twenty-two

“It’s splashed all over the Twittersphere,” said Nana as she scanned the readout on her phone.

The “it” to which she referred was the “Death by Ziplining Murder” of Iowa tourist Thor Thorsen and the killer’s almost immediate capture.

We were gathered in the guest lodge once more, taking time to commune with each other at the end of our harrowing day, which allowed me the opportunity to inform our regulars about the resolution of our most recent tragedy, even though most of them were already up to speed. It also gave the gang time to share ziplining photos, exchange views on the Grover and Alison affair, offer support to Florence and Goldie, and enjoy takeout pizza, which we all agreed tasted much better than the mystery meat at the Wilderness Cabins’ diner.

I leaned toward Nana to check out her screen. “News sure got out fast.”

“It’s on account of Bernice. It’s her new callin’: cyberspace gossip. And she don’t even gotta make no stuff up.”

Our resident reporters had glommed onto the zipline death as soon as it appeared in their feeds and peppered us with questions as we’d made our way to the lodge.

“Do you think Bigfoot might deliberately disguise himself as a tree to avoid detection?”

“Could Bigfoot be indirectly responsible for this murder?”

“Is it safe to assume that Bigfoot is somehow linked to this killing?”

They’d seemed completely disinterested in the capture of the Blue Butterfly Murderer or the sensationalized May/December internet hookup between Alison and Grover or Grover’s screw-up in accidentally killing the wrong person. I guess they didn’t want to deviate away from the Bigfoot angle.

Creature stories were obviously their bread and butter.

The one piece of good news Etienne shared with the group, besides the securing of luxury suites at the much ballyhooed Majestic resort, was that the Majestic grounds would be off-limits to all reporters. Our current accommodations might welcome the press corps as a marketing tool, but the Majestic was famous worldwide and didn’t need the publicity.

Unable to contain her exuberance, Mom had thrown out her arms and leaped to her feet at the news.

Dad had remained in his chair, eyes riveted on the floor as he regarded the shattered screen of the cell phone Mom had knocked out of his hands when she’d whacked him with her arm.

“What kind of pizza you got left?” asked Bernice as she crab-walked toward us. She flipped open the box on the table beside us and angled her mouth in disgust. “What is this? Pepperoni and cat food?”

I rolled my eyes. “Pepperoni and sausage. Have a slice.”

“No, thanks. It looks like a petri dish for mad cow disease.” She thrust her phone in my face. “I know you’re dying to see my photographic masterpieces, so here’s your chance. Knock yourself out.”

Morphing into uber-attentive tour escort mode, I palmed Bernice’s phone and began flipping through her photo gallery, starting with a selfie she’d taken against the backdrop of the Kenai Adventurer’s lifebuoy.

“Next trip you take, I hope you’ll leave those saps behind,” Bernice suggested as she bobbed her head in the direction of the remaining book club guests. They’d circled their chairs in the middle of the room, where it looked as if they were offering solace to each other with kind words and soothing gestures.

“Come on, Bernice,” I admonished as I flipped through images of a fountain of sea spray, a flapping whale’s tail, and another selfie of Bernice in front of a wall of glacial ice. “Florence is mourning the death of her husband.”

Bernice snorted. “She’s the only one who’s mourning him.”

“Goldie is trying to reconcile the fact that her husband tried to kill her.” More Bernice selfies: on the bus, in the lobby of the Grand Girdwood Hotel, against the backdrop of the aerial tram. “And poor Ennis. Lorraine is still missing, and he hasn’t had any encouraging news from the police back home about where she is.” Bernice’s face set against a shelf of illuminated liquor bottles in the restaurant’s bar. A couple of women in shimmery dresses. A parade of tourists wearing baseball caps with their all-American logos—the flag, the world champion Chicago Cubs, Kermit the Frog. The same people I’d seen while waiting in the foyer. “Orphie’s the only one who’s managed to avoid a major calamity.” Trees. Mountains. Scrubby meadows with blond dots. Scrubby meadows with black dots. Gray squirrel with bushy tail.

I executed a surreptitious swipe on her screen that jettisoned me to the end of her photos. “Wonderful pictures, Bernice.” I handed her phone back to her. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing them again on social media.”

“Already there. The only pics missing are the shots I’ll take of my luxury suite at the Majestic resort tomorrow. And lemme tell you, if the hype about this place turns out to be inaccurate, someone’s going to hear about it.”

The hype wasn’t accurate.

The resort was far better than advertised.

From its pristine grounds surrounded by a forest of fragrant balsams and pines, to the mountainous peaks on the horizon, to the flowers bordering the paved walkways, to its five specialty restaurants, movie theater, clothing boutiques, spa, saunas, indoor water park, and private lake, the Majestic resort was nothing short of spectacular. We were so awestruck, in fact, that it didn’t even bother us that we couldn’t check into our rooms until 3:00 p.m., which was a full four hours away. There was plenty to entertain us in the meantime.

“To avoid clutter in the lobby, we’re going to leave your luggage on the bus until check-in,” Etienne announced as we gathered around him near the front desk. “I hope that doesn’t inconvenience anyone. And if you’re interested, there are still spaces open for you to sign up for a whitewater rafting adventure this afternoon.” He waved a brochure in the air.

“Is it dangerous?” questioned Dick Teig.

“Only if you drown,” wisecracked Bernice.

Etienne scanned the brochure. “On a scale of one to ten, with ten being ranked as ‘Don’t even try it, stupid,’ it comes in at a two.”

“A two?” Dick Stolee guffawed. “Might as well take a bath. Probably just as exciting and a helluva lot cheaper.”

“Do you have to know how to swim?” asked George.

Etienne shook his head. “It says here that life jackets and helmets will be provided.”

“Well, that settles it.” Dick Teig folded his arms across his chest. “I’m not putting on another one of those dorky helmets ever again. Forget it.”

“If them raftin’ folks don’t got one big enough, maybe they’ll let you go without one,” suggested Nana.

“No.” He massaged his crown. “My head still hurts from yesterday.”

I grinned. “What happened with your helmet yesterday?”

“Them zipline fellas didn’t have no helmet in an extra jumbo size,” Nana explained, “so they had to Vaseline his head to get the thing on. Made an awful mess.”

Jackie’s ringtone sounded on my phone, prompting me to hurry away from the group to answer it. “Hi there.” I spied an elegantly upholstered armchair in the sunken lobby area and sat down. “How are things in Iowa?”

“Thor Thorsen’s death is plastered all over the news here,” Jackie tittered. “I knew you couldn’t make it through a whole tour without someone getting snuffed.”

I groaned. “You don’t know the half of it.”

She sucked in her breath. “There’s more than one death?”

“I can’t tell you. Not until the police notify next of kin, which is proving rather difficult because the kin is in Mongolia.”

“Inner or outer?”

“Does it matter?”

“Well, it might matter as far as all that broadband stuff is concerned.”

“So which place has better access? Inner Mongolia or outer?”

“Beats me. I couldn’t even point to Mongolia on a map.”

I rolled my eyes. “So to what do I owe the pleasure of this phone call, Jack?”

“Just wanted to let you know that we’re getting ready to leave this morning, and all systems are go. Mildred, Pearl, and Arvella are feeling well enough to take the bus back to Windsor City with us, so the only guests I’m leaving behind are the Toms. The docs want to give them a couple more days in the hospital just to make sure they remain stable. But their families are all here, so they don’t seem to mind at all. The park’s signature hotel was out of standard rooms so I had to book everyone into mini and luxury suites, but I figured you’d be appalled if I booked them into Big Bertha’s Sleepover Inn, so I made an executive decision. The agency has a reputation to maintain, right?”

“Right,” I agreed as I slid my hand into the outside pocket of my shoulder bag in search of a roll of antacids. “So you were treated to a quiet day yesterday, were you?” I popped a chewable tablet into my mouth.

“I deserved it, don’t you think? To be honest, Emily, I think a group of three guests is just about perfect. They stick together. They don’t run off in different directions. They enjoy taking pictures of me in my official tour escort clothes, which, I might add, I had to purchase on my own dime. Three people are so much easier to manage than a group of eight.”

“Three isn’t a tour, Jack. It’s a music group.”

“Nonetheless, I’m writing a report about my experiences and plan to include suggestions that’ll improve the quality of future trips. It’ll be on your desk when you get back. Meantime, I predict that this Green Acres venture is going to be the next Dollywood, so we should concentrate on booking as many tours as possible. Get in on the ground floor before prices skyrocket. So to that end I took the liberty of shooting video footage of the place last night that you can use as advertising. It still needs to be cut and edited, but with voiceovers and music, it could be the very thing to entice guests to sign up in droves. And if you’ll agree to negotiate a modest clothing allowance, I’ll volunteer to do the voiceover for free.” I could almost see her preening on the other end. “As you know, that is my forte.”

I leaned back in my chair, stunned. “Oh my god, Jack, that’s brilliant. We can send the videos to our clients’ social media platforms—Facebook, YouTube, Instagram. Email. We’ll be able to save a ton of money on brochure production and mailings. We might even attract a broader client base!” Which might improve our bottom line once we paid for all the mini and luxury suites. “This could really work. It’s genius! I wish you were standing in front of me right now. I’d kiss your face until all your foundation got rubbed off.”

“I’ll pass on the public display of affection, but…what about that clothing allowance?”

I heaved a sigh. “All right. I’m all for rewarding excellence. A modest clothing allowance. We’ll discuss the details when I get back. Sound good?”

She let out a high-pitched squeal that nearly ruptured my eardrum. “I knew I’d wear you down eventually. Can we throw in a reasonably priced wig?”

“No wig.”

“Okay. It was worth a try. So here’s what I’ll do. I’ll send you the video right now so you can give it a look-see, and if you want additional input, you can share it with your group. I’m sure they’ll be good for an opinion or two. They might even decide to sign up. Oops. Hate to cut this short but I’ve gotta run. Johnny’s rounding up the troops, so that’s my signal to vamoose. See you when you get home. Good luck with that Mongolia thing.”

My phone pinged as her video hurtled through cyberspace to arrive in my inbox. Anxious to see the theme park for myself, I hit play and watched as Jackie introduced her audience to “the most exciting collection of agriculturally themed amusement rides west of the Mississippi.”

Oh, wow. This didn’t look half bad.

“Do you have a minute, bella?”

I looked up to find Etienne standing over me. Hitting pause, I smiled up at him. “What’s up, sweetie?”

“The ladies are headed down to the lake. They’ve just learned that paddleboats are available for guest use, so in the spirit of safety, I’m thinking it might behoove me to accompany them.”

“Good idea. What about the guys?”

“They’ve decided to try their hand at whitewater rafting. But when Dick Teig attempted to pay, he discovered he’d misplaced his wallet, so this is our current crisis.”

“Have you called the Wilderness Cabins to see if he left it in his room?”

“I talked to the manager. He’s sending someone to look for it.”

“What about the bus? Could it have dropped out on the seat?”

“I called Steele. He said he’d run out and open up the bus if I wanted to send Dick out to look for it.”

I could see where this was going. “But Dick is a guy, and as we both know, most men are incapable of finding things even when the item in question is staring them in the face.”

Etienne flashed a disarming grin. “So my wife tells me.”

I grinned back. “Your wife is right.” I boosted myself to my feet. “Okay, I’ll go. But I want to send you something you might get a kick out of.” I tapped and swiped my screen a couple of times, sharing not only with Etienne, but with the entire group. “It’s from Jackie—a video of the Green Acres theme park. We may have inadvertently hired ourselves a marketing genius.” I dropped my phone back into the pocket of my shoulder bag. “So…where’s the bus parked?”

The resort had relegated oversized vehicle parking to the farthest corner of the compound, on a tidy stretch of asphalt where the smell of gasoline and diesel fumes wouldn’t befoul the fragrance of balsam and pine in the more elegant sections of the resort. I wandered around the lot for a while, searching amid the multitude of busses for a white one with an aurora borealis painted on the front and sides, and finally found it tucked neatly between two Majestic coaches, in what my dad would call the back forty.

“This was some precision parking,” I called to Steele through the open door of the bus, noting how close the vehicle was to its immediate neighbor.

“I can’t take credit,” he said as I climbed the stairs of the stepwell. “That space was empty when I parked.” He was sitting behind the driver’s seat, a logbook open on his lap.

“Allow me to be impressed anyway.”

“Sure.” He canted his head toward the rear of the bus. “I took a quick look around, but I didn’t see anything that looks like a wallet. You’re welcome to bat cleanup though. I can’t guarantee I was thorough.”

“If it’s here, I’ll find it.” I nodded toward his logbook. “Bus business?”

“Yep. Fuel consumption. Mileage charts. Odometer readings. Driving hours. If not for all the interminable record keeping, I’d have the perfect job.”

“You don’t drive bus in the winter, do you?”

“Not much need for tour busses around here in the winter, Mrs. Miceli. Everything shuts down.”

“So what do you do?”

“I still drive bus, but I migrate to the lower forty-eight. Southern states still conduct tours in the winter—Texas, Arizona, Louisiana—so they’re always in the market for experienced drivers.”

A kernel of an idea bloomed in my head. “Do you ever make it as far north as Iowa?”

“Never been to Iowa.”

“Well, what if I could offer you a full-time position driving bus for our travel agency in the months when you’re not in Alaska? We want to expand our domestic tour packages, offering trips in and around Iowa, like to casinos, historic sites, dinner theaters, a new theme park that’s just opened south of my hometown, and hiring a permanent driver would eliminate our having to scout around for one all the time.”

He arched his eyebrows in what I hoped was a sign of acute interest. “I dunno. I—”

“We recently hired a dynamite escort for our in-state tours, and if we paired the two of you, I think we’d create the most engaging team in the entire tour industry. Seriously. The two of you working together could set the world on fire. You’d be the most sought-after duo in travel history.”

He crooked his mouth in a lazy grin. “You have a tendency toward hyperbole, Mrs. Miceli.”

“Maybe a little. But it could work; I know it could. Plus we could offer you full health benefits, including dental.”

He closed his logbook, looking pensive. “So tell me about this tour escort you hired.”

“You’d love her. She’s enthusiastic and funny and…runway model tall…and a fashion icon…and, due to a recent divorce, unattached. Oh yeah, and she’s drop-dead gorgeous. You’d make the perfect couple.” I’d save the part about her being my former husband until later.

“Any dead husbands in her past?”

“Not a one.” I winced. “About Alison, Steele, I can’t tell you how sorry I am. The whole sordid story was so unbelievable. She had us all fooled.”

“One of us in particular. Talk about feeling like an idiot.” He gave his head a woeful shake. “Why don’t you look for that wallet, Mrs. Miceli? The owner is probably freaking out.”

“Right.”

I couldn’t picture where Dick and Helen had been sitting on the drive over, so I began my search at the front of the bus and worked my way back, checking out the seats, the floor, and the magazine and map pockets attached to the seat-backs. Halfway to the rear, I noticed a dark bulge in the seat-back pocket of a window seat, and—with a shout-out of thanks to Saint Anthony—fished Dick’s wallet out of the netting. “Found it!”

Steele laughed. “Told you I couldn’t be trusted.”

After finding a driver’s license that assured me this was Dick’s wallet, I dropped it into my shoulder bag and headed back toward the front of the bus, where Steele was wrestling with a small duffle bag in the overhead compartment directly behind the driver’s seat.

“Bus manufacturers keep shrinking the overheads, and it’s really annoying,” he complained while tugging on the bag. “Man, this thing is really wedged in.”

“I hope there’s nothing breakable inside.”

“Nah. Just my dopp kit and some extra socks and tee shirts.” He wrenched it back and forth with both hands before gliding his fingers beneath the metal framework. “I think the zipper’s snagged on something.” Grunting his frustration, he torqued the bag violently, ripping it out of the enclosure in the same way a demented dentist might extract a tooth.

The zipper tore open, disgorging the contents of the bag into the center aisle like a ruptured piñata. “Oh dear.”

I scooched down, frantically plucking his clean underwear off the dirty floor before the grit and grime from our shoes had a chance to—

I stilled my hand as it hovered over the rumpled tee shirt that was cushioning his cell phone—only it wasn’t Steele’s cell phone.

The case was a laminated sheet of black-and-white newspaper print.

It was Delpha’s cell phone.

I snatched my hand away and stared up at Steele.

“Damn. I wish you hadn’t seen that. I really liked you, Mrs. Miceli.”

Liked?

I eased myself to my feet, mouth dry, heart pounding. I took a step backward. “Why do you have Delpha’s phone?”

“I thought that might be fairly obvious.” His features shifted as if they were carved from melted wax. The lovely curves of his face disappeared…to be replaced by the sharp angles of a ruthless predator. “I took it.”

I said nothing. I didn’t have to. The evidence spoke for itself.

He’d killed Delpha.

I shook my head in utter bewilderment. “Why?”

He gave his shoulder a casual roll. “No reason. It’s what I do.”

He’d killed Delpha.

And now he was going to kill me.

I turned on my heel and ran toward the back of the bus.

The rear exit door was closed.

Damn!

His footsteps pounded close behind me. His breath singed my neck. He lunged for my arm.

I spun around and bashed him with my shoulder bag.

He threw me onto the bench cushion of the back seat and snaked his hands around my throat, his thumbs pressing against my windpipe.

I kicked. I flailed.

His thumbs pressed deeper into my throat.

A haze crept over his face. Spots danced before my eyes. His features seemed to pixelate as I gasped for air.

I flung my hand over my shoulder bag, my fingers grappling with the opening as I groped for something…anything…

I felt something hard. And slick. I clawed at it, my thumb looping through some kind of hole.

I clutched it desperately, locking my fingers around it, remembering what it was. Remembering—

I…couldn’t…breeeeeeeath…

I wrenched it out of my bag and with a final rush of adrenaline, aimed it at Steele’s face and depressed the nozzle.

PSSSSSSSSSSST!

“Aaaaaaargh!”

Slapping his hands over his eyes, he staggered away from me, crashing into chair backs and arms as he ran blindly down the aisle, falling out of sight when he stumbled into the rear stepwell with a thunderous crack of skull against steel.

I heard him cry out in pain, and then I heard nothing at all.

Coughing and wheezing to catch my breath, my eyes stinging with tears, my throat burning in agony, I squinted against the spray and dug out my cell phone. “Help,” I rasped as the message turned itself into text and winged its way to Etienne.

Ten minutes later he found me curled up in the back corner of the bus, Nana’s canister of bear spray still cradled against my chest.