“I’m not with the police.” She stands next to the table while I launch into the same explanation I gave Rowan, about who I am and what I’m looking for. Maria listens carefully the whole time, the furrow in her brow deepening. When I finish, she slides into the chair across from me, although only halfway, like she doesn’t expect to be here long.
“I didn’t see anything strange,” she says. “It was—it was awful, finding him like that. But the room was normal, you know. Not—” She swallows. “Disturbed, or anything.”
It occurs to me, from the nervous way she tugs on her skirt, that I don’t really know how to question people about a murder. I’m sure she’s told all of this to the police, too. A dark knot of guilt tightens in my chest.
“You didn’t notice anything before you went into the room?” I say, choosing my words carefully. “You know, strange people at the hotel, that sort of thing?”
Maria frowns and scrunches up her brow, like she’s thinking. “No,” she finally says. “No, I came in at my usual time, 4:30. It was quiet, being so early. No one was around. And I didn’t hear about any—” She waves her hand around. “Weirdos, you know. We get them sometimes, and Darcy will warn me to watch out. But we didn’t have any when I…” Her voice kind of trails off, and she swallows.
“Darcy?” I ask gently.
“Oh, the head of housekeeping.” Maria smiles sadly. “She talks to the girls at the check-in counter to see if there’s anyone we need to watch out for. But there wasn’t.”
I nod. “Thanks,” I tell her. “That—that’s good to know.”
Maria smiles at me before she leaves. I settle back in my chair and look out the window at the beach below. So no one strange checked into the hotel. That doesn’t necessarily meanI’m wrong. Would they even check in as a guest? All the other deaths happened in Rosado, so it makes sense that it’s someone in the area.
It could be a contractor, then. A repairman. Or even just someone who came in from the beach and made themselves look like a guest?—
It could be someone who works at the hotel.
The thought hits me with a shiver of fear as sharp as an electrical current. But then, none of the other deaths had anything to do with the Palm Breeze Hotel. The locations are random, more or less. So it feels unlikely.
Whoeverdiddo it had to find a way into the hotel room, though. I wonder if the police looked into that at all. I’m not surprised they interviewed Maria, since she found the body, but did they go any further than that? Talk to the clerks at the front desk?
I swivel my head around, but the hostess has vanished from her spot at the front of the restaurant. I’m alone.
I suppose I could wait for her, but there’s the soft, light feeling inside me that wants an excuse to see Rowan again. So I gather up my purse and take the elevator back down to his office.
The door’s hanging open, and I take a deep breath before I knock on it with the back of my knuckles.
There’s an uncomfortably long pause, and then Rowan’s soft voice calls out, “Julia? Is that you?”
I’m sure Julia is just someone who works at the hotel, but hearing another woman’s name still makes jealousy twinge hot in my belly. “No,” I say, sticking my head into the office. “No, it’s me. Um, Abi.”
Rowan immediately stands up when he sees me. “That was faster than I was expecting. Did Julia not come up to see you? She works the front desk, and I told her to chat with you when she had a chance.”
Heat floods into my cheeks. Of course. He said he was going to send some other employees up there, didn’t he?
That also answers the whole “who’s Julia” question
“No, I just—” I’m fumbling over my words, my heart racing around in my chest. Why do men make me so god damned nervous? Still? After all these years, even when they’re nothing like?—
Nothing likehim, the boy who attacked me when I was sixteen. Blake Fletcher.
“I had a thought,” I say, taking a deep breath. “And I wanted to ask you about it. If you don’t mind.”
“Of course I don’t mind.” He walks around his desk and comes to meet me in the doorway, staring expectantly down at me through his dark, tousled hair.
“The police,” I say. “How much did they really talk to your staff?”
Rowan frowns. “Not much,” he admits. “They seemed to assume it was an accident.”
“So they didn’t ask if anyone might have asked for a room card?” I say, my cheeks still warm. Rowan’s gaze is intense. Not in a bad way. Just—not in a way I’m used to. “To the room where—where Mr. Nielson was staying?”
Rowan’s eyes go wide with understanding. “Oh! No, I don’t think they did ask about that, now that you mention it. But I can check to see if we keyed any cards to that room.”
“You can?” I’m both relieved that I don’t look like a fool in front of him and also irritated that Kaplan apparently couldn’t order the bare minimum of detective work.
