If Looks Could Kill by Kate White

night?”
    “Yes, she was working. I needed her to watch my son, Tyler, while I gave the party.”
    “I actually saw her in the hallway,” I interjected. “I saw her get Tyler’s jacket. In fact, she looked a little odd and I
     couldn’t figure out why. Maybe it was because she thought I’d caught her.”
    “Please,” Cat pleaded. “I can’t stand this. What is going
on?”
    “All right,” said Farley. “There seems to be a problem with the chocolates. Most of the box had been consumed. We took the
     ones that hadn’t been eaten in to examine, and we think they may be tainted in some way.”
    “Tainted?” Cat said. “You mean
spoiled?
That’s pretty hard to imagine with Godiva.”
    “The chocolates in the box weren’t actually Godiva chocolates,” Farley explained. “They’re truffles, but not the kind made
     by Godiva. It looks as if they’re homemade and that someone took out whatever candies were in the box and substituted these.”
    Oh boy. This was bad. Someone had wanted to kill Cat, and Heidi had died because of it. But I could tell Cat hadn’t fully
     grasped it yet.
    “But what exactly do you mean by
tainted?”
Cat asked. The sugar lips were gone now and she was speaking in the clipped, irritated way she used with someone who was
     pitching an article idea but had failed in the first twenty seconds to make it sound sexy as hell. Underneath, though, I could
     detect a swelling panic.
    “We don’t have the final autopsy report—or the tox reports—but we believe there was something in the chocolates that killed
     Heidi. It may have been some kind of poison.”
    A look of astonishment began to form on Cat’s face.
    “Wait a minute,” she said finally. “Are you telling me that my nanny died because she ate a box of poison chocolates that
     were meant for
me?”
    “I don’t want us to draw any conclusions right now—not until we get the autopsy report back and the tox reports. But it does
     appear that the box was tampered with and that the chocolates may have caused her death.”
    “This is incredible,” Cat exclaimed, using her hand to comb through the top of her thick blond hair. “It can’t be real—it’s
     like a movie.” She stood up and took a few steps aimlessly around the room. “What do I
do?”
The last question seemed intended more for the gods than for either of us. Farley just sat there watching her pace, his lips
     pressed hard together.
    “Detective,” I said, leaning forward, trying not to sound as freaked as I felt, “when are you going to know for sure? How
     long do all the tests take?”
    “It’s a frustrating process in New York City because there’s a backlog,” he said. “We’ll get the autopsy report soon, but
     the tox reports can take weeks.”
    “Weeks?”
Cat screeched. “So for weeks I’m in limbo?”
    “No, we’re proceeding with this situation as if it’s highly suspicious. We’ve already begun investigating. And of course,
     with what you’ve just told me, we’ll start down a new line of inquiry—that if the candies were doctored in some way, you may
     have been the intended victim, not your nanny. Tell me about this party that you had—you said it was Thursday night.”
    “It was a boring book party—for a woman named Dolores Wilder,” Cat said, not hiding her agitation. “She was the editor of
Gloss
before me. She edited a collection of short stories from the magazine, and I got stuck giving her a party.”
    “Is there anyone who could have been in a position to see who brought the chocolates? Your housekeeper, for instance.”
    “I know Carlotta didn’t see anything. When I asked her later if she’d put the box someplace she said she hadn’t and she told
     me she had no idea who brought them.”
    “I want a list of everyone who attended the party—and I need it today. You can have someone fax it over to me. Have you had
     any threats against you?”
    “No. At least nothing out of the ordinary. People