Chapter 21. Is the Shit About to Hit the Fan? #2
“You’re not seriously asking that?”
“No, of course not.” I mean, I was. But it’s not important. Oliver doesn’t need to know anything else bad about me. I’ve told him enough. He’s seen enough. And he’s still willing to marry me.
I asked him to marry me and he said yes.
Eventually.
That’s good, right? I’m happy?
“Let’s go to dinner before Harper feels like she has to come in here and remind us to go,” I say.
“Are you trying to avoid her?”
“Maybe. For a minute. Is she feeling murderous?”
“I think she’s confused and hurt.”
I wrap my arms around his neck. “She’ll get over it. It’s for the best. It’s dangerous being around me.”
“And yet you’ve asked me to stay.”
“Obviously.”
I kiss him again, pushing myself close to him, trying to forget everything else.
But Oliver pulls away. “Are we going to dinner?”
“Can’t miss Connor’s insights into love,” I say, trying to keep my voice teasing and light.
“He got you, didn’t he? He can’t be doing everything wrong.”
Despite Harper’s alarm, it feels like we’re the last to arrive.
The Italian restaurant where the dinner is happening is buzzing with voices fueled by adrenaline and alcohol.
Like all the restaurants here, it’s indoor/outdoor, with a pergola above and walls made out of a faded teak lattice.
The air is laced with garlic and cooked tomatoes, and I wonder for the first time why there’s no Bahamian restaurant in this resort beyond the snack bar, which serves up fried conch.
Not everything’s a mystery, Eleanor!
Focus.
The first person we run into is Officer Rolle. He’s just stepped away from Mark, who’s looking stressed. But you’d be stressed, too, if people were dropping dead at your hotel with regular frequency and a bunch of entitled writers were complaining about the services.
“Good evening,” he says. “Have you seen Inspector Tucci?”
“No,” I say. “Not since this morning.”
He frowns. “We’ve been looking for him for several hours. I’ve just been speaking to Mr. Knowles about getting access to his room.”
“Why?”
“After that … tale Mr. Smith had to tell me, it felt prudent to speak to him. He did not answer his door, and no one has seen him since this morning, as you say.”
“I couldn’t find him when I looked either,” Oliver says. “Have you identified Marta yet?”
“No.”
“How can that be?” I say.
“She could be any number of the staff, if she’s in the resort.”
“Are there really that many twenty-something Canadians on staff?”67 I scan the room as if I might find her. While a lot of the staff appear Bahamian, there’s a mix of races, like there’s been at every resort I’ve ever been to. No one who stands out as Marta, though.
Assuming Marta looks like she used to.
Officer Rolle gives me his inscrutable look. “There are eight women who work here or who have worked here recently who match her general description.”
“Let’s do a lineup, then.”
“We cannot simply accuse. And are you certain you’d recognize her?”
“Me, no. Harper, yes.”
“We’ve spoken to Ms. Dash. She did not seem so certain.”
“So we’re just sitting ducks?”
“We have added security tonight.” He points to several officers standing about the room, surveilling us. “They would be foolish to try anything now.”
“And yet…”
“We’ll keep our backs to the wall,” Oliver says. “And the Giuseppes? Is it true they own this place?”
“It appears so.”
“How can you not know?” I say.
“It is owned by a company that is owned by a company … You get the idea. We will sort it out.”
“And Brian?”
“We have not yet established a connection between him and Mr. Charles. Or Mr. Smith.”
“It has to all be connected.”
Officer Rolle nods. “I agree. Now I must continue the search for Inspector Tucci.”
“Are you worried about him?”
“It is not about emotions but facts, Ms. Dash.”
I glance at Oliver as the lights dim briefly, which seems like a bad idea, considering. “I guess we should take our seats.”
“Good evening.” Officer Rolle bows in an almost Teutonic manner and turns away.
I watch him go. “None of this makes sense.”
“I’m sure it all will in time,” Oliver says.
“Hopefully, before it’s too late.”
“That’s always the hope.” He picks up my hand and kisses my ring finger.
I smile at him, and then we enter the restaurant properly, then weave our way through the crowd of strangers and acquaintances until we get to our table. Harper’s there with Sandrine, her hair pulled back in a severe ponytail that makes her look older than me.
She glances up as we take our seats, makes brief eye contact, then looks away.
I’ve got work to do here, to repair what I’ve broken. But it’s not just what I said today, or yesterday, or in the last ten years, even. It’s from the day our parents died and what that broke in both of us. That’s not something you can just recover from.
Like picking up the bottles after the party on New Year’s Day. You can’t just stuff it in the trash and take it out to the curb. I’m going to try to fix it, but not here, with everyone plus a murderer.
Hold me to it, though.
Anyway, the rest of the table is made up of the usual suspects.
Literally.
Ravi, Stefano, Connor, Cathy.
“Where’s Vicki?” I ask as I sit in one of the only two seats left. So much for keeping my back to the wall.
“She must be around here somewhere,” Harper says.
“She seemed pretty trashed at the bar earlier,” Sandrine says.
“She had a hard day.”
Sandrine shrugs and turns back to Harper. I try to catch Harper’s eye again, but she’s avoiding me. Too dedicated to making bad romantic choices, I guess.
Yep. Snark is firmly in place.
Just checking.
“Officer Rolle said you couldn’t identify Marta,” I say to Harper. “Did he show you photos?”
“He showed me a bunch of personnel files.”
“You seemed so sure you could identify her earlier.”
She shrugs. “If I saw her in person, yeah. But on a tiny photo that might not even be a photo of her, no.”
“You’re not worried.”
“I’m not her target.”
Ouch.
Oliver squeezes my hand under the table as Elizabeth rises at the head table. Which I see we’ve been demoted from, again. And how did Stefano get here, anyway? He’s not an author, just a leech. Or Cathy?
I feel like I’ve lost control of this plot.
Damn it. There’s that feeling again. I’m missing something. The key to it all. I keep brushing up against it like a thought that’s on the tip of my tongue. The kind that comes together at two in the morning.
I hope it’s not too late by then.
“Welcome, everyone, to night two of our conference,” Elizabeth says as I scan the waiters and waitresses as they walk through the room, bringing out the salad course. I don’t recognize anyone but Mark Knowles, overseeing the operation nervously. Is it possible that one of these women is Marta?
No, no. She wouldn’t be so stupid as to be out in the open knowing Connor and I are here.
Not after killing Guy.
If she killed Guy.
Did she kill Guy?
“It’s been a great adventure so far, has it not?
” Elizabeth says. “Perhaps more than what some of us asked for. But that’s the writing life.
It will take you places you never expected.
That’s why we do this, isn’t it? To experience things we couldn’t do, or say, or feel in our real lives.
To put down on paper our darkest secrets and desires.
To put them where they are safe and sound.
“That’s the truth of the real artist. We’re vessels for others’ desires, wishes, hopes.
We bring them to life and, in so doing, stave off the need for others to do so.
I firmly believe that if novels didn’t exist, the world would be a darker, more dangerous place.
Because in art, we can shine a light, we can laugh, we can explore, we can mine, we can relieve stress and distract.
We can teach and fail and love and sigh and smile, all inside the covers.
“We can escape.” She smiles. “Speaking of escapes, I’d like us all to welcome Connor Smith, who knows a little something about getting out from under the darkness and writing about something lighter. I’m talking, of course, about love.”
Oliver raises his eyebrows at me while Harper pretends to retch and draws a laugh from Sandrine. I look at Connor properly for the first time as the room applauds. He gets up from the table, reaching inside his jacket for his speech. If I didn’t know him better, I’d think he looks nervous.
No, he does.
He’s nervous.
And I’m nervous, too, because this feels like a repeat of last night. Someone gets up and gives a speech, and then the lights go out, and then someone’s dead.
Maybe this time it’s me.
And that’s why they’ve waited until now. Not because they mistook Guy for me or because I wasn’t the target. Because of how I’m feeling right now. Nervous. Scared.
That’s what they want. They want me to feel my death coming.
But that’s not what happens. Instead, just as Connor’s about to open his mouth to start telling us how romance can blossom while bodies are dropping, the door to the room bursts open.
It’s Officer Rolle. The room hushes as he announces in a somber voice that carries like a theater kid’s.
“Inspector Tucci is dead.”
And before a thought can even form in my head, he raises a hand and points across the room.
“Stop that man!”
My head’s on a swivel trying to figure out who he could be talking about when Mark peels himself off the wall and goes into a full run through the tables and out the back door.
And … scene.