Murder's Last Resort Read Online Free PDF Page B

her soft, Georgia peach drawl, said, “Thank you, Chief Wells, for your sensitivity. I feel like I’m in a bad dream.” I felt like I might have fainted, had I been given that news about my husband. She was taking this well.
    She paused, staring into space, her voice small. “Thank you for bringing Maya along.”
    With that, she turned to me and slipped her arm under mine. We walked to the baggage carousel in silence, her high heels clicking in a lonely sort of way down the highly polished, linoleum floors.
    * * *
    Once back on the hotel property, our sad little group pulled up to the private VIP underground entrance of the building. To protect her from prying eyes and to keep her safe, we walked Alana through the back corridors and service elevator to her new, two-story suite, different than the one she had shared with Red.
    Rick and Tom did a quick sweep of the rooms before they left us there. Alana said she needed to go upstairs to think and to rest, but would I please stay in the living room downstairs so she didn’t feel quite so alone?
    I agreed. No need to point out she was not really alone. Plain clothes guards were already in place outside the locked double doors of her suite.

Chapter 13
     
     
    In Alana’s suite, I waited until the crying stopped, then tip-toed upstairs to look in on her. She was resting in the arms of Morpheus, so I left her a note in the kitchen: I’ve gone home to change for tonight. Rick’s men are posted right outside your front doors. You are safe. Call me if you need something. Extension 3101. Love, Maya.
    * * *
    I had so looked forward to tonight. But now, as I walked through this great hotel in all its architectural magnificence, I felt sad. Sad for Alana. Sad for Redmund, even. Sad that evil had to exist in the world. Sad for French, to be a suspect and to be locked up in a jail cell. I felt a big dose of sad for Maya French, too, but that was called self-pity and there was no time for that. Not now.
    I walked through the hotel lobby, stepped onto the down escalator and found myself surrounded by tourists. God bless them. They made our lives possible. Other catty hotel managers and their wives might refer to them as “tourons,” but not French and me. We called them manna from heaven.
    True, they were often not pretty, especially after a day at the pool. Fried by the sun, with white racing stripes decorating the sides of their arms, torsos and legs where the sun had not hit, they often wandered stiffly around the lobby, looking pink, puffy and pitiful.
    Still, they were precious to us. French tried to protect them from themselves. He had initiated the “Sun Squad” at our resort. Attractive young gals and guys, in sun visors, crisp white tennis shorts and matching tank tops, strolled poolside with old-fashioned cigarette trays in front of them. Unlike the hotchacha girls of the 1940s, these youngsters hawked sunscreen, Bullfrog and aloe vera lotion instead of cigars, cigarettes or Tiparillos.
    When the Squad noticed guests snoozing while slowly roasting to a dusky concord grape color, they awakened them and suggested a move to the shade with, perhaps, a soothing refreshment, such as an orange creamsicle smoothie and a foot reflexology massage. Or, how about a strawberry banana rum smoothie and a Balinese body rub under a thatched roof hut, lakeside?
    Life hardly got more decadent than this. Our guests deserved it. They worked hard all year, and this was their one treat to themselves and their families. They wanted to be near Disney, but not drowning in all the typical Disney hoopla.
    Silver Pines was several cuts above anything Disney had to offer—fun and relaxed, yet elegant and grand. Our job was to make our guests feel as special as they were.
    My thoughts of the tourists stopped as my feet touched the bottom of the escalator. I was not far from the OPD’s makeshift office, Meeting Room C. Might as well stop by and say hey, see if they’d come up with anything.
    Things