A Body to Die For (33 page)

“Is that so?” Beck asked, glancing back at me. I’d shocked myself with my comment, but he looked even more surprised.

“Yes,” I said, unable to stop. “And—and this summer Anna felt someone was spying on her. Shouldn’t the police be looking into
that
?”

I started to turn away as I said the last part, flushed with embarrassment, ready to flee the dining room. Natalie had been
pretending to mind her own business up until this point, but now I saw her head pop up.

She looked surprised, worried even, and her eyes shot toward Danny, who was standing just behind me.

“Should I send you a check for your consultation, Ms. Weggins?” Beck said. “Is that what you’d like?”

I turned back in his direction, fearful of what the look on his face would be. And it wasn’t pretty. His eyes burned with
anger.

“I’m just offering a suggestion,” I said.

He ignored me and turned to Danny. “If you make contact with your husband, please ask him to get hold of me.”

The front door burst open at that moment, and the three of us snapped our heads toward it simultaneously, as if we all expected
something momentous. But it was just the night desk clerk, the one who’d started working late in Natalie’s place. He glanced
sheepishly at us, aware that he’d barged in at an awkward moment.

“Uh, sorry I’m a little late,” he announced to Natalie. “Let me just get out of these wet clothes and then you can go.” He
slipped by us and disappeared down the corridor that ran behind the front desk.

Without saying another word, Beck turned away. He strode across the lobby and yanked open the door, then closed it quietly,
as if he were working hard to control how pissed he was.

Danny let out a pent-up sigh as soon as he was gone. I felt as though it might be two days before the color left my cheeks.

“Natalie, I’m sorry you had to be in the thick of this,” Danny said, turning to the desk.

“Uh, that’s okay,” she replied, though she looked funny, as though it really had unsettled her.

We said good night to her and made our way down the long front hallway of the inn to the dining room. As I put one foot inside
the room, I felt as if I’d just been beamed to another planet. Classical music played quietly in the background, a fire crackled
in the fireplace, and several tables of diners chatted by candlelight.

We each ordered wine—I opted for Cabernet and Danny for Chardonnay—and we didn’t begin to discuss what had just transpired
in the lobby until each of us had taken a large sip. Danny’s white wine glowed in the candlelight.

“I see now what you meant when you said the police might not be receptive to any theories from you,” Danny said. “He was livid.”

“I can hardly blame him,” I admitted. “I came across as obnoxious and interfering. I wish I
did
have something more concrete I could use to convince him, but I don’t. After I saw you this afternoon, I followed up on a
few more leads, but they didn’t go anywhere.”

“I so appreciate all you’ve done, Bailey,” Danny said.

“It hasn’t amounted to
anything.
But who knows? Maybe something I said to Beck will spark something in
his
mind. Then he really
will
owe me a damn consulting fee.”

I laughed sarcastically when I said it, but I felt crummy inside. Whatever attraction Beck once had toward me had undoubtedly
fled, and although it was probably for the best, I didn’t like how it had ended.

“Look, let’s leave this miserable business behind us—at least for an hour,” Danny said. “Talk to me about New York, about
Greenwich Village, about
Gloss.
It will do me a world of good.”

It did me good, too, to steer away from Anna, and the spa, and Beck. I ricocheted all over the place in my stories, talking
about Landon and the zany, eclectic dinner parties he gave and all my little rituals in the Village. As I spoke, I could sense
my cold gathering steam, but the conversation, delicious food, and wine kept my mind off that as well.

“This has been so nice,” Danny said when we were finished. “How about a brandy in the lounge before bed?”

“I’m going to say yes to that. I had a nap before dinner, and I desperately need something to knock me out or I’ll be up for
hours.”

It was just after nine, and I expected that the lobby would be quiet now, but as we came down the hallway we saw a woman in
a blue raincoat standing by the front desk. The clerk must have just spoken to her because I saw her shake her head in irritation.

“Is everything okay, Earl?” Danny asked as we reached the lobby.

“This woman is waiting for Piper, and I’m doing my best to find her, but I’m not having any luck,” he announced.

She was about Piper’s age, mid-thirties, and fairly attractive, though she had her hair pulled so tightly into a ponytail
that it made her eyes appear permanently startled. She turned to Danny, having guessed that she was the one with the clout.

“I’m Lacey Cox, a friend of Piper’s,” she announced. “I’ve got money for her, and I can’t leave till I give it to her. I’m
later than I promised to be, but she said she’d wait.”

“You know what room she’s in, Earl?” Danny asked.

“She told me twenty-seven,” Lacey said, not giving Earl a chance to answer. “He tried it and there’s no answer.”

“I talked to her earlier in the day up there,” I said. “But I know she wanted to get an early start. Maybe she couldn’t wait
any longer.”

“It’s four hundred dollars,” Lacey said. “She wouldn’t leave without it.”

“What about the barn?” I asked. “She may have gone back to her room there.”

“I had the bellboy check,” Earl said. “The room’s empty and there’s no sign of her.”

Danny and I exchanged anxious glances. I felt a tiny tremor of fear beginning along the outer edges of my body.

“I know where her car is,” I said. “why don’t I check to see if it’s still there.”

I grabbed one of the complimentary umbrellas from the stand by the front door and headed outside. The rain had tapered off,
and without bothering to open the umbrella, I ran so fast that my lungs pinched. As I reached the far end of the parking lot,
I was flooded with an awful sense of déjà vu. It was one week ago tonight that I’d stood in this same place just before all
hell broke loose.

I spotted Piper’s car exactly where it had been parked before. Not good. I jogged back to the front entrance of the inn and
found Danny nervously shifting from one leg to the other on the stoop.

“It’s still there,” I said. “We’d better check her room. But don’t let on that we’re alarmed.”

Back in the lobby, Lacey was tapping her red nails on the counter and Earl had the phone to his ear.

“Still no answer,” he said.

Danny announced to the two of them that Piper’s car was still in the parking lot and that she and I would head up to her room
in case she was asleep and hadn’t heard the phone.

“Should I go, too?” Lacey asked annoyingly.

“Why don’t you wait here,” I suggested. “If Piper’s there, we’ll call down.”

“I don’t like this, Bailey,” Danny said as we hurried up the stairs. “I don’t like it at all.”

“No, something’s not right,” I said. “Do you have the key ready?”

I rapped on the door four or five times and called out Piper’s name. No answer. Taking a step backward, I let Danny unlock
the door. We pushed it open together.

It took Danny a few seconds to find the light switch, and I held my breath until she did. When the two bedside lights came
on simultaneously, we saw that the room was empty. In fact, there was no sign Piper had ever been there. None of her belongings
were scattered about and the duvet had been left perfectly smoothed.

“Are you sure this was the room she was in?” Danny asked.

“I think so—fourth on the left. Are all the rooms decorated the same way?”

“No, they’re all different.”

“This was definitely the room, then. Look, she might have gotten bored up here and gone to some other spot in the inn. Why
don’t we check the exercise room and the solarium. Anyplace else you can think of? A public space she might have decided to
chill in.”

“You’ve named them, other than the lounge. There’s a small card room off the dining room, but no one ever uses it.”

“Let’s check everything floor by floor. Do you want to split up—or go together?”

“I don’t think I could bear to do this alone,” Danny said.

We began by first heading to the floor below, my floor, and taking a quick look up and down the corridor. The only people
in sight were a couple letting themselves into a room at the very end. Next the ground floor. We glanced in the dining room,
the card room, and the lounge. With each place we checked that we
didn’t
find Piper, I grew more anxious. Next we headed to the west end of the inn, seeing no one as we moved along the maze of corridors.
The solarium was dark and empty. Finally we went downstairs to the basement, taking a back staircase near the solarium that
I had never seen before. This is where the mouse had come from, I thought, like something scavenged by a grave robber. Though
the lower floor had been renovated with sparkling white walls, it was still the basement and it was eerie down there. The
exercise room was empty. As we returned to the stairwell, the furnace came on with a large groan, making us both jump.

“Danny,” I said, “I’m really worried. Her car is here, so it’s clear she hasn’t left. I think we should check the spa.”

“The
spa? Why?
”

“I don’t know. Because she may have left something in the locker room there. Besides, it’s the only place we haven’t looked.”

What I didn’t reveal was the thought that had grabbed hold of me: That’s where the first murder happened. If the killer was
now after Piper, he may have taken her there.

We entered through the side door, Danny struggling again with the new lock. If I’d thought it had been spooky in the spa this
afternoon, tonight it was terrifying. Danny and I practically clung to each other as we slunk down every corridor, pushing
doors open, calling Piper’s name. There was no sign of her.

“Now what?” Danny asked.

“I’m not sure. Maybe we should try the barn. I know the bellboy ran up there, but perhaps she’s in one of the other rooms—saying
good-bye to one of the therapists. And if we don’t find her, we should call the police.”

Danny suggested we leave by the main entrance of the spa—it would be faster. Before she opened the door, she reached into
the bottom drawer of the desk in the reception area and withdrew a large flashlight.

“There are lights on the path to the barn. But I’ll feel safer with this.”

We exited the spa and walked in the dark along the edge of the parking lot toward the back of the building.

“Give me the flashlight for just a sec,” I said. “I want to flash it in Piper’s car.”

We crossed the parking lot in the direction of the Beetle. It still sat there packed to the brim, ready for someone to take
it somewhere. I flashed the light into the back, but there was nothing ominous, just gobs of junk in disarray. Stepping back
from the car, I let the long beam bounce around the parking lot a few times and into the trees and a cluster of boulders that
bordered it. On the blacktop, near the boulders, there was a scattering of wet leaves.

“Hold on,” I said to Danny. “I just want to check this out.”

With Danny close behind, I walked toward the area I’d noticed. It was just leaves, but there were more of them in that location
than in any other area.

When we reached the rim of the parking lot, I directed the light beam into the woody area that bordered it and along the base
of the boulders. An area of leaves appeared recently tossed. I glanced over at Danny.

“Do you want to wait here? I just want to explore a little farther.”

“No, I’m staying with you.”

We stepped off the blacktop and, holding the flashlight, I led us around the boulders, my high heels quickly becoming soaked.
Suddenly there was a flash of tan ahead of us. Even though I’d begun to expect the worst, the shock walloped me.

It was Piper, covered partially with leaves and lying facedown in a tan raincoat, her long red hair wet and matted to her
head and the side of her face.

I
T SEEMED TO
take Danny forever to grasp the full meaning of what she was looking at. She kept staring at the body, trying to process
it all.

“Oh, my God,” she said finally, squeezing my arm so tightly that it hurt. “Is it—”

“Yes,” I said, my voice hoarse. “Yes, it’s Piper.”

Danny started to move in that direction, but I pulled her back.

“Danny,” I implored, “we can’t go near there. We can’t touch a thing.” Last Friday night I’d disturbed the evidence because
I’d had no choice, but I wasn’t going to let anything happen in this situation.

“But what if she’s still alive?”

“We need to call 911. We have to let the paramedics deal with it.”

Part of me wondered if I
should
check for a pulse, to see if she might be alive. Yet it didn’t seem possible that she could be. She was facedown, and there
was an unnatural tilt to her head, as though she had turned it almost totally around like an owl. She had to be dead. And
someone had killed her. It was clear that she couldn’t have tripped and fallen, because leaves covered about half of her body,
as if the killer had made a fast, incomplete attempt to hide it.