The Haunting of Riley Watson

by Alexandria Clarke

  Liam rubbed his eyes and sat up. “Thanks for the warning, Mr. Porter.”

  “Sure,” Nick said. “By the way, if you were serious about wanting a job after this nightmare is over, I’d be happy to hire you and your friends at White Oak. No one should have to work in these conditions.”

  Liam’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Are you serious?”

  “Quite,” Nick replied. “At White Oak, we’re dedicated to treating our employees with the same respect we expect them to give to our guests. All employees are equals at White Oak. I see my entire staff on the same footing as myself. We value workers like you who stand up for what they believe in no matter the consequences.”

  “Thank you,” said Liam, coaxing sleep from his foggy eyes. “That means a lot to me, sir. I’ll hold you to that.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.” Nick glanced around the lounge as he leaned closer to Liam. “Mr. Lavi, we also do our best to take care of our employees’ mental health. In these last few days, I couldn’t help but notice you seem to be struggling more with Mr. Watson Junior’s death than the other King and Queens employees. I was wondering if you needed help in that regard. Or any regard really.”

  Liam swept his mane of golden hair away from his face and tied it in a messy bun at the top of his head. He didn’t look Nick in the eyes. “No, I’m fine. Thanks, Mr. Porter.”

  “Are you sure? I happen to be a very good listener.”

  Liam rested his forehead in his hands, his shoulders rising and falling as he fought to control his breath. “I don’t know what to say, Mr. Porter.”

  Nick sat next to Liam, far enough away to give him the space he needed. “Why don’t we start simple. Is there something bothering you?”

  Liam hesitated. Then: “Yes.”

  “Does it have to do with Mr. Watson Junior?”

  “In a way. Not really.” Liam picked at one of the impressive calluses on his palm. “I’m not struggling with Tyler’s death. He was a prick. Sorry—”

  Nick waved away his apology. “I’ve had my fair share of run-ins with many of the Watsons. I daresay Tyler was my least favorite to interact with.”

  “Yeah,” Liam agreed. “Like I said, I don’t care about him. It sucks he died because maybe he would’ve learned not to be a jerk eventually, but he’s not the reason.”

  “Not the reason you’re upset?”

  “No.”

  “Are you upset about someone else?” Nick prompted.

  Liam, who looked as though he’d lost the ability to speak, pressed his lips together and nodded instead of delivering a verbal confirmation.

  Nick crossed his bad leg over the good one, wincing as he did so. “You operated the ski lift, didn’t you? Were you the only one to fill that position?”

  Liam hiccupped. “For the most part. Parker filled in for me on breaks, but she doesn’t like it. She’s always afraid something’s going to go wrong and people will blame her.”

  Nick picked up the puzzle pieces that Liam was dropping. “Like how something went wrong the morning of Thelma Watson’s death?”

  Liam bowed his head, burying his face in the sleeves of his King and Queens employee fleece. “Yes.”

  “Thelma skied alone quite often,” Nick said. “Did you open the lift for her every time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was there… anything in it for you?”

  “No! Well—” Liam looked up, his eyes bright as he searched for the right words. “She slipped me a twenty sometimes, but she knew me and my sister were strapped for cash. And she brought me coffee. That was just a nice gesture.”

  Nick said nothing, but he fixed Liam with a knowing look.

  “She was unhappy,” Liam said. Jazmin turned up the volume so we could hear his low voice. “She skied every morning because she wanted to get away from Oliver and Tyler. She hated this place. It weighed her down. After a few weeks, she started confiding in me. I liked her. I understood her. She liked me too.”

  “What happened, Mr. Lavi?”

  “She’s not in love with Oliver,” Liam declared. “They were never in love. The only reason they got married was because of Tyler. Did you know that?”

  “I’m afraid the gossip in Crimson Basin is all the same.”

  “She hated that too,” Liam said. “That she got wrapped up in all this drama and gossip. She didn’t know who Oliver was back then. She had no idea he was a huge millionaire who was supposed to inherit his father’s resort. She didn’t ask for this life. She wanted to travel and have adventures, and she wanted to do it with someone who really loved her, not a guy who was already tied down to this crap pile.”

  Nick tapped his fingers against the back of the booth. Legs crossed, arm outstretched, he embodied the perfect therapist, attentive but not pushy. “Did you think you were the man to give those things to her?”

  “Whoa.” I nudged Jazmin. “No way. Liam and Thelma?”

  “Just watch,” she said.

  On screen, Liam fixed Nick with an expression of genuine shock, his mouth open and eyes wide. He rearranged his face, but it was too late not to see the truth in it.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he told Nick.

  Nick smiled knowingly. “My dear friend, no man speaks about a woman with such passion and affection without reason.”

  “That’s not why. We weren’t—it’s not like that!”

  Nick scooted a little closer to Liam and leaned in. “Let me remind you that I am not Oliver Watson. I am not here to judge or punish you. If you need to get something off your chest, I’m willing to listen without expectations. I will not turn you in or betray you, Liam.”

  Liam’s bottom lip quivered. “You can keep a secret?”

  “Better than anyone else.”

  “She kissed me first,” Liam admitted.

  I hit Jazmin’s shoulder, unable to find words to express whatever I was feeling. Liam and Thelma. Oliver’s wife and one of his dissatisfied employees who wasn’t old enough to buy himself a drink had been involved. No wonder Liam was so disgruntled following Thelma’s death. Jazmin trapped my hand and shushed me so we could watch the rest of Liam’s confession.

  “It was about a month after I started running the lift for her,” Liam went on. “She brought me a coffee and a twenty like usual, and then she said she had something else for me too. Then she kissed me. And it was” —he placed a hand to his heart— “freaking amazing, man.”

  Nick couldn’t help but flash his signature smile. The warmth of it radiated outward, through the camera lens, and Liam relaxed a little at the sight of it. A moment later though, he sobered up again.

  “But she said it couldn’t happen again,” he said. “That it was a one-time thing. She was a married woman. She had kids, one of which was my age. I didn’t push it. I thought I was lucky enough to get one kiss from her.”

  “Was that the end of it then?”

  Liam shook his head. “No, it wasn’t. A few weeks later, she had a big fight with her husband. Tyler had done something dumb again, and they disagreed over how to handle it. It doesn’t matter. She called me earlier than she ever had before. We met at the rental shop. She didn’t have any of her gear. No coffee or twenty dollar bill this time. She didn’t say good morning. She just launched herself at me. It was on and off after that. Some mornings, we’d hide in the rental shop. Others, she went right up the lift.”

  “She was using you,” Nick said. “Her marriage was crumbling, and you were the perfect outlet for her frustrations.”

  “She wasn’t using me,” Liam insisted. “She wasn’t like that. We had something. It was complicated for her. We talked about running away, but she didn’t want to leave Riley. She didn’t care about Oliver.”

  Nick sighed, sliding away from Liam. “You are definitely in over your head, aren’t you? Liam, I know this is hard to hear, but maybe it’s for the best that yours and Thelma’s relationship never saw the light of day. It would’ve spelled disaster for everyone involv
ed.”

  “I don’t think so,” Liam replied. “If we had left like she wanted to, she never would’ve gotten on the ski lift that morning. She’d still be alive.”

  “Do you blame yourself for what happened?”

  Liam wiped his nose on the sleeve of his fleece jacket. “At first, I did. I thought I’d messed up or overlooked a safety check. Then I overheard Detective Hawkins talking about how the ski lift had been sabotaged. I couldn’t believe someone could do that. Out of all the Watsons, she was the best one, you know? Who would want to kill her?”

  Nick patted Liam’s shoulder. “I don’t know, son. I knew Thelma too. She was a great woman. I’m sorry you had to go through all of that.”

  A humorless chuckle got caught in Liam’s throat. “That’s the problem. I’m still going through it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Liam checked in with Nick’s expression. “You said you aren’t here to judge or tattle on me, right?”

  “You have my word.”

  Liam took a deep breath. “After Thelma died, I was beyond upset. I couldn’t function. I almost didn’t show up to work, but Parker is the only other person here who knows how to operate the ski lift, and like I said, she hates it. It was awful. For days, I had to answer questions and show the cops how the ski lift worked and explain what I thought might have happened, all the while pretending Thelma was nothing more than my employer’s wife. It was freaking torture.”

  “I can only imagine,” Nick said. “How did you cope?”

  “In the worst way possible,” Liam replied. “It wasn’t a secret that Tyler sold prescription drugs under the table. I bought sedatives or anti-anxiety pills from him, depending on what he had that day. The first time I asked him about it, he got really suspicious.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we never talked before that unless we had to,” Liam explained. “I distanced myself from Tyler as much as possible. I never wanted to be wrapped up in his crap. Look what happened to Karli when she got involved with him. I guess he thought I was going to narc him out to his dad or whatever, but I didn’t care if Tyler got arrested. I just needed to be able to function.”

  “So you did drugs.”

  “I took them as if they were prescribed to me. Mostly.”

  “But they weren’t,” Nick reminded him. “Why didn’t you see a psychiatrist instead? You could’ve gotten medication legally.”

  “Because I don’t make enough money here to afford health insurance,” Liam said. “And because I couldn’t talk about it. I can barely talk about it now with you.”

  “I’m glad you’re confiding in me,” Nick said. “I know how hard it can be to keep a secret that’s destroying you inside.”

  “There’s more.”

  “More than having an affair with the owner’s wife and buying drugs off his son?” Nick said, and no matter his promises, his tone held the tiniest bit of judgement. “My, you’ve had quite a few weeks, haven’t you?”

  Liam wrung out his hands. “You still won’t tell anyone, right?”

  “I gave you my word.”

  “The more I bought from him, the more Tyler snooped around in my business,” Liam said. “Eventually, he figured out what was going on between me and Thelma. The day before he died, he threatened to kill me. I thought he was serious, so I called him up that night and begged him for a hook-up. It was a low point for me, groveling to that prick, but it was the only way I thought I could get the upper hand over him.”

  “What exactly was your plan?”

  “Get in his room,” Liam said. “Threaten him back. I took a knife from the kitchen. Matisse saw me do it, but he didn’t say anything. I got into Tyler’s room through the back door since the detective was watching the front. The snow was so bad I thought I was going to freeze to death before I made it there. When I did—”

  He cut himself off, leaning over to rest his forehead on the table in front of him. His shoulders heaved, not like he was crying. Instead, he appeared to be holding back a gag. Nick clapped him on the back.

  “Are you all right?” Nick asked. “Should I get you a glass of water?”

  “I can’t,” Liam choked out. “I can’t, man. It’s too much.”

  “What can’t you do?” Nick urged. “What happened that night, Liam? What did you do with the knife?”

  Liam stood abruptly, covering his mouth with one hand and clutching his stomach with the other, and ran from Nick and the Eagle’s View. He knocked into the table with the camera as he did so. The camera fell over, the lens obscured by a napkin holder. Liam’s rushed footsteps pounded over the audio, then the less hurried sound of Nick’s cane across the floor. After that, it was all silence and a black screen.

  “Is that it?” I demanded as Jazmin exited out of the video clip. “Is that all there is? Because it sounded like Liam was on the verge of admitting he was the one who killed Tyler.”

  “The weapon matches,” Riley agreed. “Liam said he stole a knife from the kitchen, and Tyler was stabbed a bunch of times.”

  Jazmin spun the desk chair around to face me. “Didn’t you say Tyler’s wounds were really narrow though? Kitchen knives tend to have a little more oomph to them, don’t they?”

  “Are we really arguing about the type of knife?” I said. “This is the closest lead we’ve gotten during this entire investigation.”

  “Liam didn’t say he killed Tyler,” Jazmin pointed out. “He didn’t even say he had the intention to. He just wanted to scare him a little.”

  “Yeah, with a knife in hand,” I argued. “Both of them were probably hopped up on prescription drugs. I have to tell Daniel.”

  Jazmin held me back. “How are you going to do that without admitting we’ve been recording people without their permission? We’ll all go to jail for interfering with a homicide investigation.”

  I wriggled free of her grip. “I’m starting to feel like this will never be over, but don’t worry. I’m not going to out us. I’ll tell Daniel I overhead Nick and Liam’s conversation. Riley?”

  “Yeah?” she said.

  “If you leave this room before I get back, you lose my Blondie shirt forever. Got it?”

  She clutched her arms around her body, and I strongly suspected that my old T-shirt was underneath her big sweater. “You wouldn’t!”

  “I would,” I threatened as I returned to the bedroom to get dressed. “So don’t even think about it. Jazmin, you’re in charge of her. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

  Jazmin saluted me. “You got it. Be careful.”

  “I always am.”

  Finding Daniel proved trickier than I thought it would be. I hadn’t seen him since the debacle with Riley yesterday. Even then, he was fidgety and distracted. He wouldn’t look me in the eye and when I asked him if he’d found anything regarding Riley’s episode, he dodged the question. For someone who put his trust in me a couple days ago, he was acting like a slippery eel. As I crossed through the lobby for the third time in my search for the detective, I ran right into Oliver. He carried a huge bucket full of perfectly cubed ice, but when I knocked into him, it dropped out of his hands and spilled its load across the marble floor.

  “Oh, crap.” I stuck my foot out to trap a wave of ice before it could spread farther. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”

  “Don’t worry, Miss Star,” Oliver said with that customer service smile I hadn’t seen since my earlier days at King and Queens. Today, for the first time since Tyler died, he appeared clean and tidy. He wore a crisply ironed shirt, a gray blazer, and pressed slacks. His hair was combed to the side to cover up his bald spot. His face, for once, wasn’t red with fury or fear. Were it not for the giant mountain of snow blocking the front door of the resort and the current murder investigation, Oliver’s chipper demeanor almost made it feel like nothing was wrong.

  “These things happen,” he added cheerfully, kneeling down to sweep some of the ice back into the bucket with his hands.
“It’s no one’s fault.”

  “Right.” I helped him kick a few more cubes into place. “Oliver, did anyone tell you about what happened to Riley last night?”

  “Another nightmare, I imagine?”

  “No, we found her in the butterfly garden,” I explained, keeping my distance from the resort owner in case the information triggered a violent response. “She’d been sedated. If we hadn’t gotten to her in time, she would have frozen to death.”

  “Huh.” Oliver swept the last ice cube up and righted the bucket. “Well, I should go. Mr. Porter was complaining about the lack of ice on in the machine in his hallway. He says the service at King and Queens shouldn’t be compromised by the unfortunate situation. Crazy, right?”

  He shook his head, chuckling as he passed me. I stared at him, mouth agape.

  “Oliver, shouldn’t we talk about this?” I called after him. “Hey, you’re not going to put the dirty ice in the machine, are you? Oliver!”

  He kept walking as if he hadn’t heard me, whistling a joyful tune. Clearly, the recent events at the resort had driven him out of his mind. Riley was the most important thing in his life. On a normal day, he would have never dismissed last night’s close call so easily. In addition, I was dying to ask him about the 1988 fire. How had he made it out alive? What did he remember about it? How did the fire start in the first place, and why were the spirits so angry about it?

  “This place is a hellscape,” I grumbled as I kicked a rogue ice cube off the top of my shoe.

  “I’m in agreement,” Daniel replied as he emerged from the office behind the front desk. No wonder I couldn’t find him. I never expected him to have taken over Oliver’s safe space. “How’s Riley doing?”

  “She seems okay,” I reported. “No side effects from the sedatives.”

  “What about the hypothermia?”

  “Good there too,” I said. “She’s just tired.”

  He nodded curtly. “Glad to hear it. Excuse me.”

  I blocked his path as he tried to get past me. “Actually, I need to talk to you.”