Love, Laodice (Olympus Inc. #5)

Chapter Twelve

I t was a gloomy breakfast, only slightly alleviated by the waffles and bacon on offer. Laodice did observe that Sarah seemed to have given up on the no-caffeine rule; she was sucking down black coffee herself.

Hazel wasn’t there.

“She’s under observation at the hospital,” Alma said, when Yvette asked. “She was in shock, and they were worried—anyway, while I was there I heard that Jesse’s family are on their way. They plan to get a hotel in the Hippocampus, and I guess she’ll join them when she’s discharged.” She scrubbed her face with her palms.

“Are you okay?” Laodice asked.

Alma sighed. “Mostly I couldn’t do anything except be there. I was an E.R. nurse for a while, and that can be awful, but at least you can try to treat people. Just sitting with Hazel was hard.”

Yvette nodded. “Are they taking Jesse home for services?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Mortuary transport across state lines can be complex,” Yvette said, and looked to Xavier. “We could help…?”

He patted her hand. “I think they’ve got it handled, babe.”

Most of what Laodice knew about claiming and transporting bodies she’d picked up from the movie Little Miss Sunshine , which she didn’t think was an authoritative guide. But it was interesting that Yvette, at least, seemed to behaving under the assumption that Jesse’s was a natural death, one where the police would promptly release the body.

Sarah put her coffee down and coughed for attention. “I know this puts a damper on the Halcyon experience,” she said.

“You think?” Patrick muttered.

“—but since we have been asked to stay, and the activities have all been organized in advance, you’re all welcome to participate.”

“We’ve been asked to stay,” Patrick said, louder, and folded his arms. “I’m not convinced we should.” He turned to Telfer and Laodice. “What actually happened?”

“We went for a walk, and discovered Jesse’s body,” Telfer said. Laodice admired the neat summary that left out so many pertinent details.

“Do the police think there was foul play?” Samuel asked, looking queasy.

“You’d have to ask them,” Telfer said.

Yvette straightened. “Wait, really? What did they ask you?”

Laodice wasn’t quite as good at deflection. “They wanted to know if we’d moved the body,” she admitted.

Xavier and Yvette exchanged a glance.

“Well, okay,” Patrick said, “But even if there was a crime, the police haven’t shown up with a warrant, they haven’t charged any of us, and they can’t keep us here.”

Sarah grimaced. “If the police decide you’ve left town to avoid arrest, they can also charge you with unlawful flight. You’d be extradited back here to face charges, and you wouldn’t get bail.”

“She’s right,” Xavier said officiously, but Laodice was most interested not in the information but that Sarah had been able to say it with so much easy authority. The added legal peril of people who tried to skip town following a crime wasn’t necessarily common knowledge.

“Anyway, regarding the program ,” Sarah said. “It might be better if we can all do something to keep our minds off all this. I’ll understand if anyone wants to skip today’s session, of course, but—”

“We’ll do it,” Xavier said, and when Yvette gave him an inquiring look, he smiled at her. “You’ll like it, babe. You like when you’re busy.”

“I do,” Yvette said, sounding more sure of herself.

“What’s the activity?” Erik asked.

Sarah beamed at him. “It’s all about living art as a memento of your love!”

“And what does that mean?” Britt said warily, but Sarah claimed the instructor would be able to explain it better.

The instructor was a tiny, wizened lady with a strong East European accent who could have been anywhere between sixty and ninety years old. She was a sculptor, a painter, a sex therapist—“what?” Telfer whispered in Laodice’s ear—a performance artist, a dramaturge, a striptease instructress—“ what?”— and they were permitted to call her Madame Esme.

The room had been set up with six curtained booths, like those that a pop-up massage kiosk in a mall might use. Madame Esme had taken center stage at the front of the room, standing in front of a table with six black boxes. She was leaning on a cane with a silver filigree head, her sharp black eyes flickering over each of the couples.

“Where are the sixth pair?” she demanded, and when Sarah stammered out an explanation, she took it in stride, apparently unsurprised by sudden death. “Very well,” she said. “Twelve would be better, but ten will work.” She stared at Sarah until she left, then beckoned the couples closer. “So,” she said. “You have all heard of the Belkovsky exercise?”

Nobody had. Madame Esme sighed, disappointed, yet not surprised by the undereducated youth, and explained that it was a theater exercise where the actors, naked in the dark, groped each other with painted hands. It was supposed to build unity and trust among casts.

“We were supposed to know that?” Telfer whispered.

“Shh!”

“As theater, love. As love, art,” Madame Esme concluded. She gestured at the table with the black boxes. “Take one. Retire. Explore. Record the results, if you wish.”

Xavier raised his hand. It should have been ridiculous, but it was in fact exactly the right move to signify the relative status of the people in the room. Madame Esme gave him permission to speak with a regal nod. “Um, are we supposed to all get naked with each other?” he asked. “I mean, uh, no offence if that’s what people are into, but—”

“No. Unless you have welcomed other lovers into your union?”

Xavier shook his head.

“So, then. Each box contains a different medium, which you will explore with your lover. You will have privacy of view behind the curtains, and I will play music, so that you will have privacy of sound. Should you breach the barriers of good taste I shall ask you to leave.” This, Laodice thought, meant that sex in the booths was out of bounds, but she wasn’t completely sure. Madame Esme struck her as someone who might dismiss a rule like that as American prudishness.

In any case, no one was brave enough to ask her directly. They grabbed boxes and went to their booths. Laodice, who had grabbed a surprisingly heavy box last, was all too aware of the one left on the table and the empty booth beside the one she and Telfer occupied.

“We begin!” Madame Esme said impressively, and a moment later loud orchestral music with plenty of horns and percussion rang through the room.

Telfer began to laugh. “Where did Sarah find her?” he asked. Laodice could hear him under the music, but if the others were saying anything, it wasn’t audible to her.

“She’s my new role model,” she said firmly. “I’m going to be just like her when I grow up.”

“You could do worse,” Telfer admitted. The booth contained a coat stand, presumably for their clothes, two narrow folding stools, and a polaroid camera, presumably so they could record the results. “What’s in our box?”

Laodice prised off the lid. “A lump of clay. Some plastic sheets, a bowl, a bottle of water…are we supposed to make something with this?”

“Or smear it on each other?” Telfer suggested, a glint in his eyes.

Laodice touched her freshly-washed hair protectively. “Maybe life-sized models of our naughty bits.”

Telfer made a sweeping gesture with his hands that encompassed her chest. “So there’d have to be a lot of clay.”

Laodice stared pointedly at his crotch. “Right back atcha.”

Telfer cracked up. He was actually giggling , Laodice thought, astonished and delighted. She reached up to cover his mouth, and he kissed her fingers, then her palms. It was an unexpectedly tender gesture, and she looked away, suddenly shy.

“We should probably do something ,” she said, and spread a few of the plastic sheets on the ground before she settled herself cross-legged, laid another sheet over her lap to protect her dress, and tried to mold the clay. It resisted her efforts at first, but as she added water and pressure, it softened.

Telfer took a lump too.

“So, first angle of attack?” he said, keeping his voice down despite the music.

“Talk to Alma and raise the blackmail theory,” Laodice said. “Better yet, maybe you should talk to Erik. I get the feeling he might be an easier nut to crack.”

“Erik doesn’t really talk,” Telfer said doubtfully, but he shrugged. “I’ll try.”

“I’ll talk to Patrick and Yvette. Let’s see if we can get a stronger idea of the timeline. If anyone saw Jesse after he left Patrick and Samuel’s room, we might have a better idea of what happened.” She glanced at Telfer’s art. He’d created a Venus of Willendorf type with enormous breasts, a full stomach, and massive thighs. Even as she watched, he rolled some thin tendrils of clay between his fingers and added them as hair, coiling them around the head until they met his standards. “Is that supposed to be me?”

“I’m following Madame Esme’s instructions,” Telfer said. “I’m exploring .” His face looked stern, even argumentative, but she thought she knew him better now. There was a tilt in the head, a gleam in the eye that hinted at humor rather than offense.

How often had she misinterpreted that face, and taken offense in her turn?

“So you are,” she said, and started rolling out her own long piece of clay. She gave it arms, bent to fold over the chest, and a head with an exaggerated nose.

“Hey,” Telfer said, so indignantly that she just had to tap his own nose, leaving a clay smear down the bridge.

“If the face fits,” she said, and he caught her wrist.

It was a playful gesture, but she caught her breath, suddenly very aware of the long, cool fingers wrapped around her forearm, of the constriction so light it was barely a hold.

Telfer’s eyes darkened. His grip tightened, then released her.

She wasn’t sure whether he moved first or she did, but they were suddenly pressed body to body, mouth to mouth, protected from the others by the curtained booth and the loud music. He wiped his hands on his pants before he stroked her neck, under the heavy mass of her hair, and that was… it was sweet, it was thoughtful.

But wait, Laodice thought (distantly, because Telfer was doing something fascinating with his tongue in her mouth) it didn’t matter if the others caught them doing this. They were supposed to be doing this. It was not doing it but pretending to that had been the cover, and now they were doing it for real—

She broke off the kiss, breathing heavily.

“Okay,” she said. “And I think you should talk to Carrick too. See if you can figure out what the blackmail material was, and if it was worth killing for.”

Telfer leaned his forehead against hers. His own breathing wasn’t steady. “Right. Uh, how long do you think this is going to go on?”

“The other activities were a couple of hours.”

“Okay,” Telfer said, and squished another lump of clay with some violence. “Well, if we’re keeping our clothes on, we might as well do something useful. Help me model this out.”

***

Telfer regarded the results of some minutes hard work with dissatisfaction. They had a rough clay model of the creek and the bank, with a little model of Jesse’s body. By mutual, silent agreement they hadn’t tried to give the face any features—better to distance themselves from the living man they’d known, if they were going to try to figure out his death.

“He was lying like this, I think,” Laodice said doubtfully, and made a gesture with her left hand, as if she was pressing down on something. “I touched… I think it was his arm, or his collar. I felt skin and cloth, I remember that.” She shivered, and went to wipe her palm on her skirt, then exclaimed in annoyance and wiped it on the plastic sheet instead.

Telfer thought about pointing out that they were both liberally smeared with clay, and it wouldn’t make any difference, but stopped himself at the last minute.

They stared at the sad little model. It wasn’t to scale, and neither of them had enough artistic skill to make anything realistic. Their memories of the creek had been fuzzy from the start, and were fading fast.

“This is useless, isn’t it?” Telfer said abruptly.

“Well, you wanted something to keep your hands busy,” Laodice said. “It was useful for that.”

Telfer glared at her, wanting to say something sharp about the wasted effort, but she was smiling at him, and he couldn’t stay angry.

“Fine,” he said, and sat back, listening to the music. The dramatic trumpets and drums they’d begun with had blended into something with lots of violins climbing on top of each other, and then something weird and atonal with an instrument Laodice had identified as a bassoon. Now the whole orchestra was joining in, kind of raggedly, sometimes playing on top of each other, but out of time.

“What is this?” he asked.

“I don’t know much about this kind of music,” she said.

“Well, it’s not my idea of romance. But you’re the expert. What do you think?”

She listened for a moment, and then shook her head. “Sexy, maybe. Kind of frenetic.” She looked at him for a moment. “What do you mean, I’m the expert?”

Telfer felt an unexpected heat in his face. “You’re an excellent wedding writer,” he said gruffly.

“Thank you,” Laodice said politely. “So are you.”

The music did something with cymbals, and Telfer jumped.

“But we both work in Bridal,” Laodice continued. “What makes me, particularly, the expert on romance?”

“You know how to do it,” Telfer said. He felt as if he were edging over a narrow bridge, while the precipice gaped below. “Date people, and have relationships, and so on. You’re good at it.”

“Oh,” Laodice said. “Thank you for noticing? I worked at it, you know. It’s not an inborn thing.”

Telfer thought she’d probably started with some natural talent, but he nodded anyway.

“My sisters laugh at me for caring too much about romance,” she said suddenly. “Xena once said that I’d fall in love with a mop, if it leaned against the wall in an appealing way. But I think who we love, who we bind ourselves to—that’s maybe the most important decision of our lives. People prepare for years for their jobs, they get expert advice on home ownership or personal finance. Why shouldn’t we train ourselves to love well? I’m not ashamed to say I want to be in love forever, that I want to marry someone great and be his, and have him be mine. And I want to do it right. It might be the most important thing I ever do.”

Telfer swallowed hard. “I hope you get that,” he said. “It sounds…that sounds really nice. And very sensible.”

Some tension went out of Laodice’s face. Her sisters laughed at her, she’d said. Did she think he might laugh at her too? “Have you thought about getting married, one day?” she asked.

“It doesn’t seem very likely,” Telfer said. “You might have noticed that I’m not the easiest person to love.”

“Oh, you’re not so bad,” Laodice said. Her voice was flippant, and he tried not to take it personally. A week ago, “not so bad,” would have been the nicest thing she’d ever said about him. “But I thought you’d be all about the practical side of marriage. You know, the financial and legal benefits. Maybe not so worried about the love part.”

“The benefits are substantial,” he admitted. “But my parents…you should have seen them. They were so in love. They were perfect for each other. I don’t think I could settle for less than that.”

Laodice stared at him.

“What?”

“You’re a bigger romantic than I am!” she said.

“I certainly am not.”

“Yes, you are! You want the perfect thing, and you won’t settle for less. I bet you believe in one true love.”

“Don’t you?” he countered.

“No,” Laodice said definitely. “I think everyone has many possible true loves, not one fated partner. I’ve been in love a lot, and sure, some of those loves were doomed from the start, but a lot of them could have worked out. They didn’t, but that doesn’t mean the possibility wasn’t there.”

“I’m not sure I’ve ever been in love,” Telfer said. “For a while, I wondered if I might be aromantic. But I don’t think so. I think I feel the pull towards it, the possibility, and then…I don’t let myself go any further. I want romance. But I don’t think I can do it right.” He stopped, appalled at how honest he’d been, at how vulnerable he’d made himself.

Laodice didn’t say anything immediately, and he braced himself for scorn. Or worse, pity.

“Thank you for trusting me with that,” she said quietly, and when he looked at her he saw…understanding. Sympathy, maybe, but not pity. “Love is hard. I wish more people would acknowledge that.”

“Or I’m a coward,” Telfer said, and Laodice tipped her head, considering.

“Cautious, maybe,” she said. “Coward, no.”

The music crashed through some strings, offered a flute trill, and ended abruptly on a final brash chord. In the absence of music, they distinctly heard a moan and a giggle from another booth, abruptly cut off.

“So!” Madame Esme said, and rapped her cane on the floor twice. “Dress, and rejoin me! Leave your art in the booth if you wish it to be private, or bring it with you for critique. You have until the song ends.”

Telfer had expected more classical music, but instead Beyoncé’s honey smooth voice greeted them, and ordered them to start snappin.’ Madame Esme, he thought, liked to defy expectations.

He quickly smushed the unhelpful and incriminating crime scene model into a clay lump, and tossed it in the box, while Laodice bundled up the plastic sheets.

“Wait,” she said, and went up on her tiptoes, brushing at the clay on his nose. Telfer caught her elbows on her way down and lifted her back up for a quick brush of his lips over hers.

She smiled at him, and ducked out of the booth.

Telfer stood still watching the curtain swish back and forth in her wake. The pull, the possibility, towards the most romantic person he knew. Who wanted him, sure, maybe even liked him. More than that, though? No.

“Not cautious,” he said, under his breath. “Just a coward.”

He went out to join the others. Laodice could have left the clay smear in place. Yvette and Xavier had chalk dust all over their hair and clothes, and Patrick and Samuel had splotchy paint handprints on their visible skin. Doubtless there were more under their clothes, from the way they grinned and nudged each other.

Carrick and Britt looked tidier, so he wasn’t sure what their art medium had been, but Alma and Erik, as they exited their booth and joined the others, were an unholy mess. Alma’s hair was matted on one side with something red and sticky, and she was wearing a necklace of fresh strawberry stalks, threaded through each other, with some of the bitten off fruit still clinging to a few of the green leaves. Erik had a white smudge in his golden curls, and the collar of his shirt had some dark stains with a distinctive scent.

Telfer sniffed. “Is that chocolate sauce?” he asked.

Erik grinned at him.

Telfer shook his head. “We got the dud box, honey,” he told Laodice.

“Oh, I don’t know. I rather liked your portrait work.”

Telfer thought of the sexy fat woman he’d rolled out of the clay and had to stifle a laugh. As if anyone could properly capture Laodice’s vibrant beauty in a still medium. She was a woman who needed to move.

And he was interested in getting her upstairs for some more movement as soon as possible. He didn’t think he was the only one looking for some action, if the flushed cheeks and stealthy glances among the others were any indication.

But as Esme finished her lecture on keeping creativity alive in their union, Sarah came in and announced that lunch was awaiting them.

No one seemed enthusiastic about this. Patrick actually groaned.

But getting some fuel wouldn’t be a terrible idea, Telfer decided. If he was going to be keeping up with Laodice he needed to maintain his stamina.

Laodice tugged on his hand, and he dipped his ear toward her lips. If he’d been expecting sweet nothings, he was sorely disappointed. “Sit with Erik,” she hissed. “Get him to talk.”

Oh, right. The murder .

***

Laodice respected the ease with which Telfer cut Erik out of the herd when they stepped into the lunch line. Apparently mindful of the need to keep her guests happy, Sarah had added a salad bar to the sandwich and fruit platters, and a chafing dish held a fragrant rice and prawn concoction. Kyle had obviously been sent to some more upmarket places in town.

“Oof, cilantro,” Alma said. She'd watched Telfer take Erik away for some guy chat without alarm, so she either had nothing to worry about, or she was an incredible actress.

“Have you got the soap taster gene?” Laodice asked, piling rice on her plate.

“No, it doesn't taste like soap to me. It just tastes bad.” She grabbed a sandwich instead, and then scanned the other offerings without enthusiasm. “Okay, not to be a bitch at a bad time, but isn't it kind of weird that literally nothing has been à la carte? We keep getting buffets or meals served without any choice.”

“I guess,” Laodice said. Should she let Alma in on the wage-skimming scam? No, Alma didn't have her need to watch the story unfold, and she didn't suffer fools without reason. She was totally capable of telling Sarah off, reporting her to her employer, and sweeping Erik away to a hotel in the Hippocampus for the rest of the week.

“The buffet is kind of fun, though,” she added, as they sat down. “Like summer camp, but tasty.”

Alma, as she'd hoped, took the diversion. “What kind of camp did you go to? I was a theater kid, so it was drama camps all the way for me.”

“Really! I would have thought you'd have been more science-oriented.”

Alma laughed. “I mean, that too, but we didn't have the money for space camp, which was what I really wanted. And drama camp gave me an audience, which I desperately needed, but didn't get a lot of. My sisters' dramas tended to take up most of the room at home.” She rolled her eyes companionably. “Listen to me, trauma-dumping my way to friendship. I should save this for therapy. I truly am interested, though, what kind of camps for you?”

“Xena did outdoor adventure camps and Cassie did creative writing, and I did anything which wasn't those, so I wasn't stuck between them,” Laodice said, with an honesty that startled her. Too late, she remembered that Elle Evagora didn't have a famous influencer sister with a unique name. Well, Alma already knew she wasn't Elle, and the others didn't seem to be paying attention to them.

Alma took a bite of her sandwich and made an encouraging noise.

“I love my sisters, but it was nice to have a few weeks a year when we weren't all over each other.” She thought. “Actually, this week has kind of been like that, too. Usually we're in the group chat every day. I feel like I have more room to do my own thing without the peanut gallery.”

Alma coughed. “I get that,” she said.

“It's just... I tell them everything. Maybe I don't need to.”

At some point, she supposed, she'd tell her sisters she'd slept with Telfer. Was going to continue to sleep with Telfer until Halcyon was done, all things going well, because wow , even hours after the sex, her body was still singing with it. But if she told them now, Cassie would be not-saying a lot of advice, and Xena would be aggressively enthusiastic about it and...she didn't want that. She wanted it to be this thing between her and Telfer, this surprisingly honest, extremely hot thing where they were both into each other, and didn't need to mediate that through anyone else.

And as a bonus, she wasn't going through her usual mental checklists about whether he was meeting her romantic needs and whether this might be a more permanent arrangement, because it so clearly couldn't be. It was weirdly relaxing, to not have that on her mind.

Alma's coughing fit had gotten worse.

“Are you okay?” Laodice asked, reaching for the carafe of water to pour her some, but Alma clutched her wrist, her eyes going wide.

“Nuts,” she forced out, the word forced from her throat, her breathing hoarse. She pointed at the sandwich she'd taken two bites from.

“Oh, fuck,” Laodice said, and stood up. Alma didn’t have a purse with her. “Erik! Do you have an epi pen?”

Erik turned from where he was talking to Telfer, and his face was lit with horror as he rushed to Alma's side. He yanked an epi pen from his pocket, muttered something to himself, then stabbed it into Alma's thigh.

The room was full of gasps and wide eyes.

“Call an ambulance,” Laodice snapped at Sarah, and helped Erik ease the stricken woman to the ground. You were supposed to keep people still and quiet, she remembered, to slow the allergic reaction.

“I—” Sarah said, staring at her. “I—”

“Now!” Laodice said, but Telfer had pulled out their burner phone and was already dialing.

“Hey, you're not supposed to have that,” Xavier said indignantly

Laodice was about to explode at him, but Yvette actually snapped, “Not the time, Xavier!” as she hurried over. “I did a first aid course, can I help?”

“I think it's working,” Erik said, watching Alma's face anxiously. Her eyes were closed, but she had a grip on his hand, and her breathing sounded more measured. “What was it? What was the nut?”

Yvette poked through the sandwich. In between slices of cold smoked chicken and juicy tomato was a tiny brown smear. “Peanut sauce, I think.”

Erik went white around the lips. “That's the worst one. Maybe we should get the second pen from upstairs.”

“I think I’m okay,” Alma said, her voice raspy, but audible.

“The ambulance is on its way,” Telfer said, sounding wonderfully calm and composed. He wasn't crowding the three of them where they were crouched over Alma, and Laodice caught the look he gave warning Patrick back when the other man would have come closer. He was so good in a crisis. He'd checked Jesse's pulse to make sure, when she'd still been freaking out, and he'd seen that Sarah wasn't capable of action. Now he was keeping the space around Alma clear and calm, without calling attention to himself or what he was doing.

Laodice did like a reliable man.

Alma managed to walk out to meet the ambulance, holding Erik's arm for support. The rest of them watched from the lobby, and Laodice wasn't the only one who sighed with relief when the EMT fitted the oxygen mask over her face and closed the door on her, whisking Alma and Erik away.

“Well!” Sarah said. “That was unfortunate. Um, it's siesta time now, so please feel free to rest and relax...”

Laodice had had enough. “Can I speak to you for a minute?” she snapped.

Sarah's eyes darted around the audience. “Sure! Can it wait until—”

“No,” Laodice said, and took off towards the staff door behind the bar, waving Telfer off when he made a motion to follow. Sarah scurried to keep up with her, apparently deciding that discretion was the better part of Laodice shouting at her in front of eager listeners.

The staff door opened onto a white-painted back room with a cluster of empty office cubicles and industrial carpet. It was nothing like the lavishly decorated guest spaces, but pretty much what Laodice had expected, down to the dusty desks where more staff should have been. There were a few dark office spaces towards the back, and one lit-up—Sarah's office, presumably. A server cupboard hummed to one side, peculiarly loud in the silent room.

“Now, what's this about?” Sarah asked, forced sweetness in her voice.

Laodice whirled on her. Confronting a potential murderer without witnesses was probably stupid, but she was betting on herself winning any bare-knuckle physical confrontation, and there wasn't room in Sarah's sleeveless black shift dress for a weapon.

“Did you kill Jesse?” she demanded. “Did you try to kill Alma?”

Sarah's jaw dropped. “No!”

“Oh, really? You knew she was allergic to nuts, and now there's peanut sauce in her sandwich. And you’ve been hitting on Erik since the moment he arrived. Did you see an opportunity to get Alma out of the way?”

“No! It was a mistake. Kyle must have forgotten to check all the ingredients when... ” She hesitated for a moment. “When he talked to the chef,” she finished.

“When he ordered them from the restaurant, you mean,” Laodice said. “Do you think we're idiots ? You don't have a chef.”

Sarah reared back. “We certainly do,” she said. “Halcyon prides itself on—”

“Show me.”

“What?”

“Show me your kitchen. Introduce me to your chef. And your housekeeper, and your night manager.”

Sarah's mouth opened and closed again.

“Right. That's what I thought.”

“Well, you're wrong!” Sarah said. “I didn't try to kill Alma, and I don't know anything about Jesse. I've never killed anyone. It was a mistake.”

And that had the ring of truth, with some genuine outrage to boot.

But Laodice wasn't willing to let her wriggle out of all responsibility. “It’s a mistake that wouldn’t have happened if you had a professional kitchen, with a chef and a safety plan.”

“Professional kitchens make mistakes all the time!” Sarah protested.

“That is not the point. ” Laodice pointed at her, wishing she was taller. Xena would look properly imposing in this moment. “You’re a grifter, Sarah. It's obvious that you're siphoning wages for imaginary staff into your own wallet. And in the process, you nearly killed Alma. Not to mention you've been trying to latch onto Erik from the moment he arrived. Did you see him as your next meal ticket?”

“Meal ticket?” Sarah demanded. “I make my own money, thank you.”

“Then why the non-stop flirting?”

“Are you insane? I wanted to fuck him. That is the hottest man I have ever seen in my life . He's totally wasted on that mousy nurse.”

“And you're indifferent to his millions, I'm sure.”

Sarah looked interested. “Millions?”

Oh, hell. It had been a while since Laodice's investigative and data journalism elective, but she was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to give information away to the subject.

“Well, I'm assuming,” she said, trying to sound dismissive. “I mean, we've all got enough money to be here.”

Sarah's eyes narrowed. “Oh, really? Do you, Elle?” She said the name with a heavy dose of sarcasm, and Laodice instinctively recoiled. “Because I did a little snooping myself. Your fiancé, he's for real. Telfer Terzi, son of the Filiz Flowers fortune. He should come into a nice little nest egg when his uncle kicks the bucket. But you—you don't exist. No social media profile, no mentions in the legacy media society pages.”

She waved dismissively at Laodice's lacy sundress. “You dress the part. But you don't act quite right. Sometimes you sound like an airhead heiress, and sometimes you sound like a smart woman. I'll give you some credit; you know how to keep the drama alive. You pick fights with your fiancé and flirt with the bartender to make sure you keep his attention.” She gave Laodice a patronizing look. “Honey, take it from me. Depending on a man to be your money is the wrong move. You can't rely on them. You think you've got them completely snowed, and then they pull out the prenup. Run your own game, that's my advice.”

Laodice stared at her, thinking rapidly while she pretended a shock too great for words. Sarah thought “Elle” was a grifter too. Actually, it wasn't a bad conclusion to draw, although a real con artist would probably have a better cover identity. Laodice sometimes acted towards Telfer in ways a normal fiancée wouldn't, she turned conversation about herself away, she had that burner phone... Hell, right at the beginning of the stay, Sarah had been expecting someone named Eli to accompany her. The sudden replacement had to have raised some mental alerts.

Also, Telfer had money? He'd never mentioned it.

“But you didn't try to hurt Alma,” she said, needing to be sure.

“For the nine millionth time, it was an accident,” Sarah said, exasperated. “You think I want deaths or suspicious events here? The last thing I need is the police poking around. And I don't think you did it either, for the same reason. You don't seem like a dummy to me.” She eyed Laodice. “You keep quiet about the staff, and I'll keep quiet about your game, okay? I don't think either of us want to spoil a good thing.”

“Yeah, okay,” Laodice said. Playing along with Sarah might get her more insight. “Did Jesse find out about the wage-skimming?”

Sarah snorted. “I doubt it. He stole a master key, though. Did something go missing?”

Laodice shook her head, and Sarah relaxed. “I wondered if he might snoop around or steal shit from the other guests. He seemed like a perv to me. I figured I could sting him for that later, or that Hazel might pay to cover it up.” She smiled at Laodice. “That's another piece of advice. Always have more than one deal going. That way, you diversify your income streams and you don't depend too much on any one job. That's important. You've got to know when to get out.”

Laodice smiled back. It wasn't hard. For some reason, Sarah as an open criminal was easier to like than Sarah as an insincere guide to love. “I'll keep that in mind,” she said, and then added, “I mean, Telfer's not the only egg in my basket.”

“Good!” Sarah looked speculative. “Actually... I've got something else going on. But it's big. I could use a reliable partner.”

“The manifesting business?” Laodice hazarded.

Sarah laughed. “Hell, no. That's totally legal. You can life coach people into anything, as long as you never promise results. Even better if you can put the blame on them for not visualizing prosperity hard enough or whatever bullshit. But it's chump change. The job I'm talking about is real money. Retirement money.”

“I thought Kyle was your partner.”

“Like I said, honey, you can't rely on men.”

“And Danielle?”

Sarah looked amazed. “Danielle? She's not part of the job. She's the help—she came with the building. She's not even that helpful. It's been nonstop tears and headaches since you found Jesse's body. Look, are you any good with computers?”

“Sure,” Laodice said. It was an outright lie. She knew enough to navigate the Olympus systems and didn't bother IT more than most people in the building. “I mean, you know I do cars, right? I started out as a driver. But that's risky. I upskilled in tech instead.”

Instead of calling her out on this outrageous bullshit, Sarah actually seemed impressed. “You were a driver?”

“Yep,” Laodice said, frantically trying to remember the details of every heist movie she'd ever seen. “Small jobs. Stores and stuff, no banks or museums or anything. But you don't get shot at in tech.” She risked a patronizing look herself. “That's why Elle Evagora doesn't exist online. I don't want to be searchable.” And, thanks to that early encounter with some of Xena's less fun followers, Laodice's own social media accounts were locked to friends and family. Laodice had never thought she'd be grateful to that cesspit of fatphobic self-hating incels, but being forced to control her online visibility had just paid off.

“Could you hack a server?” Sarah asked.

Laodice thought that might be a question that revealed Sarah knew even less about tech than she did. “Piece of cake,” she said confidently. “What's the job?”

Sarah's eyes narrowed, but Laodice decided she was thinking, not suspicious. “I'll get back to you,” she said. “Let's finish—”

Kyle banged through the door. “Cops are here,” he said, with no preamble, and then did a doubletake at Laodice. “Uh, hi, Elle.”

Sarah beamed at him. “Elle has decided it's best for everybody if she doesn't ask more questions about the staff. In case someone asks more questions about her.”

“Oh,” Kyle said, and looked at Laodice with a more personal interest. “So I was right? You're on the job with that Telfer guy? I figured you had to be, stuffed shirt like that.”

Laodice raised her eyebrows, inwardly nettled by the jab at Telfer. “Sometimes business is a pleasure.”

“Yeah, right,” Kyle said. “Call me if you want a real good time, babe.” He turned back to Sarah. “They want to talk to everyone privately, one by one.”

“Fuck,” Sarah said, and massaged her forehead. “That's all we need. Okay, well, you know the drill. We don't need to lie, because we don't fucking know anything. There's no security footage, because the guests need their privacy. And we're each other's alibi for the night in question.”

“And when they ask to talk to the rest of the staff?” Kyle persisted.

“Send them to me, and I'll explain that we have a small staff to keep costs down.”

Kyle looked unconvinced. “What if they get in touch with our backers, and they're like, ‘what do you mean, there should be eight people there?’”

Sarah shrugged. “It's a loose thread, sure, but they won't pull it for a while. Not when they've got all these suspect statements to trawl through. And we only need a few more days.”

Laodice cleared her throat. “So Jesse was definitely murdered?”

Sarah blinked at her. “Sure. Cops don't waste their time on questioning people about accidental death.”

“You sound like you don't care.”

“I don't,” Sarah said. “My door locks tight. Nothing you want to share with us, Elle? Your tall, dark and handsome didn't shove Jesse down the stairs and drag him out into the woods?”

“And then led me right to the body?” Laodice said, surprised at how dry her voice was. “No, I don't think so.”

Kyle looked disappointed, but Sarah was already moving towards the door. “My money's on Carrick,” she said. “Ten bucks says he fesses up before dinner.”