Free Dangerously Dark by Colette London

the EMTs, the ghastly sight of Declan Murphy dead on the floor of Carissa’s trailer.
    I remembered my own gruesome theory involving the real-estate developers, who’d wanted to build on the property, and/or the landlord, who would have stood to benefit from that.
    What if one of them killed Declan? I’d hypothesized to Tomasz and Janel. To scare all the Cartorama vendors into abandoning their leases?
    They had laughed at my explanation for Declan’s “accidental” death. But maybe that was because they were in on it. Maybe they wanted to throw me off. Maybe they’d cozied up to me yesterday to find out what I knew . . . and then silence me.
    Maybe Tomasz hadn’t innocently brought me and Janel fresh drinks. Maybe he’d poisoned me, the same way someone might have poisoned Declan. Maybe that’s why I felt so awful.
    Reeling at the possibility, I made myself crawl out from beneath the covers. Squinting at the sunlight, I stood. Dizzily, I’ll admit. But when was the last time you confronted your own possible homicidal poisoning? It was a lot to take in.
    I lurched to the armchair and grabbed my bag, intending to call Danny. He was my protection expert—my on-call bodyguard. If there was ever a time to make Danny quit putting his muscular bod on the line for Hollywood types at premieres and red-carpet events, it was now. He could leave the skeleton-style, two-way radio earpiece and designer tux at home. For this job, all he’d need were muscles, his badass former-thug instincts, and a willingness to put both of those things on the line for me.
    I knew he’d do it. Danny and I went way back. He’d known me before I lucked into my inheritance, before I turned my knack for chocolate into a full-time, freelance consulting gig . . . before I nabbed my first cocoa-covered killer while ostensibly on the job. Shivering at the memory, I rooted around for my cell phone.
    It was gone. Launched into a full-blown panic by its absence, I staggered toward the next room. Its serenity stood strictly at odds with my jumpy state of mind. Barefoot and clad only in yesterday’s T-shirt and the men’s boxers I like to sleep in (sorry if that’s oversharing), I careened throughout my Airbnb lodgings, looking for my phone so I could send up an SOS.
    Very quickly, I wished I’d instructed Travis not to go whole hog on my accommodations this time. Left to his own devices, Travis has a tendency to treat me too well. You’d think that as guardian of my finances and an expert in all things fiduciary, he would have leaned toward the skinflint side, right? Well, nope. You’d be wrong. Because, for whatever reason, Travis insists that I deserve the best. Exemplary views. Prime locations. Frette linens, designer amenities, and (I’m not making this up) sometimes a private butler of my very own.
    Ordinarily, I can’t fault Travis’s insistence on pampering me. Frankly, I like that about him. Who wouldn’t? But this time, in Portland, Travis’s occasional yen to indulge me was too much.
    My (temporary) two-and-a-half-story authentic foursquare house was charming, lovingly restored, and large enough for a family (not surprisingly) of four. Its four boxy rooms per floor (hence, the name) took ages to careen through, tossing throw pillows and scrabbling through built-in Craftsman cabinets and woodwork. I couldn’t find a thing. There wasn’t even an old-fashioned landline that I could have used to summon the police—not that I wanted to see Portland’s finest again with the grisly events of yesterday still so fresh in my headachy mind.
    Queasy and concerned, I stopped downstairs in the kitchen—a vintage number with butcher-block countertops, nickel hardware, and original 1913 cabinets—and tried to catch my breath. The kitchen was adorable (if way too capacious for one person, just like the rest of the place). I didn’t even plan to