Dangerously Dark (4 page)

I wasn't sure what doing “it” involved. But under the circumstances, there was only one thing to say. I squeezed Carissa's hand. “I'll do whatever you need me to,” I promised.

Like magic, my words got Carissa upright. She took in the waiting paramedics, glanced at anxious Beardy, then returned her attention to me. Like a frail ghost of her formerly cheerful self, she tried to smile. All she could muster was a lip wobble.

Carissa was being
so
brave. I teared up all over again.

If my would-be fiancé turned up dead during my engagement party weekend, I would have hoped to have behaved just as admirably as Carissa was, I decided as I helped her outside—me with one arm, and Beardy with the other. Carissa was remarkable.

And okay, so her fixation with making sure Declan's culinary tour launched on time was a little odd. But there was no telling how people would react to trauma. I knew that. Sometimes people focused on random details during a catastrophe, as a way of momentarily escaping whatever ordeal was at hand. By this time tomorrow, probably, Carissa would have forgotten all about the way she'd talked about the Chocolate After Dark tour.

She'd have forgotten about my promise to launch it, too, more than likely. Not that that's what I was thinking about over the next half hour or so, as we all—vendors, visitors, and neighborhood residents alike—waited for the EMTs' pronouncement.

The paramedics checked out Carissa, then released her to us. The Portland police arrived and took statements—from me, from Beardy, and from Carissa. A local TV-news satellite van parked across the street behind my rented Civic, disgorged its crew, then grabbed footage of the goings-on, even as Deep V-Neck—the wiry, frowning man I'd noticed earlier—crossed the street and berated them for it. He scowled, dark and intense.

I couldn't hear what he was saying, but body language didn't lie. Whoever he was, he wasn't pleased with Oregon's news media invading Cartorama during its moment of misfortune.

All too soon, Declan's body was carried out of the trailer on a scoop stretcher, hideously zipped into a large plastic bag. By then, I think we were all becoming numbed to the proceedings. Hugging Carissa tightly, I watched as the EMTs loaded Declan's body into their waiting ambulance. The controlled, purposeful activity of the past thirty minutes felt like a dream.

Well, technically, it felt like a nightmare. Especially for Carissa. She couldn't stop crying. Everyone had rallied around her, exchanging worried, teary-eyed glances and helpless words of sympathy. None of us knew what to do or how to do it.

The surprising thing about tragedy is, life goes on—and so do you, one moment at a time. Maybe by numbing out. Maybe by clinging to a routine. Maybe by becoming cynical or angry—or by engaging in some unprecedented sleuthing. I'd learned that after seeing someone close to me die unexpectedly in San Francisco.

Then, I'd helped bring some justice to the situation. Now, I just wanted to be there for Carissa, in any way I could.

Not that my sentiments were shared by
everyone,
I couldn't help observing. The vivacious-looking brunette I'd noticed earlier had vanished shortly after the EMTs had arrived. I'd last glimpsed the short (but not especially petite) piglet T-shirt wearer at about the same time. Not everyone was good in a crisis. Me? I'm usually on the move myself. But not this time.

“Carissa, I'm going to be in town awhile,” I told her as gently as I could, deciding in that moment to stay as long as was necessary. “If there's
anything
I can do to help—”

“Just get Chocolate After Dark off the ground,” she said in a desperate tone. “For me. For Declan. For all of us. Okay?”

Her teary gaze swept Cartorama and its vendors. Everyone around me seemed to shift uneasily. Then Carissa pushed away, hauled in a deep breath, and followed the EMTs to the ambulance.

Her slender shoulders trembled as she peeked inside it. Then she climbed in beside Declan Murphy's lifeless body, the ambulance doors closed behind her, and Carissa was gone.

 

 

As soon as the ambulance pulled away—moving with an awful slowness that told everyone at Cartorama there was no help for Declan Murphy now—I wished I'd gotten into it with Carissa.

“One of us should have gone with her.” Beardy stood nearby me, clenching his cast-off flannel shirt in his fist as he watched the ambulance disappear down the tree-lined street. “Carissa shouldn't be alone right now. Not after all this.”

His emotional tone was heartbreaking. He was obviously upset by the events of the morning—and
I'd
callously thought he'd seemed guilty earlier. What was the matter with me?

I couldn't let what had happened at Maison Lemaître color my whole life in shades of gray. That was no way to go forward.

There weren't killers around every corner,
I reminded myself. The paramedics had told us Declan's death had seemed to be an accident. The police had agreed. It helped. A little.

“She won't be alone,” I told Beardy, taking refuge in that fact. One of the vendors had already called Carissa's parents. They'd be meeting her soon. “You were really amazing,” I added, meaning it. “Thanks for all you did this morning. I don't know how I'd have gotten Carissa out without you.” I held out my hand to him. “I'm Carissa's friend from college, Hayden Mundy Moore.”

I'm here for Carissa's engagement party,
I was about to say. But he cut me off before I could explain my presence there.

“You're the chocolate expert. Yeah, Carissa told us about you.” Warmly, he clasped my hand. “I'm Austin Martin.”

Austin stopped, seeming to wait for something. I didn't know what. He gave a fleeting, puzzled frown, then went on.

“I run The Chocolate Bar cart next door.” He angled his burly shoulder toward the small, brightly painted building I'd noticed earlier. It stood partly open with its counter bare. “I specialize in imported, nostalgia, and hard-to-find candy bars.”

“Do you stock Kit Kat Chunky?” I couldn't help asking, taking refuge in normalcy. I needed the comfort just then. “Cadbury Double Decker? Flakes?” I inhaled, then,
“Maltesers?”

Those were among my international favorites. Austin's eyes brightened. “Of course. Plus, Terry's Chocolate Orange. Kinder Bueno. Mars bars. Aero bars.
Every
kind of Kit Kat. The works.”

My eyes widened at the possibilities. You might not know this, but Nestlé makes Kit Kat bars in all kinds of flavors, all over the world. Strawberry in Japan. Cookie dough in Australia. Banana in Canada. I don't know why those flavors don't play in the States. They just don't. They're not exactly artisanal chocolates made of extra-spendy, ultra-rare Criollo cocoa beans and handmade praline, but they're pretty tasty, all the same.

“Sometimes I get a wicked craving for a nice Matcha Kit Kat,” I confessed. “I'll have to hit up your cart sometime.”

We both smiled, momentarily connecting over something less traumatic than Declan's death. The other vendors and neighborhood residents still milled around, murmuring in groups of two or three. It was awkward, but also consoling. I guess none of us wanted to be alone just then. It felt heartless to go back to ordinary life while Carissa was facing such a crisis. Maybe that's why I lingered. Even though I didn't know anyone there, I didn't want to be alone. Not then. Not after . . . everything.

“So you really were great with Carissa,” I told Austin, feeling inexorably drawn back to those events. “Without you—”

“Carissa would have been asphyxiated. Just like Declan.”

I didn't understand. “Asphyxiated? In her trailer?” That's what one of the EMTs had alluded to earlier, but it still didn't make sense to me. “But Carissa was alone. I checked.”

Foolishly,
I recalled. A wave of nausea rolled over me at the memory. I still felt overwhelmed. Light-headed too. You know that feeling you get when you've mainlined six espressos standing at the counter in a Naples caffe? No? Well, it involves a lot of shakiness, buzzy thoughts, dry mouth, and queasiness.

Overall, it's not pleasant. But at least
I
was alive.

Poor Declan.
How could he have been asphyxiated? Aside from the frost on his face, he'd seemed to be the picture of health.

I wished I could have met him earlier. Seen him and Carissa together. Helped them embark on their married life together.

Now that would never happen.
Poor Carissa.

“It's not
who
attacked Carissa. It's
what,
” Austin told me. “The air in that trailer was dangerously low on oxygen. Carissa must have rushed in there and been overcome almost instantly.”

I remembered her haste to impress me. I nodded. “She did.”

“It's a good thing you followed her. Another minute or two without sufficient oxygen, and she would have been in serious trouble. I'm guessing that the open trailer door let in enough air to keep you upright and Carissa okay—once she was outside.”

But not Declan.
I frowned. “Whatever got to Declan is the same thing that made Carissa pass out? Like a poison?”

I wasn't sure how that meshed with the asphyxiation theory.

“Sort of. Do you know much about liquid nitrogen?”

I shook my head. “My oeuvre is chocolate. That's it.”

“Well, liquid nitrogen is a cryogenic liquefied gas.” Austin gave me a watchful look. “That means it gets—”

“Really cold. I don't need the kindergarten version.”

He almost smiled at that. I was starting to like him—flannel shirt, shaggy hair, Portland-style beard, and all.

“Right. Well, aside from being cold, liquid nitrogen is also colorless, odorless, tasteless, noncorrosive, and nonflammable. Ordinarily, it's nontoxic and inert—”

“Which is why it's used for freezing ice cream,” I surmised, “and in molecular gastronomy.” In certain Michelin-starred restaurants, I knew, fancy foams and flavored orbs were all the rage. I still didn't get how it led to suffocation.

“Yes.” Austin nodded. “But in certain circumstances, it can also produce tissue damage, cause cold contact burns—”

I remembered the frost on Declan's face and shivered.

“—or act as a simple asphyxiant. One with no early-warning system.” Austin's tone suggested I should be following along.

I appreciated the vote of confidence, but . . . “You lost me.”

“Okay. Let's put it this way. Atmospheric air—the air we breathe—is a mixture of oxygen and inert nitrogen, plus small amounts of other gases and water vapor. Make sense so far?”

I was getting antsy. It had been a long day already.

Plus, after hearing Carissa ramble on about science while she'd been describing Churn PDX, I was beginning to feel like the mental midget in the crowd. Did everyone around here kick it Mr. Wizard style? Since when did making food require a Ph.D.?

Austin was a slacker type, but he seemed brilliant.

“If allowed into the air we breathe, liquid nitrogen expands rapidly,” he explained, seemingly deciding to skip a few steps to get to the point. “One liter of liquid nitrogen becomes 24.6 cubic feet of nitrogen gas. So if it's released without adequate ventilation—say, in a small, enclosed trailer—”

My gaze shot to Carissa's Airstream. I shivered again.

“—it can displace oxygen in the air and cause suffocation.”

Aha.
Yikes. “
How
do you know all this?”

Modestly, Austin shrugged off my question.

“If that's true,” I pushed, “why would anyone use it?”

“With the proper protective gear and safety devices, it's fine. Laboratories across the country use it with no problem. Even beginner medical students use it to work with tissue samples and things.”

“Yeah,” someone said. “Bars use it with no problem, too.”

Startled, I looked to the side. The dark-haired man I'd noticed berating the news crew earlier stood there, evidently having listened to Austin's scientific spiel without comment.

Until now. “Which is where I suggest we go,” the newcomer suggested with a compassionate look. “The drinks are on me. Let's all hash this over in private at Muddle + Spade.”

His emphasis on “in private” couldn't be missed. Neither could his distinctive cadence (an Eastern European flatness to his vowels) or his overall aura of charisma. Just being around him made me feel a little better somehow. I'd been too busy reacting to the events of the day to notice before (and I was slightly appalled to be noticing now), but he was
gorgeous.

You know, in a “sexy starving artist” kind of way. If he was a guitarist in an indie band that played at Cartorama, or a sculptor who showed his pieces at a nearby gallery, I wouldn't have been surprised. He had that bedraggled-but-sensitive look about him. Tall, broad-shouldered, and sinewy. Dressed in a deep-V-necked T-shirt, jeans rolled up at the hems, and vintage oxfords. A few tattoos, some silvery chains in his chest hair, and icy blue eyes. Not to mention, cheekbones to die for.

Whoops. Scratch that. “To die for” is a terrible idiom.

Austin wasn't impressed. Not by the new guy's modelesque good looks or by his magnetism. My new friend kept talking.

“The first signs that displacement is happening are dizziness, headaches, fatigue, and nausea,” Austin lectured on.

He went on to describe something called the Leidenfrost effect, but I was busy immediately experiencing all of the symptoms he'd mentioned—just as I had, I remembered, when I'd stepped into Carissa's trailer. I felt unsteady and lost, sorry I hadn't done more to help. Probably, Austin did, too. It was clear that he dealt with trauma by taking refuge in facts. We had that in common. I hadn't been able to stop cataloguing Cartorama and its residents since hearing Carissa's scream.