. “Repeat after me, ‘Nobody was murdered here yesterday.’”
He had a lot of nerve. “You don’t know that.”
“I’m pretty sure I do know that,” Danny disagreed. “Clue number one? There aren’t any police investigating.”
“They didn’t investigate Adrienne’s death, either.”
“Clue number two? The odds of you stumbling onto two murders in two weeks are infinitesimal. You know that.”
I did. I’d had exactly that same thought myself. Still . . .
“There was an actual death here yesterday! I saw it.”
“And that’s why you called Travis. You wanted one of us to intervene—to reassure you before you got carried away.” Danny gave me a sympathetic look. “What happened at Maison Lemaître would have gotten to anyone. You need time to process it. Then the world will stop seeming like such a big, scary place.”
It was my turn to scoff. “I’m not making any of this up.”
“You’re upset. I see that.” His voice wound around me, hitting up all the familiar soft spots. “Come on. Let me help.”
I wanted him to. But I didn’t trust this unprecedented alliance between Danny and his sworn nemesis. Exactly what, I wondered, had I said to Travis on the phone last night?
It had definitely gone beyond “What are you wearing?”
I wished I could take it all back. I wished I’d been warier about letting Tomasz mix up superstrength drinks for me.
“Fine.” I raised my chin. “You want to help? Then get in the car. Let’s go.”
“When I said I wanted to help,” Danny grumbled to me sometime later that afternoon, “this wasn’t what I meant.”
Disgruntled, he eyed the blowout on the table between us at a local chocolate shop. We’d ordered two flights of drinking chocolate—premium milk, white chocolate orange peel, and spicy Mayan for Danny, and delicious dark, cinnamon masala, and cardamom rose petal for me—plus an assortment of goodies to share. So far, we’d sampled a “firecracker” chocolate bar made with chipotle chiles and exploding Pop Rocks candy, a pretzel toffee swirl bar, and a honeycomb bar with crystallized ginger.
“Well, that’s too bad for you,” I told him, trying to sound contrite (and probably failing—I was a little miffed). “This is what I need help with. If I’m going to lead Declan’s culinary tour tomorrow, I have to bone up on the tour stops.”
“What happened to your die-hard procrastination streak?”
“I never had one.”
Danny almost broke his ribs laughing at that. He knew me too well—well enough to know I was avoiding a confrontation with him. He wanted a reaction. He was pretty close to getting it.
I had to say, though, the chocolate we’d tried was going a long way toward assuaging my soured mood. I might not have wanted Danny acting as an on-demand babysitter (courtesy of Travis), but I didn’t mind having company as I ate and drank my way through some of the best chocolate-themed foods in PDX.
This was our third stop. So far, I felt okay about taking on Declan’s chocolate tour. I was more ready than I’d thought.
“I’ve had enough.” Danny shook his head, pretending to voice a serious objection for a change. “I’m getting fat.”
I eyed his taut midsection and laughed. “As if.”
“I don’t even like this stuff!” he complained. “Ugh. It’s all so . . . chocolaty. What they did to those chipotle chiles was sacrilege. They belong in a freaking burrito. End of story.”
I attempted to give him a conciliatory look. “That’s not true. Chiles and chocolate are both tropical New World fruits. Pairing them showcases their inherent richness. Or sometimes their fruity or smoky flavors. I would have preferred a nice guajillo chile to offset the floral flavors of the cacao, but—”
“Enough!” Danny groaned and gave me a time-out signal.
“—chipotles are more accessible,” I continued. “The lemon and grapefruit notes in my Bolivian cacao beans are nicely highlighted by the flavors in my cinnamon masala blend, though, so I’m scoring this one an A minus. How’s your white chocolate?”
“Sweet.” Danny’s face suggested that was a criminal offense. “Why don’t any of these places serve suicide hot wings? Vindaloo pork? Sichuan huo guo? You know, actual food?”
“You are a masochist. Food shouldn’t bite back.”
“Nah. That’s where the adventure is.” Danny’s eyes gleamed as he recalled some of our previous trips together. “Remember when I ate that phall curry in Birmingham?”
I did remember that dish. The Brummies typically made it with nine or ten different chiles, including habaneros and notorious bhut jolokia peppers—aka “ghost chiles.”
“There’s a reason the Indian military has weaponized those ghost chiles,” I informed him. They’d turned them into tear-gas-like hand grenades to fight terrorism. “They are not food.”
“The chef did wear a gas mask while cooking it.”
“My point exactly.” But we were getting sidetracked. I nodded at my cinnamon masala drinking chocolate, redolent of black pepper, cardamom, coriander, and ginger. “Maybe you should have some of this. The cinnamon in it is good for you. It regulates blood sugar, reduces inflammation, boosts memory—”
“Yeah . . . who are you again?”
“Ha, ha. And it improves digestion, too.”
Danny sprawled in his chair, as comfortable in an upscale chocolate salon as he was in a street fight. He regarded me with his usual patience. “Are you done getting the upper hand yet?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I lied unconvincingly. Then, “Anyway, no. Which you might realize if you drank more of your chocolate. Go ahead. Take a big whiff,” I directed in my best professorial tone. “Did you know that the smell of chocolate increases theta brain waves, which promote relaxation?”
“I’m practically asleep already,” Danny drawled.
“Good. Because when I tell you what’s been going on at Cartorama, you are going to freak out,” I warned him.
“I doubt it. By the way, Travis says you should cut down on the booze.” Danny fiddled with his demitasse cup of chocolate, appearing to have no intention of imbibing more. “I’m pretty sure he’s conducting an audit of your liquor budget right now.”
That sounded about right. “What he should be doing is cutting back on my lodging budget. You should see the Airbnb that Travis set up for me this time. It’s ridiculous.”
“Show me.” Danny aimed his chin at the door. “Let’s go.”
“No way. I’m onto you, pal.” I tasted more of my cardamom rose petal chocolate. Its Middle Eastern notes were intriguing, if a tiny bit reminiscent of Grandma’s linen cupboard. “You want to go there to get my things and hustle me out of town. I’m not leaving, Danny.” I was beginning to feel dizzy, thanks to all the sugar and high-test chocolate. “I mean, sure. Maybe it would be smart to just grab my suitcase”—it was always packed, anyway—“scratch ‘become a chocolate-tour guide’ off my bucket list, and jet off to someplace less deadly,” I began.
“Good idea.” Danny nodded. “Let’s make that happen.”
“But I can’t abandon Carissa! Not now. She needs me,” I protested. “I’m her friend. I’m not the kind of person who skips out on a friend when the going gets tough. You know that.”
I’d finally gotten through to him. I could tell.
“I would agree,” Danny said, “if you weren’t seeing murders around every corner.” He pronounced “murders” as if it had show lights and a Broadway marquee behind it. “You’re overwrought. The fact that you can’t tell you’re overwrought only proves it.”
I hesitated for a second, almost buying that argument.
“‘Overwrought’?” I arched my eyebrow. “Have you been reading Jane Austen or something?” Then I got it. “Aha. Travis.”
Danny nodded, infinitely patient. That was one of his better qualities. At least it was when it wasn’t aimed at convincing me I was hallucinating Declan’s potential murder.
“I understand murder is unlikely,” I whispered, glancing around the mostly deserted chocolate shop as I tried to summon a modicum of patience myself. “That doesn’t mean it can’t happen.”
“It usually means it didn’t happen, the law of averages being what it is.” Danny ignored the chocolate on the table between us in favor of studying my face. “I’m serious. Leave.”
“I’m serious. No.” I sipped my dark chocolate, crooking my pinkie to show I still had fight left in me. “Drink up.”
My protection expert didn’t. “You hired me to advise you.”
“Right. You’ve advised me there’s no risk here. So, what’s the problem? I’m staying.”
Danny almost growled. “If there was really a murder—”
“You’d stay? And help me figure out whodunit?”
“This isn’t a joke, Hayden. Why are you digging in?”
He’d used my given name. He was serious. I sobered up. “I already told you—I’m staying for Carissa. To support her. To help her launch Chocolate After Dark. Plus, I think I’m uniquely qualified to figure out who might have killed Declan. People open up to me, Danny. You know that. And, anyway, I’m already involved. I think someone might have poisoned me yesterday.”
My exaggerated ghoulishness only elicited a sigh. “‘Tommy’ mixed your drink too strong. You were hungover, that’s all.”
Lauren. I silently cursed her knowledge of Cartorama, Muddle + Spade, and me. “It felt worse than a hangover.”
“But you’re staying, anyway? Like I said, Travis was right.”
“I’m fine now. No worries. Now that you’re here, you can help me.” After Maison Lemaître, I’d asked Travis to put Danny’s freelance-security-expert services on retainer. I didn’t want to pull rank with him, but... “You’re going to help me, right?”
He eyed me with evident reluctance. “It wasn’t exactly a barrel of laughs last time. You got hurt, remember?”
I pooh-poohed to show I wasn’t scared. But I was.
I would feel a lot better with Danny backing me up.
“This is my second time sleuthing,” I informed him assuredly. “I’m a quick study. I’ll have improved a lot by now.”
“How much better could you be? It’s only been a few days.”
He was right. Not much time had elapsed since my adventures with homicide in the Marin Headlands. That was why Danny and Travis thought I was seeing shadows. I was sympathetic to their position (minimally), but that didn’t change my intentions.
Or my suspicions. “My suspects are the Cartorama vendors.” No reason not to jump in with both feet, right? “Especially Janel, Austin, Tomasz, and Lauren. They were closest to Declan.”
“Lauren didn’t do it.”
I grinned. “Too sexy to be a killer?”
Danny reconsidered. “Although she was sleeping with the deceased,” he mused. “Behind Carissa’s back, too, so—”
“How could you possibly know that?”
He shrugged. “I coaxed. I deduced. I won. I know. Did you think I was just drooling over Lauren like a lovesick idiot?”
“If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . .”
“I was getting the lay of the land. Just in case.”
“Then you did think there might be trouble at Cartorama?”
Despite Danny’s lip service to the law of averages, he’d taken the time to gather information. I found that heartening.
Even if he had dropped in on me out of the blue.
“What about Carissa?” Danny asked. “She’s a suspect.”
“She is not!” I was appalled. “She’s grief-stricken.”
“She’s acting pretty strangely,” Danny disagreed. “Of everyone, Carissa has the most reason to mourn Declan. But she seems pretty freaking psyched that the wedding is off.”
I couldn’t entirely disagree. “I think she’s medicated.”
We discussed the likelihood of that, downing more chocolate as we got into the swing of things. Even my bodyguard noshed on more of the sweet stuff I’d selected for him, although he—like Declan—probably would show no signs of indulging later.
Men. Was it possible that Carissa had offed Declan just because he’d made a mockery of her relentless need to diet? Nah . . .
“What about everyone else?” Danny named a few other vendors in the cart pod. Evidently, he’d gotten to know everyone at brunch while I’d been outside snooping. If only we’d teamed up earlier. “Did anyone else have a reason to want Declan dead?”
“Not that I can tell so far,” I admitted, glancing at the chocolate shop’s pierced, hipster worker. “But with you as my trusty assistant, I’ll be able to cover a lot more ground.”
“Hang on. I’m going along with this, this one time.” Danny delivered that edict in no uncertain terms. “But only to prove to you that there aren’t boogeymen hiding around every corner.”
“Mmm-hmm.” I nodded, knowing he’d bend later, if I needed him to. I couldn’t risk looking him in the eye. Otherwise I might accidentally chortle with triumph. “Of course.”
“You need to stop seeing murder everywhere you look,” he insisted. “I don’t intend to make a habit of this stuff.”
I appreciated his motives. I did. “Neither do I.”
I meant it. It’s not as though I like murder and mayhem.
“Good. Then we understand one another.” Danny waited a beat. Toyed with the Pop Rocks bar. Eyed me. “I hate to speak ill of the dead, but Declan Murphy sounds like a real tool.”
