Fatal Chocolate Obsession (Death by Chocolate Book 5) (17 page)

“Yes. It’s not much to look at now but I have lots of plans to make it nicer.”

“Great.” I braced myself to see the rest of the house.

“Do you like it?”

“Um, sure.” All that practice lying to traffic cops was paying off.

He proudly showed me the kitchen with contact paper over pressed wood cabinets, the bathroom with rust stains in the tub, and two bedrooms with sagging mattresses. He paused at the door of the larger bedroom.

“This is the master.”

I surveyed the room with its matched set of 1950s furniture, all surfaces clean, and an obviously new spread on the bed.

“It’s very nice,” I said.

“So you like it?”

I did not. “I do.”

He beamed down at me. I tried to return his smile. The room was ugly and the house was ugly, but he looked happy. I suspected Brandon didn’t have much happiness in his life.

I lifted my wrist and pointed at my watch. “Gosh, how did it get to be so late? I’d better get home. My company is probably back by now.”

He laughed softly. “Don’t worry about your company.”

He probably meant to be reassuring, but his comment irritated me. Much as I would have liked to completely forget about my company, that would have been rude.

I went down the hallway to the lovely living room.

Brandon followed close behind me. “So you really like it?” he asked again. “You’re not just saying that?”

“You’ve done a great job.” I looked at my watch again.

He stepped closer, lifted my hair off my neck and pressed his lips to my neck.

Holy crap!

I jerked away and whirled to face him.

He blinked rapidly, a dazed expression on his face.

I tried to assure myself he had not gone bat crap crazy, that he’d just been carried away with showing me his new home, sharing his pride in making the escape from his father.

“Lindsay, what’s wrong?” He reached for my hands.

I tucked them behind my back and took another step away from him. “What’s wrong?” That was a very good question. I wasn’t sure what the answer was. Maybe I was overreacting. I’ve been accused of that before. But suddenly I was frantic to be out of that house and away from Brandon. The alternative, spending time with Tina’s horde, seemed like a visit to a butterfly garden compared to this creepy place. “Uhhh…my visitors. It’s very rude for me not to be there with them. Love the house, I’m proud of you for making the break, and I need to go now.”

He smiled his sweet, innocent smile and I drew in a deep breath of relief. Everything was fine. Tour of the tawdry house was over and I’d soon be home with Henry and the Hyper Horde.

But Brandon moved closer, invading my space, making me extremely uncomfortable. I stepped backward again…and ran into the wall.

He shook his head and continued to smile. “You’re so darned cute, Lindsay.” He put a hand on my cheek and leaned toward me as if to kiss me.

That did it. I was officially freaked out. I shoved against his chest. “Brandon, stop that! Take me home, now!”

His smile disappeared and his whole face changed so drastically I would not have recognized him if I hadn’t seen it happen. His mouth turned down, his cheeks reddened and his eyes bulged. “This is your home.”

I blinked, trying to clear my vision and make sense of what was going on.

As quickly as the monster had overtaken Brandon’s face, it disappeared and the sunny smile and puppy dog eyes were back. I felt as if I’d lost touch with reality, was having a bad nightmare where familiar people morphed into demons and back into human beings at random.

“We’re going to be so happy here.” He reached into his pocket then extended a hand toward me. “I got this back for you.”

I cringed away from him as my gaze dropped to the object in his hand.

The damned butterfly. The butterfly Grady had left on my porch. The butterfly I’d given to Tina. “Where did you get that?”

“That woman stole it from you, but I took it away from her.”

The walls of the living room, the sagging sofa, and the coffee table with chipped veneer all blurred. Only Brandon and the crystal butterfly in his hand were clear and vivid, almost glowing in intensity.

“
That woman
?” Each word stuck on my tongue as I pushed it out.

“The one that took your car. I followed her to the park.”

“You followed her?”

He shrugged and looked pleased with himself. “I followed the tracker I put on your car when you brought it into the shop. I wanted to be able to find you if you needed my help, and you did. When I saw that woman sitting in your car, I dragged her out. I thought she stole it, but she said you loaned it to her.”

“I did.” My voice was barely a whisper and I wasn’t sure if he heard. It probably didn’t matter anyway.

“She had your butterfly in her hand. She was trying to steal it. I got it away from her.”

Suddenly the spots on his clothing took on a new significance. They were small and dark and maybe they weren’t spots of dirt or grease. “What did you do to Tina?”

“I punished her for stealing from you. Taking our butterfly was even worse than that woman with red hair who came to your house and yelled at you.” He smiled and moved closer and I tried to back inside the wall.

“You—” I gulped, licked my lips and tried again to speak. “You punished Tina like you punished the woman with red hair?” I thought of Fred’s theory that Grady had been trying to help me by killing people who annoyed me.

“Nobody’s ever going to hurt you again.”

I was surely hallucinating. Kind, gentle Brandon could not be saying what I thought he was saying, that he’d killed Ginger and Tina. Appearances can certainly be deceiving. I’d been frightened of Bob when I first met him, and he’d been a kind, gentle person. Brandon had given the appearance of a teddy bear. I upgraded that image to a grizzly bear with rabies.

“What about Tina’s kids?”

He shook his head. “Kids? I didn’t see any kids.”

I could only hope the kids hadn’t seen their mother being murdered.

I turned and ran for the front door. I seemed to be moving in slow motion, each step like walking through waist high sand. After an eternity I made it, grabbed the door knob and twisted.

It refused to turn.

He’d locked it.

My stomach squeezed into a hard, painful knot.

Yeah, nobody was ever going to hurt me again—nobody except him.

He grabbed my shoulder from behind.

I twisted away and darted to the door on the side of the room. Mercifully the knob turned. I yanked it open.

“No!” Brandon shouted.

Garage. No light, but I could see the outlines of objects, tools and car pieces. Surely I could find a weapon. I sprinted inside. 

I stumbled and put my hand out to break my fall. My purse slid off my shoulder and my fingers touched something squishy.

The overhead light flashed on and I saw that my hand rested on a bloody, battered mass that used to be Grady Mathis’ head.

Holy crap.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t want you to see the mess.” Brandon stood in the doorway to the garage. “I’ll clean it up.”

The walls around me closed in then moved back out. Brandon loomed ten feet high then shrank to normal size. The whole scene was a surreal nightmare. I had just stumbled over a dead body, the body of a man I’d served chocolate to only a few days ago, a man who’d yelled at me and smashed my cell phone. Brandon’s father. His father was dead and Brandon was concerned with the mess? I struggled to my feet. “You…did this?”

He beamed. “He hurt you. I couldn’t let him get away with that. Nobody hurts the woman I love.”

Oh, great. Now I could feel responsible for the murders of Tina, Ginger and Grady.

I could maybe live with the blame for Grady’s death, but not the others.

Brandon extended his hand to me. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was touch that man.

I hesitated and realized that wasn’t quite true. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was get murdered by that man.

I picked up my purse by one side of the strap. The rest was covered in bits of Grady’s head. I hadn’t liked that head when it was all one piece and attached to his body. I really didn’t like carrying parts of it with me, but my cell phone was in that purse. I needed to call Trent or Fred.

What was it I’d said when Paula remarked that Fred and Trent had saved my neck a couple of times?

I would have been fine even if they hadn’t showed up.

It’s easy to be cocky when there’s no madman around.

I accepted Brandon’s hand, swallowed my gag reflex and stepped over his father’s body to join him in the house he’d prepared for us.

He wrapped an arm around my waist. “If you’ll cook dinner, I’ll do the dishes.”

Oh, sure, let’s just forget about the corpse in the garage and have a nice dinner.

“Actually, I’ve been cooking all day. I’d really like to go out to eat.” Get him in a public place and I could get away or at least make a phone call.

Brandon tapped the end of my nose with his finger and smiled some more. I once thought he had a charming smile. Who knew there was such a thin line between charming and psycho?

“We can order pizza,” he said. “I know you like pizza because I’ve seen lots of deliveries to your house. I want you all to myself for our first night in our new home.”

I wasn’t sure which creeped me out more—the fact that he wanted me all to himself or the fact that he’d been watching me for so long he knew I ate a lot of pizza. Just how long had he been watching me?

“Remember when you ran into my car?”

“Of course.”

“That wasn’t an accident, was it?”

“Don’t you worry about your car. I’ll fix it good as new.”

“I mean, you did it on purpose. To…” I swallowed. “To get my attention.”

He smiled that boyish smile again. “You were always so busy in the restaurant, you never had time to talk. But I knew you noticed me. I could tell by the way you looked at me. We just needed an excuse to get to know each other better.” He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me close to his side as we walked back to the living room. If only I’d had Fred teach me Karate or whatever that stuff was that he did.

Brandon put the damned butterfly on the coffee table and pulled me onto the sofa beside him. I dropped my purse over the side, hiding it from him but keeping it close, then tried to calm my racing mind and heart and focus on what I needed to do. He loved me. With any sort of luck, that meant he wasn’t planning to kill me. All I had to do was lead him on until I could escape.

He wrapped both arms around me and again leaned in for a kiss.

I tilted my head backward and shoved him away. His face darkened and swelled. The outraged ogre took over again.

“Not until we’re married!” I blurted. And that day was never going to come.

“You kissed that cop on your front porch and you hugged that homeless man!” His features contorted even more.

The sound of wind chimes filled the room. How sweet. Trent had set the new phone’s ring tone to the one I had on my old phone.

Brandon shot up from the sofa and looked around. “What’s that noise?”

My phone was drawing attention to itself. Not good. “One of your neighbors must have wind chimes. Come back and sit here beside me.” I patted the sofa.

“It’s your purse.” He picked it up. “What’s this all over it?”

Bits and pieces of your father’s head.

“Uh…I dropped it in something.”

Disgust spread over his face. Ironic since he was the one who’d caused the mess in the first place.

My purse continued to chime.

He dumped the contents on the coffee table. A pen, a lipstick, my checkbook, my wallet, a candy bar, and my cell phone. He snatched up the phone and answered. “Who is this?” He glowered at me as he listened to the response. “Well, Detective Adam Trent, Lindsay doesn’t want to talk to you. Don’t call her again.” He threw the phone across the room. My heart sank as my chance to call Trent or Fred shattered against the wall. The Mathis men were hard on cell phones.

He threw the gory purse on the coffee table then, without warning, drew back his fist and slammed it into my face, rocking my head backward. For an instant I didn’t believe that sweet, gentle Brandon had punched me. Anger and fear shot through me followed by intense pain and the taste of blood. So much for thinking he wouldn’t hurt me because he loved me.

He stood over me, leaning down, shouting at me, his demented face only inches from mine, his breath hot on my cheeks. “I’ve always been faithful to you! How can you say you love me when you’ve been with another man?”

I was one hundred percent certain I’d never said I loved him but I didn’t argue the point. I sat straighter and glared at him. “Men don’t hit women,” I said quietly, “especially women they claim to love.”

Again his fist slammed into my face, this time on the other side. “You made me do it! You’ve been cheating on me!”

Reason and retaliation hadn’t worked so well. I wiped the blood from my lips and tried to figure out the right response to his accusations. What would make Mr. Hyde revert to Dr. Jekyll before I ran out of cheeks to turn? Much as I hated the thought of pacifying someone who’d just punched me, I had neither Karate skills nor gun so I had to do it.

“I…”
I
what? I was not going to tell someone who’d just hit me that I loved him. “I didn’t know.”

He stood straighter. The crazy eyes bulged a little less. “You didn’t know what?”

“I didn’t know how you felt.” I swallowed and tasted my own blood. That was not a good thing. I forced myself to say whatever it took to keep the rest of that blood in my veins where it belonged. “I didn’t know you loved me.”

“I brought you gifts. I wrote poems for you. I got rid of the people you didn’t like. You put the butterfly with your cookies to let me know you love me too.”

He was calmer. No less crazy, but calmer.

“I just couldn’t believe you really—” I swallowed again. My tongue touched a molar on the left side. It wiggled. I hate going to the dentist. I wanted to punch him and loosen a bunch of his teeth. Brandon’s teeth, not the dentist’s. But I wasn’t big enough or strong enough. I had to force myself to continue sucking up to him.

“I couldn’t believe you really loved me. But now that I know you do—”
Now that I know you do
…what?
I’ll run when I see you instead of going to an empty house with you?
I’ll put the closed sign on Death by Chocolate when I see you coming? I’ll bring a chain saw to our next meeting?
Probably not what he wanted to hear. “I’ll be a better woman.”

The smile returned to his face and he sat down beside me again. “I’ve looked for you all my life. You’ve made me a better man. I was nobody until I found you.”

Terrific. He found me and changed from nobody to a crazed murderer. What a wonderful influence to have on a person. My mother would be so proud.

“You mentioned a homeless man.” I didn’t want to wake the beast again, but I needed to know just how much mayhem had been committed in my name. “Did you punish the homeless man in the alley behind Death by Chocolate?”

“He tried to force himself on you. I saw him put his arms around you.”

Actually, I’d hugged Bob, but this was not the time to correct Brandon’s misconception.

“Uh, yeah, thank you for protecting me.”
If you’re listening, Bob, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it! I’m lying to survive!

“I let you down with your ex-husband. He’s stronger than he looks. He fought back and blacked my eye.”

Rick had blacked Brandon’s eye? How dumb could I have been? Rick told me he fought with his attacker, hurt the man, but I hadn’t believed him. The black eye must have been a lucky punch. Rick was not strong, but he was lucky.

I forced myself to touch the fading bruise around Brandon’s eye. “Rick is a very bad man.” I wasn’t lying that time.

Brandon grabbed my wrist and brought my palm to his lips. I tried not to shudder.

“I’ll take care of him when he gets out of the hospital,” he said.

I bared my teeth in an attempt at a smile. “Great. Thank you.”

“As soon as I get rid of your ex-husband and that sleazy cop who called you and was pawing all over you on your front porch, we can get married and be happy.”

A slow, dark anger rose from my clenched stomach and spread through my chest replacing the fear. Brandon had just signed his own death warrant. How dare he talk that way about the man I lo—cared about! If Trent didn’t kill him, I would.

“You know what would make me very happy right now?” I asked.

He laid a hand on my cheek. I tried not to flinch from revulsion and pain. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it for you, sweetheart.”

“I’d really like a Coke, a nice cold Coke. You know how I love Coke.”

He grinned. “I sure do know how much you love Coke. I know everything about my girl.”

Not quite everything. Not what happened when somebody insulted my cat, my friends, my chocolate chip cookies, or my boyfriend. “Let’s go get a Coke.”

“We don’t have to go anywhere. I’ve got a fresh case of Cokes in the refrigerator.”

Oh, yay.

“Would you get me one, please?” I bared my teeth again.

If I could get him in the kitchen, I could escape through the garage. Never mind that I’d have to step over Grady’s body again. I would do whatever it took to get away.

He stood and I tensed, ready to run as soon as he got to the kitchen and stuck his head in the refrigerator.

But he held his hand out to me. “Come with me. I want you by my side every minute for at least the next fifty years.”

I stretched the teeth-baring gesture to show my molars, including the one that wiggled suspiciously. “Me too.”

I rose and followed him into the kitchen. Now I knew how Tina and Paula had felt—the helplessness and fear, the attempts to placate someone they despised to avoid further pain. I was proud that I’d helped put Paula’s ex behind bars. It was too late for Tina, but when I got away from Brandon, I would see that Ken paid for the torture he’d inflicted on her.

While my captor ripped into the carton of Cokes in the refrigerator, I looked around the room more closely than I had on the initial tour. The harvest gold countertop held a set of plastic canisters, a can opener, a couple of trivets, a coffee maker and other objects that indicated someone lived there. Unfortunately, I did not see a knife block. I’d been hoping to find a nice sharp filet knife.

I started to open a drawer then hesitated. “Okay if I look in here?” I cannot find the words to describe how badly it galled me to ask for permission.

“Of course, sweetheart. This is your home too.”

I slid open a drawer. Silverware but no knives. I opened another one. Spatulas, mixing spoons, potato masher, and a metal meat tenderizer. I wrapped my hand around the cold handle of the tenderizer and lifted it out. Drawing my arm back, I spun around toward Brandon and brought the tenderizer in an arc aimed for his head.

He grabbed my wrist. “You bitch!”

Damnation! I’d awakened the fiend again. He twisted my arm until I dropped the tenderizer and continued twisting until he forced me to the floor.

“See what you made me do? Clean that up!”

He released my arm and I realized I was sitting in a puddle of something cold and wet. A red can lay on its side, spilling brown liquid on the floor. The Coke Brandon had opened for me.

Strictly speaking, I had made him drop the Coke when I tried to kill him. But if he hadn’t forced me to stay in this place, I wouldn’t have tried to kill him. Ultimately it was his fault the Coke was spilled. And now I had another reason to hate him. Wasted Coke.

“All I ever did was love you!” He strode back and forth across the floor, tearing at his hair. “Why do you treat me like this? I got rid of Mother for you and you didn’t appreciate it!”

I got rid of Mother?
My heart froze and dropped to the floor. He’d killed my mother? She drives me crazy and I complain about her, but she’s my mother! “Why would you hurt my mother?”