Dark Chocolate Murder Read online

  “Thank you, Lenore. I just had an epiphany, I guess. You know, one of Oprah’s aha moments!” Belinda fondly remembered the moment she told her blind date that she wanted to bake. She had already forgotten his name but she would never forget how liberating and empowering that realization had been. Saying the words out loud had compelled her to finally do them.

  “I’m really proud of you.” Lenore took a step back and favored Belinda with a look of respect.

  “But that’s not all!” Belinda whispered conspiratorially.

  “What else are you going to do? Fly to the moon?” Lenore joked, anticipating another bombshell from her predictable friend who had suddenly turned into a daredevil.

  “Not quite! I’m going to move to Monaco,” Belinda said excitedly. “My sister and her husband live there, and they’re going to help me open my shop.”

  Lenore gushed, “Wow! Are you serious? Monaco?! I think your vagabond fever must be contagious because I’m starting to feel flushed!”

  Belinda laughed heartily. While Lenore’s boss wasn’t nearly as insufferable as Jerry, her job was equally hum-drum. Lenore also spent her days fumbling inside the copy room and plugging numbers into spreadsheets on the computer. Belinda had always felt that Lenore’s sparkplug personality and sharp intellect could get her much further than she had gone in this stifling office.

  “Well, good, I hope you do catch the fever because I haven’t even done anything yet, and I already feel like a new person. Just taking control of my life and realizing that I don’t have to be stuck has been so freeing. You know what I mean?” Belinda shook her head in amazement, somehow feeling pounds lighter than she had when she sat down to dinner with her blind date. And it wasn’t because she had been eating less. On the contrary, Belinda had passed much of her weekend in the kitchen experimenting with---and tasting---chocolate recipes. The weight off her body was purely figurative, and it felt amazing.

  “I do know what you mean,” Lenore said slowly. “I’ve got to apply it into own life.”

  “You will. But don’t wait as long as I did. You’re 29, right?”

  Lenore nodded, listening closely to the fresh wisdom that now seemed to infiltrate Belinda’s every word.

  “Well, sweetheart, I’m about to turn 39. Take your life by the reins now, not later. I’m not saying it’s ever too late. You can make a change at 49, hell at 79! But the sooner you do it, the better for your soul.” Belinda winked her encouragement and continued, “Don’t think I forgot the dream you told me about that night. Your poetry. You wanted to self-publish a collection of your poems…” Belinda prodded as Lenore gave her a sly grin.

  “Yeah, my poetry. The difference is that people buy chocolate! Pounds of it! But nobody buys poetry books unless they’re written by a great poet like Emily Dickinson or Maya Angelou.”

  As Lenore tucked her dream away into a mental lockbox, Belinda recognized the self-defeat as though it were her own. Indeed, just a few days ago it had been her own.

  “You know that’s not true. People buy good books. Period. It doesn’t matter who wrote them. Come on, Lenore, you’ve at least got to go to some more poetry slams and perform.” Belinda knew that Lenore wasn’t ready to pursue her dream yet, but at least she had gotten a little nudge. Lenore’s revelation would come eventually; Belinda was sure of it.

  “You’ve given me some food for thought this morning.” Lenore sighed heavily. “Look, I better get to my cube. But promise me you’ll keep in touch after you move. I need more of this fever to rub off on me.”

  “Of course I’ll keep in touch!” Belinda said sincerely. “And I hope to see you walk through the doors of my shop someday. All sweets on the house!”

  “I look forward to that,” Lenore said sincerely, moving through the office maze to her cubicle where a batch of spreadsheets waited to be inputted.

  “And I want a signed copy of your first poetry anthology! Autographed by the distinguished poet!” Belinda called after her, as Lenore waved her hand in a gesture of amused dismissal.

  Belinda watched her friend walk away, hoping that this ‘vagabond fever’ really would rub off on Lenore. For now, she was content that she had planted a seed in the young woman’s mind, a seed she hoped would blossom into full-fledged CHANGE.

  *****

  The next two weeks at the office passed in an adrenaline-charged whirlwind. Led by Lenore, a group of coworkers had thrown Belinda a surprise farewell luncheon. Jerry had remained cold and arrogant and hadn’t so much as said goodbye to Belinda on her last day. But she didn’t care at all. Belinda was feeling higher than a helium balloon on a windy Boston morning.

  Once her job officially ended, Belinda had an entirely new set of duties to attend to. Jean-Jacques and Crystal would do their best to help her once she was in Monaco, but for now, all the preparations had to be done on her own. Packing, organizing, and planning were the easy parts. The more challenging aspect was deciding whether to tell her ex-husband or not. He had a right to know…or did he?

  Belinda and Daniel had not remained friends after their divorce. And except for a few drunken, half-baked attempts on his part to reconcile, there had been no contact between them. They had no children linking them. In fact, the lack of children had been a painful issue in their marriage, as Belinda had been unable to conceive and unwilling to try fertility treatments.

  In the end, Belinda decided definitively not to notify Daniel of her pending transcontinental move. She knew that he would react negatively, would regress into his verbally abusive ways and try to convince her that she would be a failure in Monaco. Belinda did not want the man’s insecure baggage to tarnish her adventure in any way. So she carried on with her preparations, each day edging closer to her departure date: May 7, exactly one week before her birthday.

  By the time May 1 rolled around, Belinda was a bundle of exposed nerves and self-doubt. She had taken care of all the technical preparations and charged a fortune on daily long distance calls with Crystal carefully smoothing out every detail. She had gone to the bank and exchanged her American dollars for euros. She had sent a few boxes of clothing ahead to be delivered to Jean-Jacques and Crystal’s residence. She had sold her old clunker to a private buyer and been getting around on Boston’s mass transportation system. Belinda had done everything to a fine-tuned precision but could not shake her fears of the unknown.

  The night before her big move, she lay stiffly in a sleeping bag on the living room floor. Nothing remained of her furniture, and her back had suffered for it. She pored over her flight itinerary one last time: Monaco didn’t have an airport, so her plane would land in Nice, France, after two stressful connections. Shakily, Belinda put the itinerary aside and switched on her laptop computer. Checking her email, she saw that Lenore had sent a message. To Belinda’s surprise, the content of the email was a poem:

  The Snow Drift

  In the other direction,

  The one I expected to guide me home

  Drifts the snow that blocks my path, carves me like stone

  And makes everything seem like an obstacle

  Is the bright, fresh road over there an illusion?

  Or does it contain the path to lead me home?

  If I were brave, I would follow its light

  Ignore the fierce avalanche

  Drift of snow that blocks my path and imposes night

  And makes me wonder which way leads home

  Is it a place that is lost forever?

  Or one that I have yet to uncover?

  From the north, it appears the lights are extinguished

  In the west, it is darker still

  And the south is most bleak, egg-white, ill

  But the east claims the sun and a hopeful direction

  One I shall follow to the home of my invention.

  At the end of the email, Lenore had written a short message: Hey Girl, hope you liked my poem! I’ve never shared this one with anyone. But I thought it would be perfect for you, Miss Vagabond. Have a saf
e trip and God bless.

  With tear-stained cheeks, Belinda replied: I LOVED it! It was so inspirational. Just what I needed. You are a poet. Own it. Live it. Thank you for being such an incredible friend. PS Check your mailbox soon for postcards from your Miss Vagabond!

  *****

  The next morning, as Belinda was packing her carry-on bag, her back suddenly spasmed. Doubling over in pain, she cried out and mentally cursed the rolled up sleeping bag in the corner. Walking crookedly over to the medicine cabinet, she pulled out a bottle of painkillers and swallowed three of them. The bottle of painkillers was auspiciously the only item she hadn’t packed yet.

  “I guess somehow I knew I would need these this morning,” she grumbled. “How am I going to sit on the plane for so many hours?”

  Switching on her laptop, and lying flat on her back to ease the pain, Belinda reread Lenore’s poem. Gathering strength from the inspirational verses, she ignored the twinges that knotted together the nerves of her lower back.

  “But the east claims the sun and a hopeful direction…One I shall follow to the home of my invention,” Belinda recited the last verses aloud just as the buzzer of her apartment rang.

  The taxi driver. He was fifteen minutes early. Struggling to get to her feet, Belinda thought about her own pending journey east. She hoped it would prove to be a “hopeful direction,” but as her back spasmed repeatedly, she did not feel certain at all.

  *****

  That night, Belinda sat on the plane as it soared over the murky Atlantic Ocean. She had taken two more painkillers, and a numbness had replaced the sharp pains in her lower back. Inwardly, she knew it had not been the sleeping bag that had caused her back to go out, well not exclusively. It was also the unprecedented stress that this voyage was causing her. She had traveled so infrequently in her life, and now she was moving clear across the globe! It seemed like sheer folly. But as the plane coasted over the ocean, the words of Lenore’s poem replayed in Belinda’s mind, and she drifted asleep with thoughts of a “bright, fresh road” and a “home of her invention” waiting for her on the other side of the Atlantic.

  *****

  Nice, France

  Slipping on a pair of shades to shield her eyes from the sun flooding the Côte d’Azur Airport, Belinda marveled at her new surroundings. Elegant, statuesque women in designer dresses and shoes breezed through the airport. Equally well-dressed men in both casual and formal suits glanced appreciatively at Belinda as she strolled by. In her tight blue jeans and pink cotton tee-shirt, she was conspicuously American, but also conspicuously beautiful. Depleted from the multiple flights, Belinda’s face was completely au naturel without a drop of cosmetics, and she still walked with a slight stiffness in her lower back. She could not imagine why the Frenchmen wore such bemused expressions on their faces as she passed. But it thrilled her nonetheless, and she was startled when someone tapped her on the shoulder from behind.

  “Belinda! I’ve been calling your name! Didn’t you hear me?” Crystal asked as she pulled her sister into a tight embrace.

  “No! I must have been daydreaming. This airport is so pretty!” Belinda marveled, squeezing her younger sister lovingly.

  “The airport just the beginning! Wait until you see Monaco!” Crystal promised.

  Jean-Jacques appeared from behind with a cold bottle of spring water that he presented to Belinda. He had aged slightly since the last time she saw him, but he was still an attractive man with his salt and pepper hair and amiable features.

  “Bienvenue!” He welcomed her with a European-style kiss on each cheek. “We thought you might be dehydrated after all that flying.”

  “Oh, I am, thank you!” Belinda opened the bottle and drank the water thirstily.

  “You look great, Belinda. I think the European lifestyle agrees with you already!” Crystal praised as Belinda shot her a shocked look.

  “I’m a mess, but you’re a sweetheart. Thank you. I mean, merci. I’m going to have to start speaking French now, aren’t I?”

  “Yes, you are, but I’m sure any one of those men who were staring at you would be happy to be your tutor,” Crystal winked.

  Crystal didn’t understand why her sister didn’t realize how gorgeous she was. The only thing she could attribute it to was Belinda’s unhappy marriage to Daniel. He had always told her she was fat, when in reality she had the curves of a Roman goddess.

  Belinda looked at her incredulously, “You saw that? I guess men here are more amorous than those in the United States.”

  “Of course we are,” Jean-Jacques assured playfully.

  “Oh, hush!” Crystal scolded. “Come on, let’s go to the car. It’s a short drive into Monaco. Just make sure you have your passport and visa handy, Belinda.”

  “I’m wearing them around my neck, see?” Belinda pointed to the document holder she wore as a necklace.

  “Oh, yes,” Crystal grinned. “Between that and your blue jeans, it couldn’t be more obvious that you’re a foreigner.”

  “Thanks,” Belinda quipped sarcastically, though she was not affronted.

  “I think you’ll find the guest room in our house well-appointed and to your liking,” Jean-Jacques offered.

  “Yes,” Crystal agreed. “It’s in a private section of the house overlooking the garden.”

  “It sounds lovely, but I want you to know this is only temporary. As soon as I get over my jet lag, I’m going to find a location for my chocolate shop and then an apartment,” Belinda said firmly, not wanting to impose on her sister and brother-in-law any more than necessary.

  “No rush,” Crystal assured. “We have the space, and you are welcome to stay as long as you want.”

  “Absolutely,” Jean-Jacques concurred.

  The ride from Nice to Monaco was filled with laughter and conversation---and sights Belinda never imagined she might see. As she stared out the window at the sparkling coastline and quaint boutiques, she wondered why she hadn’t done this sooner.

  “It’s gorgeous here,” Belinda breathed, rolling down the window to inhale the salted air and feel the wind in her hair.

  “It really is, and you’re going to love it. I could never live anywhere else now,” Crystal said.

  “Well, I can see why.” Belinda nodded her head, relishing the dry Mediterranean breeze fanning her face.

  In fifteen minutes time, Jean-Jacques was pulling into the winding driveway of the house he shared with Crystal. Belinda’s eyes widened at the imposing size of the Georgian style home. She stifled a gasp as Jean-Jacques stopped the car inside a multi-level parking deck. This was not a house at all; this was a mansion. They could have been in Beverly Hills right now for all she knew.

  “Jean-Jacques likes to collect vintage cars, as you can see.” Crystal gestured to the half dozen antique sports cars that crammed the deck. “But we have every-day cars as well. So don’t feel like you have to take the rail to get around. You can just use one of the cars. You did get an international driver’s license, right?”

  Belinda frowned. “No, actually I didn’t. That’s one thing I didn’t think of,” she replied, not sure if she would want to cruise around a foreign country in someone else’s car anyway.

  “Oh, that’s too bad! Well, I’m home during the day, and I can drive you wherever you need to go,” Crystal offered cheerfully.

  Belinda stepped out into the perfect Mediterranean climate. It was warm but not oppressively so. With the near zero percent humidity, the air was sublime. Belinda didn’t need the rail system or her sister as a taxi service; she would be delighted to walk everywhere in this weather. But she didn’t relay this idea to Crystal. Instead, she just nodded and murmured, “Mmmhmm, thanks.”