Chapter 28
NOLAN
Someone is lying.
The pristine typeface stared up at me from the blank page that had been slipped under my door this morning.
In the two weeks since the gala, Cressida and I had been busy making public appearances.
In between managing my image and trying to keep Val from getting spooked about the nosy media, I’d re-upped the investigation into my mother’s death, interviewing more of the staff and comparing notes with Jason.
I dialed Jason and he answered on the first ring because I paid him to do so. “Anything?” I asked in a clipped tone as I swept back into the kitchen.
“Nothing new yet. The latest letter came up blank for DNA, and we’re still combing through the backlogs of security footage.”
“Send it to me. I’ll look myself.”
“If you want, szef, but—”
I hung up and tossed the wad of paper on the counter, then ran my hands through my hair.
I needed a cold shower.
The frigid water blasted over me and with it came clarity.
I already knew my pen pal was on resort property, but I didn’t realize how closely they were keeping tabs on me.
An hour ago, when Val had left for her shift, the letter hadn’t been there.
But ultimately, my pen pal’s identity didn’t matter—if they were going to tell me what they knew, they would have already.
So for some reason, it was important that I untangle this mystery myself.
It wasn’t long before my thoughts turned to Val, as they did almost every ten seconds.
But as each day passed, the guilt dug a deep trench in my resolve.
Val trusted me, and that made my heart sing—and sink.
Between the gala and all the nights since, I’d made a decision.
I couldn’t sell Hale’s Peak to Bridgeport Rock Quarry anymore.
There had to be another way to pass my probationary year as CEO, and I’d find it.
I hadn’t earned Val’s trust, but now that I had it, I’d do everything in my power to keep it.
With that, I shut off the shower. Less than twenty minutes later, I sat in my office and pulled up the security footage.
My mother came into the frame, her light brown hair covered in a knit cap.
Standing in line for the lift, she organized herself with a group of three other riders.
Then she ducked out of the frame for a moment and missed getting on with the first group.
Instead, she caught the next chair, #44, and took it alone.
And I knew what happened next.
The lift would make it three-quarters of the way to the top, then a gust of wind would take out the loosened bearings and the chair would tumble from the cable, taking my mother with it.
I rewound and watched the footage again, searching every frame for any kind of clue. Anything the police missed. I went back to the part where her upper body ducked out of the frame then hit pause. Zooming in, I enhanced the area around her. And that’s when I saw it.
It was almost too grainy to make out, but I knew what I saw, and it had me questioning my entire investigation—especially every harmless thing I’d noticed at the gala. Those innocuous comments and moments were now blasted in the spotlight of revelation.
Someone is, indeed, lying.
I picked up my phone and dialed. “See me in my office. Now.” I slammed the phone on my desk, my chest heaving.
A few minutes later, my pen pal arrived.
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
I sat up straight in my chair, back to business. “Yes. Sit down.”
Tess Mackey sat in the chair across from my desk and watched me with a wary eye. “What can I do for you?”
I reopened my laptop and pulled up the video, then turned the screen toward her and pointed to a white-ish blob in the corner. A white-ish blob with a distinct, and rather large, blue blob on it. “What would you say that is?” I asked.
She looked at the screen and back at me. “Something blue.”
“Something blue, like your vintage ski jacket you gave to Val, perhaps.”
“Yes, I was giving lessons that day. Mrs. Keller dropped her glove and I returned it.”
“Why didn’t you mention this earlier?”
“I didn’t realize that Mrs. Keller dropping a glove would have mattered to you. Should I have also mentioned that she had a muffin at breakfast?”
She’s lying. She has to be. Why is she lying? “What did Robert Wilhelm and my father say to you at the gala? I wasn’t aware you knew each other.”
I’d seen her with each of them on separate occasions that night, their heads pressed together in a secluded back hallway when they thought no one was around.
At the time, I worried maybe Tess had read something more into my relationship with Val and was spreading it around.
But now…well, now I wanted to know what the hell she was up to.
Without missing a beat, Tess said, “At Cyrus’s request, I was helping Robert plan a surprise engagement for Erica.”
Seemed logical enough, but something flashed in her eyes that had my suspicions simmering. Got you. “One last thing,” I said, tossing the wadded up letter to her. She smoothed it open with a puzzled look. As she scanned the text, her lips thinned and disappeared.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” she said, plucking a pen from the holder on my desk. “Here’s the address of the florist you asked for yesterday.”
What?
She scrawled something on the paper, then slid it across the desk to me, touching a finger to her lips in a subtle shushing motion.
With a frown, I read her note.
Not here. We are being watched.
“Cressida will love having this for the wedding,” I said, sliding the note into my pocket as if nothing was amiss.
“Up for a celebratory drink at the bar? I haven’t had the chance to congratulate you on your engagement yet.”
I knew where she was going with this. If there were hidden cameras or microphones, our private conversation would likely be drowned out by the ambient noise. And maybe whoever is watching won’t think to listen in, if we throw off suspicion.
“Sure.”
A few minutes later, Tess and I sat at the far end of the bar. It was après-ski time, so it was decently crowded, and a jukebox in the corner played some background music.
“Pillar blocks us from most of the cameras,” Tess said, taking a sip of wine. “So you figured it out.”
“Exactly how long have you been sleeping with my father?” I asked.
She choked on her wine. “Wow, you really figured it out.”
“Maybe,” I said, still piecing things together. “When I saw you and Cyrus talking at the gala, I thought it odd but paid it no mind. But now I’m remembering the way he looked at you. It’s the same look he gives all of his mistresses. Possessive. Demanding. And it fits with my working theory.”
Tess sat back, wringing her hands. “Theory?”
“The only proof I have that my mother’s death may have been premeditated is security footage of you, holding her back so that she could get onto that specific chair.
You were having an affair with my father and you wanted to get my mother out of the way.
So you sabotaged the chair and made sure she was on it. ”
“That is ridiculous,” Tess said, but a bead of fear formed in her eyes.
“Is it? Because from where I’m standing, it’s a pretty good motive. A crime of passion by a jilted lover.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“Then tell me what happened,” I hissed, my patience wearing thin. “Why’d you send me the letters? Why not just come out and tell me what you know?”
Tess blew out a breath and glanced over her shoulder, scanning the crowd.
When she spoke, I had to lean forward to hear her.
“I was the reason Tamara was on that chairlift. And I’ve lived with that knowledge, with that guilt and regret, for years.
But I didn’t kill her, Nolan. I had no idea the chair was broken. ”
“Why should I believe you?” I asked.
“Because I know who killed her. I can’t prove it, but maybe you can.”
What the fuck? “Tell me everything.”
Smoothing her curls, Tess began her story. “Cyrus and I began seeing each other that season. We burned out as quickly as we started, but because I was sleeping with Cyrus, that’s why I saw what I saw.
“I was heading back to employee housing after leaving his guesthouse. It was well after midnight the day before your mother…before she would get on the ski lift. I saw a man dressed in head-to-toe black walk out of the ski lift operator’s shed.
I thought it was weird for a maintenance guy to be working so late.
Something felt sketchy, so I ducked into the bushes.
“But the guy found me hiding. Dragged me out by my hair and threatened my life if I ever told anyone I saw him. I remember exactly what he said. ‘If you speak, even years from now, I will know. You will never be safe from me.’”
A shudder rippled through Tess and I covered her hand with mine. “What happened next?” I asked.
“I went home and I stayed silent. But after your mother’s accident—nothing like it had ever happened before or has happened since…I knew that man had something to do with it.
“When Cyrus told me you’d be spending this season at Hale’s Peak, I saw my chance to spur you into looking for the truth yourself, leaving clues along the way.
Like Val’s jacket—so you’d recognize it in the security footage and know I was a witness.
I didn’t come to you directly because I truly believe the man from that night is watching me, even now.
I’ve spent years living in fear, but I can’t do this for the rest of my life.
I want Tamara’s killers brought to justice. ”
“Why not tell Cyrus about it?”
“I was afraid that he’d turn his suspicions on me, just like your theory. And if the man from that night caught wind of Cyrus poking around, I had no doubt I’d find myself six feet underground in no time.”
“You could have gone to the police. They’d protect you.”
“Protect me from a man I can’t identify beyond saying he was a big white dude? They’d laugh me right out of the station.”
I studied Tess’s face for a few moments as I soaked in her story.
I was naturally a skeptic, but Tess had no reason to bring any of this up unless she thought it was true.
She wasn’t manipulating me or extorting me for money, she wasn’t threatening to go to the press or the police.
She was just a woman trying to correct a wrong from her past and do the right thing.
Val’s optimism must be rubbing off on me.
“Can you remember anything about this man?”
“He was maybe in his early twenties. It was dark and he was backlit by the flood lights on the lodge, so I couldn’t make out much.
But no facial hair or scars that I could see.
After threatening me, he wedged something between his teeth and put his phone into his ear, saying something like, ‘Hey chef.’ But I think I must have misheard, because that makes no sense. ”
At the familiar phrase, my blood turned to ice water in my veins. “‘Chef.’ You’re certain that’s what he said?”
Tess looked bewildered at my intensity. “I’m not certain, no. It’s been over twenty years. But it did sound like that.”
My world exploded. Everything I thought I’d known about my mother’s death whittled away at that one word. “He wasn’t saying ‘chef.’ He was saying szef. It’s Polish for ‘boss.’”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I know who it was.”
Now I just had to figure out how to nail the bastard and find out how deep this plot went.
All in due time.