Chapter Twenty-Six

The dumbwaiter door slowly slid open, and Kate aimed the beam of her penlight flash at the contents.

“Laundry,” Renee said. “Can you believe that? It’s a pile of laundry. Here, I thought we were about to dis—”

The pile of laundry moved and let out another soft moan.

Kate gently reached into the elevator and, with Renee’s help, pulled Sybil into the room.

She blinked at them, her eyes dark with fear. Her mouth was duct-taped. So were her wrists.

Renee pulled some small scissors from her vest and went to work on the tape.

Sybil rubbed her wrists and took a deep breath. “I was hoping you’d hear me,” she finally said. “I didn’t know how else I’d be found.”

“How did this happen?” Kate kept the beam of her flashlight slightly to one side of Sybil’s face, so she wouldn’t be blinded.

“I honestly don’t know. After you called to tell me your suspicions, I came in here to look around. I opened the dumbwaiter, spotted some food that was obviously being sent upstairs, and that’s the last thing I remember.” She rubbed her head. “Someone must have conked me a good one, because I didn’t wake up until I was inside the thing.” She grimaced. “Not a comfortable place to be for any length of time, believe me.”

“Did you hear voices?”

“No, nothing.”

“The perp knows we’re onto him,” Renee said. “We’ve got to move fast.”

“Wait a minute,” Kate said. “This tells us that there’s an accomplice. Because the food was sent up alone, instead of taken by hand, I suspect the accomplice was the sender. Our suspect was upstairs in the laundry room waiting.”

“Which means?” Sybil rubbed her temple and winced.

“That the perp’s thinking he’d better get out of here while the getting’s good. He may be armed and dangerous.” Renee patted her pockets as if checking for a weapon.

Kate studied Sybil. “Are you okay enough to help us?”

She nodded. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

“I wonder if the ghost will head for the creek, just like always,” Renee said, dropping her voice to a whisper. “We’ve obviously deduced that the perp and the ghost are one and the same.”

“Actually, that’s not a certainty,” Kate said.

The other two looked at her quizzically, but she didn’t explain. There would be time for that later.

“But back to the dumbwaiter. If whoever’s upstairs thinks Sybil is still in the dumbwaiter, it will be avoided. So will this back entrance.”

“And we can jump him when he heads to the creek,” Renee added.

“Why are you so certain that whoever it is will head to the creek?” Sybil said.

Renee harrumphed. “A matter of deduction. The small rowboat, oars, and spent candles were the first clue. Downstream where the water is swift enough and wide enough to accommodate a rowboat.”

Sybil arched a brow. “I’m impressed.”

Renee threw her head back and sniffed. “I watch a lot of CSI.”

Kate rummaged through the kitchen cupboards until she found some linens. She wadded them up and piled them in the dumbwaiter with the other linens, then she hit the button to close the door and position it between floors, just as it had been before.

She gave the other women a nod, and then the three stepped out into the freezing rain. They moved gingerly across the ice-slick parking lot, huddling close to keep warm.

Around them, the biting wind gusted and blasts of sleet hit their faces.

“Think about poor Precious McFie,” Sybil said. “She walked this path in her wedding gown in the same kind of weather.”

“I can’t imagine doing that because I was jilted by someone I loved,” Renee said. “I can’t imagine doing that at all.”

“Maybe her fiancé was all she had to live for,” Sybil said.

Her voice was sad, and Kate wondered if she was thinking about her own life. She’d once said that the hotel was her whole life, and yet just a few days prior, she was ready to walk away from it. What would that have left her?

“Well, I never...” Renee breathed.

Kate and Sybil turned to follow her gaze.

In the upstairs wing, a small light flickered in the window of the dusty unused room, then it moved to the next unused room, then it seemed to hover and stop in the room where Kate had discovered the slipper print.

Renee gasped. “Look at that, will you? The ghost is back!” Her voice was shaking. “And it’s real.”