She pulled her phone, glanced at it.
Her text to Max hadn’t gone through. That was her mistake, one she would dearly rue.
She fought alone.
The scent of burning tobacco was stronger here, wafting up the stairs from the living room.
She recognized her own battle readiness—a strong heartbeat, deep breaths, each sense hyperaware—and the slightest tremble in her fingers.
In a crouch, she moved toward the spiral stairway. She pulled Mitch’s pistol out of her boot and placed it, ready to fire, on the top step to use as a backup. Quietly, slowly, she crept down first one step, then another, and as she moved, the living room opened, inch by inch, to her vision. With her pistol raised, she eased sideways to get a greater view of the room. Eased sideways again and saw a shapely leg molded in tight black spandex, and a foot in a lime mesh running shoe propped up on the coffee table.
Something about that was so familiar—and so wrong.
A woman’s voice said, “Cigarettes are bad for my health, and good when it comes to making a point. Tell me where the hieroglyphs are.”
Carson Lennex’s voice was rough and strained, like a man who had been screaming for too long. “You’ll kill me and cut off my hands.”
In a conversational tone, Mara said, “That’s true. But if you don’t tell me, I’ll cut off your hands and then kill you.”
Mara Philippi was the Librarian?
Then who—and where—was Nils Brooks?
Kellen descended another step to get a full view of the room.
38
Max glanced in the spa for signs of life, then checked the restrooms on the first floor. As he ran the stairs to the second floor, the electricity went out. Of course. The dim halls echoed with emptiness. In the second-floor ladies’ room, the cleaning crew had abandoned their carts. He checked every stall, and by the third ladies’ room, he was feeling ridiculous. Then he met Frances coming out, and while she backed away, he made a fool of himself trying to explain.
That awkwardness made him stop and think sensibly. He did not have time to check all the bathrooms and all the guest rooms. He was wasting time away from the security monitors, where he could survey the whole of the resort.
Besides, something was niggling at him. Something about the spa.
For a space that had been hastily abandoned by its staff, it was very tidy. Clean. Almost psychotically so.
He strode back to the spa and entered cautiously. Soothing music played. The aromatherapy diffusers gave off scents of lavender and sweet orange. He stood in the middle of the lounge, among the tan chairs, cotton rugs, bowls of healthy snacks and recently filled pitchers of cucumber-mint water—and he didn’t believe it. Something was off here. It seemed as if the staff had prepared for a normal day of pedicures and massages—and then vanished.
He walked through the whole spa again, up and down the corridors, through the steam room and sauna. He looked into each of the treatment rooms, prepped and ready, their doors ajar as if waiting for the next customer. Only one door remained closed; the sign on it was marked Linens.
He stood in front of it and shouted, “Hello!”
At once, someone began releasing muffled screams and slamming against the door.
He opened it and found a female he recognized, bound, gagged and wide-eyed with panic and appeal. Behind her lay a male masseuse, bound, gagged and unconscious.
Max pulled the young woman into the hall, gently peeled the adhesive off her lips and removed a wad of gauze from her mouth.
She tried to speak.
“Wet your lips,” he advised. “I’ve got to check this guy.”
“Xander,” she croaked. “He’s Xander.”
Max crawled into the closet and put his hand to Xander’s throat. Xander’s heart beat, but his breathing was shallow. Max removed his gag, too, and his breathing improved. But blood oozed from somewhere on his head. Possible spinal injury? Max didn’t dare move him. For the second time today, he called 911. Or rather—he tried to call 911. He had no cell service. He tried to text. Nothing. “Damn it.” When he was running around looking for Nils Brooks, someone had cut the resort’s ties to the outside world. Probably Nils Brooks.
In the hallway, he heard the female begin to cry. He crawled out of the closet, and as he untied her, he said, “He’s alive. What’s your name?”
“I’m Destiny Longacre. I work here.”
He remembered her photo from resort records. “As a masseuse, right? Can you tell me what happened?”
“I came in this morning. Came in the outer spa door. It was open a little. I thought, I didn’t do it. Someone’s going to get in trouble—I hope it’s not me. I got inside, into the hall for the treatment rooms, and I saw something splattered on the floor. Mara hates when the spa is dirty. She insists we clean everything before we leave. Gets really weird about it, so I thought we’d missed something and I’d clean up before she came in. I got the carpet cleaner and started on the splatter, and the towel came out red and I couldn’t figure out what…” She gasped, trying to get a breath between the tears. “Then I thought, It’s blood. I looked up, and she was standing in the door of one of the treatment rooms.”
“She?”
“Mara Philippi. Our boss. She was beat-up, bruises on her face, blood at the corner of her lip—I thought she’d been attacked. I thought whoever was attacking people had attacked her.”
Max knew then. He pulled out his phone and tried to text Kellen. Nothing. He tried to call. No connection.
Destiny continued, “I jumped up and said, Are you okay? and she pointed a gun at me and said, Clean it up. She’s said it before, lots of times, but never with a gun. I was like, Mara, it’s Destiny! She laughed, sort of creaky, and said, That’s for sure.”
Max freed her hands and feet. He gestured toward Xander, unconscious in the closet. “Did she shoot him?”
“No. But she hit him. Xander came in and she told him to clean, too, and he was, he really was. But he was all Xander-like, talking to her about Karma and nonviolence and the way of the Dalai Lama, and she just up and bonked him on the head with the butt of her gun. He fell down and I screamed and I thought she was going to shoot me, but I couldn’t stop screaming.” Destiny wiped her nose on the sleeve of her smock. “Then Mitch came in. He’s so cute—I like him a lot. I thought he was going to save us. But he went right up to Mara and told her Carson Lennex had the statues.”
“The statues?”
“That’s what he said. I don’t know what it means, but he said Carson Lennex had the statues, and as soon as she was in his suite to let Mitch know and Mitch would cut electricity and communications.”
Again Max tried to text and call. Mitch had done as he was told. Communications were down.
While he tried, Destiny babbled, “She…she… Mara told him Good job and to tie us up and stash us in the closet, and she left and he did. He told me if I tried to escape he would kill me.” She huddled on the floor and rubbed her wrists. “My fingers are tingling. I hope he didn’t ruin my hands—I have to work today. I need the money!”
She was in shock. Max threw a blanket around her shoulders. “The resort will reimburse you for lost time. The paramedics will make sure your hands are okay, and Xander, too.” Although how he was going to contact them, he didn’t know. He stood. “Can you let them in?”
Her teeth were chattering, but she nodded. “What’s wrong with Mara?” she asked urgently.
He hurried toward the door. “Mara Philippi is the Librarian.”
“A librarian? No, she’s illiterate.”
He swiveled on his heel. “What?”
Patiently, Destiny explained, “She can’t read.”
“She has to be able to read. She runs a very successful business.”