Dangerously Dark (7 page)

“It is,” Tomasz agreed. “But in the end, Common Grounds decided against any more negative publicity. And that was that.”

I couldn't let it go. “Are you
sure
that was that?”

They both frowned at me. Quizzically.

I thumbed my chocolate porter, turning it around on the table. I wiped away the condensation on the glass. “What if . . .”

I trailed off, feeling ridiculous. Also, light-headed again.

“Yes?” Tomasz urged in a silky, sexy voice.

“Spit it out,” Janel commanded. “Sheesh. If you're this tentative when ‘chocolate whispering,' I don't know how you ever get anything done. Is your reputation all smoke and mirrors?”

That did it. I couldn't stand for having my reputation maligned. “What if Common Grounds—or the developers—
didn't
give up?” I asked. “What if one of them killed Declan? To scare all the Cartorama vendors into abandoning their leases?”

A momentary silence fell between us. Faintly, I heard the pinging of video games. People talking at the pool tables. Music from somewhere. It all seemed very far away from me.

Then Tomasz and Janel burst out laughing. Guffawing, really.

I was offended. “It's a reasonable theory! Undermine the cart pod. Dissolve it from within. Take over through fear.”

Danny had told me once that the best motive for murder was greed. At the time, I'd disagreed. But now I thought I might be onto something. It all made sense. Especially if, in a limited market, Cartorama's land was worth as much as I thought it was.

Tomasz and Janel didn't agree, to say the least.

“That's it. You're cut off.” Tomasz took my porter. Then he called me a cab, Janel grabbed my things, and they bundled me away to my Airbnb accommodations without even taking seriously the idea that someone could have deliberately murdered Declan.

“You are
crazy,
” Janel said, firing up my indignation.

“But
cute
crazy,” Tomasz added, firing up my . . . Never mind.

Maybe it was all the chocolate porter talking. Maybe it was the stressful day. Maybe it was the fact that I'd only just recently caught my first murderer. San Francisco was fresh on my mind, and so was everything that had happened there. I couldn't let go of the idea that Declan may have been killed on purpose.

Janel and Tomasz's denials only lent credence to my fears.

That's why, later, snug in my Airbnb accommodations—a cute foursquare in the rapidly gentrifying Northeast neighborhood—I picked up my cell phone. I dialed. Woozily, I waited.

A familiar, sexy voice came over the line.

“Hey, Travis!” I shouted, feeling elated to hear him. Also, admittedly tipsy. I don't usually drink much, especially on a nearly empty stomach. But after stumbling over another dead body today, sampling Tomasz's excellent craft brew had seemed like a superb idea. “I've got a problem,” I told my financial advisor. “A big one. But first . . . what are you wearing right now?”

Four

When I woke up the next day, I honestly didn't know where I was. Not that that was strictly unusual for me. I travel so often and so widely that I might at any time (for instance) wake up in a capsule hotel in Singapore, a “tree house” hotel in Harads, or a penthouse in Manhattan. I have friends all over the world. Waking up to an unfamiliar ceiling is de rigueur for me.

This time, though, the experience was more unsettling than normal. Mostly because, as I blinked up at my room's white-painted crown molding and mullioned widows (I apparently hadn't even closed the curtains last night before collapsing into bed), I couldn't remember, for an instant, how I'd gotten there.

Alarmed, I sat bolt upright in bed. The motion made the room spin. My head ached, too. With a groan, I sank backward.

I felt
awful.
If this was what came of drinking chocolate porter at noon, I needed to put the kibosh on that activity, stat. It didn't seem likely that a mere three or four drinks could have created a hangover this severe, but I could barely tolerate opening my eyes to examine my surroundings again.

Warily and painfully, I did so, anyway. I glimpsed my jeans and sneakers, cast off to the gleaming hardwood floor. I saw my stand-in purse (a lame-duck substitute for my beloved—and lost—crossbody bag) on an upholstered armchair nearby. I saw my jacket draped haphazardly on the bed's footboard, half on and half off the mattress. I saw the twisted coverlet on the bed.

Clearly, I'd spent a restless night here. But before that . . .

In a flash, it all came flooding back to me. The cab ride. The drinks at Muddle + Spade. The police, the EMTs, the ghastly sight of Declan Murphy dead on the floor of Carissa's trailer.

I remembered my own gruesome theory involving the real-estate developers, who'd wanted to build on the property, and/or the landlord, who would have stood to benefit from that.

What if one of them killed Declan?
I'd hypothesized to Tomasz and Janel.
To scare all the Cartorama vendors into abandoning their leases?

They had laughed at my explanation for Declan's “accidental” death. But maybe that was
because they were in on it.
Maybe they wanted to throw me off. Maybe they'd cozied up to me yesterday to find out what I knew . . . and then silence me.

Maybe Tomasz
hadn't
innocently brought me and Janel fresh drinks. Maybe he'd
poisoned me,
the same way someone might have poisoned Declan. Maybe that's why I felt so awful.

Reeling at the possibility, I made myself crawl out from beneath the covers. Squinting at the sunlight, I stood. Dizzily, I'll admit. But when was the last time
you
confronted your own possible homicidal poisoning? It was a lot to take in.

I lurched to the armchair and grabbed my bag, intending to call Danny. He was my protection expert—my on-call bodyguard. If there was ever a time to make Danny quit putting his muscular bod on the line for Hollywood types at premieres and red-carpet events, it was now. He could leave the skeleton-style, two-way radio earpiece and designer tux at home. For this job, all he'd need were muscles, his badass former-thug instincts, and a willingness to put both of those things on the line for me.

I knew he'd do it. Danny and I went way back. He'd known me before I lucked into my inheritance, before I turned my knack for chocolate into a full-time, freelance consulting gig . . . before I nabbed my first cocoa-covered killer while ostensibly on the job. Shivering at the memory, I rooted around for my cell phone.

It was gone. Launched into a full-blown panic by its absence, I staggered toward the next room. Its serenity stood strictly at odds with my jumpy state of mind. Barefoot and clad only in yesterday's T-shirt and the men's boxers I like to sleep in (sorry if that's oversharing), I careened throughout my Airbnb lodgings, looking for my phone so I could send up an SOS.

Very quickly, I wished I'd instructed Travis
not
to go whole hog on my accommodations this time. Left to his own devices, Travis has a tendency to treat me
too
well. You'd think that as guardian of my finances and an expert in all things fiduciary, he would have leaned toward the skinflint side, right? Well, nope. You'd be wrong. Because, for whatever reason, Travis insists that I deserve the best. Exemplary views. Prime locations. Frette linens, designer amenities, and (I'm not making this up) sometimes a private butler of my very own.

Ordinarily, I can't fault Travis's insistence on pampering me. Frankly, I like that about him. Who wouldn't? But this time, in Portland, Travis's occasional yen to indulge me was too much.

My (temporary) two-and-a-half-story authentic foursquare house was charming, lovingly restored, and large enough for a family (not surprisingly) of four. Its four boxy rooms per floor (hence, the name) took ages to careen through, tossing throw pillows and scrabbling through built-in Craftsman cabinets and woodwork. I couldn't find
a thing.
There wasn't even an old-fashioned landline that I could have used to summon the police—not that I wanted to see Portland's finest again with the grisly events of yesterday still so fresh in my headachy mind.

Queasy and concerned, I stopped downstairs in the kitchen—a vintage number with butcher-block countertops, nickel hardware, and original 1913 cabinets—and tried to catch my breath. The kitchen was adorable (if way too capacious for one person, just like the rest of the place). I didn't even plan to cook while I was in town. I didn't know what Travis had been thinking to arrange such comically gargantuan accommodations, but I could see why the house's original owners had been eager to rent out the place via Airbnb. They were probably making three times their mortgage payments in rental fees each month. In Portland's inflated real-estate market, cashing in was only smart.

Unfortunately, the idea of
cashing in
only sent me into another concern spiral. I recalled the conversation I'd had with Tomasz and Janel about the developers who'd attempted to take advantage of Cartorama's prime location, about the landlord who'd given up on making a fortune (far too readily, if you asked me), and about the way the pod's vendors had triumphed.

I was all in favor of community action. For picketing and protesting and exerting some well-earned media pressure. But seriously? It sounded as though Janel had circulated a few petitions to save Cartorama from development, the local newscast had aired a segment on the beleaguered pod being pressured by greedy developers, and the whole endeavor had simply collapsed.

That didn't seem likely to me. Maybe the Cartorama vendors didn't have much experience with big business, but I did. The corporate world doesn't lay down for a bunch of hippies with protest signs and handwoven hemp beanies. There's too much at stake for that. I doubted any real-estate development company worth its salt would have gone after Cartorama's land without a solid strategy—and a couple of contingency plans, too.

If one of those contingency plans had involved
killing
one of Cartorama's vendors and scaring everyone else into leaving . . .

Well, if it had, then I'd stumbled upon it a little too publicly last night. Which was why Tomasz and/or Janel had decided to dose me with whatever poisonous substance had me swerving, sweating, and seeing double just then. I grabbed the countertop and waited for the next wave of nausea to subside.

That's when, blearily, I glimpsed my cell phone. Its screen winked at me from amid the folds of a plush cable-knit throw, lying on my (short-term) house's living-room sofa. I was saved.

I reeled toward it while the room continued rotating. Chills raised goose bumps on my arms and legs. My mouth tasted swampy, my tongue cottony, my teeth fuzzy.
Yuck.
It was just like a murderer to target my taste buds. What if this attempt on my life destroyed my ability to discern a Venezuelan single-varietal chocolate from a Tanzanian Grand Cru blend? I'd be out of a job, out of free chocolates, out of my mind with boredom.

Of course I'd be
dead,
so I probably wouldn't mind.

But if I somehow survived, would my vaunted palate come through unscathed? What if it didn't? What would I do for fun, for treats, for a much-needed sense of mastery in my life?

What would I do for a funeral? I didn't even know where my own memorial should be held, I realized as I picked up my cell phone in my clumsy hands. I peered at its screen, trying to decide if I'd rather be remembered at a beachside ash scattering or a full-out burial at sea, if I'd prefer to be interred in the poppy fields of Normandy or laid to rest in the good ole USA.

I didn't really have a home, I remembered as my head went on pounding too hard for me to read my phone's screen properly. I'd been traveling for as long as I could remember—first with my parents, then on my own. Did I belong
anywhere
? Maybe I'd missed my chance to settle down in a comfy house like this one, with someone special by my side and a cocker spaniel at my feet.

The thought made me hyperventilate. Or maybe that was just another symptom of my (potential) poisoning. I wasn't sure.

Have I mentioned that my mind tends to gallop in a million directions at once? At the best of times, I've got a rampant monkey mind. Now, on the verge of a nefarious “accidental” death, I couldn't help touching on every possible scenario. How eloquently Travis would eulogize me. How sadly Danny would break down over my grave. How my family would mourn me, and how . . .

Wait a minute. Was that
movement
outside my living-room window?

Startled out of my morbid daydreams, I went still. If someone was out there, it had to be Tomasz or Janel, come to find out if I'd succumbed to whatever they'd dosed me with.

Well, if they weren't merely murderers but
gloating
murderers, they were going to be disappointed. Because there was nothing like a genuine emergency, I learned, to jolt a person out of an imaginary disaster. With someone seemingly creeping right outside my front door, I found the strength to fight back.

I dropped my phone on the sofa's throw again and picked up a poker from the fireplace instead. Hefting it in my trembling hand, I crept toward the curtained window to have a better look.

Almost there, I heard the
clunk
of footsteps on the front porch. I froze again, listening hard. I tried to picture the front of the house, hoping to pinpoint the intruder's position.

All that came to mind were muzzy memories of treacherously steep stairs leading to a wide porch—and a solid door with a stubbornly uncooperative dead bolt. I grumbled to myself at the memory of it. Yesterday my key hadn't worked to unlock it.

Although Tomasz had had no trouble opening the door and ushering me inside beneath my foursquare's hipped roof and center dormer, I recalled. So maybe the dead bolt's balkiness owed more to (tipsy) operator error than inherent faultiness.

Humph.
If I
wasn't
fatally dosed with some lethal poison, then I
really
had to watch it with the porter in the future.

Another scrape of footsteps jerked me straight back to the present. Very cautiously, I leaned sideways. Through the window, I glimpsed someone standing on my porch. I couldn't see who it was. From my vantage point, all I could make out was a sliver of a be-jeaned form, a slice of red-and-black checked coat, and a hint of Fair Isle knitwear. Maybe a beanie? I wasn't sure.

What were the chances—honestly—that a murderous intruder would wear a cap that could have been knit by his or her grammy?

I strode to the front door and wrenched it open.

Austin Martin stood on my house's welcome mat. Or, more accurately, he jumped sky-high on my house's welcome mat.

“Urgh!” he burbled. “Hayden! Hey! I was just about to knock. You scared me.”

I'd
scared
him
? That was funny. But Austin's pale round face (at least what I could see above his scruffy facial hair) and jittery laugh confirmed it. My bravado vanished.

My headache, unfortunately, didn't.

Maybe this was a devious, slow-acting poison? Given the way I felt just then, I would have believed it. I swear I could feel my eyeballs shriveling in my skull. I was unnaturally conscious of my roiling intestines, too. I had
definitely
been poisoned yesterday. There was no other explanation for the way I felt.

Suffused with relief to see another (harmless) human being, I gave him a cheery “Austin! Hi!” It came out as a croak.

He widened his eyes. “You, uh . . .” He pointed, backing up a step. He gazed fixedly at my doorbell. “You're busy,” Austin finally blurted. “I'll come back later. Sorry to bug you.”

He was already scampering down the steps, trailing wool fibers and the scent of one of those noxious aftershaves (the ones with names like BOLT! and CHISELED!), before I wised up.

The chilly springtime breeze helped with that. Because a draft suddenly ruffled the T-shirt and boxers I'd slept in, making me remember that I was nowhere near decent for company.

But I
was
interested in finding out if Austin thought I'd been poisoned. I might need him to call an ambulance, too.

Setting aside my makeshift fireplace-poker weapon near the Craftsman-style inglenook, I yelled to him. “Austin, wait! Don't leave. Just stay right there. I'll be back in a minute!”

Then I shut the door, picked up my cell phone again, and went to put on some appropriate clothes. My rampant bedhead hair would have to wait, though. I had to prioritize. Before opening that door again, my priority was calling Danny.