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Freddie chuckles. “Good luck with that. The only two staff members who’ve been here since the sixties are Robert and maybe even Old Man Rodney, though no one knows for sure how old he is. I think you’d have to cut him open and count the rings. You won’t squeeze a word out of Robert about anything, and the problem with Rodney is—”
“Oh, yes, Old Man Rodney and I are well acquainted.” I shudder, remembering the old man’s hairy crotch gyrating in my face.
“Exactly. And the owners are unfortunately not on site at present. We aren’t able to contact them, which is a real shame, as we could use their assistance with everything going on,” Freddie continues. “We have boxes of stuff in the back office—old restaurant menus and photographs and brochures, but it’s all jumbled up. I can ask Robert if you’d be able to look through them, but he doesn’t even allow journalists or historians back there. It’s his private domain. We had a bunch sniffing around after some unfortunate incidents this year, but he won’t let them see anything. You’d think that guy had something to hide. I’m sorry, Mrs. Dean. I thought I would find more information for you.”
My heart sinks. Even if I could get in to look at that stuff, it’ll be weeks of work to pore through it, and I don’t even know what I’m looking for. Something that will have meaning to a dead ghost.
“That would be great, thanks. And actually…” I tap my chin as an evil thought occurs to me. “Iwillbook that table for tonight. My husband’s credit card is still connected to our room, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. And what’s your fanciest, most expensive dish on the menu?”
“That would be the fifty-five-day aged beef all the way from New Zealand, served with a squid ink reduction, mushroom beignet, and beef cheek roulade.”
“Excellent. I’ll have that with a bottle of Dom Perignon.” I need something to drown my sorrows, and if Brooks is picking up the tab…
“Certainly. I’ll arrange it for you, Mrs. Dean.”
As Freddie hurries away to make my booking, I feel a tap on my shoulder. I whirl around, my fingers itching to reach for my blade, but it’s only the strange old woman, Helena, who we met on our first day.
“Pardon me, dear.” She sucks on her cigarette holder, smearing her lipstick beyond her lip line. “I couldn’t help but overhear that you’re interested in the hotel’s history. You know that Toby and I have been holidaying at this hotel for decades. We first came here in the sixties, and although it got a bit run down and depressing for a few years there, the new owners have made it even more opulent than ever. I keep a scrapbook of all our photos. Would you like to see it?”
The sixties? She was here at the same time as the bridegroom? There’s a chance…“I would.”
“Toby!” She snaps her fingers, and her husband pops up from one of the nearby sofas, his features stricken with fear at what she might ask him to do. “Go up to our room and fetch my scrapbook for this young woman.”
“Of course, my sugarplum.” Toby immediately puts down his book.
A pang of something hits my heart. I remember how Jackson and Orion used to leap to attention like that to carry my books everywhere at school.
I wish they were here now.
They’d love this. Orion would get such a kick out of playing detective, hunting through this lady’s photographs. And Jackson would charm her completely onto our side—
Helena seems to sense a shift in my mood. “So where’s that brooding, handsome husband of yours today?”
Hopefully drowned in the pool. I bite my tongue so I don’t say that out loud. I don’t know where Brooks has gone, and I don’t give a shit.
“I hope he’s not off gallivanting with another woman,” Helena says with a kind of delicious relish, and I’m horrified at the streak of possessive jealousy that rocks through my body at the idea of Brooks being with another girl, even though I also desire to stick his head on a pike and dance a jig.
Why you gotta betray me like this, body?
“It would be rude of him to find a new mistress on your honeymoon, but not unheard of. Men. They’re all the same. At least it took Toby a few years to become insufferable.”
“My husband is a nature lover,” I tell her, not wanting her to think I’m so easily fooled by the ways of men. “He’s out watching birds, but I wanted to enjoy the hotel spa.”
“I couldn’t agree more. Why go outside and get all muddy for nothing when we can pay hundreds of dollars to soak in a mud bath with a glass of prosecco?” She winks at me. “The two of you remind me of me and Toby on our wedding day. So young and full of spirit. I bet the sex is incredible.”
My cheeks heat. “Um…”
“You know, Toby and I have stayed in the honeymoon suite several times ourselves. Did you know that you can use the cast-iron feet on the bed to attach a spreader bar? But whatever you do, don’t tie a sex swing from the chandelier. It’s not structurally sound. Poor Toby found that out the hard way. Ah.” She waves at her husband as he huffs across the lounge, saving me from further tales of their exploits. “Here he is with the book.”
Toby returns and places a large leather-bound book into her wrinkled hands.
Why does she cart that thing around? It’s so much easier to keep all your photos on your phone.
Old people and their strange ways.
