“I haven’t got the time,” he said.
“Because we’re all on such a strict schedule right now with the snow-in?”
He didn’t quite roll his eyes, but he looked up to the sky as if to ask God what he did to deserve this conversation with me. It was the same look I gave Riley or Odette when either of them asked for something particularly straining from me. Daniel had practiced it once or twice before, probably on his daughter and wife.
“Lucia, I’m trying to track down a murderer here.”
“And I’m trying to help,” I said. “I have information you might be able to use. I overheard a conversation between Nick and Liam while they were in the Eagle’s View. It didn’t sound promising.”
I filled Daniel in on the parameters of the conversation, checking my language to keep the truth about my source of information private. When I finished, Daniel checked his watch.
“Is that it?” he asked.
“What do you mean, is that it?” I said. “Don’t you think it’s suspicious? Liam confessed to going to Tyler’s room with a knife. What if he’s the killer?”
“Then it only solves one of my problems,” Daniel said, brushing past me. “Do me a favor, Lucia. Stay out of other people’s business unless you want to get hurt.”
I hurried to keep pace with him as he headed for the hallway of Tyler’s room. “Why are you brushing me off all of a sudden? I’m trying to help you. I want to make it out of here alive, remember? And if one of the employees is going on a murderous rampage, everyone else here has the right to know about it.”
Daniel whirled around, stopping me in my tracks. I bumped into his chest. “If you say a word about this to anyone else, I’ll have you arrested as soon as my team gets here,” he threatened. “The last thing I need is for you to incite panic. As it is, you shouldn’t be snooping around the resort as much as you do. You think I haven’t noticed you?”
“I haven’t—”
“Matisse came to me after your little incident with him in the kitchen,” Daniel said. “He told me you threatened him to come clean about his version of events. So you overheard Liam get emotional? Everyone gets emotional in times like these. Stop bouncing from suspect to suspect, determined they’re all guilty. That’s not how this works. You’re not a detective, Lucia. Hell, you’re not an employee of any kind, so mind your own damn business, stop interfering with my work, and keep Riley out of trouble. That’s your job from now on. Okay, Madame Lucia?”
He walked off. I stood rooted to the floor, stunned by his harsh words. He was right and wrong about me. I wasn’t a detective. I had no idea how to conduct a murder investigation, which was why I was flailing so much in the first place. Yes, I was unemployed, but for a number of years, I was self-employed and making enough money to keep myself afloat without the help of my mother or anyone else except Jazmin. That, in my opinion, was one definition of success, but Daniel equated me to the persona I’d created for a web show. As for my job at the resort, he was wrong about that too. Protecting Riley wasn’t my only responsibility. Jazmin was just as important, and so was Odette. In addition, the spirits from the old wing were growing stronger, and from the tone of Odette’s warning, I didn’t have much time to stop them from wreaking havoc on the rest of the resort. Maybe if the ghosts had a chance to enact their revenge, Daniel might finally believe that my psychic abilities were real.
“You know what?” I jogged across the lobby, my shoes squeaking against the damp marble. Daniel didn’t pause his long stride, so I put on a burst of speed to catch up with him. When he ducked under the velvet rope blocking off the hallway, that didn’t stop me. I stepped right over it to get in his face. “You don’t know me. Maybe you think you do, and you can judge me all you want based on the tiny amount of information that you have gathered in the last week and a half, but you don’t really know me. Because if you did, you’d know the only reason I’m so annoying and persistent is because I want to do the right thing. I want to keep my people safe. Ever since—”
My voice caught in my throat.
“Ever since what?” Daniel prompted.
“I lost my dad,” I said, though that wasn’t originally what I’d been planning to say. “It was the worst thing I’ve ever been through, and I hate having to watch Riley and Oliver go through losing someone too. They deserve better. Well, at least Riley does. The only thing I know about Oliver is that he doesn’t do very well under stress.”
Daniel’s eyebrows knitted together. “You think he’s hiding something?”
“Oh, now you want my opinion?”
“Lucia, you have no idea what’s going on in my life right now.” His voice pitched, echoing off the domed walls and bouncing back to us. He tried again in a softer tone. “I need allies here, okay?”
“Then stop alienating me.”
“I’ll try.” He ran his fingers through his thick hair. “Do you really think Liam’s the killer? He needs a motive—”
“He was boffing Oliver’s wife.”
“That’ll do it.”
“So you’ll look into it?” I bounced up and down on my toes. The longer I was away from Riley and Jazmin, the antsier I got. All I wanted to do was hand this case off to Daniel and wait out the insanity from the comfort of my top floor suite. Unfortunately, that wasn’t much of an option, not with the threat of the old wing ghosts breaking free at any moment.
Daniel adjusted the straps of his holster. “Yes, I’ll check it out, but keep your nose down, will you? Eavesdropping tends to backfire.”
A rapid click announced Nick’s presence, his cane tapping against the floor as he skidded into the lobby, panting like a rabid dog. “Detective Hawkins,” he gasped, clasping one hand to his chest as if performing compressions on himself. “Just the man I was looking for. You should come quickly. I think something’s going on in the kitchen. I heard screaming—”
I broke into a sprint before Daniel did, but he was quick on my heels. We shot across the lobby, scaled the stairs to the Eagle’s View, hopped over the bar, and burst into the kitchen. It was empty. Matisse had prepared a few easy meals for the day, but he was nowhere in sight, and neither was Karli.
“Well?” Daniel asked Nick as he hobbled into the kitchen after us.
“I could’ve sworn I heard something.”
Daniel shook his head. “Porter, I can’t deal with anyone screaming wolf, you got me? Don’t come running toward a detective unless something’s really wrong—”
Someone pounded on the door of the storage freezer. From the inside.
“Help!” cried a feeble voice. “Somebody help me!”
Daniel crossed the kitchen in three strides and hauled open the freezer door. Liam Lavi fell out, his fists red and raw from where he’d been hammering against the inside. Like Riley had been when we’d brought her inside from the snow, his lips were blue, but at least he was conscious. Behind him, Tyler’s body—the hunk of plastic that it was now—lay on the floor, thankfully still wrapped. Liam fell to his knees, teeth chattering, and keeled over. Thinking fast, I went to the linen closet and grabbed several tablecloths to wrap around Liam, but when I tried to drape them over his shoulders, he swatted me away.
“Don’t touch me,” he stammered.
“Liam, I’m trying to help.”
He could barely control his tongue. “W-why? You need c-content for your web show? You’re the one who tried to kill me in the first place.”
18
Liam recoiled as I made another attempt to warm him. “I said d-don’t touch me!”
“Fine.” I shoved the tablecloths into Daniel’s hands. “You do it. I’m done with this. Hope you don’t freeze, Liam.”
As I pushed past Nick, who was watching everything unfold with a worried frown, Liam called after me, “I know what you’re doing!”
I spun around. “If you really knew, you wouldn’t accuse me of trying to kill you.”
Liam allowed Daniel to wrap him in the tablecloths. The thin fabric didn’t do
him much good, but his anger was hot enough to get his body back up to temperature.
“You’re nothing without Madame Lucia’s Parlour,” he spat. “I’ve been watching you ever since you arrived at King and Queens because I’ve learned to recognize when people don’t care about anything but money. You never wanted to help Riley. You thought this would be an easy gig for you. Tell me, how did you come up with the idea to start murdering people to get views for your web show? Were you that desperate to impress the Internet?”
Behind me, Nick made a small noise of disbelief, a little snort of his sinuses that gave me the courage to square my shoulders and stare Liam down. I didn’t care if he was halfway to freezing. There was no way I was going down for this, especially when I had so much on the line.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I warned Liam. “You might be right about my reasons for coming here—to make some quick cash—but you’re wrong about everything else. Riley means everything to me. I would never do anything to compromise her safety.”
“You met her less than two weeks ago,” Liam pointed out.
“So?” I challenged. “I’ve known some people for almost thirty years and never developed a real bond with them. Time doesn’t mean anything when it comes to love.”
“How much could you love a crazy twelve-year-old?” he said.
“Don’t call her that,” I warned.
He bulldozed ahead like the snow plows we all wished for. “It’s all a s-scam. You want drama for your web show, a character for your viewers to root for.”
“I don’t have to listen to this.” I tried leaving the kitchen once more. “You don’t know anything about me, Liam.”
“Really?” he called, struggling against Daniel, who was trying to keep him from standing up too quickly. “Then why have you been filming us without our consent?”
The accusation iced my veins. Technically, I wasn’t the one sneaking around the resort with a camera in hand. That was all Riley. Jazmin had been the one to set up the smaller, hidden cameras in the lounge and lobby. It didn’t matter who had performed the actual deed. It was illegal, and the three of us were in this together.
Liam’s face split into a devilish grin. I’d pegged him wrong on my arrival to King and Queens. He seemed like a nice enough kid at first, polite, quiet, and helpful. At one point, that probably had been his personality, but with Thelma’s death, Tyler’s threats, and the snow-in, Liam—like Oliver—had lost a bit of his sanity. He’d reached the level of needing to blame everything on someone else. Terrible situations always felt better when you had a guilty party to hold responsible for your frustrations.
“Lucia, what is he talking about?” Daniel demanded.
Liam shivered violently. Too bad it wasn’t keeping his mouth shut. I turned on the oven to a low temperature and opened the door.
“W-what are you doing?” Liam said, inching away from the appliance as if waiting for me to shove him inside and cook him.
“Making your idiot self comfortable.”
As the heating element glowed red, subtle warmth emanated from the oven. Liam shuddered beneath his tablecloth blankets, but his shoulders relaxed as the cold began to leave his body.
“Let me get something straight,” I said, hand on the oven door to demonstrate who had the power play here. “I never laid a hand on Thelma or Tyler Watson. Riley is the most important person in my life next to Jazmin, and I would never compromise her safety. You, Liam, are completely irrelevant to me. However, you’re a human being, and I’m a sane person, which means I don’t have the stones to attempt murdering you either.”
Liam trembled and flinched as I slammed the oven door shut, cutting off the flow of warmth. I accidentally shouldered Nick on the way out. He absorbed the hit, managing to stay upright though his cane was tucked under his arm. If Liam was trembling, I was flat-out shaking, but it wasn’t from fear. I was angry, not just because of Liam’s accusation, but because of everything. If I hadn’t been so obsessed with myself—with Madame Lucia’s Parlour—then I wouldn’t be in this mess. I never would have dripped blood on Odette’s old picture album. Jazmin and I would be at her apartment, hunting for a new place for me to live. She’d cook amazing food, and we would eat it out of cereal bowls and fall asleep in front of the television in her living room, our Netflix queue steadily playing in the background. Two weeks ago, everything was that easy, despite how hard I thought I had it. I wished for that simplicity back. It was tough feeling like a failure, and King and Queens accentuated my complete fiasco of a life.
In the lobby, I didn’t know where to go. Upstairs, Jazmin and Riley waited for me to return with a verdict on Liam. What could I tell them? After all, he probably wasn’t the killer. Not many people would go as far as to lock themselves in a freezer to prove their innocence, especially when there was no guarantee the right person would come to free them. Down here, someone was bound to find me. Daniel or Nick or Odette. These days, someone was always chasing after me, always hunting me down. I looked toward the hallway to the old wing. I longed to stroll in, back straight and chin high, demanding to know the truth about everything. The ghosts watched the resort closer than any security camera Oliver installed. They knew everything, from how the 1988 fire started to who murdered Thelma Watson. If only I could get them to tell me the truth.
“Lucia!”
Daniel was the winner of the race. He called my name again from the top of the Eagle’s View stairs, projecting his voice across the lobby as if shouting for me across a valley from an outlook on the mountain. It echoed all the way up to the domed glass ceiling. I looked up, wishing I could float away with the sound of my name. The sky was gray and white, heavenly as long as you didn’t think too much about the cold.
“I didn’t put him in the freezer,” I told Daniel as he jogged down the stairs to catch up to me. “I was with you the entire time. There’s no way I could’ve done it.”
“He says he was in there for half an hour,” Daniel said. “We only talked for a few minutes. What were you doing before that?”
“I was in my room with Jazmin and Riley. Go ask them!”
Daniel brushed his hair from his eyes. It had flopped over in his haste to reach me. “I don’t think you pushed Liam in the freezer.”
“Then why are you chasing after me?”
“Because I want to know if the rest of it is true,” he said. “Have you been filming people in the resort?”
“No.”
The slight second of hesitation before my answer gave Daniel everything he needed to know. Furthermore, it triggered his bad cop side. I watched his visage morph from one person to another. He was no longer the Daniel who sat at the bar with me that first night at King and Queens, talking about nothing and everything until we could pretend we weren’t strangers anymore. He was Detective Hawkins, and he had a case to solve.
“Why would Liam accuse you of something if you’ve done nothing wrong?” he demanded. “That observation didn’t come out of nowhere, Lucia. He told me he saw cameras planted around the lounge, and since you’re the only person here with that kind of recording equipment, I can’t help but think you’re lying to me. I thought you were the one person here I could count on to be honest with me.”
“Liam’s brain probably looks like a pink slushie right now,” I reminded him. “He’s scared and angry, and he needs someone to blame. I was right there.”
“Don’t play games with me, Lucia.”
“Games?” I repeated. “Which one of us is playing games? It’s been three days since the storm, Daniel, and we haven’t heard hide nor hair of the Crimson Basin police. Nick had enough cell service to call his employees at White Oak, so don’t give me this crap about the towers getting knocked out. If there’s anything I’ve learned about everyone here over the last few days, it’s that everyone has a secret. What’s yours, Detective Hawkins?”
I hit a nerve. A vein in Daniel’s neck popped and throbbed. His face turned red as his teeth gnashed
together.
“You have no idea what I’m going through right now,” he said.
“So you keep telling me,” I replied. “But I have a pretty good idea. You’re pissed off and embarrassed about your divorce. You’re angry and sad about potentially losing your daughter. You’re on the verge of a relapse into alcoholism, and you’re ashamed of the sheer thought. And you can’t figure out who the King and Queens killer is even though all of your suspects are right under your nose. Did I leave anything out?”
Steam practically came out of his ears. “You don’t want to do this, Lucia.”
“No, I think I do,” I said, taking a step toward him. “Because I have to trust you with my safety and the safety of my friends. If you want to demand information from me, then I have the right to do the same. Once again, what’s your secret, Detective?”
“I’ve been suspended from the force.”
The straightforward answer knocked me off balance. I wasn’t expecting him to reply. I thought he would brush me off yet again with a hard look, but his face was shockingly open and honest as he spoke the words that had been weighing on him for days.
“Surprised?” he asked. “Me too.”
“What do you mean you’ve been suspended?” I stepped away, wanting distance between me and him. I eyed the gun in his holster. “Wouldn’t they have confiscated your gun if you’d been suspended?”
“They did. This is my own piece.”
A realization hit me out of nowhere. “You never showed me your badge.”
“That’s because I don’t have one right now.”
“But you were investigating Thelma’s death.” I stood casually, but my hands balled into fists at my side. “When I first arrived, you were here to talk to Oliver. You were questioning the employees too. The first time we talked was after I got you away from Liam at the ski lift.”
“You told me cynical people laugh in the face of the truth,” Daniel said. “I remembered because it’s not true. I’m a cynic, but I can’t remember the last time I laughed. I was here on official police business that day. That night, however, when we sat together at the bar. That was after I’d reported back to my precinct. I’d been sleeping at the station ever since my wife kicked me out of the house. I couldn’t go home and I couldn’t stay at the cop shop once I’d been suspended, so I came back to King and Queens.”
The Haunting of Riley Watson Page 33