2
“Logically, though, she had the best motive and the most opportunity.” He pointed to the line of green notes that detailed the timeline. “We only have her word that Jesse didn’t come back that night. What if he did? What if he said something or did something—hit her for the first time, maybe—and she realized that she was trapped, that divorce would give him half of everything. Maybe he came at her and she panicked and smacked him with something.”
“Like what?”
“Like anything. There’s a ton of blunt instruments in this room. You could murder me with that lamp.”
“Don’t think I haven’t considered it,” Laodice said, but her heart clearly wasn’t in it. “And then she got someone else to get rid of him?”
“Yes. She could have gone to Yvette for help—she already knew Yvette had promised to do anything to help her.”
“Yvette probably couldn’t carry a body that far.”
“She spends hours in the gym every week,” Telfer said triumphantly. “She’s thin, but strong. And even if Yvette didn’t take on the task herself, what are the odds she could talk Xavier into it?”
“High,” Laodice conceded. “But this is all pointless, Telfer, because I’m telling you Hazel didn’t do it.”
Telfer frowned. “And what evidence do you have?”
“Again, I was looking right at her when she learned he was dead,” Laodice said, too patiently, as if he was the one being obtuse. He must have done something to express his disbelief, some movement or expression, because she reached out and grabbed his shoulder. “Hey. I’m serious. It doesn’t fit neatly into your chart, but I was there. I know.”
Telfer shook his head. “Intuition isn’t evidence. Haven’t you ever been wrong about people before?”
Laodice hesitated. “Occasionally, but not often,” she said. “And I’m right about this. Can’t you trust me?”
“I can trust you ,” Telfer said. “But I’m sorry, no, I can’t take Hazel’s innocence as a matter of fact based on your feelings.” It was true, and he had to say it, but he tried to soften it the way Laodice might, with a smile and a softer tone.
She looked at him thoughtfully, with no instant switch into confrontation. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll agree to disagree.”
Telfer clutched his heart in an effort to play down his real surprise. “We’re not going to argue?”
“Not this time,” Laodice said cheerfully, and bounced onto the end of the bed. “What else did you get?”
“Not much, other than Carrick being head over heels for Britt, and certain she doesn’t feel the same way. Which makes more sense now.” He thought about it. “And now I understand why they didn’t look mussed up after the art event. I suppose they must have sat there and listened to the music. Oh, and he was jumpy about the blackmail thing. Said looking into it wouldn’t do me any good, and he couldn’t talk about it. That has to be Britt’s case, right?”
“Yes,” Laodice said. “I’m dying of curiosity, but she’s not going to tell us anything about it, and she and Detective Bernard were both serious about us not telling anyone else.”
“Not even your sisters?”
“I can keep secrets from my sisters.” She gave him a sly look.
“Ashamed of me?” Telfer asked lightly, and barreled on before she could answer: “So our next priority is that laptop. I’ll wait for things to quiet down and get it tonight.”
Laodice blinked. “ You will?”
“I will. I don’t see why you should have all the fun.” He reached above his head, making a plucking gesture with his hands. “Besides, unlike some people, I can reach the top shelves.”
“Rude,” Laodice said, and stretched, looking sly again. “In the meantime, how should we entertain ourselves?”
“Have you paid any attention to the handholds in the bath?” Telfer asked politely. “If not, I have a few ideas I’d like to propose.”
Laodice was already walking towards the bathroom, peeling her dress off over her head. “I had a few thoughts myself,” she said over her bare shoulder. “Let’s see how far they coincide, hm?”
***
The strained muscle in Telfer’s butt was vigorously complaining about all the use he was putting it to. The rest of his body was shouting it down and demanding more, as soon as possible. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had this many orgasms in close succession, much less with another person. Orgasms were good . Sex was good .
Sex with Laodice, in particular, was really, really good .
She was dozing on him now, while he waited for the minutes to tick by. 1 a.m., they’d decided, would be the best time to launch what Laodice insisted on calling “the mission,” when everybody would be, if not safely asleep, at least likely to be in their own rooms and unwilling to wander.
Telfer lifted a lock of her hair from his chest and let it drift through his fingers. Smooth, soft and warm, like the woman herself. The curl wound about his finger, apparently unwilling to let go. That, sadly, didn’t apply to Laodice, he reminded himself. This was an interlude. An extraordinary, precious interlude, but an interlude nonetheless.
The burner phone clock showed 1 a.m., then 1:05, then 1:07. Telfer lay there, wondering why he couldn’t move. Laodice was drooling on his chest, forming a small wet patch that should have been disgusting.
Thinking that she was cute when she drooled was probably not a good indication that this interlude would be easy to leave behind.
When the phone clock hit 1:11, he put his hand on Laodice’s shoulder and shook gently. “Hey,” he said. “Time to go.”
“Blerf,” Laodice said, and pushed herself upright, making a face and wiping at her mouth. “Oh yuck, was I—”
“Let’s get moving.”
“You know, what I appreciate about you most is the small talk,” she said waspishly, but she got up without further drool-based questions.
In these early morning hours, with the emergency lighting strips and the dim flashlight of the burner phone to guide their feet, Halcyon was a much more convincing murder scene. Their shadows slanted across the floors. They’d both foregone shoes, preferring to pad silently through the dark halls.
It was so quiet that Telfer kept holding his breath, and then had to consciously control the sound as he exhaled. He couldn’t hear Laodice’s breathing at all. He looked down at her face, thrown into sharp relief by the harsh light of the phone in her hand. Her eyes were focused, all her generous, exuberant energy narrowed to this point.
Her other hand was holding his, soft warmth in the cool dark.
Telfer felt his heart turn over in his chest and silently surrendered to the inevitable.
They didn’t speak or signal each other as they went down the stairs, through the lobby and into the small, empty room next to the pool. The staff door that led to the kitchens was still unlocked. Laodice handed him the phone and stood aside.
Telfer had argued that only he had to go.
Laodice had argued that if he was going to sneak into a restricted area and commit a probably-crime in the early hours of the morning, she could at least serve as a lookout.
She’d won.
The kitchen was right where she’d said it was, down a short hallway. He hadn’t quite been prepared for the size of it. The phone light couldn’t illuminate the whole room, and he had to inch his way along the sides, keeping a sharp eye out for anything that might slip or fall and make a noise. When he came to the pantry, he let himself sag in some relief, and then opened the door.
Too confidently, it turned out; the door creaked loudly, and he flinched so hard he nearly crashed into the bench behind. At the last moment he found his balance, with nothing but a scuffle of socks on the floor and an involuntary gasp to mark it.
There was the laptop, exactly where Laodice said it would be. It was in finger-tip reach, if he stood on his toes and stretched.
They’d had a brief conversation about fingerprints—checking out possible evidence before they handed it to the police was one thing, but accidentally destroying evidence that might point to the killer was another. As he’d hoped, there were several boxes of food prep gloves in the pantry. They were unopened, which made him think dark thoughts about Kyle’s haphazard food safety, but he tore through the perforated cardboard and plucked out a pair.
Then he stood on his tiptoes, held his breath, and reached. The tips of his questing fingers touched hard, cool plastic.
A furious shout tore through the quiet night.
Telfer jumped several inches straight up, adrenaline surging like an electrical shock. The laptop tipped and slid, and he caught it, fumbling. There were more shouts, the sound of sirens—what the hell was going on?
He need into the kitchen, no longer trying to be slow and silent. There was a muffled thump and sharp-voiced questions from the hallway opposite his entrance point, where Laodice had said the staff bedrooms were. Everyone was waking up. The lights came on as he bolted for the exit. Laodice was waiting outside the gym, bouncing on her toes in anxious motion. Red and blue lights were flashing across her tense face.
“Got it,” Telfer said, and hastily looked over his booty. There were no marks of ownership on it, no distinctive stickers or scuff marks. It was a regular, mid-market black laptop.
The shouting was getting more distinct, resolving into words. He could make out Patrick’s voice, cursing, and a fierce bellow he thought was Samuel. The logical thing would be to wait until whatever was happening was resolved and then sneak upstairs when it got quiet again. Telfer looked at Laodice’s eyes, alight with the need to know, and knew that neither of them were going to do the logical thing.
“We snuck in here to have sex,” Laodice said quickly. “That’s why—”
“In the hot tub,” Telfer said, looking at the bare walls and unappealing room. “I have some pride.”
“Then why are we dry?” Laodice demanded. “Nope. Empty room, sex on the floor, guess we’re just weirdos. Come on.” She hurried down the hall to the lobby, where the red and blue lights were coming in from the cars parked outside.
Telfer took a moment to strip off the gloves and stuff them in his pocket, then held the laptop at his side, trying to touch it as little as possible. There was no way to hide it on his body, and he didn’t want to leave it here—the only thing he could do was pretend it was his and hope no one could say differently. He followed Laodice and paused with her at the point where the small hallway opened out into the lobby. Here on the periphery, they might evade notice for a while.
Halcyon’s lobby was swarming with uniformed officers. Sarah was clutching a piece of paper and arguing with one of them, looking absolutely furious. Danielle was crying into Kyle’s shoulder. He absently patted her back.
The shouting was mostly coming from upstairs. Telfer caught his breath as a uniformed officer walked from the staircase to the front door, solemnly holding a plastic evidence bag with a brown loafer in it.
“Jesse’s shoe,” Laodice said quietly.
Telfer wondered if she felt as sick as he did. Detective Bernard came down the stairs next, looking tired. He was followed by Patrick and Samuel, both of them cuffed, both of them hustled along by uniformed officers. The shouting had stopped. Samuel’s mouth was a grim line. Patrick’s eyes, trained on Bernard’s back, glittered with fury.
Based on that look alone, Telfer had no doubt that Patrick was capable of murder.
But had Patrick actually killed Jesse ? The shoe pointed that way, but wouldn’t a guilty man have tried to ingratiate himself more with the police? Or would a smart guilty man have refused all cooperation, hoping that due process might help protect him?
Patrick and Samuel were being moved towards the exit. Patrick was still staring at Bernard, but Samuel’s gaze roved over the space, caught Telfer’s eye, and held it for a long moment.
Telfer couldn’t read his face. He couldn’t see guilt, or regret, or even anger, now that the yelling had stopped.
Xavier and Yvette came down the stairs, fully if hastily dressed.
“We’re acting for you,” Yvette told Patrick. “Say nothing unless one of us is in the room.”
“I have lawyers,” Samuel said, looking faintly astonished.
“Are they here?” Yvette asked pointedly.
Detective Bernard coughed. “No offense, Ms. Long, but are you even licensed to practice in this state?”
The look Yvette gave him could have stripped paint. “Of course I am. And so is Mr. Westlake. Shall we?”
“Just so you know,” Laodice said, barely audible to Telfer’s ear, “I’m in love with Yvette right now.”
Detective Bernard and half the uniformed officers disappeared with the arrested men and their impromptu lawyers. A few people in paper hazmat suits came in, presumably forensic crew. Britt and Carrick came downstairs. Carrick seemed jumpy, and Britt unfazed. Knowing what he knew, Telfer watched her closely, but she didn’t give any sort of collegial glance to the police. Instead, she asked Sarah if they could get hot drinks and stay in the lobby lounge.
“The police said they’ll let us know when we can go back upstairs,” she said.
“Is the search warrant for the whole place?” Kyle asked uneasily.
Sarah glared at the crumpled paper in her fist. “The premises of Halcyon Pre-Wedding Services,” she said viciously. She looked up as Telfer and Laodice approached. “Where were you two?”
Laodice managed a creditable blush. Telfer looked at the ground, trying his best to seem embarrassed. “We were, um, exploring the recreational facilities,” he said.
Carrick chuckled, but the sound was hollow. “With your laptop?”
“Inspiration,” Laodice said, the blush deepening. Telfer nearly ruined the deception with involuntary outrage—he didn’t need porn to inspire him, not when he had Laodice right there—but Carrick looked sorry he’d asked and the subject was dropped.
Danielle excused herself to make hot drinks, and Kyle went with her to help. Sarah sat with them on the lobby sofas and stewed. Telfer couldn’t remember if he’d left the pantry door open in his flight from the kitchen, or for that matter if he’d left any trace of his passage there. Laodice was sitting beside him, and he didn’t think he was imagining the tension thrumming through her body. After a while, she tucked her stocking feet up under her, tugged his arm over her shoulder and nestled into his side.
Carrick chewed his lip. “I didn’t think it could be Patrick,” he said.
“The police will be acting on evidence,” Britt told him.
“Yeah,” Carrick said, and scratched his unshaven jaw. “Still.”
Telfer watched the police go back and forth. He had some serious doubts himself.
***
From the shelter of Telfer’s arm, Laodice was watching Sarah.
For a con-artist she wasn’t good at concealing her emotions. She was chewing on her fingernails, darting glances at Kyle, and generally acting in a suspicious manner. On the other hand, maybe she was being a very good con-artist. Taking a police invasion on the chin might be a lot to expect of even an experienced hotel manager.
Laodice thought of Manny, Cassie’s partner, who was an experienced hotel manager. What would he be doing in this situation? The answer was obvious as soon as she’d thought the question. Manny was a natural caregiver. He’d be offering blankets and snacks and reassuring words to the guests, whatever was needed to make them feel better. He’d cooperate with the police, but he’d care for the guests. He wouldn’t be sitting up straight on the end of a sofa, worrying at a rough spot in the upholstery with bitten-down nails.
“Do you know how long we’re going to be down here?” Laodice asked her.
Sarah took a moment to realize she was being addressed, then shook her head. “They didn’t say.”
“Could we get some blankets or something? It’s a little chilly.”
She hadn’t even looked at Telfer, but he immediately pulled her in closer, and rubbed his hand up and down her arm, carefully avoiding the bandage. Laodice had to seriously resist the urge to go gooey-eyed at him.
“Sure,” Sarah said indifferently. “Danielle?” Then her face sharpened, and she looked intently at Laodice. “Actually, Elle, would you mind helping me fetch blankets?”
“Sure,” Laodice said, and slid out from under Telfer’s hold with some reluctance. But she could catch a hint when it was hurled directly at her head.
“I can—” Danielle began, but Sarah cut her off.
“Nope! You rest. We’ve got this.”
The police officer in the foyer barely stirred when Sarah told her where they were going, but Laodice could feel his eyes on their backs as they went through the door behind the bar.
“I’m going to trust you,” Sarah said, the second the door closed.
Your mistake , Laodice thought, though she didn’t think Sarah actually meant it. “With this big job?” For a moment, she was worried that Sarah was going to ask her to hack Jesse’s laptop.
“Yeah.” Sarah pulled a key out of her pocket and opened the humming server cabinet. Inside were…wires and circuits and little LED lights. Things were plugged into other things. Laodice would be prepared to suggest there might be a cooling system in there, and probably the internet.
“Can you hack this?” Sarah asked.
“Piece of cake,” Laodice said. “But I’ll need a few more details.”
“Hack it first. Then I’ll tell you the rest.”
Laodice folded her arms, trying to look sure of herself and her skills, and not at all like someone who was in well over her head and sinking rapidly. “So I commit a crime, and then you tell me what it’s for? No dice, babe. Besides, I’m not doing anything when the cops could walk in any minute.”
Sarah actually looked insulted. “I didn’t mean right now. When the cops are gone, come back and hack it.”
“And you’ll tell me what the job’s about before I do,” Laodice said.
“Sure, fine,” Sarah said, which wasn’t all that convincing, but was at least a step in the right direction. Laodice had no computer skills, but she had plenty of experience in asking questions that got her good answers. And once she’d learned about Sarah’s “big job”, she could always claim the server had some special protection or needed extra gear she didn’t have.
The door behind them opened. Laodice didn’t jump, but it was a near thing.
“What is it, Danielle?” Sarah asked, closing the server cabinet.
“I remembered that we moved the spare blankets to the upstairs supply closet,” Danielle said, looking curiously at both of them.
“Well, that’s why we couldn’t find them,” Sarah said brightly. She slipped the key back into her pocket. “Be a pet, Danielle, and see if the police will let you go upstairs to fetch them. Thanks for helping me look, Elle.”
As Danielle went back through the door, looking confused, Sarah grabbed Laodice’s arm. “Meet me here at 5 a.m., if the cops are gone by then,” she whispered. “We have to act fast .”
The police kept them in the lobby for a couple more hours, and Laodice worried that Sarah had been too optimistic. But eventually, they were permitted to go back to bed.
Jesse and Hazel’s room, and Samuel and Patrick’s, had been closed off with strips of crime scene tape, and, presumably, locked. Laodice couldn’t see any signs of entry into their own room. Telfer and herself probably weren’t that interesting to the police. From what she’d been able to glean from nonstop eavesdropping on the officers downstairs, the shoe was circumstantial, but compelling evidence.
Telfer put the laptop carefully on the dressing table, and they both stared at it.
“It’s bound to be password-locked,” Telfer said.
Laodice suppressed a burst of irritation. He was probably right, but it wasn’t as if he’d mentioned it earlier. “Maybe we can guess it,” she said, and levered it open.
“Fingerprints,” Telfer protested, and Laodice frowned. She should have thought of that, too. It was so late…maybe they should sleep and try this in the morning with fresh minds.
But Patrick and Samuel had been arrested, and she couldn’t shake the sense of urgency. She resented every second it took Telfer to pull the nitrile gloves out of his pocket, every second it took to squirm her hands into them before she could press the power button.
The laptop wasn’t password-locked. Jesse had apparently turned off the automatic prompting. It didn’t take much to imagine him as someone who was too impatient to wait through even the minor inconvenience of a lockscreen.
But it was definitely Jesse’s laptop. Laodice felt a tension at the back of her neck release.
“It can’t have been Patrick,” she said. “Patrick wouldn’t hide a shoe in his room and the laptop in the pantry. That wouldn’t make any sense.”
“It’s a good sign,” Telfer said cautiously. “Unless he was trying to divert suspicion?”
“Then why keep the shoe?” Laodice demanded.
“People make dumb mistakes under pressure.”
Laodice made a face at him, since she couldn’t actually argue otherwise, and started looking through Jesse’s files. Unfortunately, he hadn’t done anything useful, like stick a virtual note to the desktop with a name and “Might kill me later”, or create a folder labeled “Blackmail Opportunities: Pursue.”
“Where would you put something you didn’t want people to find it?” Telfer asked.
“Porn folder,” Laodice said immediately.
Telfer looked doubtful. “Would there even be one? I think these days it’s mostly streaming.”
“Speak for yourself, thank you. My porn is smutty e-books about faeries.” She clicked through a few folders labelled “Pics” “Pics(1)” and so on. It was mostly image files, and the few she clicked on were completely innocuous—a picture of a latte with stylish foam art, a few pictures of buildings, a photo of Hazel in a bikini at the beach, wet hair sticking to her face, smiling up at the camera with so much joy and love that Laodice had to pause and stare at her, blinking hard.
Telfer didn’t say anything, but she heard his breathing change.
The next folder, Pics(4), didn’t contain any images. It was all plain text files, but when she opened a few, they were gibberish—long lines of letters, numbers and symbols.
“That’s encrypted data,” Telfer said, suddenly sounding wide awake.
“How do we decrypt it?”
“We’d need whatever program he used, and the key. May I?”
Laodice passed the laptop over, and watched Telfer work. His hair was flopping over his face, his eyes were bloodshot and puffy, and his facial hair was growing in stubbly patches around his chin and jaw. He was undoubtedly, objectively, in the least attractive state she’d ever seen him.
But his long fingers moved swiftly over the laptop, and his bloodshot eyes were determined to solve the mystery and find the truth. She’d never liked him more. It was a pity that this thing they had was going to be so brief.
“Okay,” he said, a note of triumph in his voice, and then blinked at her. “What?”
Laodice shook her head. “Nothing. Daydreaming.”
“Well, I found the program. It’s buried pretty deep, which is some indication he wanted to hide it. The key to unlock the encrypted files will be in there. But the program, unfortunately, is password-locked. This is as far as I can go.”
Laodice sighed. “So I guess we should hand it over to the police.” She checked the phone. It was nearly 5 a.m. “Right now, I have to go talk to Sarah and pretend I know how to hack a mainframe or whatever.”
“I believe you’re supposed to type very fast and then say ‘I’m in,’” Telfer said, but the light words didn’t conceal the worry in his eyes. “Are you sure you should go alone? If it wasn’t Patrick, then there might still be a killer here.”
“I’ll be fine,” Laodice said. “Besides, I can hardly take you with me. She thinks you’re my mark.” She patted his shoulder. “You stay here and have a nap.”
There was a brief pause. “While you’re walking into the unknown?” Telfer said at last. “No. I don’t think I’ll do that.”
“Okay, stay awake and fret about me then,” Laodice said, and she wasn’t sure which of them moved first, but suddenly they were kissing.
It was soft and sweet, the barest brush of tongue, and then she had to pull away and say, “All right, I have to go be a cybercriminal now. I’m taking my laptop for verisimilitude.”
“If you’re not back in half an hour, I’m coming after you,” Telfer said, and she was sure he wasn’t joking. It should have been annoying, for him to present that kind of ultimatum, but it was actually reassuring. He’d do it. He was reliable like that.
Creeping silently through the hallways of Halcyon was beginning to feel like an everyday kind of activity. She went down the stairs by feel, with the moonlight outside to guide her, and reached confidently for the door handle of the door behind the bar.
It didn’t move.
Laodice frowned, and tried again. Nope, definitely locked. She contemplated knocking quietly, or calling through the door, and was about to try the former when car lights flashed through the courtyard windows.
She went still, and listened hard.
The slam of car doors, people moving towards the front door in quiet conversation… Oh shit, of course, Yvonne and Xavier would be coming back to Halcyon for the night. Okay, Plan B. She gave up on the bar door, and scuttled through the foyer towards the back of the building, moving as quickly and quietly as she could and feeling like a cockroach trying to avoid discovery.
The big front door creaked open, and she heard quiet murmurs as she escaped into the short hallway at the back, heading for the exercise room door Telfer had snuck through a few hours before.
Had it been only hours? The night felt like it had stretched over a month. She went through the door and down the hall towards the kitchen; some light was glimmering through the glass panels of that door.
She pushed it open cautiously, but while a few lights were on over workstations, the big room seemed empty.
“Sarah?” she whispered cautiously.
There was no response.
Laodice bit her lip. Sarah had probably lost track of the time and fallen asleep. Laodice was going to have to sneak through the kitchen, down the hallway where the staff bedrooms were, and hope that she picked the right bedroom door.
For a moment, her courage failed her.
Then she squared her shoulders, and stepped forward. The workstation lights were dim blue, turning her exposed skin ghostly. Laptop tucked under one arm, she edged around the big island in the middle of the room.
Sarah was lying at the far end, face down in a puddle of blood.
Laodice clapped her free hand over her mouth to force down the scream.
Telfer was right. She should never have come alone. There was a killer in the building and they’d killed again and she had to get out right now .
There was a low murmur of voices on the other side of the big kitchen doors, coming towards her. Laodice’s mind jolted out of the frozen fear and spun, faster than she’d ever thought before.
She wouldn’t make it to the far door without being spotted.
Hiding behind the island was a temporary solution and would leave her too exposed.
The pantry was several yards away. She cleared them in a second of frantic, silent motion, yanked the door open, and hurled herself inside.
At the last moment, she didn’t close the door completely behind her. Beneath the terror, beneath the self-castigation, she was still herself; still curious, still determined, still dying—perhaps literally—to finally know the truth.
She crouched on the floor of the kitchen pantry and peered through the gap, waiting to solve the mystery at last.