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Helena collapses onto an overstuffed sofa and pats the cushion beside her. Reluctantly, I settle in. I wouldn’t dare say no to Helena—she looks like she could eat me alive.
Helena pauses to light another cigarette. She takes a deep drag, then opens the first page.
I gasp.
The entire two-page spread is a full-color photograph of her and Toby, wrapped in a loving embrace.
They are butt naked.
There are wrinkles in places I didn’t know couldgetwrinkles.
“Oh, this old thing.” Helena clicks her tongue as she turns the page. “I forgot that was in there. That was my ruby anniversary present from Toby—a boudoir shoot in my favorite place—right here in the Bridgemont. Robert from the front desk took that photograph. He’s quite talented with a camera.”
That’s something I never needed to know about Robert.
I swallow as Helena turns the page to reveal some holiday snaps where, thankfully, everyone is wearing clothes. A young Toby and Helena stroll on the grounds, play tennis with another couple, swim in a mountain stream with the Bridgemont in the background.
In another shot, Helena leans over the balcony in one of the upper rooms, wearing one of her 60s day dresses, her hair coming loose from its pins and that cigarette holder dangling from her thin fingers. In another, Toby holds a bottle of whisky with his other arm around his beautiful wife and a smile like he’s just won the lottery. For all of Helena’s barking, they look as if they’ve had a lot of fun here over the years.
That pang in my chest returns tenfold. These photographs—they remind me of my parents. They were academics who were always traveling to some far-flung locale for a conference or lecture series, where they’d tear up the dance floor and dare each other to drink strange cocktails…until my Dad’s accident put him in a wheelchair, and now… Now the only gyrating they’re doing is the danse macabre…
“Were you here when the couple got murdered a couple of weeks ago?” I dive into the real reason I’m here so I don’t have to think about my parents. “Did you meet them?”
“We did. We saw them arriving in their fancy Mercedes, didn’t we, Toby?”
“Yes, honeybunch.”
“She was a right little madam, and she didn’t look too happy about staying here. Mind you, with her cheap wedding dress slipping down her arms, flashing her tits to all and sundry, she looked as if she’d make the best of things. Poor Toby nearly had a heart attack.” Helena frowns at her cigarette. “Some women have no class.”
“No,” I agree, crossing my legs and turning the page quickly so Helena doesn’t have a chance to pick apart my decidedly un-classy outfit. “They don’t.”
I used to love pretty, girly dresses, like the one with daisies on it that was the origin of my nickname. But these days, all dresses remind me of the time before my parents, so I stickwith baggy men’s cargo pants, leggings, hoodies, and old flannel shirts in various shades of black.
“The husband wasn’t much better.” Helena turns the page to reveal a spread of shots beside the hotel pool. “I caught him flirting most unashamedly with the waitress in the bar, offering her all manner of bribes and drugs to invite him back into the staffroom, all while his wife was in the lobby waiting for him.”
“They sound…interesting.” I choose my words carefully. “But they weren’t from around here, were they? No one at the hotel knew them personally?”
“Not that I’m aware of. The police were here for a couple of days interviewing all the guests.” Helena sniffs. “I told them it could have been a murder/suicide—she knocked him off because he was a cheating scoundrel but then offed herself because of the guilt. They didn’t seem much interested in my observations. They haven’t arrested anyone yet, as far as I know.
“And Robert always keeps me in the loop with hotel gossip. There was another couple who died in the same suite some months ago. I hope I’m not frightening you.”
“No, not at all.”
“That’s good. We women should always have a great stomach for violence. I suppose some murderer could still be wandering these halls, but I won’t let it spoil my holiday. It’s bad enough that I have to be here with Toby.”
Oof. And they say true love is dead.
But I press on, heedless to Toby’s stricken face. “And have you experienced anything else strange at the hotel? Cold spots, gray figures, that sort of thing?”
Helena tosses back her scrawny neck and cackles. “If you’re referring to that ridiculous story of a Bridgemont ghost, then you can take that superstitious nonsense elsewhere. It’s just a tale the new owners made up to scare the tourists. Sid was a lovely, upstanding gentleman. He’d never dream of lingering about,bothering people, let alone committing horrific murders. Look, I’ll show you.”
She turns the page. This spread is all shots of Helena and Toby with other couples in the hotel ballroom, dressed in glittering ballgowns and dancing to a swing band.
“The hotel used to have a ball every Friday and Saturday night. It was quite the affair. Here are Sid and Eleanor—we met them on their honeymoon night, twirling around the dance floor like a pair of whirling dervishes. Now, Sid—there was a man truly in love, truly devoted to his woman.
“But that Eleanor couldn’t see what a good thing she had. She poisoned Sid in his sleep, so the stories go, emptied the safe, and ran off with the best man. They were never brought to justice. Apparently, they were last seen on the beach in the Cayman Islands. They’d be long gone now, I imagine.”
The couple beam out at me from the photograph. It’s not one of the many that have been shared online, but a candid shot taken in the hotel’s ballroom. The groom is spinning the bride under his arm, and he looks at her with such violent intensity that it makes my stomach churn. She smiles angelically as she sashays around, her dress a blur around her legs.
