Chocolate Most Deadly (Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries Book 2) (12 page)

CHAPTER
24

“Delilah is a felon?” Viveca
gasped. “What did she do?”

It was around seven that evening.
We were sitting on the front porch at Sky High Pies. The prep work was done. I
was still giddy that the delivery to Blanche Speltzer went so well. And I was slowly
sipping a glass of mint tea over peach-infused ice cubes. When Viveca called
earlier, I invited her to stop by so we could talk about her brother’s
situation.

“Delilah and a couple of her
ne’er-do-well friends committed mail fraud,” I answered. “And money laundering.
She was nineteen at the time.”

Viveca stared into her glass of
tea. She swirled the cubes around, whispering softly under her breath. I caught
her brother’s name and something about repeating mistakes before she asked me
what else Trent had reported.

“That was it really,” I said. “He’d
been talking to Adam Caldwell about a presentation they’re working on together.
Adam mentioned that you and I were visiting Tim’s building when we...” I let
her fill in the blanks without bringing up the gunshot victim or the disheveled
state of Delilah’s apartment. “I think Trent’s just trying to protect us,” I
said. “He’s concerned that we’re in over our heads.”

I took a leisurely sip of tea while
Viveca processed the information. After another long day running between the
kitchen and dining room, I was beat. It felt good to sit on the porch with the
early evening breeze and something cool to drink.

“Do you think we are?” she said
quietly.

“What—in over our heads?”

She nodded. “Didn’t you deal with
this sort of thing before?” Her voice quivered slightly. “When you were a
detective in Chicago?”

“I did, but that’s my old life,” I
explained. “And whenever my boss and I happened upon something like you and I
found yesterday, we got the police involved immediately.”

“Which we did,” Viveca said. “I
mean, which
you
did by calling 911.”

We sat quietly for a moment. I
could tell that she was trying to maintain her composure. And I couldn’t blame
her. The past few months had been especially difficult for Viveca. After struggling
to say afloat for several years, her bookstore in Boise had finally closed,
leaving her deeply in debt and heartbroken. When her uncle passed away and she
inherited the house next door to Sky High Pies, she’d moved to Crescent Creek
to start over. At first, things were working out as planned—until her brother
and his girlfriend somehow ended up in the middle of a double murder.

“What’s next?” she said after
finishing her tea. “How do you suggest I find my brother?”

I took a sip to buy myself some
time to think of a suitable reply. I wanted to help. But I also had a business
to run. I couldn’t afford to drive to Denver every afternoon when Sky High
closed to try and dredge up clues about Tim’s whereabouts.

“Kate?”

I put down my tea. “Viv?”

“I’m scared,” she murmured. “I
don’t want my brother to end up like that guy in Delilah’s apartment.”

“Nobody wants that,” I said. “But
since we don’t know how to get in touch with any of his friends, there’s not
much we can do.”

“So then what—I just sit here and
wait?”

“Well, there is actually one thing
I was thinking about earlier,” I said. “If we did some sleuthing, maybe we
could find your brother and figure out who’s responsible for the murders.”

“Okay,” Viveca said. “How do we do
that?”

I got up from the rocking chair,
walked across the porch and leaned against the railing. “It’s what I used to do
in Chicago,” I said. “You gather clues. You put them together. And you hope the
mystery is unraveled or the crime is solved.”

“I’m ready,” Viveca said. “Just
tell me where to start. I know you’re busy with this place. I can drive back to
Denver in the morning.”

I smiled. “I know you can, but I
want to think this through first. Give me the night, okay? I’ll go up and soak
in the tub. That’s what I used to do in Chicago when I was starting a new
case.”

She laughed. “Did you really?”

I nodded.

“That’s so
you
, Kate. I
mean, Sherlock Holmes plays his violin. Miss Marple knits or gardens. And that
little French guy—”

“Hercule Poirot?”

“That’s the one, he—”

“He’s actually from Belgium,” I
said quickly. “I was a voracious reader when I was a kid. I read all of those
books at night before bed.”

“Okay, so he’s not French,” said
Viveca with a shrug. “But you know what I mean. It’s just cute that you run a
bath and then think about how to find a missing person or solve a crime.”

“Well, in Chicago it was more like
how to snag the cheating husband or where the business partner hid the
embezzled funds. Rodney and I didn’t actually get involved in things like
murder or runaway family members. It was more domestic discord and white collar
crime.”

“Rodney’s the man you worked for,
right?” she asked. “The one you told me about?”

I nodded. “He was the best. And I
miss him every day.”

When I first arrived back in
Crescent Creek, I’d told Viveca about my life in Chicago one night over a glass
of wine. We bonded while chattering and laughing and sipping chilled
chardonnay. She’d bared her soul about failed romances and the pain of closing
her bookstore; I’d told her about the untimely death of my mentor in Chicago, a
kind-hearted private investigator named Rodney Alexander.

“I’m sorry that you went through
all of that,” Viveca said gently.

“Thanks.” I finished my tea and
dropped the ice cubes over the porch railing. “And I’m sorry you’re going
through this nightmare with your brother.”

She yawned. “I appreciate that,
Kate. You’re a good neighbor.”

“And a tired one,” I said, covering
my mouth as I mirrored her yawn. “These long days are brutal.”

Viveca got up from her chair and
wrapped me in a hug. When she stepped back, I saw tears in her eyes.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said.
“One way or another. If your brother is involved in this, he’ll face justice.
And if he’s not, the facts will prove his innocence.”

She brushed at her eyes. “I know, but
it’s so stressful.”

“Maybe you should try a bubble bath
when you get home,” I said. “It always makes me feel better.”

With a sleepy smile, she promised
to let me know if her brother called during the night. I told her that I would
be in touch the next day after I’d had a chance to think about things. I
watched until she was climbing the front steps at her place before I headed up
to my apartment. My feet were killing me. My entire body ached. And the promise
of a relaxing soak in a hot bath gave me the oomph I needed to clamber up the
stairs, shed my clothes and fill the tub with steamy water fragranced with
lemon and coconut.

CHAPTER
25

I was dreaming about Zack Hutton
taking my picture in a pristine white room when I startled awake with a gasp.

“Nice one, Kate,” I muttered,
shivering against the icy water in the bathtub. “Fortunately, you didn’t drown
yourself this time.”

While I thanked my lucky stars that
I hadn’t accidentally slipped beneath the sudsy water, I climbed out and
grabbed a towel. Then I gasped again, catching a glimpse of the pale, shriveled
prune in the mirror.

“You look terrifying,” I told my
waterlogged doppelgänger. “But I still love you.”

As I dried my hair, I heard the
phone ringing in the bedroom. I quickly abandoned the towel, wrapped myself in
my robe and scrambled down the hall. I scooped up the phone just in time.

“Hello?”

“It’s me,” Viveca said. “Is it too
late?”

“Not at all.”

“Were you sleeping?”

“I just finished my bath. What’s
up?”

“I wanted to tell you something,”
she said. “I was going through old emails that my brother sent me and I found
one that mentioned his girlfriend.”

“Delilah?”

“Yes, Tim said they go to some kind
of meeting together,” Viveca said. “I don’t know for certain, but maybe he was
talking about AA.”

“Did he say where it was?”

“No, but there can’t be that many
of them, right? I mean, maybe we could find out which one they go to and then
see if anybody there knows where they might be.”

“Sounds reasonable,” I said. “Do
you mind forwarding your brother’s emails to me?”

“All of them?” she asked.

“Just the ones that mention
Delilah,” I said. “Or anything else that jumps out at you as strange or
unusual.”

She laughed. “That’s all of them,
Kate!” She giggled lightly. “My brother’s a character. Ever since we were kids,
he’s cracked me up with the way he views the world.”

“Well, for the time being, maybe
just send me anything that seems like it might be related to what’s going on
right now.”

“I can do that.”

“Great,” I said. “If you shoot them
to me tonight, I’ll take a quick look before I go to bed.”

She apologized for calling so late.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.
“You may have actually saved me from drowning.”

Another bouncy laugh came through
the phone. “Did you fall asleep in the tub?”

“Yet again,” I said. “I should
probably start wearing a life preserver when I take a bath after I’ve been on
my feet since the crack of dawn.”

We chatted for a few more minutes
about Tim and Delilah. Then I slipped on a nightgown and climbed into bed with my
laptop. The emails from Viveca had arrived: ten short, cryptic dispatches from
RinTinTim303 to V4Viveca. Some were so enigmatic—short bursts of words without
any punctuation or capitalization—that it was like reading a foreign language:
show
last night nada bueno why u skip neighbor there and u could have met maybe next
time bad dog says hi!
Others were less obscure, but without the necessary
subtext to understand what he was talking about:
Remember when mom told us
about Uncle Butch? Totally freaking unbelievable. It runs in the family,
something that could happen to any of us, something that can kill me. But you
dodged the bullet. Makes you lucky, lucky, lucky!!! Wish I was the same. Did I
tell you my girlfriend took me to a meeting last Thursday? So cool. Makes me
feel less alone with it somehow.

Since I remembered seeing the
Alcoholics Anonymous handbook on the floor in Delilah’s living room, I
connected the dots and made a note to ask Viveca the next day if her brother
was in recovery.

It was nearly midnight. The alarm would ring in less than five hours, so I decided it was time to go back to sleep.
The bathtub nap had left me feeling bleary, and staring at the laptop for the
past half hour was making me drowsy all over again.

As I clicked off the light and
settled back into the pillows, I suddenly remembered one more thing about the
scene at Delilah’s apartment: carryout menus for Lucky Jade Bowl. I turned the
light on again, grabbed my computer and quickly cross-referenced locations for
Thursday night AA meetings in Denver with the address of the popular Chinese
restaurant on York Street.

“Bingo!” I said, finding a location
on the same street a few blocks from Lucky Jade Bowl. “Let’s hope that X marks
the spot.”

CHAPTER
26

Julia was in the kitchen at Sky
High the next morning when I stumbled through the door.

“Don’t you look perky?” she said.

I stared at her blankly, poured a
cup of coffee and slumped against the counter.

“Another late night?”

I smiled and yawned before sampling
the steaming java.

“Should I leave you alone until the
caffeine kicks in?”

I took another sip, luxuriated in
the warm liquid and then apologized for my listless manner.

“Who was it?” she asked. “Zack the
photographer or Deputy Chief Walsh?”

I growled softly like a cartoon grizzly.
“Don’t poke the bear,” I warned. “I wasn’t up late for a romantic tryst. I was
doing some online research.”

Her eyebrows arched. “New recipes?”

I shook my head. “It’s that thing I
told you about,” I answered. “The one that involves Viveca’s brother.”

Julia’s cheerful expression
vanished. “I was afraid you’d do that. I know how much you loved working as a
detective in Chicago.”

“Guilty as charged,” I said, tying
an apron around my waist. “But this is more about doing a favor for a friend.”

She asked if Viveca’s brother was
in some kind of trouble. I gave her a quick recap of the past few days. Then I
swore her to secrecy.

“Mum’s the word,” she said. “I’m
just sorry to hear that Viveca’s brother is involved in something like that.”

“Me, too. But it’s really
impossible to tell exactly what’s going on at this point. Tim claims he’s
innocent. And there are a couple of characters in his building that I need to
check out.”

Julia heaved a sigh. “Just promise
me one thing, okay?”

I smiled, waiting for more.

“Just take care of yourself, Kate.”

“As always,” I promised.

“Does Trent know that you’re
snooping around in this mess?”

“He does indeed,” I answered. “He
actually put me in touch with a detective friend of his in Denver. Viveca and I
met with the guy briefly to talk about things.”

“And?”

I shrugged. “And he’s nice enough,”
I said. “But he’s sticking pretty close to Denver PD protocol. Since I’m an
outsider, he can’t really say too much.”

She shook her head and snickered.
“But that won’t stop you, will it?”

“Nope,” I said, joining in the
laughter. “Once the bug bites, I’ve got to follow it through until I get to the
bottom of things.”

“How about
we
get to the
bottom of
that
?” She pointed at the prep list on the whiteboard. “I’d
like to leave a little early if possible. My brother and his family are driving
through on their way to Dallas. I’d love to spend some time with them while
they’re in town.”

“Absolutely, Jules. How about you
leave as soon as the lunch rush is over?”

“What about all of the prep?” she
asked.

“I’ll worry about that,” I said.
“Whatever we don’t do this morning, I can tackle this afternoon.”