Saint or Sinner

by Jolie Day

  “And then Russell suddenly appeared,” George continued. “Your father’s former business partner married Suzanne and took over control of Dumont Ltd, as if he had waited for this opportunity his entire life.”

  “You don’t believe that my sister and her husband are behind this murder, do you?” Her stomach suddenly turned.

  “Read the files,” he said somewhat evasively. “Everything you will need to know, you will find in there. I will also email you my very own summary of… let’s call it personal conclusions about this case.” He looked at his watch. “I would have loved to drive you myself, but unfortunately I do have an appointment that I cannot cancel. Over there,” he pointed to the stack of boxes behind the desk, “… are all the files.” Mira grabbed one of the boxes and carried it to the front door. George called her another cab. When he said goodbye to her, he kissed her on both cheeks.

  “Please be careful, sweetheart,” he said softly and waved after the taxi as she drove off.

  Mira only turned around once and saw him go back into the house with drooping shoulders, but with a determined walk. She had the feeling that George had also kept something from her, or at least he hadn’t told her everything, and she had a suspicion that his appointment had something to do with it. She suddenly remembered that George didn’t have her email address. She asked the driver, an impatient young man in his early twenties with a full beard and a baseball hat, to turn around. She quickly pulled one of her cards out of her purse and was just about to ring the doorbell, when she decided to simply drop it through the letter slot in the door. She felt that George had had enough excitement for one day. Also, the cab driver was involved in a heated debate with another driver from some transport company, and she wasn’t even able to go and visit her mom in Arcadia from here, because she had to return to her hotel first.

  It didn’t look like she would be able to enjoy a quiet weekend.

  Chapter 13

  “Thank you so much, Sully,” Mira said to the porter who helped her carrying the big heavy box out of the car into the hotel. “Can you please take these files to my suite?”

  “Consider it done,” Sully Martin confirmed and immediately called another uniformed bellhop nearby, whose job it was to await Sully’s instructions. Mira walked behind them, then opened the door to her suite and pointed the young boy towards her desk by the window. “Just put it on the floor right there,” she said, pulled out her purse, and was happy to see a genuine smile on the bellhop’s face when she handed him a tip.

  She looked longingly at the box standing there waiting for her, but she was already leaving her suite again, on her way to her mom. She spent a whole hour at her mother’s bedside, holding her cold hand and not being able to find the right words to tell her anything without Suzanne’s guiding questions. The smell of disinfecting agents and the constant beeping of the monitor next to her bed, which had continuously measured her mother’s vitals for two days now, made her mouth go dry and inhibited her speech. She just sat there and watched her mom’s chest go up and down underneath that white blanket and saw how her mother’s eyes rolled back and forth underneath her closed lids. Theoretically, her mother had already died, Mira thought. After the initial shock of having been woken up by paramedics and the police and then learning that her beloved husband had been brutally murdered, she had completely lost it and screamed hysterically. Mira had seen a doctor ramming a needle into her screaming mother’s arm, which had shut her up almost immediately and made her eyes turn white. She hadn’t spoken since and after a week in the hospital they had shipped her to a special clinic for the mentally ill with the rather vague diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, or in other words simply “shock”. As Mira was once more driving back to the hotel in yet another cab, she thought that they had pretty much done to her mother what they had done with her. They — or more precisely, Russell — had removed both of them from his sight. She had stayed in Europe and her mother had ended up in Nightingale Manor, deemed as “incurable”.

  Had she ever realized or even understood that they had prosecuted Connor for the murder of her husband?

  Mira closed her eyes and suddenly an image appeared in her mind: She was holding her mom’s hand. They sat on a bench in the park. Mom gave her some money and sent her to the ice cream van. When Mira returned, she saw a strange man sitting next to her mom and they were talking. No, she realized when she came closer — it wasn’t a man. Not like her dad who was old and already had some grey hair. This person was a young boy. At first she had hesitated, because she thought that her mom was arguing with this boy, like she did with dad. Then she saw that the stranger and her mom were laughing. She had been so relieved that she almost dropped her ice cream. If she really focused hard, Mira was almost able to taste her favorite flavor from back then. Lemon, sweet and sour all at the same time, and strawberry, which she had mostly loved because of the color.

  “Hello,” the boy, who was almost a man, had said and he had smiled. “You must be Mira, is that right?” Even then, she had known that he didn’t really ask her, but that he was trying to be nice to her. Whenever he smiled, like he had done in that very moment, his dark clothes and dirty fingernails seemed to disappear into the background and all you could see were his beaming smile and those bright eyes, that might possibly also glow in the dark.

  “Come here my darling. May I introduce you to my friend Connor? With a bit of luck, he might be working for daddy soon.”

  Mira had come closer and looked him up and down. “As what?” She had known that her father employed numerous people back then, because he had taken her to work every so often. More often than not, Mira had ended up in Miss Philips’ office, who would let her eat all kinds of sweets, just so she wouldn’t disturb her. When her dad had been in a good mood, which didn’t happen a lot, then he would take her out to the warehouses. Mira loved the smell of coffee beans and the noise they made when you let them glide through your fingers and fall back into the sack.

  “Miss,” the cab driver said, immediately transporting her back to reality. “We are here. Is everything okay?”

  “Sorry,” she murmured. “I was somewhere else with my thoughts. How much do I owe you?”

  “I wouldn’t have guessed,” the driver said in a snarky voice and pointed impatiently at his taxi meter as an answer to her second question. Dammit, it really was about time that she rent herself a car or even buy her own vehicle. If she was really honest, as much as she appreciated the luxurious services that the Hyborn Hotel had to offer on a daily basis, she had started to long for her own four walls. She needed a place she could call her own, something that belonged only to her. Somewhere where she could hide and have the peace and quiet that she needed in order to think. So much had happened, that Mira sometimes feared she wouldn’t be able to have even one clear thought. Things were happening constantly. Or she was always on the go. She tried to appease the demands of her sister and she tried to love the ghost that her mother had become. She had to keep an eye on Russell and also think hard about whether she wanted to get to know Luke further. Above all, there was Connor Carmichael, the man whose secrets she hadn’t even begun to uncover.

  Finding a home was just another task that had to be added to all the others. At least this one seemed relatively easy to solve. She could, after all, simply commission a real estate agent and then… she kicked open the door to her suite and stopped immediately. She stepped back without thinking and held her hand in front of her mouth.

  The scene in front of her was complete and utter chaos.

  Sofa cushions were ripped to pieces and strewn across the floor. Pictures had been torn from the walls and someone had thrown over the small desk. Even the sofa itself had been cut open and the filling had burst out through the fabric.

  It felt as if someone had kicked her hard in her stomach. Mira turned around on her heels and immediately ran back to the lift. She almost didn’t register that the doors had opened. She ran into something, just as she real
ized that she hadn’t paid attention to where she was going.

  That something was a man. “I am so sorry,” she sobbed and then she felt the man put his arms around her.

  “What happened?” he asked, and she finally lifted her head and looked straight into Connor’s eyes. The flashback in the taxi wasn’t even ten minutes ago. Mira felt a wave of fear coming over her and also something else, that something she couldn’t name.

  “Come,” he said calmly. His voice, which was naturally deep and soothing, seemed to find an echo deep inside her chest. “Take a deep breath, Mira, and tell me what happened. Everything will be alright.” She stared at his face. He turned pale and she knew with absolute certainty that he was thinking about the exact same moment as she had been. The little girl who he had lifted up and protectively pressed against his chest.

  This was Karma. Or fate. Or maybe it was just one of God’s moods to have her live through the exact same situation over and over again.

  “I…” she took a deep breath and felt how his grip on her arms loosened. “I can stand on my own. You can let go of me. I’m okay.” He didn’t say anything, but his look was sharp when she said those last words through clenched jaws, so he did what she had asked.

  “Someone has broken into my room,” she said and nodded towards the wide-open door of her suite. “It just really scared me when I suddenly saw all the chaos, that is all.”

  “Let’s look together, to see if something is missing,” he suggested and threw his arm around her waist. Never before had Mira felt so vulnerable and fragile. Unlike her sister, she wasn’t a skinny woman. “Do you think you will be alright as long as I am with you? If you want to, you can stay here in the hallway. I will call the hotel manager, so he can call the police.”

  “What? Do you think, the…” she swallowed hard, “… person is still in there and is hiding somewhere?” Mira’s heart was beating so loudly that she could barely hear her own words, as she imagined what could have happened. Connor’s body heat felt comforting. Even though she didn’t want to admit it — and hated herself for it — having him by her side made her feel much safer.

  “No, that’s unlikely, but you definitely have to report this incident immediately,” he said with impregnable logic. “Unless you would like to pay all those credit card bills for telephone sex hotlines in Papua, New Guinea, next month?”

  She was grateful that he was trying to distract her from her terrible situation and pulled her shoulders back. “There was nothing valuable in that suite,” she said. They both walked quietly towards the door. She noticed that he adjusted his steps to hers, despite a certain tension that kept his whole body wound up. Hardened, taut muscles and his watchful eyes alerted her that he was using all of his senses to assess the situation. This is what he looks like when he is working as a bodyguard, she thought suddenly.

  He turned his head, placed his finger on his lips and stepped in front of her. Then he gently pushed her back against the wall. How could someone with so much strength and power be so gentle with another person? Shortly after that, he disappeared into the room. Her chest moved up and down painfully, and she was aware that she was breathing way too loudly. The lights inside the hallway started to flicker and dance before her eyes. She couldn’t take it any longer and turned to look around the corner into the room. His broad-shouldered figure almost filled her entire view of the setting sun that threw bright red beams of light through the large window. Blood red, Mira thought and threw her arms around herself. Red like blood, white as snow. Mister Knister.

  “Everything is okay,” his voice sounded as if he were right next to her. “You can come in. Apart from us, there is nobody here.” What could have been deemed a lewd comment from anybody else, was simply a factual statement out of his mouth. “I suggest you stay here,” he then said and nodded towards a chair that hadn’t been savaged by the perpetrators. “Just in case these people left fingerprints. Can you tell if anything is missing without touching anything?”

  Mira shook her head. “No, I don’t think so,” she said, as her eyes hastily scanned the damaged suite, trying to make out some kind of visible pattern in the chaos.

  “Take your time,” he reminded her calmly. “Nobody can harm you anymore.”

  “Is that right?” she snapped without thinking. Suddenly, she felt an incredible need to see his face up close when he answered her. Despite her weakened legs, she got up and walked towards him until there were only a few inches between them. “You keep saying that you didn’t kill my father. You go and sit at my dying mother’s bedside, reading to her from her favorite book. And then someone is shooting at you.” He jerked slightly but caught himself quickly. “I get injured. Someone breaks into my hotel room without stealing anything. Whenever you appear, something happens. Tell me, Connor, how on earth is all of that possible?”

  “That is what I would like to find out.” His voice was so quiet that she almost didn’t hear him when he said it. For a moment it seemed that Mira and Connor were the very last people in this whole wide world. Everything around them descended into total chaos as they stood in the eye of the storm and only had each other. She was just about to say something when her eyes fell once more on the destroyed desk. “The box,” she exclaimed. “The box is gone.” She could hear her own high pitch and despair as she said it. “Someone stole all the case files.”

  Her eyes searched past the upside-down furniture and did not find what she was looking for.

  “Mira, what box? Which files are you talking about?”

  Her head turned towards him. “I went and saw George Lacroix this morning, my father’s lawyer,” she began to explain. Connor reached out to her and pulled her up on her feet easily — she was no longer surprised by his strength. “It was very strange, but he seemed to have been waiting for my visit for all these years.” He pulled his golden-colored and perfectly formed eyebrows into a frown. Why would she notice such menial things about his appearance in such an important situation? “He had all the files already prepared in his office. As if he knew that I was coming. All I had to do was take them with me.”

  Everything in his body language told her that he was absorbing all of what she was telling him carefully and assessing the consequences of every word she said. She had almost forgotten how nice it was to not be interrupted all the time. Her sister only listened in order to think about her next answer and her brother-in-law mostly loved to hear himself talk and didn’t pay much attention to anyone else.

  “Who knew about your visit?”

  “Nobody other than George and me.”

  “What about porters? Bellhops? Hotel personnel? Have you called your sister?”

  She shook her head. Did Connor suspect even Suzanne? That was completely absurd. Her sister was no murderess and even less the killer of her own father! She hadn’t had any reason to shoot their dad. And where would she, at seventeen years old, have gotten a weapon? “No, Suzanne doesn’t know anything,” she assured him in the most factual voice she was capable of.

  “Well, we can only hope that these were just copies and not the originals,” Connor said, thinking. “And you should also call Lacroix as quickly as possible and warn him. Whoever broke in here and stole those documents, may have been the one who… shot at me.” Why had he hesitated with this word? Was he suggesting that it may have been she who was the target, and not him, as he usually didn’t tire of mentioning? Either way, the answer to this question had to wait for now. She pulled her mobile from her bag and dialed George’s number, which she had saved in there just this morning. It rang a few times. Connor gave her enough room to be able to have her conversation in private, even though she could see his questioning look from the corner of her eyes.

  “He said that he had an appointment, so maybe he isn’t home yet,” she said. Just as she wanted to hang up, she heard how someone picked up the phone on the other end. “Oh, thank God,” she exhaled. “George, this is Mira. Listen, something strange has happened.” Why didn’t he say
anything? And what were these weird noises in the background? “George, what is going on?”

  “This is Mrs. Lacroix,” a female voice finally answered. “Who am I talking to?”

  “Oh sorry. My name is Mira Dumont. May I speak with George, please?” It sounded as if Lynn Lacroix didn’t remember her and Mira was too impatient at this point to fully explain to her who she was and what she needed to talk about.

  “George is dead,” Lynn said.

  The brutal meaning of those three words trickled very slowly into her mind, at first. And then the shock hit Mira with full force. She dropped the phone and heard the voice babbling as if it came from far away.

  Connor stared at her with a fathomless look.

  Chapter 14

  Fear didn’t even begin to cover what Mira was feeling at that moment.

  When Connor took the mobile from her hand and ended the call for her, she was almost certain that she was going to die. Suddenly, her entire world had shrunk until it consisted of nothing but her hammering heartbeat and Connor’s eyes. She was as stiff as a statue and trapped in this bizarre reality, which could cease to exist within just a few seconds. Suzanne had been right from the start, she thought defeated. Connor was a murderer. Her eyes burned as she imagined her sister’s face and how she would be standing as the last surviving Dumont in front of her family’s graves. This image was so intense inside Mira’s mind that she almost felt she could smell the flowers on the funeral wreaths as well as the moist soil. She wanted to disappear, to run away, but she didn’t have the strength to move at all. Instead, she just stood there, paralyzed on the spot — incapable of bringing the chaos inside her head under control.