Chapter 27
27
9:04 a.m., Sunday, November 3
“ W hy do you keep sniffing your armpits?” Nick asked as Riley did exactly that for the third time as they crossed the parking lot toward the spa entrance under the cheery green awning.
The Hotel Hershey was a huge Mediterranean-style building perched on a grassy hill that overlooked the sugar-fueled bliss of Hersheypark. On one side of the highway, kids screamed and vomited their way through roller coasters and amusement park rides. On the opposite side, adults enjoyed fine dining and chocolate-scented spa services.
“I’ve never been here before. It looks fancy, and you just made me sweat myself half to death,” Riley complained.
“We’re questioning a suspect, not shoving our armpits in people’s faces,” Nick reminded her. Bella Goodshine had evaded his calls, which meant if he wanted to talk to her, they were going to have to crash her spa day.
“You’re the one who told me it’s important to blend in,” Riley argued.
“Baby, you’ve got that ‘just worked out’ dewy glow. No one’s going to know that it’s not from shoving your head under a goop fountain or whatever the hell they do here,” he said with confidence.
“You’ve never been to a spa, have you?” she guessed as he took her hand and led her through the door.
“It never landed on my list of things to do.” The idea of putting on a bathrobe and letting a complete stranger rub weird concoctions all over you held little to no appeal to him.
“Well, I’ve always wanted to come here as a legitimate guest, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t get us kicked out.”
“You didn’t come here when you were married?” he asked.
Riley shook her head. “Griffin always preferred to travel for his spa stuff. He likes those med spas where you can get cosmetic procedures done. Everyone sits around in bathrobes, drinking cucumber water with their lasered faces and their new noses bandaged up. I just want a good massage that makes me feel like cooked spaghetti.”
The fleur-de-lis carpet was thick underfoot, and the wallpaper under the spa’s directional sign whispered old money . They followed the arrow to the carpeted staircase and started up the stairs.
Riley groaned. “My thighs are on fire.”
“You’ll get used to the burn.”
A woman in her midfifties, wearing a white skirt and carrying a tennis racket, jogged down the stairs toward them.
“Excuse me,” Nick said, turning on the charm. “You’re Sabrina Van Der Woodsen, aren’t you? It’s me, Bojack Flintstone, class of 2002.”
The woman blinked, then frowned. “Sorry. You’ve got the wrong gal. I’m Matty West, and I wish I were class of 2002.”
“Sorry.” He feigned chagrin. “You look just like her.”
She continued on down the hall.
“What was that about?” Riley asked.
“That was just in case. Game face, Thorn,” Nick said as he reached for the door handle to the spa entrance.
“Wait. What’s the plan?” Riley demanded.
He winked. “Part of danger boot camp. Learning to adapt to unpredictable situations.”
“Nick!” she hissed, but he was already pulling her into the room. There were two employees manning the front desk, both female. Women with shiny faces and thick robes orbited around the space, admiring spa accessories and looking blissful. Weird instrumental music with flutes and drums seeped softly from invisible speakers.
“How can I help you?” one of the women at the desk asked with a serene smile.
Nick wondered if working in a spa was relaxing or if the employees got in their cars at the end of the day and blasted death metal music.
“My wife and I are staying here and were wondering if we could get a tour. We just moved to the area and are particular about our spas,” Nick said with a friendly smile as he helped himself to the dish of Hershey’s Kisses next to the card reader. “Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”
Riley pasted what Nick could only assume was a spa fan girl smile on her pretty face. “Yah! I’m from Sweden. Ve invented Swedish massage.”
He gave his beautiful psychic girlfriend a subtle impressed nod. Riley Thorn had come to play.
“Of course. We’re always happy to introduce new couples to our facility. What’s your room number?” the woman said, showing no signs of not believing Riley’s accent.
Nick blanched. “Shoot. I can’t remember. That workout in your gym wiped my brain clean. We’re the Wests if that helps. I’m Matty, and this is Helga.”
“Certainly, Mr. and Mrs. West. If you’ll wait over there, I’ll have a hostess show you around.”
They sidled off and pretended to admire a display of chocolate-flavored lip balms. “You invented Swedish massage?”
Riley shrugged smugly as she picked up a tube of some kind of cocoa-scented face goop. “What? I wanted you to feel like you were finally getting your shot with the hot foreign exchange student.”
He shook his head. “One of a kind, Thorn. One of a kind.”
“That’s Helga to you. So how are we going to question Bella if we have a spa tour guide tagging along?” Riley asked in a hushed tone as a man and woman with matching robes and shiny, blissed-out faces wandered in.
“One of us will have to make an emergency pit stop at the restroom,” Nick decided.
“Ugh. Can’t you just fake an important phone call?”
“Strangers are willing to wait around while you take a call. They don’t want to hover outside a bathroom door when they know a toilet is about to be violated,” he explained.
“Valid.”
A six-foot-tall dude with gray hair and one of those cool Vandyke beards strolled up. He was wearing a spa uniform. “Mr. and Mrs. West?” To Nick’s ear, he sounded a hell of a lot like the cartoon cat Puss in Boots.
Nick didn’t consider himself well-versed on what constituted an attractive man, but judging from the hungry looks every woman in the room was throwing his way, Silver Fox was hot. Even Riley was noticing.
Maybe he should forget about the Nick Charles mustache and go for the beard?
Nick clamped an arm around her waist. “That’s us.”
“I’m Hector. I’ll be your guide today,” he said with a smile that made crinkles next to his crystalline blue eyes appear.
Hector held out a hand to Nick. He reluctantly released Riley and shook. The guy had a grip like Sylvester Stallone in Over the Top . “That’s a strong hand you’ve got there, Hector.”
The man released him. “It comes from years of massaging sore muscles.” His attention shifted to Riley. “A pleasure,” Hector said, taking Riley’s hand in both of his.
Her cheeks turned a distinct shade of pink. “Hi,” she squeaked, forgetting her accent.
Hector released her hands and gestured toward the door. “Please, follow me.”
Behind his back, Nick nudged Riley. “Hi,” he mouthed, pretending to toss his hair flirtatiously.
“He’s so pretty,” she mouthed back.
“I’m pretty too,” he hissed in her ear.
She patted his cheek. “Of course you are, Mr. West.”
“And this is what’s known as the quiet room,” Hector said, gesturing them through the open door. “It is where guests wait for their spa services.”
The room had dark paneled walls and a fire crackling merrily in the massive fireplace. Spa goers decked out in robes and flip-flops lounged in chairs or browsed the small beverage and snack buffet.
“Mind if we sample some of the goods?” Nick asked.
“By all means,” Hector said, opening his hands in invitation.
Nick grabbed a delicate coffee cup while Riley perused the snack selection. “Quarry spotted,” he whispered in her ear.
She stiffened and glanced behind them.
“Be cool. She’s in that alcove thing over there,” he said and jerked his chin to the right of the fireplace.
“I didn’t recognize her without makeup,” she confessed.
“Tell Hector you have the runs and go pump her for information,” he said.
She was already shaking her head. “Uh-uh. No way.”
Nick put the cup under the first thermos he spotted and opened the spout. “You’re just saying that because he’s hot.”
“First of all, I’m proud of you for finally recognizing another man’s physical appeal without wanting to challenge him to a pissing contest.”
“Usually it’s a push-up contest. Pissing contests are too messy and hard to judge unless you both have a liquid measuring cup.”
She ignored him. “Bella isn’t going to talk to me. She’s going to have no idea who I am, and I’ll have to waste five full minutes reminding her we’ve already met a dozen times. You, she remembers.”
He wasn’t a fan of the points Riley was making, mainly because it meant he was going to have to leave his girl alone with Mr. Effortlessly Suave. But she was right, and they didn’t have much time.
“Fine. But if that guy tries to get you in bed, I wanna know immediately.”
“Deal. Now try to look like you’re clenching your butt cheeks really hard,” she teased.
He rolled his eyes before heading in Hector’s direction. He was waiting patiently at the door. “Can you point me in the direction of the nearest restroom? That Taco Bell isn’t sitting right,” he said.
“Of course. Down the hall and on your right.”
“Cool. Don’t wait for me. I’ll catch up with you two.”
Nick ducked into the restroom and counted down from twenty. When he poked his head out the door, he saw Hector leading Riley in the opposite direction.
Riley held up a subtle thumbs-up behind her back.
Nick took his coffee cup of brown liquid and hurried back to the quiet room. Bella was still there with her face buried in a magazine that had Beth Weber on the cover announcing her comeback from cold case obscurity to being the country’s newest reality TV star.
He took the seat next to her and stretched out his legs. “You’ve been avoiding my calls,” he said.
A woman in a brown robe lowered her e-reader and shushed him.
Bella looked up, startled. “Oh, hi, Nick.”
“Don’t ‘oh, hi, Nick’ me. Your fiancé nearly got shot yesterday, and you’re too busy getting body parts oiled up to care? Seems a little cold to me.”
Bella lowered her magazine, her eyes looking slightly less cartoon puppy without the fake lashes and troweled-on makeup. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to book appointments here? I had to schedule this trip six months ago, and I already had to cancel my seaweed body wrap and sugar scrub this afternoon for our interview. I’m not canceling the rest of it just because Griffin didn’t get hurt.”
“What interview?”
“Didn’t Griffin tell you? Channel 50 is doing a special interview with us about our harrowing experiences.”
“Yeah, you look real harrowed.” Nick took an irritated sip and nearly choked on the thick sweet liquid. “What the hell?” He scowled down at the cup.
“That’s the hot cocoa. Isn’t it divine?”
“Tell me why you shouldn’t be my number one suspect right now,” he said, then hazarded another taste of the cocoa. It was good. Really good.
“Because I love him and I would never ever want to hurt my Griffy Wiffy Bear.”
“Errrr!” Nick made the buzzer sound.
“Shhhhh!” hissed the woman with the e-reader.
“Sorry. Sorry,” he whispered. “Wrong answer.”
“Fine. If you don’t want to believe that Griffin and I are in love, believe this. He is worth more to me alive than dead. His family won’t let him add me to his will or life insurance policy or bank accounts until the marriage is official. If something happens to him before we get married, I get zip-a-dee-doo-dah.”
“There are other reasons besides money to hire someone to commit murder.”
“Well, none of those reasons apply to me.” She haughtily turned a page in her magazine with glossy pink nails. “I’ve worked hard to get where I am today. I’m not about to let someone with a grudge and a few hired guns ruin all my plans.”
“Really? How is hiding away at a spa going to help keep your fiancé alive?”
“You’re the one who’s supposed to be keeping him alive. That’s what rich people do. They hire not-rich people to solve their problems.”
“I’d be more inclined to make sure he doesn’t get his ass murdered if I knew he’d actually pay when this is all over.”
“I can make sure that happens,” Bella insisted earnestly.
“Yeah. Right. I’ll believe that when I see it.”
“Fine. What if I help you in another way?”
“If you even think about hitting on me right now, I’m dumping this cocoa on you and telling everyone you touched my no-no spot,” he warned.
She rolled her eyes. “You want to be paid, and I want this wedding to happen. We’re on the same side. I can give you information.”
“What kind of information?” Nick asked.
“What do you want to know?”
“Griffin’s medical leave. Tell me about it.”
She hesitated before answering. “He was in a car accident, and then he couldn’t work for almost three weeks.”
“I’m not buying that you’re as dumb as you pretend to be. And I’m sure as hell not as dumb as you think I am.”
“I’m telling you the truth. There was an accident.”
“When?”
She tapped a fingernail to her chin. “I remember it was May because I hadn’t switched to my humidity tamer hairspray yet. He had to go away for some kind of special treatment. What does that have to do with someone trying to shoot him?”
“What kind of treatment? Did he leave the country?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It was before we were engaged, and I didn’t pay attention to things like that.”
These two yahoos were going to make a mockery of the thing Nick had finally decided to take seriously: marriage. It annoyed him enough to self-soothe with the rest of his hot cocoa. He set the empty cup down with a snap.
“When did Chupacabra start working for you? Was it before or after Griffin got back from his ‘special treatment’?”
Bella pursed her lips, then brightened. “After. Yes! That’s right. She came on the show for the small business segment Griffin hosts, but it was one of his first days back on the show. He couldn’t do the leg workout she had planned, so the producers had me stand in for him. She said I was pretty and offered me a discount on in-home workouts during the commercial break.”
“How much of a discount?”
“Buy one workout, get three free every single week.”
Nick poured himself another cup of hot cocoa on his way out and went in search of Riley and Hector. As much as it annoyed him to admit, Bella Goodshine didn’t fit as primary suspect. Mainly because the only money she had was Griffin’s. Unless of course she’d found a richer guy willing to help her clear the decks. But then why wouldn’t she have just left Griffin?
He’d almost reached the end of the hallway when he heard a familiar moan.
“What the hell?” he demanded, stopping in the open doorway of the last room on the right.
Riley was facedown on a massage bed—fully clothed, thank freaking God—and Hector’s hands were on her. “You have beautiful spinal flexibility,” Hector told her.
“It’s the yoga,” she said on another sex-noise moan.
“I thought I told you not to let this guy talk you into bed,” Nick complained.
“You’ve got to try this N–Matty,” Riley slurred, sounding like she’d just stumbled out of one of Mrs. Penny’s happy hours. “He’s magic.”
Hector helped Riley sit up, steadying her when she wobbled dreamily.
“Yeah, I’m not really into the whole stranger-rubbing-me-down-while-someone-plays-the-pan-flute thing,” Nick confessed, glaring Hector down.
“You’ve never experienced a massage?” Hector asked. A single silver eyebrow arched gracefully.
“It’s not really my jam. But clearly it is my wife’s jam.”
“Please. Allow me to show you,” Hector said, gesturing toward the table.
Riley all but collapsed against Nick. “You have to.”
“No.”
She cupped his face in her hands. They smelled vaguely of chocolate. “I’m asking you to be brave and do this one nice thing for yourself.”
“I’m brave. I’m fucking heroic. I got shot at and thwarted a robbery. I carry on conversations with your grandmother,” he reminded her.
“Then you must try,” Hector said, patting the massage bed.
“Fine. But I’m going to hate every second of it,” Nick promised.
“I’m going to go get some tea,” Riley said dreamily as she floated out of the room.
“Get the hot cocoa,” Nick said, reluctantly putting his face in the squishy round cradle at the top of the bed. Every muscle in his body was as rigid as Home Depot’s lumber section. The things he did for his woman.
He stiffened when Hector’s hands skimmed over his shoulders.
“So much tension,” Hector mused. “You must carry many responsibilities.”
“Actually my life is pretty chill—oh God. Oh sweet baby Jesus,” Nick moaned as Hector’s fingers gripped his rigid shoulders.
“Relax into my touch,” Hector said, his voice soothing.
Nick fought to cling to his comfort zone for another ten seconds before the war was lost. “I’m not really a guest here. I’m a PI and I didn’t have the runs. I was questioning a suspect or a witness or whatever the hell she is,” he blurted out.
“Interesting,” Hector said as his hands moved down Nick’s spine, pressing and stretching and rubbing as they went.
“I grew up in a competitive family and never learned how to have healthy relationships,” Nick continued into the face cradle.
“That is very common and is nothing to be ashamed of,” Hector assured him.
“Once when I was in junior high, I stole my dad’s car, drove to his restaurant in the middle of the night, and deep-fried an entire bag of mozzarella sticks. I ate the whole thing, drove home, and threw up in my bed. The marinara sauce made it look like I was bleeding internally, and my parents took me to the emergency room. It cost them five grand.”
He felt something strong and hard dig into the muscle just below his shoulder blade. An elbow? A knee? A goddamn crowbar? Nick didn’t care.
“The truth releases with the muscle,” Hector said wisely.
“Listen, Hector, I’m getting my shit together so I can propose to my girl. But if I weren’t already in a committed relationship and straight, I’d ask you to marry me right now,” he said.
“I’ve received many proposals in the spa,” Hector said as his magic fingers released a knot Nick hadn’t known existed but felt like it had been there for all of eternity.
“Oh God. Okay. What’s a cool but romantic way to propose? Do I have to get down on one knee? And I don’t like the whole asking for the dad’s permission. Mainly because I don’t like to ask for permission for anything. But also it feels kind of like seventeenth-century ‘how many oxen is your daughter worth?’”
“I find something as important as a proposal should be a reflection of the couple as a whole.”
“Gah! It hurts but it feels so fucking good.”
“As does life,” Hector advised.
Nick released a sound that wasn’t even human as the man worked his way down to his lower back.
“You’re so smart. And talented. Did you know my girlfriend is psychic? I think it’s really cool. She’s really cool,” Nick said dreamily into the face cradle.
“Uhhhh…”
Nick managed to lift his head and smile at the stunned Riley in the doorway.
“It is all right,” Hector promised. “He has confessed all.”
“And Hector still loves us,” Nick said, melting into the table.
“You both will return, and I will massage you,” Hector predicted.