A Body to Die For (11 page)

“I’m right here, Beck,” I yelled. “I’m coming.” I wanted whoever was behind me to know that we weren’t alone out here. I was
in the thickest part of the woods now, where the trees seemed to huddle together, and I was scared as hell that I would lose
my way. I watched the path as I ran, being careful not to step off it. Suddenly I was at the fork, with one sign pointing
to the marsh and the other to the Cedar Inn. The sound seemed to have retreated, back into the woods. I kept running, though,
until the woods grew thinner. A stitch began to throb in my side. I slowed my pace just a little and craned my neck around
again. There was nothing. And the only sound was the shrill call of a bird, high in the branches.

By now my lungs felt as if they would burst, and I slowed down even more, into a jog. Finally I burst out of the woods into
the garden of the inn. I leaned forward, hands on knees, trying to pull in a breath but all the time watching the border of
the woods. It wasn’t my imagination. Someone had chased me and tried to scare me and possibly wanted to harm me. He’d succeeded
in scaring me. He had also made me mad.

I stood in the garden until my breath slowed to normal and the stitch was gone from my side. After letting my eyes sweep one
more time across the trees, I nearly stumbled back to the inn.

It was almost time for my massage, and I wondered whether I should just chuck it. I felt too rattled to lie on a table and
vegetate. But I would simply have to force myself to let go, I decided. I didn’t want to pass up the chance to have a conversation
with the chatty Cordelia.

The salon turned out to be a small space at the back of the inn. A girl at the desk was explaining in patronizing tones to
a tubby woman in a rayon warm-up suit that they had left a message for her this morning, canceling her appointment, and they
were terribly sorry she had never received it. What about tomorrow morning at eight? She grudgingly agreed, then stormed off.
Josh, I noticed, was nowhere in sight.

Considering what a mess everything was, I expected a delay, but there wasn’t one. As soon as I offered my name, I was ushered
to a small dressing room and given a robe and terrycloth slippers. Cordelia was waiting for me right outside the changing
room. She was the same blonde I’d spotted heading for the meeting this morning. Up close, I could see that her face was pretty
and soft, with light blue eyes, almost transparent. Her boobs were humongous—there was no other word for them—and she was
probably twenty or thirty pounds overweight. But being large boned, she wore it well, kind of Rubenesque. She led me down
the corridor to the far end of the salon, and we entered a small room with a massage table. She told me that she’d wait outside
while I disrobed and made myself comfortable on the table.

It appeared as if I were in a space ordinarily used for storage. In its present incarnation, however, boxes had been shoved
up against the walls to allow for a massage table. The lights in the room were as low as they could go, obviously to draw
attention away from the clutter. I laid my robe—with my watch in the pocket this time—over a stool and wiggled down between
the two sheets on the massage table. The muscles in my neck were hard and tight, but my legs still trembled slightly from
my frantic run. I let my head sink into the head cradle at the end of the table and tried to relax a little.

“Comfortable?” Cordelia asked as she stepped back into the room. Her voice was deep and soothing, like a late night DJ’s.

“Yes,” I muttered to the floor. “Does this work pretty much like a regular massage?” I wanted to signal to her that I was
open to chitchat.

“It’s similar, yes,” she said, lowering the sheet to expose my naked back. “Except instead of my hands I use natural river
stones that I’ve heated. They feel amazing on the body.”

She stepped over to the side of the room, and I could hear her hands swishing in a tub of water.

“It must be tough with the spa closed,” I said. “I mean—having to work in a makeshift setup like this.”

“Not really,” she replied. “You can work with these stones anywhere. Just let me know if they’re too hot. By the way, I’ll
be using an oil that’s scented with lemongrass. It’s a wonderful stress reliever.”

“Just what I need,” I said. “Though I’m sure with everything that’s happened, you must feel as stressed as I do.”

“I’m fine, actually.” So much for her being a talker. Maybe finding out one of her colleagues had been murdered on-site had
robbed her of the gift of gab.

Before she began the massage, she set two large stones in the palms of my hands, almost like ballast. I felt kind of silly,
like a piece of tarp being used to cover a hole in the ground. But then she started her magic. The stones she used for the
massage were warm and smooth and lightly slicked with oil. She moved them over my back and neck in strong, hypnotic strokes,
and before long I felt my muscles let go, totally seduced. I lay there like a big blob, savoring every minute of it. There
was no music being piped in—obviously this room wasn’t set up for it—and the only sound I could hear as she worked was her
breathing. Shallow, from being overweight perhaps. I felt myself start to drift off, and I opened my eyes, forcing myself
to stay awake. Through the circular hole in the head cradle, I stared at the tiles on the floor. I was startled when one of
Cordelia’s tiny feet came into view. It was like catching a glimpse of something I wasn’t supposed to see.

When she was done with side one, Cordelia removed the face cradle and held a towel between us as I flipped over. Before she
began on my legs, she placed small, slim stones between my toes. It was borderline erotic, almost as good as having my toes
sucked by a guy. I couldn’t understand why Cordelia wasn’t considered one of the spa superstars.

Despite her talent, once I was on my back, the switch in my mind flicked on again. I kept seeing myself thrashing through
the woods like a deer on the run from a hunter. Who had been following me? Was it
Josh?
He hadn’t liked my suggestion about camping out in the spa. After reporting to the salon, he might have doubled back to the
solarium and seen me heading for the reserve.

“That was terrific,” I managed to say when Cordelia finished my massage by misting my feet with scented water. “You must have
quite the following.”

“I’m glad you liked it. Why don’t you take a minute to relax before getting up, and I’ll meet you outside.”

She had about as much interest in chatting today as a highway toll taker.

When I slipped out of the room a moment later, I spotted her down the corridor. She was leaning against the wall, talking
to Eric, who apparently was also waiting for a client to emerge. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but her body was in
a flirty pose. He watched her intently, his face expressionless. When she noticed me, she sprang away from the wall and, turning
all professional again, escorted me to the reception area. He ignored me completely.

There were no showers in the salon, so I snuck upstairs wearing a robe, my clothes bunched under my arm. I noticed the light
on the phone blinking as soon as I walked in my room. It was a message from Danny. Though she planned to stay at the inn tonight,
she was heading to her house for a few hours. She suggested that we meet for breakfast at eight-thirty and catch up. She’d
gone through the invoices and found two that she was concerned about. She would bring them to breakfast to show me.

I blew off the idea of dinner in the dining room. Not only did I feel oily from the massage, but I was also too wrung out
from my
Blair Witch
chase in the woods. After ordering from room service, I pulled out my composition book and jotted down notes and impressions
from my conversation with Josh. I was eager to know what Danny had turned up.

I also couldn’t help but wonder where Beck was. He hadn’t worn a wedding ring, so perhaps he was still single—or divorced.
Maybe he was spending his Saturday night at Chuck E. Cheese, doing the divorced dad thing amid a million screeching kids.
Though chances were that because of the murder, the only thing he was doing tonight was working on the case.

I hoped that because I was totally exhausted I’d be able to fall asleep easily, but within minutes of being between the sheets
I could tell my brain wasn’t going to cooperate. Last month I’d gone to see a hypnotist, part of my endless and apparently
hopeless quest to deal with my insomnia. He’d told me that I should lie in bed and pretend I was riding down an escalator,
getting sleepier with each floor. I tried it now, but it made me hyper and anxious. I felt as though I were trapped between
floors at Bloomingdales.

So instead I just let my mind run wild. As the wind moaned outside my window, I replayed the same old questions. Who had chased
me through the woods? What had Josh been up to at the spa? Who had killed Anna? I thought, too, of Beck’s insistent question:
Could I have seen something significant last night and not remembered it? I climbed out of bed to check that the door was
locked.

As I tested the dead bolt, another question suddenly formed in my mind, one that hadn’t wormed its way into my thoughts until
this point. Could the killer have seen
me
that night? The lights in the spa had been off when I’d scurried across the parking lot, but someone might have been standing
inside the dark, preparing to sneak away—and watching me from the window. Did he, like Beck, think that I’d seen something?
Was
he
the one who had chased me through the woods today?

T
HE DINING ROOM
was nearly empty when I arrived at eight-twenty on Sunday morning, though Danny was already there, staring forlornly into
a cup of green tea. She was wearing a pretty ice blue blouse, and though she generally looked great in pastels, today the
lack of color emphasized how drawn and pale she was.

“Oh, Danny,” I said as I slid into a chair across from her. “Tell me how I can cheer you up.” I’d already made a decision
not
to tell her about being chased in the woods. I was afraid if I did, she’d be reluctant to let me help anymore.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” she said, flashing a pale imitation of her usual cheery smile. “I was just taking a minute
to try to gain some clarity.”

“How’s business?” I asked.

“The cancellations have begun—as well as some early checkouts,” she said, sighing. “It’s partly because of the murder and
partly because the spa schedule is so messed up. We’ve had to shift people around and cancel appointments, and folks aren’t
happy.”

“I’m sure it’s just a temporary thing. You’ll have the spa back open in just a few days.”

“Thank you, Bailey. You know, one of my favorite affirmations is ‘I look to the future because that’s where I plan to spend
my life.’ I just keep repeating that to myself.”

God, I thought, I wish affirmations worked for me. The only thing I ever repeated to myself on a regular basis was, Bailey,
just don’t fuck up.

The waitress arrived for my order, and once she was out of earshot I asked Danny if there was anything new on the case. She
reported that the police had shared practically nothing with her, though she’d heard through the grapevine that Josh didn’t
have an alibi—he was supposedly home watching a ball game on Friday night—and though people apparently saw Eric at the birthday
party, he didn’t show until after eleven. She also revealed that Detective Beck had called late in the afternoon yesterday,
asking for her to put together a list of Anna’s regular clients.

“Ahh, interesting,” I said. “I wondered myself if a male client could have developed some weird fixation on her. I take it
you keep track of all the clients and what therapist works on them each time.”

“Yes, it’s all in the computer. That way, if a client forgets the name of a therapist, we’ve got a record of it. We have all
sorts of ways to cross-check information.”

“Now tell me about the two bills you mentioned last night. They looked funny to you?”

“False alarm,” she announced. I tracked down the business manager at home last night and he explained them to me. They were
totally on the up-and-up.”

“Okay, so it’s not looking like a money thing. But after my talk with Josh yesterday, I really do sense something’s going
on over there. He seemed very protective of his turf. Let me ask you a question. Are you certain the weird behavior began
in the spring and not later, around the time this guy Litchauer had his heart attack? I wonder if they could be covering up
something about his death.”

“Dear goodness,” she said, clearly perturbed at the notion of that. “Well, like I said, he died in July. I feel as if I picked
up the vibe earlier—but maybe I’m confused. Maybe it all happened around the same time.”

“You said that Anna was his therapist the night he died. Had he ever been to the spa before?”

“Oh yes. He had a standing weekly appointment with her. But Bailey, you’re not suggesting Anna or someone at the spa
caused
his death, are you?”