Criminal Confections (26 page)

The idea was to pick out a fantasy partner for the other player, then estimate how long the resulting liaison would last. Whoever guessed wrong had to drink. Also, whoever was forced into admitting a correct pairing had to drink.

Basically, our game was all about drinking. And showing off our knowledge of one another. It wasn't complex.

It let me know things were okay between us, though. It took us away from the turmoil at Maison Lemaître for a night, too.

I hadn't realized how much I'd needed an escape hatch until we'd stepped out of the taxi (not Jimmy's this time), taken a look around, and unanimously decided on the diviest bar on the street. Danny wasn't afraid of any place. I wanted to unwind.

Together . . . we were . . . “Nerd alert. Jukebox. One month.”

At Danny's assertion, I took a look. The “partner” he'd spied for me was tall, bespectacled, and cute. He looked brainy.

I'm a sucker for a smarty-pants. I quaffed my beer.

Danny looked smug. That was the lone pitfall of our game. We knew each other so well that eventually the self-satisfaction we felt at guessing correctly got to be overkill. Also, we usually got tipsy pretty quickly. That wasn't my goal tonight.

Besides, I was on my third watery beer. We'd already been there awhile. I wanted to get down to business before I lost the ability to remember whatever brilliant insights we assembled.

Soberly, I zeroed in on Danny. “So, about Adrienne—”

“About Rex,” he said at the same time, utterly in sync.

I know, it's pretty weird. But that's us. That's why I felt all right about blowing off all the warnings I'd had about him.

“You go first.” Danny gave me a chivalrous gesture. It was pretty funny coming from a beard-stubbled bruiser like him.

Or maybe I was already tipsy. It was possible.

“I think we should break things down,” I told Danny, thumbing the condensation from my beer bottle. That done, I started unpeeling the paper label. “After what happened today—”

Danny's hand covered mine, stopping me. Our gazes met.

“Stop abusing that label and get on with it,” he said.

It was his way of showing concern, I knew. Danny wasn't the mushy type. So I nudged off his hand and then told him about the killer chocolate-fondue body wrap. About my meet-up with Eden. About my confrontation with Christian and my (occasionally bizarre) encounter with Bernard. I omitted (for now) my fleeting love affair with Poopsie and my spa-time girl talk with Nina.

The former made it look as though Danny was right about me and all that sappy picket-fence stuff. The latter only made me remember that Nina (wrongly) thought Danny had concussed me.

I wasn't sure how to finesse
that
misguided tidbit.

“Okay. We've got a few suspects lined up.” No longer fiddling with his whiskey, Danny gave me a serious look. “What we need here are motives. That should clarify things for us.”

“Motives are easy,” I told him. “This one's love. People kill for love—or love gone wrong, I guess—all the time. Right?”

Danny didn't disagree. But he made a hilarious face. “If I'm ever
that
far gone over someone,
you
should kill
me.”

As if I could. “It's a deal.”

“Not that you'll have to.” Then, “As a motive, love is . . .” Danny's gesture dismissed it. “It's got to be money.”

“Money is the motive for someone to kill Adrienne? And Rex?”
And maybe Isabel?
I added silently. “Love is stronger.”

“I think Travis would side with me on this one.”

“Oh. Then I give up. You know what a pushover I am.”

He wasn't intoxicated enough to forget how well he knew me. His head shake belied all the whiskey he'd drunk. “Obviously.”

“I hate to say it,” I told him, ignoring his teasing, “but I think Isabel did it. She wanted Adrienne out of the way so she could have Bernie all to herself to travel the world with her the way she'd dreamed of—especially now that Bernard is retired. She wanted Rex out of the way because he threatened to tell Bernard . . .
something.”
I didn't know what yet. “Maybe Rex was going to tell Bernard about their fling? And Isabel wanted
me
out of the way because I was on the verge of catching her.”

“Whoa. Good going, Sherlock,” Danny cracked. He arched his brow at me, then swirled his finger absently around the rim of his half-full shot glass. He shook his head. “It wasn't Isabel.”

It could have been. “Why not?”

“You're only pointing the finger at her because she's not here.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

Danny gave me a long look. “Isabel is your safest suspect. She demands the least from you. That's what it means.”

What?
I took his whiskey. “You're cut off.”

He relented. I hoped he was about to make sense.

“You hate thinking the worst of people, Hayden,” Danny finally said. He looked at me. “It's one of your biggest flaws.”

I frowned. “In what universe is being nice a flaw?”

“Mine.”

“You're crazy.”

“Mine, where people are trying to kill you,” he persisted. “I'd be willing to bet that you've considered—and dismissed—Adrienne's real killer a dozen times already. You're
too
nice.”

“I don't even know what you're talking about.” Guiltily, I remembered thinking the worst of
him.
He was wrong about me.

Obviously, I could be doubtful with the best of them.

“But if it's Isabel,” Danny told me, hooking his whiskey and taking another drink, “you can doubt her all you want. Risk free. Because she's already gone. If it's someone else—”

“Fine. Let's say Rex is the one who overdosed Adrienne.”

“
Also
conveniently gone,” Danny reminded me.

I was proving his point. Annoyingly. “I wouldn't call being dead ‘convenient.' Rex
could
have killed Adrienne.
For money,”
I argued, pushing to sell my theory. “Maybe he wanted to get her notebook—and her chocolate expertise—at a heavy discount.”

“Maybe,” Danny agreed. We discussed Adrienne's supposed corporate espionage, Rex's financial woes at Melt, and his difficulties partnering with Bernard. “Then who killed Rex?”

We were back at square one. “Bernard?” I guessed. “He was there in the shadows, just like us, and saw Isabel and Rex together last night. He lost his mind, followed Rex, and pushed him off the ridge. I know Bernard is strong enough to do that.”

I reminded Danny of the way the Lemaître founder had grabbed me when I'd almost fallen from the ridge trail at the scavenger hunt—and of Bernard's eerie on-again, off-again warnings. He'd frightened me today. Then again, that was getting easier to do as the secrets, lies, and concussions mounted.

“Bernard could have killed Isabel, too,” I went on, recounting some of my earlier theories, “then made it
look
as though she'd left the resort on her own.” I remembered the Maison Lemaître security cameras I'd seen in the parking lot. “What we need is security footage of the nights in question.”

Danny gave a shrewd smile. He knew what was coming next.

I didn't want to give it to him. But this was an emergency.

Casually, I looked around the bar. “Do you think you could, I dunno, maybe find a way to get ahold of some of that footage?”

Nothing but silence came from my buddy's side of the table. I knew what Danny was thinking, though. I was always on his case about cleaning up his act, going legit,
being on time . . .
even the merest transgressions sometimes warranted a lecture from me, Ms. Goody Two-shoes. He couldn't double-park without me hassling him about the risks he was taking. He wasn't on parole anymore, but—

“Are you asking me to
break the rules
?” Danny asked mildly.

I closed my eyes amid the din of the band tuning up for another round. Guitars assaulted my senses. My conscience had a good poke at me, too. I knew it was wrong, but . . .

“Only a little.”

He laughed. “Already done.” His sparkling eyes irked me. Why did Danny only ever look
truly
happy when he was putting one over on me? “What do you think I was watching on my laptop?”

“On your laptop?” I blinked, trying to remember. Maybe he'd had his computer with him on the bed. I couldn't be sure now.

I might have been too busy being badass to notice.

The only thing left to do was go on the offensive. So I did. “You were watching
Antiques Roadshow,
and you know it.”

“Keep your voice down.” He frowned, then looked around the packed-tight bar. “I don't want to break any heads tonight.”

I stared at him. “You already
have
the security footage?”

“Did you forget who you're dealing with?”

I felt one step behind. It hadn't even occurred to me that such footage might exist until today. Whereas Danny had obviously thought of it
and
gotten it. “How did you get it?”

“The blond waitress. Her boyfriend works in security.”

Aha. “
But what about your pants?” I blurted.

He gave me a puzzled look. “What about them?”

I got busy chugging more beer. I shrugged. Extravagantly.

Time to change the subject. “Did you see anything?”

“On the footage?” At my nod, Danny elaborated. “It's pretty limited. Grounds, lobby, ballroom, meeting rooms . . . plus kitchens and other staff areas. That's it. The resort's security system sucks.” He frowned, then had another drink of whiskey. “Whoever designed it had a clear focus on loss prevention, not safety.”

Befuddled, I gave him a quizzical look. “‘Loss prevention'?”

“Preventing employee theft,” Danny translated with a hard look at me. “That means service elevators, but no guest room hallways—”

“So no evidence of who clobbered me,” I surmised.

“—and no sign of Adrienne outside the kitchen or ballroom, where
we
saw her all night, until she stumbles into frame on the patio outside the welcome reception, with Nina helping her.”

At that reminder of my friend's tragic death, I shivered.

“There's footage of Christian in the ballroom kitchen, where Adrienne was working,” Danny told me, moving on quickly, “so he had access to the caffeine powder.” We'd both agreed that was what Adrienne had probably accidentally “overdosed” on, now that Travis's analysis had ruled out the nutraceutical truffles. “He had access to Adrienne's green drink, too, while she was doling out chocolate to the big shots during the reception. But it's not clear on the footage if Christian tampered with anything.” Danny leaned back, thinking about it. “Although since he's in charge around here, he would have known how to avoid being caught on camera. All I can say for sure is that Christian nearly put back his own body weight in chocolate that night.”

That fit with what I'd seen in his office today. “If he was bingeing on chocolate again,” I said, “that would explain why Christian looked so guilty when we ran into him that night.”

“Yeah. He didn't want to be caught breaking his diet,” Danny deadpanned. He rolled his eyes. “
Or
he murdered Adrienne.”

We didn't seem to be getting any closer to a resolution.

“Bernard thinks Christian pushed Rex off the ridge,” I told Danny. “He also thinks Christian killed Adrienne in retaliation for her wanting to ‘defect' to Melt when Rex offered her a job.”

“‘Defect' is a pretty strong word.”

“It says a lot about Christian's despotic mind-set, right?”

“But Adrienne didn't take that job,” Danny argued—making me wonder, for the first time, why she hadn't. I knew she hadn't enjoyed working for Christian at the “new” Lemaître. “Is Christian
that
petty? He'd kill her for
thinking
of leaving?”

We didn't even need a nanosecond to nod in agreement.

“If she'd
think
it the first time,” I speculated, trying to put myself in Christian's domineering, mistrustful, alligator-skin designer shoes, “then maybe she'd
do
it the second time.”

“Christian wanted to make an example of her.”

I nodded. But where did that leave us?

Still confused, actually.

“That sounds plausible,” Danny mused. He gave a muttered expletive. “Bernard . . . wow. He really told you that? You've got to admire the old coot's willingness to backstab his nephew, straight up. Back in the day, I hear Bernie was a real—”

“Danny!”

“What?”

“Show a little respect, will you?” I shook my head, feeling my whole body start to vibrate in cadence with the band's bass guitar player's rhythms. It got louder. “Bernard Lemaître is the man who all but invented artisanal chocolate. Without him—”

“You might not have been concussed and left for dead?”

That shut me up. Temporarily.

“Pussycat,” Danny yelled into the clamor of the band. “I hear Bernard was a real pussycat, back in the day. That's all I was going to say.” His sarcastic grin was less than convincing.

“Yeah. Right.” I shook my head, not persuaded. “I'm telling you, Christian is a
lot
meaner than Bernard is. He's
venal.”