“You have any idea what happened in there?” he asked.
Jenny thought of the broken porcelain pitcher and the glass shards on the floor. Some of them were big enough to cut through flesh and bone.
“They must have had a fight. Both of them were injured. The door was locked, so I don’t . . . don’t think anyone came in from outside.” She looked up at him as an awful thought struck. “Oh, my God. Their room . . . room ten is in the new wing. Uncle Charlie said bad things happen there. What if it was—”
“Don’t even say it. Whoever killed that man was very real. You and your hotel had nothing to do with it. Come on. We’re going downstairs. You have an office somewhere, right?” She nodded. “The police can talk to you there.”
She didn’t resist when he guided her through the maze of police and emergency services people, down the stairs to the lobby.
“Which way?”
“The door in . . . in the back on the left.”
Her laptop sat on an old oak desk. There were two wooden chairs in front of the desk and an office chair behind it. Several oak file cabinets had seen plenty of use. A green-velvet settee sat against the wall. A small refrigerator hummed next to an open door that led to a tiny bathroom with a sink and toilet.
Cain eased her over to the velvet settee, went to the fridge, and found a bottle of water. He cranked off the cap and wrapped her fingers around the bottle.
“Drink,” he said. Then he disappeared into the bathroom and came out with a wet paper towel, which he folded and draped over the back of her neck.
Jenny took a long swallow of water as Cain sat down on the settee beside her.
“You going to be all right?”
She took another drink of water. The cool towel helped calm her nerves. “I’m okay. It was just such a shock.” For an instant, her throat tightened. She glanced up at the ceiling as if she could see into the rooms upstairs. “I’ve got to get back up there. I’m the person in charge. I need . . . need to handle this.”
“Let me go up and—”
“No. It’s my responsibility.” Taking the bottle with her, she rose and headed for the door, with Cain right behind her.
Jenny turned. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I wanted some lunch. I got here just as the EMTs arrived. I figured whatever was going on, you’d be in the middle of it.”
A faint smile curved her lips. “You always seem to show up at just the right time.”
Cain smiled back. “I have a knack.”
They returned upstairs together, found Chief Nolan had arrived on the scene.
“The woman’s stable but unconscious,” the chief said. “We found a wallet and purse in the room. Driver’s license says the man’s name is Brian Santana, forty years old, unmarried. The woman is Leslie Owens, thirty-three, also unmarried. Two separate addresses, both of them in Phoenix.”
Aside from the information on the hotel registration form, which was the same as the information on Brian’s driver’s license, Jenny knew nothing about the couple that could help Chief Nolan and the police with the investigation.
She gave a brief statement to Gerry Simons, one of the officers who had arrested Ryder Vance after he had attacked her, then stood next to Cain as police cordoned off the newly opened section of the hotel, treating it as a crime scene, stringing yellow tape across the corridor and the door to room 10.
It occurred to her that she would need to find accommodations for the guests arriving later that afternoon, a thought that reminded her of the dead man and injured woman, and her eyes burned.
Suck it up, and get back to work.
She pressed her lips together as she looked at the yellow tape. Secretly, part of her was glad no one else would be staying in the new section, not until they knew exactly what had happened to Brian Santana and Leslie Owens. No until Jenny was sure something unexplainable hadn’t occurred.
Cain’s voice drew her from her thoughts. “You’ve done all you can,” he said. “You ready to leave?”
“I need to talk to my staff, explain what’s happened. Then I’m driving over to the hospital. Leslie Owens needs someone there when she wakes up. Until her family or a friend can get to the hospital, I want to make sure she’s okay.”
Cain gave her a long, assessing glance. “All right, staff meeting and trip to the hospital. We better get started.”
Her head came up. “What? You don’t have to do that. You’ve already done more than most people would have. I’ve been working at the Grandview. I know how much stuff you have to do.”
