by Sara Rosett
Contrary to what Melissa said, she took the first round in the bathroom and was snoring by the time I’d changed and washed my face. I’d put the book inside my makeup bag and carried it with me into the bathroom. Now I removed the book and slipped under the covers.
I bent the pages of the book into a curve and fanned them until I reached the page where I’d deposited the note. I studied it without touching it.
It was written on an unlined piece of plain white paper that looked like it had been torn from a notepad. It was about three-inches wide and two-inches long. The writing was in blue ink, the letters slanted and squished together as if the writer had been in a hurry. The top edge was irregular and jagged, and the paper curled a bit on one side.
I stared at the note for quite a few minutes, trying to work out a gender from the handwriting. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an obviously feminine hand with graceful loops and curves. Neither was it the careful printing that I had seen some men use. Someone who specialized in handwriting analysis might be able to deduce the writer’s sex, but it looked gender neutral to me. The note was still tucked into the spine of the book, and I tilted the pages of the book so that I could see the back of the note, but there wasn’t a single squiggle.
It could be Mia’s writing. If she had seen what happened…or even worked out who murdered Cyrus on a hunch…then she might have written the note, which got her killed. On the other hand, it could be a random note that was completely unrelated to either murder…no, I shook my head. Like Byron said, coincidences were rare. More than likely, the note was related to the case, which meant the police should have it.
I let the book fall closed and balanced it on my knees as I contemplated what I should do. If it was a blackmail note what was it doing in Annie’s book? Why would Annie have it? Had she picked it up randomly and used it as a bookmark without noticing what was written on it? Unlikely.
I shifted a little in the bed and the book wobbled, but didn’t fall. I didn’t like the train of thought that my mind was running on, but it had to be considered. Annie had found Mia. She had been the first one on the scene and alone for a little while—a minute at least, maybe longer, from the time she left our table in the dining room until we heard her scream. It wouldn’t take a long time to cut someone’s throat. And she did have blood on her. Not a lot, that was true. Perhaps she’d used a glove out of the lost and found—Elise’s glove—but hadn’t been able to completely avoid getting blood on herself. She could have hidden the glove somehow…in a plastic bag maybe…to dispose of later, and she smeared some blood on the light switch to give her an excuse for her bloody hand.
My heartbeat kicked up as another thought hit me. Perhaps she gave the glove to Dominic to get rid of. He was supposedly out of the hotel when Mia died, but we didn’t know exactly when he left. He could have stuffed it down the grate into the drain on his way to a shop. If she had wrapped it in something else…a bag or another cloth, then he could avoid getting blood on his hands and could return with his shopping bag of light bulbs and an alibi.
I rubbed a hand over my face and sighed. It was all very iffy and speculative. And why would you keep a blackmail note? Wouldn’t you destroy it immediately?
I shifted to another point. If the note was intended for Annie—if Mia had seen or knew somehow that Annie had killed Cyrus—then why had Annie killed Cyrus? They were old friends and on good terms as far as I could see. In fact, Annie was about the only person Cyrus had seemed to get along with, and Annie seemed to be the only person to grieve for him. Was it guilt, not grief, that she struggled with?
I reached for my phone and typed out a text to Alex. Are you awake? I wanted to show him the note and talk it over with him. He was a good sounding board and much better at reading people—had I been completely wrong about Annie?— and I wanted to hear what he had to say.
But after several minutes ticked by, I decided he must have silenced the ringer on his phone or turned it off. I contemplated using the hotels’ phone or creeping down the stairs and tapping on his door, but decided against it.
I could be totally wrong about the note and my assumptions about Annie. She might be innocent and the note had been planted there by the real murderer to throw suspicion on her. But that seemed an odd way to go about bringing a suspect to the attention of the police. They’d have to find that note in her book, and how could they do that if the book was stuffed down between the side of the chair and the cushion? My thoughts were bouncing and bumping around in my head like a bee trapped in a jar.
I was more confused now than I had been before I found the note. In any case, whether the note meant Annie was part of the suspect pool or not, Felix was definitely a suspect because of his lack of alibis. I hated even thinking that he could be remotely involved, but it wouldn’t be smart to wake Alex to show him the note because the commotion would probably wake Felix as well. No, the best thing to do would be to contact the police first thing in the morning and turn it over to them. I could tell Alex about it in the morning, too. It would be easier to be alone with Alex tomorrow without drawing attention to ourselves.
I put the book back in my makeup bag and snuggled down under the covers, but I couldn’t drift into sleep. I noticed the faint pulse of music from the bar down the street, something that I hadn’t even been aware of when I was engrossed in thinking about the note, but now that I was trying to fall asleep, I could hear it distinctly.
After fifteen minutes, I threw the covers back and dug out the book again. I snapped a picture of the note with my phone, then crept over to feel through the pockets of my coat for Byron’s business card. Yes, it was still there. I sent him a short text, saying that I’d found the note in a book at the hotel and thought he would want to know about it. I attached the picture, hid the book again, and got back into bed, which was now chilly.
I curled into a ball and tried to clear my mind, but the sheets weren’t even warm before my phone rang. I snatched it off the little nightstand between the two beds, nearly yanking the charging cord from the wall. Melissa snorted and rolled over.
“Ms. Sharp, this is Detective Inspector Byron here. I received your text. I’m sending someone over to pick up the item immediately.”
“Um—okay,” I said. “I’ll go downstairs and watch. Will it be someone in uniform?”
“No, it will be Sergeant Gadd.”
“All right.” I gave Byron the night latch code because I wasn’t sure if the hotel had an alarm system that activated after a certain time of night. If it did, using the code would keep it from sounding and waking everyone. “He can open the door with that code,” I said. “I’ll wait in the parlor for him.”
I got out of bed again, thinking that at this rate it would be dawn before I actually got to sleep at all, but when I checked the time it was only a little after two. I slipped an oversized sweater over my flannel pajamas and tugged on a pair of thick socks, then I grabbed my phone. The battery was low, but it should last long enough to serve as a flashlight to let me navigate through the parlor without knocking a shin against any furniture.
Chapter 21
WITHIN A FEW MINUTES, I was sitting in the dim parlor in the same club chair by the bow window, my feet curled up under me. Instead of turning on lights as I moved, I’d used the light of my phone. I didn’t know where the light switches were and figured I’d turn on a lamp, but once I sat down, I decided I didn’t want to wake Annie or Dominic by turning on any lights. I wanted to avoid having to answer any awkward questions about why a police officer was coming by the hotel in the middle of the night.
As the display of my phone faded to black, darkness returned to the room, except for the square patch of light from the street lamp that glowed outside the window. The panes of the window cut the illuminated square into a grid of light and shadow that fell over my chair.
Down the street, one of the bars was still open, and I watched a couple leave, arm in arm. Their voices and footsteps echoed along the quiet street as they passed th
e window. After they disappeared around the corner, it was quiet except for the throb of music from the bar, which was louder now that I was on street-level and near a window.
On the opposite end of the street from the bar, I could see the soaring towers of the Abbey, which were now dark. Even though the floodlights were off, I could see the tower and its pinnacles, a black silhouette against the night sky. Near the Abbey, but a little closer to the hotel, the high wall with its balustrade enclosed the bulk of the Roman Baths. I couldn’t see any drifts of vapor, but I knew steam was rising from the Great Bath, curling up into the cold air behind the wall. A hot bath sounded lovely. I wished I’d slipped on some shoes. My toes were freezing despite my thick socks.
I figured it would take Sergeant Gadd a while to get to the hotel, so I settled in to wait. The hotel was quiet except for the low hum from one of the kitchen appliances and the faint hiss of the radiator. I checked my email on my phone and opened some of the other apps, but I couldn’t concentrate. I heard a faint creaking sound and listened, thinking that someone had opened a door upstairs, but I didn’t hear anything else, no tread on the stairs or squeak of a floorboard. I decided it must have been the building settling. I was fidgety so I occupied myself with trying to identify the songs I could faintly hear that were being played down the street at the bar. After fifteen minutes went by, I began to wonder if I should contact Byron, but then I told myself I was being impatient.
I picked up a brochure for the hotel that was lying on the end table and angled it so that the light from the street lamp illuminated it as I skimmed it. On the back page, a box highlighted the history of the hotel, touching on the building’s different uses, mentioning the tannery and the casino. I read the next line then stopped and reread it.
“The hotel was once connected to the underground tunnels, or catacombs, of Bath. When the hotel was divided into individual residences each occupant had an entrance to the tunnels. Most of these entrances have been sealed, but the hotel still uses a small area of the tunnels for storage.”
“Catacombs,” I murmured to myself, looking out the window for a second. I scanned the rest of the text on the brochure, but it didn’t say how extensive the catacombs were. Did the tunnels under the hotel stretch all the way to the Baths? I knew the Baths themselves had tunnels because they ran tunnel tours. I’d seen the brochure for those tours the day I toured the Roman Baths. If the tunnels under the Baths stretched to the hotel, then everything we’d thought about Cyrus’s death could be wrong. What if he’d never left the hotel?
Since Cyrus was found in the Baths, everyone had assumed he’d died after they opened at nine thirty, but what if that wasn’t what happened? I tapped the brochure against the edge of the chair, thinking of what Mia had said when I first asked her about Cyrus. She’d said she’d brought him another cup of tea and that he’d left after, during the rush. What if she hadn’t actually seen Cyrus leave, only seen his empty place and assumed he’d left the hotel? If she was busy with other customers she probably hadn’t been watching him every moment.
He might have left the dining room and been detoured downstairs where he was killed. It was quiet and secluded in the basement area. And then the killer would only have to transport his body to the Baths and leave it there to be discovered.
If Mia worked out what happened and threatened to expose the murderer…I shivered and it had nothing to do with my cold feet. Mia had been curious about Cyrus’s death that morning in the Pump Room. I could picture her asking questions and poking around until she found out more. She also worked at the hotel, so she probably knew about the tunnels in the hotel, and since she worked at the Pump Room as well, I bet she knew about the tunnels at the Baths, too.
I shifted in the chair, and looked up and down the street again. Where was Constable Gadd? If Cyrus had been killed in the hotel and moved to the Baths, then it let Annie out. She could barely get down the stairs. I didn’t think she could transport a body through a catacomb tunnel and get him into the Baths, especially someone as tall and heavy as Cyrus.
I doubted Elise knew about the tunnels, so she was probably out of the running as well. And it was questionable that Felix knew either. He knew Annie and Dominic from years ago, but he apparently hadn’t kept up with them or ever stayed in the Bath Spa Hotel before.
A movement on the street caught my eye, and I strained to see better, but it was only another person leaving the bar. I picked up my phone to call Byron, but heard the unmistakable ring of a foot on the metal steps of the basement’s iron staircase.
No one should be downstairs in the basement now. Everyone was in bed.
Nevertheless, someone was trotting up the stairs. Without thinking about why I was doing it, I clicked my phone so that the screen went dark. I tensed and was about to either dart across the room to the stairs or to the entry where I wouldn’t be in the person’s line of sight when they emerged into the parlor. But the second I spent hesitating meant that it was too late.
The back of a head became visible, then shoulders, as the person strode briskly up the stairs. Their quick pace brought them up the last twist of the stairs, and Dominic emerged into the parlor.
The room was dim, but the glow from the street lamp gave off enough light that I could see he was fully dressed in jeans and a dark sweater. From the knees down, his jeans were covered in a fine dirt, and he was brushing at them and the arms of his sweater as he walked.
Of course it wasn’t Annie who was the murderer. It was Dominic. My heartbeat kicked into a skittery rhythm at the thought. He was big enough to carry Cyrus’s body through the tunnels. Hadn’t Dominic said something about Annie volunteering at the Baths and leading tours? She’d know about the tunnel tours. He could have found out about the tunnels from her, if he hadn’t explored them himself. They were connected to his office. And we only had Dominic’s word that he was at the shop when Mia died. He could have killed her then slipped out and stuffed the glove down the grate, then sprinted to the shop to establish an alibi.
I held my breath, thinking I should look away, but couldn’t. Unmoving, like a rat mesmerized by the sway of a cobra, I watched him, amazed at his relaxed stride. He wasn’t worried or jumpy. He was almost at the threshold of the kitchen. Another second, and he’d be gone.
He gave his sleeve another final brush and shifted his head slightly to check his elbow. Our gazes connected, and his steps faltered.
“Kate? Is that you?” He closed the distance before I even had time to stand.
“Yes. I couldn’t sleep.” My heartbeat hammered, and I felt breathless. Could he tell from my voice?
“So you came down here to sit in the dark?” he said, his voice filled with laughter. “You know, I see a lot of strange things in this business, but I have to admit that this is a first.”
“I thought a change of scene might help.”
“Well…okay.” He hesitated as if he wasn’t sure what to say, then his gaze focused on my lap.
I glanced down. The streetlight’s glow picked out the blank screen of my phone, which was resting on top of the copy of Northanger Abbey.
His face changed, the jovial expression shifting into something guarded and wary.
I worked my feet out from under me. “I was just going back upstairs—”
He lunged suddenly, his arm lifted. I dodged, but my head snapped down as white spots exploded in my vision. For a few seconds, I had a fuzzy impression of him closing in, then his dirty sweater engulfed me, and there was only blackness.
Chapter 22
THE SMELL OF DIRT FILLED my nostrils, and everything was dark.
I thought for a second that my face was still pressed into Dominic’s dusty sweater. I recoiled, but a pain shot through my head, and my stomach heaved. I stilled and waited for my insides to calm down.
I breathed in and out unsteadily. I realized it wasn’t Dominic’s sweater that was creating the blackness. It was darkness…all around me. My cheek was pressed to a hard, cold surface. My hea
d throbbed with the worst headache I’d ever had. It felt as if someone were inside my skull banging away like a carpenter framing a house.
After a little bit, I brushed my hands around and traced a few oblong rectangles. Flagstones. A flagstone floor. My fingertips were gritty now from the layer of fine dust that covered the stones.
Cautiously, I sat up, and a feeling of lightheadedness swept over me, but it faded after a few seconds. The drumbeat in my head was still there, but it was minor compared to the fear rising inside of me. I ran my fingertips gently over my skull and found a tender goose-egg swelling behind my ear. I thought of Cyrus. I’d been much luckier than him. That thought galvanized me, and although the pain was still there, it didn’t matter as much. For some reason, Dominic hadn’t killed me—yet.
I patted my pockets, looking for my phone, then remembered I was in my flannel pajamas, which didn’t have pockets. My phone wasn’t on me. Of course, Dominic wouldn’t be so stupid as to leave my cell phone with me. I patted the floor in ever widening circles just to make sure, but I only found more grit.
I shifted around and saw a thread of light across the floor behind me. I got to my feet, again feeling a flash of nausea as I shifted positions, but it cleared. The throb in my head continued, but didn’t crescendo, so I kept my gaze fixed on the streak of light. I made my way slowly through the darkness, waving my arms in front of me like a creature in a zombie movie.
When the line of light illuminated my dirty socks, my fingers connected with a surface of shallow lines running through it—wood, I realized. I patted and found the edge, letting my fingers trail over the arch above my head and down the side until I found a cold metal handle. It was the arched doorway inside Dominic’s office that led to the storage area. Unfortunately, I was on the other side of the door from Dominic’s office, locked in the storage area.
