33
In the morning, Mr. Gilfilen was still alive in the ICU in a Portland, Oregon, hospital, Kellen had donned her Kevlar vest under her shirt and was carrying her pistol and the Yearning Sands guests were being kindly ushered out the door. Finding guests accommodations elsewhere was easy enough in the off-season and with such a reduced guest list. The official story was that a structural problem had been uncovered in the recent construction. Most of them had heard some version of the real story and were more than willing to accept a voucher or better accommodations elsewhere.
No one could find Nils Brooks to ask him to leave—dark and suspicious mutterings were heard—and Kellen felt her suspicions of him rise once more.
Carson Lennex flatly refused to go. The resort was, he said, his home, and no killer was going to chase him away. Which in the circumstances was damned shady, to say the least.
As people came and went, Max made himself useful, carrying bags, helping Frances and Sheri Jean contact the other resorts, reassuring the guests. More than that, he was the security manager, he was clearly packing a firearm and he was visible. His size alone, packaged nicely in that dark suit, seemed to reassure everyone and keep terror at bay.
Kellen personally arranged transportation for those headed to the airstrip and organized the farewell appetizers and beverages in the lobby for every departing guest. Finding the necessary staff to handle the workload proved the real challenge; most of the spa staff called in sick or scared, some of the maids and desk staff simply didn’t come to work and the security center was unmanned. Chef Reinhart and Chef Norbert arrived separately, both bearing well-sharpened butcher knives in their belts; the sous chef for each was a no-show. That created a great kerfuffle in the kitchen as they shouted commands at each other, until Gabriella got tired of listening and made them chop for her.
Birdie drove the first group to the airstrip to catch Chad Griffin’s plane to Seattle, but when Kellen tried to locate Temo for the second shift, he was unreachable, and she wanted to find him, shake him, make him be the Temo she believed him to be.
The last group out the door was the Shivering Sherlocks; they were scheduled to check out today anyway, but Kellen gave them a voucher for one night free on their next visit and got into the driver’s seat to take them to the airstrip. Mitch came along to serve the food and drink, and to charm the women with his good looks and flattery.
That was fine with Kellen. Her focus kept wandering, running through the suspects in her mind. To pick up a gun and shoot someone required a cold purpose—or a hot temper. But to deliberately attempt to strangle a man, to watch him kick and struggle, then when he was subdued, to take a sharp blade and try to sever his hand…that was cold. That was vicious.
Mr. Gilfilen had lived, but what had he done to his attacker to escape? He couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t tell anyone. He was unconscious, recovering from surgery, fighting for his life. She would figure this out, and she would get her revenge. For Mr. Gilfilen, and for all of the victims who had died for this deadly game of smuggling. She would get revenge for herself, too. She’d come back to the United States determined to work hard, play hard, be strong, be brave for all the days that were left to her. Not to witness more pain. Not to fight an unseen foe who lived for blood and cruelty.
Who was it?
She glanced at Mitch, half-turned toward the back, asking the Shivering Sherlocks about their mystery weekend, asking what they would remember when they got home.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll remember.” Candy sat directly behind the driver’s seat, and she leaned forward and spoke right in Kellen’s ear. “The guest bath in Carson Lennex’s penthouse was busy, so I hustled upstairs to his suite to use the potty up there. Guess what I found?”
“Tell me you didn’t dig through his nightstand and find his porn,” Rita said.
“Not porn.” In the rearview mirror, Kellen saw Candy frown. “I don’t think. It certainly wasn’t hidden away.”
Nancy leaned forward out of the very back seat. “What was it?”
Candy said, “He had these stone statues on glass shelves with lights under each one, and I’m telling you, girls—”
Kellen found herself breathing slowly, steadily, listening intently.
“—if we ever met a man with a package like that,” Candy continued, “we’d run for the hills.”
“What was it?” Tammy asked.
“Some kind of fertility god, I suppose. Gross, this little guy holding this penis twice his size.” Candy must have made a gesture, because the women whooped with laughter.
Abruptly, Mitch turned around and faced front.
Because the Shivering Sherlocks were giving him the very information he needed? Or because he was embarrassed by a group of elderly women hooting about a man’s genitals?
“Sounds like an Inuit fertility god,” Rita suggested.
“Exactly.” Candy sounded pleased with the idea. “There was a female statue, too, all fat and pregnant, an exaggeration of fertility. Carson Lennex collects some pretty weird stuff.”
“Probably he didn’t think anyone would see it,” Patty said.
“He wasn’t too worried about it. There was backlighting.” Candy sounded as if she had settled back against the seat. “Those things were the grossest statues I ever saw. Art! Heaven preserve me.”
“Come on. Don’t you remember the toilet paper cover my grandmother crocheted? The one with the Barbie doll standing in the middle of the cardboard tube, and the crocheted part hung over the toilet paper and looked like a skirt?”
Kellen glanced in the rearview mirror.
Candy waggled her head. “You’re right—that was worse. But only because it was so tacky. I’m pretty sure this was art.”
Mitch was frowning, his cheeks flushed, his elbow on the window ledge, his hand over his mouth.
Kellen had to get these ladies out of here and to safety.
A charter plane waited for the Shivering Sherlocks. Kellen and Mitch loaded them and their luggage and waved them goodbye, then piled into the van. Kellen got behind the wheel and they headed for the resort. “Mitch, what are you thinking?”
He pulled a wad of dollar bills out of his pocket. “I’m thinking that, for as much trouble as they were, those old ladies didn’t tip very well.”
“I mean…what are you thinking about the situation we have here at the resort? About the violence. What do you think is happening?”
“Have you seen Temo?” He sounded tense, terse, intent.
“I haven’t seen much of him, no.” She’d heard him in the maintenance garage. She’d heard him on the phone. But other than the brief chat in the resort kitchen, she hadn’t seen him.
“I’ll be frank with you. He’s got me worried. Working weird hours, mad at the world, talking about family. His mother recently went to prison, and did you hear about the stepfather?”
“I… No. I didn’t hear anything about his stepfather.”
“Temo told me he’s going to kill him.”
Kellen put it together. “Because of his sister?”
“He said he put the girl with relatives, but he hasn’t called her and he won’t say anything about her. I don’t know.” Mitch seemed bewildered. “When Temo lost his leg, he went violent. And that poor fellow who died—”
“Lloyd Magnuson?”
“Yes, him. Temo was the last one to see him. What is he thinking? Why would he kill him?”
Kellen’s doubts twisted and changed. Was Mitch deliberately misleading her, turning the evidence toward Temo? But he wasn’t, really. Only reminding her of Temo’s odd and disturbing actions. Even so, it was Mitch she mistrusted. Mitch had never done anything Kellen could put her finger on, yet he smiled when he should frown, moved when he should be still. When he spoke of his parents, he did so with reverence, but to her knowledge, in all the time he’d been here, he never contacted them and not once had he passed on family news or anecdotes. Not that Kellen trusted Temo, but more than that, the way Mitch looked at his own hands made her think she should get a message to Nils Brooks about the statues in Carson Lennex’s care.
She projected a mix of worry and urgency—and she wasn’t acting. “Do we have other guests to be transported?”
“I didn’t think you ever forgot anything like guests and their comings and goings.” But he didn’t seem unduly suspicious. He seemed preoccupied. “The newlyweds were fighting and they didn’t get ready in time to go with the Shivering Sherlocks. They should be in the lobby now.”
“Please take them to the airstrip while I search for any remaining guests and the employees who haven’t checked in.” She stopped the van under the portico and grasped Mitch’s hands. “Thank you for warning me about Temo. I swear, when this is over, you’ll get your reward.”
Mitch looked as if he didn’t know if he’d been praised or threatened, and for sure he didn’t want to take the newlyweds anywhere. But he didn’t challenge Kellen, and as she fled into the lobby and up the stairs to Annie’s office, he was rounding up the newlyweds and loading them into the van.
Kellen hoped he would stop at the kitchen for their appetizers, but she was willing to bet the fighting newlyweds were getting the Shivering Sherlocks’ leftovers. In the meantime, she needed to track down Nils Brooks. She called him, left a message. Texted him that she knew where the stolen tomb artifacts were. Got no response.
She got a text from Max. Can you come to security?
She hurried.
He sat alone in the room, facing the wall of monitors. He beckoned her over. “Look at this.”
She joined Max and watched as Mr. Lennex walked along an empty fifth-floor corridor, holding something that looked like a big flat book. He looked around to make sure he was alone, then disappeared into the housekeepers’ storage closet. He came out with another big flat book, a little larger, but he was holding it by the corners, looking at it and smiling.
He was holding a painting of some kind.
“What the hell?” Max said.
Light dawned in a slow, warm sunshine. “That’s it. That’s what he’s been doing.” Kellen kissed Max on the cheek. “Thank you. You’re brilliant!” She ran toward the door, turned back. “Have you seen Nils Brooks?”
“Not at all.” Max had his hand on his cheek and he watched her like…like Hagrid viewed a new dragon egg.
Damn it. Mara was right. As if things weren’t complicated enough, Max was interested. She backed toward the door and out. “If you see him, I really need to speak to him.”
As the door shut, she heard him say, “Hmm.”
What did that mean? Nothing good, she was sure.
She beat Carson Lennex back to his suite. She knocked, and when he didn’t answer, she let herself in, left the door open behind her and went up the spiral stairs to the bedroom. Exactly as Candy had said, the sculptures were displayed against a lighted backdrop that underscored the skill of the artists who had created them.
From downstairs, she heard Carson call, “Hello?”
“I’m up here, Mr. Lennex.”
He ran lightly up the stairs, and at the sight of her, he lifted his eyebrows. “I’ve had a lot of women trick their way into my bedroom, but I never imagined you’d be one of them. Aren’t I lucky!” His Irish accent gave the words a sardonic quality, and he joined her to look at the sculptures. “But I suspect I’m mistaken in your intentions.”
“None of the housekeeping staff came in today. I could make your bed while I’m here.” She took the painting out of his hands. “May I?” Splatters and squares made up the image. “Is it good?”
“Very good. It’s an original Jacie Merideth. I imagine when she did the painting for the resort, she was an unknown. Now this is worth tens of thousands.”
Kellen shook her head and handed it back to him. “I thought you were stealing toilet paper.”
Carson threw back his head and laughed loud and long. “Now you know. You wouldn’t believe the decorations hidden away in storerooms here. No one ever goes through it. No one ever throws anything away.”
Kellen thought of the car manuals Birdie was tossing. “I would believe it.”
“Searching through the junk—and it is mostly junk—satisfies the archaeologist in me, because every once in a while, I find a treasure. Two years ago, I decorated my suite in 1950s kitsch.”
“Annie knows you’re doing this?”
“Of course. Miss Adams, I’m not a thief. Nothing ever leaves the premises. It simply gets redistributed.”
“What about these?” She gestured at the stone statues, fierce, sexual, powerful.
“Those are an anomaly. I can’t imagine who brought them to the resort in the first place.” He propped the painting on his dresser. “It’s not standard hotel room decoration, not in any era. All I can figure is one of the suite residents was a wealthy collector and died either without heirs or with heirs who cared for nothing but the money, and these got stashed and lost forever.”
“Then you do know what they are.”
“Absolutely. It’s looted Central American tomb art. Probably been gathering dust for years.” He lost his patina of sophisticated amusement and became, for a few minutes, serious and a little impatient. “Don’t worry, Miss Adams, I wasn’t going to keep them. After I admired them for a few months, I was going to take them to Annie and have her donate them to the appropriate museum. I didn’t play Indiana Jones, but I agree with him. These belong in a museum.”
“Actually, these have only been at the resort since September.”
Carson must have caught a whiff of ominous, because his voice grew sharp. “How do you know that?”
“Are you aware of smuggling activities along the coast?”
“Right out there.” He gestured toward the dock. “I have the wraparound deck, I’m eight stories off the ground and I’m not blind. But I assumed…drugs?” He looked at the art. “Of course not. Why bother with drugs when you can make more with artifacts looted from World Treasure sites?” He swung to face her. “Why September?”
“Priscilla…”
“That girl? She was smuggling? No.” He was very certain. “She didn’t want to do the work to get rich. She wanted to sleep her way into it.”
“We speculate that she stole those items from the smugglers and—”
He caught on at once and finished the sentence for her. “They murdered her.”
“And drugged Lloyd Magnuson when he was to drive her body to the coroner and took the body before it could be examined.”
He looked again at the art and said in an astonished tone, “Damn. I could be in trouble. It’s all the fault of the tablet.”