“You start early,” said Shee.
The girl didn’t respond and Shee frowned, remembering a time when she could talk to young people without their eyes locked on a glowing rectangle.
Those were the days.
Shee took another step toward the desk and waved to catch Croix’s attention.
“Hey.” Croix pulled an earbud from beneath her mat of curls and Shee heard a faraway beat, like music from a passing boat echoing over the water.
“I said, you’re up early.”
Croix shrugged. “Not really.”
Shee glimpsed a blister on the pad of the girl’s right ring finger.
“Blisters,” she said, pointing at her own. “I know how you feel. And my shoulders are killing me.” She rubbed her arm because that’s what people did in awkward conversations—they pantomimed perfectly simple ideas.
Croix’s withering expression suggested Shee’s comment was the source of her pain. She recorked her ear with the bud and returned to scrolling.
Shee grimaced. Apparently, kicking in with more than her share of the digging had not won the girl over.
Outside, Bracco stood sentry in his tropical doorman’s uniform, his head slightly turned in her direction, watching her interaction with Croix.
Protecting her.
“You’re not going to get anything out of her,” said a voice behind Shee. She turned to find Angelina wearing her trademark black tights with a coral and gray long-sleeve blouse. Tucked in her arm, Harley squirmed, and Angelina lowered the dog to the ground.
Shee squatted and put out her hands to create a runway for hugs. Harley bounced over, rearing to place her front paws on Shee’s knees. They exchanged a flurry of kisses before the dog took off around the counter to do the same with Croix.
“Coffee,” said Angelina, heading for a room to the left of the elevator. It wasn’t a question—it was a quest.
Shee followed through the opened French doors.
“Did Mick—”
Angelina raised a hand. “First, coffee.” She pulled a mug with Harley’s face on it from a cabinet. “Croix got this for me for Christmas. Do you want it or a plain-old lime green one?”
“I’ll take the lime green. I wouldn’t come between you and any of your Harleys.”
Angelina handed her the lime mug and poured coffee. Neither of them helped themselves to the bowl of apples, the lone spotty banana or the pile of croissants sitting beneath a glass cloche. Shee motioned to the food.
“Does this mean there are actually guests here? I mean, besides the ones you bury in the middle of the night?”
Without answering, Angelina left the room and walked down a hall leading through another set of French doors to the back porch. Shee shadowed her.
Angelina lowered herself into a turquoise Adirondack chair and set her coffee on the wide arm. Shee did the same in the chair’s twin.
“We have a few guests,” said Angelina with only a touch of pique. “Actually, Croix did some online marketing stuff for us and business exploded for a while. We pulled back after Mick’s thing.”
“Does she live in the hotel?” asked Shee, nodding toward the front desk.
“Croix? Yes.”
Shee recalled Bracco driving away after their graveyard visit. “But not Bracco?”
“No. He has a place over the bridge.”
“And the housekeeper strapped with throwing knives?”
Angelina tittered. “Yeah. You’re not going to want to complain about the turndown service.”
“Duly noted.”
“Beatriz was a find. She’s a clean freak, which made her a meticulous assassin. Now she keeps the hotel spotless.”
“Anyone else I shouldn’t piss off while I’m here? The cook? Maybe a luggage guy?”
“Did you meet William? Blond, goatee?”
Shee shook her head.
“He’s been a lot of help picking up the management duties Mick can’t do now. He’s sort of me when I’m not here. The cook was in the hundred and first airborne. I have my suspicions the gardener was MI6.”
“Yikes. Is that why Dad was so sure I’d be safe coming home? Because he’s staffed the hotel with assassins?”
“I’m sure that’s part of it.”
“Speaking of Mick, let’s start from the top.”
Angelina sighed. “It started with a call from that guy you knew the name of.”
“Viggo.”
The image of Viggo Nilsson popped into Shee’s head. She’d met him before, several times when she was young. She remembered him as bigger than Paul Bunyan, serious but kind, coifed with reddish blond hair. Mostly, she remembered he shared the chocolate-covered oatmeal crisp cookies his Swedish mother sent him.
“Right. Mick goes to see Viggo. That’s all I know until we get the anonymous email asking us to come get him.”
“At an Airbnb.”
“Yes.”
Shee rubbed her forehead, wondering if her father’s coma would have stuck if he’d received proper medical care instead of being left in some random person’s bedroom.
“But if Viggo set Dad up, why would he half-ass save him?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he shot him and then had a change of heart. Long story short, someone wanted Mick dead.”
“That could be a long list.” Shee leaned back in her chair. “Why draw him to Minneapolis? Why not shoot him here?”
Angelina shrugged. “Too close to the hotel maybe?”
“And Mick’s collection of killers?”
Angelina nodded. “You wouldn’t want to poke this hornets’ nest.”
Shee took a sip of her coffee as a pair of black vultures landed on the end of the pier.
“We had a funeral, y’know,” said Angelina, her dark thoughts no doubt inspired by the ugly leather-headed birds.
“For Dad?”
Angelina nodded and Shee picked an imaginary piece of lint from her shorts. “I didn’t know.”
“I know you didn’t know. You weren’t here.”
Croix poked her head out the back door, and for once, Shee was happy to see her.
“There’s a guy out here for you,” she said.
Angelina glared with dismay at her cooling coffee. “About what?”
Croix shook her head and pointed at Shee. “Not you. Her.”
Shee placed her hand on her
