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First book in the Death by Chocolate series
Lindsay loves
chocolate. It tastes good, it makes her feel good, it never cheats on
her like her almost-ex-husband. It's her best friend. But someone wants
her dead and uses her weak spot—chocolate—to try to murder her.
Lindsay's
only secret is the recipe for her chocolate chip cookies, but she is
surrounded by neighbors with deadly secrets. Suddenly she finds herself
battling poisoned chocolate, a psycho stalker, and a dead man who seems
awfully active for a corpse.
Her best friend and co-worker,
Paula, dyes her blond hair brown, hides from everybody and insists on
always having an emergency exit from any room. Secrets from Paula's past
have come back to put lives in jeopardy.
Determined to help
Paula, Lindsay enlists the reluctant aid of another neighbor, Fred, an
OCD computer nerd. In spite of his mundane existence, Fred possesses
tidbits of knowledge about such things as hidden microphones, guns, the
inside of maximum security prisons and how to take someone down with a
well-aimed kick to his chin.
As Lindsay battles the elusive
stalker, poisoned chocolate, and the dead man, she will need more than a
chocolate fix to survive. But that’s always a good start.
Chapter One
I could tell the
minute I woke that it was Sunday, and not just because it was
daylight but the alarm wasn't shrieking. The songs of the birds and
the September breezes coming through my open window had that Sunday
morning sound and feel to them.
I rolled over
and snuggled up against Rick's warm body.
That's when it
hit me.
Rick and I were
getting a divorce. There shouldn't be a man in my bed.
I sat bolt
upright, heart pounding. Who the hell was sleeping in my bed?
Good-looking,
dark golden hair streaked from the sun and Lady Clairol, nice tan,
complacent expression even when he was asleep.
Rick.
I suppressed a
groan as I came fully awake and remembered his unexpected appearance
on my front porch…and everything that followed...about the night
before. I had clearly lost my mind.
Not that my mind
ever had much control where Rick was concerned.
When I'd opened
the door to see him standing there yesterday evening, feet planted
firmly on my doormat with its image of Taz shrieking in bright red
letters, Go away!, I'd been glad to see him. Right then I
should have called 911 to request that I be declared mentally
incompetent and hauled off in chains for my own protection. I
couldn't possibly be glad to see Rick when I knew he'd already moved
Muffy or Buffy or whatever her name was into our house and our
bed.
Instead I'd just
stood there looking at him, and he'd looked back at me with those
eyes that were bluer than the Kansas City sky in the middle of
summer. Of course, if that sky wore tinted contacts, it could be that
blue too.
I did have
enough presence of mind to snarl at him. "What do you want?"
I demanded then attempted a sneer.
He smiled—the
smile that made him top salesman at Rheims Commercial Real Estate for
the past six years. Somebody at a party once asked Rick what he sold.
He gave the person that same smile and said, "Myself."
And he did a
damned good job of it.
So I snarled and
sneered and he smiled. I knew he wanted to sell me something.
Probably himself.
"Hi, babe,"
he said and waved a manila envelope. "We need to go over some
more terms of the settlement agreement, so I thought I'd stop by in
person."
Yeah, right. I
knew...and he knew that I knew...there were no more terms to go over.
He'd demanded the lion's share and I'd agreed because all I wanted
was for the whole thing to be finished. I was asking for four things:
this house (not the big one where he and Muffy/Buffy lived but this
small one that used to be one of our rental properties), the rental
house next door where my friend Paula lived, my coffee/lunch/dessert
shop, Death by Chocolate, and my old but fast, red Toyota Celica.
However, I'd
been facing another Saturday night alone with a book or playing
Rummi-Kube with Paula, and it was one of those evenings when it's not
summer anymore but not yet fall. The air was still warm though it had
a nostalgic feel to it, as if remembering all the fun of the summer
as it slowly faded into the past and dreading the cold winter on its
way. Or maybe that was just how I was feeling.
Anyway, I asked
Rick in.
And when I
wasn't looking, he ordered a pizza. Double pepperoni. My favorite
kind.
Like I said,
he's a damned good salesman.
One dumb thing
led to another and then another...and now here he was, sleeping in my
bed.
I slid out very
carefully, trying not to wake him. I needed some caffeine and sugar
pumping through my veins before I could deal with his inevitable
leaving again. Every time was like another knife straight to the gut.
A dull, rusty, serrated knife. The kind I should take to his throat
right now...or maybe some portion of his anatomy a bit lower.
Nah, he'd just
bleed all over my new sheets and I'd have to clean it up. In eight
years of marriage, he never cleaned up a single one of the messes he
made.
I pulled on the
T-shirt and cut-offs I'd been wearing when he came over last night,
then fastened my unruly red hair into a pony tail, moving quietly so
I wouldn’t wake him. As I started out of the room, I noticed his
cell phone had fallen from his pants pockets, the pants he’d draped
over my wooden rocking chair last night.
I told myself to
move on, get out of that room as fast as I could, but the phone was
blinking and a faint buzzing was coming from it. I remembered being
surprised and pleased that nobody…like, for instance, that Buffy
person…had called him last night. Guess now I knew why. Creep had
it on vibrate.
I picked up the
phone. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out how to work it.
My cell doesn’t do anything but make phone calls. Rick always had
to have the latest in everything. His phone will order dinner, pick
it up and hire someone to wash the dishes.
When I figured
it out, I saw there had been about fifteen calls, give or take a few,
from "My Muffy."
He was cheating
on her just like he’d cheated on me. Poor "My Muffy." I
couldn't restrain an evil smile as I laid down the phone, gathered my
dignity about me and tiptoed downstairs, through my house.
I loved the
sound of that. My house that held my furniture, most of
it vintage garage sale or early American attic, but everything chosen
because I wanted it there, not because Rick approved of something and
decided we would get it.
Except for
Rick's elegant, expensive leather briefcase looking very out of place
in my living room where it leaned incongruously against one end of my
big, cushy sofa patterned with lots of brightly colored flowers.
I rushed past,
hurrying outside with the excuse to myself of retrieving the paper
from the front yard.
As I walked out
barefoot, I savored the feel of the weathered wood of my porch, the
rough, cracked texture of my sidewalk, the dew-damp, cool green of
the grass and weeds and clover in my yard. Since I no longer had a
lawn service, I no longer had a golf-green lawn. The last tenants of
this house were an older couple who either didn't care if the lawn
wasn't perfect or couldn't see well enough to tell.
I could see just
fine, but I didn't care. I'm not much into yard work. If it's green,
let it grow. Green or white. Clover's pretty and smells good. And
yellow dandelions are nice for contrast. Okay, the truth is, if a
rock wants to sit in my yard and not even think about growing, that's
okay too.
I kicked a puffy
dandelion, sending the seeds scattering, and took a deep breath of
the morning air. It was clear, clean, and cool with the promise of
fall.
My house wasn't
really in Kansas City but in a small southeast suburb called Pleasant
Grove. A few years ago when Rick was looking for some investment
property, I checked out this one because I loved the name. Pleasant
Grove. And it was pleasant. Too hilly for good farmland, it still had
lots of trees and was far enough away from downtown and from the
factories north of the city that the air was clean and, well,
pleasant.
Renters who
wanted to live in the area were pleasant too. Quiet people who paid
on time, never wrote hot checks, and didn't have wild parties that
ended with them in jail and our house a disaster. We'd subsequently
bought the house next door, Paula's place, but this first one, ninety
years old, two-stories, a big front porch and lots of trees, was
still my favorite.
I picked up the
Sunday edition of the Kansas City Star then stopped as I caught a
glimpse of the sun glinting off Rick's dark green Jeep Cherokee
parked in my driveway.
For a
millisecond there I'd managed to put last night completely out of my
mind. Well, at least I’d relegated it to the back of my mind.
But there the
damned car sat, right in front of me, reminding me of what I had to
deal with this morning. Rick in my bed. In the six weeks since we'd
separated, I'd been working hard at getting on with my life and
forgetting about him and Muffy/Buffy/Puffy. But last night swept away
all the healing I'd done in those six weeks. The wound was raw and
open and bleeding.
Something soft
brushed my leg and I jumped.
A cat. A big
cat, marked like a Siamese only gold where Siamese were brown.
He rubbed
against my leg again and purred as if he knew I needed some affection
right then.
I squatted to
pet him. I was sure it was a him by the self-assured stance
and the certainty of acceptance that shone in those bright blue eyes.
Yeah, I'm a sucker for blue eyes. This pair didn't even have tinted
contacts. This pair didn't contain any deceit or hidden depths
either.
He purred more
loudly and arched into my hand as I stroked along his head and back.
"You're a pretty thing, aren't you? Who do you belong to?"
"Lindsay!"
For a second, I thought the cat had answered, claiming me as his
owner. Like I said, I should have had myself committed the night
before. Hearing a cat talk was nothing compared to letting Rick back
into my bedroom and my life.
I looked up to
see Paula retrieving her paper next door.
Her son Zach,
wearing only a diaper, spotted me, grinned, and charged across the
yards, shrieking, "Anlinny! Anlinny!"
I tossed the
paper onto the porch then reached down and scooped up the kid. "Good
morning, Hot Shot!" I brushed his hair back, not because it was
long enough to be in his face but just because it was such sweet baby
hair, the color and texture of corn silk, and I loved to touch it.
He gave me a
noisy smack on the cheek then babbled happily in that almost-language
of his, ending with "Kee!" as he twisted in my arms to
point down at the cat.
"Yes,
that's a kitty. A big one."
Paula, looking
immaculate and well-dressed even though she was wearing her usual
uniform of nondescript, cover-up clothing that hid all evidence of
her past...a long sleeved white blouse and tan slacks that
morning...strolled across to join us. She's one of those tiny, petite
little things that I, tall and gangly all my life, have always hated.
But nobody could hate Paula. She's too nice.
The first time
we met was over a year ago when Paula answered our ad for a tenant.
She showed up to look at the house in an old, beat-up car that spit
puffs of black smoke every few feet and, when she came to a stop,
continued to rattle and shake for a full minute. Rick and I were
waiting on the porch, and he shuddered right along with that car.
"I can tell
you already, we don't want her," he'd said.
I admit, I had
my doubts too. I could imagine our house ending up in the same
condition as that car.
But then Paula
got out carrying a tiny baby. At first I thought maybe she was a very
young teenager who'd been sent away from home because of the baby.
Okay, I've read too much Dickens. Her shoulders and head drooped a
little, as if she was making an effort to keep them erect but wasn't
quite succeeding.
Did the big
sunglasses she wore hide a black eye?
When she got
closer and took off the sunglasses, I saw that she wasn't a teenager
and didn't have a black eye. What she did have were worry lines
around her eyes and on her forehead, a scar that makeup couldn't
quite hide on one cheekbone and a terror in the depths of her eyes
and in the tentative set of her mouth that suggested the scar hadn't
come from any fall down the stairs. Maybe my Dickensian guess wasn't
that far off.
I knew
immediately we were going to lease the house to this woman, that I'd
never be able to live with myself if I sent her and that little baby
back out into the world in that awful car. I also knew from the
disdain on Rick's face that I'd have to fight him on that one. Well,
it wouldn't be the first time.
When the four of
us walked into the living room of the rental house and she asked if
there was a back exit, Rick shot me a lifted-eyebrow glance
suggesting he thought she was worried about escaping in case of a
police raid or something.
"In the
kitchen," I told her. "Good question. Of course you need
another exit in case of fire." My last words were spoken to her
but directed to Rick. He glared at me and his jaw firmed. But it's a
weak jaw. I wasn't worried.
Paula filled out
the rental application on the spot. Well, she filled in her name and
Zachary's and left the rest blank, then told us she'd just moved from
California, she didn't have a job, her husband was dead, her parents
were dead, she was an only child and her parents had been only
children. She didn't say, but I assumed her husband had been an only
child too, and that her son would also be an only child. Probably
hereditary.
Rick didn't buy
it. He was ready to reject her on the spot, but I dragged him outside
and persuaded him, after a few minutes of serious
digging-in-of-the-heels, to rent to her on the spot instead. He may
be a damn good salesman, but I've got the market cornered on
obstinacy. He finally threw up his hands and said he expected a huge
apology from me after she trashed the place and the cops raided it. I
suspect he only agreed to let her rent the place in anticipation of
being able to say, "I told you so."
So Paula gave
Rick cash for the deposit and first month's rent, and she and Zach
moved in with their two suitcases. She said her furniture would
arrive later, but I suspected that furniture was as mythical as her
deceased, unprolific family.
I'd peeked over
her shoulder when she counted out the rent and deposit and noticed
that the rest of her pile of cash was pretty thin. Rick started out
the door but I turned back and offered her a job in my shop, Death by
Chocolate, a small bakery in historic downtown Pleasant Grove. Even
if she was an ax murderess, that baby needed to eat.
"Lindsay!"
Rick exclaimed.
I elbowed Rick
in the stomach to make him shut up.
"Business
is booming and I need somebody to help wait tables," I said.
"I've been thinking about putting an ad in the paper, but I
don't have time to interview people." That was all true, but I'd
probably have offered her a job if I was going into bankruptcy.
Over the past
year I'd had more than one occasion to say, "I told you so,"
to Rick. Not only did Paula prove to be an ideal tenant, but, thanks
to her expertise, Death by Chocolate expanded from a specialty bakery
to a trendy breakfast and lunch place with a specialty bakery.
My single
culinary skill is cooking with chocolate. I can take a basic brownie
recipe, make it more or less according to directions, and it always
turns out incredible. I used to share my recipes, but friends accused
me of leaving out ingredients when their desserts didn't turn out
like mine. Now I tell everybody my recipes are "secret"
because I have no idea what I do to make them different. Magic,
maybe. It's my one talent. I produce irresistible chocolate
concoctions, swamp water coffee, concrete biscuits, leathery filet
mignon...well, you get the picture.
So while Death
by Chocolate had gained a certain reputation as a bakery, with
Paula's cooking skills, we started to serve gourmet coffees, bagels
and cinnamon rolls in the morning as well as my chocolate pastries,
and at lunch we added sandwiches and a daily hot entrée to my
chocolate desserts. I offered to make her a partner, but the idea of
having legal documents drawn up with her name on them made her really
nervous, so I just pay her a salary equal to half the net profits of
the place. We both make a decent living.
Working with
somebody all day will either make you best friends or worst enemies.
Paula and I became best friends and I spilled my guts about
everything in my life. Paula didn’t reciprocate, refused to talk
about her past. She had secrets.
I’d like to
say I respected her privacy, but I fear lightning would strike me if
I told such an outrageous lie. I was dying to know what those secrets
were. However, she consistently ignored my gentle and not-so-gentle
probing. Not only did my curiosity go unsatisfied, but it hurt that
she didn't trust me with her secrets. However, when I left Rick and
moved in next door to her, I became so totally selfish in my own pain
that I was more than happy to spend our time together talking about
me and my problems.
We had become
even closer, and somehow we’d switched roles with her being the
mother hen and me being the needy one.
That morning
with Rick still sleeping in my bed, I was really glad to see her. I
could use a little mothering.
"You know
who this cat belongs to?" I asked her, reaching for any topic
other than the one uppermost in my mind.
She shook her
head. "I've never seen him before. He's beautiful, though."
She extended her arms toward her son. "Come on, Zach. We need to
go home. Aunt Lindsay has company."
Rick's Jeep in
the driveway, an advertisement to the whole neighborhood.
"You don't
have to go," I protested. I didn't want Paula or Zach or even
the cat to leave. I couldn't trust me alone with Rick.
Paula settled
Zach on her hip then looked at me with concern. "You okay?"
"Me? Sure.
Oh, yeah. No problem. Everything's under control. See you later."
I turned to walk back to the house.
"Want to
come over? I've got some cold Cokes."
Since I don't
like the taste of coffee, Coke is my caffeine of choice, morning,
noon or night. Coke and friendship were at the top of my current list
of needs. I whirled around so fast I stumbled over the cat. I
regained my balance while he pretended nothing had happened. "I'd
love to come over," I said. "Maybe Rick'll leave before I
get back."
As I followed
Paula and Zach across our adjoining yards, I noticed she needed a dye
job. The morning sunlight picked out the blond roots of her muddy
brown hair, roots just a little darker than her son's hair, the same
color as her lashes and brows when she wore no makeup. For some
strange reason, while most women would kill for naturally blond hair,
Paula colored hers a drab, medium brown. A nondescript brown. Add
that to her nondescript clothing and reclusive lifestyle, and I
deduced that she went out of her way not to be noticed.
Like I said,
Paula had secrets.
We went into her
house which was the same basic style as mine...two-story, white,
front porch, high ceilings, hardwood floors. Hers was smaller and
about twenty years newer so it was less "gingerbready," but
the major differences were inside. She had put shiny new deadbolt
locks on the front and back doors and kept the windows closed and
locked all the time. Her furniture was new and—guess
what—nondescript, as if she felt the need to blend into the
background even inside her own home.
Paula latched
the screen door behind us, then closed and locked the wooden door and
put on the chain. I bit my tongue and didn't comment that it seemed a
shame to waste one of the half dozen days out of the year when the
weather in the Kansas City area was suitable for humans, neither hot
and sultry nor cold and windy.
Paula
disappeared into the kitchen while Zach brought me a bright orange
truck, jabbered, and made appropriate engine noises. I sat on the
floor and we rolled the truck back and forth to each other across the
area rug. Zach laughed and chattered, obviously enjoying this
activity immensely. I can't say that I got a lot out of rolling that
truck, but watching him have a good time definitely made my heart
happy.
I revved the
truck on the floor. "Vrroom! Vrroom! Here it comes!"
This time Zach
grabbed it up and ran across the room, watching me over his shoulder.
This was my cue to chase him. I scrambled to my feet, yelled, "I'm
gonna get you!" then caught him just before he dove behind the
beige chair.
Paula came back
into the room as I lifted him over my head and blew on his soft
tummy.
I sank onto the
beige sofa with Zach in my lap and she set her tray on the coffee
table. It held, among other things, a plate of fudge cookies left
over from yesterday's inventory at the shop and a Coke. I must have
looked as stressed as I felt. Usually Paula chided me about having
Coke and chocolate for breakfast. Now she was offering it to me.
The tray also
held her coffee, a plate of non-chocolate cookies, and a red sippy
cup, the last a gift from me. Zach wants to drink whatever his Aunt
Lindsay is drinking. Since that usually means a red can, his Aunt
Lindsay found him a red cup. He's happy and I'm proud that the kid
wants to emulate me. Hey, it could be worse. He could be emulating
Rick.
I picked up the
Coke, popped the top and took a long, satisfying swallow, letting
those little bubbles dance over my tongue and down my throat, making
my mouth feel clean and awake.
Zach took a long
swallow of milk from his red sippy cup then reached for the chocolate
cookies.
"These are
your cookies," Paula said, handing Zach one of the non-chocolate
variety. "I made some bran muffins and baked part of the recipe
as cookies," she explained to me.
Zach looked at
the chocolate cookies then back to his. The boy was not dumb.
"Wow!"
I enthused. "Look at all the chocolate chips in yours!" I
pointed to the raisins.
He grinned and
began to munch on it. I could just see him in a few years, at the
movies, bringing his date a package of Raisinets and telling her
they're chocolate covered chocolate chips.
Feeling a little
guilty, I selected a cookie of the chocolate variety. Not so guilty I
wouldn't eat it, of course. I needed sustenance to face the
morning...and Rick in my bed.
"He ordered
a pepperoni pizza," I said, as if I had to justify that car in
my driveway. "Double pepperoni."
Paula only
nodded and sipped her coffee. Nonjudgmental.
I drank more
Coke and shoved more cookie into my mouth. I was feeling much better
already. Paula's house was always immaculately clean and her paranoia
about keeping the door locked and the windows closed made it feel
isolated from the rest of the world. Sometimes that wasn't a bad
feeling. Today was one of those times.
"I
appreciate your not saying anything dumb like, does this mean
you're getting back together?" I said quietly, staring into
the hole in my Coke can as though I expected to find some sort of
answers in there. Some people look for answers in a bottle. I look
for mine in a can. Neither of us is successful, of course.
"No."
Paula's voice was unexpectedly firm and intense. "I'd never say
that. He's not going to change. He'd hurt you again if you took him
back."
Definitely an
abusive husband or lover in her past, somebody she was scared would
find her and hurt her again, put another scar on the other side of
her face. I wondered how many she had on the rest of her body, how
many she was hiding with her long-sleeved shirts, slacks and
ankle-length skirts.
I looked at her,
trying to see behind that mask she never let down, but I couldn't.
Her spine was straight, her chin tilted upward defiantly.
"I know
Rick will never change," I replied.
"Do you
still love him?"
That was a tough
one. I'd asked myself that question a lot of times over the past six
weeks. I'd been in total shock at first, trying to figure out what
I'd done wrong. We'd had a lot of good times in the early years, then
we'd kind of drifted apart as we became busy making money and getting
ahead.
Not so busy he
hadn't been able to find time for Scruffy Buffy, of course.
I gritted my
teeth and forced a smile. Paula's not the only one who can do masks.
"I don't love him the way I love chocolate and Coke."
We all three
laughed. I'm sure Zach didn't know what he was laughing at, but his
mommy and his Aunt Lindsay were laughing, and that made him happy.
A knock on the
front door stopped the laughter.
Paula's eyes
went wide, and the blood drained from her face. Total terror. She
used to do that regularly at work, freak out every time somebody came
into our shop. Fortunately for our profit margin, many people come in
every day, and she finally got used to it, but visitors at home were
apparently still scary. Of course, she didn't have visitors at home
except for the postman and me.
I was sitting on
the sofa and the mail didn't come on Sunday.
She set her cup
on the table, her hand shaking so badly the coffee sloshed onto her
fingers.
"I'll get
it." I bounced up, handed Zach to her and was at the door before
she could protest.
Not that I think
she was capable of speech at that moment.
