Chocolate Dipped Death Read online

  She looked so shaken, I didn’t know if she was about to faint or lunge at me with a syringe full of Elavil. “Don’t tell me that was the letter they were talking about.”

  I didn’t.

  “So then you know.” She looked at me with eyes filled with such pain, my heart constricted.

  The correct, clever response to this is to agree that yes, you know everything. I nodded, thinking that might give her that impression without actually making me lie inside a house of worship. “Why did you go to Savannah for help?”

  She shook her head and glanced toward the doors again. “You’re right. I can’t talk about this here. We’re going to have to go somewhere else.”

  I’m not the I-told-you-so type, so I kept my mouth shut and followed her outside. But that’s where I took charge. There’s no way I was going to climb into her car and let her drive me somewhere. I don’t have nougat for brains.

  Neither of us said anything until we were seat-belted in place and I had the heater running. Since I had control of the wheel, I asked, “Is there anyplace in particular you’d like to go?”

  She shook her head, then leaned against the seat and stared out the window. “Anywhere, as long as it’s away from here. If Noah ever hears about this, he’ll leave me.”

  “Why?” The question popped out before I could think about it. A reason occurred to me half a breath later. “Was it his baby?”

  Her head jerked up and shot around to glare at me. “Of course it was his baby. He’s the only man I’ve ever been with.”

  “So what was the problem? You didn’t think he’d support you?”

  “In having an abortion?” A cold, hard laugh escaped her lips. “Is that a serious question?”

  An abortion? That’s what this was about? I tried to hide my surprise, but I must have failed miserably, because I watched the realization dawn in Faith’s eyes. “You didn’t know, did you?” She leaned back against the seat, and weariness dragged at her expression.

  I decided to be honest. “No, I didn’t know. Not everything.” I pulled out of the parking lot and drove for a while, giving her time to collect her thoughts. Doing the same for myself. “So you realized you were pregnant, and you went to Savannah because you believed she could help you. Did she ever threaten to tell Noah?”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Faith nod. “She never came right out and said that she would tell, but it was always there. You know what Savannah was like. She could look so innocent, and all the time she was ramming the knife into your chest.”

  “When she came back to town you must have been terrified.”

  “I was. I didn’t know what she’d do.”

  “What did she do?”

  “Nothing. I waited and waited for her to call me, or to do something, or say something, or hint that she was going to talk to Noah. She never did. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I decided to talk to her. That’s why I came to Divinity the night of the contest.”

  “And did you talk to her?”

  She nodded. “Yes, but not there. I waited until she slipped outside for something, and then I followed her. But she was in the middle of an argument with somebody, so I left.”

  That got my attention. “Do you know who she was arguing with?”

  “A man. That’s all I know. They were in the shadows, and I couldn’t see him.”

  “Could you hear what they said?”

  “I heard a little. Savannah was really upset, I can tell you that. Whoever it was had lied to her, and whatever he’d said, it must have been a doozy.” Faith’s thin lips curved at the edges. “I heard him ask her not to tell anyone. He said they could figure out a way around it. She told him that she was going to let everyone know what he’d done, and that he’d wish he was dead by the time Jason got through with him.”

  I took my eyes from the road for a second. “Jason? Who’s Jason?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t stick around to find out.”

  “That’s all you heard?”

  “That’s it. I was just relieved that she had something else besides me and my stupid mistake to think about. I thought maybe, if whatever this was kept her busy, she wouldn’t have time to tell Noah what I’d done.”

  I parked on the side of the road and shifted in my seat so I could look at her. Since I had to ask, I asked straight out. “Did you kill her?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know who did?”

  “No, but I’d give anything if I did.” She looked down at her hands in her lap and twisted her fingers together nervously. “I would have, though. I really think I would have, and I hate knowing that about myself.”

  I felt this strange need to console her. “I don’t know, Faith. If push had come to shove—”

  She cut me off. “No, Abby, I would have. I mean, I killed my own child, so what’s to stop me from killing someone else?”

  I hated seeing her so consumed with guilt. I’m torn on the issue, myself, so I wasn’t entirely convinced that she was doomed to burn in hell for what she’d done, and I wanted to believe that twenty years of marriage would count for something. “Noah would forgive you, you know. Maybe he wouldn’t understand, but he’d forgive you.”

  “No. He wouldn’t.” Her eyes brimmed with unshed tears, and the misery on her face made my stomach knot. “You don’t know Noah. He doesn’t believe in abortion for any reason.”

  “But he loves you. You’ve been together since you were kids. You’ve got twenty years of shared history.”

  “Yeah, and all but two of them based on a lie. He’d leave me, Abby. I know he would, but I couldn’t bear it. I don’t think I could survive without him.” She gave in to the tears and buried her face in her hands. Sobs racked her body, but I didn’t try to stop her. Meaningless platitudes wouldn’t help, and I had nothing else to offer.

  Would she survive without Noah? Of course she would—but I was convinced she wouldn’t want to.

  I put the car in gear again and drove some more while Faith cried until she had no more tears left. She had twenty years of guilt, fear, and anger stored up inside, so it took a while. I thought a lot as I drove—about Savannah, about the past, about Delta and Karen and Evie and Marshall and Faith.

  Faith certainly had a strong motive for doing away with Savannah, but I simply didn’t believe that this distraught woman with the red, puffy face had injected poison into a box of candy or run Savannah down with a car. Maybe I was wrong. I might live to regret my decision. But I chose to believe her.

  So that left who? Karen? All the signs kept pointing to her, but I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t believe it.

  How about Delta? She certainly didn’t seem to be grieving over her sister’s death, but had she killed her to save half of a small inheritance? It seemed unlikely.

  Evie didn’t have a strong motive, either. Unless she was completely off her rocker, why would she kill Savannah over a few hundred dollars in prize money and a plaque from a candy-making contest? Even taking in her fierce competitive streak, it didn’t make sense.

  Marshall? His motive seemed weakest of all—unless there was something else going on that I didn’t know about. Could he have been the man arguing with Savannah the night of the contest? He’d been one of the judges, in plain view all night. I didn’t think he’d had time to slip outside for an argument with anybody. He’d barely had time to escape to the men’s room.

  So then, who? And who was Jason?

  Maybe finding the answer to that question was the key to everything else. Find out who Jason was, and I’d have a better idea who Savannah argued with outside Divinity. I might even know who killed her.

  In a perfect world, I could have run down the mysterious Jason in an afternoon. Unfortunately, I live in Paradise, where I had a candy shop to run and a sister-in-law waiting impatiently for me to do just that.

  Since I hadn’t eaten more than a few bites all day, I pulled through the drive-through window at Arby’s, loaded up on a roast beef sandwich wi
th a side of stuffed jalapeños and sucked down a Coke on the way back to Divinity.

  Elizabeth was waiting for me when I parked, her brown eyes snapping and her mouth pulled down in a frown. “You said you’d be gone another hour,” she shouted at me across the parking strip. “You’ve been gone half the day.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” I gathered empty containers, the agreement I’d signed with Ruth Cohen a lifetime ago, and my lunch from the car and hurried toward her. “I was at the police station when I called you, and everything got just unbelievably complicated.” I dumped everything onto the counter and turned back to face her. “I’m really sorry.”

  “You should be.” She brushed a lock of reddish blonde hair from her forehead. “I was supposed to take Dana to the doctor at one. Did you forget that?”

  I had, but I didn’t want to admit it. I already had too many points on the “bad aunt” tally. “Did you cancel?”

  “Oh yeah. Late. We’re going to have to pay for the visit anyway, that’s office policy.”

  “I’ll pay for it,” I offered quickly. “It’s my fault.”

  “Okay. I’ll let you.” Elizabeth slipped the strap of her purse over her shoulder. “So I guess this means you’re playing private detective again.”

  That hurt. The last time I “played” private detective, I’d saved her husband from a murder charge. Okay, the fact that he’s also my brother played a minor role in my decision to clear him, but still . . .

  “I’m not playing anything,” I told her. “I was there in Miles’s room. I saw a box of chocolates. He thanked me for them, but I knew I’d never sent them. His wife just happened to be murdered a few days ago, so what did you want me to do? Pretend I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary?”

  Elizabeth leaned against the counter and crossed one foot over the other. “No, but you don’t need to put yourself in dangerous situations, either. Believe it or not, we all love you, Abby. We finally have you back after all these years. None of us want to see you get hurt.”

  Her words were so unexpected, she caught me by complete surprise. I blinked. Felt the burn in my eyes and the lump swelling in my throat. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to outrun this one, but I was sure going to try. I tried to clear my throat, but the lump refused to budge, and I had trouble getting words out around it. “I—I don’t—”

  My sister-in-law pushed away from the counter and closed the distance between us. Before I knew what she intended, she pulled me into a tight hug and spoke softly into my ear. “You’re surprised we feel that way?”

  I could only nod. Tears were splashing out of my eyes onto her shoulder, and I couldn’t do anything to stop them. My nose stuffed up almost at once, but I couldn’t change that, either. I stood there, sniffling and splashing and feeling quite pathetic until Elizabeth released me.

  Okay, even after she released me, I felt pretty pathetic. But I also felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time—not since Aunt Grace died, I guess. Maybe even since I was a kid. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around it.

  “You’re Wyatt’s kid sister,” Elizabeth said as she pulled away and stepped back. “For all his bluff and bluster, he adores you. Surely you know that.”

  I half nodded, half shook my head. Frankly, I didn’t know what I knew and what I didn’t. Our last encounter hadn’t left me feeling especially adored, but we were talking about Wyatt, not Mr. Rogers. “But the kids—”

  “Are thrilled to have you living here now. Look who Dana ran to when she was mad at me. She knows you’re her dad’s soft spot.”

  That startled a few coherent words out of me. “I didn’t even know Wyatt had a soft spot.”

  “Yeah? Well he does, kid, and you’re it. So please, I know you’re curious, and I know you can’t help yourself, but please, for us, be careful what you do?”

  How could I say no to that? I’m not stupid. “Of course I will.”

  And right that minute, I had every intention of honoring that promise.

  Chapter 20

  I don’t mind telling you, the afternoon crawled by. Business was brisk, but I couldn’t stop running over all the conversations I’d had over the past few days and wondering what I’d missed. Someone had gone to the second floor of Divinity when no one else was around and swiped that box of candy. Someone had injected that candy with Elavil. Someone had stolen a car. And someone had run Savannah down while she jogged along the side of the road.

  And that someone was probably a person I’d talked to face-to-face in the past seventy-two hours or so. That made me a little nervous.

  When I wasn’t thinking about the murder, I was remembering the conversation with Elizabeth and trying to reconcile what she’d told me with the feelings I’d been carrying around for the past few years.

  With all that going on, I had a tough time concentrating on business. I took a large order over the phone from a woman in Mississippi who’d driven through Paradise during the summer and had fallen in love with our strawberry bonbons. I answered a long-overdue e-mail to a web designer I’d been consulting with about taking Divinity online, ran a duster across the displays in the east room, refilled several baskets of candy that were dangerously depleted, and restocked the glass display case by the cash register.

  I locked the front door at seven and pulled out the vacuum, but I still couldn’t stop thinking about Savannah’s murder.

  I know I told Miles that some people eat chocolate at five o’clock in the morning, and I’m sure some do, but it did seem strange that Savannah would pop out of bed that early, down two or three rich chocolates, and then head out to jog. But that’s precisely what she’d done. If she’d eaten the candy the night before, she would have died in the hotel room from the Elavil overdose. She must have eaten the candy within half an hour of leaving the hotel.

  And then what?

  She must have gone out through one of the hotel’s back doors, across the parking lot, and along the service road. It seemed like an odd choice to me, especially at that time of day right after a heavy snowstorm, but I couldn’t argue with the facts, and the fact is, that’s where I found her. And the fact was that she’d been poisoned by someone and then struck by a car and killed.

  I finished vacuuming the small east room and moved into the large room. Someone who knew she was going to be jogging at that time of day? Or someone who chanced along the road and hit her accidentally? That was my biggest sticking point.

  If her death was the result of a random hit-and-run, we might never figure out who did it. But if it was someone who went gunning for her—so to speak—then how narrow did that make the playing field?

  I couldn’t imagine how Karen would know that Savannah went jogging at five thirty every morning unless she’d overheard either Savannah or Miles say so. Ditto for Evie—unless Savannah had shouted something about her jogging habits while they were scrapping over the contest. Marshall spoke with Savannah on Friday night, so he could have known, although it seemed unlikely that Savannah would have thought to discuss her exercise routine while her mind was on Faith Bond and emotional blackmail.

  Finished vacuuming, I dragged out the mop and pail. So who did that leave? Delta, of course. She was Savannah’s sister, and even though the two hadn’t seen each other in years, she certainly could have known her sister’s habits. And Miles. Of course he knew.

  I ran over the timeline a dozen times while I worked. Miles said that Savannah left to go jogging, as she always did, at five thirty the morning she died. She never came back. Before she left, she ate a handful of Elavil-laced chocolates. Sometime between eleven o’clock at night and five in the morning, somebody got into the upstairs room at Divinity and then delivered the chocolates, anonymously, to the Summit Lodge. I tried to remember what time Miles said they arrived, but it couldn’t have been earlier than ten thirty or eleven, because that’s when I’d seen the box sitting upstairs—and I knew there was only one box like that.

  Unless, of course, Karen made up another one without
telling me.

  Ugly thought. Not even worthy of a moment’s time.

  I shook it off and carried the dirty water to the utility sink.

  Okay. Square one. Begin again. Just like following one of Aunt Grace’s recipes. What had she told me? I remembered standing in the middle of the kitchen surrounded by what seemed to me a hundred ingredients, tools, molds, liquid colors, and flavorings. It had felt to me like uncontrolled chaos, but Grace had smiled at my confusion.

  Follow the steps, Abby. There’s order in the chaos if you know where to look.

  Unfortunately, I doubted that even Aunt Grace could make order out of the chaos in my mind. I wondered what she would have done if she’d been in my shoes—but it was a foolish question. I knew what she would have done.

  I put away the cleaning supplies and moved into the kitchen, where I pulled condensed milk, coconut, strawberry gelatin, almonds, almond extract, and confectioners’ sugar from the supply cupboard. I found the red and green food coloring in the drawer, and heavy cream in the refrigerator. Working methodically, I measured the cream, coconut, gelatin, almonds, and almond extract into a bowl and spent a long, long time getting the mixture the exact shade of red I wanted.

  Remembering the way Aunt Grace’s gnarled hands had looked as she worked, I covered the bowl and put it into the refrigerator to chill. Strangely, I did feel a little more grounded.

  I had an hour to wait, so I filled a glass with ice and carried it to the table with a Diet Pepsi.

  Square one.

  Miles said—

  My thoughts broke off abruptly mid-swallow. Miles said.

  Miles said Savannah went jogging that morning. Miles said Savannah went jogging every morning. Miles said the candy was delivered to the front desk of the lodge.

  Miles said a whole lot of things, but how many of them were actually true?

  I nearly choked as I tried to get down that swallow of Pepsi. My fingers tingled, and the hair on my neck stood up. Thoughts boiled around together in my head, crashing in on one another as I tried to work through the story without relying on what Miles said.