And even I had lines I wouldn’t cross.
The silence reached an awkward length. I could have filled it with questions about her jumpiness due to the murder. She’d practically thrown the door and a window open for me. I should do it. I just couldn’t. My mind wasn’t clear yet, and my heart wasn’t in it.
I got to my feet. After a little time passed, maybe I could force myself back on track. “Is there something I can help with up here?”
Becky shook her head. “I can handle it. I think you should go downstairs and get something to drink. Juice helps. It picks your blood sugar back up.”
Then she went back to the squeegee.
I tottered downstairs and into the kitchen. Susan didn’t give anyone a chance to ask why I was there. She shoved a dish cloth into my hands and ushered me toward a sink full of dishes.
My mom looked up at me from where she was, quite literally, scrubbing the floor. Her expression said did you learn anything?
She might have given me that look regardless of my demeanor. Hopefully. The last thing I wanted to do was explain to my mom that I’d had some sort of panic attack flashback. I didn’t even know what to call it. My parents already thought I was weak without giving them more proof.
I shook my head and turned my back to her.
I passed the rest of the day helping sterilize the kitchen. Susan and Mandy must have already been talking about Vilsack before I barged in because they picked it back up almost immediately.
It fell into a cycle of Mandy coming up with a theory—maybe he got caught trying to steal from the AWOL guest, maybe he was secretly working for the police investigating the guest, maybe he went into the bathroom for something and slipped.
I froze with the last wet dish midway between myself and my mom, who’d finished with the floor and now helped me dry. Our gazes met. Her wide-eyed look told me she was thinking the same thing I was.
“Why would he have been in that room, do you think, Mandy?” my mom asked. “Shouldn’t he have been at the front desk?”
Mandy sniffed. “He should have, yes. He’s on the front desk, so he’d have no reason to be up in the rooms. Becky and I are the ones who clean and prep the rooms for new guests.”
“He would have gone up if the guest called him, though,” Susan said. “He always took good care of the guests.”
And then she was off on an almost too-complimentary description of how Vilsack always took extra time with the guests and how he loved her cooking, and on and on until I almost tuned her out.
I didn’t, as much as I wanted to, because she’d made one good point. The first time I’d stayed here, I’d tricked Tim into leaving the front desk by telling him my bathroom tap wasn’t working. Someone might have lured Vilsack up to the room the same way. That didn’t tell us who, but the missing guest seemed our most likely suspect.
By the time we were done with the kitchen and breakfast room, Becky had finished upstairs, and Tim had not only fixed the schedule but also put a job listing in the local paper and confirmed with the incoming crop of guests that their rooms were ready and waiting.
Mandy decided it was finally safe to send everyone home.
My mom and I were almost to my car when Becky skittered out of the front door and down the porch steps. “Nicole, wait.”
I waved my mom ahead of me.
Becky pressed a slip of lined paper into my hand. I unfolded it. She’d written a time, date, and address on it.
“It’s a support group,” Becky whispered, even though my mom had shut the car door and everyone else was still inside. “For people like us. Who’ve had things happen to them.”
My therapist had recommended I join a PTSD support group a couple of times. This must be the one.
Becky twisted a bracelet around on her wrist. “If you don’t want to go alone the first time, I know I didn’t, we can go together. I work afternoons at Dad’s Hardware Store. We could meet there at 5:30.”
I’d refused my therapist’s suggestion to join a group because I knew what my parents would think. We didn’t share our private problems with strangers. That’s not what we do. And strong people shouldn’t need others to help them deal with their problems.
When I told all that to Mark, he’d said that strong people were the ones who were brave enough to ask for help when they needed it.
Maybe it was time to finally listen to him. “I’ll be there at 5:30 on Thursday night.”
Hopefully my mom had come up with something better from her time spent with Mandy and Susan because, right now, we might be the worst consultants in police history.
8
I’d just settled in to the couch with my laptop, cup of coffee, and dogs the next morning when my cell phone rang. I stared at it through nearly ten seconds of ring tone. But I couldn’t let it go to voice mail. My mom was out on a run, and if she got lost, I’d have to go find her.
Mandy’s name was the one on the screen. I couldn’t really find a reason not to answer that wouldn’t leave me feeling guilty afterward, so I slid a finger across the display.
“Nicole.” My name came through in a half hiss-half whisper. “She’s here.”
An email appeared in my inbox from Mark. The subject line said Good Morning, Beautiful. I tore my gaze away from the screen so I could pay attention to Mandy. It wasn’t easy.
“She who?” I asked and took a long sip of my coffee. It was too early in the morning for this, and that was saying something, because I’d always been an early riser.
“Alice Benjamin. The missing guest.”
I nearly spit my coffee into my laptop screen. I set my laptop and coffee to the side.
Velma perked up her ears and tilted her head in an expression I’d have sworn said I don’t know the Heimlich, but I can lick your face if you think it’d help.
I cleared my airway. I needed to say something, but for the first time in longer than I could remember, my mind went completely blank.
“What do I do?” Mandy said. “I left her at the front desk and now I’m hiding in the closet under the stairs.”
