Zero Dark Chocolate (A Miranda and Parker Mystery Book 5)

by Linsey Lanier

  Unbeknownst to Miranda, that phone was now securely tucked into a locked drawer in his desk at the Agency. He had been tracing the source of the messages himself since he’d taken the phone from Becker.

  So far, he’d discovered nothing. But he’d find out the source of those messages soon.

  Picking at her dessert, Miranda cleared her throat. Guilty conscious, he thought.

  “Hey, I wonder what Fanuzzi’s got planned for the party.”

  He smiled genuinely. He was looking forward to the celebration of their marriage a year ago. “Something delightful, knowing her.”

  “Yeah.” Miranda squirmed in her seat.

  Parker was looking at her that way again. Like he’d like to go a few rounds with her in an interrogation room. Something was up. Before she could figure out what to do about it, her cell rang—the replacement for her old one that she’d gotten from Becker.

  She picked it up from the table where she’d laid it beside the silverware and scowled.

  “What is it?” Parker asked, his low voice suddenly tense.

  “Fanuzzi. What’s she calling me for?” She pressed the button. “Hi. You call to tell me about your hot date?”

  “Murray. Thank gawd I got hold of you.” Fanuzzi sounded really rattled. Not at all like the tough Brooklyn native who’d gotten to know her when she first came to Atlanta.

  They’d been friends since their days together on the road crew on the Atlanta interstates. Or rather, Fanuzzi had been her friend. She’d pursued Miranda when she hadn’t wanted to get attached to anybody.

  Miranda tensed. “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s Dave. I can’t find him.”

  “What do you mean you can’t find him?”

  Fanuzzi took a deep breath and the words tumbled out of her a mile a minute. “I came back to the hotel from my cooking class this afternoon and Dave wasn’t here. He was supposed to be waiting for me but the room was empty. I’ve looked in all the shops he might have gone to. I’ve tried calling him a dozen times but there’s no answer.”

  What? “Wait. This afternoon?” Miranda glanced at her watch. “What time is it there?”

  “One thirty in the morning. He’s been missing for over nine hours. You’ve got to help me, Miranda.”

  Nine hours? He wasn’t holed up in some boudoir with some French floozy, was he? No, Becker wasn’t like that. He was crazy about Fanuzzi. He loved her and her kids. He’d never do that. So where the heck was he?

  “Have you called the police?”

  “No. I didn’t know how they would handle it.” She sounded so lost and afraid.

  Parker reached across the table and touched her arm. “What’s going on, Miranda?” He looked as worried as she felt.

  “Becker’s missing. Here.” She handed him the phone while she tried to pull her thoughts together.

  Becker missing in Paris? He could be anywhere. First place to check was the hospitals. Or the police stations. Maybe he’d gotten himself arrested somehow. Maybe he’d just gotten really lost.

  But as she listened to the concern in Parker’s voice, a feeling like a cold ice storm came over her.

  This wasn’t good. Not good at all.

  “Yes. Of course. Try to stay calm. I’ll let you know as soon as possible.” He hung up and handed the phone back to her.

  “What?”

  But Parker was already getting to his feet. “I told her I’d take the next flight out.”

  I’d? She stared at him as if he’d suddenly turned purple. “I’m going with you, Parker.” It wasn’t a request. “Fanuzzi’s my best friend.”

  He locked eyes with her and for a moment that funny vibe she’d been getting from him for days struck her with full force.

  What the hell?

  But there wasn’t time for a debate.

  As if he were choosing the lesser of two evils, he gave her a curt nod. “Of course. Let’s get going.”

  And he tossed several large bills on the table and escorted her out of the restaurant.

  Chapter Three

  It wasn’t easy booking a trip to a hot European vacation spot in mid-July with no advance notice. But Parker worked his magic and got them two tickets on a direct flight.

  Except they were in coach instead of the usual first class. The seats were uncomfortable, the food was bad, and the turbulence was rough.

  Miranda hardly slept a wink.

  She felt like hell when she climbed down the boarding steps and blinked into the nearly noonday sun at Charles de Gaulle airport the next day.

  But she knew Fanuzzi was feeling a whole lot worse right now.

  “I told Joan we’d meet her at her hotel,” Parker said, ushering Miranda into a waiting cab after they’d waded through customs and tromped across the huge airport.

  The car raced down a wide four-lane highway through maybe ten miles or so of flat, uninteresting scenery until they reached the city. Then they hit traffic—and seemed to drift back in time several centuries.

  Ancient churches, quaint little shops, and decorative buildings lined old streets that seemed to fork out at every intersection in a different pattern. All of them with a boatload of gaudy flourishes and ornamental wrought ironwork everywhere. In contrast to the trucks and bicycles and foot traffic below. Everything was so elaborate, so pretty, so…Parisian. She could almost hear the accordions playing.

  “We’re in the Île de France area, heading for the Left Bank,” Parker told her. “Only a few kilometers to go.”

  Kilometers, huh? “You’ve been here before?”

  He nodded. “Sylvia and I used to take Gen here when she was young.”

  “I see,” she said.

  Not easy to imagine the hard-nosed Gen in a place known for art and beauty, but she was well-bred so Miranda took his word for it.

  Before she’d met Parker Miranda supposed, like most folks, she’d imagined going to Paris someday. But she’d never thought she’d get here. And she’d never harbored the romantic notions most people had about the city. Before Parker came along there hadn’t been much romance in her life.

  Still she’d never have guessed she’d get to the City of Lights to hunt down a lost friend. She eyed the crowded sidewalks. Seemed to be people from everywhere. How in the heck where they going to find Becker in these throngs?

  “It’s the height of the tourist season,” Parker pointed out, his thoughts echoing hers.

  “Do you think we can find him?” she dared to ask.

  He paused a moment as his experienced gaze scanned the street. “With any luck he’s simply lost and will find his way back to the hotel.”

  Wouldn’t be hard to do, Miranda thought, eyeing the crowd again. And the streets were a maze.

  She forced herself to brighten. “Yeah, maybe he’ll be waiting for us when we get there.”

  “If so, perhaps we can use the trip as our own second honeymoon.”

  That idea made her smile. “That would be fun.”

  But somehow she didn’t think they’d be getting off so easy.

  ###

  They reached the hotel, which Parker told her was in a section of the city called Montparnasse in the fourteenth arrondissement, which she took to be some sort of district.

  He got a bellhop to take their bags and escorted her inside. “I booked a room for us here. It’s on Joan’s floor,” he told her as they stepped inside a quaint little lobby with dark wood walls and an old-fashioned checkerboard pattern on the floor.

  Pretty cool he could do that in the height of the tourist season but Parker had a way of working miracles at times. Plus the hotel wasn’t that fancy. Very unusual quarters for him.

  “I think we should see Fanuzzi before we go to the room and unpack,” she said while they rode up a creaky elevator with an ironwork door. Though she was dying for a few hours sleep.

  “Agreed.”

  The elevator stopped. They got out and Parker gestured down the hall.

  At a door two down from theirs, he knoc
ked.

  Right away Miranda heard footsteps and the sound of the lock turning. Fanuzzi opened the door.

  Man. Miranda had never seen her friend like this.

  She had on a red cotton blouse and white slacks that looked like they’d never been ironed. The frosted brown hair she always kept nicely styled was sticking out everywhere. The dark circles under her red swollen eyes looked like tar pits. A combination of weeping and lack of sleep.

  Neither of them was the touchy-feely type but instinctively Miranda put her arms around the poor woman. “Oh, Fanuzzi.”

  “Murray,” Fanuzzi moaned and pulled her inside while Parker shut the door.

  Her theory about Becker being here to meet them went up in smoke. “I’m so sorry.”

  Fanuzzi pulled a tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose. “Jeez. I promised myself I wasn’t going to fall apart like this.” The usually sassy smirk in her Brooklyn accent was gone, replaced by a hollow tone.

  “It’s perfectly understandable,” Parker said, scanning the room.

  “Thank you so much for coming. I really appreciate it.”

  “You can thank us when we find your husband.”

  Dabbing her eyes she nodded and gestured to two empty chairs that didn’t match. “Have a seat. I don’t have coffee or anything. Sorry the room’s so small.”

  Miranda settled into the overstuffed chair that filled the tiny corner by the window. “That’s okay. We need to get started on this.”

  “Sure. Yeah.” Fanuzzi sank onto a corner of the bed. “What do you have in mind?”

  Miranda looked at Parker, who was peering out the curtains.

  “Where do you think Dave might be?” he said.

  Fanuzzi blinked at him with hollow eyes. “I have no idea. I’ve looked for him everywhere I can think of.”

  Parker went to a small desk and found a pad and pen. He handed them to Fanuzzi. “Make a list.”

  “Okay.” Fanuzzi thought a minute then started to write.

  Her stomach knotting Miranda leaned her elbows on her knees to quell her nerves. “Try to go in chronological order. So you won’t leave anything out.”

  Fanuzzi nodded. “Yesterday morning we had breakfast together in the café around the corner. Dave likes the croissants there.”

  “What time was that?” Miranda said.

  “Early. Around six. I had to get to class. We were doing entremets.”

  Her cooking class. Miranda had all but forgotten Fanuzzi had won lessons at some fancy French cooking school. It was hard to imagine her Italian friend baking French pastries.

  “Okay. Then what?”

  Fanuzzi tilted her head a moment then shrugged. “I said goodbye to Dave and got on the bus.”

  Miranda drummed her fingers against her knee. “So he might not have come back to the room.”

  “He did the past two days.”

  “Kind of a routine?”

  “Yeah, sort of. He’d come back to the room and read awhile, then he’d go out and browse some of the local shops or sightsee. Around noon, he’d go have lunch somewhere and scope out a tour or a show for us on his e-pad. You know, something for us to do in the evening?”

  “He had his devise with him?” Parker asked.

  “Yeah. But yesterday he told me he’d have a surprise waiting when I got back.”

  Surprise? Could be a clue.

  “Do you have any idea what that might have been?” Parker asked.

  She lifted her shoulders. “You know Dave. He can be pretty creative. Could have been anything.”

  Miranda suppressed a sigh. This wasn’t much help. “Have you talked to the concierge?”

  Fanuzzi nodded. “He said he didn’t see Dave come in or go out.”

  Sounded like something happened and he never made it back.

  She glanced over at Parker. He was diddling with his phone, a grim look on his face. “There’s no signal from Dave’s e-pad or his cell.”

  Miranda’s stomach did another twist. Would have been easy to find him that way, but now they couldn’t. Had he turned both of them off? Had they gotten smashed to smithereens in an accident? Was Becker still in one piece?

  Hospitals, she thought. They needed to check hospitals.

  She caught Parker’s eye and saw his thoughts mirrored hers. He gave his head an inconspicuous shake.

  Right. Fanuzzi would go berserk it they mentioned hospitals now.

  Wait a minute. Cell phone. Did Becker have her cell phone on him? The one with the nasty text messages? She got to her feet.

  “Um…excuse me a minute. Okay if I use your john?”

  Fanuzzi gestured to a small door around a narrow corner. “Sure, go ahead.”

  Miranda stepped over and shut the door behind her. She pulled out her phone and dialed her previous number. It rang and rang and rang. Finally, she heard her own voice. Becker hadn’t changed the message. She hung up and tried her tracker app. She entered the number again and waited for it to connect and locate. Slow as molasses. C’mon, c’mon. She heard movement in the room and glanced at the closed door.

  Finally the thing beeped. She peered at the screen.

  Atlanta. Becker had left her old cell phone at the office.

  Letting out a sigh of frustration mingled with relief, she flushed the weird-looking toilet and stepped out in time to see Parker hold out his hand to Fanuzzi for the notepad.

  A flicker of an icy glance in her direction made Miranda shudder. And wonder if he knew exactly what she’d been doing in there.

  “Are you finished?” he said to Fanuzzi.

  Looking totally exhausted she handed it to him with a tired shrug. “It’s all I can think of.”

  Parker scanned the paper. “It’s a start. I’ll look into these places. While I do why don’t you get some rest. Miranda can look after you.”

  What the fuck? Mouth open, Miranda glared at him. What did he mean “look after her”? Wasn’t she supposed to be in charge of this case?

  But before she could get even a curse out, Fanuzzi shot to her feet. “The hell I will, Wade. I can’t sleep now. I’m going with you.”

  The muscle in his jaw tightening, Parker scowled at Fanuzzi then at Miranda.

  She read the thoughts on his face as if it were a personal telegraph. He wanted her—both of them–to stay here all safe and sound while he went out and did the dirty work. But it would waste precious time to stand here and argue with both of them so he gave in. For now, anyway.

  “Very well,” he said in a near grunt as he moved to the door. “Let’s get going then.”

  Chapter Four

  Back out on the street the crowd seemed to have doubled.

  Fighting the press of bodies and noise of traffic and muted conversations, Miranda pushed through the crowd with Parker and Fanuzzi beside her. A lot of folk had to be tourists, ambling along, window shopping. Others business people rushing to a job somewhere after a long lunch. Then there were the folks on bikes and motorcycles.

  The street had a distinct Parisian charm.

  A picturesque little shop with a window filled with fashionable clothes and hats. A chic looking façade with kicky jewelry on display. A sleek place touting plane tickets to exotic spots all over the world. As if they weren’t already in one. Along one side of the street motorcycles were parked in a row. On the other side, a row of bicycles. Guess the riders had to put them somewhere.

  Just as a big bus roared past they reached a corner—if you could call five or so streets spiking out of the same intersection like spokes of a wheel, a corner. But on one curve of it was a shop with a deep brown awning flapping in the wind and customers lazing in pretty wicker chairs at little round tables that dotted the sidewalk.

  Le Vieux Café read the fancy script on the awning.

  “This it?” Miranda asked.

  “Yeah.” Fanuzzi fought back a quiver in her voice. “This is where I last saw Dave.” She fought for control. “They say Hemingway and Picasso used to come here.”

&nbs
p; Parker agreed. “This area of town is where painters and poets used to gather in the twenties.”

  “Cool.” It would have been so nice to take in if they were just on a vacation. But Miranda knew Parker was trying to distract Fanuzzi to keep her from panicking.

  They sure weren’t here to sightsee.

  Miranda’s stomach rumbled at the sight of two busy waiters scurrying around in black outfits with white aprons. Each held silver platters with delicious looking lunch plates on them. Her mouth began to water. Even here on the street, the odors emanating from the café promised a more than scrumptious fare. And she’d only had coffee on the plane.

  With a determined look, Parker pulled out a chair for her at an empty table.

  “We’re ordering?” No matter how hungry they were, there was no time for food.

  “Pretending to,” he clarified. “The best way to get the staff’s attention and their cooperation.”

  “Okay.” She sat but she thought they were wasting valuable minutes.

  Fanuzzi slid into the seat Parker held for her. “Oh, he’s right, Murray. The French are very particular. You have to do and say the right thing or they ignore you.”

  She must have been right. As soon as Fanuzzi’s bottom hit the wicker chair one of the servers stopped at their table.

  She was a tall, big-boned young woman with dark features and hair worn in an unpretentious bun on the top of her head. Might have been in her mid twenties. But in the plain dark uniform with the apron, she looked older.

  “Bonjour,” she said without smiling, though her eyes flashed a momentary hunger Miranda had seen on most women when they met her too-good-looking-to-be-true spouse.

  Undaunted Parker gave the young woman a low voltage version of his lady-killer grin. “Bonjour.” And then he rattled something off in French.

  How many languages did he know? He never ceased to amaze her.

  “Madame.” She nodded to Fanuzzi. “Have you found your mari, your husband?”

  “No. Not yet.” Fanuzzi waved a hand at them. “These are my two friends from America. They’ve come to help me. Miranda, Wade, this is Claudette. She’s waited on us every day since we’ve been here.”

  The young woman nodded, again without a smile.