Free Dangerous Secrets by Moira Callahan

whatever are you doing here?” David
asked. The man was in his late forties or early fifties, a good twenty pounds
overweight, had all his dark brown hair, and had the kind of face that one just
trusted.
    “Can we come in for a minute, David? We won’t take
up much of your time, but it is important,” she said.
    “Of course, of course.” He unlocked and pushed open the screened door, before waving them
inside. “Come on in,” he smiled.
    “David, this is Trent, Trent, this is my boss,
David.”
    “Of course, nice to meet you finally, sir,” Trent
said, playing his part. “Mallory’s told me a lot about you during our many
phone conversations. I hear you’re opening up a second restaurant soon. How’s
that going?”
    David shook Trent’s hand and shook his head slowly.
“I’m sorry, Mallory’s never mentioned you before.”
    “She has been keeping me her little secret,” Trent
said with a smile at her.
    “I didn’t want to jinx it,” she said, going along
with the whole thing. “Trent and I have been dating for a little while now, but
with his job always taking him out of the country, I didn’t want to get my
hopes up that it could work.”
    He slipped his arm around her waist and hugged her
to his side, careful of her shoulder. “I told you right from the start, Mal.
You’re the one and there’s no getting rid of me,” he said softly, leaning in to
press a kiss to her lips. He was playing with fire kissing her right then and
there, but it was worth it when she sighed into the kiss and leaned closer.
    David gave a soft chuckle that broke them apart.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Trent. And yes, the second restaurant will be
opening soon. Not soon enough for my stress levels but soon.” He smiled at them
both, looking much like a proud parent. “Oh, how rude of me, please come in.” He
waved them toward a hall.
    “Would either of you care for a drink?” he asked
them. “I was just getting the water ready for my nightly tea if you’d care to
join me.”
    “We really won’t be here that long, hopefully,”
Mallory said. “I hated having to come and bother you at home but I figured it
would be easiest here.”
    “Of course, why did you come?” David asked as he
went to take the whistling kettle off the stove.
    “You know about Mallory’s attack,” Trent said
quietly.
    “Of course I do, it was a horrible thing. Again,
here I am being a horrible host, how are you doing Mallory? Do you need
anything?” the other man asked her.
    “I’m doing very well. Physical therapy starts next
week,” she said. “It’s still a bit tender and aches first thing in the morning
but I’m getting there.”
    “Good, that’s good,” David said with a smile.
    “As it happens, sir, it appears that the man that
attacked her was looking for something very specific. We know that Mallory
didn’t and doesn’t have it, but we were talking things through, and she thought
that maybe it was a case of bad labeling. I understand she tends to sign for
all sorts of packages that come to Carmela’s?” Trent said in a leading manner.
    “Yes, she does. Not only is she my head chef, she
takes care of all that sort of thing when I’m not around. Which,
for the last couple of months, hasn’t honestly been all that much. The
new place has been pulling me every which way.”
    “Completely understandable,” Trent said with a nod.
“But we got to thinking that maybe the item the man who attacked her was
looking for got sent, by mistake obviously, to the restaurant and Mallory
signed for it.”
    David frowned, but suddenly had a look of
understanding crawl over his face. “Because her name would have been on the
shipper’s tracking information at the destination,” he said.
    “Precisely,” Trent nodded. “We were hoping maybe
you knew of the package. From what she’s told me it would be a hard drive for a
computer. We’re thinking if you do have it, then we, Mallory and I, could take
it to the police and