Dangerously Dark (23 page)

“I know, I know.” Austin's gaze darted to the shop's window. Inside, Carissa chatted with one of the tour attendees. They exchanged business cards. Austin noticed. His frown looked fearsome, but his chin wobbled with hurt. “What Carissa loved about Declan was how ‘out there' he was, no matter who he was with or what they were doing. It's the only thing
Declan
had that
I
don't. I finally figured it out. I
need
this tour.”

Belatedly, I understood. Austin
was
carrying a torch for Carissa. He wanted to help with the Chocolate After Dark tour to be near her. To impress her. To finally—and openly—love her.

“Austin.” I touched his arm, feeling bad for him. “I'm sorry for your situation. I really am. But you said yourself that you had your shot with Carissa.”
All I got out of it was a chance to troubleshoot her equipment.
“You said if it was going to happen with her, it already would have. Remember?”

My reminder of our earlier conversation at my Airbnb foursquare house left Austin undeterred.

“That was
before
Declan died!” He gestured wildly, needing to make me understand. “Don't you see? Everything is different now. Carissa might change her mind.”

Now that Declan is dead.
But had Austin killed him?

I remembered Lauren's warning about how dangerous Austin could be if his feelings weren't returned. About how he'd already had “more than one run-in” with Carissa. I stepped back.

He saw me make that evasive maneuver and exhaled. A second later, he transformed back into the bearded, flannel-wearing teddy bear I remembered. His agility at doing that spooked me.

“Not ‘different' in a ‘Declan is out of the way, here's my chance' kind of way!” Austin protested. “All I mean is, I was going to make one last effort at telling Carissa how I felt—
before
she married Declan. I even showed up early at the cart pod that day, just to tell her. But then you were there—”

That was why Tomasz had seen him? Because Austin had been on a mission to express his unrequited love for Carissa?

“—and then Declan was dead. It would have seemed pretty crass of me to jump in. But Carissa is already moving on,” Austin told me urgently. “Soon she'll be
gone
if I don't act.”

To me, it sounded as though he meant Carissa might be gone
if
he acted. Was Austin so committed to being with Carissa that he'd rather see her
dead
than have her reject him again? I just didn't know.

At that moment, Danny honked the van's horn. The Chocolate Beast revved up, destined for the next stop. Austin had to go.

“Please,” he begged me as he headed for the van's side door. “Just call in sick or something tomorrow, okay? Tell Carissa your hands hurt. Whatever. I don't care. Just don't get in my way of leading Chocolate After Dark. I mean it.”

Then Austin got on the van, Danny gave me a nod in the rearview mirror, and they all chugged away . . . leaving me to watch, wonder, and wait for Lauren to drive us after them in her (very
un
-edgy) Subaru. To make matters worse, somehow the mysterious redhead had sneaked onto the van while I'd been talking with Austin, too.

Tonight I wasn't exactly batting 1.000. But I was determined that would change soon. Because if someone thought they were going to scare off Hayden Mundy Moore with a killer shelving unit and/or a lot of veiled threats, they'd better think again. Danny wasn't the only one boasting a lifetime supply of stubbornness. I was, too. My inherent obstinacy was about to come to the fore . . . and help me catch a killer, too.

Because now, after everything else, this was
personal.

Thirteen

It took me three days and three more tours to realize that Danny and Lauren were hooking up. I don't mean that in a euphemistic
“they were having lunch dates”
kind of way, either. I mean it in a down-and-dirty, naked-and-nasty kind of way.

That's three separate tasters of bittersweet
chocolat pots de crème
at one of the twilight tour stops, if you're keeping score. Three nibbles of fresh masa tamales with chocolate mole at another. Three swigs of minty cacao-nib mojitos and three (tiny) sips of habañero hot chocolate passing my lips—all before I caught on to the fact that my best platonic male friend was falling for someone, hard and fast.

Honestly, I wasn't sure how I felt about Danny and Lauren seeing one another. I'd gotten so many mixed signals from Cartorama's resident bombshell during our girl-talk chat, days earlier, that I didn't know what to believe. Danny usually had good instincts about people. I wanted to trust his judgment. But after the way he'd reacted to Lauren's overt va-va-voom, I wasn't sure my security expert was using all his upstairs faculties when it came to Lauren. If you catch my drift.

It took me almost as long to identify the mysterious redheaded woman I'd originally seen on Chocolate After Dark's opening-night tour. It wasn't for lack of trying, either. Even as I regaled my tour attendees with my far-flung chocolatiering adventures and entertained them with behind-the-scenes tales of how all the best chocolate treats are made while we tasted artisanal Fudgsicles and Belgian-style, sugar-studded
gaufres
with chocolate and whipped cream, I kept my eyes open for the woman in the tortoiseshell glasses. She never reappeared.

Interestingly, though, on the tour's second night,
another
mysteriously evasive woman appeared. She was black-haired, wearing owlish Harry Potter–style eyeglasses, and seemed to be obsessed with all things British. She wore Wellies and a Union Jack scarf; she said “cheerio!” and carried a handbag featuring an image of Queen Elizabeth with her famous corgis. I couldn't get close to that woman, either. She gave me the slip—possibly because Austin (naturally) chose the moment I almost had her cornered to badger me about
not
calling in sick for the tour.

As if I would.
Who did he think he was dealing with? My reputation was on the line. Plus, I'd already promised to help Carissa. That's what I meant to do—even if she
was
behaving a little oddly herself. Rather than stay home to mourn Declan in private, my old college friend showed up on all the chocolate tours instead, insinuating herself into my conversations with the attendees and piping up at all the worst moments to wax rhapsodic about her dearly departed fiancé. I realized that Carissa probably felt a professional and personal obligation to explain Declan's absence. Maybe she needed the distraction, too. All the same, it was . . . awkward.

I felt for Carissa. I truly did. But I wished she could have trusted me just a little more. It wasn't as though guiding the attendees through Portland's best chocolate shops, bakeries, specialty retailers, and drinks emporiums was
difficult.
It was actually pretty fun. I learned about baking chocolate-almond cheesecake in the embers of a wood-burning oven to give it a smoky edge. I experienced chocolate thyme-infused olive oil drizzled on freshly baked bread. I tried Willamette Valley dark-chocolate Pinot Noir truffles and cupcakes filled with ganache that had been spiked with champagne-like brut made in the
méthode champenoise
style in the Columbia Valley, and I fell in love with Portland and its dedicated local producers just a little bit more with every slurp, morsel, and mouthful.

If not for the fact there was (potentially) a killer on the loose, I could have happily settled down in the Rose City. I could have snagged my own retro-modern post-and-beam Rummer, made peace with Portland's proclivity for drizzly rain, and spent my nonworking days hiking the Columbia River Gorge and exploring its scenic waterfalls with my dog and/or cat (Chow was slowly bringing me around to the appeal of felines) by my side. Maybe even with a hunky man by my side, too, if things went well with Tomasz. I'd postponed our first date on account of my injuries and the
very
long day I'd spent evading attempted manslaughter, but I was hopeful we'd get together after one of the tours.

Maybe even after
this
tour, I decided as I tuned back in to what I was doing—which was, not surprisingly, savoring something chocolate based and scrumptious. In this particular case, it was a chocolate-espresso dacquoise from a Stumptown baker who operated out of a rival food cart pod. If you don't know what a dacquoise is, imagine that you're eating an airy, sweetened cloud, and you're there. Technically, dacquoise is made of meringue and buttercream coated in chocolate ganache, but the cloud thing is all you need to know. In a good bakery? Try one.

While I'd drifted off momentarily, Carissa had taken over.

“. . . that's why, at Cartorama—where we'll end up later, to give you your end-of-tour discounts and special goodie bags—we make sure to provide a covered place to enjoy our delicious treats,” Carissa was telling the damp tour attendees. “That means that if you want ice cream in the middle of winter, there's no problem. Just visit Churn PDX for some chocolate-chunk rum-raisin ice cream with house-made hot-fudge sauce!”

She beamed at the attendees, some of whom smiled in anticipation. Others, though, looked baffled—probably by the fact that someone who
wasn't
their official tour guide kept butting in with anecdotes and sales pitches for Churn PDX.

I understood that Carissa was only trying to honor Declan's memory—that she was probably taking refuge in micromanaging Chocolate After Dark's start times, end times, and all the stops in between as a way to manage her grief and anxiety. But her odd behavior was starting to affect attendees' enjoyment of the tour. I was going to have to talk with her soon. I didn't want to, but I'd promised to help her launch the tour. If I didn't get it off to a successful start, I wouldn't have done my job.

That meant there was no time like the present, right? I inhaled for fortitude and stepped toward Carissa, intent on pulling her to the side for a private conversation. Almost there, I noticed Austin and the mystery woman huddled beneath the meager awning on one of the “other” cart pod's vehicles.

That wasn't surprising. It was raining outside, lightly but persistently, making the pod's overhead lights look misty. That's how Portland did rain, I'd realized. After spending almost a week in the city, I knew now why it was so green. Many of the tour attendees had temporarily dispersed to find shelter while they ate their treats. Their abdication was likely what had sparked Carissa's mini discourse about the superiority of Cartorama in general and Churn PDX in particular. She'd even reopened her ice-cream cart, I remembered, saying that it, too, was “to honor Declan's memory—he would have wanted it this way.”

I had my doubts about that, but I'd been in no position to disagree. Now, though, I
was
in a position to notice something interesting. Austin and that unidentified woman (today, a blonde wearing horn-rim specs and vivid fuchsia lip gloss) were getting
very
cozy. You could almost say they seemed to be
conspiring
about something, there in the drizzly twilight.

I stopped and watched them, pretending to need more time to savor my allotted sliver of chocolate-espresso dacquoise.

I was trying to figure out what they were talking about when Lauren wandered over. She noticed what I was doing.

Well, it would have been hard not to, given my staring.

“Yes, you're right,” Lauren said, glancing in the same direction. “That's a wig, all right. A pretty bad one, too.”

“What?” Distracted, I switched my focus from wondering if Austin might have gotten interested in someone new (not Carissa) to the mystery woman's long, blond hair. “How can you tell?”

“Easy. It's too shiny.” Lauren shook her head, studying the hairpiece in question with a practiced eye. “You need to wash synthetic hair before wearing it, or it looks like Barbie hair.”

Hmm. I was sure that this newer, blonder mystery woman was the same person—the same redhead I'd noticed on the first day and the same brunette I'd noticed on the second. But why? Was she a chocolate competitor trying to suss out secrets? Another of Declan's long-lost lovers hoping to stay connected to him?

“Also, if you look closely, you can see where she's tried to use heat tools to restyle her wig,” Lauren went on. “That's a no-no on anything but a high-end piece. It melts the fibers.”

I squinted. “I think I see her wig cap.”

“No, you don't,” Lauren disagreed. “You just think you do, now that I've pointed out the wig. People see what they expect to see. When I'm performing, I count on that.”

Now she sounded like Danny. I understood why he liked her.

“It's a common mistake,” Lauren assured me with a friendly smile. “Trust me. I know artifice—I make my living at it.”

I did trust her, in this instance. Not that I thought she ought to be bragging about being skilled at deception when there'd (maybe) been a murder in the vicinity. But I didn't have any proof of what Lauren (might) have done to Declan. I still needed more time, more information . . . maybe more protection, too.

I glanced around. “Hey, where's Danny?”

Lauren shrugged. “He disappears sometimes. He always turns up, though. He'll be back in time to drive us to the next stop.”

She was right. That meant this presented an opportunity.

Maybe, it occurred to me, I ought to try bonding with Danny's . . . new girlfriend? Could I call her that? “Tell me about it,” I cracked, hoping to do just that. “This one time in Fiji—”

My yarn ended before it began. Probably because that's when Lauren spotted a tall, dark-haired, handsome man near another food cart. Evidently, that was the only way they grew ‘em here in Portland. Handsome. He wasn't Danny attractive. Or (my imaginary version of) Travis attractive. Or even Tomasz attractive. But he was still capable of drawing in the ladies. Lauren muttered something to me as an excuse, then hurried away.

Trying not to feel slighted, I resumed my unofficial mission. While all our tour attendees were busy nibbling dacquoise, I had the perfect opening to come to an understanding about the running of the chocolate tour with Carissa.

 

 

As it turned out, Carissa found me first.

“You might want to warn your friend Danny about Lauren.” She crossed her arms. “They've been getting pretty cozy, right?”

“I'm sure it's nothing serious.” I didn't want to get sidetracked. I needed to try to get through to her. She
didn't
need to help with Chocolate After Dark. “Listen, about the—”

Chocolate tour,
I meant to say, but Carissa didn't give me a chance. She watched with obvious distaste as Lauren caught up with the handsome man. She touched his arm. He smiled at her.

Together they ducked behind one of the neighboring carts, out of sight. The whole thing looked incriminatingly intimate.

“See? She's up to her old tricks again,” Carissa said.

Time to play dumb, I figured. “Old tricks?”

“Man stealing, of course.” Carissa aimed a deadly glance in Lauren's wake. “Nobody's man is safe when Lauren's around.”

“Oh, Danny's not ‘mine,'” I demurred, purposely misunderstanding. “And I don't even know that guy, so—”

“She must be two-timing Danny with him,” Carissa mused.

“No.
Really?
” I was trying to sound artless on purpose, but if Carissa was right, I'd have to karate chop Lauren, for sure.

I don't know martial arts, but I'd learn to avenge Danny.

Aaand I finally understood the urge to murder.
Uh-oh . . .

“Isn't it obvious?” Carissa flung her arm toward Lauren. “She doesn't even bother to hide it.” My friend scowled. “It's a good thing I'm moving Churn PDX soon.”

Really? I wondered where she was moving to. And why. If she was leaving Cartorama, why reopen?

“The last thing I want,” Carissa said emphatically, “is
another
man walking around with groove-faced butt prints after getting it on with a burlesque queen in
my
trailer. Gross!”

Eww.
Did she really mean . . . Danny? “Who's been getting it on in your trailer? If it was Danny, I'm really sorry, Carissa. I swear, he knows better. It's just that he's crazy about Lauren.”

“Yeah. I've heard that one before,” my friend groused.

Then this wasn't the first time someone had butt-printed themselves on Carissa's 1950s-style diner counters. But how. . . ? Did she mean Janel? I'd thought Carissa didn't know about that.

“When did
you
see Danny's booty?” I had to ask about that niggling detail. “He's not shy about nudity”—I'd learned that to my discomfiture once or twice, most recently at Maison Lemaître, when he'd strutted around shirtless—”but usually he's more discreet than to have a sexy romp on someone else's property.”

Carissa rolled her eyes. “Not Danny, dummy. Declan!”

Declan?
“You and Declan got frisky in your trailer?”

I remembered that Declan and Janel had. In that case . . .
aha.
Carissa
definitely
knew about her fiancé's dalliances, then.