by Dixie Davis
Once the computer was connected, Arnie pulled up his inn’s website. From the photos, the Cozy Cottage lived up to its name. She should probably get the name of his website designer, too. The site looked very sleek and modern and yet made the inn seem intimate and welcoming.
Arnie clicked on the “Book Now” link. The page that loaded up displayed a calendar and the list of rooms.
Arnie pointed to the “Log In” link in the upper right corner. “On my work computer, I’m always logged in, so it goes straight to the portal for me.”
Lori nodded. “Mind if I take a look at the booking pages?”
“Knock yourself out.”
Lori clicked on the right buttons to book a stay at the inn on a Monday and Tuesday in two weeks. The page listed the available rooms for those dates. She selected the Magnolia Suite — sounded like a place she’d want to stay — and the next page loaded up.
“Wait a minute.” Arnie sat up in his chair and leaned closer. “That’s not right.”
“What’s not right?”
“These rates — even with taxes. This . . . no.” He clicked back and tried a different date search, and then another, consternation deepening the V in his brow.
“Did he make a mistake on your site?”
Arnie just shook his head. “I don’t know.” He pulled the computer into his lap and continued to click around, hunting for . . . something.
“What’s wrong with the room rates?”
“They’re too high. By ten to fifteen percent.”
Lori did a double take. “How did that happen?”
Arnie kept clicking for another minute. “I have no idea. Mind if I login and see if something got messed up on my end?”
Lori waved a go right ahead hand and Arnie clicked on the login link and entered his information. While the page loaded, Arnie rubbed his mouth. “I hate to think how long it’s been like this.” He glanced at the manila folder Lori still held. She could practically read his thoughts. Had all those people in the printouts been overcharged like this?
Once the page was up, Arnie clicked around, checking various settings. After each one, he shook his head. “It’s all right here on my end — the sales tax, the room rates. But the booking site is listing them too high.”
“You don’t see your booking site from the customer end very often then?” Lori asked. She had no idea how that worked.
“No, I only see my side of things because I’m always logged in. They told me it was best if I just stayed logged in.” He shook his head. “I did check it all right after it went live. All the rates were right then.” Arnie cradled his head in his hands, blowing out a long slow breath. “They even handled the credit card processing, so I never saw the receipts. I can’t believe I fell for that.”
“I’m sure that’s pretty standard in the industry, right?”
Arnie shot her a look that quelled any further attempts to comfort him. “Standard or not, I should have at least looked at this.” He rubbed his forehead like that would smooth out this problem. “‘Problems,’ Howard said. Understatement of the year.” He shook his head, tapping the mouse pad on the computer a little harder than necessary as he made one more check of his settings.
“You’ve never had anything like this happen before?” Lori asked.
“Of course not. I’m going to email the service in about two minutes.” Arnie pulled out his phone — a nice one, quite a bit like Howard’s. “Hey, have you heard from Howard lately? He never wrote me back this week.”
Lori flinched. He didn’t know either? “Sorry to tell you this, but Howard passed away.”
“He did? But he just emailed — when did this happen?”
“Friday morning.” Lori bit her lip. Everyone at InnCon had known Friday. Hadn’t they? “You didn’t hear?”
“Who was supposed to tell me?”
“I thought they made an announcement on Friday. Everybody was upset because an innkeeper had died?”
Arnie furrowed his brow, shifting in his armchair to look at her. “Friday? That was the day they made the announcement about Dirk Todd. One of the InnCon founders?”
Wait, what? “I’m sorry, I was late that day. What was the announcement?”
“It was Dirk who passed away, last week. They were just waiting until everybody got here for the general sessions on Friday before they made the announcement.”
“Oh. That’s too bad.” Lori paged through her memories. Karl hadn’t known about Howard. Neither had Arnie. And the death they’d announced Friday wasn’t Howard’s at all.
Then how did Clint know about Howard’s death? Had she told him, or had he already known? She couldn’t remember now.
Ice trickled down her spine. Someone definitely knew more than he’d let on.
In her pocket, Lori’s phone rang. She pulled it out, and a familiar number showed on the caller ID. It wasn’t programmed into her contacts.
Then she recognized it: the number on Clint’s business card.
Clint was calling her.
“Thanks,” Lori said to Arnie. “I hope you get that all worked out, but I really need to take this.”
Arnie nodded, excusing her. Lori tapped the button to answer the call. “Hello?”
“Who is this?” Clint demanded. “Why do you keep calling?”
Arnie stood, closing Howard’s laptop for her.
“This is Lori Keyes.” She hoped he’d remember who she was just from that. Arnie helped her put the computer back into her bag before he walked off, dialing on his own phone.
“And what do you want?”
Despite her many attempts, she still hadn’t figured out how to phrase the answer to that question. With a glance around the empty seating area, Lori put herself on the line and made the leap. “I want to know why you killed Howard and Vera.”
“Why —? I —? What?” With each breathless question, his voice jumped an octave higher.
No one was nearby, but she lowered her voice anyway, careful to enunciate each syllable. “Why did you kill Howard and Vera?”
“I didn’t! I wouldn’t hurt them! First you accuse me of Howard’s murder, and now you’re tacking on Vera’s — and weren’t we together when she died?”
Oh, great, he was going to play the but-you’re-my-alibi card. “You could have killed her before you came to dinner. You were late, after all.”
“I’m always late,” he grumbled. “I was outside having a smoke.”
That explained the cigarette smell she’d caught on him at dinner, and possibly the cigarette butts at the scene of Howard’s murder. But if Clint was innocent as he said, he wouldn’t have run from Dusky Cove yesterday. “Then why did you check out of the Cape Inn early?”
There was a long pause on the line. “I want to catch the person who did this to Howard and Vera, too. But if someone went after them, that same person could come after me as well. That’s why I left Dusky Cove. They already got to Howard and then Vera there. I wasn’t about to stick around and wait to see if I could be the next victim.”
Lori’s eyebrows jumped, and she glanced around as if to check that someone else had heard that, but she was still alone in the armchairs. Clint left town because he was afraid of becoming a victim? If he thought that, he had to know more about their murders than he’d let on.
And could she believe him? Or did he lure Howard and Vera to meet him? “I want to talk to you in person. In a public place. Are you still in somewhere near InnCon?”
“Why would I go home? They’d find me there just as easily.” Clint hesitated. “How can I be sure it’s safe?”
Lori pondered the question. If the same person who’d killed Howard and Vera was after Clint, where was safe? She looked around, like she could find a Wilmington landmark that they could meet at from inside the convention center.
Her gaze passed over a patrolling security officer who was probably off-duty police. The convention center. It was perfect. Clint knew how to find it, Lori was already there, plenty of witnesses around and security
to boot.
“Come down to InnCon,” she said. “Meet me outside the exhibit hall, the side facing the river.”
Over the line, she could hear Clint suck in a breath and blow it out slowly. “Fine,” he said at last. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
Lori tried not to exult at the little victory but failed, miserably. “Great. I’ll be waiting.”
She ended the call and started pacing almost right away. Twenty minutes suddenly felt like a long time. She scanned the immediate area. Although the armchairs made for a comfortable little seating area, she was still the only one using it now. She gathered up Howard’s laptop bag and made her way over to the designated meeting spot. The windows looked out over the Cape Fear River, and she tried to focus on that. More innkeepers and vendors milled around, and the doors behind her led directly into the fray of the exhibit hall. This was public enough to be safe, as long as she didn’t follow Clint anywhere else.
But if Clint was truly afraid for his own life, he probably wouldn’t want to suggest anything more “private” either.
Who was in more danger here? Clint or Lori herself?
Lori had enough time to work herself into a state of worry, wringing her hands and pacing, before someone behind her called her name. She braced herself for the confrontation and turned around — to find Tom the vendor approaching her.
“There you are!” he said, like he was relieved to find her. “The awards ceremony for the conference is starting soon. They’re trying to gather up all the nominees, and I thought you might like to be there to accept, in case Howard and Vera win.”
Lori shook her head a little, trying to process this information. The award ceremony already? Accept for Howard and Vera? She’d be honored to, of course, but — “Isn’t the award ceremony tonight?”
“Yes, of course,” Tom said. “But they’re doing the rehearsal now so things go smoothly later. They won’t really read off the winners. Gotta wait for that.” He winked. “I thought I might be able to find you, so I said I’d help.” He nodded for her to follow him.
“I’m supposed to be meeting Clint here,” she said. “Right now.”
Tom glanced around. Two innkeepers walked past, deep in conversation. Tom moved closer. “Clint Cooper? He won’t show his face here. Everyone knows what he did. I mean, what he probably did — they were at each other’s throats all the time.”
That was true, but Clint had agreed to come down. Would he show his face in a place where everyone thought he was a murderer?
Lori knew exactly how that felt, but she didn’t have much choice about showing her face in her adopted hometown this spring.
“I mean,” Tom said, “this is the guy who threatened a lady who was just looking to become an innkeeper in his town. He and Howard had bad blood that went back years.”
Lori glanced back at the door.
Tom beckoned for her to come on. “The ballroom is open to the exhibit hall. Lots more people in there than out here. We wouldn’t want another incident like two years ago. It would not end well for you.”
Lori remembered all the stories about Clint’s temper, and the terrible glint in his eyes when he was talking about Howard as his competition over dinner.
Was that why Clint had agreed to meet her? To hurt her?
It wasn’t worth the risk of sticking around to find out. Tom was taking her just a few feet away, to a group of people, to an even more public place — to safety. Lori nodded and hurried after him .
They cut through the exhibit hall to the grand ballroom on the far side. Without the dramatic lighting and blue lights on the stage, it seemed very mundane. A few tables were already in place at the front, but more round tables and chairs were still being set up for the awards gala tonight. Tom wove the way between the convention center workers rolling tables out to their positions, earning them both more than a few dirty looks.
“We’re supposed to be at rehearsal? In here?”
“They’re setting up.” Tom pointed at two workers pulling the legs of a round table out to set it up.
Lori nodded, trying to avoid another rolling table. Keeping up with Tom was taking a bit more focus than she’d anticipated.
“Hey!” A loud shout from behind them broke through the murmur of the convention crowd like a gunshot. Lori stopped and whirled around to see who’d called out.
At the far side of the ballroom stood Clint, running after them. The look on his face — pure rage contorting his features — froze Lori’s heart.
That was it. Exactly why he’d come here. To hurt her.
To silence her.
Tom grabbed her wrist. “Hurry!”
Lori ran as fast as she could to keep up with him. The laptop bag with Howard’s laptop banged against her thigh over and over until her leg was screaming from more than just the exertion.
They ducked into the back hallway, and Tom slowed down to navigate in the dim light.
“This is for the awards ceremony?” Lori asked.
“This is just to get you away from Clint,” he said. “That guy’s bad news.”
With the way he’d just been looking at her, Lori could hardly disagree.
“We’ll keep you safe back here.” Tom craned his neck, looking past the stacks of padded chairs for the ballroom. “Here’s good.” He ducked down a short hallway, lit with a single recessed light. The hallway ended in a white door. Tom pulled the door open and found a light switch. The overhead lights lit up in the small, windowless classroom.
This wasn’t an escape. This was a dead end.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Lori said quickly. “Let’s go back —”
“You sit tight in here. I’ll handle Clint,” Tom said. “Don’t worry. I’ve taken care of this before.”
Lori nodded, but still bit her lip as she watched him go. She didn’t like the idea of being alone in a room with no exits when someone who could look at her with that much hate was pursuing them. Tom might be a little taller than Clint, but Lori would feel better if she had more options.
She paced a minute, the laptop bag striking her thigh in spot that was already sore from running. Should she take off the bag for now?
Lori hesitated for one second before she pulled the strap off her shoulder. Howard wouldn’t want her to hurt herself — or his computer. She should probably make sure it was okay still. She opened the lid and the screen lit up.
Did she have time to check to make sure it was really okay, or should she be ready to run at a moment’s notice?
A dull thud sounded from the direction of the door. Lori set down the computer and rushed over.
If Clint was about to burst in here, the element of surprise would be the only advantage she had. She’d have to charge at him and hope to scare him enough to get past.
Or maybe she should just run now. Lori twisted the door handle.
It didn’t budge.
What?
Lori tried the door again, but it still didn’t move even an inch. The handle wasn’t locked.
The door was jammed.
As if someone had taken a chair and propped it under the handle.
“Hey!” Lori pounded a flat hand on the door. “There’s someone in here!”
“Stop, stop!” Tom called back. “Don’t make a fuss.”
“Excuse me? You trapped me in here!”
“Trapped?” He actually sounded hurt. “No, no, no. I’m trying to keep Clint out. Stay put and don’t shout. He’ll only find you faster.”
“Wait a minute!” When Tom didn’t respond, Lori pressed her ear to the door. She could just make out retreating footsteps over the concrete floor outside.
This made absolutely no sense. If Clint wanted to get to her, he could simply move the chair. This wasn’t helping. It was making her a sitting duck.
She turned back to the computer, which had finally loaded up. She picked it up and looked at the web page Arnie had used last. His online booking service settings.
Lori checke
d the address bar on the web browser. She definitely didn’t want to use the same provider after all the trouble Arnie, Howard and others had had with this dishonest service.
The web address began with bedandbookingz.com.
Tom’s company? She knew Tom and Howard had ended their business together badly, but she’d thought that was ages ago. Tom’s company was scamming Arnie and at least a couple other people.
That couldn’t be right. Lori looked again, but the address was the same. The web page showed Arnie’s information, just like she’d seen a few minutes ago.
Howard knew about this. He was the one who’d contacted Arnie and the others. He was trying to bring the information out. Tom had admitted that Howard used to use his service, and that they hadn’t parted on good terms. This had to be why.
If Howard and Arnie and the rest came forward with this information, Tom’s company would lose a lot more than fifteen hundred dollars. They’d lose everything.
Was that worth killing over?
Not to any sane person, but . . . in a fit of passion, maybe?
And she’d thought Clint might have killed him in a fit of passion. Now it looked like the real killer had lured her here to “protect” her from Clint.
Lori smacked her own forehead. Meeting in a public place was Clint’s idea. He wouldn’t have proposed that if he meant to hurt her. Idiot. She’d gotten swept up in emotions for a few minutes, and now the only person who knew where she was — the person who’d trapped her here — was probably the biggest threat.
What could she do? Lori looked around the room, setting aside the laptop. Surely there was an emergency exit. Shouldn’t every room in this place have two exits?
Apparently this room was an exception. No windows, no other doors, not even a closet. Just stacks of chairs.
Maybe she could push a stack over and have it fall against the door to dislodge it? Or would that just make it even more stuck?
Lori paced around the vacant room. There had to be something she could do.
She picked up the computer again. Could she send an email?
To whom? Mitch? Chief Branson? She didn’t know his email address — and she’d really rather reach someone who could get there faster than them.
