So, Piper was playing the ditzy young thing. I didn’t buy it for a moment. The woman who helped Natasha claw her way to the top was not a stupid woman, but I figured it would behoove me to play along.
“Oh, I hear you.” A lawyer. How interesting. Could it be an estate lawyer? Or perhaps a criminal one?
“Do you know which lawyer Jason is seeing?” I blurted.
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why?”
“Well,” I scrambled for a reason other than the obvious, “research, you know. For my next book.”
“Don’t you write historicals?” she asked.
“Sure. Mostly. But I’m expanding into mysteries, and there’s a lawyer in my novel, you see. Only I don’t know any lawyers. I’d love to ask questions.”
She seemed to relax somewhat, the dopey expression settling over her like the perfect mask it was. She gave a little shrug. “Sorry. No idea. You’ll have to ask Jason.” She turned back to her phone screen.
I found it odd that Jason wouldn’t tell her what lawyer he was meeting or that she would care so little about it, but I didn’t want to press my luck. Lucas eyed me over the top of Piper’s head. From his expression, he knew exactly what I was up to. Well, more power to him.
I searched for something else to ask her. Not that I was lacking in questions, but it was all about the phrasing. Piper wasn’t just a pretty face, obviously. She was on high alert, and I didn’t want her to realize I was more than just another nosey writer.
Cheryl came to my rescue. “Gosh, that was awful, wasn’t it? Did you know Viola found the body? I mean, I didn’t know anything about it until I woke up the next morning.” She shuddered as she turned to me with wide eyes. “You’re just so brave.”
I almost snorted with laughter at her innocent act. “Didn’t have much choice, did I? Although I’ll think twice before walking the beach at night again, let me tell you. What if the killer was lurking in the dark?”
“You could have been killed!” Maggie boomed from the front. I hadn’t realized that she and Lu were listening.
Cheryl nodded, expression eager. “That’s what I keep saying. I’m so glad I went straight to bed. Where were you when you heard about it, Maggie?”
Light glinted off the lenses of Maggie’s glasses. “Lu and I were at breakfast. Annabelle MacDonald told us over coffee. You know Annabelle, right? She writes those Highland romances. Popular what with that show on TV now.”
I nodded. I didn’t know Annabelle personally, but I was familiar with her work. They mostly featured pictures of half-naked men in kilts on the covers. I approved most heartily.
“How about you, Piper?” Cheryl asked innocently. “How did you hear? You must have been really shocked since you used to work with her and everything.”
“Oh, of course. Very shocked,” Piper agreed pleasantly. “Of course, we didn’t know anything about it until the police came to Jason’s room to notify him.”
And question him, no doubt. He was, after all, next of kin. Plus, didn’t they always suspect the spouse first?
“We went to bed right after the party,” Piper continued. “Jason was kind of drunk.”
I wondered if she was telling the truth. And if Jason was so drunk, though from what I’d seen he hadn’t been but perhaps a little tipsy, could Piper have slipped out without him knowing and murdered Natasha? Anything was possible. And Piper had so many motives: revenge for Natasha firing her, getting her hand on Natasha’s money (if Jason was the heir), just plain old hatred. Time would tell, but I was keeping a close eye on the nearly perfect Piper.
I slanted a glance toward Lucas, who was looking particularly handsome in a heather gray t-shirt that matched his eyes. He’d changed since breakfast. I’d be keeping an eye on the Handsome Author Dude, too. Not because I suspected him of murder, but because I didn’t want him falling for Piper’s obvious charms. For Cheryl’s sake, of course.
AS WE SPILLED OUT OF the van, we were greeted by a gray-haired gentleman dressed neatly in khaki slacks and a white button-down shirt. His nametag proclaimed him to be “George,” and he had the most enormous moustache I’d ever seen on anyone born after 1800.
“Hiya folks.” He waved us over. “Ready to see some ghosts?” He beamed at us.
I had a hard time believing we’d see anything in broad daylight—weren’t ghosts supposed to be most active at night?—but George was very enthusiastic, as were Maggie and Lu. Even Cheryl seemed excited, and Lucas already had a notebook and pen out. Very old school. Piper, oddly enough, seemed bored by the whole thing, examining her cuticles and sighing heavily like she was being put upon. Which led a person to wonder why she’d bothered to come? Surely there was plenty to do back at the resort if ghost hunting wasn’t her thing.
With the van empty, the driver promised to collect us in ninety minutes, then zipped out of the parking lot. The hot sun glared down, melting any remaining makeup from my face. No doubt I looked like a raccoon. A frizzy-haired raccoon. The humidity was turning my hair into something out of a bad ’50s sci-fi movie. One where the heroine got electrocuted.
George led us up the wide front steps and through the double doors into the hotel lobby. He was already cheerfully informing us of the details of the original owner’s death and how he was said to haunt the place. I tried really hard not to roll my eyes. I wouldn’t say I was a skeptic exactly. More that I preferred to see the evidence of something, and I’d yet to see any evidence that ghosts were real.
Everyone else seemed eager to catch all the gory details. Only Piper was as unimpressed as I was, surreptitiously sneaking glances at her phone. She wasn’t texting, so I wondered if she was waiting for
