Criminal Confections

by Colette London

  Winning was not quite as easy as I’d first anticipated.

  For one thing, the items we were meant to scavenger hunt had been placed all over the resort’s expansive grounds, so it was a trek to find them in my unwelcome fancy flats. For another, some items were actually tests to be passed rather than objects to be found, which was kind of a letdown for a competitive type like me. For another, the other teams took a quick lead, since they weren’t hampered by Bernard and Isabel’s habit of ducking behind leafy trees and beside flower beds of geraniums to make out.

  Dispirited but not defeated, I rallied my team and kept going. At each station (identified by the gauzy tents I mentioned before), Lemaître employees waited with chocolate samples and on-the-spot quizzes. Ostensibly, the only trick was acing the quizzes and collecting the rewards: embossed gold foil stickers, which were placed on a bingo-style scorecard.

  The team with the most stickers won the scavenger hunt. As a PR stunt for Lemaître, it was effective. As an in-person alfresco advertisement for the company, it excelled. As a fun and challenging icebreaker activity . . . it was not the best.

  The trouble was, the quizzes were too easy. They didn’t have the intricacy to inspire much conversation or strategizing, so all the teams whipped through them with lightning speed.

  I’d expected to be doing something like differentiating a Tanzanian single-varietal cacao bean from a premium Grand Cru blend, or picking out the essence of a single-bean 73 percent Côte d’Ivoire cacao from the bite of an arabica coffee bean after it had been brewed into a creamy café mocha. Instead, the “challenges” asked me to identify milk chocolate from dark, explain what white chocolate consisted of, and identify the original recipe for Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies.

  At that station, I peered at the artificially antiqued recipe cards laid out near a tray of cookies. I pointed. “This one. Ruth Wakefield’s original recipe for Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookies called for baking soda dissolved in hot water.”

  “Yes!” Beaming, the Lemaître employee gave me a sticker.

  I pasted it on my scorecard—which now looked like a shiny gold flyer for Lemaître chocolates, because the stickers all bore the company’s familiar embossed logo—and hastily moved on. It took a while for me to corral Bernard and Isabel after each station, but by this point, that wasn’t a big deal. The other competitors were starting to get bogged down with tasting all the chocolate samples. Team Orange was actually in the lead.

  I’d do my chocolate tasting later, I’d decided. Good chocolate deserves to be savored. Being outdoors, blown by the wind and surrounded by competitive chocolate-industry insiders, was not conducive to proper enjoyment. While eating chocolate, I believe in doing just one thing: eating chocolate. That’s it.

  A girl had to have priorities. That was one of mine.

  In the meantime, I tried to win. I yearned for my practical Chuck Taylor sneakers as I navigated the marshy area near the single boat dock, then crossed the hilly zone closest to the wind-scoured Marin Headlands. I completed two more challenges.

  I spied Adrienne and waved to her. Before long, Team Orange needed only one more sticker to win. Bernard Lemaître seemed impressed by my performance. His approval was like a shot of adrenaline, driving me toward the waiting finish line. After all, Bernard was a verifiable chocolatiering hero! His approval meant a lot to me—even if he was, at this point, behaving like a kindly but horny grandpa out for a nature hike. Bolstered by the real possibility of winning—and by the idea that I could restore a little luster to Bernard’s reputation by sealing a victory on his behalf—I took a bold shortcut across the jagged promontory point I’d observed from my hotel room window.

  There, I almost took a header into the frigid bay waters.

  “Whoops! Watch yourself there, Hayden!” Bernard chuckled and hauled me to safety just in time. He gave me a gruff pat with his bearlike arm. “It’s pretty steep around here.”

  “You’re not kidding.” With my heart pounding, I gawked at the gray-looking bay waters swirling at the rocky point’s edge, fifteen or twenty feet below the designated trail. “Thanks!”

  “You’re more than welcome.” Bernard’s warm smile, twinkly blue eyes, and kind, wrinkled face made him look every inch the chocolate company mascot. If he told you chocolate-covered bees were delicious, you’d believe him. He was just that likable.

  “Are we done yet?” Sounding bored, Isabel cast her gaze on the gold-stickered scorecard in my hand. “I’m cold, Bernie.”

  At that, Bernard’s eyes twinkled even more. He seemed oddly touched by his wife’s use of her nickname for him. It was . . .

  Okay, it was sweet. You guessed it. I couldn’t quit thinking that Bernard and Isabel were sweet together. They were!

  Tenderly, Bernard hugged his wife close to him for warmth. “We’ll go down to the spa and have a nice hot-cocoa mud bath after this, all right? That will warm you up in a hurry.”

  Isabel smiled. “You’re always so good to me, Bernie.”

  I was tactfully trying to look away to allow them some privacy, gazing studiously across the resort’s grounds to locate the final challenge station. But as luck would have it, I accidentally chose that moment to let my eyes wander back to Bernard. His expression looked hard. And . . . guilty? What the . . . ?

  An instant later, I decided I’d imagined it. Because that’s when I spied the challenge station I was looking for—and Team Blue T-shirt, heading straight toward it for the win.

  Ordinarily, I’m not ultracompetitive. I mean, I might not know how to change a carburetor or grow cucumbers from scratch, but I have my areas of expertise. I’m fine with my skill set just as it is. I don’t usually feel the need to grandstand or brag.

  Yes. Okay. I can work magic with chocolate. But that’s not going to change the world or anything. I have to be realistic.

  I have to accept that I’m not going to conquer everything.

  But for whatever reason, as I squinted across the resort’s grounds and saw the blue team—headed by the unmistakably boyish Christian Lemaître, the company’s CEO, my host, and the man who clearly was about to win his own scavenger hunt (which basically defined “poor sportsmanship”) —something in me snapped.

  I had to get down there and win.

  “We’d better get going!” I said brightly to the Lemaîtres.

  Then I took off at a loping run/walk, mentally reviewing the most arcane bits of chocolate trivia I knew in an effort to prepare for anything. Other competitors waved. I waved back but kept going. Colored T-shirts and green grass and flowered shrubs flew past me. The deluxe resort’s windows glinted in the distance. I was almost there, and I knew I could win.

  I couldn’t wait to tell Danny I’d won. Travis too.

  Fifty yards from the final station—whose challenge seemed to involve a taste-off between various chocolate liqueurs—I glimpsed Adrienne at the Toll House cookie-themed station. She looked beleaguered. Neither of her teammates were in the vicinity, but she did have a messenger bag slung crossways around her torso, bulging with papers. Maybe, I reasoned, she’d come prepared for this event with research notes and tips?

  “I don’t know!” she was wailing. “I’m having a brain fade!”

  Or maybe not. Struck by Adrienne’s fraught tone, I stopped.

  “I know I should know this. I do know this,” she was telling the Lemaître employee who was manning the cookie station. “But I didn’t sleep much last night, and I’ve been busy working all day, and I wouldn’t even be here at all, except—”

  That’s when I butted in. “Hi, Adrienne. Need some help?”

  Startled, the chocolatier glanced from me to the cookie station to a spot behind me—probably the spot where Bernard and Isabel were bringing up the rear. Or maybe giving each other hickeys. Anything was possible. Adrienne waved her scorecard.

  “Hayden! I’m such a dummy. My team split up for efficiency. I was supposed to do this station, but I missed it somehow.” Adrienne bit her lip.
She cast a frantic glance at the grounds, as though looking for Mr. Yellow T-shirt and his cohort. “If I don’t do it, we’ll lose! But for some reason, I can’t remember—”

  Her gaze dipped to my scorecard. Comprehension crossed her face. She glanced over her shoulder at the final station.

  “Never mind. You should go!” Adrienne shoved me—pretty hard for such a small woman. “Hurry up! You can still win!”

  I could. I cast a wistful glance toward my original goal, then shrugged. “I’ll win another time. No biggie.” I eyed the cookies, chose a particularly tasty-looking chocolate-studded specimen, then handed it to Adrienne. “Try eating this. Maybe you just need a boost, so you can think straight. If I don’t eat, my ability to concentrate goes right out the window.”

  “Oh, it’s not that! I’ve been sampling test chocolates all day.” Nevertheless, Adrienne chomped off a giant bite of cookie. Nervously, she chewed, casting another fretful glance at the retreat attendees. It seemed that she was looking for someone—probably her yellow-shirted potential paramour. “Caffeinated chocolates. You know, for the new Lemaître nutraceutical line?”

  Her worried gaze probed mine. All I could do was shift uneasily. Part of my report on Lemaître concerned that line of chocolates. They were supposed to have healthy—even medicinal—benefits. Hence the “nutraceutical” tag—a mashup of “nutrition” and “pharmaceutical.” Christian was putting a lot of emphasis on the line, but I knew it had issues.

  I didn’t want to go into it. My analysis of the caffeinated chocolates line could wait. I knew it might devastate Adrienne, who’d already spent months developing it. Those were the breaks in the chocolate business, but I didn’t revel in that fact.

  Reassuringly, I patted her shoulder. “You’re very talented, Adrienne. Just take another look at the Toll House quiz. Okay?”

  To my relief, my diversionary tactic worked. Adrienne still seemed jumpy and apprehensive, but that might be explained by the fact that she’d apparently been mainlining the equivalent of mini chocolate-covered caffeinated energy drinks for hours now.

  Me? After one of those drinks “with wings,” I’m a goner.

  My vice is chocolate. I definitely don’t need extra “energy” revving up my already manic simian tendencies.

  I nudged Adrienne. “Go ahead. Which recipe is it?”

  With one hand hovering over a Toll House cookie recipe, she hesitated. She exhaled, then gave me a shy smile. “You’ve always been so nice to me, Hayden. I really appreciate it.”

  Aw. Unfortunately, I’d chosen that moment to sneak a glance at the final station. Christian had thrust both arms in the air, I saw. He seemed to be performing a victory dance while his Lemaître lackeys and other guests applauded. On him, that ridiculous spectacle actually looked pretty good. Christian was fit, forty, and brilliant enough that even his competitors lauded the way he’d updated his company’s quaint confectionary.

  Discomfited to have been caught not being so nice to Adrienne at a crucial moment, I shook my head. “If only I could do more,” I told her guiltily, knowing my report to Christian might well torpedo all the work she’d done so far. “I really wish I could help you”—not have your work wasted—“even more.”

  She gasped with evident delight. “Do you mean it?” She grabbed both my arms. “Oh, Hayden! That would be great!”

  Ruefully, I wriggled free, not wanting to commit. I’d been hoping to devote some one-on-one attention to Danny during my downtime at the resort. I was mostly booked solid with warm chocolate-fondue body wraps and cacao-nib-and-espresso-bean pedicure scrubs, but on my off-hours, I’d hoped to have fun.

  I’d missed Danny. He understood me. He made me laugh.

  He was more to me than just a tardy stud in a suit, there to make me look as if I had a modicum of normalcy in my life.

  “I’m not sure how much more I can do, Adrienne,” I hedged, but before I could say more, Christian Lemaître spotted me.

  “Hayden Mundy Moore!” he bellowed jovially. “The chocolate whisperer herself! You made it! That’s excellent!”

  Uh-oh. I recognized that tone. I hadn’t worked with Christian long, but for all his brash intelligence, he wasn’t exactly complicated. He liked to seem important. The end.

  This time, he meant to use me as a means to that end.

  “Not that I’ve ever needed Hayden’s services at Lemaître, of course,” he lied in a smooth undertone to his associates. “But I’m happy to introduce all of you losers to Hayden!”

  His guffaws of laughter grew louder as he came closer.

  I looked his way again. Like the Pied Piper of chocolate he aspired to be, Christian strode toward me while surrounded by adoring industry types. His blue crew-neck T-shirt made him look younger than his years; his avaricious expression made him look older. Just then, he reminded me of a middle-aged frat boy.

  Bernard frowned as his nephew sailed past. Christian didn’t seem to notice. That was Bernard and Isabel’s cue to leave.

  In their wake, Adrienne’s yellow T-shirted pal drifted closer. I tried to send him a mental message to approach Adrienne and ask her out for drinks later. My telepathy failed.

  I noticed redheaded Nina, too, bounding along devotedly in her boss’s wake in three-inch pumps (on the grass!) with a grace and alacrity I envied. She seemed to have calmed down a little, with only one phone in hand and her clipboard stowed someplace, now that the scavenger hunt appeared to be a rousing success.

  Even if the host had won it, I recalled. Lame.

  Christian’s over-the-top laughter struck me again. So did Adrienne’s downright panicked expression when she heard it.

  Was she supposed to be working right now? She must be. That was the only explanation for the way Adrienne went still, like a frightened rabbit, gazing unblinkingly as her boss approached.

  Christian didn’t seem pleased to find Adrienne standing there. “Ms. Dowling!” he barked. “Shouldn’t you be in your magical workshop, coming up with some tasty treats for later?”

  “Um,” Adrienne began. Her gaze darted to me. “Uh—”

  Christian’s abrupt clap made her jump. “Yes! Get on it!”

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I’ll leave right now.”

  As Christian turned to his retreat guests—presumably making sure they’d witnessed his masterful employer-employee relations—Adrienne caught my arm again. Her intent expression riveted me.

  “Take this.” She whispered the words harshly, shoving a thick rectangular item at my midsection. “Please, Hayden. Take it! I can’t let Christian have it. Just . . . keep it safe for me, okay?” Her fearful gaze zipped to her boss. “I’ll get it later.”

  Dumbfounded, I accepted it. It was a notebook, I saw after a hasty downward glance, not much different from my favorite Moleskine number. It was the kind of thing pastry chefs (for instance) and chocolatiers typically use to track recipe ideas and formulas. It had to contain years’ worth of work, judging by the heft of it. Nodding, I bundled it close.

  The whole exchange took maybe fifteen seconds. Ten seconds after that, Adrienne had scurried up the lawn toward the hotel.

  Mr. Yellow T-shirt watched her leave. Just like Danny, he was too late. You missed your chance, buddy, I told him with a regretful mental shrug. You just let a great woman slip away.

  Christian’s next bellow roared into my consciousness.

  “What about you, Hayden?” He transferred his gaze from Adrienne’s former location, which—if looks could start fires—would have been a blazing inferno. “Isn’t there something you’re supposed to be working on right now, too?”

  He had to mean my report about Lemaître’s operations, I realized. But he couldn’t come out and say so in mixed company—not without letting on that he had used my consulting services. Moments ago, he’d sworn he never had.

  But he still wanted to needle me about my report?

  Christian Lemaître had a lot of nerve. He was a bully.

  Determined not to be
as easily cowed as poor Adrienne, I held my ground. Calmly, I tucked away Adrienne’s notebook into my crossbody bag for safekeeping, just as though it were mine.

  Butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth when I smiled at him.

  “Right now, I’m just enjoying your hospitality,” I said.

  Christian nodded at me. “Well, enjoy it while you can.”

  Even nonchalantly said, that statement sounded like a threat. Maybe Christian Lemaître wasn’t as laid-back about deadlines as he’d claimed to be, I realized. But I was stuck.

  “I’m dying to know about that fascinating assignment you were working on. You know the one,” Christian persisted while waggling his brows, obviously intending to carry on some sort of double-coded conversation with me while his otherwise clueless guests looked on. Maybe he enjoyed messing with people that way. “Did you ever find out exactly what the problems were?” Eager to appear the expert, Christian turned to a bystander and confided, “Hayden is an absolute whiz at what she does. She’s unstoppable.”

  At the fringes of the group, Nina Wheeler narrowed her eyes at him. Evidently, the PR rep wasn’t any more fond of her boss’s antics than I was. Although Nina didn’t intervene—I wouldn’t have, either, to be honest—she did cast me a speculative glance.

  I nodded at her in shared understanding. You’re right, my nod said. You’re not crazy—Christian is acting weird. I’d worked for my share of annoying bosses, and I knew it wasn’t fun. Sometimes it was necessary, though. That was apparently the position that stressed-out Nina was in. I felt relieved that someone besides me appeared to recognize what was really going on here.

  I’d barely completed that thought before Nina left the group. Probably, she was going to comfort Adrienne, I figured. I was glad someone was. Right now, I was trapped. Christian hadn’t paid me for the work I’d (almost) completed. Although I had the money in my trust fund for a fallback, I had a reputation to maintain.