Suddenly, the cart we were in began to move.
“Geez, this one weighs a ton. What are these sheets made of, bricks?” the man pushing it complained. I tried to make myself feel as light as possible.
“Stop complaining, Tom,” the other guy replied. “Let’s just get this stuff to the laundry room and get out of here.”
Tom grunted his disapproval, but the cart continued to roll. We made it around a few corners—Tom wasn’t a very good cart driver and we hit the wall a couple of times—but eventually the cart stopped, and I made sure to listen for the footsteps indicating that Tom and the other man had left. As soon as I was sure they were gone, Jason and I jumped out of the cart. We were now in the hotel’s laundry room; there were another six carts identical to ours nearby. Jason smoothed the top over so no one would notice anything was wrong while I looked out the door to make sure we could get out of the room without being seen.
When Jason joined me, a minute later, we slipped out of the room and went down a hallway.
“Where do you think the body is?” I asked.
“My guess, if it’s one of the robbers, is somewhere on the ground floor. If they were killed in their rooms, the cops would only block off the floor they were on, not the whole hotel.”
“Ok,” I replied. “Well, we’re on the ground floor now.”
“Let’s try and make our way to the lobby,” Jason suggested, and I nodded. I had no idea where in the hotel we really were, but I figured it was safe to assume we were near the back. We walked down the hallway, trying to look as casual as possible, as if we were totally supposed to be there. I knew it wouldn’t pass muster with anyone official, but maybe Tom and the other worker wouldn’t bat an eyelid if they saw us.
Suddenly, I heard footsteps coming from another direction. I glanced at Jason, my eyes widening. I didn’t know who it was, but I also didn’t want to find out. I saw a door a few feet further down the hall and rushed toward it, opening it and rushing inside, Jason following behind me. He closed the door carefully, making sure not to make a sound, and a couple of seconds later we heard the voices of Chief Gary and another man I didn’t recognize but must have also been a cop, going by the conversation.
“The victim is one of the people you suspect of being behind the diamond heist, right Gary?”
“Yes,” came Chief Gary’s reply. “At least, as far as we can gather, this is likely one of the suspects.”
“You realize that if things get leaked to the media things are going to get out of hand very quickly in this town, don’t you?”
“Of course. That’s why the only two people in this building, in the whole state even, who know about my suspicions are the two of us.”
“Make sure it stays that way. I don’t want to see this state overrun by gold diggers hoping to find the diamond. Mind you, we don’t even know it’s here at all.”
“I know. My gut tells me it is, though.”
“How come you think this victim is one of the robbers?”
Unfortunately, at that point, the voices faded away as the two of them continued down the hall, and I looked at Jason. It seemed as though we were right: one of the robbers was dead.
14
Jason and I gave Chief Gary and the other man a minute or two to continue moving past us, then we left the room we were hiding in—it turned out to be an extra pantry filled with huge containers of flour, sugar and other baking staples—and slipped back out.
“Do we actually have a plan here?” I asked Jason. “We know it was one of the robbers, and I want to know which one it was, but are we just going to walk in there, look at the body and leave without anyone batting an eyelid?”
“You think too much,” Jason teased. “Let’s just figure it out as we go.”
“You sound like Sophie.”
“I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing.”
Before I had a chance to reply, however, we reached the end of the hallway and a door with an eyehole. I looked through and found myself looking into the inn’s lobby. Everything was slightly distorted, as it always is when looking through a door’s eyehole.
“What do you see?” Jason asked. I immediately knew this was the scene of the crime.
“The body’s in there.”
“Wow! In the lobby itself? That’s brazen.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “I can see it there, but I can’t quite make out who it is. It’s definitely male, though. So that means it’s either Jack, Andrew or Kevin. There’s a handful of cops, and some other people. I guess the crime scene investigators, a medical examiner, that sort of thing.
“Ok, here, move over, let me look,” Jason asked. He peered into the eyehole then shook his head.
“Yeah, we’re not going to be able to tell who it is from here. Hold on,” he continued, pulling out his phone. I watched in a combination of awe and horror as he pressed his phone against the edge of the door and slowly opened it about an inch. Sliding his phone outside of the door, Jason took a few quick photos, then slipped his phone back inside and closed the door quietly.
“Come with me,” he said, motioning back toward where we’d come from. I dutifully followed him back into the pantry closet, where Jason handed me his phone and I looked at the photos he’d taken. They were much clearer; there was absolutely no doubt as to whose body was lying there now.
“It’s Jack,” I said. I couldn’t help but remember how he and Claire had argued just a few hours earlier. She had threatened him. Had she really made good on her threats?
“Jack… he was one of the ones in the hotel room when you and Sophie were in there, right?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “He also named himself the leader of their new attempt to find the diamond.”
“Really?” Jason asked.
“Yeah,” I replied, giving him the Cliff notes version of the conversation I’d overheard the day before. I had to pretend I was already in the library, sitting behind one of the large drawers of old maps when the group came in, and the lie made my heart ping with guilt.
“Wow,” Jason breathed when I was finally finished. “You certainly have a ton of luck when it comes to being in the right place at the right time.”
“I don’t know, right now I’m stuck in a hotel pantry with cops surrounding the building and no idea how we’re going to get out of here. This doesn’t feel like the right place.”
“True, but at least we came in here on purpose.”
“So you admit we have no idea how to get out of here.”
Jason shrugged. “I figured getting in was enough of a challenge without also having to figure out how to get out.”
I groaned. “We’re going to have to stay in this cupboard for like, a full day.”
“That’s not too bad,” Jason grinned. “I can definitely think of one way to pass the time.”
I laughed. “I think getting caught doing that in here might be the only way we could possibly get into even more trouble than we would just getting caught normally.”
“Fine,” Jason replied. “But it would be fun, I promise you that!”
I rolled my eyes. Men. “How about we find a way out of here so you can actually get into my pants somewhere where there’s no risk of anyone walking in on us.”
“Now that’s what I call motivation,” Jason said, wrapping his arms around my waist. I couldn’t help but giggle with pleasure as he kissed my neck. “Ok. What parts of the hotel are free from cops?”
“The sides,” I replied immediately. “Front and back are being guarded, and the front is especially bad since half of Willow Bay is probably out there by now trying to get as much gossip as possible.”
“Ok. What kind of exits are out the sides?”
“I guess windows?”
“There we go. Problem solved.”
“Yeah. Now we just have to find them.”