Dangerously Dark, page 17
“Working in a kitchen, you learn a few shortcuts,” I explained, relishing the look of revelation on his face. I liked having an advantage with Danny. It didn’t happen often enough. “Hold onto me so I don’t fall. This is a little difficult.”
“You should let me do it, then.” But he complied.
Now both his big hands were holding me tightly. I’ll admit, it was a little distracting. Danny is strong. Also (I may have mentioned) unfairly good-looking. I’ve had my moments of being drawn to his strength, his machismo, his loyalty, and his big heart.
Or maybe I was just feeling competitive with Lauren. Who knows? Either way, I got what I needed. A secure boost upward.
Carefully, I pulled off the intake register, then inspected it. I needed evidence of some kind, and . . . voilà. There it was.
“It’s not even dusty.” I handed the register down to Danny, feeling disappointed in Carissa. “I bet it’s been moved recently.”
That counted as evidence, right? The fact it was clean?
I wished I could have believed it wasn’t incriminating.
“Or Carissa is a neat freak.” It was nice of Danny to give her the benefit of the doubt. He peered up. “See anything?”
I didn’t. Not really. The ventilation shaft was dark. Also, my viewing angle was awkward. The trailer’s ceiling was probably only eight feet from the floor. My height, plus the box I was standing on, plus the distance to the shaft, meant that I had to stand on tiptoe and crane my neck just to see inside.
I caught a glimmer of something shiny. My heart leaped.
“Hand me those spring-loaded interlocking tongs, will ya?”
Nada. Danny gazed around the trailer in obvious bafflement.
“The things that look like giant tweezers,” I clarified.
He still looked puzzled. “Yeah, it’s been a while since I plucked my eyebrows,” he cracked. “Point to what you want.”
On behalf of my mom (who’s prone to handing my dad a pair of pliers when he wants an Allen wrench), I felt vindicated.
I pointed. Danny handed up the tongs, then resumed his hold on my leg. His shoulder bolstered me, too, as he gazed upward.
“Here we go.” I inserted the tongs into the ventilation shaft. It was narrow, but the tongs were long—the perfect tool for tossing a salad, flipping a roasted pepper, or withdrawing evidence of a murder. I held up what I’d found. “Plastic wrap.”
To be specific, it was a scrap of commercial-grade clear cling film. The same crinkly stuff that Janel had sneaked out of Carissa’s trailer. I’d only been able to reach it with my tongs—and my greater-than-Janel’s height. Otherwise, I would have missed it for sure. I felt a distinct chill as I examined it.
Danny must have, too, because he frowned up at me. He didn’t even admire my prize. “You got it. Now get down.”
“This doesn’t belong up here.” I gestured with it—still on the tongs—toward the ventilation shaft. “There’s no good reason anybody would shrink-wrap a ventilation shaft. And it’s the same stuff we saw Janel with after she was in here.” I couldn’t help feeling victorious on behalf of my beleaguered friend. This was proof of sabotage for sure—but it wasn’t proof of Carissa’s sabotage. “That means Janel must have rigged the ventilation.”
“Or Carissa did,” Danny disagreed, “and Janel found it.”
“The likelihood of Janel investigating is pretty slim.”
“But not impossible. We’re doing it.”
“Yeah, but we’re special. Right?” I didn’t want to believe that Carissa had done anything wrong. My friend wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. I would have known somehow, wouldn’t I?
I didn’t want to think my judgment was that skewed. Even if Danny and Travis both did. They thought I was too softhearted. I knew better. At that moment, for instance, I felt far from softhearted toward Janel. Especially if she’d killed Declan.
“You’d better come down.” Danny signaled for me to step off the box and clear out of the trailer. “Let’s get out of here.”
I was too busy clinging to my hopes to do that. “Carissa couldn’t have arranged something like this.” Needing to believe it, I examined that scrap of plastic wrap. After seeing Janel, I knew there’d been much more of the stuff a few days ago. Enough to block the trailer’s ventilation completely (and invisibly). Enough to allow the levels of liquid nitrogen to build up and ultimately kill Declan. “Even if she had, Carissa isn’t stupid. She’d have had the sense to come back and remove it herself.”
“She’s been pretty busy pretending to be sad about Declan.”
Danny’s sardonic tone bothered me. “There must be another explanation.” Reluctantly, I traded him my tongs for the intake register. I replaced everything the way we’d found it, then accepted his hand down. I watched as Danny put back the napkin box precisely in its former location, expertly hiding our tracks. “It’s got to be Janel.” I took back my tongs and scrutinized that scrap of plastic wrap. “I know it.”
Danny shook his head. “The most obvious solution is usually the right one.” He glanced at the time. “I know you don’t want to think the worst of your friend, but you hadn’t seen each other in person for almost ten years. People change. You’ve changed.”
I had. I’d changed into someone who spied on my friend.
Well, as true as that was, I couldn’t accept the rest—the part that suggested Carissa was guilty of killing her fiancé.
They said there was nothing so deadly as a woman scorned, I remembered (roughly). But I wasn’t even sure if Carissa had been aware of Declan’s extensive infidelity. As far as I was concerned, her ignorance was as good as proof of innocence.
“What about the liquid nitrogen tanks?” I persisted. “Austin said the safety wasn’t working, but he fixed it before anyone could verify that for sure. That means he could have—”
“Tampered with it? To off his rival?” Danny strode to the two tanks. They gleamed like something out of a science fiction movie, silvery and metallic, with circular grab bars at the top and an assortment of valves and dials. Hoses snaked away from each one, enabling refills of the smaller vessels used in Churn PDX’s individual ice-cream-freezing machines. “They look okay.”
“You’re not an expert,” I pointed out. “Maybe one of the hoses has a leak? The liquid nitrogen is under pressure.”
“If there was a leak, we’d be dead right now.” Danny glanced up from his study of the tanks. “Do you feel dead?”
“Har, har.” I plucked that incriminating piece of plastic wrap from the tongs. I tucked it into my purse for safekeeping, then passed the tongs to Danny. He put them back on the stainless-steel countertop accurately—almost as if he had experience with conducting a search-and-find mission (aka a break-in). “What about Lauren?” I brainstormed. “After all, I’m pretty sure she pushed Austin into the path of an oncoming car.”
Danny hadn’t been at Declan’s funeral. But I knew what I’d (almost) seen—and what I’d (definitely) heard. Lauren had grunted . . . while pushing Austin into danger to get rid of him?
Danny laughed. “There’s no way Lauren could push Austin. He must have four inches and a hundred and fifty pounds on her.”
“She had leverage. He was on a bike at the time,” I informed him. “Plus, Austin’s beanie had slipped. He couldn’t see to defend himself. It was a perfect opportunity.”
My security expert remained dubious. “Lauren didn’t try to kill Austin. For one thing, she’s not dumb enough to do it so publicly. She would have waited for a better moment.”
“Nice.” Worryingly, Danny didn’t seem fazed by Lauren’s potential homicidal tendencies. “And you still want to date her . . . why?”
My echo of his skepticism about my belief in Carissa didn’t hit its mark. His knowing smirk told me that much.
“You’ve seen Lauren, right? Tall, curvy, up for it?”
Ugh. “Try not to let ‘little Danny’ do your thinking for you,” I suggested. “At least until we’ve solved this murder.”
“Hey, I don’t even want to be here in ‘Murderville.’” Danny pulled a face at the new nickname he’d coined for Portland, then adjusted the tongs he’d replaced by a millimeter. Satisfied, he looked at me. “The least you can do is let me have some fun.”
“Visit a brewpub. Have a beer. This is Beervana, you know.”
I preferred that nickname. Or several alternatives I knew.
“There are better things in life,” Danny said, “than beer.”
Name one, I wanted to say . . . but I knew he would. In detail.
I didn’t want to know that much about Danny’s love life—especially his sexual shenanigans with Lauren. So I adjusted my purse on my shoulder, then headed for the trailer’s door.
At the same moment, it swung open. Someone was coming in.
Eleven
It was a good thing I’d prepared a backup excuse for our presence there, I told myself. Unfortunately, in the heat of the moment, I couldn’t remember what it was. Especially once I saw that it was Janel, my number one suspect, in the doorway.
It was growing darker outside. (I suddenly wondered how much time I’d wasted arguing “Carissa versus Janel” theories with Danny.) With the lights on in the trailer, I saw Janel clearly.
She saw us, too, and reared back in shock. Today she’d traded her usual slogan T-shirt for one with the Muddle + Spade logo, I noticed. I gawked at her, completely caught off-guard now that the crucial moment was at hand. (Hey, I’m not an expert, remember? What would you do?)
Danny brought up the rear behind me. He actually chuckled.
The cretin. Didn’t he know how suspicious this looked?
Plus, as much as I liked Janel’s blunt, boisterous ways, there was no denying her probable guilt. She had the means to kill Declan (liquid nitrogen dispensed in an unventilated trailer), a motive (unrequited love), and an opportunity (I glimpsed a key to Carissa’s trailer in Janel’s hand at that very moment). In my book, all those things added up to guilty.
“What are you doing in here?” she demanded.
Stuck, I got glib. “What does it look like we’re doing?”
“It looks like you’re getting freaky among the overstock supply of ice-cream cups.” Janel’s unswerving gaze darted behind me. Low down behind me. About hip height. “Next time, be a gentleman, dude,” she advised Danny. “Bring something to cushion those stainless-steel countertops. They’re murder on the hips.”
I swiveled. Danny was stuffing his shirt in his low-riding jeans, giving a convincing impression of someone hastily getting dressed. His hair had gotten messed up somehow, too.
What the . . .?
Aha. That rat. Janel thought Danny and I had sneaked away for a romantic encounter in Carissa’s trailer. Everyone knew it was currently unused. Churn PDX seemed to be on unofficial (indefinite) hiatus while Carissa dealt with losing Declan.
I didn’t approve of Danny’s diversionary tactic—but as rapidly devised excuses went, it was pretty good. I had to hand it to Danny. He’d covered us.
He’d had a plan B all along. I should have anticipated as much. Now Janel wouldn’t know we’d (potentially) found proof of her sabotaging Carissa’s trailer and killing Declan. I shivered. Even if Danny didn’t agree that’s what we’d done (his money seemed to be riding on Carissa), I was getting surer of Janel.
“Declan left me with some pretty wicked bruises a time or two, thanks to all that metal quilting and those stupid grooved edges,” Janel volunteered with a lusty look. “I’m not sure he was sorry, actually. But I’m going to miss him all the same.”
Great. More proof of what a dirtbag Declan was. For a spurned lover, Janel seemed pretty chipper about things. She was basically bragging about getting together with Declan in Carissa’s trailer. I guessed that meant their relationship hadn’t predated his romance (and engagement) with Carissa. He’d definitely been cheating on my friend, and he’d been doing it with Janel.
How else would Janel have had such a ribald story to relate about him? I’d never look at 1950s-diner-style stainless-steel countertops the same way again. Now they were nookie pit stops.
If Carissa had known about Declan’s unfaithfulness (maybe because of Janel similarly bragging to her)—and reacted by forcing Declan to get a restraining order against Janel—then maybe there was something to Danny’s and Travis’s theories that my friend might be a different woman than I remembered.
A more vindictive woman. I’d assumed that Carissa had been pressured into that decision by her well-meaning parents. I mean, who hasn’t had the experience of blowing off steam about relationship issues with friends, only to have those friends keep nursing a grudge later? Replace “friends” with “parents,” and the dynamic held true. But if Carissa had wanted to keep Janel away from Declan by force . . . well, I couldn’t really fault her. She wouldn’t have been the first person ever to blame the cheated-with instead of the cheater when things got rocky.
Unaware of the rapidly churning wheels in my mistrustful mind, Janel ogled Danny. “Lauren won’t like hearing about this.”
He didn’t even blink. “Lauren doesn’t have to know.”
His smooth willingness to (seemingly) collude with Janel left me flabbergasted. I know I’ve hinted to you about Danny’s sketchy past, but seeing the other side of him in action startled me. Even if it was for a good cause (and it was).
“What are you doing in here?” I demanded to distract myself. I nodded at Janel’s key. “Carissa didn’t give you that.”
“You’re right. She didn’t.” Carelessly, with no further explanation, Janel gesticulated to move past me. “Excuse me.”
I didn’t budge. “You didn’t answer my question.”
That’s right. I can be pretty hard-nosed when pushed. Or when Danny was there to have my back. Or, you know, both.
Janel’s acerbic gaze met Danny’s. “This is how she is after she’s gotten some? Whoa, dude. You must be pretty awful in the sack.” Her attention zoomed past us. “I mean, on the counter.”
Awful in the sack. Now both me and Danny were annoyed.
I folded my arms. “That’s not an answer, either.”
“Okay.” Janel shook her head, muttering a swearword. “I’m only putting up with you because you didn’t join the lynch mob earlier at Declan’s funeral.” I could have sworn her gaze thanked me for that kindness. She heaved a sigh. “I’m just here to pick up some napkins for Tomasz. He’s fresh out at the bar.”
Was it me, or was that sigh covering up a conscious pause? The kind of pause a person might use to concoct a bogus excuse?
Not waiting for me to decide, Janel squeezed past me. She spied the box of Lowfold dispenser napkins and approached it.
“I’ll get that,” Danny volunteered. Tricky. Deceitful. And always chivalrous—that’s my sometime bodyguard for you.
“No, thanks. I’ve got it.” Expertly, Janel flipped over the box. Using its short side, she was able to pick it up. “See?”
I did see. So did Danny. We both saw that, positioned that way (the way we hadn’t stacked it two minutes earlier), that box offered an extra several inches of height—height that could have been used by a short woman like Janel to reach the intake register for the trailer’s ventilation system and cover it with plastic wrap, preventing fresh oxygen from getting in.
Warily, I edged backward. I couldn’t help it.
I ran into Danny. He steadied me. Of course.
Janel groaned under the weight of the box. It was a good thing she was sturdily built. Good for her, not for Declan.
She refused Danny’s second helpful gesture. “I’ve gotten pretty good at handling heavy boxes,” she informed us. “Berk was nice enough to hire me part-time after Declan took out that—well, you know.” Civil protection order. “Anyway, Berk knew how much I loved Cartorama. I was working on saving it from those developers at the time. I couldn’t have continued if I wasn’t allowed to be anywhere near Declan. But if I was working—”
“You had to be permitted to be here,” I surmised.
“Something like that.” Janel cracked a rueful smile. “I think nobody else wanted to do all the grunt work of putting up flyers and circulating petitions. Plus, I needed money. Still do. Otherwise”—her gaze turned faraway—“I wouldn’t be here.”
Because I’d be mourning Declan. Her subtext was clear.
But Janel wasn’t the type to get bogged down in sentiment, apparently. Meaningfully, she nodded at me. “Hey, aren’t you going to be late? You know, for the Chocolate After Dark tour?”
Uh-oh. I was. In all the excitement, I’d lost track of time. I scampered out of Carissa’s trailer with Danny behind me.
Janel followed, awkwardly maneuvering through the doorway with the box of napkins. She aimed her chin toward the Sweet Seductions cart. “Everyone’s already gathered over there.” With unnerving cheerfulness, she added, “Catch you later!”
Then Janel trundled off to Muddle + Spade, leaving me and Danny outside our supposed love nest. Reminded of the excuse he’d made up, I shot my security expert a disgruntled look.
“Don’t blame me,” he objected with both palms in the air. He frowned toward Janel. “She was just bad-mouthing my ability to satisfy a woman. If anyone should be mad here, it’s me.”
Then he shut Carissa’s trailer door behind us, shot my purse a significant look (reminding me of the evidence inside), and headed over to join the waiting tour attendees.
Regrettably, I couldn’t follow Danny’s lead and jump into action as Chocolate After Dark’s fearless leader straightaway. I still needed Declan’s iPad to check the client list, process late payments, and confirm the tour route before setting off to feast on triple-chocolate-chunk cookies, cocoa cream pie, house-made chocolate-hazelnut spread, and chocolate martinis.
This was where my plan B made things more complicated. I’d thought I would have more time to retrieve Declan’s iPad—and (it occurred to me belatedly) to make sure Danny decoded it for me.
