“It could be that when the guests died so suddenly, many of them were in the prime of life,” she said.
“Who cares? It’s fiction. Get it?”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“Then make sure you remember that wasn’t a ghost who abducted Elora Nicholas and shot Bart. It was a live, human killer that I plan to apprehend.”
“That we plan to apprehend,” she corrected him.
“Whatever.” Rich stood and scooted the chair back to the table, clearly ready to drop the conversation.
She wondered if he really feared she was flaky enough to buy into the ghost story if he talked about it too much. If so, he had a lot to learn about her. Not that she gave a darn if he learned it or not. When this case was over, she hoped to be through working with him.
Her mind went back to Bart. God, how she’d love to talk to him about this and get his take on the ghost gambit and how that might or might not hinder their chances of getting the locals to work with them on this.
Bart’s insight in situations like this was always amazing. He wasn’t from around here, not even from the state of Washington, but he had a way of getting people to open up to him—the way he’d got her to talking about herself that night after she’d first had to pull her gun on a suspect.
She’d spilled her guts, shed a few tears and then ended up laughing over a stale cream-filled donut in the middle of the night.
Rich turned and walked toward the front door with the mixed-breed hound at his heels. He didn’t bother telling her he was ready to cut out anymore than he’d asked her if she wanted to stop at his grandparents’ house in the first place. He just did things. Maybe it was the mountain way, but she doubted it. It was more likely the Rich way.
She mulled over the ghost idea as she followed him to the car. She didn’t buy the legend, but something might have happened that night to spook old Tom right out of his mind.
If so, the investigation could get really creepy before it was all said and done. But in the end, they’d get their man. She had no doubt of that.
Their killer was not trapped in the mist.
KATRINA HELD the diamond-and-emerald pendant in her palm, letting the silver chain loop around her fingers. The jewels warmed her hand as if they contained a literal fire. It was the only warmth she felt anymore, and it made her ache to get on with this and finish what she was here for.
She stood in front of the window, watching the world go by, a world she didn’t understand anymore. Maybe she never had. She’d certainly gotten love all wrong. And when love was wrong, all of life was wrong.
She wondered if the man she’d seen in the ballroom the other night had gotten love all wrong? Or was he still searching? She thought it might be the latter. His eyes had been so penetrating, so intense she’d felt as if he were touching her.
She hadn’t seen him again, and she hoped she didn’t. Of all the nights she might have yearned for his company, now would be the worst time to feel any kind of attraction or form even the most pregnable of bonds.
Still she was aware of him, sensed that he was here in the hotel. But why? Not for fun. There hadn’t been a glimpse of frivolity in his eyes. And here she was thinking of him when all her thoughts should be on the reason she was here.
Katrina left the window and stepped into the hallway. She had to keep her mind clear. Her task was simple, but there could be no mistakes.
She slipped the pendant into her pocket. It was the key to everything.
FOR A HOTEL that had been crawling with security guards ever since the abduction, Bart found it surprisingly easy to move through the building at will. If he’d been officially assigned to the case, he could have never taken such liberties. There were definitely advantages to working a crime detail without the restricting properties of a badge.
He’d already learned a lot, though most of his facts had come from eavesdropping rather than snooping through guest rooms. Jeff Matthews, the young Caucasian in room 211 puzzled him.
Supposedly, he was a freelance travel writer and photographer, but Bart had spotted him following a blond woman the other day at a distance and shooting candid shots of her through a high-powered binocular lens. Bart doubted the shots would ever show up in a travel magazine.
He watched while the photographer stepped out the door of his hotel room, then waited until he was on the elevator before Bart slipped into his room. Breaking in was easy. Locked doors never stopped cops.
As expected, photographs were scattered about the room, spread out on the round table by the window, displayed on the bed and even lined up on the floor.
Bart checked them out. The ones on the bed were of a starlet he’d caught on the late show a few weeks back. One snapshot showed her in the garden, lip-locked with a movie-star handsome guy Bart had spotted getting off the ski shuttle yesterday.
The photos spread on the table seemed more legitimate. They showcased the magnificent foyer, the garden gazebo and the sparkling crystal chandeliers in the ballroom. Looking at the photographs, it was clearer than ever that the whole place was a monument to the past. The photos could have come straight from a 1930s travel magazine.
The photos on the floor were puzzling. They looked like mistakes, but Bart couldn’t imagine a professional photographer saving his errors.
He stooped to get a better look. They appeared to be shadows, most dark, but some with an eerie glow to them.
They had been taken on Fernhaven property, inside the hotel, near the more secluded cabins, and some in the wilderness areas.
One grabbed his attention and held it. He picked it up and studied it. The snapshot was mostly trees and shadows. Yet, it held a frightening familiarity for him. Or maybe it was just that the picture took him back to that horrible night when he’d taken the bullet.
He returned the picture to the floor, leaving it exactly as he’d found it. But as he opened the door and stepped into the hall, he decided that Jeff Matthews was worth watching. He might be a photographer just as he claimed, but he could be more. He could be a murderer.
But then so could dozens of the other men who worked or were registered at the Fernhaven Hotel.
Bart was almost to the stairwell when he sensed someone following him. He spun around to find the old woman he’d met in the garden the other day just a few steps behind him.
“You get around,” she said.
“You, too.”
“Not so much. Mostly I stay in the garden.”
“Then I’m surprised you’re not there now. It’s a beautiful day for mid-December and it may be the last we have for awhile. They’re predicting snow in the mountains by the end of the week.”
“Snow can be beautiful, or deadly.” She shuffled forward and laid a hand on his arm. “She’s in the garden, just past the fountain where I was when we last talked.”
The woman’s change of subject confused him for a second. “Are you talking about Katrina?”
“Yes. If you hurry, you can find her.”
“Did you look for me just to tell me that?”
“It’s not as if I have a lot of other things to do.”
“Does she know you came to find me?”
The old woman smiled sheepishly, her wrinkled lips almost disappearing as she did. “If she knew, she’d leave before you got there.”
“You’re not trying to play matchmaker, are you?”
“What if I am?”
“You’ll