by Lauren Carr
As the lights dimmed in the banquet room, the music’s volume had increased. Through the open door, Mac saw that Hector and Kassandra were among the first on the dance floor. The Australian security manager had been keeping a close eye on her. There was something about how her nose crinkled when she smiled that he found to be very “suspicious.” It warranted closer examination.
“Thanks, Faraday.” Will Harrington slapped Mac on the back on his way to the elevators. “Gotta say, I never saw you as the high society gala type back in the day, but tonight wasn’t half bad.” He shot Mac a crooked grin over his shoulder before punching the call button for the elevator.
“Leaving so soon?” Mac checked the time on the clock behind the reception desk. It was not quite nine o’clock.
“Past my bedtime,” Harrington said as the doors to the elevator opened. “My days of dancing ‘til the cows come home are long gone.” He stepped onto the car and gestured with a mixture of a salute and a wave. “See you in the morning.”
Concluding that he would have to wait to extract any further information from Harrington, Mac turned his attention back to Troy Underwood. He crossed the lobby and took a seat in the wing-backed chair across from Gnarly. “No matter how hard you try, you can never go back.”
Underwood didn’t take his eyes off the flames. “Why would I want to go back? I’m the one who left and signed on with the Secret Service.”
“Why did you do that?”
“More prestigious assignments. Better pay. Better benefits. The real question is why wouldn’t I quit.”
They sat in silence as Mac eyed him.
Troy Underwood grew more anxious with each passing second. Finally, he cast glances about him before saying in a low voice, “I didn’t kill Brie.”
“I didn’t say you did,” Mac said.
“If I had my way, I would never have come here,” Underwood said with a grumble. “I tried to tell Joan that it wasn’t a good idea, but she insisted. Sanchez knew about Brie and me. Most likely, he told Rosa, who would surely tell everyone. A whole weekend at the Spencer Inn. All expenses paid. If we didn’t come, then our old friends would be wondering why.” He turned his head to look at Mac. “Go ahead. Say it.”
“You’re a lucky man.”
Those words were not what Underwood was expecting. “Lucky? It took years for Joan to trust me again. She still doesn’t completely. No matter how hard she pretends things are like they used to be, they aren’t.”
“But you’re still married,” Mac said. “Do you still love her?”
“Yes,” he said in a miserable tone. “Dumbest thing I ever did. We had a good marriage. Not really exciting—”
“Excitement is overrated.”
“You warned me not to let Brie suck me into all her drama, but I wouldn’t listen. You warned me that once you go down that road, you can never go back.” Underwood’s voice fell to a soft whisper. “You have no idea how right you were.”
“Tell me.”
Underwood stared into the flames in silence.
Mac sat up. “You and Sanchez worked together with Brie and Derringer on that last case before the wedding.”
“The Perez case.” Underwood rolled his eyes. “What a nightmare.”
“A woman is found dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs,” Mac said. “Newlywed husband was out on a business trip. She was home alone. On the outset, everything appears cut and dry—until you get the background check on the husband to discover that eight years earlier his first wife also died from a fall down the stairs while he was gone on a business trip.”
“It took us over a year to break his alibi and get enough evidence to take the scum to trial,” Underwood said.
“I imagine it wouldn’t have been easy working with your ex-mistress.”
“I admit I wasn’t totally over Brie when we started out,” Underwood said. “Getting out from under her and seeing the games she played with Trevor, that got me over her real fast.”
“Having been on the inside, you could see what was happening with a knowing eye.” Mac rested his elbows on his knees. “What did you see?”
“You asked me all that sixteen years ago,” Underwood said.
“Now you’ve had time to think about it,” Mac said. “That’s what heats up cold cases. Time passes. People move on and then they come back and go at it from a different angle. You were there. What was happening with Brie in the months leading up to the murder?”
“Brie was all about us closing the Perez case so that she could focus on the wedding and honeymoon. She was anal about every wedding detail being perfect, no matter how much it cost.”
“That hotel was awfully expensive,” Mac said. “Rod took out a pretty big loan to pay for it.”
“Joan told me that Kassandra eloped with her husband because Rod refused to pay for a wedding.”
“Why not?”
“Ask Rod,” Underwood said. “Kassandra and Brie had some pretty epic fights. As a matter of fact, Kassandra refused to ride in the limo with the rest of the wedding party from the chapel to the reception.”
“Were they fighting on the day of the wedding?”
Underwood shrugged his shoulders. “I would have been surprised if they weren’t. Brie knew exactly what buttons to push. She and Derringer used to get into some huge fights during the Perez investigation. Sanchez and I couldn’t understand why Derringer agreed to be a bridesmaid. You do know why Brie asked her, don’t you?”
Recalling Derringer’s statement on the night of the murders about her and Brie not being friends, Mac shook his head. “Why did Brie ask her?”
“Numbers. Plain and simple. Trevor had four groomsmen—his closest friends from when he played soccer. He couldn’t not invite any of them. That meant Brie needed four bridesmaids. She didn’t have many friends who were women. So she asked Derringer, who said no way in hell.” Underwood resumed with a mocking laugh. “Weeks passed, and Brie was freaking out because the numbers were off. I guess Derringer felt sorry for her and said she’d do it.”
“I wonder what changed her mind.”
Underwood shrugged his shoulders. “Derringer changed after the Gordon shooting. She’d been Gordon’s partner before transferring to homicide.”
“Did she ever tell you why she transferred to homicide?” Mac asked.
Underwood laughed. “Isn’t that every baby detective’s dream?”
Mac joined in his laughter.
“Did you know that Derringer introduced Brie to Trevor?” Underwood asked.
“That’s right,” Mac recalled with a nod of his head.
“Have you also noticed that Derringer has never gotten married?” Underwood asked in a low tone. “She was never the same after Gordon got gunned down.”
“Derringer never got close to anyone even before Gordon’s murder,” Mac said. “What about the night Brie and Trevor got killed? What did you see then?”
“I was in the ballroom when the murder happened,” Underwood said.
“Back then, you told me that you were there in the lobby when the limo with the wedding party arrived,” Mac said.
“Yes, both Joan and I were at the main entrance with everyone else when the limo pulled up,” Underwood said.
“Who else was there?”
“Sanchez and his first wife, Clarissa.” Underwood paused to think. “Derringer. Captain Jeffries. Harrington. Lou.” He shook his head. “Lou was drunk as always. He fell into Trevor and dumped his drink all over the front of his shirt.”
Mac slowly nodded his head. “We found that shirt in the bridal suite. When I interviewed Lou, he claimed someone pushed him.”
“He said. The guy is a screw up.” Underwood gestured toward the elevator where Lou Gannon was lighting up a cigarette while waiting for the car. “I can see he heeded your warning about smoking inside the hotel.”
Mac saw Jeff behind the reception desk. His eyes were bugging at the sight of Lou Gannon boarding the elevator with the lit cigarette.
“I’ll get him.” Mac ran across the lobby. “Jeff, what room is he in?”
“Fourth floor. Room four-thirteen.”
Mac shoved open the doors to the stairwell and ran up the stairs. He felt his blood temperature rising to the boiling point with each step. Why does Lou have to always be so difficult? It’s not just Inn policy, but the law. We didn’t make him take up that filthy, unhealthy habit. Why torture us?
By the time Mac burst forth onto the fourth floor, he saw Lou entering his room. Mac sprinted down the corridor and stuck out his arm to block the door when it swung shut.
Cigarette hanging from his lips, Lou spun around when Mac stepped inside. “What the hell do you want?”
“That!” Mac pointed at the lit cigarette. “I told you, Lou. You can’t smoke in the hotel. You can’t smoke in these rooms. It’s against the law.”
“Well, we already know I’m a criminal.”
“You’re going to be a criminal out on the streets if you don’t give me that.” Mac swung his hand to grab the cigarette from his mouth but missed when Lou ducked. “I’m serious!” He lunged for the little man, who giggled at his failed attempts to snag the cigarette. “You’re contaminating this room with smoke.” Mac backed him toward the bathroom door.
“All right! All right!” Lou took another long drag on the cigarette. “I gotta go wee anyway.” Keeping the cigarette out of Mac’s reach, he went into the bathroom. “Let me finish this while I’m toasting the porcelain god. I’ll put it out when I’m through and then we’ll be done.”
Before Mac could object, Lou slammed the door in his face and locked it. “I’m not leaving, Gannon!”
“You never quit, do you, Faraday?”
Mac heard Lou peeing on the other side of the door. “I was talking to someone about the night Brie and Trevor were killed.”
“I’m sure you were.”
“Do you remember spilling your drink on Trevor’s tux?” Mac could still hear Lou peeing.
“What are you afraid of, Faraday? That your brilliant reputation is going to fade? Do you expect me to give you the name of the killer so you can do the big reveal at the wedding reception? Ain’t gonna happen.”
“If you know who did it, Gannon—”
“I didn’t trip, dammit,” Lou said. “I was pushed.”
The peeing stopped.
“Who pushed you, Gannon?”
“That’s for me—not you—to reveal at the main event.”
The sound of a swoosh filled the confines of the bathroom.
The force of the explosion knocked Mac into the wall behind him. The wind knocked out of him, his legs buckled, and he slumped to the floor. Shaking his head, he looked up to see Lou Gannon stagger out of the bathroom. His screams of anguish reach octaves that Mac had never heard erupt from a human before. Mac had heard the wail of men who had been shot before—but this sound was totally different.
Lou Gannon reached out to him. His goatee and clothes were engulfed in flames. The flesh on his face blistered and burst.
As much as he wanted to look away from the horrendous sight, Mac couldn’t. His breath quickened. The roar in his ears sounded like a freight training rushing through his head.
Sprinklers! Mac ripped his gaze from Lou to the ceiling. Why aren’t the sprinklers working? The whole floor is going to go up!
Mac scrambled to his feet, yanked open the door, and ran down the hall. Guests were already spilling out of their rooms in response to Lou’s cries.
One of those guests was Will Harrington who emerged from his room wearing only his boxers. “What’s going on?”
With no time to answer, Mac sprinted past him to the fire extinguisher. He yanked down on the fire alarm. Even knowing that the noise would be ear shattering, Mac jumped when the alarm sounded throughout the hotel. He tore the fire extinguisher from its case.
“Everybody get out of the hotel!” he yelled at the guests who weren’t already running for the stairwell. “Don’t use the elevators!”
He found Will Harrington patting down Lou with a comforter. “I’ll take care of Gannon, Faraday! Put out the fire!”
Mac went to work in the bathroom where he discovered a fireball inside the toilet bowl. He directed the foam from the fire extinguisher into the bowl. He could hear Gnarly barking in the corridor—sounding the alarm. The sirens of emergency vehicles became increasingly louder as they made their way up the mountain.
“What happened?” Bogie arrived with another extinguisher. Hector joined Harrington in tending to Lou Gannon’s wounds.
Mac shot one last blast into the toilet bowl. “Our killer got nervous.”
Chapter Six
When the call for a fire on the fourth floor went out, members of Hector’s security team ignored Archie’s insistence that she go upstairs to find Mac. Two men carried her out the front entrance by her arms.
Doc, who had been with her at the bar, was directly behind her until Bogie called to tell her that they had a burn victim. Before anyone could stop her, she ran up the stairs to help.
Waiting on the fringe of nervous hotel guests surrounding Gnarly’s statue, Archie noticed a young man comforting a sobbing woman. When he saw what appeared to be a break in the line of hotel security urging guests back, the man tried to break through to run inside, only to get pushed back by three members of the security team.
“Please!” the woman begged. “Our daughter is on the fourth floor!”
Pulling her phone out of her pocket, Archie rushed to the mother’s side. “What room is she in?”
“Bella’s five years old.” She hiccupped. “We only went downstairs for one drink. It’s our anniversary and this weekend was a gift from my parents. We told her not to open the door for anything or anyone. What if she doesn’t answer the door for hotel security?”
“What’s the room number?” Archie listened to the phone ring on the other end of the line in her call to Mac. With the fire, he was too busy to answer. She disconnected the call and pressed the button to call Bogie.
“Sid! What’s our room number?” The mother’s hands trembled as she clung to her. “I can’t remember!”
“Mommy!” The high-pitched squeal could be heard above the noise of the crowd.
Gnarly cut a path through the security team and guests as he led the soot-covered girl by the hem of her nightgown to her mother.
The father scooped the girl up. The mother joined in the group hug while Gnarly gazed up at them with his tail wagging.
“Good boy, Gnarly,” Archie said before being blinded by the flash of cell phone cameras.
“I know you told me not to answer the door for anyone,” the little girl told her mother, “but Gnarly isn’t just anyone.”
“No, Gnarly isn’t just anyone,” the mother said through tears.
“He’s the mayor,” Bella said.
“He’s the man.” Her father gave Gnarly a high-five.
While guests and the media descended on the family and Gnarly, Archie returned to watching the entrance for any sign of Mac. When he finally emerged, she ran up to grab him into a tight hug. After ensuring that he hadn’t been injured, she punched him in the shoulder. “Mac, what did you do? One minute you were having drinks with your old buddies, gathering good information to lead you to the killer, and the next minute, you’re gone. The minute after that, the hotel is being evacuated because of an explosion.”
“Why do you assume my case is connected to the explosion?”
Archie folded her arms across her chest. “Am I wrong?”
“No. Lou Gannon’s toilet blew up.”
“How do you blow up a toilet?”
Mac’s response was almost drowned out by the
whir of a medivac helicopter flying over their heads on its way to the helipad reserved for VIP guests. “I’m thinking you fill it with a flammable substance and wait for your victim to toss a lit cigarette into it.”
She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder. “Thank God you aren’t the one they’re taking away in that helicopter.”
“Mac!” Jeff practically knocked over guests in his haste to reach him. “Didn’t I tell you? Smoking is dangerous. The whole fourth floor in the east wing is closed. There’s smoke damage on the fifth as well. It’s going to take weeks to clean up this mess.” He shook his finger at him. “Let that be a lesson to you and your friends.”
“I wasn’t the one smoking,” Mac said. “Someone set a trap to kill Lou Gannon and they may have succeeded.”
“Luckily, this is technically our slow season,” Jeff said. “We have enough vacancies in the west wing to move everyone. We’re setting up an open bar out here.” He gestured at employees wheeling the bar through the entrance to where the guests were huddled together. “That should make everyone a little happier until we’re allowed back inside.” He lowered his voice. “Of course, I’ll plan on submitting the bill for all the booze we’re giving out to the insurance company.”
“On what grounds should the Inn’s insurance company pay for the open bar?” Archie asked.
“Restitution for displaced guests.” Jeff clapped his hands and invited everyone to take advantage of the open bar. Within minutes, the two bartenders were rushing to keep up with the orders.
Archie watched the helicopter carrying Lou Gannon, who she had met only a couple of hours earlier, away to the burn unit in Pennsylvania. Doc Washington, who had been looking forward to a romantic weekend with Bogie, was on board with him.
“How bad is Lou?” She grasped Mac’s arm as if to keep him close and safe.
“Miracle he’s still alive.” He cringed recalling the sight of Lou’s face burning up before his eyes.
“I can’t leave you alone for a minute,” David joked when he broke through the crowd upon locating his brother.
Mac took note of the broad grin on his face. Recalling Hector’s hypothesis earlier that evening, he concluded that David had blown off the evening in favor of a date. He had changed out of his uniform into a light sweater, jacket, and jeans. “Judging by your smile, you had a better evening than I had.”