Free Dangerously Dark by Colette London Page A

cook while I was in town. I didn’t know what Travis had been thinking to arrange such comically gargantuan accommodations, but I could see why the house’s original owners had been eager to rent out the place via Airbnb. They were probably making three times their mortgage payments in rental fees each month. In Portland’s inflated real-estate market, cashing in was only smart.
    Unfortunately, the idea of cashing in only sent me into another concern spiral. I recalled the conversation I’d had with Tomasz and Janel about the developers who’d attempted to take advantage of Cartorama’s prime location, about the landlord who’d given up on making a fortune (far too readily, if you asked me), and about the way the pod’s vendors had triumphed.
    I was all in favor of community action. For picketing and protesting and exerting some well-earned media pressure. But seriously? It sounded as though Janel had circulated a few petitions to save Cartorama from development, the local newscast had aired a segment on the beleaguered pod being pressured by greedy developers, and the whole endeavor had simply collapsed.
    That didn’t seem likely to me. Maybe the Cartorama vendors didn’t have much experience with big business, but I did. The corporate world doesn’t lay down for a bunch of hippies with protest signs and handwoven hemp beanies. There’s too much at stake for that. I doubted any real-estate development company worth its salt would have gone after Cartorama’s land without a solid strategy—and a couple of contingency plans, too.
    If one of those contingency plans had involved killing one of Cartorama’s vendors and scaring everyone else into leaving . . .
    Well, if it had, then I’d stumbled upon it a little too publicly last night. Which was why Tomasz and/or Janel had decided to dose me with whatever poisonous substance had me swerving, sweating, and seeing double just then. I grabbed the countertop and waited for the next wave of nausea to subside.
    That’s when, blearily, I glimpsed my cell phone. Its screen winked at me from amid the folds of a plush cable-knit throw, lying on my (short-term) house’s living-room sofa. I was saved.
    I reeled toward it while the room continued rotating. Chills raised goose bumps on my arms and legs. My mouth tasted swampy, my tongue cottony, my teeth fuzzy. Yuck. It was just like a murderer to target my taste buds. What if this attempt on my life destroyed my ability to discern a Venezuelan single-varietal chocolate from a Tanzanian Grand Cru blend? I’d be out of a job, out of free chocolates, out of my mind with boredom.
    Of course I’d be dead, so I probably wouldn’t mind.
    But if I somehow survived, would my vaunted palate come through unscathed? What if it didn’t? What would I do for fun, for treats, for a much-needed sense of mastery in my life?
    What would I do for a funeral? I didn’t even know where my own memorial should be held, I realized as I picked up my cell phone in my clumsy hands. I peered at its screen, trying to decide if I’d rather be remembered at a beachside ash scattering or a full-out burial at sea, if I’d prefer to be interred in the poppy fields of Normandy or laid to rest in the good ole USA.
    I didn’t really have a home, I remembered as my head went on pounding too hard for me to read my phone’s screen properly. I’d been traveling for as long as I could remember—first with my parents, then on my own. Did I belong anywhere ? Maybe I’d missed my chance to settle down in a comfy house like this one, with someone special by my side and a cocker spaniel at my feet.
    The thought made me hyperventilate. Or maybe that was just another symptom of my (potential) poisoning. I wasn’t sure.
    Have I mentioned that my mind tends to gallop in a million directions at once? At the best of times, I’ve got a rampant monkey mind. Now, on the