The Missing Ingredient

by Diane Noble

  “Well, I overheard some talk just now—and I won’t mention which table I was listening to—but the word is that the former Ms. Keller is hoppin’ mad because for five years she’s been trying to win Mr. Keller back. Apparently, she thought she’d almost convinced him to give their relationship another try when he disappeared, and now she’s blaming Susannah for losin’ him again.”

  “They’re divorced,” Kate said, incredulous. It made sense now that Jacqueline Keller flew in from Europe to search for him. She had the financial well-being of the company on her shoulders. What didn’t make sense was why she would want such an ogre back. Then again, one woman’s ogre was often another woman’s prince. Apparently, Nicolette Pascal also thought him a prince.

  “And that’s not all,” LuAnne continued. “She’s ordered everyone in the network to move out of the hotel until this ‘issue is settled’—her words, according to my sources. And apparently, they were glad to go.”

  “Where will they go?”

  LuAnne waggled her fingers. “Motels and hotels outside town. Apparently, they’ve decided to shoot those off-location shots in the meantime.”

  Kate sipped her tea as a howling blast of wind rattled some tree branches outside.

  The door to the diner burst opened with a bang, and Renee Lambert, umbrella unfurled, arrived like Mary Poppins on another gust of wind. She slipped off her coat, spotted Livvy and Kate, and headed toward them, wrapping her umbrella on the way. The long strap of Kisses’ tote was slung over one shoulder.

  “I saw your car outside, Kate, and thought I’d stop by with my news.”

  “About Kisses?”

  “Turns out there isn’t a ghost living with us after all.”

  Kate avoided exchanging glances with Livvy. “What did the vet say was the problem?”

  “I added some new health foods to his diet recently, and apparently, well, to put it delicately, the new food caused him to be, well, you know...”

  “Ah yes,” Kate said, stifling a grin. “I can imagine.”

  “Flatulent?” Livvy filled in, ever the wordsmith.

  Kate couldn’t resist any longer. She shot Livvy a smile, and the twitch at the corner of her friend’s mouth—just before she covered it with her napkin—said that giggles were threatening to erupt.

  “Yes,” Renee sighed. “My poor Little Umpkins.”

  Kate’s cell chirped from deep in her handbag. LuAnne returned to the kitchen to put in their order, and Kate dug for the phone.

  She found it, flipped it open, then bit her lip. “Oh no,” she breathed, her heart sinking.

  “What is it?” Livvy asked.

  Kate read the text message, then handed the phone to Livvy. Renee sidled closer, glanced around the room, lowered her voice, then read it aloud over Livvy’s shoulder. “Be certain you are being watched,” she whispered. “Stop your investigation now or you will be sorry.”

  “Well, if that doesn’t take the cake,” Renee said, turning pale. She dropped into the booth across from Kate.

  “Oh, Kate,” Livvy said, handing back the phone.

  “One thing I know. Threats aren’t going to stop me from trying to find Newt. It’s the only way we can get to the bottom of this.”

  Livvy sat back. “I’m worried about all of this, Kate. You shouldn’t be alone at that deserted hotel trying to find him.”

  Kate thought about Livvy’s words. It was one thing to put herself in harm’s way, but in light of the most recent text message, she couldn’t ask Livvy to do the same. Besides, what if her theory was wrong?

  “I’ve got it covered, Livvy.”

  Renee had remained uncharacteristically silent through Kate’s interchange with Livvy. When LuAnne appeared a few minutes later with two plates of lemon-meringue pie, Renee stood abruptly, collected the tote with snoring Kisses, and said she had some errands to run. She left without saying good-bye and nearly forgot to grab her coat and umbrella.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It was nearing eleven o’clock when Kate headed the Honda into the Hamilton Springs parking lot. Paul had fallen asleep, and she’d left a note, telling him where she’d gone.

  The lot was empty, and the hotel was nearly dark, even though the power had started working again a few hours earlier. The restaurant, tearoom, spa, and hotel had apparently remained closed after the most recent ghost activities.

  The wind moaned as Kate exited the car, and an icy sting of rain blasted into her face. She caught her breath and tied the belt on her coat tighter, dropping the hood over her head.

  She trotted to the entrance, trying not to think about how vulnerable she was in a deserted hotel at night. Except for the howling wind, it was eerily quiet, a stark contrast to the hubbub when the network people were there.

  Her hands shook as she reached for the door. A single light glowed from somewhere behind the front desk, where the reservation people would normally be seated, smiling cheerfully at guests as they entered the hotel.

  But that night, there was no one.

  Kate opened the door and made her way across the foyer. She prayed that Sybil would be in her office. They had talked on the phone earlier, and Sybil had assured her that she would be waiting. The thought helped calm her jittery nerves.

  But what if Sybil wasn’t there? Kate didn’t want to consider that she might be alone in the abandoned building. She pushed the thought from her mind and knocked on Sybil’s office door and waited for an answer.

  There was none.

  Her legs were starting to shake. Ignoring them as best she could, she reached for the knob, turned it, and eased the door inward an inch or so, just enough to see that Sybil wasn’t at her desk.

  Kate backed slowly out of the room as cold fingers of fear began to travel up her spine. She let out a deep breath, then sucked in another before she got dizzy from the lack of oxygen.

  She was still backing out of the room when an icy hand touched her shoulder.

  Kate froze, afraid to move. Then she thought better of it and whirled to face whatever—or whoever—had touched her.

  “Oh dear, did I frighten you?” Renee said.

  She was dressed in black, and Kate assumed that beneath her poufy parka, the photographer’s vest with the many pockets was in place. The older woman wore black leather gloves, but her hands were obviously still frozen from the frigid night.

  “Just enough to take a dozen or so years off my life,” Kate snapped. Renee’s sneaking up on her was becoming a bad habit. She softened her voice. “Actually, I’m glad to see you, Renee. This place is pretty spooky when you think you’re alone.” She frowned. “Did you just get here? I didn’t see your car.”

  Renee rolled her eyes at the obvious. “It’s on the street. Just like I said last time—if we’re here to bust the perp, it’s wise not to be seen ahead of time. And yes, I got here before you did. I’ve been casing the joint.”

  Kate grinned and said, “Good thinking.” She didn’t bother to remind Renee that “casing the joint” was something thieves did.

  Then she sobered. “You haven’t seen Sybil, have you?”

  Renee shook her head.

  “She was supposed to meet me here tonight.” Kate glanced around, the spooky, eerie feeling creeping up her spine again. “The strange thing is that the front door was unlocked. That tells me she’s here someplace.”

  “Unless she forgot to lock it when she left. Her car’s not here, which tells us she probably isn’t either.”

  Kate agreed, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something didn’t add up.

  “You packing heat?” Renee had unzipped her parka and was fishing around in her vest for something.

  “Packing heat?”

  “Carrying a firearm.”

  “Goodness no. I don’t know the first thing about them.”

  “I figured if ever there was a time we might need it, that time would be now,” Renee said. “One of us should be armed.”

  “You aren’t, I hope.”


  “No. But I stopped by the Mercantile to pick up some other essentials this afternoon.” She pulled out two walkie-talkies and handed one to Kate. Next, she patted the multitude of vest pockets, reached in one of them, and pulled out two canisters. Again, she handed one to Kate and tucked the other one back in her pocket.

  “Pepper spray,” she said. “Next best thing to packing heat.”

  She showed Kate all the bells and whistles on the walkie-talkies and then disappeared around the corner so they could test their connection.

  After a few minutes, Renee’s staticky voice warbled, “Think we need backup? Or are we ready to roll? Over and out.”

  “I think we’re ready to roll,” Kate responded into the transmitter.

  “Ten-four,” Renee said, then headed back around the corner to stand in front of Kate.

  “We need to cover two areas,” Kate said.

  She told Renee about the service entrance in the back of the hotel and about the dumbwaiter, which she’d seen on the hotel map originated in a storage area behind the Bristol kitchen and connected to the laundry room upstairs.

  “Dumbwaiter?” Renee looked skeptical. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  Kate smiled. “I suspect it has a lot to do with everything.”

  “Like what?”

  Kate sighed. “I’ll tell you when I figure it out myself.”

  Renee let out a harrumph.

  Kate noticed the moaning wind and icy rain beating against the hotel’s windows. She didn’t relish the idea of keeping vigil in such weather. Even more, she didn’t want Renee to be exposed to the frigid temperatures and blasting wind.

  “How about if you keep an eye on the dumbwaiter downstairs?”

  Renee nodded, then narrowed her eyes. “You wouldn’t be coddling me, would you?”

  “Coddling? I wouldn’t think of it,” Kate said and shot a prayer heavenward, asking forgiveness for the fib. “Let’s get started. I’ll show you the dumbwaiter.”

  Renee put on her miner’s headlamp and fastened the chin strap. At Kate’s quizzical look, she said, “I borrowed it from my mother.” Why her ninety-something-year-old mother had a miner’s headlamp was a mystery to Kate.

  Renee flicked the light on.

  Kate pulled her penlight out of her handbag, and with the two dancing beams lighting their way, they crept across the foyer to the Bristol. They let themselves into the kitchen, crossed the polished tile floors, past gleaming stainless-steel appliances, to the storage area behind the restaurant. The service entrance was just beyond.

  Kate gestured toward a small ordinary-looking cupboard in the corner near the service entrance.

  “That’s the dumbwaiter,” she whispered. “You need to stay hidden in the shadows and call me if anyone comes in or goes out.”

  Renee nodded and turned off the miner’s lamp. “So, where will you be?”

  “The parking lot. I want to see if our ‘ghost’ appears when there’s no audience.”

  “Good thinking,” Renee whispered. “BOLO,” she added.

  Kate searched her memory bank for the acronym. Then she smiled. “Be on the lookout. You too.”

  Kate headed to the door and reached for the knob. An eerie moan came from somewhere in the hotel. It was so faint that at first, Kate thought she’d imagined it.

  Then the sound carried toward them again, even stronger than before.

  “Did you hear that?” Renee whispered, leaving her hiding place. “It sounds like a ghost.”

  The moan carried toward them again.

  Kate aimed her penlight at the dumbwaiter. “It’s coming from there.”

  Renee’s eyes grew wide. “You’re not going to open it, are you? I mean, right here, without backup or anything? What if there’s a body...” She shuddered.

  Kate went over to the door that made up the exterior of the small elevator. She pushed one of three buttons to the right of the dumbwaiter, and a mechanism inside groaned and coughed and creaked. The unearthly moaning grew louder.

  Renee crept closer, dropped her voice, and whispered, “Are you sure you want to do th—”

  There was a whirring sound, a small thump, then the thing came to a halt.

  Kate took a deep breath and pressed her index finger on the button that said OPEN DOOR.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The dumbwaiter door slowly slid open, and Kate aimed the beam of her penlight flash at the contents.

  “Laundry,” Renee said. “Can you believe that? It’s a pile of laundry. Here, I thought we were about to dis—”

  The pile of laundry moved and let out another soft moan.

  Kate gently reached into the elevator and, with Renee’s help, pulled Sybil into the room.

  She blinked at them, her eyes dark with fear. Her mouth was duct-taped. So were her wrists.

  Renee pulled some small scissors from her vest and went to work on the tape.

  Sybil rubbed her wrists and took a deep breath. “I was hoping you’d hear me,” she finally said. “I didn’t know how else I’d be found.”

  “How did this happen?” Kate kept the beam of her flashlight slightly to one side of Sybil’s face, so she wouldn’t be blinded.

  “I honestly don’t know. After you called to tell me your suspicions, I came in here to look around. I opened the dumbwaiter, spotted some food that was obviously being sent upstairs, and that’s the last thing I remember.” She rubbed her head. “Someone must have conked me a good one, because I didn’t wake up until I was inside the thing.” She grimaced. “Not a comfortable place to be for any length of time, believe me.”

  “Did you hear voices?”

  “No, nothing.”

  “The perp knows we’re onto him,” Renee said. “We’ve got to move fast.”

  “Wait a minute,” Kate said. “This tells us that there’s an accomplice. Because the food was sent up alone, instead of taken by hand, I suspect the accomplice was the sender. Our suspect was upstairs in the laundry room waiting.”

  “Which means?” Sybil rubbed her temple and winced.

  “That the perp’s thinking he’d better get out of here while the getting’s good. He may be armed and dangerous.” Renee patted her pockets as if checking for a weapon.

  Kate studied Sybil. “Are you okay enough to help us?”

  She nodded. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

  “I wonder if the ghost will head for the creek, just like always,” Renee said, dropping her voice to a whisper. “We’ve obviously deduced that the perp and the ghost are one and the same.”

  “Actually, that’s not a certainty,” Kate said.

  The other two looked at her quizzically, but she didn’t explain. There would be time for that later.

  “But back to the dumbwaiter. If whoever’s upstairs thinks Sybil is still in the dumbwaiter, it will be avoided. So will this back entrance.”

  “And we can jump him when he heads to the creek,” Renee added.

  “Why are you so certain that whoever it is will head to the creek?” Sybil said.

  Renee harrumphed. “A matter of deduction. The small rowboat, oars, and spent candles were the first clue. Downstream where the water is swift enough and wide enough to accommodate a rowboat.”

  Sybil arched a brow. “I’m impressed.”

  Renee threw her head back and sniffed. “I watch a lot of CSI.”

  Kate rummaged through the kitchen cupboards until she found some linens. She wadded them up and piled them in the dumbwaiter with the other linens, then she hit the button to close the door and position it between floors, just as it had been before.

  She gave the other women a nod, and then the three stepped out into the freezing rain. They moved gingerly across the ice-slick parking lot, huddling close to keep warm.

  Around them, the biting wind gusted and blasts of sleet hit their faces.

  “Think about poor Precious McFie,” Sybil said. “She walked this path in her wedding gown in the same kind of weather.”


  “I can’t imagine doing that because I was jilted by someone I loved,” Renee said. “I can’t imagine doing that at all.”

  “Maybe her fiancé was all she had to live for,” Sybil said.

  Her voice was sad, and Kate wondered if she was thinking about her own life. She’d once said that the hotel was her whole life, and yet just a few days prior, she was ready to walk away from it. What would that have left her?

  “Well, I never...” Renee breathed.

  Kate and Sybil turned to follow her gaze.

  In the upstairs wing, a small light flickered in the window of the dusty unused room, then it moved to the next unused room, then it seemed to hover and stop in the room where Kate had discovered the slipper print.

  Renee gasped. “Look at that, will you? The ghost is back!” Her voice was shaking. “And it’s real.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  A smoky, veiled figure seemed to float from one window to the next and back again, almost as if dancing. At the same time, a blast of wind, stronger than before, rolled across the parking lot, and the parking lot lights flickered, dimmed, then went out completely. The hotel went black, except for the flickering lights in the upstairs windows.

  Sybil groaned. “Ghost or no ghost, I’m getting pretty tired of this.”

  “I am too,” Kate said. She glanced at Renee, smiled, and said, “Let’s roll.”

  But Renee held up a hand to stop her. “Wait,” she said. “There are two ghosts now.”

  Kate looked back. In the ambient light through the windows, she could see that the first figure had been joined by another. The first appeared to be female; the second was obviously male. The build, the height...

  “Ghosts,” Renee breathed. “I still say they’re ghosts.”

  They watched for a moment in silence.

  Kate caught her breath as two hunched-over figures slipped around the side of the building, arms wrapped around each other, clutching their dark coats close against the wind.

  They made their way toward the creek, with no wary glances around, with no apparent concern about being seen.