A Killer Retreat (15 page)

“I need you to tell Sam about the baby.”

Except that.

“Are you crazy?”

“Please, Kate? I know I can't keep this from him much longer, but I can't face him, either.”

I stepped back and crossed my arms. “No way, Rene. Not on your life.
You
have to tell Sam, and you have to do it soon. He's beside himself. He thinks you're having an affair.”

Rene's expression changed from heartbreaking angst to aneu
rism-blowing anger in two seconds flat. Her face turned so red it was practically purple. Her skin seemed to throb. I was surprised her scalp didn't ignite.

“An
affair
! That lame-brained idiot thinks I'm having an
affair
? Cheating on him like some two-timing tramp?” Bella, the fearless guard dog, bolted away from the impending explosion and cowered behind me. “I'd never betray Sam!”

“Tone it down, Rene. You're scaring the dog.”

Rene stopped shouting, but her perfectly plucked eyebrows still twitched with annoyance.

“Besides,” I continued, “you're wrong. You may not be sleeping around, but you're still betraying Sam. He's not stupid. He knows you've been hiding something, and it's killing him.”

Rene's shoulders sagged. “He said that?”

“Not in those exact words, but yes. Whatever you decide about this pregnancy, Sam needs to know about it, and soon. He should have known before me.”

Rene stared off into the distance for several—pardon the pun—
pregnant moments. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “You're right. Now's not the time to be selfish. I'll tell Sam. I just need to figure out how.”

“OK sweetie, but don't take too long.”

“I won't. And Kate, don't tell Michael. Not until Sam knows.”

Agreeing wasn't difficult, at least not in that moment. Michael probably wasn't speaking to me anyway. I pulled a tissue out of my pocket. “Now wipe that mascara off your face, or you'll really freak out Sam.”

The three of us walked quietly for about ten more minutes. As we moved deeper into the forest, Rene's energy shifted. Her step became lighter. The color returned to her cheeks.

Bella sniffed the ground and munched on tall blades of grass. Rene rooted around in her jacket and pulled out a bar of organic dark chocolate. She broke off large pieces and shoveled them into her mouth.

“Looks like you got your appetite back.”

“You know, I did. I feel a lot better. I'm not even nauseated anymore.” She licked the last crumbs of candy off the wrapper, crumpled it into a ball, and shoved it back into her pocket. “Keeping the pregnancy a secret must have been bothering me more than I realized. I think it was literally eating a hole in my stomach. Talking to you totally helped.”

We walked several more steps before Rene spoke again. “You're such a good friend.”

ESP-like suspicion tingled the base of my skull. She was up to something.

“And?”

Rene stopped walking and looked at me through wide, child-like eyes. “And I need one more favor.”

I took a step back and frowned at her suspiciously. “What kind of favor?”

“I need a distraction—something to keep me from freaking out until I tell Sam.”

Rene flashed me an affected smile. It exposed sharp, pointy, chocolate-
covered teeth. An evil spark flashed through her not-at-all-innocent eyes.

Ah, crap.

I'd obviously made some kind of fatal mistake. Perhaps I shouldn't have chastised Rene for hiding her pregnancy from Sam. Perhaps I should have promised her that her butt would stay small. Perhaps I should have avoided the whole conversation, turned tail, and run. Regardless, it was too late. Rene's inner devil had returned.

And it was eyeballing me.

I tried to back away, but a traitorous aspen tree blocked my escape. “What kind of distraction?”

“A puzzle. Something to keep my mind off my problems.” She leaned forward and whispered. “You know, like a murder investigation.” Rene crowded in close. I could have sworn that she flicked a pointed red tail. “You might be able to fool the boys, but you'll never fool me. I know why you were so late this morning. You're working the case.”

“What if I am?”

“Then I'll help you, like I did last time.”

I pushed away from her, waving my hands in the air. “Uh uh, Rene. No way.” I'd learned my lesson about teaming up with Rene. The last time we had sleuthed together, she'd promised to go out with one of the witnesses. When she stood him up, he retaliated. Against me. He printed my
photograph on the front page of the local newspaper, complete with a caption that referred to me only as a “mentally ill woman.”

“Come on,” she implored. “It will be so much fun! We'll be
like female Hardy Boys.” Her face brightened. “We'll be the Hardy
Girls!”

Hardy Girls indeed. I'd be Laurel; she'd be Hardy.

She bounced up and down like a golden retriever begging for someone to throw her a bright yellow tennis ball. “Please, Kate, please? It will distract me until I figure out how to tell Sam.”

“Rene, I don't think—”

“Come on, you owe me that much.”

I frowned. Why did I always let her talk me into things like this?

Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all. I'd never put an expecting woman in danger, but surely I could find
some
safe way to keep her occupied. Having a sounding board that wasn't also a suspect certainly couldn't hurt.

“OK, Rene. Fine. You can help.”

“Awesome. Where do we start?”

_____

Rene and I meandered along the trail for another half hour while I filled her in on my plans.

“Remember, keep all of this between us for now. The less Michael knows, the better. He'll just get pi—”

A hundred-pound anchor jerked me to a stop. “Bella, knock it off! You're going to dislocate my shoulder!”

Rene looked concerned, but not about me. “Is she eating grass again?”

It was the third patch of grass Bella had inhaled in the past fifteen minutes.

“Yes, and that's not normal for her. I don't think she feels well.”

Bella snacked on grass all the time, but not like this. Grass hunting for Bella was a delicate, painstaking task. She searched through each clump like a master chef culling through produce, abandoning all but the youngest, most tender of blades. Today she acted more a lawnmower, shredding all plant life in sight.

I knelt down beside her. “Are you feeling OK, sweetie?” A low, gurgling noise rumbled from deep in her belly. Drool dripped from her lower lip, leaving dark mud splotches in the dirt.

Bella's wilted ears were trying to tell me something—something my subconscious mind knew I'd forgotten. But no matter how deeply I searched, my conscious mind refused to remember. I told myself not to worry; that everyone got an upset stomach now and then, especially scavenger-dogs like Bella. Bella's digestive system was fragile; it wouldn't take much to knock it off balance. Maybe the answer was simple. Maybe I'd given her too many treats. Maybe her belly reacted to my own internal stress. Maybe if I stopped worrying, we'd both feel better.

Bella stopped grazing to take care of her morning business.

Rene frowned in disgust. “That can't be good.”

She was right.

One look at Bella's output, and I knew she was in trouble. Flare-ups of Bella's digestive disease weren't uncommon, and when they happened, the symptoms were obvious. Without going into the disgusting details, let's just say that the proof of an EPI setback was in the pudding. Bella's was of the butterscotch variety.

I looked at Rene, panicked. “Her autoimmune disease is flaring
up.”

After six months of experience, I knew more about Bella's rare disease than most veterinarians. EPI exacerbations were often hard to get under control. There were too many potential causes. Sometimes they were due to a vitamin B
12
deficiency, sometimes to emerging food sensitivities. Sometimes the dog developed an infection that could be cured, but only with thirty-day course of special antibiotics.

I doubted that either of the two veterinarians on Orcas had ever heard of Bella's disease, much less knew how to treat it. Dogs with EPI could easily lose ten pounds or more in a week. What if Bella lost all of her hard-earned weight? What if she started starving to death again?

“Bella needs to see her vet. The police won't let me leave the island, so Michael will have to take her back to Seattle.”

Rene looked concerned. “Will she be OK?”

“I think so, but I don't want to risk it.”

I pulled out several extra-large dog waste bags. “I'm not sure what's wrong with her. She was fine back home. This is as bad as when I adopted her. It's almost like she's not getting her medicine …”

My stomach dropped to my toes.

Oh no.

I couldn't possibly have been that stupid, could I? Was I as addle-
brained as Emmy's mother, leaving essential prescriptions at home
on the kitchen counter? I tossed the bags to Rene and yelled, “Clean
this up and meet me at the cabin. I have to go. Now!”

I sprinted back to the cabin as fast as my stubby legs would go, dragging a bewildered Bella behind me. I crashed into the cabin, ignored Michael's and Sam's confused looks, and frantically pawed through the refrigerator. Bella huddled close behind me.

I started on the top shelf, where I found three bottles of wine, a plate of fossilized cinnamon rolls, and two jars of eye cream. I'd ask Rene about those later.

The second shelf held two six packs of Guinness, several containers of leftover Chinese food, and an empty carton of orange juice. Michael's handiwork, I assumed. I pulled it out to toss in the trash.

Oh thank God
.

Bella's bottle of enzymes sat safe and secure, pushed to the back of the shelf.
Get a grip, Kate.
I picked up the bottle and held it against my chest.
Of course you didn't forget Bella's medicine. You checked that cooler at least a thousand times.
I rubbed my thumb over the top of the bottle.
Only a truly negligent dog owner would forget—

Wait a minute …

Why was the bottle still taped shut?

My conscious and unconscious minds finally connected. No wonder the consistency of Bella's food had been off. I'd remembered to bring Bella's medicine, all right, but I'd forgotten to add it to her food. My obsessive-compulsive organization had been my undoing. The piles of medicines I'd added to the containers at home had fooled me.

Part of me wanted to laugh. Bella would be fine. A bigger part of me felt like crying. She wasn't fine now, and it was all my fault. She'd be sick for at least twenty-four hours, maybe longer, until the unmedicated food made its way out of her system.

I sank down to the floor and hugged Bella in close. “I'm so sorry, sweetie. It's going to be a very long night.”

fourteen

“Don't look so worried.
I promise, Kate, everything's going to be fine.”

Easy for Michael to say.
I
was the one about to die.

If I was lucky.

Two hours after I discovered the sealed bottle of enzymes, I trudged, not toward the death chamber, but to a place much worse: my own private hellhole of mortal embarrassment. I'd avoided accompanying Michael to the Elysian Springs spa for two days, but frankly, I'd run out of excuses.

The private yoga class with Emmy's family wasn't scheduled until eleven the next morning, and my next public class was still four hours away. Michael had been a complete sweetheart the entire trip, in spite of my erratic behavior. Once I came back from Bella's three hundredth bathroom break, even I had to admit: I owed him some couples' time.

So I agreed to go to the reopened hot tubs.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The thought of hanging out in the buff—in public no less—made the roots of my hair turn purple, but it was safer than going anywhere else. Surely Michael wouldn't discuss our future in a gurgling bathtub full of naked strangers.

Would he?

I pulled Rene aside before leaving. “Talk to Sam while we're gone. That's an order.”

She smiled insincerely and wiggled her fingers goodbye as she ushered Michael and me out the door. “Have a good time, you two.” I had a feeling discussing babies-to-be wouldn't be on her agenda anytime soon.

I tried to postpone the inevitable by walking as slowly as possible, but we still ended up at the spa long before I was ready. I paused at the entrance and took a deep breath. Ganesh seemed to warn me away from the stairwell. I told myself that I was nervous about being nude in public, but that wasn't the real issue. Flashing my pasty-white bottom at strangers was the least of my worries. I was afraid of Technicolor flashes of memory. Freeze-frame images of floating blonde hair, rhinestone-studded dog leashes, and purple-blue lips. Coming back to this place so soon after Monica's death had obviously been a
very bad idea
.

I tried to distract myself by examining my surroundings, but I couldn't find a single place that was safe to look. People were ev
erywhere. Naked people. They padded between hot tubs and rinsed
off in showers. They sat on top of the very same towels they used to dry between their toes. A few of them leaned over the balcony, simultaneously enjoying the view and providing one of their own.

Michael slipped off his sandals and unbuttoned his shirt. I grimaced and hugged a folded towel to my chest. He pointed to an empty-looking building. “There's a changing room over there if you want. Most people get undressed here.”

I would rather have died.

I undressed in the women's changing area and stalled for time by neatly folding and refolding my clothes. After the fourth permutation, I covered every inch of my skin from my throat to my knees in a bath sheet and hesitantly walked out onto the deck. A friendly-looking woman gestured with her eyes toward my white-knuckled grip. “This must be your first time.”

You think?

I tried to find Michael, but no matter where my eyes pointed, they landed on something taboo. Hairy shoulders, suspicious-looking moles, strange scars, private body piercings. One ancient woman sported a multicolored chakra tattoo that started at her throat and extended down to her root—chakra, that is.

I found Michael submerged in the second tub, looking completely relaxed and chatting with several newfound friends. Maybe hanging out naked with strangers was easier once you got in the water. I knelt at the edge of the tub—towel still securely in place—and ran my fingers through the hot water.

Michael shifted to make space beside him. “Come on in. The water's great.”

I stood up and placed my hands on the ladder. I even started to undo my towel. But I couldn't go any further. Intellectually, I knew the pool was nothing more than a man-made container of gurgling, chemically treated water, but that's not how I saw it. To me, it looked like a boiling, rectangular cauldron, waiting to swallow its next female body.

I had to get out of there.

I made a lame excuse about a contagious rash, ignored Michael's annoyed expression, and scooted to the sauna, where I hoped I could hide alone. For once, the universe was on my side. The sauna was completely empty. I turned off the lights, claimed a corner on the top level, and closed my eyes.

Before long, I began to relax. My breath lengthened. The knots in my shoulders loosened. The hot tubs obviously weren't for me, but perhaps Michael was right about the rest of the spa. Perhaps all I needed was some alone time, completely enveloped in warmth.

I mentally coached myself through a “safe place” meditation. A guided visualization designed to make the practitioner—me in this case—feel peaceful and safe.

Imagine that you're alone on a warm, sandy beach. Feel the sun bake your shoulders as your feet sink into the white sand.
I sighed and snuggled deeper into my towel.
Wiggle your toes and feel the texture of—

The door slammed open and two loudly chattering women entered the space.

“Getting off mid-afternoon is the only thing good about this job. I thought this day would never end.”

I recognized them both. The first, a twenty-something blonde, was one of the center's cleaning staff. She would have been cute—in a perky, cheerleader sort of way—if she ever stopped scowling. The second, a mid-thirties Hispanic woman with a long dark braid, was the waitress I'd seen serving breakfast at Eden that morning.

I scrunched down in my dark corner and hid my face, but I needn't have bothered. Either the two friends didn't see me in the dark room, or they didn't care that they had an audience.

Maidzilla—my new nickname for the blonde—continued. “I don't know about you, but I'm ready to get out of here. This crappy job isn't worth risking my life over.”

“You don't really think we're in danger, do you?” the waitress asked. “Kyle called a staff meeting after breakfast. He told us not to worry. He said the yoga teacher didn't do it, but the police had all but arrested the real killer.”

“Yeah, Emmy fed me that load of crap, too. They're just trying to keep us all from freaking out and quitting.”

Emmy and Kyle had followed through on their promises to talk to the staff, after all. Good for them.

Maidzilla continued. “What's going on between those two, anyway?”

“Emmy and Kyle?”

“Yeah. They've seemed awfully chummy lately.” I didn't have
to see her face to read her expression. The sneer was written all over
her voice.

“Oh, come on. Emmy's getting married in a few days.”

“When has a wedding ring ever stopped Kyle? If you ask me, those two spend waaaaay too much time together.”

I wrapped my arms around my shins and cradled my knees to my chest. Emmy and Kyle? A couple? Granted, I hadn't spent much time with them, but they didn't seem like lovers to me. Not even friends. Could I have missed something?

After a brief moment of silence, the waitress replied. “You're just
jealous because Kyle isn't interested in you. Why would Emmy have an affair? She and Josh seem great together.”

Maidzilla's voice got lower. She leaned toward her friend and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “So you think. Those two fight all the time. If Josh had an IQ higher than an eggplant, he'd have dumped Emmy a long time ago. She's managing this place into the ground. If her father doesn't cough up some money soon, they'll be out of business before Christmas.”

Bruce was Emmy's new investor? That was one interesting tidbit she failed to mention. A tidbit that gave her a whole new motive for wanting Monica out of the picture.

“I'm telling you, something is going on between Emmy and Kyle. All you have to do is look at them. They're doing it.”

I was beginning to wonder if Maidzilla was right. Emmy and Josh seemed to truly be in love, but appearances—especially of relationships—could be deceiving. Emmy herself said that she and Josh and been fighting lately, and she opted to include Kyle, not Josh, in our plans. Could Emmy be fooling me after all?

Before the two women could finish their gossipy conversation, the lights turned on, the sauna's door opened, and three boisterous teenagers invaded the space. My newfound sources became suddenly mute. If I wanted more details, I'd have to find an excuse to talk to them later.

I leaned back and rested my head against the sauna's warm cedar planking, discouraged about more than Monica's murder. Why were relationships always so hard? Emmy and Josh, Rene and Sam, Michael and me: all of us struggled.

Rene and Sam were the one happily married couple I knew, and they might not make it until Monday. How could I expect anything different from Michael and me?

Beads of sweat dotted my body, and not from the sauna's dry heat. The air felt stiflingly thick—too thick to breathe. I had to get out of there.

“Excuse me. Sorry. Pardon me.” I stumbled over three pairs of
unclothed legs, threw open the door, and took deep, desperate gulps
of fresh air. After a quick stop at the changing area to pull on my sweats, I ran for the stairs. I didn't even take the time to put on my shoes.

“Kate, wait!”

Michael jumped out of the tub. “Where are you going?”

“I'm sorry Michael, I can't stay. I have to get out of here.”

“OK. Let me grab my pants.”

I hated to risk hurting his feelings again, but I couldn't be with him right then. I needed to think. “It's okay, hon. I know you'd rather stay here.”

He didn't disagree.

I gave him my best impersonation of a smile. “I”ll meet you back at the cabin later.” I ran down the stairs, putting as much distance between me and the spa area as possible.