Chocolate Hearts and Murder

by Patti Larsen

  But who did that leave except the ghost of Elizabeth Adler?

  I was so lost in this scrap of information I looked up in surprise when someone entered the bar, the tapping of high heels making me jump. I sagged into the cushions of the bench, Petunia wriggling her delight at the sight of Daisy striding toward me still in full party gear. But the look on her face told me she’d had about enough of her own night, thanks and I poured her a stiff glass of her own, sliding it toward her when she halted at the table and lifted it with a graceful catch, sipping it before arching one eyebrow at me.

  “You,” she said, “look like crap.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Almost dying will do that to you.”

  Her annoyed expression flashed to fear and then worry as her jaw dropped, big, gray eyes full of guilt. “Fee, oh my god, what happened? Were you serious just now? Or are you being funny? You don’t look like you’re being funny.”

  I filled her in while she sank down beside Petunia, the two of us sharing another quick shot of scotch, the buzz hitting me hard a moment before settling into a mellow kind of warmth I could handle.

  “I can’t believe you almost died.” She gripped my hand in hers, tears standing in her eyes. “I just found you again. I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.”

  I tossed her a napkin with my free hand. “Don’t go getting maudlin on me,” I said. “I’m okay. Still have all my parts.” I wiggled my fingers at her. “But yeah, it was close.”

  “And you didn’t see anyone?” The ridiculousness of who I suspected held me silent while she reacted with disdain for her own question. “Sorry, I’m sure you would have done something if you had.” Daisy’s face fell. “I’m so stupid all the time.” And burst into tears.

  I hugged her over the whining body of my pug because that little personal attack on herself wasn’t about me almost dying. Or anything like the cheerfully and sometimes painfully optimistic Daisy I adored. I had just enough energy and focus in me to make that connection. “What happened, Daisy? And you are not stupid. Stop saying that about yourself.”

  “I can’t help it.” She wailed softly, a sound that from anyone else—like me—would have come across as pathetic but instead felt endearing. “He’s right, I’m dumb and will never amount to anything.”

  Ah, no. No, no, nope, uh-uh, no freaking way. No man ever, ever, got to tell her she was stupid. “Emile,” I growled.

  She shrugged just a little, head down, tears dripping into her scotch. “He’s right.”

  “He’s a dick.” I shook her a bit and she finally met my eyes. “What triggered this?”

  “He wants me to go back to Luxembourg City with him,” she said. “And I said no.”

  “And that makes you stupid.” Right.

  “Emile thinks I’m wasting my life in Reading.” She wiped delicately at her nose. “He’s right, Fee. I am wasting it. I’ve been coasting for so long and I just have never had the courage to go after what I really want. Not like you.” She sniffed. “You’re so brave and I wish I could be more like you.”

  “You,” I said, “are perfect just as you are.” And I was a horrible, horrible friend. Because this obviously wasn’t a new thing for Daisy. She was too broken up about it for it to be something she hadn’t been thinking about for a while now. “What do you want to do?”

  She shrugged, sighed. “That’s the problem. I don’t know.”

  “Well,” I said, “time to find out.” She laughed a little at my finger snap and head tilt as I winked at her. “Do you want to go all the way to the other side of the pond with Mr. Douchenozzle McJerkface?”

  Now she really laughed. “I do not,” she said emphatically enough I knew she wasn’t just saying that. “But I am grateful for the kick in the pants.” Leave it to Daisy to see the sunny side.

  “You saved my butt when I moved back here,” I said. “Coming to work at Petunia’s like you did. But Daisy, I know you’re not happy there.” She opened her mouth, a protest waiting, but I cut her off. “You’re welcome every day of the week as long as you want to stay. But your happiness is far more important. And I can find someone else if you need to go uncover what it is you’re looking for.”

  She hugged me and I hugged her back and it would have been a perfect bestie moment. Except, of course, for the slow clap and sarcastic voice that interrupted.

  “How adorable,” Vivian said with that kind of cold judgment that immediately got my back up. “And utterly cloying.”

  ***

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  She was the last person I wanted to see just now, in her still flawless gown and her diamonds and her perfect curls piled around that sparkling tiara that made me want to jerk it off her head and throw it as hard as I could into the still cascading water feature.

  “Oh, look,” Daisy said in her brightest voice, “Crew let you out of your room.”

  Burn. Super sick burn, at that. And delivered in the nicest possible way from the girl everyone underestimated at the slightest turn. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from snorting a laugh in Vivian’s face as the self-proclaimed Queen of the New England Bakery scowled at Daisy like she was trying to sort out if she’d just been insulted or not.

  “I’m looking for him,” she said at last. Sniffed in our general direction and I realized Daisy had nailed it on the head so hard I had to fight off another outburst. He’d done just as my friend said, dumped Vivian in her room and left her there by herself all evening. Left me wide open for a delicious attack, too.

  “We’ve been investigating,” I said. “Mayor’s orders. While she’s been in the penthouse, you know. Entertaining all the visiting funders.”

  Vivian’s face went pale, two bright, pink spots all that remained of her color on the peaks of her cheekbones. “He said we all had to stay in our rooms.” And now he was in serious doodoo and I wasn’t the least bit guilty over it either.

  “I guess that just referred to people who weren’t important,” I said. “I’m sure he’ll explain it later. When he has time for you.”

  Now, I’m not normally a vindictive person. Well, at least, not this vindictive. But Vivian woke in me the old hurts, the memories of hating my life in Reading thanks to her and my cousin Robert—now a deputy and happy to rub in he had the job I always wanted—and their horrible little posse who did their best to make me feel small. Daisy had been my only real friend and I’d abandoned her, I was now realizing, standing there in the quiet bar with the sound of water falling and Vivian’s hateful stare that exact same hateful stare I remembered from ten years ago. And knew exactly how Elizabeth Adler must have felt, except she made the mistake of trying to fit in. I wasn’t so smart, tried to go it alone and suffered for it.

  Until I turned then with grief in my heart to meet my best friend’s eyes and totally let go of the mean, spiteful woman hating me from across the room in favor of the one who had only ever had my back. So, not Elizabeth after all. Lucky me.

  “Day,” I whispered. “How can you ever forgive me for leaving you here?”

  She shook her head and smiled, sad but kinder than I deserved. “I didn’t have the courage to go,” she said, “and I didn’t have the heart to ask you to stay.”

  I really sucked as a friend, didn’t I?

  “Oh, please,” Vivian snapped, returning my attention to her, “find somewhere else to have your sad girl moment. Where the rest of us don’t have to gag on your patheticness.”

  “Crew’s in the dining room,” I said, dismissing her with those words. And ignored her when she huffed at me before stomping to the exit. Pausing one last time to throw daggered words at us.

  “Tell him I’m more important than some stupid dead body,” she snarled. “And that he can find me with the people who really matter.” With that, she was gone, heels clicking on the tile until she crossed from the bar to the foyer and was gone. Thank god.

  “And that,” I said, “is why I left Reading, Vermont.”

  Daisy nodde
d. “I know.”

  “Just sucks,” I said. “I should have made you come with me, Day.”

  She laughed then, tossed her head, perfect updo not moving an inch. “Silly. I would have just cried and asked you to stay home and we wouldn’t have parted as we did.”

  “Friends.” I smiled at her.

  “The best of.” She hugged me again. “As for Vivian. She’s just jealous. She knows full well Crew isn’t in to her no matter how hard she tries.”

  “He’s here with her,” I said. “Sharing a room with her.”

  “Says who?” Daisy’s arched eyebrow was back with a vengeance. “That little yellow birdie is on her own tonight, I’ll have you know. Though, she might find someone to take her home if the mayor has her way.”

  Vivian would love that. Marry money, divorce with no prenup and marry money again. From what I’d uncovered since arriving home, it wouldn’t be the first time.

  Oh, Fee. So cynical.

  I really shouldn’t have felt better about Crew after Daisy’s little reveal, but a hardened part of my poor, battered heart warmed at the understanding he’d been a pawn in yet another of Vivian’s games. I really needed to stop giving her my belief and lean toward the skeptical when it came to every word that came out of her mouth. Yes, they’d shared a selfie. So what? It was likely she made sure she was sitting with him for that reason. And the whole show at the first of the night, entering the bar like she owned it, ahead of him? Probably either a stupid coincidence or her being sneaky and setting it up so I’d see them together like that.

  Naw, she wasn’t that clever. Probably her good luck and my bad.

  “You likely don’t remember when Vivian was skinny and ugly like the rest of us,” Daisy said, sipping her scotch before wrinkling her nose and pushing it away.

  “Um, no,” I said, “not like the rest of us. I recall you were always gorgeous.”

  She dimpled and batted her lashes. “Point is, behind the fake boobs and the injections and the dye job and those tinted contacts, she’s not all that.”

  Tell me about it. Who wore contacts so blue they looked fake?

  All the air left my body in a rush as I exhaled like someone just slapped me. And, in a giant moment of clarity, I almost passed out from the forced lack of oxygen. Because I suddenly knew exactly who killed Mason. Who tried to kill me. And why.

  “Daisy,” I hugged her again, hurrying away as I yelled back over my shoulder at her, “thank you!”

  ***

  Chapter Thirty

  I had to find Dad and Crew immediately. Like, this very second, before I could let go of the gigantic epiphany that washed away everything, including my weakness and how tired I’d just been. Even burning off the last of the alcohol I’d just ingested. Because holy crap on a cracker. If I was right, my weary neurons actually firing correctly at last? Yeah, this had turned into a ghost hunt of massive proportions.

  Crew wasn’t in the dining room, the door open, the body gone. So he’d moved James somewhere he could protect, then? And Mason’s body, probably to the freezer, if he was thinking straight and done with the remains as an interrogation tool. Nothing grosser than the idea of Mason Patterson slowly decomposing on the stage under that hideous sheet that had been a tablecloth. The seeping smear of chocolate over the lump of his face and other foods just made my stomach churn.

  As for Dad, I knew he had to be where Crew was, likely with Ethan. And when I spun to head for the front desk, panic struck me. I was out of time. They’d just have to catch up later. Because no way was I letting the murderer go free.

  “Where is Paisley?” I practically assaulted Donna Walker as she emerged from the office, her face tight with the same kind of weariness that had muffled my brain enough it took a comment from Daisy to shake me out of my muzzy haze and finally connect the dots.

  She shook her spiky red head, looking around. “I have no idea,” she said. “She was here just a moment ago.”

  She must have seen me heading for Crew and guessed I’d put two and two together. Or had finally decided to cut her losses and run for the hills. But there was now zero doubt in my mind that Paisley was the murderer. The question remained, though—was this a ghost hunt? Was she Elizabeth Adler, too?

  I ran for the staff quarters and stopped at the exit doors just before I could reach the keypad. Stared at the exit, thought about the missing snowmobile. And winced as my shoulder hit the door and I stumbled outside, lurching into the snow. At least this time I was in warmer clothes, but not that warm. Really, what had I been thinking? The storm raged bigger and louder than ever, and I realized far too late Petunia had followed me, chugged her little legs and her fat pug body in pursuit of me as she had all evening and I’d failed to realize it. Guilt punched me in the gut, drove me to bend in the stiff wind despite my woozy bout with dizziness. I hefted Petunia into my arms and ran the opposite way from my botched escape attempt last time, hearing Bill’s voice in my head.

  That door leads to the back entry to the ski lifts. The instructors use it sometimes as a short cut even though I tell them not to.

  The wind died as I turned the corner, the funnel of it cleaning the path, showing me the last trace of a footprint disappearing in the falling snow and I knew I was on the right track. Darkness loomed out of the blowing storm, a door appearing ahead of me, the towering construction of the ski lift appearing like a monster in the whipping white. I found the handle with one burning hand, the cold hitting me hard, Petunia whimpering in my arms, and threw us both inside, closing the door as quietly as I could behind me. My choice of escape route the first time wasn’t lost on me, the fact that had I turned right instead of left Bill wouldn’t have had to rescue me at all.

  Terrible instincts with directions and people? This had been an educational night.

  I leaned against the closed door a moment before setting my pug down on the floor and blinking into the darkness, feet sliding on the line of snow that the storm forced under the door and my entrance—and the killer’s—let in. A light ahead flickered, more emergency illumination. Obviously the generators weren’t feeding this section because no one in their right mind would be out here on a night—early morning—like this one. Except the murderer of Mason Patterson trying to escape on a stolen snowmobile.

  I caught sight of the puffy parka, the fluff of white fur around the collar. The same one from the office I’d noticed earlier tonight, dripping snow and melting fast. Just before Bill mentioned the loss of the machine he’d been hunting ever since.

  “Clever,” I called out. “But you’ll die out there for real this time if you try to escape in the storm, Elizabeth.”

  She spun, stared me down, frozen a moment with her hands on the controls of the ski lift, the bulky box of a small, silent generator at her feet. “You’ve got it all wrong, Miss Fleming,” Paisley said. “I’m not Elizabeth Adler.”

  Well, crap. “But you did murder Mason.”

  She leaned sideways, hand dropping to her side, rising with something long and skinny in her grasp. For the second time in two months I stared down the barrel of a gun, only this one an odd looking rifle and in hands far steadier than Peggy Munroe’s had been. I’d been scared when my elderly neighbor tried to kill me. But not with the chill certainty I felt now. Peggy had been cold and calculating and horrible. This girl, whoever she really was, had cracked completely. I’d never seen such an expression utterly devoid of humanity.

  And I’d wanted to hire her? Man, I really did have the worst instincts about people ever.

  “I did.” She shrugged like his death meant nothing to her.

  “Why?” I held out both hands, Petunia shivering as she sat on my feet, my own body reacting to the cold. While we were out of the storm it was still below freezing in here and I didn’t know how long I’d survive even if she didn’t shoot me. I needed to call for help, my cell phone lost somewhere outside thanks to Paisley I now knew. But the curiosity in me wouldn’t let me run or try to escape. Not until I understood
. And, the longer I kept her talking… maybe the boys would find me.

  Yeah, wishful thinking.

  She hesitated at the question. “Why do you care?”

  For the briefest instant I saw my survival in the flash of vulnerability in her face. So there was someone inside that hard and frozen shell of nothing she showed me. Maybe with a little urging and kindness I could find a way to stay alive and get her to stand down.

  “Because he was a jerk and from what I understand probably deserved to die.” My turn to shrug. “And because I want to know how he hurt you so much. I thought we’d made a connection.” I swallowed the bile rising in the back of my throat as I spoke, disgusted with myself. “All night I’ve been thinking about offering you a job, trying to poach you from the lodge to work for me at Petunia’s.” My pug groaned at the sound of her name, looked up at me with those huge, trusting eyes. I couldn’t let us both down. She’d saved my life when Peggy tried to kill me. I had to do the job this round and pay her back.

  When I looked up again and met Paisley’s gaze, she blinked, lips curving downward, her expression returning to that soft vulnerability I’d seen before. It lasted longer this time, though her hands shifted on the skeleton of a rifle as if she fought her own heart.

  “You were?” She sounded so young, so fragile. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because I like you,” I said. “And I thought we were friends.”

  She looked away, snuffled, the gun’s mouth lowering a little, a flap open where the muzzle ended. I’d seen a rifle like this before, but where? “I don’t have any friends,” she said.

  My mind made a leap. “You had Elizabeth.”

  Paisley’s head whipped around and she stared at me, jaw tightening, eyes snapping back to that cold and empty expression. And, as they did, I recognized her at last, as the lurker in the background of Mason’s photos. Not Elizabeth at all in the blue hoody, the red sweater either. Or, maybe, taking turns in that position. If I looked more closely, would there be two lurkers instead of one?