Snatching up the keys to the rooms, I headed to the staff entrance. My first stop was the Wilkinses’ room. After stepping inside, I left their door open.
I inhaled deeply, and all I smelled was perfume—vanilla perfume. I walked past the bed, to the wall that bumped up to room five, and I still didn’t smell anything. Wondering if they were imagining things, I headed to the opposite side of the room, and opened their bathroom door. A faint scent of aftershave and fruity body wash clung to the small room, but as I stepped in further, I did smell something under those scents. I inhaled again, nose wrinkling.
There was definitely a scent. Not sure what it was. Sort of reminded me of something spoiled?
Why in the world didn’t she say you could smell it in the bathroom? That meant it was either coming from inside the walls—please God, no—or it was from the bathroom in the other room.
Oh no.
The sink.
What if the sink broke again and had flooded the damn room. Granted, I doubted it smelled like that. I hurried out of their room, locking it behind me. I went to room seven and unlocked the door. The moment I opened it, heat washed over me along with a stronger scent that was not . . . pleasant.
“What the hell?” I muttered, turning to the right. The heat in the room was jacked up to eighty.
A knot of unease formed in my stomach. We kept the rooms set to sixty-five if they weren’t filled for a ton of obvious reasons, so I could not understand why this was up to eighty. It hadn’t been like that when we were in the room before.
And the smell . . .
I placed my hand over my mouth as I walked farther into the room. The stench was powerful, and it was vaguely familiar. I neared the bathroom, realizing it smelled like spoiled meat.
The dread grew as I opened the bathroom door. It creaked as it slowly drifted to the side. The smell slammed into me, and I clamped my mouth shut to stop the gag as I reached out, smacking the light switch. I flipped it on. As if in a daze, my eyes traveled across the floor to the bathtub.
Horror seized me, reaching in deep and locking up my muscles. Something was in the tub. Something gray and pale in the dank water that filled the tub. Fingers—fingers connecting to an arm, dangled lifelessly over the side. It was her left arm and hand. There were only four fingers. Splotches of brown marred the skin. Her hair was limp and blond.
I stumbled back. “Oh my God.”
A dead woman was in the tub.
Chapter 26
“I’m so sorry,” Mom said for probably what was the hundredth time as she followed the Wilkins and their luggage to the front door. “If there—”
“You’ve done enough,” Mr. Wilkins said. “You helped us find a new hotel. You’ve done all that you can.”
I hadn’t heard Mrs. Wilkins say a word, but I’d seen her with her husband when they first appeared in the entry. Her face was leeched of all color, and I knew she was thinking that what she’d smelled in her room was a dead body in the next. That was pretty horrifying. Seeing it would be yet another image I would never erase from my mind.
That poor woman . . .
I’d seen her face.
Her eyes had been open, wide and fixed. Her face frozen in horror, gaping in a silent scream.
I closed my eyes as I leaned against the wall just inside the dining room. I could hear Mom at the desk now. The Wilkinses were gone. She was calling incoming guests and cancelling. I tried calling James to tell him he wasn’t needed for the next couple of days, but he hadn’t answered. All I could do was leave a voicemail.
There was no other choice. The inn was a crime scene. A body was still upstairs, in the bathtub, and even once everything was gone, we couldn’t allow people to stay here. Not when it was obviously unsafe.
Tyron was here, as were the FBI agents. I’d already given them my statement. Cole was on his way back from Baltimore. He’d mentioned something about taking leave, but I didn’t remember the specifics.
I heard my mom apologizing again.
Moving to one of the dining room chairs, I sat down and placed my head in my hand. I should be the one out there dealing with the fallout, because this—all of this—was because of me.
There was no denying it.
This wasn’t an “everything is about me” party. This was the reality. There was a dead woman, a woman who briefly served me dinner, upstairs in a bathtub, beaten and bloody.
“Sasha.”
I looked up at the sound of Tyron’s voice and lowered my hand to the table.
“You hanging in there?” he asked, approaching slowly. When I nodded, he stopped behind a chair, gripping the back of it. “Cole’s on his way?”
I nodded again.
“Coroners are on the way,” he said quietly. “They’re going to remove the body, but that’s the extent of what they’re going to do. Okay? I went ahead and contacted a company that specializes in biohazards for you. The earliest they can come is tomorrow morning. I’d suggest you just keep that door closed until they arrive.”
“Okay.” I sat back, folding my hands in my lap. “Do you . . . do you know if she was killed here?”
“It doesn’t appear to be that way. With the kind of wounds she suffered, there’d be more blood if she was murdered here.” Pausing, he sat down in the chair. “She was stabbed, Sasha.”
I bit down on my lip. “How long do you think she was here?”
“What’s left behind is mostly fluids from decomp. Time of death right now is going to have to wait on the autopsy. With the heat jacked up in the room and her body partially submerged, it’s going to make it hard to determine, but we think she’s been in that bathtub for at least a day or two.”
Acids in my stomach churned. She’d been in that bathtub for a day or two. Oh God, I couldn’t . . .
“I know you’re dealing with a lot right now. You’re probably feeling numb, but I need to ask you a couple of more questions, okay?”
Swallowing, I nodded for a third time. “I understand.”
He leaned forward, resting an arm on the table. “What we’re guessing is that someone moved the body in here at night. You have an alarm. Who knows the code?”
“Not many. My mom,” I said. “James Jordan—our chef. So did Angela and Daphne. But that’s it.”
“Do you think there is a chance that someone moved her in here before you set the alarm?” he asked.
“It’s . . . it’s possible. We don’t watch the entrances, but I think we’d hopefully notice someone carrying in . . . in a body through the front doors.” I reached up, tucking my hair back. “The only other way would be through the back entrance. Someone could carry someone in that way, up the back stairs, and not be seen, but we keep that door locked and the tunnel leading into the cellar is closed off.”
“Is it possible that someone could’ve gained a key to the back entrance?”
My first response was to say no but it wasn’t impossible. “Nothing is impossible.”