I wondered if they’d be safe to eat this time. The Taste Society had taught us that poisonings were common practice among the elite, but I hadn’t expected my first meal to be drugged, or for Connor to be so casual about it. Maybe he was used to danger. Me? Not so much. It felt different outside the classroom.
I ran through the tasting procedure in my head. I’d have to test several sections of the burger since experts could concentrate the harmful additive in just one area or ingredient of a meal. Of course, it would need to be the rare combination of almost tasteless and extremely potent to put a fatal dose in only a small section. Even then, if the client ate some and showed any symptoms, the Shade could taste the same section and identify the poison so the correct antidote could be administered immediately. All that meant that the overall risk of a fatality was low, but I had to be thorough regardless.
To distract myself, I peeked at Connor to see if he was showing any signs of strain from resisting my salt shaker trap. He was watching me with an expression I hadn’t seen before.
I forgot about the salt shaker thing. This must be Connor the businessman.
“I need to level with you,” he said.
For a fleeting second, I thought he was going to tell me he had security surveillance in his bedroom and knew I’d stolen his underwear.
The truth was so much worse.
He folded his hands in front of him. “I work for the Taste Society, too.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“All Shade graduates are given a false assignment before being assigned to a real client. This is yours. It’s a quality control measure to make sure you can survive and thrive outside the classroom. Think of it as a final practical assessment. Only graduates who perform well will continue on with the Taste Society.”
My appetite vanished. The conversation with Ms. Nielson was fresh in my mind, and I had the abrupt urge to throw up again. I needed this job. I’d given up my friends, my family, and the last bit of cash I had to get here, and if the job didn’t work out… well, I guess I wouldn’t have to worry about how to get home.
For my parents’ sake, I hoped transporting a body in the cargo area of a plane was cheaper than the going rate for an economy ticket.
I pushed my need for the job to the forefront of my mind and tried to keep the anger out of my voice. “How come no one warned me that after flying over here and eating poison for eight bloody months, I still might not get the job?”
Nope, the anger was very much in my voice. To be fair, I was recovering from being poisoned.
Connor’s expression was the same now as it had been a minute ago. “Relax. I was impressed by how quickly you recognized the Fenella, and I know your grades were excellent. There’s no reason you won’t pass as long as you can stay in character and keep your attitude in check.”
My left eyelid spasmed. This jerk, who had toyed with me the last two days, deliberately poisoned me, and probably didn’t even know what a debt was, held my future in his hands.
“Attitude?” Yep, my tone hadn’t lost its anger. “You’re the one who treated me like I was something you’d stepped in yesterday. You’re the one who chose a poison for my first test that would make me vomit my guts up even if I did recognize it straight away. And you think I’m the one with attitude?”
“It does seem that way,” he said, deadpan.
I was less deadpan. “If you’re from the Taste Society, why didn’t you at least give me the antidote?”
He stared at me, unflinching. “Something came up. I needed time to figure out what to do with you.”
I gaped at him. “You couldn’t tell me to read a book? What the hell is wrong with you?”
He didn’t offer any suggestions, and his expression still hadn’t changed. Like nothing I said could touch him. Like he was waiting for me to pull myself together.
I took a few calming breaths, but it didn’t help as much as I’d hoped. “I might need to work on my attitude, but you ought to work on your problem-solving skills. Even if leaving me puking in your bedroom seemed necessary to you, it doesn’t take a genius to think of giving me a bucket to be sick in or warning me to bring a change of underwear.”
He took a second look at my wet hair, the clothes I’d been wearing this morning, and then down at my crotch. His pupils dilated. “Are you going commando?”
I heard a choking noise come from my throat. “That doesn’t even merit a response!”
He met my eyes and smiled genuinely for the first time since we’d been introduced.
4
Noticing his smile was not being returned, Connor snapped back into business mode. “Aren’t you wondering why I’m telling you this? Most graduates never find out even after they’ve passed. It stops word from getting around, and I need you to keep this quiet.”
No surprise there. The bloody Taste Society needed me to keep everything quiet. What else hadn’t they told me?
Up until now, I hadn’t cared too much about their oh-so-secretive ways. If they wanted to steeple their hands and chuckle to themselves in their dark, shadowy rooms, they were welcome to it—as long as I got my paycheck every two weeks. How bad could they be if they’re saving lives?
Maybe I should’ve paid more attention to the speculation buzzing around the training facility.
Connor was watching me, waiting.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
“That would be nice.”
I wished I’d come up with a worse nickname than schnookums.
“Testing graduates is just a fraction of what I do for the Taste Society,” he said. “My official role is Chief Investigator.”
Curiosity started poking holes through my anger. “What do you investigate?”
He held my gaze. “Everything I’m about to tell you is strictly classified. If any of this gets out, I’ll fail you on the spot. Understand?”
I hesitated. Not that I was planning on telling anyone, but my acting experiment with Oliver hadn’t filled me with confidence in my ability to hide information. What choice did I have, though? “Understood.”
“Only a few select individuals in government and law enforcement know about the underground poison scene and the Taste Society. The rest of them are as ignorant as the general public, and we like to keep it that way.”
Of course you do.
“We only bring in the law if someone dies, or if we have a perp to hand over to the DA with enough evidence for a conviction. The cops and feds who know about this arrangement don’t like it much, but they don’t have the resources to cover the field as well as we do anyway, so they deal with it.”
Of course they do. I’d had my suspicions, but now I knew I was working for an organization so powerful that even the law let them do what they wanted. I hoped I could stay on their good side.
“So, to answer your question, I investigate poisoning attempts. It’s part of the service we offer our clients. Shades prevent the attempts from being successful, and investigators find out who was behind them and make sure they don’t try it again. We have an extensive database of past offenders, and we’re very discreet.”
“Okay. So why tell me?”
“A case has come up that requires my immediate attention. There’s no one else available to test you right now, so we’re giving you a choice. You can continue your assessment while accompanying me on the case, or wait for another evaluator to become available.”
“Do I still get paid in the meantime?”
His shoulders shifted in a Connor version of a shrug. “Probably. That’s not my area of concern.”
I thought about starting over with a different assessor. Maybe they’d be nicer. Maybe I’d get an easier cover than girlfriend. But could I really sit around for weeks waiting for someone else to become available, not knowing whether I’d pass or not? And if there was any chance my salary would go on hold until I began the next evaluation, I couldn’t afford to wait. Literally.
“Any day now, Avery
.”
Yep, my next assessor was likely to be nicer. But I didn’t want to sit at home with just Meow and the creepy pineapples for protection, waiting for Bruce-the-Bruiser to show up. Plus, the case could be interesting, right?
Anything would have to be better than having time to reflect on the state of my life.
“I’ll do it,” I said. “What’s the case?”
Connor’s mouth hardened again. Guess he was hoping he’d get rid of me. “A Shade was poisoned this morning. She identified the substance as the prescription sleeping drug, Ambience, before it knocked her out. She didn’t think she’d had enough to overdose, but the Taste Society sent a doctor to monitor her anyway, as per protocol. Two hours into what seemed to be recuperative sleep, she spiked a fever and started convulsing. She was rushed to a Taste Society facility and put into a medically induced coma, but her condition is critical, and counteractive drugs for Ambience aren’t working.”
Connor’s heel scraped the floor. Concern for the Shade? Or impatience at having to explain it to me?
“That means she was wrong about the substance being Ambience, or there was more than one poison. They’re running tox screens, but we’re operating in the dark here, and it takes between eight and ten days to test for all known harmful substances. Her doctors don’t think she has that long.”
I sank back against my chair. “What do you mean? Why don’t they give her other antidotes?”
“She’s too unstable. The wrong antidote could kill her.”
“Then why doesn’t another Shade taste the food or drink that made her sick?”
“Taste Society protocol. She should have tasted and recognized the substance, whatever it was. We have to act on the possibility that it’s a new poison with no known antidote yet, and we can’t risk another Shade to find out. Plus, if the mystery drug is slow-acting, it’s possible her last meal wasn’t when she was exposed to it anyway.”
I stared at him. This wasn’t supposed to happen. That’s why we had so much training. That’s why we had the gene mutation to protect us. Shade fatalities in the line of duty were supposed to be incredibly rare.
I squelched down the idea that the Taste Society might be hiding the truth about that, too. One of the rumors going around the training facility had been that the mutation is a lie, seeing as there’s nothing about it on the Internet—but I’d dismissed it as idle speculation. Otherwise, what possible reason could they have for choosing me? That argument still held up in my mind. Besides, if they managed to hide the underground poison scene from the whole world, what was one little gene mutation to cover up?
No, the Shade that had ended up in the medical facility and was fighting for her life was a rare anomaly and she wasn’t dead yet.
“If the doctors are right about the time she has left, her best chance is for us to identify the would-be killer and find out what they used,” Connor said. “There’s hope, but it’s up to you and me.”
I gripped the edge of my chair, hard. Moments after finding out the new job I thought I’d secured was hanging by a thread, I learned the same job could be more deadly than I’d been led to believe, and now, that someone’s life, aside from my own, might be somewhat in my incompetent hands. It was too much. I looked up at Connor’s serious face. “It’s mostly up to you, right?”
His lips twitched. “Yes, mostly me.”
Maria brought our burgers in seconds later, and I wondered if she’d been listening at the door. Was she in on it? Did she know what Connor did for a living?
I tested the first burger and slid it over to Connor. Mine stayed untouched. I wasn’t hungry anymore. Instead, I sipped a cup of tea and trawled through my knowledge of crime investigation. It didn’t take long. Ninety percent of what I knew was gleaned from crime shows and detective novels and the other ten percent came from my dad who’d been known to skirt the edge of the law on occasion.
“Do we have any suspects?” I asked.
Connor answered between large bites of burger. “That’s the joy of celebrity poisonings, there are always plenty of suspects. The challenge is whittling them down. And we’re on a tight timeline.” He stood up, the rest of his lunch forgotten. “Let’s go talk to the intended victim, I’ll brief you on the drive.”
I stole a last mouthful of tea and trotted out after him, collecting my shoes along the way. My pace slowed considerably once I put my heels on, so Connor was well ahead of me when I reached the car.
It was a black SUV.
“Creative choice,” I said.
“It blends in.”
Once I’d parked my butt in the plush interior, I tried to concentrate on what he was saying rather than worrying about how my hair would look after it had air dried and whether my breath still stank of vomit. I’d gotten a glimpse of myself in a mirror on the way out, and it wasn’t pretty.
“The Shade’s client was Josh Summers. You might have heard of him, he’s a—”
“Celebrity chef,” I said, my vomit breath temporarily forgotten. Josh was the kind of celebrity I could get excited about. He started out flipping burgers at McDonald’s and became one of the most renowned chefs in the Western world, with his own TV show and a Michelin two-star restaurant right here in LA. I didn’t think McDonald’s was that different from selling buns at Bakers Bliss, and Josh was forty-four, fifteen years older than me, so maybe my life could turn around yet.
Unlike most, Josh used his fame and riches to do good, too. His foundation gave underprivileged and academically challenged kids a shot at a decent career by teaching them to cook at a professional level.
“Yes. He applied for protection just over a month ago. According to his application, he was concerned about possible poisoning attempts from two sources. We’ll go over them with him when we get there.”
Who would want to kill a man doing so much good for underprivileged kids? Not to mention what a waste it’d be of culinary prowess. If I’d wanted him out of the way, I would’ve kidnapped him and forced him to be my cooking slave. If you’re going to be a villain, you might as well be practical about it.
“Only two sources?” I asked. “You said there were lots of suspects.”
“They’re just the ones he told us about at the time of his application. There are always more to uncover if you know where to dig.”
I shook my head. I’d fallen down a rabbit hole where all the things I understood about the real world didn’t apply. Powerful people were running around shouting, “off with their heads,” the general population carried on as if nothing was happening, and Shades, like me and the girl lying at death’s door, were all that stood in the way of heads rolling.
I spent the rest of the trip shoving my fears down into their hole again.
Josh’s home turned out to be a two-story sandstone mansion in the hills of West LA. I’d never had reason to visit Pacific Palisades before, and I liked what I saw. The steep terrain and huge blocks gave it a sense of space that was missing from most of the city, and some of the views would’ve had me pulling out a picnic blanket under other circumstances. I could almost pretend I was back home in the Adelaide Hills, if I ignored all the mansions, that is.
I was still thinking longingly of home as we walked up to the front door. That changed as soon as Josh opened it.
It wasn’t because his face was intelligent with striking green eyes that I was jolted back to the here and now. It was because that face was racked with worry. Someone had tried to murder this man and had almost killed the woman hired to protect him instead.
I had to do anything I could to keep the “almost” in that last statement.
“How is she?” were the first words out of Josh’s mouth, after Connor introduced himself as an investigator for the Taste Society. He’d referred to me as his colleague, which meant I could cut the girlfriend act.
“Her condition is critical, but stabilized for now,” Connor said. “To give her the best chance of survival, we need to find out what the poison was, which means we need you
to cooperate fully. No lies. No secrets.”
If Josh was offended at being spoken to in this manner, he didn’t show it as he inclined his head.
“Of course. But let’s sit down first. This is going to take a while.”
He led us into a double-height living room where distressed, brown leather chairs faced a majestic two-story view over Sullivan Canyon Park. An earth-toned rug and several indoor trees made the scenery feel even closer.
“Please, have a seat,” Josh said. “Now, how can I help?”
Connor didn’t waste time admiring the view. “Tell us about how Dana was poisoned.”
Hearing the name Dana, my eyes jerked away from the canyon and a string of dread began to wind its way around my throat. I hoped I was wrong. That it was a coincidence.
Josh closed his eyes and drew his brows together. “We were eating a late breakfast in, here I mean. I’d cooked the meal myself.” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “We had a late night last night, so we were tired and aiming for a relaxing morning…” He trailed off, and his Adam’s apple bounced again.
Connor said nothing. Easy to believe he was a master of the silent game.
“I’d made lemon-blackberry soufflés, and Dana insisted on trying them first, of course. I told her to hurry. I didn’t want them to cool down too much before I could eat.” His pained eyes met Connor’s. “Maybe that’s why she didn’t taste it properly?”
I looked to see Connor’s reaction. There was no sympathy on his face but no condemnation either. Or perhaps his expression was just as inscrutable to me as it often was.
“How much did she eat?” he asked, avoiding Josh’s question.
“I’d guess three bites?”
“Okay. Go on.”
“One minute she was sitting there smiling at me, the next she was talking into that microphone ring thing, reporting the attempt. She lay down on the floor so she didn’t fall off her chair and fell asleep almost straight away. I called the emergency number the Taste Society gave me. They said they’d send a doctor over, but she’d be fine, that she just needed to sleep it off.” His hands jerked at the memory. “The doctor came about ten minutes later. I helped him get her into a spare bedroom, and he told me to go on with my day.”
Eat, Pray, Die Mystery Box Set Page 4
