by Harper Lin
I’d followed her from the patisserie out of curiosity—I just wanted to know where she disappeared to whenever she was conspicuously not at the counter. But what if she had another reason to be gone? I couldn’t help but think I wouldn’t mind if I found out that Sophie was the one who had killed Gina.
I needed to talk to someone who knew more about the inner workings and interpersonal politics of the hotel. Someone who would know who was acting weird and who was always rude and grouchy. Someone who I could actually get to share the inside scoop. Fortunately, I knew exactly who to talk to.
Chapter Thirteen
I made a beeline for the front desk. Whitney had proven more than willing to talk to me when I met up with the girls outside. I had little doubt that she’d be happy to share more with me if I just asked the questions.
The desk was empty. I heaved a sigh of disappointment. Where had she gone? I could have sworn she was there when I passed through a few minutes before while I followed Sophie.
I drummed my fingers on the front desk as I tried to figure out what to do next. I still had at least twenty minutes before I had to be back upstairs.
“Can I help you?”
I jumped and spun around at the loud man’s voice behind me. It was Garrett.
“Oh! No, I—uh—just—um—” I stammered, trying to think of a good reason I was at the desk, other than “covertly working on a murder investigation.” For one thing, I didn’t know if Garrett was involved, and for another, I didn’t like or trust him.
Fortunately, Garrett’s abrasive personality wasn’t interested in waiting to hear what I had to say. “Where is Whitney? She should be out here! I swear, it’s impossible to find good help these days. But you must know that since you have your own business.”
Funny, I didn’t remember telling him that. Maybe I’d just forgotten, or maybe he had some other perfectly good reason to know. Or maybe he’d been nosing around. I wouldn’t put it past him.
“What do you need? Towels? A toothbrush? We’ll of course be happy to provide anything you may have forgotten. We also have laundry services if you need them.”
“Towels,” I said quickly. He was annoying, but at least he’d given me an excuse for being at the desk.
“Certainly. I’ll have housekeeping bring some up.”
“Oh, we’re about to go eat.”
“No matter.” He gave me a smarmy smile. “They can use their key to drop them off inside when they refresh your room.” He moved over to the computer and started clicking buttons. “I’ll just put a note in here that the two of you need some extra towels.”
The look he gave me made my skin crawl. From anyone else’s mouth, “extra towels” would have sounded perfectly innocent, but somehow he made it sound gross.
“Thanks, that’ll be great.” I turned to make my escape. The sooner I was away from him, the better.
“Oh, Francesca!”
I turned back around slowly. I did not like the way he said my name.
“I’m very sorry about what you witnessed in the spa yesterday. I hope you didn’t see anything too… untoward.”
A chill went down my spine. Was he threatening me? Did he have a reason to be threatening me? I should have just thanked him and walked away, but that would have been too sensible. “How did you know we were down there?”
His thin lips curled up in what I assumed was supposed to pass for a smile. “I’m the hotel manager. It’s my job to know these things. Enjoy your brunch, Francesca.” He gave me one last leering look then went back to tapping on the computer. I took the opportunity to escape.
Just before I stepped out of the lobby, I glanced back at the front desk. Garrett’s dark eyes were still staring at me. I hurried away down the hall, grateful to be out of his sight. At least, I was until I noticed all the cameras in the hallways. I hadn’t seen them before, but I guessed that was the point. They were supposed to blend in so people didn’t think about the fact that they were being watched all the time. They made sense for security, of course, and under other circumstances, I’d be glad that they were there, but now all I could think about was Garrett sitting in a darkened room somewhere, watching me move around the hotel. It gave me chills.
But then I realized something. If there were cameras in the hallways in the main part of the hotel, wouldn’t there be cameras in the spa as well? At least in the common areas. I hoped there weren’t any in the locker rooms or treatment rooms. I had to talk to Mike.
I almost stopped at his door before I realized that Sandra probably wouldn’t appreciate me showing up, especially not to talk about murder. Instead, I continued down the hall to my room. I heard the shower running and popped my head in to let Matt know I was back. He was still standing at the sink with his toothbrush in his mouth.
“Hi! I’m back.”
He gestured and made some noises that I took to mean he was just about to get into the shower.
“Okay! I’m just going to go sit on the balcony while I wait.”
He gave me a thumbs up, and I crossed the room to the balcony.
I sank down into one of the chairs, propped my feet up, and took a minute to soak in the scenery. The weather was beautiful. It was cool but not cold. The leaves had finally returned to the trees and were the bright green of springtime. The hotel gardens were colorful and vibrant with tulips and daffodils, and beyond them, I could see the bright-green grass of the golf course. It was a perfect Western Massachusetts day.
I could have sat out there and stared at the mountains forever, but I had a murder to solve. I pulled out my phone and dialed Mike’s number.
“You find me some evidence yet?” he asked instead of saying hello like a normal person.
I wasn’t letting him get away with that. “Well, hi, Mike! I’m good, how are you?”
“I’m good, thanks. Do you have any evidence yet?” He was not amused.
I decided the battle wasn’t worth fighting. “No, but I have an idea of where you could find some.”
Sometimes I thought Mike didn’t have any manners, but I’d seen him be charming with people before, so I knew that wasn’t true. He just didn’t seem to feel the need to exercise that charm with me.
“Do you want to know?”
He sighed. “Yes, Fran. Where can I find this evidence you think might exist?”
“The cameras. There are cameras all through the hallways. There must be some in the spa too. It should be easy to see who else went in the treatment room to kill Gina.” I waited proudly for him to tell me what a genius I was.
“The cameras weren’t working.”
“What?” I sat bolt upright. “What do you mean they weren’t working?”
“They stopped recording around noon yesterday and were offline until sometime after the police arrived.”
“You’re joking.”
“I wish I were.”
I sank back into the chair. “Did they say what happened?”
“Hotel manager claims that this happens sometimes, a glitch in the network or something.”
Hotel manager. Garrett. “You sound like you don’t believe him.”
“I don’t. And neither do the local police. But there’s no way to prove he had anything to do with it.”
I couldn’t believe that. There had to be some indication of his involvement. “But there must be! Has anyone checked the footage from right before they went out? Maybe you can see him going into the control room and turning them off.”
“They checked that. But apparently whoever tampered with them knew what they were doing. Or else there really was a network glitch.”
“Right during the time period of the murder? Likely story,” I muttered. It had to be the other option. Garrett—or whoever disabled the cameras—had to have been smart enough to delete the footage of them going into the camera control room. “Did anyone other than Garrett have access to the control room?” If they didn’t, it seemed like a slam dunk against Garrett.
Mike groaned. “Who did
n’t? Actually, I can tell you that—anybody they managed to forget to point it out to. There were no access restrictions on the door at all. Anybody could have just walked in there anytime they wanted, probably even you if you wanted to. For a big hotel, they are surprisingly lacking in security.”
That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Although, I supposed that if Garrett was the only one who had access, the police would have arrested him already. It was so frustrating, feeling like the evidence should be right there but finding out that it just wasn’t. Of course, if it was easy, Mike wouldn’t have asked for my help, and the police would have already made an arrest. Still, maybe the cameras weren’t a totally lost cause. “Did all the cameras go out or just the ones in the spa?”
“They all went out for about five minutes, then everything except the spa came back online. Everything went back out a while later, and that time when they came back on, all the cameras were working again.”
“So someone obviously turned them off and back on.”
“That’s what it looks like to me. But Garrett said that’s what’s been happening. The system glitches in and out, sometimes everything comes back. Sometimes it doesn’t. He said the spa has the most issues.”
“Sounds awfully convenient.” The shower turned off, and I remembered that Mike was supposed to be spending time with Sandra, just like I was supposed to be spending time with Matt. “Where’s Sandra?”
“She’s in the shower. I can only talk for another couple of minutes before I have to go.”
“That’s okay,” I said, sighing. “That was the only thing I wanted to tell you, and it wasn’t very useful.”
“Not your fault. It was a good idea.” He was being uncharacteristically nice. And it sounded like he was chewing something, which may have had something to do with it.
“Matt and I are about to go to brunch, so I’ll get back to work after that.”
“Sandra and I are about to go down too.” Apparently, he wasn’t letting that stop him from snacking, because I could still hear chewing. “Wait, which restaurant are you going to?”
“I don’t know yet. Why? Do you want to meet us there?” I was teasing. I knew it was the opposite.
“Something like that,” he muttered through some more chewing. “By the way, Fran, these cookies you had me get for Sandra are great. Well, that rose one was weird, but the others have been good.”
“Those were supposed to be for Sandra! How many have you eaten?”
“A couple,” he said quietly.
I doubted he was telling the truth.
“We’re going to go get more later on anyway. She got excited when I told her about all the different kinds. I have a feeling I’m going to have to hold her back from blowing all my money on them. Those things are expensive.”
“Consider it an investment in your marriage.”
He made a thoughtful grunting noise before saying, “I better go. Let me know when you find something else out.”
My stomach rumbled as we said goodbye and hung up. Apparently, it had finally realized that we’d skipped breakfast. At least Matt sounded like he was almost done in the bathroom and we could go to brunch soon. And I needed a cup of coffee like nobody’s business. I was tempted to slip down to the lobby and see if I could grab something from the coffee bar, but with the way things seemed to work around here, it would probably be empty, and then Matt would come out while I was gone and be annoyed that I was delaying brunch even more. And then I’d have no coffee and a grumpy boyfriend, which was worse than no coffee and a happy boyfriend. Somewhat. No coffee was pretty bad.
Luckily, Matt came out of the bathroom before I had the chance to make a bad decision.
“You ready?” he asked, rubbing a towel over his wet hair, making it stand on end. “What?”
I couldn’t help but grin. “You look so cute with your hair all—” I waved my hands around my head in a general representation of the unruliness of his hair.
He patted it down into an approximation of a style. It still looked pretty cute. “So can we go? I’m starving.”
“We can go.”
As we made our way downstairs and over to the restaurant that was supposed to have the most heavenly brunch options, I filled Matt in on what I’d been up to while he lounged in bed. He listened in silence but looked skeptical. He was usually busy at work while I ran around Cape Bay, trying to figure out who was responsible for whatever mayhem was currently being wreaked around town. He’d catch the highlights at the end of the day, but he didn’t usually get the live play-by-play.
“Sounds like you had a busy morning,” he said when I’d finished.
“I did. I just wish I had more to show for it.”
Fortunately for him, we got to the restaurant before I could get into my plans for the afternoon. It was probably best that he didn’t know. Not yet anyway.
I looked around the dining room as the host took us to our seats, checking to see if Mike and Sandra were anywhere around. Not that I particularly minded if they were there. It was more that Mike’s eyes boring into me during the meal would be a little distracting. I didn’t see them, so I happily settled in at the table, with my back to the door. If Mike came in and wanted to glare at me, he could have at it. I was going to have a tasty brunch.
And, let me tell you, that menu was nothing if not mouthwatering. Every single thing on it looked amazing, from the eggs benedict to the French toast to the buttermilk waffles to the vegan tofu scramble. Okay, maybe the vegan tofu scramble wasn’t quite my style, but I was sure it would have been delicious, based on everything else on the menu.
Matt ordered the eggs benedict, which was basically eggs with egg sauce since the key ingredient in that yellow hollandaise sauce that made eggs on an English muffin into eggs benedict was egg yolks. That didn’t make it any less tasty, of course. I might have gotten it and, in fact, considered it but decided on the waffles instead because it would have been weird to dump maple syrup on eggs benedict, and I really wanted to cover my breakfast in maple syrup. The menu boasted that their syrup came from a farm just down the road, and I just couldn’t pass that up.
The food came out looking amazing. My soft, fluffy-looking waffles were topped with pillowy, fresh whipped cream and a locally made strawberry compote. I couldn’t see much of Matt’s eggs benedict because it was thoroughly coated in a thick, rich, creamy hollandaise. We dug in enthusiastically.
As we started to eat, I think we both realized that we were even hungrier than we had known. We both practically inhaled our meals. It helped that the food was absolutely amazing. For the most part, a waffle is a waffle is a waffle, but something about these ones were extra delicious, even before I poured the syrup on top. Of course, once I tasted the syrup, I didn’t have another bite without it. It may actually have been good on eggs benedict, but I was still glad I got the waffles. They were perfect.
When I finally mopped up the last bit of syrup with the last bit of waffle, I was satisfied but sorry that it was gone. I wished I were hungry again so I could start the meal all over, but there was no way I could have eaten even one more bite.
We dragged ourselves away from the table and started the walk back across the hotel toward our room. We didn’t have any real plans for the afternoon other than relaxing and spending time together. Besides investigating Gina’s murder for Mike, of course. I hoped to work on that in between taking a long walk around the grounds with Matt and maybe taking a nap in that big, soft, comfortable bed.
The restaurant was on the opposite side of the hotel from our room, so we had to cross through the lobby to get there. Out of a growing habit, I looked at the desk as we passed and saw Whitney smile and give us a quick wave. My steps slowed ever so slightly. Matt looked back at me with a question in his eyes. I debated the situation quickly. On the one hand, I knew that I was at the hotel to be with Matt, but on the other hand, I’d promised Mike that I’d find out whatever I could about Gina’s murder. Plus, I was really looking forward to our m
assage the next day, and I was afraid it might end up being cancelled if the police didn’t get things wrapped up before then.
“Franny?” he asked, apparently getting tired of waiting for me to explain why I was creeping through the lobby at a snail’s pace while staring absently off into space.
I pulled him over toward one of the large fluted columns supporting the ceiling that arched a good forty or more feet above us. “I need to go talk to Whitney over at the desk.” I grabbed his shirt and pulled him back toward me as he turned to look at Whitney. I didn’t think she noticed. “It won’t take long. I promise. You can go hang out in the lounge while I talk to her for a minute.”
He looked a little uncertain but nodded reluctantly and turned to head that way.
“Ooh, wait!” I grabbed his shirt again to pull him back to me. “If Tommy and Carrick are there, try to talk to them about the murder. Well, whoever’s there, see if you can find out what they know!”
“I thought you were going to kiss me,” he said, looking disappointed.
I smiled up at him. “If I kiss you, will you talk to them?”
He grinned back. “If I agree to talk to them, will you kiss me?”
I put my hands on either side of his neck, pulled his face down to mine, and kissed him softly. As I moved my lips away, he leaned into me, tipping his head to kiss me again. I ducked away. “Nope. We have investigating to do.”
He shook his head slowly, his lips curling up in a smile. As he turned to walk away, I was pretty sure I heard him mutter, “The things I do for you.”
I smiled to myself and went to talk to Whitney.
Chapter Fourteen
Whitney smiled brightly as I approached the front desk. “Hi! How can I help you?” she chirped.
I considered coming up with a plausible lie about needing more towels or toilet paper and beating around the bush for a while until the murder (hopefully) came up naturally in conversation. I also considered just blurting out my questions—it certainly wouldn’t have been the first time I’d used that approach.
