Liz shivered. “Wow. That’s a lot of info for a stranger to divulge.”
“Bill used to live on Long Island. His company was one of many who were called to the Trade Center on nine-eleven. Just like the police force, there is a comradery between first responders and the fire department.”
“What did Captain Netherton tell you?”
“He said he was in the dining room, which is below the Worths’ suite. First, he heard scuffling. Then he called the housekeeper in and they both listened. When they heard Mr. Worth scream, they ran up to the suite. The door was open, and they found him crawling on the floor from the bedroom. Captain Netherton called nine-one-one. The housekeeper entered the bedroom, checked Mrs. Worth for a pulse, and didn’t find one.”
“Was Regina stabbed?”
“No, choked.”
“What was she choked with?”
“The captain didn’t know, he didn’t go into the bedroom. Said he was too overcome when he saw the cat sitting on top of Regina’s chest. He stayed with Mr. Worth in the sitting room.”
“How tragic. My father got a call from Agent Pearson. She wants anyone who was in the Worths’ suite to meet in the library at eleven so her officers can take prints for elimination purposes. I guess you fall into that pool, because you carried the woman up to the bed after her fall. And one other thing, I know it’s still early, but my father wasn’t able to track down Iris.”
“Didn’t she tell your aunt where she was going last night?”
“Great-aunt,” Liz corrected. “No, and Aunt Amelia hired her without checking her references. She had a feeling in here”—Liz thumped at her chest—“that Iris was ‘honorable’.”
“She didn’t put an address on her employment forms?”
“No. Because she would be living at the Indialantic.” Liz didn’t want to tell Ryan that if Iris didn’t show up at eleven, she planned to check her rooms for any clue of where she’d gone.
Ryan got up and put his coffee mug in the sink. She assumed that meant their meeting was over. Liz stood, reached over, and pulled out the front page from the Daily Post with her and Travis Osterman’s photo and the headline “Writer’s Rampage.” She walked up to him, crumpled the newspaper-clipping into a ball, then pushed it into his chest. “If you want to know what happened, even though it’s none of your damn business, ask me sometime, Mr. Investigator.” Then she strode out the door.
Chapter 20
Liz stepped inside her favorite room at the Indialantic, the library. The furniture in the library was similar to the lobby’s: light wood, bamboo, three rattan cushioned sofas and armchairs, a humongous area rug, and a large desk. There was even a fireplace. Each wall was filled with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, with volumes dating all the way back to the late 1700s.
After Liz’s great-grandmother Maeve’s parents passed away, Isle Tor in Cornwall was willed to Maeve’s brother, Connor, but the books in the castle’s library were left to Maeve. During the Indialantic’s early years, Liz’s great-grandfather William Holt commissioned a ship to bring every book from Isle Tor’s library to America as an anniversary gift for his beautiful Maeve. The addition of a fireplace in the library was also a gift from William to Maeve. Florida’s steamy climate didn’t necessarily call for many roaring fires, but its presence in the library helped Great-Grandma Maeve feel less homesick for England.
The library had been Liz’s oasis as a child. The hours and hours spent inside fostered Liz’s desire to become a writer. Her love of reading had been passed down from both of her parents. Before her mother’s death, Chloe Holt had been an assistant acquisitions director for the rare books and documents division at the New York Public Library. Liz remembered her mother and father taking her to the library on her fifth birthday for an insider’s peek at the library’s legendary children’s collection. That day, Liz imagined that the mammoth lions at the top of the library’s steps had been part of her birthday present. Years later, every time she rode down Fifth Avenue and passed her marble feline friends, Patience and Fortitude, she smiled with the memory.
The library was the only room in the hotel that was kept locked. As children, Liz and Kate were only allowed inside under her father’s watchful tutelage. Kate’s habit of talking to books like they were old friends, even chastising characters like Heathcliff and Edward Rochester for their bad behavior, had come from the hours spent with Liz in the library. As Liz got older, the library became a refuge from the growing pains of crossing that rickety bridge from adolescence to tweenhood. Many a time, after finishing a book, Liz would walk out of the library feeling like she was the story’s main character, sometimes even speaking with an English or French accent. Everyone had their little idiosyncrasies, so when Kate talked to her books, it had never seemed strange to Liz.
Guests weren’t allowed inside the library, and no matter what financial difficulties the Indialantic had gone through in recent years, not one book had ever been sold. Which made it a strange place for Liz’s father to allow fingerprinting to be done.
Agent Pearson sat behind the huge bamboo glass-topped desk like she was at command headquarters at Quantico. An officer from the sheriff’s department had pulled up a chair at the side of the desk, and he motioned Liz forward like she was a truant called into the principal’s office.
After her fingerprints had been
