“Come on. Don’t you remember the toilet paper cover my grandmother crocheted? The one with the Barbie doll standing in the middle of the cardboard tube, and the crocheted part hung over the toilet paper and looked like a skirt?”
Kellen glanced in the rearview mirror.
Candy waggled her head. “You’re right—that was worse. But only because it was so tacky. I’m pretty sure this was art.”
Mitch was frowning, his cheeks flushed, his elbow on the window ledge, his hand over his mouth.
Kellen had to get these ladies out of here and to safety.
A charter plane waited for the Shivering Sherlocks. Kellen and Mitch loaded them and their luggage and waved them goodbye, then piled into the van. Kellen got behind the wheel and they headed for the resort. “Mitch, what are you thinking?”
He pulled a wad of dollar bills out of his pocket. “I’m thinking that, for as much trouble as they were, those old ladies didn’t tip very well.”
“I mean…what are you thinking about the situation we have here at the resort? About the violence. What do you think is happening?”
“Have you seen Temo?” He sounded tense, terse, intent.
“I haven’t seen much of him, no.” She’d heard him in the maintenance garage. She’d heard him on the phone. But other than the brief chat in the resort kitchen, she hadn’t seen him.
“I’ll be frank with you. He’s got me worried. Working weird hours, mad at the world, talking about family. His mother recently went to prison, and did you hear about the stepfather?”
“I… No. I didn’t hear anything about his stepfather.”
“Temo told me he’s going to kill him.”
Kellen put it together. “Because of his sister?”
“He said he put the girl with relatives, but he hasn’t called her and he won’t say anything about her. I don’t know.” Mitch seemed bewildered. “When Temo lost his leg, he went violent. And that poor fellow who died—”
“Lloyd Magnuson?”
“Yes, him. Temo was the last one to see him. What is he thinking? Why would he kill him?”
Kellen’s doubts twisted and changed. Was Mitch deliberately misleading her, turning the evidence toward Temo? But he wasn’t, really. Only reminding her of Temo’s odd and disturbing actions. Even so, it was Mitch she mistrusted. Mitch had never done anything Kellen could put her finger on, yet he smiled when he should frown, moved when he should be still. When he spoke of his parents, he did so with reverence, but to her knowledge, in all the time he’d been here, he never contacted them and not once had he passed on family news or anecdotes. Not that Kellen trusted Temo, but more than that, the way Mitch looked at his own hands made her think she should get a message to Nils Brooks about the statues in Carson Lennex’s care.
She projected a mix of worry and urgency—and she wasn’t acting. “Do we have other guests to be transported?”
“I didn’t think you ever forgot anything like guests and their comings and goings.” But he didn’t seem unduly suspicious. He seemed preoccupied. “The newlyweds were fighting and they didn’t get ready in time to go with the Shivering Sherlocks. They should be in the lobby now.”
“Please take them to the airstrip while I search for any remaining guests and the employees who haven’t checked in.” She stopped the van under the portico and grasped Mitch’s hands. “Thank you for warning me about Temo. I swear, when this is over, you’ll get your reward.”
Mitch looked as if he didn’t know if he’d been praised or threatened, and for sure he didn’t want to take the newlyweds anywhere. But he didn’t challenge Kellen, and as she fled into the lobby and up the stairs to Annie’s office, he was rounding up the newlyweds and loading them into the van.
Kellen hoped he would stop at the kitchen for their appetizers, but she was willing to bet the fighting newlyweds were getting the Shivering Sherlocks’ leftovers. In the meantime, she needed to track down Nils Brooks. She called him, left a message. Texted him that she knew where the stolen tomb artifacts were. Got no response.
She got a text from Max. Can you come to security?
She hurried.
He sat alone in the room, facing the wall of monitors. He beckoned her over. “Look at this.”
She joined Max and watched as Mr. Lennex walked along an empty fifth-floor corridor, holding something that looked like a big flat book. He looked around to make sure he was alone, then disappeared into the housekeepers’ storage closet. He came out with another big flat book, a little larger, but he was holding it by the corners, looking at it and smiling.
He was holding a painting of some kind.
“What the hell?” Max said.
Light dawned in a slow, warm sunshine. “That’s it. That’s what he’s been doing.” Kellen kissed Max on the cheek. “Thank you. You’re brilliant!” She ran toward the door, turned back. “Have you seen Nils Brooks?”
“Not at all.” Max had his hand on his cheek and he watched her like…like Hagrid viewed a new dragon egg.
Damn it. Mara was right. As if things weren’t complicated enough, Max was interested. She backed toward the door and out. “If you see him, I really need to speak to him.”
As the door shut, she heard him say, “Hmm.”
What did that mean? Nothing good, she was sure.
She beat Carson Lennex back to his suite. She knocked, and when he didn’t answer, she let herself in, left the door open behind her and went up the spiral stairs to the bedroom. Exactly as Candy had said, the sculptures were displayed against a lighted backdrop that underscored the skill of the artists who had created them.
From downstairs, she heard Carson call, “Hello?”
“I’m up here, Mr. Lennex.”
He ran lightly up the stairs, and at the sight of her, he lifted his eyebrows. “I’ve had a lot of women trick their way into my bedroom, but I never imagined you’d be one of them. Aren’t I lucky!” His Irish accent gave the words a sardonic quality, and he joined her to look at the sculptures. “But I suspect I’m mistaken in your intentions.”
“None of the housekeeping staff came in today. I could make your bed while I’m here.” She took the painting out of his hands. “May I?” Splatters and squares made up the image. “Is it good?”
“Very good. It’s an original Jacie Merideth. I imagine when she did the painting for the resort, she was an unknown. Now this is worth tens of thousands.”
Kellen shook her head and handed it back to him. “I thought you were stealing toilet paper.”
Carson threw back his head and laughed loud and long. “Now you know. You wouldn’t believe the decorations hidden away in storerooms here. No one ever goes through it. No one ever throws anything away.”
Kellen thought of the car manuals Birdie was tossing. “I would believe it.”
“Searching through the junk—and it is mostly junk—satisfies the archaeologist in me, because every once in a while, I find a treasure. Two years ago, I decorated my suite in 1950s kitsch.”
“Annie knows you’re doing this?”
“Of course. Miss Adams, I’m not a thief. Nothing ever leaves the premises. It simply gets redistributed.”
“What about these?” She gestured at the stone statues, fierce, sexual, powerful.
“Those are an anomaly. I can’t imagine who brought them to the resort in the first place.” He propped the painting on his dresser. “It’s not standard hotel room decoration, not in any era. All I can figure is one of the suite residents was a wealthy collector and died either without heirs or with heirs who cared for nothing but the money, and these got stashed and lost forever.”
“Then you do know what they are.”
“Absolutely. It’s looted Central American tomb art. Probably been gathering dust for years.” He lost his patina of sophisticated amusement and became, for a few minutes, serious and a little impatient. “Don’t worry, Miss Adams, I wasn’t going to keep them. After I admired them for a few months, I was going to take them to Annie and have her donate them to the appropriate museum. I didn’t play Indiana Jones, but I agree with him. These belong in a museum.”
“Actually, these have only been at the resort since September.”
Carson must have caught a whiff of ominous, because his voice grew sharp. “How do you know that?”