by Skylar Finn
“We’re going down to the lobby,” I said, leading Riley along before Daniel could stop us. “We’ll be right back.”
Later, I would pay for the disgruntled look on his face. Daniel didn’t take rejection well, one of the reasons his marriage was crumbling. It wasn’t my job to look after him or put him back together. It was, on the other hand, my responsibility to protect Riley and the other people in this resort from the dead.
“What is it?” Riley said.
“We haven’t talked yet,” I said, checking to make sure we were out of earshot from the rest of the lounge. I steadied my hands on Riley’s thin shoulders. “How are you after what happened this morning?”
“Fine.”
“Riley, your brother died.”
“I know.”
“He was murdered.”
“Affirmative, Captain.”
I shifted my weight away from her, put off by the nonchalant expression she’d been sporting all morning. “Usually this kind of information affects people more than it appears to be affecting you.”
“Did you expect me to be upset?” She crossed her arms. “Tyler’s gone. I’ve been wishing for that my whole life. Do I like the way it happened? No, but I’m not going to dispute it.”
“You were freaking out this morning,” I reminded her. “That’s all gone, is it?”
“I freaked because you were going to leave me here alone.”
I studied her pout, crossed arms, and wrinkled brow. “Are you mad at me? Is that why you’re giving me this cold shoulder crap?”
“You were going to leave me, right after you promised you wouldn’t.”
It made sense now. Riley thought I was going back on my word to figure all of this out. A week ago, it wouldn’t have mattered what a twelve-year-old thought of me. Now I respected Riley more than most adults in my life. I went to brush her hair, but she stepped out of reach.
“I panicked, okay?” I said. “Between last night’s trip to the old wing and this morning’s murder, I was ready to forget about King and Queens. It was stupid and selfish, and I should’ve taken more than a second to consider how my actions would affect you.”
She tapped her heel against the marble floor, making me stew. “I get it. I’m some kid you hardly know.”
“You know that’s not true,” I said. “You knew we had a connection way before I did. We have to stick together while we figure this out.”
“I’m not the one who has a problem with that.”
“What shirt are you wearing under your sweater?” I asked.
She toyed with the collar of her sweater. Beneath it, the faded black fabric of an old T-shirt stuck out. “Your Blondie shirt. Why?”
“Do you remember what you said when you asked if you could have it?”
“That I wouldn’t want it if I didn’t like you.”
“Right,” I said. “We made a deal. For as long as I’m at King and Queens, that shirt belongs to you. Have I asked for it back yet?”
“No.”
“And I’m not going to,” I promised. This time, when I reached for her, she let me pull her closer. “I’m not leaving, Riley. For real. I don’t trust anyone else to keep an eye on you. Okay?”
Her expression softened. “Okay.”
“Good,” I said. “Now that’s out of the way, I can tell you what happened to me this morning when I went upstairs. Do you remember Odette?”
“The baby?”
“Yeah, the baby that didn’t really exist,” I recalled. “I saw her again, but this time she was your age. She appeared in my room. Black curls, blue eyes. Sound familiar?”
Riley’s eyes widened. “She’s the nice ghost, isn’t she? The one who likes hot chocolate?”
“That’s my guess too,” I said. “I think Odette has been trying to communicate with you, but because you’re younger and you don’t have a lot of experience with the whole psychic thing, she couldn’t get through to you.”
“So she asked you for help?”
“Yes. She wants me to look into the fire that happened here thirty years ago,” I said. “Would you happen to know anything about that?”
Riley shook her head. “I asked Dad about it a couple of years ago when I first found the old wing, but he said I was ‘too young to know about such terrible things.’”
“You know your dad was the only member of his family to make it out of the fire alive, right?”
“Yeah, I read about it online since he wouldn’t tell me anything,” Riley said.
“What about your grandparents?” I asked. “Do you know anything about them? Or your aunt? Your father had a sister, right?”
“Dad doesn’t talk about his family. I think it hurts him to think about it. There’s a photo of all of them in his office.”
“Can we go look?”
She shrugged. “Sure.”
We crossed the lobby to the office, but when Riley pulled on the handle, it didn’t budge.
“That’s weird,” she said. “He doesn’t normally lock it.”
“Nick Porter’s here,” I reminded her. “He’s all kinds of paranoid with that guy around. What’s up with that anyway?”
Riley shimmied a bobby pin into the keyhole, but the experimental lockpicking attempt failed. “He thinks Nick is going to put him out of business. He’s had it out for him ever since they started construction on White Oak.”
“He better be careful,” I said. “Everyone loves Nick. If your dad doesn’t tone it down, he might lose King and Queens sooner than he expected.”
Riley put the bobby pin between her teeth like a cowgirl with a toothpick. “I don’t think it would be so bad if King and Queens got shut down, especially now that it’s just me and Dad. We could move to a nice cabin in town and ski whenever we wanted. He wouldn’t have to worry about keeping this place up and running.”
“You should suggest it,” I said. “It would be nice for your dad to hear that.”
“Maybe.”
“Hey, you two!” Daniel called. We looked up to see him leaning over the railing of the Eagle’s View. He waved us upward. “That’s long enough. Come back up.”
“In a minute,” I said.
“Now!” he ordered and returned to the lounge.
I held Riley for a moment longer. “I need you to do something for me, kiddo. Can you work on your dad? Get him to open up about the fire and his family. We need as much information as possible.”
Riley squared off her shoulders, but she was so small and thin that it didn’t make much of a difference. “You got it.”
The interviews wore on and on. Daniel spent forty-five minutes to an hour with each employee of the hotel. He grew more agitated, jostling his leg beneath the bar and fiddling with his notepad. Once, at the beginning of his interview with Karli, he threw his pen across the room in a fit of rage. The ballpoint flew into the window and shattered. Daniel calmly picked up the pieces, discarded them, then returned to his seat at the bar, where Karli handed him the crappy pen that she took orders with. Lunch time came and went without any hint of food. Imani offhandedly suggested that we order pizza. Whether she was kidding or had forgotten that we were snowed in remained undefined. By one o’clock, everyone in the Eagle’s View was hungry, angry, and ready to take Daniel down to serve him up on a platter. I interrupted him between interviews.
“I know you’re determined to catch the killer before anyone else gets dead,” I began, “but if you don’t let us eat, everyone’s going to gang up on you, and your death will be the next homicide the Crimson Basin police are going to have to investigate. Capisce?”
Daniel massaged his temples with his calloused fingers. “I’m losing my mind, Lucia.”
“So is everyone else here,” I said. “But withholding food isn’t going to help. Matisse and Karli work in the kitchen. Let them do their jobs.”
He looked around the lounge. The glares he got in return were enough to convince him to go through with my idea. “Fine. You win. Make everyone lunch.”<
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Matisse and Karli didn’t need to be asked twice. They rose from their booth at the same time, opposites in looks but partners in the task at hand. Matisse was a tall, lumbering individual in his mid-twenties. He moved like a bear walking across a frozen swimming pool, but his fingers were deft and graceful in the kitchen. He had pale shoulder-length hair luscious enough for a shampoo commercial and brown eyes that looked dark and emotionless until you got closer to see their real warmth. He let Karli go in front of him, tracking her petite form with his intense gaze. One large hand hovered around her waist without touching her, as if he meant to catch her should she happen to trip. Everyone but Karli could see the intention in Matisse’s body language, but he made it that way himself, hiding his feelings in an effort to provide her with the space and respect she wanted.
Nick got up from our booth and followed the pair into the kitchen. “I think I’ll help,” he said, squeezing my shoulder as he passed. “Idle hands and what not. You don’t mind, do you, Detective?”
Daniel gestured for him to go ahead, and Nick disappeared through the swinging doors. The enticing smell of garlic and olive oil soon floated into the lounge.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” I asked Daniel before attempting to return to Jazmin.
“Lucia, wait,” he said. “I haven’t asked you about last night yet.”
I straddled the stool next to his, eyeing the scribbles on his notepad. He flipped to a fresh page. “I figured you didn’t have to. Didn’t we clear things up this morning?”
“Not exactly,” he said. “I can’t stop thinking about what you said.”
“Which part?”
“That you’ve moved a dead body before.”
My spine went stiffer than the booze on the top shelf. “I told you I didn’t want to talk about it.”
He shifted into cop mode, all straight shoulders and gruff tone. “And I told you we’re in the midst of a homicide investigation. Every detail matters. What were you doing last night—or this morning if you will—between the hours of ten p.m. and four a.m.?”
“I was sleeping,” I replied. “You can ask Jazmin. She was with me the entire night.”
“A culprit can always find at least one friend to back them up.”
“So I’m a culprit?”
“That’s not what—”
A guttural scream from the kitchen interrupted his sentence. I knocked over my bar stool in my haste to get up, beating Daniel to the swinging doors. He ran into my back as we both stormed into the kitchen. The door to the storage freezer was open. Karli sobbed into Matisse’s chest. He cradled her head as carefully as if she were a glass ornament. Nick emerged from the freezer, his cane slipping in the ice on the floor. His face was tinted green, and his lips were pressed together as if he was determinedly holding back vomit.
“I’m afraid Karli happened upon Tyler’s temporary resting place,” Nick explained, blotting his forehead with his satin pocket square. “His head was a bit uncovered. Detective Hawkins” —he brandished his cane at Daniel— “did it not occur to you to warn us of where you intended to store him?”
Daniel brushed past Nick to check the freezer himself. I poured three glasses of water and handed them to Nick, Matisse, and Karli. Matisse refused his, instead coaxing Karli into taking a sip.
“Are you okay?” I asked Nick.
“I’m afraid not,” he replied, tipping the glass in thanks. “I did the best I could to cover Mr. Watson’s face again, but I imagine the sight will haunt me for years to come. However, I don’t harbor such concern for myself. It’s the poor girl I’m worried about.”
Violent tremors shook Karli’s entire body no matter how tightly Matisse held her. She verged on hysteria. I tore through the pantry to find a paper bag, crumpled the top of it into a rough circle, and offered it to Karli.
“Breathe into this,” I said. “Oldest trick in the book, but it helps. I know from experience. Let go of her, Matisse. You’re crowding her.”
Matisse glared but moved away. Karli put the bag to her mouth and took several deep breaths. Her eyes were bloodshot. It was a good thing she’d only seen the one dead person at King and Queens. If she knew the extent of the situation, she would never be able to handle it.
“I know it’s hard,” I said to her. “Don’t focus on what you saw. Focus on here and now. Breathe.”
She locked her eyes on mine, and I tracked the moment she started calming down. A few minutes later, she was able to lower the paper bag and breathe evenly.
“Thank you,” she said.
“How did you know what to do?” Matisse asked.
“I was prone to panic attacks when I was younger,” I told him. “If you don’t want to be incapacitated in a public place, you learn to control them.”
Daniel emerged from the freezer and shut the door. “Show’s over,” he grumbled. “He’s covered up again. I’m sorry, Miss—what was your name?”
Matisse stepped in front of Karli. “You’re an ass, Detective.”
Daniel rested his hand on his gun. “You want to run that by me again?”
“You should have told everyone you were holding the body in here,” Matisse said, not backing down. “We’re traumatized enough as it is.”
Daniel waved off Matisse’s accusation. “I don’t have time to be chastised by a kid.”
Matisse followed him out of the kitchen. “You know I’m right.”
In the Eagle’s View, everyone except Oliver gathered around the bar, craning their necks to see through the small porthole windows into the kitchen. When we came out, they scattered like bugs. Jazmin took me by the elbow.
“What happened?” she whispered.
“Karli found the body,” I muttered. The answer wasn’t quiet enough. Imani, who I hadn’t noticed was standing behind me, overheard it.
“Are you kidding me?” she said. “Karli, is that true?”
The tearful bartender nodded, and the rest of the employees mumbled angrily. Daniel, noting the intense change in atmosphere, tried to take control of the issue.
“It was a simple mistake,” he announced. “Everyone relax. The situation has been handled.”
“Handled?” Imani repeated. With her spindly legs, she was the same height as Daniel, so his towering bad cop persona had no effect on her. “Detective Hawkins, I mean no disrespect, but you’re not handling anything at all. You’ve penned us up in this bar with no food or drinks, scared the crap out of us with your interrogations, and made us all feel like criminals. You do realize that most of us are innocent, right? Some of us aren’t old enough to be questioned without a parent or guardian present.” She looked over her shoulder at Ari, who ducked her head. “This place is toxic, and I refuse to cooperate until we’re no longer in imminent danger from whoever killed Tyler.”
Imani’s speech provided the other employees with the gunpowder they needed to stand up for themselves. Matisse planted his feet.
“I won’t answer any more questions either,” he declared.
Ari stood too. “Neither will I. I’m seventeen. It’s illegal to ask me anything in the first place.”
“This whole situation reeks of illegality,” Imani added. “We’re being held against our will—”
“You are not!” Daniel said.
“Then let us leave the lounge,” she challenged.
“I can’t let you do that.”
“Then you are holding us!”
“I’m trying to keep everyone safe,” Daniel shouted. “Don’t you see that? There’s only one of me, and I can’t watch everyone at the same time. I want the rest of us to make it out of this alive, just like you, so I’d appreciate it if everyone would let me do my damn job!”
His declaration echoed through the big dome of the lodge and lobby, silencing everyone else. As he heaved for breath, Imani put her hands up in momentary abeyance.
“My bad, homie,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking of it from your perspective.”
Daniel’s shoulders fell,
bringing everyone’s fiery temper down with them. “Listen, everyone. I know this is hard. Maybe I’ve handled it poorly, but this is the only way I know how to do it. That being said, we clearly need to take a break. Let’s have an hour to eat lunch and relax.”
With a few extra hands to help them in the kitchen, Matisse and Karli assembled platters of cold cuts, cheese, and Matisse’s fresh bread for lunch. Karli was calmer when she had a task to take her mind off of everything. As she served Jazmin, Riley, and me, she did so with her usual polite demeanor, but the subtle shake of her hands betrayed her deeper thoughts. Everyone else calmed down once they dug into their food. Daniel slowed his roll to eat with Nick at the bar. They chatted amiably, chuckling once or twice. I was glad of Nick’s inherent charm. He used it wisely. Near the end of the designated lunch hour, a touch of restlessness hit the lounge. No one wanted to return to Daniel’s interrogations now that we were content with the food in our stomachs. Imani and Ari approached our table.
“Madame Lucia?” Ari said. “Imani and I were talking, and we were wondering if you’d perform a skit for everyone, like in one of your web shows. It would lighten the mood.”
I exchanged a glance with Riley, who shrugged, then Jazmin, who grinned.
“It’s up to you,” Jazmin said.
In the lounge corner, alone at his own table, Oliver picked at his uneaten sandwich.
“I don’t think so, girls,” I said. “It would be insensitive considering what’s happened today.”
“Go ahead,” Oliver said, pushing his plate to the side. It was the first time he’d uttered a word since his confrontation with Nick. “If everyone wants to see it, I don’t mind. It passes the time. I know it’s not real.”
“I don’t have my materials,” I protested.
“You don’t need them,” Imani insisted as she drew me from the booth. “Come on. It’ll be fun. You do this all the time, right?”
“Yeah, but things have changed,” I muttered.
Jazmin slid out of the booth to rescue me from Imani’s grasp. “Take it easy,” she said in my ear. “This could be fun. You love playing Madame Lucia, remember? Tap into that. I’ll help you.”
The Eagle’s View was full of eager expressions. The mood had shifted for the better in anticipation of my performance. If I didn’t go through with it, the room would fall back into the pall of Tyler’s death.