Chocolate Hearts and Murder

by Patti Larsen

  But, apparently that stunned silence worked to my advantage. James nodded, wiping at his eyes randomly with the napkin. “He blamed her for it, but it wasn’t her. He refused to believe her. And if Marie was still alive, I know her family would have tried to sue. But no one would own up to who made it so Elizabeth had that hanging over her head for weeks.”

  “That’s why you think Mason might have hurt her the day they went skiing.” I’d have made the same assumption with this tidbit in hand.

  “He turned from horrible ass to all sweet and forgiving in a snap.” James tried to mimic the word with his thumb and forefinger but his coordination just wasn’t there. He frowned at his fingers like he might have a few more visible than he actually owned then shook his head and went on. “I begged her not to go but she was so happy. I’d never seen her smile so bright.” He blinked, tears welling once more. “So I relented and I will never, ever forgive myself for that.”

  “James.” I hadn’t noticed Lucas’s arrival, and from the surprised look on Crew and Dad’s faces they hadn’t either. “Stop talking. You need a lawyer.” The expression on the man’s face told me he’d heard everything and suddenly doubted his partner’s innocence. About as much as I was doubting. Or maybe not so suddenly?

  “Oh, you’re coming to my defense now, are you, Lucas?” James’s entire attitude shifted as he tried to spin around to confront the other man, wobbling in the chair as he did before turning back to me. “You weren’t there for me when they came back without her, though, were you?”

  Lucas fell silent, face twisting in a mix of what looked like grief and regret.

  “They left after lunch, Elizabeth with them.” James’s eyes locked on mine and held me tight. “I watched them go, Mason with his arm around her shoulders. She wasn’t a strong skier, not at all. But he took her all the way to the last black diamond that day, the one the hill closed because it was too dangerous, the conditions already causing three accidents. Not that he cared. He and his friends skied down that run and left her at the top of the mountain, terrified. At least, that’s what he told me when they came back. Last to arrive, alone, five minutes after the others. Said he took a spill and had a cut on his cheek to prove it. But I knew better. They couldn’t find her body, didn’t see her anywhere.”

  “So you think he waited for the others to go, attacked her, she got a blow in and he killed her and left her where she wouldn’t be found.” Was Mason a murderer too for real?

  James shrugged, collapsing in on himself as grief and too much whiskey finally defeated the tall, lean man. I watched his outrage and his anger die and leave him a broken shell filled with booze and hate. “At the very least, he left her alone up there. A death sentence for someone who couldn’t ski such a treacherous run. And at the most?” He shrugged absently. “At the most, he did something to her. No matter what, she’s dead and it’s Mason’s fault. And thanks to Marie and her money and her family? He got away with murder.”

  I was partial to the latter. Elizabeth could have backtracked her way to another run, looked for help. Returned to the lift. Unless, that was, she couldn’t. Because Mason hurt or killed her.

  “There was no proof of that,” Lucas said, though his voice cracked when he spoke and it sounded like it was something he practiced saying too many times to be authentic anymore.

  James barked the kind of soft laugh that sounded like it hurt. “If I hadn’t been neck deep in this project already, I’d have walked away and sued all of you. But everything I have is invested in this lodge. And with Elizabeth gone, it’s all I have left.”

  How utterly horrible and, as I looked up to Crew despite my sympathy for the poor man’s hurt, an absolutely ideal motive for murder.

  “You knew Mason was allergic.” Crew didn’t ask.

  James nodded. “Everyone did, Marie made damned sure of that, how her precious child was never to be put at risk. That’s why I know Elizabeth didn’t bake that cake. But Mason wouldn’t believe her and he killed her in revenge. I’m sure of it.”

  “We’ll need to know your movements from the time you arrived until Mason died,” Crew said.

  “Ask Lucas where I was. And that mayor of ours.” James tried to stagger to his feet but fell back into the chair again where he sighed deeply like a man who had finally given up. “I was with them the whole time.”

  “Did you visit the men’s washroom in the lobby at any point before Mason’s death?” I shushed Crew with a wave of one hand, cutting off his next question with my own. Yeah, that went over well, but the sheriff held his tongue at least while James shook his head and Lucas spoke for him.

  “The one in the bar,” the victim’s stepfather said. “I was with him the entire night.”

  “Worried about my drinking, aren’t you, Lucas?” James’s bitterness hadn’t left him. “And the last of the money you want for the final payment.”

  “James, that’s not fair.” Lucas looked and sounded like a man who truly suffered for his friend.

  But James Adler didn’t seem to care about what his partner felt. “Tell Elizabeth about fair,” he said.

  ***

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  We left Lucas sitting with James, the drunken man now passed out and snoring on his folded arms, the table before him shaking slightly as he snored in his inebriated stupor.

  “I’ll make sure he’s okay,” Lucas told us. “I’m sorry about this.”

  “You do realize he’s our number one suspect.” Crew didn’t pull punches, did he?

  But Lucas wasn’t surprised while my mind still churned with possibilities. “I worried as much,” he said. “And I have to admit when Mason died, it was my first thought.” He seemed genuinely troubled by that. “Which makes me exactly the kind of man James thinks I am, I suppose.”

  I followed Crew and Dad toward the doors to the dining room, keeping up with their long strides, Petunia grunting her complaint we were moving again while Dad said, “Security footage?” and Crew grunted his agreement.

  “Wait a second,” I said, anger flaring. “You two haven’t looked at any of it yet?” What the hell had they been up to all this time? And why hadn’t I remembered to check it myself while I was in the office? Yeah, who was I really annoyed with right now?

  “We looked at some of it,” Crew said with a faint hint of amusement in his voice, enough to rile me up because he was clearly humoring me, the jerk. “But I want to double check that Lucas was with James the whole time.”

  “The two of them could have worked this out,” Dad said in a low voice. “The whole act in there might have been part of the plan to get away with murder.”

  “I thought of that,” Crew grumbled back while I sighed and rolled my eyes at their wide shoulders striding ahead of me and making me and my portly pug run to keep up.

  Competitive boy hormones were stupid.

  Paisley smiled at us behind the counter as we approached and immediately gestured for us to come around the counter when Crew asked to see the tapes from tonight. I found myself tucked in behind him, feet warmed by dog butt, Dad to one side, as she keyed up the timecode they asked for—just before dinner in the bar area—and nothing happened. No, not nothing specifically. But static, lots of snowy hissing on black. Paisley made a soft sound of protest, frowning as she reentered her command to the digital recorder and got the same thing.

  Crew leaned in over her shoulder, squinting at the computer. “You’re sure you got the right file?”

  She nodded and swallowed, leaning back and sliding out of the chair, gesturing for him to take the seat. “You can look for yourself,” she said, face twisting in worry, “but it’s gone.”

  “How much?” I reached out and squeezed her hand in reassurance because if it was me, I’d be making a giant mind leap to being accused of deleting the footage.

  “From what I can tell,” Paisley said with a swallow and wide eyes, “all of it.”

  “But it was here not too long ago.” Dad crossed his arms over his che
st, giving her the Fleming stink eye while I poked him in the ribs.

  “Who had access to the files, Paisley?” Crew tapped away at the keyboard while I tugged on her hand and got her attention, drawing a deep breath of my own and watching her mimic me, smiling a little in obvious gratitude as she refocused.

  “Anyone, really,” she said. “I’ve been in and out helping guests all night. Mr. Day was in here, Chef, Mr. Adler. The sheriffs. Bill. You.” She covered her mouth with her free hand, eyes even wider as she shook her head. “I didn’t mean you had anything to do with it.”

  “I know,” I reassured her. “It’s okay. So in other words our murderer could easily have slipped in here and deleted the footage and no one would be the wiser.”

  Paisley’s face fell, crumpled really. “I’m so fired,” she said.

  Crew sighed at last and sat back, hands slapping his thighs. “Like everything else in this investigation,” he snarled, “we have to wait for the damned storm to be over to find out what happened.”

  “The IT guys can recover whatever is left,” Dad said. Trying to be comforting, really?

  Crew grunted and stood, glaring at Paisley while she clung to my hand and shivered.

  “No one else comes in this office without my permission,” he said. Far too late for that but the girl nodded quickly, pale enough I worried if he raised his voice again she might pass out.

  “She’s alone in here, Crew,” I shot back. “And has been for hours. A bit of compassion, maybe?”

  He spun on me, his weariness clear in his eyes but not a shred of empathy there to back it up. “You could make yourself useful and babysit.” He stormed out and around the desk, crossing the foyer in an aggressive stomp before I could tell him where he could shove that piece of crap that sounded too much like an order.

  Dad caught my shoulder in one hand and shook his head at me. “He’s under a lot of pressure,” he said. Then grinned. “You know, there are times I miss being sheriff. And other times…”

  “Like now?” I relented, knowing Crew had to be at the breaking point.

  “Well, let’s just say, I don’t envy the kid. He’s got a giant crapshoot ahead of him. But once the storm’s cleared and the forensic teams can come in, this will all be worked out.”

  “As long as the murderer doesn’t escape before then.” I shook my head, letting Paisley’s hand go. She tried another wavering smile I read as gratitude. “When the storm breaks, you know whoever did it is going to bolt.”

  “Not if they are in custody already.” Dad left me there with the front desk clerk and strode off. Likely to make sure our two main suspects were under wraps. But I had, as yet, to share my own sneaking suspicion. So, with a quick squeeze for Paisley’s hand and a, “Ignore that jerk,” bit of support for her, I raced after Dad, my weary pug trailing along behind me.

  ***

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Dad was waiting for me in the foyer and, I discovered, so was Crew. The sheriff had obviously gotten over his childish snit fit because he stood with my father and watched me approach. I slowed my pace so I didn’t look like a little girl running after her daddy though I was pretty sure I wasn’t fooling anyone when I came to a less than graceful stop beside Dad. Petunia let out a long, frustrated sigh and glared at me before burping her opinion of this whole running around business.

  “James and Ethan,” Crew said before I could open my mouth to him or to Petunia. “Both need to be confined from this moment on in a safe place they can be monitored until the plows get to us and my team can arrive.”

  “Just those two?” Dad’s initial question even sounded cocky and challenging to me though when Crew’s forehead vein pulsed, his eye twitch in clear evidence, my father instead held up both hands and shook his head. “Let’s just cover all bases, okay?”

  Crew grumbled something about too many bases to cover but shrugged and looked away.

  “With the security footage damaged, we’ve lost our chance to double check alibis,” Dad said. Sounded super reasonable to me and Crew didn’t argue despite the fact he looked like he wanted to call Dad Captain Obvious. “It might be prudent to corral anyone who had a motive at this point.”

  “We don’t have the manpower,” Crew said. “Or a location. And despite the fact I’d love to lock up every single person in this hotel, I can’t. Because I don’t have cause outside of suspicion. Any evidence I might have isn’t usable without forensics.”

  Dad shrugged. “Just a suggestion.”

  “Before we lock people up now and apologize later,” I said, “and trigger Olivia’s death throes for ruining her life and Reading’s star rankings, can we consider the fact there might be another suspect we’re not addressing?” And winced inwardly. I really had to be tired to speak up, my mouth and brain totally disconnected. “If I was going to kill Mason out in the open like that, it would be stupid to do it without a really solid alibi. And a motive to die for.”

  “Like?” Crew’s skepticism wasn’t doing much for my own, though it was enough of a challenge to my ego I forged ahead with the idea that lingered with me the last little while.

  “Like everyone assuming I’m dead.” I waited for them to scoff, to roll their eyes, to do something, anything, that would make me back off this idea—or chase it down like a cheetah hunting a sweet little baby deer on the savannah. And now I had that image in my head and was clearly losing touch with reality thanks to weakness and exhaustion.

  Dad spoke first. “Elizabeth Adler.”

  The way he said it made my skin crawl and suddenly my weird and wild idea wasn’t so weird and wild. Not when Crew hesitated before shaking his head.

  “Ethan and James both had motive,” I said. “But wouldn’t it be absolutely stupid to think you could get away with it under these circumstances? Why pick the obvious method, something everyone knew, in a public place with a clear motive pointing fingers at you?” They didn’t comment, just watched me. “Sure, murder isn’t always the realm of the intelligent, but think about it. This was planned, not spontaneous.”

  “Unless Ethan spotted the bottle and had an epiphany moment,” Crew said, but not arguing, just speculative.

  I shrugged. “Fair enough. But think about this for a second. When Elizabeth disappeared, they assumed she was dead. But they didn’t find a body,” I said. “And while her father’s drunken grief in there was real, he might be protecting her. He could have helped her orchestrate this whole thing after collecting the insurance money for her passing. Because we know he’s in financial trouble.” The more I talked, the crazier I sounded and yet my instincts told me to keep going.

  “Don’t you think we have enough suspects that we know are alive and kicking and already in this lodge, Fee?” Crew didn’t sound as convinced as his words made out. “Chasing ghosts…”

  I sighed, rubbed my forehead with my fingertips. “I just can’t get past the cake, the first one. If Elizabeth didn’t make it, who did? Who tried to kill Mason that night?”

  “James didn’t,” Dad said. “So does that mean he’s not our murderer tonight?”

  “That puts the weight all on Ethan,” Crew said. “Are we saying that, John?”

  Dad didn’t answer.

  “We’re working on the premise that Mason’s near death last year was intentional,” Crew said. “But what if it really was an accident?”

  “Then we’re back to square one,” I said.

  There wasn’t much left to say. We parted ways, Dad heading for the staff quarters and Ethan, Crew for James while I slumped my way to the bar, Petunia dragging her butt and ready to crash, in search of a drink for both of us and the means to silence the weird feeling I had we were missing something.

  If that was Elizabeth lurking in those photos, maybe James could identify her. If it wasn’t, then did we have another suspect after all? One we had as yet to sort out? Whoever killed the power in the hall and tried to condemn me to a snowy grave was strong, but not overly so. I drew a breath as I circled the
bar and poured myself two fingers of scotch before topping the glass with another two. Mom had left some of the good stuff behind at least. I hadn’t yet let myself linger over the details of the attack, partly out of sheer tiredness and partly out of fear. But I needed to remember because whoever tried to kill me was Mason’s murderer, I was sure of it.

  “Okay, pug,” I said, sitting down and patting the bench seat beside me, helping her up when she decided she couldn’t make it on her own, buggy eyes begging for a lift. She settled next to me, a bowl of water slopped over the edges while I talked it through. “I heard rustling, like leaves moving. The lights went out. I didn’t hear anything else, I’m sure of it. The exit light went out, too, and the emergency beacon over the staff door. Was I followed? If so, how did the killer know how to shut off the lights in just that area? Because whoever it is works here.” Okay then. “Or has access to the place.” That didn’t eliminate James. Or did it? The man was roaring drunk. And far too tall, I realized. Comparing his height in my head to the feeling of the person who shoved me didn’t match. I closed my eyes and let myself remember.

  Something hit me hard in the shoulder, driving me sideways and into the double doors at my right. I cried out in surprise as the way parted, a chill wash of snow hitting me, wind buffeting against me while, shock taking over—

  I inhaled and shuddered, shaking off the terror of the memory. This was a bad idea to do while I was this tired and worn thin. Just closing my eyes put me on the edge of sleep, a terrible place to linger while I tried to recall almost dying. Still, a detail struck me as I examined the memory again, excitement replacing my fear.

  The person who hit me wasn’t tall. Certainly not big like James or even Ethan. Their shoulder hit my shoulder, the clear feeling of being struck with another person’s upper arm and side embedded in my body memory. Whoever tried to kill me was my height or maybe even a little shorter.