Dangerously Dark (27 page)

I frowned and looked at Danny. He appeared lost in thought. He'd picked a heck of a time to get all daydream-y on me.

“Janel wobbled and lost control of her bike when coming to an intersection. The driver made a rolling stop, then just kinda bumped into her while making a right turn against the light. I saw her go down. Just
bang
!” Carissa pantomimed it. “Ugh.”

She shuddered while Danny and I stared. I didn't know how to ask what I wanted to know.
Are you lying?
was too overt.

“I'm the one who called the police to report the accident. Ironic, right?” Carissa frowned as her mother called to her from downstairs. “I gave a statement describing the car and everything.” In her pink bedroom, my friend winked at me. “One of the officers was pretty cute. I made him give me his number.”

“Good for you,” I said. I guessed she was ready to move on romantically. I might not be great at sneaking around, but I knew when a response was socially necessary. “What's his name?”

Carissa told me, while Danny paced around the room. I tossed him an apologetic glance. I hadn't needed his muscle, after all. Carissa wasn't a threat to anything except my peace of mind.

“Who was driving the MINI cooper?” Danny asked.

Carissa looked irritated. “Who knows? Not me, if that's what you're wondering.” She exhaled, exasperated. “Maybe after I set up shop in L.A., I'll be able to afford one of those, though.”

Danny nodded. “L.A., huh? That's my neck of the woods.”

Like flipping a switch, he turned on the charm.

Carissa noticed. “Really?” She played with her long auburn hair, batting her eyelashes behind her glasses. “What part?”

He told her. “If you can drag yourself away from your new police officer friend, you should look me up sometime.”

I stood by, befuddled. Why was Danny flirting? Why now?

Don't get me wrong—it was something to see. Even as a bystander, I felt kind of tingly. But I didn't get his strategy.

“I just might do that,” Carissa cooed, examining my bodyguard's muscles and imposing presence with new appreciation. “I'm going to be in Santa Monica. On the Third Street Promenade. I found an investor to help me expand Churn PDX to California.”

“That's a nice neighborhood to start in,” Danny remarked.

I could have sworn he was ogling Carissa's legs. Whatever happened to his fling with Lauren? Geez, he was fickle.

It was a good thing
I'd
never gotten seriously involved with him. You know, in a romantic sense.

“I know. I'm pretty psyched,” Carissa said. “I had my pick of suitors, thanks to all the groundwork Declan did—thanks to him bringing everyone here. He had a lot of access through his Prodigy Group peeps. God knows, I wasn't going out for drinks with him and all those Seattle dude-bros for no reason.”

Danny nodded. “You had a strategy.”

“Of course. I'm the kind of girl who looks out for number one. I wasn't
crazy
about Declan.” She laughed, giving Danny a flirtatious stroke on his bulging biceps. “I wasn't all mushy about him, I mean. Sorry, Hay,” Carissa added in an aside to me. “I know how much you were into all the engagement party stuff, but I'm just as happy it never happened. All I wanted from Declan was his business contacts. He didn't know how good they were when he threw them over. I did. But I wasn't going to let him make it look as if
I
was being cheated on. I mean,
as if.
”

With an awful sense of disillusionment, I understood. Carissa
wasn't
the friend I remembered from college. She was a lot more grasping and a lot more ruthless. But she
wasn't
a killer. At least I'd been right about that much.
Yay?

I couldn't help turning over what Carissa had said, though.
Prodigy Group.
That sounded familiar. I couldn't remember why.

The come-and-get-me eyes Danny was giving her didn't help.

“Declan didn't know how to handle you,” he said.

“You've got that right.” Carissa smiled at him. “I bet you do, though. I bet you're resourceful in all the right places.”

“At all the right times,” Danny confirmed in a husky tone.

I was starting to feel queasy. I had to get out of there.

“You're gritty.
Real,
” Carissa was telling Danny when I tuned back into their flirtathon. “I could use a little of that, after Declan. He was basically a glorified salesman. All the men in Portland are
so . . .
” She sighed, searching for an apt description.
“Tame.
Sure, they've got their beards and their boots, their flannel shirts and their growlers full of craft beer, but they're all so
sensitive.
Or geeky. Austin couldn't get through a single sentence without talking about some idiotic video game. He dressed up like comic book heroes! What a dork.”

Her tone of derision was hurtful. I clicked off my app's recording function, then held up my phone. “I've got to get this.”

As I'd intended, Carissa assumed I had to answer a call. Most phones these days had a silent-ring function. Mine probably did, too. I wasn't sure. I almost always used it for texting.

Carissa waved me off. I slipped downstairs, said good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins, then stepped into the cool nighttime.

I looked at my phone, debating. Then I started texting.

I know what you're thinking—that I was texting Travis a cheeky
what are you wearing right now?
to cheer myself up.

Under ordinary circumstances, you might have been right. But these weren't ordinary circumstances. Things had changed.

I was technically unemployed now, for starters. I hadn't expected Carissa to pay me for conducting Declan's Chocolate After Dark culinary tours, but they had occupied a space on my calendar—a space that Travis would want to fill with something income producing and industrious. Just then, I wasn't up for it.

Hey, I'm leaving town soon, I typed out. Still wanna meet?

I deliberated for a minute, then glanced up at Carissa's lighted bedroom window. I could see her and Danny laughing.

My sometime bodyguard really knew how to pick ‘em.

I chose one of my contacts. A second later, my text whooshed through the Internet to Tomasz Berk. Our date was on.

At least it was, if
I
was half as lucky as Danny was. Seriously—
two
women, both hot to trot for him in the space of a week? He has his share of reckless appeal, but . . . wow.

Then I sent Danny a text and made him come out. Enough was enough. I wasn't in the mood to play wingman. Not tonight.

 

 

There was nothing but stony silence on the way back to our shared house. I was preoccupied; Danny seemed to be, too. In our defense, it had been quite a day. I didn't have any claim on Danny; that's not how our relationship worked. But I was still creeped out by the way he'd flirted with Carissa, after everything she'd said. I figured he'd done it out of boredom. Or perversity. Or maybe a desire to feel wanted, after having (maybe) been two-timed by Lauren with Mr. Cart Pod.

Danny was only human, I reminded myself. Neither of us was perfect. Both of us were given to retreating when upset. I was upset, too. I couldn't deny it—not to myself. I wanted to believe Danny was a better man than he'd seemed to be tonight.

I also wanted to believe I wouldn't let my own personal dramas trump the nightmare of what had happened to Declan and, to a lesser degree, to Janel. But I was doing exactly that as I drove toward my foursquare for the night.

I suppose I should have felt sorry for Janel, after what she'd been through. I knew she might not make it. But she'd killed Declan. As much as I try to have faith in my fellow human beings, Janel had stepped over the line. Even
my
line. I might strive to think the best of people, but I'm no pushover.

My silence with Danny proved it. He knew it, too.

Traffic was light, so the trip was quick. We were arching across Portland's iconic Fremont Bridge, high above the city lights and the Willamette River, before Danny said anything.

“Just come out with it,” he commanded. “What's wrong?”

I'm no pushover, but Danny can be a real bulldozer.

I kept driving, pretending a rapt interest in the steel bridge's tied-arch design. We were zooming along the lower of its two decks as we headed back home. “Nothing,” I said.

My security expert laughed. “You're a terrible liar.”

“In my world, that's a good quality.” I shifted him a sideways glance as I changed lanes. “So, got a date now?”

He grunted. “That wasn't what that was about.”

I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. That was a tactic,” Danny informed me. “You were running out of steam with Carissa—probably because you were horrified by how cold-blooded she was—so I picked up the slack. That's how we work. As a team. I'm better at gruesome stuff.”

“
I'm
better at gruesome stuff,” I rebutted automatically.

He didn't argue.
There.
I'd just successfully lied.
Take that, Jamieson.
I sped off the bridge toward home.

Then, “How did you know to use that tactic on her?”

Danny's sardonic face turned to mine. “Being friendly?”

“Making love to her with your eyes.” I turned. “Yeah.”

“‘Making love'? Ew.” He guffawed, giving me a look. “What are you, a walking self-help book? Who
says
stuff like that?”

I ignored that. He was trying to sidetrack me. “Well?”

Danny shrugged. “I wanted to make sure Carissa stayed in touch with me. In case you're wrong, and we find out later that Janel wasn't the one who murdered Declan.”

We still hadn't heard how Janel was doing. She might still get out of the hospital. But not before we turned her in.

“Janel murdered Declan,” I assured him. “Everything Carissa told us verifies it. Carissa might still flee, you know. If she does become a fugitive, why would she even contact you? How?”

“You know why.” Danny waggled his eyebrows provocatively. “As for the how . . . Outlaw Meetup,” he deadpanned. “You know, like Match.com or OkCupid. We all use it. Crooks have needs, too.”

“You're not a crook anymore,” I reminded him.

My security expert went silent. That worried me.

Then, “It's not a real dating site. You know that, right?”

No.
“Of course.” I waved blithely. “I knew the whole time. Just like I knew you weren't really interested in Carissa.”

“Oh, I'm really interested in Carissa.”

I gulped. Was I supposed to support this? I wanted to always be there for Danny, but—

Danny's laughter cut me off in mid deliberation. “See?” he told me assuredly. “You're too nice to track down killers. You should put away your gumshoe sign before it gets tarnished.”

“I'm trying to, believe me.” I felt better having talked to him. I don't like being on the outs with Danny. “If people would just stop dropping dead wherever I go, I'd have a shot at it.”

“You've got to try harder,” Danny urged. “Pretend those dead bodies are me, and you're giving me the silent treatment.”

“Har, har.” Anyway, it was beyond unlikely that I'd encounter a
third
murder victim. I didn't need advice on how to handle something that wasn't ever going to happen. “I think I'll call Travis and tell him you've finally gotten through to me.”

“You do that,” Danny suggested brashly. “I like the idea of Harvard knowing
I'm
the one who finally got you to quit.”

Quit
. He'd
had
to use that word, hadn't he?

I wondered if they'd had a bet going, Travis and Danny.

Well, I
was
quitting. For tonight, at least. I'd lined up the suspects and knocked them down, leaving us with Janel safely secured in Providence Portland, where she couldn't hurt anyone else, and all the rest of the Cartoramians accounted for.

“You'd better watch it,” I warned Danny. “I'll go stirring up some trouble, just to keep things interesting. I promise.”

He shot me a concerned look. Then his dark, rough-around-the-edges features softened. Knowingly. “You mean you'll flirt with someone, too, just to bug me. Yeah. Good luck with that.”

How did he keep doing that? Reading my mind that way?

“Wouldn't you like to know what kind of trouble I'm headed for?” I tried to sound mysterious. “It could be
anything.
”

“It's flirting. I know it is.” Danny studied me with disconcerting thoroughness—almost as if he
hadn't
known me forever. “Just don't do that thing you do with your teeth.”

“What, you mean smile?”

“That's the one.” He gazed out the car's window. “Don't do that one, or the poor sucker won't stand a chance.”

I smiled. It was nicer when Danny's charm was aimed at me.

Then I drove us into our cozy neighborhood, past the rows of Eisenhower houses, all the way to our temporary home.

Sixteen

“You're not going to believe this,” I told Danny the next morning. We'd both gotten up (relatively) early to hit up one of my favorite Stumptown coffee shops. It was misty outside, but we were warm and dry inside with a quad Americano (Danny) and a cappuccino (me), plus a trio of pastries. I hadn't been able to choose just one; my sometime bodyguard had urged me to throw caution to the wind. I knew there was a reason I liked him.

“Try me.” With uncharacteristic lightness, Danny glanced at my laptop screen, where I'd been tying up loose ends relating to Portland and the Chocolate After Dark tour. If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought he was relieved that I'd survived our latest deadly adventure. But Danny never worried. “What's up?”

I nodded at the digital dossier Travis had sent me—before he'd known that we'd already pinpointed Janel for Declan's murder. I'd been idly going through it. It wasn't unthinkable for Travis to decide to quiz me later on its contents. He was pedantic that way. He'd dotted every
i
and crossed every
t;
he was particular. The dossier had an index, for Pete's sake.

Travis had clearly done a lot of work on my behalf. I didn't want to be unappreciative, so I'd been reading.

Okay,
and
I was curious. Pruriently curious. Travis had dug up skeletons that even the Cartoramians had forgotten they'd buried. His dossier made entertaining reading—especially when combined with a flaky marionberry hand pie and/or buttery maple twist and/or scrumptious almond croissant. Or all three of them.

I know, they're not chocolate. So shoot me. Sometimes even
I
need a break from my dark and delicious specialty.

“Tomasz isn't your everyday sensitive and penniless bartender, after all,” I told Danny, still reading. “He's—”

“Secretly a poet? A champion whittler? A cobbler?”

I smiled at my security expert's attempt at shoe-related humor. “He's a trust-fund kid from a superwealthy family in New York City.” I kept reading, scanning faster now. “He's worth . . .” I paused, trying to tamp down my surprise. “He's worth
millions.
”

“I knew it. Berk
is
your dream man, after all.”

I wouldn't have gone that far. Especially since I knew Danny had an ax to grind against the affluent. But I couldn't resist teasing him. “Tomasz
might
measure up, I guess, but you never know. After all, I have some pretty
big
dreams.”

“Ha. Don't make me crack a dick joke here. I'll do it.”

I laughed, unfazed by Danny's ribald sense of humor. I was used to it. I sometimes indulged, too. Don't tell my clients.

“Tomasz did a really good job of hiding his wealth,” I mused. I didn't know what to make of this new information. After all, usually
I
was the one downplaying my fortune. I'd never met anyone else who was interested in discretion when it came to throwing around the cash. “I really thought he was broke.”

“He obviously wanted you to think he was broke.”

“Me and everyone else. I never suspected a thing.”

Wait. I had to take that back. I
had
suspected something was up with Tomasz's very fine Arnys suit—the one he'd worn to Declan's funeral. I'd obviously noticed his nice brogues, too.

“And that doesn't seem shady to you?” Danny asked.

I stopped pondering Tomasz's wardrobe and took a bite of my maple twist.
Yum.
I shook my head. “No, why would it?”

“Because he was deliberately keeping it a secret.”

“You're just bugged because
you
didn't guess, either.” I scanned Travis's digital dossier, reading the details. “Tomasz inherited his money.”
Just like me.
“He's used to having it.”

“What a problem.” Danny's expression soured.

I gave him a
cheer-up
shoulder bump. “An inheritance has its share of problems,” I reminded him. “For instance, sometimes I wonder if people want to hang out with me because they like me or because I can foot the bill for whatever we're doing.”

“Hey,
I
paid for breakfast.” His face grew darker.

I smiled. “Plus, having to report my whereabouts to Travis is no cakewalk. Do you think I like having a financial leash?”

It was ironic. For me, the main benefit of having access to all of Uncle Ross's cash was freedom—freedom that felt a tiny bit curtailed every time I had to check in with my sexy keeper.

“You could have turned down the money,” Danny pointed out.

“What am I, crazy?” I laughed, hoping to ease the tension between us. I kept the details of my financial situation pretty well veiled. Danny knew the bare minimum—such as, I could afford to gallivant around the world . . . luxuriously, if I wanted to. I could afford to fly us both to exotic locations on a whim, then pay for everything once we were there. I could keep myself in Converse and crossbody bags for a
very
long time. Let's just say I'm comfortable and leave it at that. “Then I'd have to work harder—maybe even take on more clients.
Ugh.
Who wants that?”

The funny thing was, most of the time, Danny and Travis were more interested in growing my chocolate-whispering business than I was. I'm not lazy. It's just that I'm more attracted to the challenges of a particular consulting job than its lucrativeness—or its ability to net me a bigger fish down the road.

I'd stumbled onto chocolate whispering. Serendipitously. I liked it. I didn't want it to become
work
in the usual sense.

“You'd have to turn in your reports on time. Impossible.” Danny shook his head, playing along. “You're right. It's better to be filthy rich.” He finished his half of our (lip-smacking) almond croissant. “So, why is Tomasz hiding all his money?”

“Probably for the same reasons I hide mine,” I guessed.

It was interesting that we had something else in common.

“
You
bend over backward to hide your moola because you're being nice to me.” Danny watched the baristas. “I'm not that sensitive, you know. I can handle your undeserved windfall.”

Right.
The fact that he'd called it “undeserved” was a big tip-off. I was edging onto thin ice. My financial situation was a touchy subject between Danny and me. Usually, I avoided talking about it. I'd already put us on uncomfortable footing last night with my unanticipated reaction to Danny's faux flirting with Carissa. From here on, I just wanted harmony.

Apparently, my burly longtime friend felt the same way, because he chose that moment to peruse my laptop screen rather than continue our discussion of wealth and its drawbacks.

“What's that about Common Grounds?” Danny pointed to the itemized list of Tomasz's financial holdings. “Don't tell me Berk lucked into all that cash with a fancy-coffee dynasty.”

Common Grounds.
It did sound like a Starbucks-style enterprise—one that was too upmarket to serve ordinary java.

Then I remembered. “Common Grounds is Cartorama's landlord. They own the property that all the food carts are parked on.”

“You mean
Tomasz Berk
is Cartorama's landlord?”

“I guess so,” I said, feeling taken aback.

Danny was, too. We both sat there in the bustling coffee shop, watching the rain hit the windows, inhaling the delicious aromatic roasted coffee scents and listening to the muted thumps that sounded as the baristas struck spent espresso grounds from their portafilters. I looked at my security expert. He looked at me.

“I didn't see that one coming,” I told Danny.

“Me either.” He frowned. It was evident that he was mentally reviewing everything I'd told him about the cart pod's fight against development. So was I. “Berk isn't the entirety of the Common Grounds consortium, but for our purposes, he might as well be,” Danny reflected. “He's the one who's
here.
”

I pondered that for a minute but turned up nothing. It seemed as though Tomasz being Cartorama's landlord
ought
to be a more meaningful revelation. After all, it was a
big
secret.

“This means that
Tomasz
was the one who refused to sell to developers,” I told Danny, realizing it even as I scanned Travis's dossier for more surprises. “
He
was the one who refused to let the property become an apartment complex. Without him, all the food cart vendors would have needed to find new homes. Affordable parking spaces are getting scarce around here, too. But Tomasz saved them all.” I shook my head, marveling at what he'd done. “He didn't want any credit for doing it, either.”

That was admirable, partly because I had no doubt Tomasz could have realized a big profit if he'd sold the Cartorama property. I knew the vendors' rents were (relatively) cheap.

At the rate the Cartoramians paid, he wasn't getting any wealthier, that was for sure. “That is
remarkable,
” I said.

“Hold on. Back it up.” Danny held up his palms. “Before you get all starry-eyed, remember we're not talking about Robin Hood here. It's not heroic for Berk to continue business as usual.”

“It's heroic to turn down a humongous profit in order to continue business as usual.” That's exactly what Tomasz had done when he'd refused to sell the Cartorama property. “Amazing.”

Danny shook his head. “He's not a saint, Hayden.”

“I'm going on a date with a saint!” I grinned, needling him on purpose. Just a little. “How's that for a going-away-from-Portland party? Never mind about Tommy's antique cacao roaster,” I said, referring to my plans to see it in action with Tomasz later. “I'm going to go for the gusto.”

“Humph.” Danny grumbled. “If that's a euphemism—”

Ha. I'd known he'd make that racy joke eventually. “I guess we'll probably sit around comparing portfolios,” I gibed with a nonchalant air. “We'll debate stocks versus bonds, and trustees versus butlers, then figure out who's richer, me or him.”

Danny made a face. “Sounds like a real rager.”

I laughed, then gave him a consoling pat. “Don't worry. At the end of the day, I'll always want to come home to your dirty jokes and unholy love of
Antiques Roadshow
marathons.”

Confidentially, I thought Danny's binge-watching of that show was just a cover. Probably, he was doing research on things he could lift for profit. Or revisiting items he'd
already
stolen during his former mad-and-bad days as a criminal.

“I know you will,” Danny told me, confident of the appeal of his dangerous ways and lovable heart. “I'm counting on it.”

“Yeah, well—don't get too sure of me. I might surprise you one of these days.” I finished the rest of my (perfect) cappuccino, then stood and slung on my (new/old) crossbody bag.
Ah.
Now everything was just as it was supposed to be. “I'm off to the police station. Are you sure you don't want to come?”

I was provoking him again. Danny has a well-known desire to avoid law-enforcement agencies. Even though he's clean now, he likes to steer clear. I couldn't say I blamed him. If I had a rap sheet like Danny does, I'd probably do the same thing.

I don't like being hassled, either—or feeling under pressure . . . both of which probably play into my longtime procrastination habit. Danny and I had that much in common, even if
his
avoidance tactic was chronic lateness, instead. It was one of his rare flaws.

His steely gaze met mine. “I'll let you have all the glory this time. Let me know how it goes. I'm there if you need me.”

It said a lot about our friendship that Danny was willing to set foot in the police station if I wanted him to. “Thanks, but it should be pretty standard-issue stuff.”

I'd made an appointment to speak with a detective about what we'd uncovered while talking with Carissa—and to turn over that scrap of plastic wrap. If I was right, the authorities would lift Janel's fingerprints from it. (And mine, of course, which I wasn't looking forward to explaining. I'm not exactly licensed to poke into suspicious “accidents.”) That proof, taken together with what I'd recorded while at Carissa's last night, ought to be enough to get Janel arrested for Declan's murder.

She wouldn't be difficult to find; she was still in Providence Portland. I'd texted Austin earlier. He hadn't had any details—only that Janel's injuries were still considered critical. No one expected her to leave the hospital anytime soon.

I felt sorry for Janel, but I couldn't deny feeling relieved, too. At least now she wouldn't hurt anyone else.

“Where can I drop you?” I asked Danny, jangling the keys to my rented Honda. “The local men's shoe emporium, maybe?”

He laughed and almost choked on his Americano. Whoops.

I helpfully patted him on the back. Geez, he was muscular.

Shrugging off my attentive touch, Danny slung on his jacket. “If you're hoping I'll get a pair of those ‘take care of a house and kids' shoes, you're barking up the wrong tree.”

I widened my eyes. “Not even if they're nice monk straps?”

“
Especially
if they're nice monk straps.”

I waited a beat, studying him. He'd grown his dark hair a little longer than his usual military-style cut, I noticed.

“You know that's a real style of men's shoes, right?”