Fatal Chocolate Obsession (Death by Chocolate Book 5)

by Sally Berneathy

  He shrugged. “You’ll understand when you see the place.”

  Listen to Tina’s kids or go look at Brandon’s apartment? Trent wouldn’t be here for at least another hour. If I spent half an hour praising Brandon’s apartment, that would be half an hour I wouldn’t have to spend with the Hyper Horde, leaving only half an hour before Trent arrived on his white charger—well, in his black sedan—to rescue me. It would also give me a chance to talk to Brandon and convince him to give the cops permission to search his house and place of business.

  That tilted the decision in Brandon’s favor. Trent would be impressed if I got that permission, and maybe then they’d be able to find Grady and arrest him.

  “I’d love to see your new apartment. I loaned my car to a friend. Can I ride with you?”

  He looked surprised. “You loaned your car to someone?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I’d like to hear your story.”

  I didn’t want to talk about Tina’s situation. “After we look at your new place.”

  He smiled. “I’d love for you to ride with me.”

  I grabbed my purse and followed him down the sidewalk to his car, the same car he’d driven the day he bumped into me, the day that began our friendship and resulted in me persuading him to leave his abusive father. That was a good thing.

  However, a shiver ran down my spine as I reflected that it was also the day that resulted in my meeting Grady Mathis.

  But Trent and Fred were on Grady’s trail. I’d get Brandon’s permission to search, and soon Grady would be behind bars. “Getting your own place is a huge step! I’m so proud of you. What did your dad say when you told him?”

  Brandon opened the car door for me and I slid in.

  “I haven’t told him,” he said.

  That didn’t surprise me. Brandon had good reason to fear his father. “That’s okay. Maybe you can just disappear and never have to confront him.”

  He got in the other side and started the engine.

  “Have you talked to your dad at all since his outburst at my place yesterday?”

  Brandon steered the car onto the street and shook his head, his lips compressed.

  “The police are looking for him, you know.”

  He nodded.

  “They’d like for you to agree to let them search the house and shop.”

  “Can we talk about something else? This is a pretty big deal for me, and I don’t want to ruin it by talking about that man right now.”

  “Of course we can talk about something else. Tell me about your new place.”

  ***

  Ten minutes later we pulled into the driveway of an older house. The place wasn’t charming old with lots of personality like the houses in my neighborhood. It was boring old. These houses were probably built in the ’50s or ’60s. Small slab homes with no basements. That’s almost unheard of in Kansas City. Everybody has to have a basement so they can worry about cracks and leaks.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “It’s, uh, lovely. Are you renting a room or is there an apartment in back?”

  He smiled proudly. “I have the whole house.”

  “Well. Okay. This is, um, very nice.” Another blatant lie so ridiculous no one could possibly believe it.

  He opened his car door then came around and opened mine. “Come see inside. I’ve spent all day getting it ready.”

  I did not want to see inside, but it was obviously important to him. This was no time for me to be snobbish. I planted my feet on the cracked driveway and stood. “I can’t wait.”

  We walked to the front door and he produced a key. “We can replace this,” he said, indicating the faded hollow core door with water damage on the bottom.

  “Sure,” I said. “Easy to replace a door.”

  “I think one of those pretty ones with glass.”

  “Of course.” A heavy oak door with beveled glass insets would be a lovely compliment to the warped beige siding.

  I stepped onto the gold shag carpet of the living room. Irrationally the sound of the door closing behind me was disturbing. Actually, the whole place was disturbing. A sagging couch sat in front of a new flat screen TV. On one side of the sofa a floor lamp had age-yellowed plastic wrap around the shade.

  It was all clean and tidy. I couldn’t spot a sign of dust. Nevertheless, the place smelled like cigarette smoke and mold.

  I turned to Brandon who smiled tentatively. “Did this place come furnished?” Please tell me you didn’t go out and buy this horrible stuff!

  “Yes. It’s not much to look at now but I have lots of plans to make it nicer.”

  “Great.” I braced myself to see the rest of the house.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Um, sure.” All that practice lying to traffic cops was paying off.

  He proudly showed me the kitchen with contact paper over pressed wood cabinets, the bathroom with rust stains in the tub, and two bedrooms with sagging mattresses. He paused at the door of the larger bedroom.

  “This is the master.”

  I surveyed the room with its matched set of 1950s furniture, all surfaces clean, and an obviously new spread on the bed.

  “It’s very nice,” I said.

  “So you like it?”

  I did not. “I do.”

  He beamed down at me. I tried to return his smile. The room was ugly and the house was ugly, but he looked happy. I suspected Brandon didn’t have much happiness in his life.

  I lifted my wrist and pointed at my watch. “Gosh, how did it get to be so late? I’d better get home. My company is probably back by now.”

  He laughed softly. “Don’t worry about your company.”

  He probably meant to be reassuring, but his comment irritated me. Much as I would have liked to completely forget about my company, that would have been rude.

  I went down the hallway to the lovely living room.

  Brandon followed close behind me. “So you really like it?” he asked again. “You’re not just saying that?”

  “You’ve done a great job.” I looked at my watch again.

  He stepped closer, lifted my hair off my neck and pressed his lips to my neck.

  Holy crap!

  I jerked away and whirled to face him.

  He blinked rapidly, a dazed expression on his face.

  I tried to assure myself he had not gone bat crap crazy, that he’d just been carried away with showing me his new home, sharing his pride in making the escape from his father.

  “Lindsay, what’s wrong?” He reached for my hands.

  I tucked them behind my back and took another step away from him. “What’s wrong?” That was a very good question. I wasn’t sure what the answer was. Maybe I was overreacting. I’ve been accused of that before. But suddenly I was frantic to be out of that house and away from Brandon. The alternative, spending time with Tina’s horde, seemed like a visit to a butterfly garden compared to this creepy place. “Uhhh…my visitors. It’s very rude for me not to be there with them. Love the house, I’m proud of you for making the break, and I need to go now.”

  He smiled his sweet, innocent smile and I drew in a deep breath of relief. Everything was fine. Tour of the tawdry house was over and I’d soon be home with Henry and the Hyper Horde.

  But Brandon moved closer, invading my space, making me extremely uncomfortable. I stepped backward again…and ran into the wall.

  He shook his head and continued to smile. “You’re so darned cute, Lindsay.” He put a hand on my cheek and leaned toward me as if to kiss me.

  That did it. I was officially freaked out. I shoved against his chest. “Brandon, stop that! Take me home, now!”

  His smile disappeared and his whole face changed so drastically I would not have recognized him if I hadn’t seen it happen. His mouth turned down, his cheeks reddened and his eyes bulged. “This is your home.”

  I blinked, trying to clear my vision and make sense of what was going on.

&n
bsp; As quickly as the monster had overtaken Brandon’s face, it disappeared and the sunny smile and puppy dog eyes were back. I felt as if I’d lost touch with reality, was having a bad nightmare where familiar people morphed into demons and back into human beings at random.

  “We’re going to be so happy here.” He reached into his pocket then extended a hand toward me. “I got this back for you.”

  I cringed away from him as my gaze dropped to the object in his hand.

  The damned butterfly. The butterfly Grady had left on my porch. The butterfly I’d given to Tina. “Where did you get that?”

  “That woman stole it from you, but I took it away from her.”

  The walls of the living room, the sagging sofa, and the coffee table with chipped veneer all blurred. Only Brandon and the crystal butterfly in his hand were clear and vivid, almost glowing in intensity.

  “That woman?” Each word stuck on my tongue as I pushed it out.

  “The one that took your car. I followed her to the park.”

  “You followed her?”

  He shrugged and looked pleased with himself. “I followed the tracker I put on your car when you brought it into the shop. I wanted to be able to find you if you needed my help, and you did. When I saw that woman sitting in your car, I dragged her out. I thought she stole it, but she said you loaned it to her.”

  “I did.” My voice was barely a whisper and I wasn’t sure if he heard. It probably didn’t matter anyway.

  “She had your butterfly in her hand. She was trying to steal it. I got it away from her.”

  Suddenly the spots on his clothing took on a new significance. They were small and dark and maybe they weren’t spots of dirt or grease. “What did you do to Tina?”

  “I punished her for stealing from you. Taking our butterfly was even worse than that woman with red hair who came to your house and yelled at you.” He smiled and moved closer and I tried to back inside the wall.

  “You—” I gulped, licked my lips and tried again to speak. “You punished Tina like you punished the woman with red hair?” I thought of Fred’s theory that Grady had been trying to help me by killing people who annoyed me.

  “Nobody’s ever going to hurt you again.”

  I was surely hallucinating. Kind, gentle Brandon could not be saying what I thought he was saying, that he’d killed Ginger and Tina. Appearances can certainly be deceiving. I’d been frightened of Bob when I first met him, and he’d been a kind, gentle person. Brandon had given the appearance of a teddy bear. I upgraded that image to a grizzly bear with rabies.

  “What about Tina’s kids?”

  He shook his head. “Kids? I didn’t see any kids.”

  I could only hope the kids hadn’t seen their mother being murdered.

  I turned and ran for the front door. I seemed to be moving in slow motion, each step like walking through waist high sand. After an eternity I made it, grabbed the door knob and twisted.

  It refused to turn.

  He’d locked it.

  My stomach squeezed into a hard, painful knot.

  Yeah, nobody was ever going to hurt me again—nobody except him.

  He grabbed my shoulder from behind.

  I twisted away and darted to the door on the side of the room. Mercifully the knob turned. I yanked it open.

  “No!” Brandon shouted.

  Garage. No light, but I could see the outlines of objects, tools and car pieces. Surely I could find a weapon. I sprinted inside.

  I stumbled and put my hand out to break my fall. My purse slid off my shoulder and my fingers touched something squishy.

  The overhead light flashed on and I saw that my hand rested on a bloody, battered mass that used to be Grady Mathis’ head.

  Holy crap.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want you to see the mess.” Brandon stood in the doorway to the garage. “I’ll clean it up.”

  The walls around me closed in then moved back out. Brandon loomed ten feet high then shrank to normal size. The whole scene was a surreal nightmare. I had just stumbled over a dead body, the body of a man I’d served chocolate to only a few days ago, a man who’d yelled at me and smashed my cell phone. Brandon’s father. His father was dead and Brandon was concerned with the mess? I struggled to my feet. “You…did this?”

  He beamed. “He hurt you. I couldn’t let him get away with that. Nobody hurts the woman I love.”

  Oh, great. Now I could feel responsible for the murders of Tina, Ginger and Grady.

  I could maybe live with the blame for Grady’s death, but not the others.

  Brandon extended his hand to me. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was touch that man.

  I hesitated and realized that wasn’t quite true. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was get murdered by that man.

  I picked up my purse by one side of the strap. The rest was covered in bits of Grady’s head. I hadn’t liked that head when it was all one piece and attached to his body. I really didn’t like carrying parts of it with me, but my cell phone was in that purse. I needed to call Trent or Fred.

  What was it I’d said when Paula remarked that Fred and Trent had saved my neck a couple of times?

  I would have been fine even if they hadn’t showed up.

  It’s easy to be cocky when there’s no madman around.

  I accepted Brandon’s hand, swallowed my gag reflex and stepped over his father’s body to join him in the house he’d prepared for us.

  He wrapped an arm around my waist. “If you’ll cook dinner, I’ll do the dishes.”

  Oh, sure, let’s just forget about the corpse in the garage and have a nice dinner.

  “Actually, I’ve been cooking all day. I’d really like to go out to eat.” Get him in a public place and I could get away or at least make a phone call.

  Brandon tapped the end of my nose with his finger and smiled some more. I once thought he had a charming smile. Who knew there was such a thin line between charming and psycho?

  “We can order pizza,” he said. “I know you like pizza because I’ve seen lots of deliveries to your house. I want you all to myself for our first night in our new home.”

  I wasn’t sure which creeped me out more—the fact that he wanted me all to himself or the fact that he’d been watching me for so long he knew I ate a lot of pizza. Just how long had he been watching me?

  “Remember when you ran into my car?”

  “Of course.”

  “That wasn’t an accident, was it?”

  “Don’t you worry about your car. I’ll fix it good as new.”

  “I mean, you did it on purpose. To…” I swallowed. “To get my attention.”

  He smiled that boyish smile again. “You were always so busy in the restaurant, you never had time to talk. But I knew you noticed me. I could tell by the way you looked at me. We just needed an excuse to get to know each other better.” He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me close to his side as we walked back to the living room. If only I’d had Fred teach me Karate or whatever that stuff was that he did.

  Brandon put the damned butterfly on the coffee table and pulled me onto the sofa beside him. I dropped my purse over the side, hiding it from him but keeping it close, then tried to calm my racing mind and heart and focus on what I needed to do. He loved me. With any sort of luck, that meant he wasn’t planning to kill me. All I had to do was lead him on until I could escape.

  He wrapped both arms around me and again leaned in for a kiss.

  I tilted my head backward and shoved him away. His face darkened and swelled. The outraged ogre took over again.

  “Not until we’re married!” I blurted. And that day was never going to come.

  “You kissed that cop on your front porch and you hugged that homeless man!” His features contorted even more.

  The sound of wind chimes filled the room. How sweet. Trent had set the new phone’s ring tone to the one I had on my old phone.

  Brandon
shot up from the sofa and looked around. “What’s that noise?”

  My phone was drawing attention to itself. Not good. “One of your neighbors must have wind chimes. Come back and sit here beside me.” I patted the sofa.

  “It’s your purse.” He picked it up. “What’s this all over it?”

  Bits and pieces of your father’s head.

  “Uh…I dropped it in something.”

  Disgust spread over his face. Ironic since he was the one who’d caused the mess in the first place.

  My purse continued to chime.

  He dumped the contents on the coffee table. A pen, a lipstick, my checkbook, my wallet, a candy bar, and my cell phone. He snatched up the phone and answered. “Who is this?” He glowered at me as he listened to the response. “Well, Detective Adam Trent, Lindsay doesn’t want to talk to you. Don’t call her again.” He threw the phone across the room. My heart sank as my chance to call Trent or Fred shattered against the wall. The Mathis men were hard on cell phones.

  He threw the gory purse on the coffee table then, without warning, drew back his fist and slammed it into my face, rocking my head backward. For an instant I didn’t believe that sweet, gentle Brandon had punched me. Anger and fear shot through me followed by intense pain and the taste of blood. So much for thinking he wouldn’t hurt me because he loved me.

  He stood over me, leaning down, shouting at me, his demented face only inches from mine, his breath hot on my cheeks. “I’ve always been faithful to you! How can you say you love me when you’ve been with another man?”

  I was one hundred percent certain I’d never said I loved him but I didn’t argue the point. I sat straighter and glared at him. “Men don’t hit women,” I said quietly, “especially women they claim to love.”

  Again his fist slammed into my face, this time on the other side. “You made me do it! You’ve been cheating on me!”

  Reason and retaliation hadn’t worked so well. I wiped the blood from my lips and tried to figure out the right response to his accusations. What would make Mr. Hyde revert to Dr. Jekyll before I ran out of cheeks to turn? Much as I hated the thought of pacifying someone who’d just punched me, I had neither Karate skills nor gun so I had to do it.