She clapped a hand over my mouth to shut me up. “How many times do I have to reiterate that I will never judge you for something that happened so long ago? For something that wasn’t your fault? What happened between you and your dad is none of my business. That’s why I never pressed you to tell me more about it.”
“Do you think I did it?” I asked. “Do you think I murdered Tyler?”
Her mouth popped open in shock. “Lucia, no! How could you think that?”
“It feels like you came up here to accuse me of something.”
“I did not!” Her indignance faded as quickly as it had arisen. Jazmin was never one to harbor her temper. “Can we start over? I came to look for you because I was worried something happened to you, not because I thought you might be off killing someone else. We can’t let anything come between us, do you understand? There’s a murderer in this hotel, and all I want is to make it out of here alive with my best friend by my side. Do you think we can do that?”
I leaned my forehead against her shoulder, letting the crazy drain out of me. It was a good thing Jazmin was so used to my ups and downs, even if this was a different ball game than my usual worries. If she wasn’t here, I would have let Odette drag me into the fiery depths of King and Queens’ lost spiritual world.
“Yes,” I said. “We can do that.”
She rubbed my back. “You smell like smoke.”
“Odette was on fire.”
“What?”
“I don’t think it was her fault,” I said. “From what I gathered, the other ghosts don’t want her passing information to me, so they make her relive her death until she shuts up.”
“That’s awful.”
“But effective. I’ll give them that.”
Jazmin combed her fingers through my hair as if to air out the smoke-scented strands. “Let’s get back downstairs. Detective Hawkins wants to talk to you.”
Downstairs, Detective Hawkins—Daniel—had corralled anyone and everyone in the Eagle’s View lounge and restaurant area. Present company included me and Jazmin; Oliver and Riley; Nick Porter from the White Oak Spa and Resort; Daniel himself; and five King and Queens employees for a grand total of eleven suspects in the resort’s most recent murder case. That wasn’t counting the dead people who lurked unseen to everyone but me and Riley.
When we arrived, Daniel was busy with his phone. He dialed a number, swore under his breath, hung up, and did a visual sweep of the lounge to make sure no one had moved. Then he dialed again and repeated the whole process. The sleeves of his navy thermal were rolled up to reveal wiry forearms. The neck of the garment was damp with sweat, as was Daniel’s swoopy black and gray hair. He swept it away from his forehead with aggravated fingers. The set of his dark eyebrows intensified his lightning-blue eyes.
Two additional pairs of blue eyes surveyed the room. The first, dark like the deepest part of the sea, belonged to Nick Porter. He was everything you expected of a man who spent so much time in the spotlight for charity work, tall and dark-haired like Daniel, minus the slouch and rough-around-the-edges vibe. There was nothing rough about Nick, aside from the fact that he wore the same outfit—a perfectly tailored satin blue suit that would look quite at home on a red carpet—from yesterday. Given we were all trapped at King and Queens by the biggest snowstorm Crimson Basin, Vermont had seen in years, I couldn’t blame him for the walk-of-shame ensemble. He was a handsome man, polite and suave, and he spoke in a cadence reflective of an earlier time. Though I’d only met him yesterday, watching him work the room—taking care to check in on each of the employees—put me at ease. His limp was more pronounced today, and he leaned on his black walking cane with more necessity than yesterday, but he moved from group to group in an ongoing attempt to help.
The third pair of blue eyes belonged to Riley, but hers were so light in color it was difficult to call them blue at all. She sat with her father, Oliver, in the far corner of the lounge. The duo sat back to back. Riley faced the massive floor-to-ceiling window that took up the entire wall of the lodge, staring up into the white heavens with a blank look on her face. Oliver sported an equally vacant expression, but his was based in shock and Riley’s in dissociation. He looked like utter crap. What was left of his thin hair was sweaty and askew, revealing the bald spot on the top of his head. His face was red and wet from sobbing at the sight of his son’s body. His shirt was stained with tears and Tyler’s blood. No one wanted to go near him. When Riley saw us come up the double staircase into the lounge, she abandoned her father for me.
“Where did you go?” she asked, mumbling the question into my torso as she threw her arms around my waist and pressed her face against me. “Don’t leave me again.”
“I went up to my room for a minute,” I said as Jazmin moved off to give us time alone. “Are you okay?”
Riley sniffled. “I don’t know. My brother died, so I should be upset, right? I’m not though. I don’t care, but Dad is in bad shape. He won’t look at me.”
Over Riley’s head, I saw Jazmin attempt to coax Oliver into sipping from a glass of water, but he dodged her at every turn. “He’s going to be like that for a while, Riley. He’s lost two of the most important people in his life.”
“Why waste breath on Tyler though?” she grumbled. She watched Jazmin dodge out of the way as Oliver dissolved into a fresh wave of sobs. Riley’s lip curled up in disgust. “I don’t want to look at him either. He’s embarrassing.”
“That’s pretty harsh, don’t you think?”
She looked up at me, her crystalline eyes set in steel. “I’m twelve, and I’m managing to keep it together.”
I gathered her bedhead hair in a ponytail and secured it with a band from my wrist. “I think we can agree you’re not a normal twelve-year-old.”
Daniel, having walked up behind us, cleared his throat to catch my attention. “Lucia, can I have a word? In private, if you don’t mind.”
Riley rolled her eyes. “I get it. I’ll be with Jazmin.”
As she walked off, I asked Daniel, “What is it? Jazmin said you needed me for something.”
“Yeah, your photography skills,” he said. He jammed the touchscreen of his phone one last time before tucking it into his pocket. “Hunk of junk. I can’t get in touch with any of my superiors. That’s why I need you. It’s a gross job, but someone’s gotta do it—”
“Get to the point, Daniel. I’m on a short fuse.”
“The storm knocked out all cell service,” he said. “I’m betting emergency services has a long list of accidents to tend to before they make it through the snow to King and Queens. That being said, no one else in law enforcement knows there’s been a murder here, which is kind of a problem.”
“Kind of?”
“There’s no protocol for this sort of situation,” he went on. “Usually, we’d have CSI out here stat, but seeing as that’s not an option, I have to take care of everything myself. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“You’ve already seen the body,” he said. “And you have a professional camera. First, I need you to take pictures of everything. I mean everything. Floor to ceiling. You ever seen a procedural TV show?”
“It’s pretty unavoidable at this point considering how many are on the air.”
“They’re all crap anyway,” Daniel said, “but you get the gist. As many photos as possible. Are you up for that? Do you think you can handle it?”
My stomach tipped at the thought of returning to the blood-soaked room in the first floor hallway where Tyler’s dead body lay across the carpet, his torso full of stab wounds. I thought about declining, but if I was going to get a head start on Odette’s mission, examining the scene of Tyler’s death wouldn’t be a bad place to start.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
“Great,” Daniel said. “One more thing. I need you to help me move the body to a secure location.”
“Excuse me?”
Da
niel shushed me and led me to the far edge of the lounge so no one could eavesdrop. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but I can’t leave the body in that room to rot. It could be days before an ambulance makes it here. You’re the only person in this hotel who knows what’s waiting on the other side of that door except for Oliver and Riley, and I can’t ask either one of them to do it, can I?”
Across the room, Riley chewed a hangnail off her thumb while Oliver sobbed into his thighs. Jazmin had given up trying to soothe him.
“I don’t think Riley would mind.”
“I’m going to forget you said that and remind you she’s twelve,” Daniel said. “I doubt she has the strength to tote around her brother’s dead body.”
“Don’t underestimate her. She skis a lot.”
Daniel huffed. “Can you help me or not? I won’t make you do it if you don’t want to. Hell, I shouldn’t be asking a civilian to do this at all, especially with what’s happened in this hotel, but I have to improvise.”
“Do I have to touch it?”
“I found gloves in the kitchen.”
“Oh, God. I have to touch it.”
“Forget it,” Daniel said, waving me off. “I’ll do it myself. If you hear me scream, don’t worry about it. It just means I’ve popped a disc.”
“Stop being a drama queen,” I said. “I’ll do it. I have to run up to my room and get my camera. As soon as I find my room key.” I patted myself down, but the keycard wasn’t in any of my pockets. “Jazmin?”
Her relief was evident as she glanced up from Oliver’s sodden face. “Yes?”
“Do you have the room key? I need to get one of my cameras.”
She tugged a hefty black backpack—my camera bag—from a seat at the nearest table. “I have your cameras right here. Which one do you need?”
“Why do you—? Never mind. The DSLR. Daniel needs me to take a few pictures for him.”
As she attached the lens to the camera body and handed it over, she muttered, “Pictures of the body?”
“You betcha,” I whispered back.
“Can you not?” Daniel interrupted. “This is police business.”
“I’m the police,” I joked to Jazmin.
She saluted me. “Officer Star.”
“This isn’t for laughs,” Daniel scolded. “Are the two of you finished?”
“Yeah, yeah.” I took a fresh memory card from Jazmin and thanked her before she went back to Riley and Oliver. “Daniel, you have to joke about these things. Otherwise, they take over your head and you’re left drowning in regret and bad thoughts, and believe me, you don’t want to be in the deep end of that pool.”
“Believe me,” he said. “I know all about that pool. Are you ready?”
“As I can be.”
“Let’s go then.”
The jokes and taunts ended as soon as we left the Eagle’s View. When we returned to the hallway that led to Tyler’s room, I smelled death, that terrible mixture of must and formaldehyde. I almost pulled the collar of my sweater over my nose, but Daniel had thought ahead. He paused outside the room to hand out gloves and a medical mask.
“Where did you find these?” I said, pulling on the mask as he set a matching one over his own nose and mouth.
“The first aid office.” He produced a number of plastic trash bags. “Tie these on your feet too.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I’m trying to keep the evidence free of contamination,” he explained. “It’s going to be me and only me working on this case, and I don’t have the gear that the forensics team usually has access to. It’s a Sherlock Holmes thing all the way, so I can’t take any chances. What’s the matter? Scared you’ll look ridiculous?”
“Please,” I scoffed, tugging the bags around either boot and tying them tight. “I’m an online psychic. I look ridiculous for a living.”
“Super,” Daniel said. “Listen, it’s very important that you don’t touch anything when we go inside. Take as many pictures as you can from every angle, but be careful of where you walk.”
“Don’t step in the puddles of blood. Got it.”
“I need you to take this seriously.”
“You’re asking a YouTube creator to take up a job as a forensics photographer,” I reminded him. “It’s like telling a dog to write a novel.”
Daniel paused with his hand on the door. “You have once last chance to back out of this. I can take the pictures myself.”
“Like I’m letting you touch my camera.”
“Then let’s go.”
No matter how much I readied myself for what lay behind the door, the sight of Tyler’s dead body was no less jarring than it was the first time I’d seen it. His arms were flung out to either side. One of his legs had crumpled in an unnatural position beneath his torso. His white undershirt was slashed and stained from his wounds. The blood had started to congeal. It darkened as it gelled and hardened, and the metallic tang of it not only smelled, but tasted like death. Tyler’s eyes were open. A few days ago, I thought girls his age must think those eyes—another blue set like Riley’s—were handsome and alluring, as long as those girls didn’t get close enough to learn of Tyler’s awful personality. Still, seeing him like that caused a pang of sadness to hammer against my heart. None of this was his fault. His terrible behavior was a product of a loveless childhood and years of neglect. If someone had paid the least bit of attention to Tyler, maybe he’d be a decent human being rather than a sad corpse on the floor.
“What are you waiting for?” Daniel said. “Take the pictures.”
I raised the camera and clicked away. It was worse to examine Tyler’s murder through the lens zoom. The details were too vivid. I was now aware the murderer had stabbed Tyler twelve times through the abdomen with a thin blade. Parts of his organs oozed out of the gashes. I was grateful I’d never paid much attention in human anatomy class because I couldn’t tell which ones they were. I followed Daniel’s directions. He told me what to shoot, where to step, and how to move throughout the room without compromising the body.
“You’re going to wrap the body and clean the mess, right?” I asked Daniel as I clicked another picture of Tyler’s bedside table. A baggie with a single white pill rested there, waiting to be swallowed or sold. It didn’t surprise me that Tyler was into harder substances. “Won’t that compromise the evidence?”
“I told you I’m improvising,” Daniel said. “I’m not twiddling my thumbs over here, Miss Star. I’m taking notes.”
Sure enough, he had a tiny notebook full of cramped handwriting.
“Anything good?” I asked.
“I prefer not to share my homicide details with anyone but my superiors.”
“You asked me to do this,” I reminded him. “You wouldn’t have if you didn’t trust me to see this stuff. Does that mean you’ve ruled me out as the killer?”
Daniel knelt to examine a footprint in the blood. “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but I can’t rule anyone out. However, I’ve got a pretty good hunch that you aren’t the killer.”
“How do you figure?”
“It’s pretty clear someone’s got it out for the Watson family,” he said. “First, Thelma’s chair is sabotaged on the ski lift, then her son gets stabbed to death in his own hotel room? It’s not a coincidence.”
“Who would want the Watsons dead?”
“That’s what I would like to find out.” He tapped the plastic baggie on the nightstand. “Vicodin. Looks like someone made a call to Tyler last night. I wonder who.”
“Shouldn’t his phone be around somewhere? Check the call log.”
“I haven’t seen it,” Daniel said. “More intrigue.”
The camera beeped.
“Out of memory,” I said, checking the card. “You can’t possibly want more photos, can you?”
“No, I think we’ve got enough,” he replied. “Thanks again for doing this.”
I slipped the camera strap off my neck and set the device
in the hallway, safe from harm. “That was the easy part. Do you have a plan for moving it—him?”
“Not a great one.”
All Daniel had was industrial-sized trash bags from the Eagle’s View kitchen and a roll of duct tape, but it was going to have to do. We laid the trash bags flat on the floor, end to end, next to Tyler’s body and got to work. The worst part was picking him up. Daniel took the head end so I didn’t have to stare into Tyler’s eyes as we toted his body across the floor. His bare feet were stiff and cold through my gloves. I almost retched into my mask as I grasped his ankles.
“One, two, three,” Daniel said.
We lifted at the same time and, with matching grunts, hauled Tyler onto the plastic bags.
“He’s heavier than I thought he’d be,” I said.
“It’s because all the blood has settled.”
When we put him down for his blood to continue settling, I ran out of the room, yanked off my mask, and heaved in the hallway. Nothing came up. I’d skipped breakfast. Daniel patted my back.
“Please tell me you took off your gloves before you touched me,” I begged, afraid to look.
“Ah, shit. I knew I forgot something.”
“You—!” I whirled around to see Daniel grin and hold his hands up. Glove free. I smacked his chest. “I hate you.”
“You were the one who said we had to have a sense of humor about this stuff,” he reminded me. “Are you changing your mind?”
“I’m going to throw up all over you, and I’m not going to feel sorry about it.”
“Relax,” he said. “I can wrap Tyler on my own, but I need you to help me carry him to the kitchen.”
“The kitchen? Where the cooks make our food?”
“Yeah. The storage freezer should be big enough to keep him cold.”
“The storage freezer. Where we store our food?”
“We won’t eat anything out of there,” he said. “Leaving the body here would be a lot messier. I don’t want to get into the specifics of decomposition, but—”
My stomach threatened to surge again. “Stop talking. Why don’t we leave Tyler outside? It’s cold enough out there.”
Deadly Visions Boxset Page 19