Late Arrival: A Park Hotel Mystery (The Park Hotel Mysteries Book 4)

by Diane Capri

  “Are the sandbags going to hold?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Okay, we’ll have to hunker down here and ride it out.” He looked at me. “I’m sorry, Andi.”

  I suspected he was apologizing for all kinds of things.

  He said, “We can’t go out and look for Ginny. It’s too dangerous.”

  “It’s okay. I understand.”

  “As soon as it dies down, we’ll go. I promise.”

  I nodded.

  “In the meantime, there’s a cot in the back. You should try to get some sleep. I’ll get you a blanket.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  When he rushed into the back to get me a blanket, I grabbed my jacket from the chair I’d set it on to dry out. I had to take it with me to the back for when Ivan called. Once that happened, I didn’t know how I was going to get away from the sheriff’s prying eyes, but I had to find a way. Ginny was counting on me, and I would never let her down again.

  Chapter 22

  I jerked awake, sitting up, my heart in my throat, forgetting where I was and what I was doing here. When I remembered I was in the sheriff’s station and why, I lay back down and took in a deep breath. I had been dreaming. Dreams of rough water and bleak darkness and death.

  Ginny had been there. So had Ivan and Victor. And Luke.

  I scrubbed at my face, not wanting to think about what had happened in my dream. I blinked up at the ceiling, listening for the sounds of the storm, but didn’t hear any. It was still dark in the room. I reached over to the floor and found my jacket, pulling the disposable phone from the pocket.

  It read 7:30 a.m. There were no missed calls or texts on it. Sighing, I slid it back into my jacket and then sat up. My bare feet pressed against the cold floor. I shivered, realizing my body still had the chills. I wondered if that cold would ever go away.

  After putting on socks, I stood, then left the room and padded into the kitchen. The smell of toast and jam wafted to my nose, and my stomach grumbled in response, reminding me I hadn’t eaten in quite a while. I saw that a fresh pot of coffee had been brewed, and I gratefully poured a cup and took a sip.

  “Did you sleep?”

  I turned to see Luke leaning against the door jam. He looked tired and worn, but still strong.

  I smiled. “Yeah, a little.”

  “Good.” He came into the room and put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed, then dropped it. “The worst of the storm has passed. It’s still raining, but the winds have died down.”

  “I should get back to the hotel, help clean up. I imagine it’s a madhouse there.”

  He nodded. “Eat something, and then I’ll take you up.”

  “Thanks.”

  “We’ll find Ginny,” he said.

  “I know. I have faith she’s all right. I don’t think Victor would hurt her. He’s after his money, that’s all.”

  He eyed me for a long moment, nodded again, and left. I was glad he didn’t press me, although I sensed he knew I was keeping something from him. I trusted him implicitly. If I told him, I had no doubt he’d do his level best to save Ginny. The only thing that kept me from telling him was the fear that Ivan would do precisely what he’d promised if I told. I couldn’t risk it. I needed to get back to my suite so I could figure out how to save Ginny without anyone getting hurt.

  After I’d wolfed down the toast and snagged a banana, Luke drove me to the hotel. Main Street was a mess as we drove over fallen branches and garbage in the street. He dodged a couple of flags ripped from poles and strewn on the ground. At one point, we drove through a fairly deep puddle, and the water almost covered the wheels. But it was heartwarming to see people already out on the street, cleaning up, helping their neighbors keep their shops and livelihoods from being completely ruined.

  As we came around the turn of Rose Lane, I spotted Daisy outside the kennels with a couple of other people cleaning up the street.

  “Can you stop for a minute?” I asked Luke.

  He pulled over so I could roll the window down. Daisy came over when she saw me.

  “Quite the storm,” she said.

  “Are you good? How are Scout and Jem?”

  She reached in through the window and patted my hand. “They’re good. No problems. My place is a fortress. It was a lot of noise. I stayed with everyone the whole time.”

  I swallowed the panic that had been welling. “You are an angel, Daisy.”

  She shrugged and grinned. “It’s possible.”

  “I have to go to the hotel to help clean up, but I’ll be down soon to check on them.”

  “They’re fine. I gave them some fresh tuna earlier and some catnip, so they are literally living the high life right now.” She smiled and then turned to go back to the cleanup.

  At the hotel, Luke parked in the lot, and we went inside together. He wanted to check out Victor’s hotel suite. There was a lot of activity in the lobby. People sweeping floors and picking up debris. Mick from maintenance and a few others, including Nancy and Tina from the cleaning staff, had just finished erecting a plastic sheet over the broken windows. The electricity had been restored, so there was that buzz of activity with the front staff on computers, probably helping guests sort out their disrupted travel plans. There wouldn’t be any planes or ferries leaving the island today.

  Lois was in the middle of it all, directing and organizing cleanup efforts in addition to the hundreds of things she did every day. The moment she spotted us, she came over. She hugged me.

  “Any news?”

  I shook my head and grabbed her hand. “I promise she’s okay, Lois, and we will get her back unharmed.”

  Luke glanced briefly at me and then looked back at Lois. “I want to check out Victor Minsky’s suite.”

  She nodded. “It’s suite 222.” She handed me a master key, and off we went.

  I unlocked the door to the suite, and we went inside. It was immaculate. Nothing had been touched or moved. It looked like no one had even been inside. I checked the bathroom. Everything was in place. No glasses had been used—they still had the wrapping on them. No soaps or shampoos opened. Towels were still folded neatly on the shelves, exactly as the housekeeping crew had placed them.

  I came out of the bathroom to see Luke pulling open drawers—all empty. He went to the closet and opened the doors. It was empty save for the hangers and the ironing board nestled inside. The bed was untouched, unruffled, not a pillow or chocolate mint out of place.

  “The staff wouldn’t have cleaned the rooms yet, would they?”

  I shook my head. “No, not with the storm damage last night. That would’ve taken priority.”

  Luke said, “It doesn’t even look like he was ever here.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. He checked in two days ago.”

  “He wasn’t staying here, then. Must be holed up somewhere else. Probably the same place he’s taken Ginny.”

  After we left the room and returned to the lobby, he said, “I need to take a drive to all the other hotels and B&Bs again. Maybe I’ll get lucky, and someone will have seen him and Ginny.”

  “Okay. I’m going to stay here and help out as much as I can. If Ginny gets in touch, she’ll call here.”

  He nodded and then went to touch my face, but as if remembering himself and where we were, in the middle of a crowded lobby, he quickly snatched his hand back. “We’ll talk soon.” He walked toward the exit.

  “Oh, I don’t have a phone, so if you want to reach me, you’ll have to call the front desk.”

  “Will do.”

  The moment he was gone, I went back to my suite. I needed a shower and to change, and to think. There had to be a way to find Ginny. They would’ve ridden out the storm somewhere, like the rest of us had.

  My suite hadn’t sustained any real damage. Luckily, I’d closed my patio door before I left, so no rainwater had gotten in. The patio didn’t get away unscathed, though. The table and chairs were strewn onto their sides. One of the chair legs wa
s bent. One of the bushes next to the cement berm had been ripped from its roots and was now pressed up against the glass patio door as if it had tried to come in out of the storm.

  I looked out at the grounds beyond my patio and saw sad destruction. Tree branches fallen, flowers and plants pulled from soil beds. There was even an umbrella from one of the outside tables at the restaurant rolling around the grounds from the wind. Beyond that, the water on the lake rolled, still looking a little wild, though thankfully, no twenty-foot waves like there had been last night. As I watched, I saw one of the ferries taking a test run out onto the water. I was surprised it hadn’t been damaged in the docks.

  I’d have to take care of the mess on my patio later. Right now, I needed to chase the cold from my body. I was still shivering. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I ended up sick in the next few days. I jumped into the shower and turned the water as hot as I could stand it.

  I lifted my face to the spray and tried to clear the cobwebs in my head.

  I was missing something. I had to be. I felt like the answer was right in front of me, but I couldn’t see it through the fogginess of my brain.

  I got out, toweled off, and changed into chinos and a long-sleeved cotton shirt. I made some tea, carried it into the living room, and sat on the sofa. I opened up my laptop and typed Victor Minsky Ivan Sorokin into the browser. There was a connection between them, and Jeremy, and me. I knew there was. There had to be. It was pricking the edge of my memory. Poke. Poke. Poke. What was it?

  I stood, frustrated, and paced the room, going through it all in my mind. The thread. It had started somewhere, but where? As I passed by my shelf, I noticed my framed pictures were knocked over, a couple of books on their sides. Maybe some wind had gotten through the crack in the balcony door.

  I set them upright and then spotted a couple things on the floor. One was a crime novel, and the other was a postcard. I plopped the book onto the others and then picked up the postcard and leaned it against the framed picture of Ginny’s family. My gaze had just brushed over the postcard as I was turning away, when I froze, then frowned and turned back to look at it again.

  I picked it up, reading the words, reading the Russian scrawled at the top. It was from one of my clients at the firm. Beatrice Sorokin.

  Sorokin.

  Ivan Sorokin.

  That couldn’t be a coincidence.

  I took the postcard back to the sofa. On my laptop, I typed in Beatrice Sorokin Victor Minsky. The first entry was a newspaper article that listed them both as contributors to a national children’s charity, but their names were among thousands. The second was another article in Business Weekly. I clicked on it, and a photo of a group of people popped up. In it, Beatrice and Victor stood side by side. They had done business together.

  I leaned back into the sofa and blew out a breath. I remembered my conversation with Beatrice when I’d first been suspended from the firm over Jeremy’s embezzlement. She’d said, “He’d been stealing from me for years.”

  I’d thought at the time that she meant Jeremy was embezzling from her client accounts at the firm. But now I understood that Jeremy had also stolen even more of her money and Victor’s money and deposited into some foreign bank account that they hadn’t known existed. That account information was on the SIM card. Which was why they wanted it back. And really, they were entitled to it.

  Leaning forward onto my elbows, I scrubbed my face. I couldn’t believe it. I had a hard time reconciling the sweet elderly lady who had served me tea on several occasions after I walked her cute little dog with money laundering and Russian thugs.

  I shook my head, trying to put all the pieces together. I looked at the computer screen again, making sure I hadn’t misread, when my gaze landed on another link lower on the first page of entries. Two words popped out at me. Sorokin and boat.

  I clicked on the link, and up popped a small story with a photo in a boating magazine. It was a short piece about a recent yacht purchase and the buyer. The photo was a smiling Beatrice Sorokin. Behind her was a large boat moored in a dock. The name of the boat was the Magpie.

  I’d seen that name before. I’d seen that boat before.

  I remembered it from when I went to talk to June at her shop a while ago. It had been docked in our marina.

  Chapter 23

  That had to be where Ginny was. On the Magpie. Ivan had been hiding out there. Victor had stayed there instead of his suite at the Park. The boat must’ve been out on the water the day I followed Ivan to the marina. Hadn’t there been a couple of empty slips when I was there?

  I wondered if Beatrice was here on the island as well, watching me the whole time, waiting for Jeremy to show up to collect his little insurance policy. She must’ve known Jeremy hadn’t given the information up to the authorities, or else they would’ve all been arrested.

  I got to my feet. I had to get the jump on them. I knew where they were. They didn’t know I’d figured it out. They thought I’d wait for their call, as Ivan had instructed.

  I had to be prepared this time. I ran into the bathroom and grabbed the plastic bag with the SIM card inside. This was my trump card. Using pink duct tape—it was the only color I had—I strapped the baggie to my torso. I made sure it was secure and it wouldn’t come off unless I wanted it to.

  After slipping my jacket on, I put the pepper spray in one pocket and made sure the burner phone was in the other. I slid my arms into the dark-blue rain slicker Luke had given me last night. I patted the pocket where I had stuffed the taser gun I’d pilfered from the storage room when he wasn’t looking. I knew how to use one. California could be a dangerous place, and I’d taken training classes.

  I thought again briefly about telling Luke, but I’d be putting Ginny in more danger. No, I would go in and find Ginny on my own. They weren’t expecting me. I could rescue her before they suspected anything.

  I left the hotel through one of the side doors, feeling like I was sneaking out when Lois needed me, but it couldn’t be helped. I commandeered one of the golf carts and took it down the hill to the village. It wasn’t a smooth ride. The wind still whipped up every now and then, flapping at my jacket and making the cart rock, and I had to stop at one point to move a fallen tree branch to the side of the road.

  I drove along Main Street, past the kennels and the stores and the people who were cleaning up, and parked near the fish-and-chips shop. I went around the building and peered at the marina. It was a shocking mess, to be sure. Some of the smaller boats had been washed up onto the docks, battered by the crashing waves and brutal winds. There were wooden boards floating in the water from broken hulls and busted rails. It was sad to see, knowing some people quite possibly had lost their livelihoods. But there was no sign of the yacht called the Magpie.

  Where was the boat? There had to be other places around the island where boats could moor.

  Instead of jumping back into the cart, I walked along Main Street to the ferry dock. I needed information and the two best sources, JC and Reggie, were helping in the efforts to repair the pier and the main building. It looked like some of the windows and doors had been blown in, and a few of the rigging poles on the pier had been bowed.

  Reggie nodded in greeting when he spotted me. “Hello, Park Hotel lady. How are you this fine brisk morning?”

  “Tired.” I picked up the hammer he was reaching for and handed it to him. “How’s the damage? Fixable?”

  “Oh yeah. These docks are built to last. We’ve been here for forty years, and we’ll be here another forty.” He smiled. “How’s the hotel?”

  “Not bad. A few broken windows and downed trees, but nothing that can’t be fixed.”

  “Exactly,” he said with flourish.

  “Hey, Reggie, I was wondering if there are other places to moor a big boat?”

  “How big?”

  I shrugged. “Luxury-yacht size.”

  His brow wrinkled. “Only a couple places for those. One on the north end of the island, and the
other—”

  “Below the bluffs at the hotel.”

  He nodded. “Yup, that’s the one.”

  I remembered the ferry stopping in deep but calm water there after we’d spotted Jeremy’s body on the rocky shore.

  “How do I get there?”

  “You’d have to take a boat out of the harbor and go around by water. Other than that, you could climb down the bluff from the hotel.”

  I frowned, not liking either of those options. Taking a step back, I let Reggie return to his work. I walked out toward the pier, wondering if there was a boat I could borrow. Not that I knew how to captain a boat. That’s when I spotted someone familiar getting into one of the county patrol boats.

  “Hey, Shawn.”

  He turned and frowned as I approached him. “The sheriff send you to bust my balls about something?”

  “Nope. I was just wondering where you’re going.”

  “Assessing the damage to the docks around the island. Why?”

  “Because I need to get around to the mooring spots near the west bluff.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What’s in it for me?”

  I shook my head. “You can’t just do a citizen a good turn?”

  “Not when it’s for you, Nancy Drew. You’ve screwed up my life enough already.”

  I couldn’t really argue his point. So I shrugged. “What do you want?”

  “I don’t want to be transferred.”

  “That’s not something I can change.”

  “Sure it is. You most definitely have the sheriff’s ear, among other things.”

  “Fine. But you need to fix your attitude and how you behave. And you could do a better job, too. That’s why you’re being transferred, not because of anything I’ve said.”

  He held out his hand. “Deal.”

  I shook it, and he helped me into the boat. As he powered out of the harbor, the wind and rain picked up. I looked across the lake to see more black clouds blowing in our direction.