by Skylar Finn
“I have to go,” I said, pocketing the phone before Jazmin could see what was on the screen. “We’ll pick this up later.”
“Whoa, wait a minute,” Jazmin said as she took my wrist. “What are we going to do about your mother? About Riley? You just said—”
“I know what I said,” I told her. “But this is important too.”
She glanced at the back pocket of my hiking pants where I’d just stored the phone. “Are you sure? You’ve been kind of off the rails lately.”
I stood on my tiptoes to plant a kiss on her forehead. “You should know by now that I’m almost always off the rails. See ya.”
If I wanted to track down Lourdes Calvo and catch her in the act of following me, I needed bait. Downstairs, I loitered in the lobby, watching the other guests as I decided what to do. I made use of the free coffee bar and stood by the glass lookout to observe the riders on the mountain. From here, I could see the exact spot where Riley had her fall. Lourdes could’ve taken the picture from right here, but the angle of the photo was wrong. She had more than likely been sitting outside the Slopes Café, camera ready, where she had a view of both the slopes and the overhead balcony where I’d been sitting. I shivered at the thought. How did she always seem to know where I was? I didn’t like the idea of someone invading my privacy so thoroughly. Once, I’d wished to be an actor, but if this was what it was like to be a celebrity, I preferred my solitude.
“Lucia,” a warm voice said.
I turned around. Nick approached from across the lobby. His head wound was exposed for the first time since we’d arrived at White Oak. It had finally scabbed over. Though it wasn’t a pretty addition to his face, he was still handsome. His appearance was perfect. The two of us together in the White Oak lobby was absolute clickbait these days. Already, two or three guests had noticed us and begun to snap pictures. Lourdes Calvo was bound to pop up too once she heard the news.
“Just the guy I was looking for,” I said to Nick, trying to put as much warmth into my return smile as possible. I wasn’t exactly feeling smiley, but I needed people to buy what I was selling for a few minutes. “Do you have a minute?”
“I have more than a minute.” He joined me at the lookout, his hand finding my lower back automatically. More people snapped pictures. “I heard about Riley’s accident. What happened? Is she okay? Are you okay?”
“We’re both fine,” I assured him. I let my hip sink into his side so that we were pressed against each other. A nearby teenage girl let out an audible gasp. “We probably shouldn’t be seen together. The rumors are bound to be bad for business.”
Nick, as I expected him to, pulled me in closer.
“I don’t care what people are saying,” Nick insisted. “Do you?”
“No,” I said. “But you’re the face of White Oak.”
“And my biggest priority is caring for my guests,” he replied. “You’re one of my guests. My goal is to make you as comfortable as possible. What about your mother? Did you talk to her yet?”
I almost pulled away from him, dissuaded by the mention of my mother, but I remembered my act just in time and leaned into Nick instead.
“I tried this morning,” I said with a wistful sigh. “She was less than receptive.”
As I leaned my head against Nick’s shoulder, I caught the reflection of a camera lens in the glass lookout. Lourdes Calvo had gotten the word that Nick and I were together. I heard the rapid click of her shutter as she snapped picture after picture. Slyly, I looked over Nick’s shoulder. Sure enough, there she was, half-hidden behind a ficus in the far corner of the lobby.
“Would you excuse me?” Delicately, I drew away from Nick, trailing my hand across his back and arms as I did so. “I have something to take care of.”
“Wait,” he said. He spun me around and took me by the waist so that we were face to face. I looked past him to all the people taking pictures of us. At the back of the crowd, I spotted a familiar face. I craned my neck.
“Is that Gina?”
Nick whipped his head around so fast, he should’ve gotten whiplash. “Gina who?”
The elderly woman’s eyes went wide, and she vanished as quickly as she’d appeared, blending in with the rest of the crowd on its way outside. Nick squinted over everyone’s heads, but he couldn’t seem to find whatever he was looking for.
“Never mind,” I said. Stella’s warning about Gina was still fresh in my mind and I wanted to know the whole story there, but right now, Lourdes Calvo was my priority. Thankfully, the photographer was still hiding out in the corner. “I’ll see you later, Nick.”
I slipped out of his grasp as lightly as possible to keep up the pretense of our romance. I purposely avoided eye contact with Lourdes and walked right past her. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her leave her stakeout place behind the ficus, shoulder her camera bag, and zip up her jacket. At first, I expected her to follow me, but without Nick or Riley to provide newsworthy ammo, I wasn’t worth her time. I switched up my plan. It was time to show Lourdes what it felt like to be followed.
I executed a quick U-turn and dogged the photographer across the lobby, leaving enough distance between us so that if she looked back, I could duck behind the nearest wall. She seemed unconcerned though. She had so little faith in my intelligence that she didn’t check to see if anyone was behind her. When she headed outside, I pulled my hat low over my eyes and tucked my hair into it. It was like going incognito. Less and less people took notice of me as I cut through the crowd to trail Lourdes. Eventually, no one looked at me at all. I blended in with the rest of the tourists.
Once outside, Lourdes didn’t head to the Slopes Café or anywhere else to work on her new project. Instead, she veered off toward the parking garage. Since there were less people there, I let her get a head start. Then I looked both ways to make sure no one was watching and ducked under the concrete cover of the parking garage. It was full of cars and trucks. What with all the snow on the ground, not many of White Oak’s guests bothered to leave the resort. With so many activities at the resort, they didn’t need to. The parked Audis and Mercedes gave me plenty of places to hide. I crouched below windshield level, my legs cramping as I tried to keep up with Lourdes’s brisk walk. She made her way to a BMW in a valet spot, unlocked it with a click of her key fob, and got into the driver’s seat. I knelt behind an official White Oak utility van to watch and wait.
The BMW powered on, its red brake lights illuminating my hiding spot. I ducked down, hoping I was still out of sight. I could make out Lourdes’s outline through the foggy back windshield. She seemed to be looking down at something—her camera probably—but she soon looked back up and put a cell phone to her ear. Her voice carried and echoed through the garage. She must’ve cracked a window to even out the temperature difference in the car.
“Hey, Miller,” she said. “I think I got something. Nick Porter—yup. You’re not going to believe it.”
Unfortunately, the majority of the good information seemed to be coming from the other end of the conversation. I ground my teeth together. My knees were starting to ache from the cold and the position I was holding. I made to stand up, but just as I was going to do so, a burly red-haired man in a White Oak polo that was two sizes too small for him came out of the stairwell. I crouched down again as he scanned the parking garage with beady eyes. Something about his hulking shoulders and barreled chest didn’t sit right with me. He moved like a Rottweiler that had been trained to take down any person that dared enter his yard. When he spotted Lourdes's BMW, he walked right towards it with a purposeful stride, but if the two of them had scheduled this meeting in advance, Lourdes sure wasn’t concerned with her companion. She babbled away on her phone, completely unaware of the gigantic man making his way toward her car. My whole body tensed as he stalked toward her. Right as he neared her tailgate, she turned off the car. He swore softly under his breath and retreated, ducking behind a car as I had.
Lourdes got out of the BMW, her back to the ma
n’s hiding place. She was completely oblivious to him. She collected her laptop and camera bags and shut the door. As her heels clicked across the concrete, the large man readied himself to pounce. She passed his hiding place. He lunged. And somehow, I found myself moving too. I shot across the garage as the man went to tackle Lourdes. His eyes slid toward me. My movement distracted him for just a second, but it was long enough for Lourdes to realize what was happening. His meaty hands, aiming for her waist, only managed to snag a corner of her coat. It ripped between his fingers, and Lourdes danced away with a sharp yell. Her laptop bag flew out of her hands and hit the tail light of the BMW at just the right angle to shatter it.
I bounced off the hit man and skidded across the concrete, the skin scraping off my knees through my hiking pants. The man’s enormous size slowed him down, but not enough to allow Lourdes time to make it all the way across the parking garage. He mowed her over, tackling her around the knees and pinning her to the oily floor of the garage. She beat him over the head with her camera bag, but all that did was enrage him. He growled as he tore the camera bag out of her hands and tossed it out of the way. Then he pressed his fingers to Lourdes’s throat. She coughed, her face immediately turning purple.
I staggered to my feet, pain jolting through my knees, and tugged open the unlocked door to Lourdes’s car to look for anything that could help me get rid of the massive hit man. A bright-orange safety tool was tucked in the pocket of the passenger seat. It was shaped like a small hammer to break the glass of the car window in case of emergencies. I tugged it free and ducked out of the car.
Lourdes gasped for air as I approached. My hiking boots rasped across the concrete, causing the man to turn his head and look over his shoulder at me. I hid the safety tool behind my back. Apparently, I didn’t look like much of a threat because he returned his attention to Lourdes, redoubling his efforts to choke her out. As soon as I was out of his line of sight, I rushed him. With one swift movement, I swung the safety tool up behind my head like a golf club then down towards the man’s head. I drove it upward as it hit the side of his scalp and caught his temple. He dropped like a fly, completely unconscious as he collapsed right on top of Lourdes.
“Get him off!” she cried, practically hidden behind the man’s bulk. I tossed aside the safety tool, planted my knee in the man’s side for leverage, and shoved him to the side. He keeled over, revealing Lourdes beneath him. She rolled out from under him and instinctively reached for me. I grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet.
“Holy shit, your neck,” I said.
Her skin was blotchy, purple, and red. The man’s fat fingers had left fat bruises around Lourdes’s collar. She patted them gently as she took long, even breaths to test if her windpipe still worked. Then she knelt down and picked up the safety tool.
“You helped me,” she said.
“You’re surprised?” I asked. “I think you’re annoying, but I don’t want you dead. Who is that guy?”
We both stared at the enormous man crumpled on the concrete. Lourdes shook her head.
“I have no idea,” she said. “Does he work for White Oak?”
I leaned over the man.
“Don’t!” she said.
“Don’t worry.” I checked the label of his White Oak polo. As I suspected, it was a medium size, not extra-large as it should’ve been. “There’s no way this guy works for White Oak. Nick would never have let him go out on the floor with his wardrobe looking like this. My bet is he stalked someone in the laundry room and stole the shirt to disguise himself.”
Lourdes nodded her approval. “Damn, Star. You’d make a pretty decent reporter yourself.”
“No thanks,” I said. “So you have no idea why someone would want to kill you?”
“Not a clue.”
“Then who were you on the phone with just now?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Of course you were listening to that. What did you hear?”
“Not much,” I admitted. “You were keeping it pretty sly, but that guy clearly thought you were in possession of some sensitive information. Are you?”
She avoided my gaze as she picked up her laptop and camera bags. She checked the broken tail light of the BMW. “Damn it. One more thing to worry about.”
I folded my arms. “You’re avoiding the question.”
She checked her laptop and breathed a sigh of relief. “Not broken. Thank goodness.”
I nudged the hit man with the toe of my boot. “Should I wake this guy up? Maybe he can get you to fess up.”
“No, stop!” she said, nearly dropping her laptop again. “I’ll tell you, but shouldn’t we call the police first? He did try to murder me after all.”
“Yet you seem relatively unfazed,” I deadpanned. “Does this happen to you a lot?”
“Once or twice.”
“So you’re one of those journalists.”
“I told you,” she said. “I’m here to expose the truth, but you’re probably not going to like what I found out about this place.”
“Is White Oak haunted too?” I asked, mocking her professional reporter voice. “Are you going to spread some more lies about me and Nick Porter?”
“I’ll admit I fabricated some of the stuff about you and Nick,” she said, “but it was only to get a reaction out of him.”
I stepped back to get a better look at her face to make sure she wasn’t pulling my leg. “Wait a minute. A better reaction out of Nick? I thought it was me you were going after.”
“You were,” she said. “At first. But something about Nick Porter didn’t sit right with me. I mean, what are the odds that he just happened to get stuck at King and Queens during the snowstorm? Then his rival Oliver Watson is the only one who doesn’t make it out alive.”
“That’s not true,” I protested. “Daniel Hawkins didn’t make it out either.”
“Right,” said Lourdes. “The only detective who knew anything concrete about the recent murders at King and Queens. Hawkins would’ve been the only person with enough evidence to pin the crime on someone. From what I hear, Nick was the last person he was seen with at that resort.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“That Nick Porter isn’t who you think he is,” Lourdes declared. “He’s got this whole front going for him. The perfect, generous, handsome hotelier who kisses babies and goes to ribbon cutting ceremonies and owns the best resort in Crimson Basin. But that’s all it is: a front.”
The stairwell door opened again, causing both Lourdes and I to jump, but it was only a White Oak security guard, armed with a baton and a taser.
“You’re five minutes too late, buddy,” I said acidly.
The White Oak security office was small but efficient. Lourdes and I answered questions as the security officers reviewed the footage in the garage and tried to get an ID of the man who attacked Lourdes. Ten minutes later, Nick burst through the door.
“What happened?” he demanded of his staff.
The security officers babbled incoherently, shrinking back from Nick’s tall order of rage and discontent.
“Some guy in a White Oak polo attacked Lourdes in the parking garage,” I jumped in. “He wasn’t an employee. Security can’t find any record of him.”
Nick leaned over the officer reviewing the footage. “Rewind. I want to see this for myself.”
The officer played the footage for Nick, who watched with the same hardened expression. When the footage finished, he looked right at Lourdes. “Are you okay?”
Lourdes nodded. “I’m fine, Mr. Porter.”
“Do you have any idea why this man would try to kill you at my resort?”
Lourdes’s eyes flickered toward me. “No, sir.”
Nick squeezed the security officer’s shoulder. “Get the police here as quickly as possible. I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”
He barely even looked at me before brushing out of the room.
“Nick, wait up.”
My chair scraped
as I left Lourdes alone in the security room to follow Nick. He didn’t wait for me at all, his polite mannerisms covered by the stress of the event.
“Lourdes thinks she was attacked because of you,” I declared.
That stopped him dead. He turned slowly to face me.
“What do you mean?”
“She knows something about you,” I said. “She thinks you’re not who you say you are.”
To my surprise, Nick dropped his aggressive pose and his anger in a second. He kneaded the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Oh, dear. I guess the cat’s finally out of the bag.”
“You mean she’s right?”
“In a manner of speaking.” He dropped his hand and looked around to make sure no one was listening. “My name isn’t Nick Porter. Well, it is now, but it wasn’t always.”
“I’m so lost.”
He smiled, but the expression didn’t quite make it to his pretty blue eyes. “I was adopted, Lucia. My real parents weren’t anything special, so my adoptive parents changed my name to match theirs. It was a sweet gesture, but it made a few things quite confusing in the long run. There was a lot of legal mumbo jumbo that complicated the purchase of White Oak and—” He stopped himself from talking and grinned. “You probably don’t care about any of this, do you? My point is that Miss Calvo isn’t incorrect, but that information isn’t exactly hidden. She shouldn’t have been attacked for knowing it. My guess is she’s hiding something else.”
“She is pretty shady,” I agreed.
“Lucia!”
Jazmin stormed toward me from across the lobby. She wore the lopsided frown that she reserved for when she was pissed at me specifically. I braced myself for the tornado.
