Dangerously Dark

Book 2: Chocolate Whisperer Mystery

by Colette London

Genres: Cozy Mystery; Private Investigators; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

Hayden Mundy Moore is an expert on everything chocolate, helping clients develop new products and revamp recipes until they're irresistible. But sometimes, a dash of murder finds its way into the mix...

Release date: October 1, 2015

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

You should probably know one thing about me right up front: I’m not a morning person. Never have been, never will be. If it’s too early for traffic jams, tequila, and at least 50 percent of the taxi drivers in any given metropolis to be plying their trade, then it’s too early for me. End of story. But sometimes I have to make exceptions. Doesn’t everyone?

The fact of the matter is, I don’t always set my own hours. Sometimes my clients do that for me. That’s because I’m a freelancer—a freelance chocolate whisperer. You might not have heard of me. I’m the first of my kind. My clients would probably prefer you don’t know I exist. But I definitely do.

My work takes me around the world, where I use my expertise with Theobroma cacao to solve problems (on the QT) for my influential clients. Usually, they find me by referral. I’m not exactly a household name; I don’t want to be. But the downside of working on an on-demand basis is that I don’t always work when I want to.

For instance, consulting for bakeries means getting up with the roosters (because bakers are lunatics). Consulting for multinational corporations means crossing multiple time zones (because CEOs are relentless). Consulting for mega chocolatiers (some of the biggest in the biz) who are desperate for me to troubleshoot their gloopy ganaches and freaky frappés means working around the clock. But that’s okay, because chocolatiers are wonderful—truly some of my favorite people in the world.

So sometimes I’m up at dawn. While I’m working, at least.

For the most part, though, the whole early-bird routine isn’t for me. Neither is planning too far ahead, taking on clients who won’t reveal who referred them to me, or passing up any chance I get to taste a new single-origin varietal chocolate (preferably around 72 percent dark). But after the consultation-gone-wrong that I’d just had, all bets were off.

After everything that had gone down with Lemaître Chocolates in San Francisco, I was ready for a change of pace.

Ordinarily, after finishing one hush-hush assignment for a client, I’m off and running to the next. Partly because it suits me—I grew up rough-traveling the world with a pair of globe-trotting parents who wore out passports the way other parents wore out their suburban SUVs’ tires, so gridskipping feels like walking around the block to me—and partly because if I don’t . . .

Well, my financial advisor—steady, sexy-voiced Travis Turner—could fill you in on the consequences of what happens if I don’t keep my duffel bag and always-packed wheelie suitcase at the ready. Suffice it to say, it’s in my best interest to keep moving, which I do by fixing problems with my clients’ cocoa-butter-filled cookies, cakes, and confections. I like chocolate. It likes me. Together we make magic. For money.

Don’t tell anyone, but I’d do it for free. In a heartbeat.

I’d just rather not do it before noon, if possible.

That’s why, if I’d been a celebrity, there would have been paparazzi present to document my arrival at PDX in Portland, Oregon (since my plane touched down at the earlyish hour of 8:00 A.M.). If I’d been an endangered monkey (instead of a woman with a rampant monkey mind), there would have been a Sir David Attenborough–style voice-over to narrate my transfer from the terminal to the car-rental counter to the highway leading into the city. That’s just how unusual it was to find me, mobile and agile, drinking excellent cappuccino while squinting into the sunshine before eleven o’clock or so. But since I was just me, ordinary Hayden Mundy Moore—thirty, single, possessed of an unusually talented set of taste buds and an admittedly oversize collection of Moleskine notebooks (home of my omnipresent to-do lists)—there wasn’t anyone around to remark upon the fact that I was voluntarily up early. On purpose. Playing hooky.

After leaving Maison Lemaître and its disastrous consultation-turned-murder behind (don’t ask), I’d planned to visit Seattle to meet Travis. In person. For the first time ever. Because I’d (technically) risked my life while bayside, and that kind of thing had a way of reordering a girl’s priorities. I wanted to see the man who (along with my security expert, Danny Jamieson) had helped me sidestep disaster. So I’d booked a ticket online, headed for SFO . . . and gotten a call from Travis just as I’d climbed into a taxi to leave for the airport.

“Seattle, huh?” he’d asked in that memorably husky murmur of his, sounding almost as though he’d set down his calculator and spreadsheets for the occasion. “What’s in Seattle, Hayden?”

“Well, he’s tall, dark, handsome, planephobic—”

“If you’re talking about me, I’m blond.”

How would I know? I’d never so much as seen a photo of him. Travis was notoriously private. On the other hand . . . I had him.

“Who says I mean you?” Of course I meant him. I’d been angling to meet Travis for a long time now—practically from the day he’d taken over for his less enigmatic (and less intriguing) predecessor. A meeting had never worked out for us, though. I was always on the run. Travis was the ultimate homebody.

Danny had met him. In fact, they were archenemies.

I didn’t know why they didn’t get along. They wouldn’t say.

“You can’t come to Seattle,” Travis said. “Not today.”

“Sure, I can.” Stubbornness is my middle name. Except I like to call it persistence. “I already have a ticket. I’m coming.”

That’s why Travis had called, of course. To stop me. He must have seen the airfare purchase show up in my bank account.

See, that was the trouble with my otherwise workable setup with Travis. Stealthiness was tricky to pull off when the person you were trying to surprise could—and did—track your every move.

For the first time, it occurred to me to wonder if Travis had thwarted me this way before. Maybe he wasn’t really gripped by an intense (and, to me, inexplicable) fear of flying. Maybe he was simply determined to keep our relationship professional.

Boringly, frustratingly, professional.

Where was the fun in that?

“No, I mean you can’t come to Seattle today because you’re supposed to be in Portland.” Travis could have been consulting a complex FBI database instead of a simple shared online calendar. That’s how focused he sounded. Which was what I got for having someone as detail-oriented as a CPA keeping my schedule for me. “For your friend’s engagement party. You can’t have forgotten.”

“I . . . might have forgotten.” Rats. Foiled again.

“Hayden.” Travis sounded disappointed. “You forgot?”

“Hey, I was just almost murdered via hot-cocoa mud bath at Maison Lemaître, remember?” Thinking about it, I couldn’t help shuddering. Of all the ways to die, biting it via chocolate-themed spa service would have lacked a certain dignity. On the other hand, my complexion would have looked fabulous. “Cut me a little slack.”

Instead, Travis had gotten back down to business. Even as I’d watched the busy streets of Nob Hill sliding past the taxi’s window, my financial advisor had squashed my plans.

“I’ll send you the Evite again with the details,” he’d said, typing in the background. “And book you another flight.”

I’d remembered that hot-pink electronic party invitation and made a face. “I can book my own flight, Travis.”

“It’s already done. I’m texting you the details.”

Now, several hours and roughly 550 air miles later, I was on my way to my friend Carissa Jenkins’s engagement party weekend. I was happy for Carissa—and her fiancé, Declan Murphy—who’d shared a whirlwind romance the likes of which usually only happened in the movies. But I wasn’t thrilled about being rerouted through an early-bird flight, and despite wanting to support my friend, I wasn’t over the moon about the prospect of a few days spent in hypergirly mode, oohing and aahing over diamond rings and flower arrangements.

I’m not the girly-girl type, prone to all things foofy, fussy, or bejeweled. I spend my days with burly, chain-smoking line cooks and tattooed back-of-house staff. That kind of thing tends to crush a person’s girlier tendencies. I was about as likely to wear pink willingly as I was to leave my chopsticks upright in my rice during a dinner in Osaka (a serious no-no).

On the bright side, though, I’d probably make it out of Carissa’s party weekend alive, I figured as I crested I-5 and caught sight of the city’s iconic White Stag PORTLAND OREGON sign perched over the cloud-gray skyline. That was more than I (almost) could say about my stay at chichi Maison Lemaître.

The chances of something dangerously deadly happening in the Pacific Northwest were slim. Portland was known for its roses and bridges, brewpubs and bicycles, tattooed baristas and cutting-edge indie restaurateurs. (And rain.) Not for murder.

As it was, a getaway to someplace scenic and safe sounded pretty good to me. I’d had enough of threats and surprises, of sneaking around and of suspecting strangers, of playing amateur Sherlock Holmes, minus one deerstalker hat and/or one Benedict Cumberbatch and/or one Jonny Lee Miller and/or one Robert Downey, Jr. (take your pick.) For one weekend, at least, I wanted to forget about my foray into catching a killer. If Travis wouldn’t help me accomplish that goal (and he obviously wouldn’t), then Carissa, her fiancé, and her friends would have to do so.

This weekend, I didn’t want to spend any time thinking about criminal behavior. Or even chocolate, for that matter.

Danny Jamieson, my oldest friend and newly hired protection expert, would have said I was dodging the facts. He would have said that my plan to visit Travis and my trip to “PDX” (a nickname for Portland) were both procrastinatory detours from what really needed to be done: dealing with what had happened to me at Maison Lemaître.

He might have had a point. Because even though justice had been served and things had ended well, I was still shaken up. I still felt unsettled. Vulnerable, even. But who wouldn’t? It wasn’t every day that a person showed up to troubleshoot some nutraceutical truffles for one of San Francisco’s most venerable chocolatiering families and wound up dealing with a killer.

I was proud of the way I’d handled my inexpert sleuthing. But I didn’t want to repeat the experience. Not even for the sake of cozying up to Danny again—and we had gotten cozy.

Nothing serious had happened. Just a night of brainstorming in a dive bar in the Tenderloin. Just drinking, joking around, and being reminded of good times past. Just sharing a few saucy remarks. That’s it. We both knew better than to take it further. But I’d been tempted. If you met Danny—all muscular, macho, and ready to get down to business—you would have been, too. The thing was, I was supposed to know better.

I did know better. But some nonnegotiable time apart—while Danny stayed in California and I partied down with Carissa’s bridal party in the “Rose City”—sounded like a sensible idea.

I was being so responsible, it was downright saintly.

Travis would have been thrilled. But my financial advisor didn’t know everything about Danny and me, and I wanted to keep it that way. For now, Travis’s objections to Danny were limited to opposing paying his salary as my bodyguard-on-retainer. That, and balking at Danny’s light-fingered way of getting evidence, of course. Travis wasn’t thrilled with Danny’s shady past.

But I believed in giving people second chances, which was part of the reason I was in “Stumptown” in the first place. And before you get confused, let me clue you in: Portland has a number of nicknames—”Bridgetown,” “Stumptown,” “Rose City,” “PDX,” and (because of its many brewpubs) “Beervana.” The rallying cry of the city’s residents is “Keep Portland Weird!” and it works.

Portland is one of my favorite places. It has greenery, mild weather, friendly residents, the winding Willamette River, and one of the most up-and-coming food scenes anywhere. Sure, it has its gritty side. And its stodgy side. And yes, it sometimes trends too hard toward hipster haven. But the thing about Portland is that it’s earnest. In my life, there’s too little earnestness. Wandering the world can make you cynical.

I can be cynical. Which was probably (along with the aforementioned murder) why I’d forgotten Carissa’s engagement party weekend. We’d known each other in college, during my parents’ brief fling with academia at a New England university. We’d gotten close. Then Carissa had pledged to a sorority, I’d (strenuously) objected in the way that only a self-styled emo kid could do (don’t laugh—you’ve probably got a few embarrassing memories from college yourself), and that had been that. Not long after, I’d left for a sojourn in Belgium.

Surprisingly, distance had only brought us closer—probably because living on separate continents had a way of shrinking our differences. It had been tricky to stay in touch, but Carissa and I had been devoted. We’d emailed and shared, Instagrammed and video chatted. We’d managed. I was grateful to hang on to a friend who connected me to my onetime Ivy League past, and Carissa . . .

Well, Carissa now lived someplace that hadn’t been touched since Norman Rockwell dabbled with Crayolas. Driving toward the food cart pod, where Carissa and Declan both worked—where I’d arranged to meet Carissa for a “surprise” (her word, not mine)—I passed Tudor-style cottages and Craftsman bungalows, California ranch homes and modern post-and-beam Rummers, foursquares with dormer windows and well-kept Colonials. I was Airbnb-ing it in the surrounding neighborhood, but rather than check in to my accommodations, I decided to go straight to Cartorama instead.

That was the name of Carissa’s cart pod: Cartorama. I had to say, its kitschy moniker suited the neighborhood. I passed a few corners where construction crews appeared to have torn down an old gas station or a block of careworn houses and were turning one plot or another into apartment buildings. Aside from that, the whole place looked as though it could have doubled as a set from an old Technicolor movie. It was downright charming.

It was also going away quickly. Gentrification was de rigueur in Portland. Thanks to the city’s “no-sprawl” edict—which limited development to a designated urban-growth boundary—anyone who wanted to live or conduct business in the area had to squeeze into older houses or remodel dated business sites or, in the case of the cart pod, pay rents to park their food service trailers on an otherwise unused (for now) parking lot.

Demand was high. Availability wasn’t. My own Airbnb hosts had cashed in on the demand themselves. They no longer lived in their once-affordable 1920s foursquare, instead using the fees they earned to finance their larger house in a nearby suburb.

I was glad, for once, that I didn’t have a home base of my own to worry about. I could afford a mortgage, a husband, 2.2 kids, and a golden retriever (for instance), but I wasn’t in the market for domesticity. I couldn’t be. Thanks to my eccentric uncle Ross and the trust fund he left me (to be administered by Travis, my hyperintelligent keeper), I had no choice except to . . .

. . . snag the handy street-side parking space that suddenly became free and swerve my rental Honda Civic into it. Score!

My parking job was haphazard at best. I cut the engine and grabbed my gear, anyway—my excuse being that I don’t drive much.

I prefer to walk, take the Metro, Tube, or U-Bahn, or grab a cab during my worldwide travels. That means I’m fairly rusty when it comes to expertise behind the wheel. If catching that killer in San Francisco (technically, the Marin Headlands, but who’s quibbling?) had depended upon me making sharp U-turns and navigating the Bay Area’s notoriously hilly streets . . . Well, let’s just say I’m glad it didn’t and leave it at that.

Clambering out of the car, dressed in my go-to uniform of jeans, a slim gray T-shirt, and Converse sneakers (plus a jacket, my concession to the brisk prenoon weather), I headed toward Cartorama. The cart pod was easy to spot. It occupied what appeared to be the very last empty-corner parking lot in the area. Directly across the street from me stood a freshly built high-rise apartment building. Its banner outside boasted about its über-high-speed Internet, eco-friendly construction materials, and tricked-out “community gathering place,” aka fancified rec room. Next to that, a row of buildings hunkered down straight out of the Eisenhower era, sporting a variety of indie storefronts and looking especially geriatric (but charming, in a funky way) next to their sleek, new neighbor.

The whole thing was a lesson in new supplanting old, but I didn’t have time to wax philosophical about time marching on. I’d agreed to meet Carissa for her “surprise,” but between my scheduled and rescheduled flights (and my usual A.M. fogginess), our plans had gotten jumbled. I wasn’t sure how long it would take for Carissa to arrive, but I wanted to look around before she did.

Up close, the unopened cart pod reminded me of an after-hours amusement park. Or a deserted carnival, cut loose from its clowns and barkers. All of the food carts were different—one was housed in a cheerfully painted lumber shack, one in a repurposed metal storage container, one in a vintage VW bus, one in an Airstream trailer—and most were closed for the morning. Since Cartorama specialized in everything chocolate (or so Carissa had told me), the pod wouldn’t see much business until lunchtime.

The chocolate whisperer in me knew that someone ought to bring in a chocolate-themed donut cart or a mobile boulangerie specializing in pain au chocolat—something to lure in customers during the morning hours. But I wasn’t here to work, I reminded myself. I was here to reconnect with my long-lost friend.

Despite Cartorama’s momentary lack of customers, though, the place had definite appeal. The gimmick of offering all chocolate, all the time, was working on me. I was hungry already.

If you’re not familiar with the food-truck phenomenon, let me explain: We’re not talking ho-hum spinner dogs and dodgy kebabs served on the sidewalk in Anytown, USA. We’re talking delicious, locally sourced fare from innovative restaurateurs, served up without pretension but with plenty of imagination and verve. Everyone from the New York Times to Anthony Bourdain has raved about Portland’s food cart scene, and with good reason.

At Cartorama, the kitschy carts were parked facing an inner courtyard of sorts, which featured scrubbed wooden picnic tables beneath a sheltering awning. The awning’s canopy cover was tied back—probably on account of the clear weather—but the whole getup looked as though it could be covered quickly if diners needed protection from the elements. Overhead, strings of festival lights were hung with industrial-chic Edison bulbs, all of them dark for now. At the edges of the pod, tall oaks and graceful Japanese maples swayed in the breeze, playing host to what sounded like a whole Hitchcock movie’s worth of birds.

Birds. I shivered and kept moving.

Birds and I don’t get along. Maybe because of that aforementioned (terrifying) Hitchcock film. (Speaking of which . . . do you know what creepy old Hitch used as a stand-in for blood in Psycho? Chocolate sauce. Yep. What a waste, right?)

Anyway, I don’t like birds. Maybe that’s because I’m a city dweller at heart, used to seeing pigeons and seagulls for what they are: rats with wings. Either way, those birds put a crimp in the whole sunshiny springtime vibe I’d been enjoying.

I could feel their beady little eyes on me as I wandered toward the cart pod’s inner courtyard. Their avian shrieks sounded like warnings. But that was probably just me, feeling easily (and unreasonably) spooked after Maison Lemaître.

I was fine. Everything was fine. It was fine.

Hoping to assure myself of that, I texted Carissa that I’d arrived, then distracted myself by exploring the pod further. I watched as a few vendors began setting up for the day. I was interested to see how their various carts unfolded and opened (Transformers style) into mobile kitchens and service areas. One by-product of my vocation is that I’m curious. Just then, I was curious about Carissa’s work at Cartorama with Declan.

She’d been playing it coy so far. But if I’d guessed right, my old friend’s new career likely involved something social, uncomplicated, and fairly frivolous. Something like advising the cart entrepreneurs on installing fab new décor. Or writing a gossip column for a local blog. Or doing PR. Carissa would have been good at any (or all) of those things. She’d always been outgoing. Popular. Able to talk anyone into anything.

Even me. I was there in Portland instead of cornering Travis in Seattle for some one-on-one time, wasn’t I?

“Hayden!” someone yelled from nearby. “Woooo!”

I recognized that unmistakable feminine squeal. Carissa. I turned to see my old friend bustling toward me, all toothy grin and long auburn hair, dressed in ankle boots and a boho-cool, direct-from-Etsy ensemble, with her arms outstretched. A few dainty footsteps later, she engulfed me in a hug. “Hiiii!”

Simultaneously, the scents of her hair products and perfume engulfed me. So did a jolt of girlish exuberance. My friend was nothing if not excitable. And strong. Freakishly strong for a woman so thin. I hugged Carissa warmly, complimented her cute boots (girlspeak for “Hello”—I could do it, I just didn’t indulge often), then extricated myself long enough to catch my breath.

Seeing her hurtled me back to my college days. Not that it was that long ago, but a lot’s happened to me since then.

“Ohmigod! Look at you!” Carissa marveled at me, her face pretty and pale behind her geek-chic tortoiseshell glasses. “I love your hair! And your jacket! And your Chucks! I’m all about that nouveau-retro look. Hey, you cut back on the eyeliner!”

I grinned and shook my head at her reference to my short-lived emo past. “When you’re backpacking through Kazakhstan, a face full of L’Oréal doesn’t cut it.” These days, I tended toward lip gloss and (maybe) mascara. Combined with my shoulder-length brown hair and (aforementioned) Converse sneakers, it made for a low-key look—one that traveled as well to Beijing as it did to Thessaloniki. “Congratulations on your engagement!”

That incited a fresh squeal. Carissa thrust her left hand forward, then waggled her fingers. “Thanks! See? Isn’t it fab?”

I dutifully examined her engagement ring. But when you’ve gotten up close and personal with the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London, ordinary baubles have a tough time competing.

I couldn’t think of much to say about it. Sometimes my globe-trotting upbringing leaves gaps. “Pretty!” I gushed.

Carissa sighed, then hugged her ring finger, obviously disappointed . . . but willing to wait for me to rally. I sensed a long weekend ahead of me. What else was I supposed to say?

“It’s so big!” I tried. Hey, it worked on men, didn’t it?

My friend brightened with pleasure. “I know, right? Declan is so generous with me. He’s a sweetheart. Really, he is.”

I couldn’t help thinking that, generally, people who temper their statements with “really” or “honestly” or “actually” (or similar qualifiers) are hiding something. Which only made me wonder . . .

“Do you think he’s ‘the one,’ Carissa?” I asked. “This has all happened so fast. You haven’t been dating all that long—”

“Declan is totally the one,” Carissa interrupted with certainty, literally waving away my question. “He’s sweet and caring and superhandsome! And, okay, so sometimes when I text him an ‘I love you’ and he texts back ‘U2,’ I get a little stabby”—here she broke into a wider grin—“but overall, Declan is fantastic!” Carissa inhaled. “What about you? Seeing anyone?”

Ugh. It was the question dreaded by singles everywhere.

I’d been seeing several people, actually, across a couple of continents. But that made me sound flighty at best and promiscuous at worst—neither of which was accurate (and that’s before you add in my three ex-fiancés). It’s just that I’m a people person. That tends to lead to a lot of dates.

“We can get to that later.” It was my turn to wave off a query. I gazed around at Cartorama. “So, what’s your surprise?”

“You’ll never guess.”

That’s what people said when they wanted you to guess. It was a tendency that traveled to the far corners. So I did my best. “You’re doing interior decorating at one of the carts?”

Carissa gawked at me, disappointed again. “That’s what you think of me? That I’m good for nothing but decorating?”

Hastily, I backpedaled. “You’re writing a blog?”

Wisely, I omitted “gossip” blog. I learn quickly.

“I’m running a cart!” Carissa shook her head, then grabbed my arm. Again, I was reminded of her surprising strength. “An ice-cream cart. It’s called Churn PDX. It’s a budding chain. You know, as in Churn PDX, Churn LA, Churn Las Vegas, Churn Tokyo. . . .”

I bumped along in her wake, letting myself be towed toward the vintage Airstream trailer I’d noticed earlier, while Carissa described the food cart she’d founded and hoped to expand to the aforementioned cities. She was dreaming big. But why not?

I’ve known other food entrepreneurs who’ve succeeded fantastically, even with admittedly niche products. Ice cream sounded like a slam dunk to me. Who doesn’t like ice cream?

“Who doesn’t like ice cream?” Carissa echoed my thoughts as she set up an awning at the business side of the trailer, then pushed out a locked rol. . .