Ganache with Panache: Book 2 in The Chocolate Cafe Series

by Valley Sams

  “You know what,” Brie said, “I’m going to give him a call. He gave me his number before he stormed out. I think he’s just looking for free chocolate, frankly.”

  “That’s a good idea. We can see if he wants to go for a drink or something.”

  “I doubt it. The man hasn’t even been out of rehab for longer than half a year.” Louis said. Mac looked at him, amused.

  “According to police files?” she asked.

  Louis shrugged his lean shoulders.

  “According to the internet.” Both women halted and looked at him incredulously. “Look, McKenzie Bay is hardly London. Most of the time I just respond to noise complaints. Last week, I even tried to help find a kitten! There’s really not a lot for me to do. A man has to keep busy.”

  Brie laughed, shaking her head.

  “All right, let’s see if Mr. Lau wants to meet for ice cream instead.”

  There was a brief conversation as they walked up the steps built into the stone wall that separated the beach from the town. Once up on the sidewalk, Brie slid her phone back into her pocket. She looked troubled.

  “He’s into it, but he sounded upset,” she reported.

  “It’s been a long day for him, from the sounds of it.” Louis said, buckling Toby into his leash.

  “Yeah, I suppose,” Brie said. “Anyway, he’s staying with his sister at the Strand Hotel by Agate Beach. We’re supposed to meet up with him there.”

  “Ice cream with a world famous fashion designer. If my dear old mum could see me now.” He took Mac’s hand again, intertwining his fingers with hers. That wonderful warmth she had felt on the beach bloomed suddenly in her heart again. This was a hand she could get used to holding.

  ****

  The Strand Hotel wasn’t nearly as elegant as it sounded. Apparently Lau’s people hadn’t realized that when they had booked him there for his stay. Off the main drag, it was actually a series of small, rundown cabins facing each other in a wide circle. Each cabin was named after a tree—Maple, Lilac, Dogwood—or an ocean dweller—Dolphin, Puffin, Humpback. The office was in the center and it doubled as an equally rundown fish and chips shop. The smell of grease and less-than-fresh seafood made the hotel a place frequented less by tourists and more by down-on-their-luck locals. It went without saying that Brie had lived at the Strand for a few months in high school.

  She had seemed a little distracted since the phone call with Zach. Mac wondered if it had something to do with going back to one of her old neighborhoods, but when a series of police cars and emergency vehicles roared past them, both she and Louis broke into a run simultaneously.

  “Oh geez, I knew it. I knew it.” Brie mumbled, easily matching Louis’s strides despite his being at least double her size. Toby, his own policing instincts activated, began to bray along with the sirens and once again yanked Mac forward.

  Breathless, the three watched as the cacophony of red and blue lights tore through the gates of the hotel and came to a halt in front of one of the cabins.

  Only seconds behind, they ran across the gravel toward the now open door of Lilac Cabin.

  “That’s Zachary’s cabin.” Brie said, her voice cracking. A swarm of uniformed officers and paramedics poured from the vehicles. The owner of the hotel, a very large woman in a cat tee shirt, was wringing her hands and crying, her many chins trembling.

  Still running, Louis turned to the girls. His face hardened, the mouth that so easily curled up into a goofy smile now a thin line.

  “Stay here,” he said. “Don’t come in. Don’t ask anyone anything. Just. Behave.” He tore off into the crowd where the other officers immediately surrounded him, talking excitedly.

  Brie and Mac stood, panting for breath on the outskirts of the action. Mac had to plant her feet to keep Toby from running forward after Louis. In the darkness, the lights swirled off the whitewashed cabins and cut sharp shadows into the girls’ faces.

  Brie looked at her friend. The same lean, hungry look she got whenever something like this happened was back. She knew damn well what Mac wanted, and that was to get into that cabin and get the information that every fiber in her body was screaming for. If Mac were wearing a leash, she would be tugging at it as hard as Toby was at his.

  “We should go,” Brie said, gently. “He’ll call us when he knows anything.”

  “Mac.” Brie said again. “Seriously. Remember last time? We need to get out of the way.”

  Hearing her name. Mac snapped out of her trance. She looked at Brie with what looked remarkably close to disappointment. “You’re right,” she said. “We’ll get a cab and head back to my place.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  There were approximately two days of relative calm before the story of internationally acclaimed designer Zachary Lau’s death became the top-ranked trending topic in the entertainment world. Overnight, Mackenzie Bay was overrun with reporters in fat, white vans ignoring all traffic signs, and morbidly curious lookie-loos, also impeding traffic and giving attitude to Mackenzie Bay residents.

  For Mac, the most painful part of the whole murder investigation had been the waiting. The night that Louis had disappeared into the hotel cabin, Mac had paced through her home like a caged cat. Every window she passed she looked out, waiting for the headlights of his car as he came up the drive. She checked her phone obsessively. Her dinner went cold and uneaten on the table.

  When Louis finally stood at her doorstep, he looked too exhausted to stand, let alone answer her barrage of questions. He was pale, spoke very little, and didn’t do much the entire night except absently pat Mac’s head, more as if to comfort himself than to put her at ease.

  Before he fell asleep on the couch, he flickered his eyes open long enough to make stern contact with hers. “Mac, don’t do anything. I know it will be hard for you, but don’t. Don’t even look at the internet. Just stay out of it.” With that, he passed out just as the sun was coming up.

  And she did.

  She kept herself out of it for as long as she could. She went to work, she listened to the idle gossip. She barely raised an eyebrow when Brie came bursting into the shop announcing that Mrs. Olivia Hood was the number one suspect.

  “Remember the big blow out? Her threats? You should’ve seen the look on her face when they were taking her into the station. I’ve never seen anyone so furious.”

  Mac had made some offhand comment and had gone back to diligently cleaning the espresso machine. None of her business right?

  Until the murder scene pictures hit the internet.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  She had pored over the shots. Ignoring all the warnings of graphic content and to delve as deep into the morbid darkness of the Web as she could, she found every single black-and-white shot that had been taken.

  It was horrific. Her heart ached for the man, even though she’d only met him the once. He was barely recognizable. The cause of death was officially torture and heroin poisoning, but to Mac Zach’s body looked like the result of pure, unadulterated rage.

  What was even more horrific was the look on Zachary’s sister’s face in the few shots of her at the scene that made their way online. According to the press, she had also been staying at the hotel to help her brother with some of the technical aspects of his two bridal gowns. She had been his constant companion for years, second only to his partner. The look in her eyes in those few candid shots was hard to forget. She looked broken.

  “It was the sister. Obviously.” Brie was trying to drum up some enthusiasm from Mac. She was used to seeing her friend burst into flame when any kind of mystery came to town. This time, however, she was strangely sedate. Almost calm.

  “Nope. She was with his partner that night in the city. They have witnesses and everything. Do you have the camera with you?”

  Mac, Brie, and Vanessa were driving up the coastline to Amelia Moore’s house to get a close look at the backyard venue. Vanessa had decided to tag along as an excuse to get away from the press heyday
that had taken over downtown. Like the other two, dealing with all the speculation and intrusiveness of the scoop-hungry reporters had utterly exhausted her.

  The three of them were more than happy to put up their respective closed signs and enjoy a short road trip. They had passed all of the monster homes a while back and were now making their way to the winding, narrow streets of what the locals referred to as the character neighborhood.

  Wind ravaged and full of personality, these homes were some of the oldest in Mackenzie Bay, and certainly contained the most character. Windsocks fluttered from each one and the front doors were painted various bright, cheery shades.

  In time they arrived at Amelia’s house—a modest arts and crafts home with a lush summer garden out the front. Two lazy, ginger cats blinked at the girls as they opened the warped gate to make their way to the front door.

  “Don’t her parents have a ton of money? Her dad invented some software thing, right?” Mac whispered to Brie.

  “They live in the next town over. Or two. Apparently sending her big fat checks every month is easier than admitting they’re too lame to look after their own son.” Brie whispered back.

  Mac grunted her disapproval and knocked on the door. The ginger cats immediately wound themselves around the three women’s legs. There was no answer, so she tried again.

  “We’re back here!” Amelia’s voice called out from the side of the house. Brie, Mac, and Vanessa picked their way past the affectionate kitties and made their way along the twisting stone pathway and through a thick hedge arc.

  The backyard was magical. There was no better word for it. At first glance it looked as if nature had simply exploded in a riot of summer joy: butterflies, bumblebees, hanging vines, any number of flowers, all piled up and intertwined together. Of course, at second glance it was easy to see how much work had gone into making that way. It reminded Mac of the storybooks she had devoured as a child. She was immediately enchanted.

  In the shade of a red maple, Amelia sat on a high-back wicker chair, her radiant hair spilling down over her shoulders. She stood up as soon as she saw them.

  “Thank you for coming,” she said, embracing them briefly. She smelled of lilacs and sunscreen. “What a terrible couple of days.”

  “I’m so sorry, you must be so disappointed.” Vanessa said. Amelia looked puzzled. Vanessa blushed. “I apologize. I’m Vanessa. Nice to meet you.”

  “Disappointed?” Amelia asked, her blue eyes round and puzzled.

  “Your dress?” Mac asked, a little surprised that a bride would forget such a typically important part of her wedding.

  “Oh! Oh, no,” Amelia said. “Come see.” She beckoned them over to the table where she had been sitting. She picked up three pieces of paper and passed them to Mac. “Zach’s sister Kyra has come to the rescue. So kind of her, especially seeing what she’s having to go through right now. She said her brother was really excited about working with me and she wanted to be sure that he was still a part of it, in a way. She drew these up for me last night.”

  The pages depicted a stylized plan for a simple, but stunning wedding gown. More bohemian than princess, it reminded Mac of the turn of the century Pre-Raphaelite paintings she had studied in her first year at Harvard. With the controlled chaos of the garden and Amelia’s copper hair, it was absolutely perfect.

  “It’s beautiful,” Mac breathed, passing it to Brie.

  “Wow. She’s just as talented as her brother.” Brie said, equally impressed.

  She passed the sketches to Vanessa, who seemed to freeze as soon as she saw them. Her eyes widened and she looked up sharply at Amelia.

  “These. Did you say his sister did these?”

  Amelia nodded, puzzled at Vanessa’s intensity.

  “Yes. Last night. What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  Vanessa forced an awkward laugh. “I’m fine. I’m great. I’m a designer, too. Just professional jealousy, I guess.”

  “Vanessa just opened a boutique downtown,” Brie explained. “She’s pretty talented herself, you know.”

  Amelia wasn’t buying it. She was about as intuitive as Harper was affected, and she could easily see that whatever was troubling Vanessa, it wasn’t jealousy.

  “No. That’s not sour grapes. There’s something else. What’s wrong?”

  Vanessa hesitated. She looked at each of the women staring at her expectantly, and took a deep breath

  “These aren’t his sister’s designs,” she told them, warily. “These are his.”

  “What?” Mac said, “That’s not possible.”

  “Exactly,” Amelia cut Mac off in her excitement, “She told me she did them last night and Zach died over a week ago now.”

  “I swear to you, I’m not lying. Look…” Vanessa practically bounded over to the table and laid the images out. She took her phone from her pocket and began furiously typing something into the search engine.

  The other girls gathered around her, breathless, as images began popping up.

  “I only remember this because one of the first reports I did in design school was on Zach Lau. I didn’t do too well, but I did my research. Look…” She held the phone so that the others could get a clear look.

  Amelia gasped.

  There on the screen was the exact same design. Under it was the date and the name of its creator…Zachary Lau.

  “But…why would she do that? Why would she try to pass her brother’s work off as her own?”

  “Maybe she needs the money?” Brie said, shrugging.

  “Maybe she couldn’t come up with her own design?” Vanessa suggested.

  “Well, that ends it then.” Amelia said. “There’s no way I’m paying her that kind of money for something that she copied.” She crossed her arms, freckled and warm from an afternoon in the garden. She stared over their heads for a second, then her face lit up with a sudden, apparently wonderful idea.

  “Would you be able to come up with some ideas?” she asked, turning to Vanessa. “I mean, I haven’t seen your work but if you’re friends with these two, I can only imagine that you’ve got some pretty impressive skills.”

  Vanessa was taken aback. Brie wasn’t. She whooped with enthusiasm.

  “Fantastic idea. This girl is gifted! You won’t be sorry.” Vanessa, obviously embarrassed, shot Brie a pained look.

  “I mean, if you don’t mind, I’d love to. I can get some drawings to you by tomorrow if that’s all right.”

  Amelia embraced her again, as if she had just found a new best friend. “Tomorrow is more than all right. Everything happens for a reason. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.”

  “Speaking of that…” Brie took the cooler she had been carrying and placed it firmly on top of the forged drawings. “You’ve got some more chocolate tasting to do, young lady. And we’ve got to start thinking about broadening the theme to suit this amazing garden. I’m thinking herbs. We need to do something with herbs.”

  As Vanessa, Sabrina, and Amelia set to work brainstorming, Mac found herself wandering away from the group. It was starting again. She could almost feel the gears in her head begin to engage at a speed that would be nearly impossible to contain.

  Why would Lau’s sister try to pass off her late brother’s work as her own? Grief? Possible. Greed? More likely. But what if it was something blacker, something more insidious than even the lust for money. What if it was something that came from a darker place entirely?

  The gears had already ramped up their pace. She did her best to remember her stalwart detective’s pre-sleep pleas. She had managed to be dutiful this long, why couldn’t she keep it up?

  Because you’re not the dutiful girlfriend type. Her inner voice cut through the noise of the turning gears with a sudden burst of truth. You never have been and you never will be. You’re the type that climbs over fences and jimmies locks.

  Mac sighed and looked at the happy trio next to the lilac bush. She didn’t belong there either. There was one place she belonged right n
ow and that place was only going to get her in a ton of trouble.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Mac counted her footsteps as she ran. Every third step she took a ragged breath in and every sixth step she exhaled. Sometimes the force of her own exhalation sent droplets of sweat on her face fanning outwards.

  Nothing made her stop thinking quite like exhausting her body.

  She had left early enough in the morning to be assured that the streets would be empty. There was always a moment of guilt when she passed other people where she felt she had to break her concentration and make eye contact. Those social skills were so deeply ingrained in her that the shame when she didn’t do it often knocked her off her running game.

  Not today, however. Today she was on fire. No Toby to slow her down, no tourists or news vans to distract her, she had made her way down the hills to the main thoroughfare and was now on her way to the beach.

  Mac was concentrating so deeply on her steady cadence that she didn’t hear the almost noiseless hum of the car engine behind her. It was only when the tank-like Range Rover pulled into the crosswalk directly in front of her that she even noticed it. How long had it been following her?

  Annoyed, Mac came to a stumbling halt. She yanked her earbuds out and glared at the tinted windows.

  “What the h…” She stopped her imminent curse-filled tirade when the window rolled down to reveal Harper Hood’s lineless face. Harper attempted what should have been a smile.

  “Good morning, Catharine,” she said. There was a click as Harper opened the side door. “We’d like to take you for coffee.”

  The window rolled down so that Mac could see Olivia in the backseat, the same forced smile on her face. The two of them reminded Mac of crocodiles and she immediately regretted leaving Toby back at the mansion. Olivia patted the leather seat in front of her with her bony hand,

  “It’s a beautiful morning. Come for a ride,” she said. Her voice had a forced friendliness that sent warning bells ringing loudly through Mac’s head.