Beauty & Bloodshed: A romantic, cozy mystery: Beauty Secrets Mystery Book 5

by Stephanie Damore

  “Hey, don’t blame it on me. I told you it wasn’t her.” Though I had thought he was on to something. “I assume that means you’re headed in to work?” I said to my aunt.

  “Yes, and I’m going to be late,” Aunt Lupe said, looking down at her watch.

  “Do you care if we tag along? We’re headed back there,” I said.

  “No, not at all. Although Finn might have to ride in the hatch.” Aunt Lupe winked at him and then climbed into her car. Finn stood awkwardly in the driveway for a minute before opening the back door and climbing carefully onto the folded-down backseat. My aunt hadn’t been joking. Finn rode in the back with one hand on the painting and the other holding down the inside handle of the hatch.

  “I’ll try not to hit too many potholes,” Aunt Lupe said while pulling away from the house.

  Finn took it all in stride, but I could tell he was happy to unfold himself from the backend when we pulled into the hotel’s parking lot. Aunt Lupe left the painting in the car since she was late, and we told her we’d help her take it in as soon as she was ready.

  “It’s not really valuable,” she said while clicking her locks shut. “Just sentimental.”

  “I hear you. We’ll meet you inside. I just want to make a quick phone call,” I said. Finn looked at me, but my expression didn’t give anything away.

  “Okay, I’ll see you guys inside,” Aunt Lupe said and walked off.

  Once we were alone I turned to Finn and said, “Who’s the one person we really need to talk to.”

  Finn stared at me in response.

  “Mariah. Think about it. She’s the only person who knows what happened and is willing, or mostly willing, to tell us what happened.”

  “You want to talk to a ghost?”

  “Try to. I just need to figure out how. Hence, the phone call.”

  “Oh-kay.” Finn said.

  “What, are you scared?” I teased.

  “No, not…not at all.” Finn puffed out his chest but couldn’t hide the tremble in his voice.

  “Okay good. Let’s do this.”

  I dialed Claire’s number and she answered right away.

  “Hey, say I want to get in touch with a ghost, how do I go about doing that exactly?” Please don’t tell me to host a séance. I really thought that is beyond my comfort level at this point.

  “Which ghost are we talking about? Mariah or Carmen?” Claire asked.

  “Mariah. I need to ask her some questions and I don’t have a lot of time to spare.”

  “I would head back to the last place you saw her and just reach out to her. Ask her to come to you. If she’s agreeable, she’ll make herself known.”

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about that last part. “What do you mean, make herself known? She’s not going to make the lights go crazy or throw furniture around the room, is she?” Finn and I would both be running if that was the case.

  “Ha, she shouldn’t. But if Carmen shows up, well, who knows what she’s capable of.”

  “Great,” I replied sarcastically. I was going to keep that information to myself.

  “No, seriously though. Just try to talk to Mariah. Hopefully she’ll find a way to answer you,” Claire said.

  “Any other advice?” I asked.

  “If Carmen shows up, run.”

  19

  When we walked back into the hotel, Ms. Roberto was working the front counter. She didn’t look too pleased, but her expression changed ever so slightly when my aunt walked across the lobby and joined her behind the desk.

  I gave a little wave to my aunt on our walk toward the elevators. “We’ll call you in just a little bit,” I said.

  On the ride up to our room, I saw Finn trying to catch my eye, but I didn’t dare look at him. I was afraid that if I made eye contact, I’d lose my nerve and call the whole thing off.

  Together we quickly finished packing up because if things turned south, I wasn’t about to come back to the room for my toothbrush.

  “Now what?” Finn asked.

  “Now we call to her. Hit the lights.” Finn closed his eyes, shook his head in a I can’t believe I’m doing this sort of way, and flicked the switch.

  I closed my eyes and stood in front of the mirror. “Okay, Mariah. I’m here. What’s your story?” I waited a moment to see if anything would happen. The silence was deafening. I peeked opened one eye. Nothing. I tried again.

  “Help me, help you.”

  Was that too basic? What else should I say? I fully opened my eyes and looked to Finn. He shrugged his shoulders.

  “Mariah, are you here?” I asked. Another moment of silence. I was about to give up.

  That’s when the air suddenly felt charged with energy. The hair on my arms rose. The temperature plummeted.

  “I hope it’s not Carmen,” I said.

  “WHAT?!” Finn looked alarmed. He started searching the room in anticipation.

  I did the same. Maybe this was a bad idea.

  “Where is she? Someone’s here. I know it.”

  And there she was.

  It was Mariah, walking toward us in the mirror. Her figure was light and airy, or that could just be the impression I got from the off-the-shoulder, scalloped, floral-laced white gown she wore.

  “We need your help and maybe we can help you in the process.”

  Mariah tilted her head to the side in interest but didn’t speak. I didn’t know if it was because she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, but I took it as an opening.

  “You’re here because of the mirrors. They belong to your family, right?” I said.

  Mariah nodded.

  “You’re protecting them?” I guessed.

  Mariah nodded again.

  “Frederick took your life, but he wasn’t going to take your family’s fortune.”

  This time Mariah shook her head no. I had it wrong.

  “It was you that left?” I tried.

  This time Mariah spoke. It was in French, I think. Regardless, I had no idea what she was saying. She repeated the same two words: “Rouge” and “Noir.”

  I turned to Finn.

  “Red and black,” he supplied.

  “What does it mean?” I asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  I looked at Mariah. “Red and black. Red and black. Like cards? Hearts and spades?”

  Mariah was starting to fade away. “Le Rouge et le Noir,” she said this time before completing dissipating.

  I wondered why she was going, until I felt the air turn even chillier and the electronics went haywire. The television, lamps, and clock radio—they all turned on. And then off. And then on. Finn and I stared at each other, wide-eyed. Claire said to run if Carmen showed up, but right then I couldn’t even move.

  I looked back to the mirror, but Mariah was gone. I thought Carmen would be there, but she wasn’t. She was standing in front of our door.

  “SUGAR!” I screamed. Finn jumped behind me.

  “Everyone will pay!” Carmen growled. “I will not stop until the truth is known!”

  “Neither will I!” I said right back. I had no idea where my courage suddenly came from, but it was there, raw and brave.

  Carmen stared at me. She seemed unsure of what to think.

  “That’s why I’m here. To find the truth. And when I do, I will tell everyone. I promise.”

  Carmen’s expression softened.

  “Thank you,” she said. And POOF! She was gone.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Finn jumped higher than I did.

  “Mrs. Hudson?” Mr. Roberto asked through the door.

  “One minute,” I said once I found my voice. Finn quickly turned off a couple of the lights and the radio. I jogged over to the door.

  “Yes?” I said when I opened it.

  “I understand your aunt has a painting she’d like to store here.”

  “Yes,” I said again, this time on an exhale. My heart was still hammering.

  Mr. Roberto looked at us unapprovingly but carri
ed on, “If you could, fetch the painting and deposit it upstairs on the twelfth floor. I’ll have Ms. Roberto assist you.”

  “Okay, will do.”

  Mr. Roberto stood there expectantly.

  “Do I need a key?” I asked.

  “No. No,” Mr. Roberto said twice, shaking his head as if the idea repulsed him. But still he stood there.

  “You mean right now,” I said, figuring it out.

  “Well, yes, of course,” he replied impatiently.

  I looked back at Finn. He was feverishly staring at his phone, clicking away.

  “Are you good, babes?” I asked.

  “Huh? What?” he said.

  “To get the painting,” I said.

  “Yes, coming.” Finn continued to click and scroll, and didn’t stop until we were getting into the elevator with Mr. Roberto. Finn might have put the phone away, but he was still lost in thought and I wanted to know what he was thinking. I really hoped Mr. Roberto wasn’t going to follow us all the way to the car and back. I glanced at him. He stared disapprovingly back at me. The feeling’s mutual, buddy. I thought.

  Thankfully, Mr. Roberto left us in the lobby. Of course, he first had to tell his sister we going out to get the painting and to make sure to accompany us upstairs.

  Mr. Alvarez held the door open for us, and we walked alone together to the car.

  Finn didn’t even wait for me to ask. “Le Rouge et le Noir is a book. The Red and The Black. It was a nineteenth-century French novel written by Stendhal.”

  “Okay, what’s it about?”

  “That’s what I was trying to figure out. So far, I’ve read that there’s this young, ambitious guy whose past came back to bite him. What that means exactly, I have no idea.”

  “Hopefully we can figure it out quickly and why the book’s important to Mariah,” I said.

  Finn nodded. “I’m sure there has to be a synopsis online somewhere.”

  “Good thinking,” I said. We worked to get the painting out of my aunt’s car in silence and carried it back inside.

  Ms. Roberto met us in the lobby and was ready to accompany us upstairs.

  “Thank you!” my aunt hollered to us as we carried the painting off to the elevators.

  “What’s on the twelfth floor anyway?” Finn asked Ms. Roberto when she hit the number twelve button.

  “The Roberto family residence.” If she could’ve gotten away with saying of course, I’m sure she would’ve.

  Oh, well then. No wonder Mr. Roberto didn’t want to give us a key.

  The elevator opened at what looked like a sitting room. Ms. Roberto punched in a code for the main front door to open. Inside were exposed walls, wooden beams, and plenty of stonework. I wasn’t sure where to set the painting down. I doubted my aunt wanted her grandmother’s piece in the middle of a construction zone.

  “This way,” Ms. Roberto said.

  Finn and I walked together with the painting, me going backwards, around the wood and plastic sheeting, down the hall where the construction hadn’t started. The carpeting on this end of the wing was red, the walls were beige, and everything was accented in gold. Door knobs, light switch faces, wall sconces. If fact, the hardware was the same kind that we had seen downstairs in the root cellar. A half-filled box of similar hardware sat on the floor, I assumed from workers taking down the current, dated fixtures.

  To the right was an archway. Looking in I came to a complete stop.

  “OOMPH!” The painting rammed Finn in the midsection.

  “Sorry!” I said, “But look.” It was an impressive greenhouse. Who knew this was tucked away up here? The ceiling was entirely glass, the plants green and lush, the floor stone…and I was completely speechless.

  “Mr. Roberto is a master gardener,” Ms. Roberto said, acknowledging our expressions.

  But that’s not the only reason I was stunned. Plastic tarps, bags of lime, the wavy light sconces. I was betting that was the murder weapon right there. It was all here. The evidence of Gordon Hunt’s murder. I nodded my head to Ms. Roberto and used my eyes to motion to the tarps and lime. Finn caught my drift.

  “The library’s right across the hall,” Ms. Roberto said, calling for our attention again. She opened the impressive wooden door to reveal an even more impressive library.

  “Most of these books have been here for over a century,” she said, clearly bragging.

  “I don’t suppose any of them are in French?” Finn said. I let go of my end, and Finn propped the painting against the wall.

  Ms. Roberto looked at him quizzically.

  “He’s a fan of nineteenth-century French literature,” I lied.

  Finn played the part by replying with something impressive sounding in French. I swear Ms. Roberto blushed. “Well, if that’s the case, feel free to look around.”

  I only had to look over the fireplace to see what I was looking for. We had found the third mirror. Now only one remained missing.

  “Find anything interesting?” I asked Finn. He was searching the shelves in earnest, but there were several.

  He shook his head.

  “Okay, well, we better get going,” I said.

  Ms. Roberto saw us out, and we took the elevator back to our room. I tried to think about what we should do. We were pretty much out of time and I had promised Finn I would turn it all over to the police if we found enough evidence. I guess it was time to do that.

  “This is probably going to sound crazy, but what if we just wrap up the mirrors up in a couple bed sheets and walk out a side door with them,” Finn said.

  “Steal them?”

  “Yeah, why not? Isn’t that what the Robertos did? Plus, like you said, if you go through the proper channels, Mr. Roberto would probably hide the mirrors or melt them down, who knows. The mirrors aren’t part of the evidence.”

  “True.” I looked at the mirror hanging over our fireplace. Maybe we could just take one. Would that give my aunt some financial security? “You’re going to get us arrested yet,” I said.

  Finn replied with a boyish grin that was cuter than it should have been.

  I watched in slight dread as Finn dismantled the mount and wrapped the mirror up with the sheet we had used to cover my aunt’s painting.

  “You stay here and make sure we have everything. I’ll bring your aunt’s car around to the side and we’ll load it together.”

  “Okay, sounds good, I guess.”

  Finn jogged out of the room and I sat back down on the bed. Was this a good idea? Probably not.

  About five minutes later, there was a quick knock on the door. I jumped up to answer it without even thinking.

  Mr. Alvarez greeted me by pointing a gun at my chest.

  “Going somewhere?” he asked.

  I backed up into the room.

  “That was the plan,” I replied.

  “Thought you’d take a little souvenir with you?”

  I cocked my head to the side. How did he know?

  “Those mirrors are mine. I never let them out of my sight.”

  Mr. Alvarez stared at me, and I felt my skin crawl. How many times had Finn and I been intimate over the course of the week? Too many.

  “You, sir, are no gentleman,” I declared.

  “And you are definitely no lady.”

  I glared hard at Mr. Alvarez. I was so going to kick his butt. He just needed to lower the gun first.

  “How about we make a deal? We help you steal the mirrors, and we’ll split the profits,” I offered.

  “Ha, ha, ha. Carmen already tried that. Thought she was so smart. Said she needed evidence. ‘A quest for truth,’ she called it. All I saw was her walking in here after a couple of weeks and trying to take my pension.”

  “Your pension?”

  “That’s what these mirrors are, don’t you see? I spent my life working for the Robertos. I know every square inch of this hotel. Spent hours opening and closing that front door. Did he care? No. He didn’t think twice about cutting my pension. Took it rig
ht away. They owe me. I can’t afford to go anywhere else.”

  I thought of something. “But the room, it was so clean.” How was an older man able to clean up a body and dispose of it that quickly?

  “Ms. Roberto is one hell of a cleaner. She was more than willing to give me a hand seeing her own brother screwed her over, too. I wonder how much this one’s going to cost me?” Mr. Alvarez asked out loud.

  “This one? She helped you with Mr. Hunt, too, didn’t she? You were going to sell the mirrors to him,” I said, piecing it together.

  “That man asked too many questions. Wanted proof of ownership. Since when is a man’s word not good enough? He had to come around the hotel asking questions. Said he heard about the dowry. Had some fancy French book in his shop with a secret letter. Claimed it all went together.”

  Mariah’s letter, I thought.

  “I didn’t care about any of that. I was going to take that payout and finally retire.”

  Mr. Alvarez got a far-off look in his eyes. I took it as an opening and karate kicked him right in the chest. The gun went off. With my right arm, I put Mr. Alvarez in a headlock. Good thing he was old, because I was able to bring him to the ground and I jumped on his back.

  HUFF! I felt all the air leave his lungs. I wasn’t about to let him get up either.

  Finn came barreling into the room. His eyes darted from Mr. Alvarez to me, and back again, a horrified expression on his face. I sat there stunned. Maybe it was because of everything that had just happened, or maybe it was because I had just been shot in the shoulder.

  Finn raced over to us, picking me up off of Mr. Alvarez.

  “Gun,” I said, pointing to the floor with my good arm.

  I sat down on the bed. “Son of a lollipop, that stings!”

  Mr. Roberto came charging into the room a second later. Finn had taken over subduing Mr. Alvarez. Thankfully the man was too shocked to speak, and I was able to explain what had happened. Well, most of it. I neglected to mention that we were going to steal the mirrors in the first place.

  The FBI arrived and handcuffed Mr. Alvarez. Yes, I was shocked to see them too, until I spoke to Piper later and learned she had tipped off The Bureau regarding Mr. Hayden’s Puerto Rican powwow. Piper claimed that there were enough documents in Mr. Hayden’s room to lock him up for years. He was arrested on the spot.