iv.

I awoke with my heart pounding furiously. I shot up in the strange bed. That sound…where had it come from? My arms prickled with goosebumps. I couldn’t tell if it was from the chill in the room or from fright. Had the sound of a muffled scream come from somewhere in the hotel, or from the confines of a dream?

My room was pitch black. Not even numbers on the clock shone through the darkness. The power must have still been out. I felt along the bedside table for my flashlight. Instead I found my phone. Even though I’d plugged it in, the screen was dark. In the darkness, I listened to see if the sound that had woken me would come again. It didn’t. All I heard was the sound of the storm walloping the windowpane. That must have been what had startled me awake.

I snuggled back under the lumpy quilt, trying to get comfortable. I wasn’t supposed to be here. My brother had scheduled a belated Thanksgiving dinner in San Francisco so I could be there, but with the storm getting worse, as time passed it seemed more and more certain I was going to miss Thanksgiving for a second time this week. I was feeling a little sorry for myself—when a man’s scream pierced the cool air.

I found the flashlight by accident as I stepped on it jumping out of bed. I pulled a sweater over my camisole and leggings and rushed downstairs in my bare feet. I found Rosalyn and Dot standing outside the closed library door in their pajamas. For Dot that meant silver yoga clothes that matched her hair. Rosalyn looked as if she’d stepped out of another century, with the edges of a lacy white gown poking out beneath a silk robe, and her long black hair wrapped in a braid around her head.

“What was that sound?” I asked.

“That’s what we were trying to figure out,” Dot said.

“The library door is bolted from the inside,” Rosalyn said. “This isn’t good.”

“I’d say it’s very well done,” Dot said. “This is a much more dramatic publicity stunt than your telling of the ghost story. Your heart wasn’t in it earlier tonight. I didn’t believe in the ghost. But now—”

“This isn’t a stunt,” Rosalyn snapped. “But I know how to find out what’s going on.” She disappeared down the hallway.

“Where’s she going?” Kenny asked, appearing on the stairs from the floor above.

“Hopefully to get a key,” Dot said, rattling the locked library door.

Ivy and Tamarind were behind Kenny. The three of them had taken time to get dressed, but Kenny was barefoot like me. Rosalyn returned holding both a key and a screwdriver. We were all there except for Simon.

“My father didn’t believe in ghosts,” Rosalyn said, “in spite of the publicity for our hotel. When he bought this place, he replaced the hinges and locks of this door. That way we could always get inside. Even if something blocked the door again, we could easily remove the hinges and open it in the opposite direction. But I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

The key unlocked the door. She pushed it open. The library was dark except for the harsh beam of a lone flashlight lying on the floor, casting a narrow swath of light across the room. And across the feet of a fallen man.

Tamarind, Dot, and Kenny rushed forward toward the prone form of Simon Quinn.

I remained in the doorway. Not because I was paralyzed with fear, but because I wanted to take in the room. Something was off about this room. And not only because Simon was lying still on the floor.

Kenny, in the lead, jerked to a stop a few feet from his boss and cried out. Dot and Tamarind crashed into him. Dot’s flashlight went flying.

“Oh God,” Tamarind said. “What happened? Why did you stop?”

“Glass,” Kenny said through gritted teeth, plucking a piece of glass from the ball of his foot. The erratic beam of his flashlight showed fragments of glass strewn across the floor. “Please. Someone who has shoes on and can walk through this mess, please help Simon.”

Tamarind reached Simon first. Ivy was close behind. Simon was fully dressed in the clothes he’d worn that evening. Tamarind’s flashlight beam illuminated Simon’s face, showing his hazel eyes wide open and a twisted expression of horror on his lips. With pale skin and wild eyes caught in a frozen gaze, he looked even more vampiric in death. There was no helping Simon Quinn.

Kenny ran from the room as the two women felt Simon’s wrist and neck for a pulse. I looked away as I felt myself shaking, but forced myself to look back. Was there a chance I was wrong?

“He’s dead,” Dot whispered. Her bun came loose, and her white hair tumbled over her shoulders. She hadn’t secured her bun with knitting needles as she’d done before.

“We need to call an ambulance,” I said, and offered to call before remembering my cell phone was dead.

“I’m calling,” Rosalyn said. But her hands were shaking so badly she dropped her phone. It landed on a large segment of glass.

“I’ll do it,” Kenny said, limping back into the room. He was now wearing untied sneakers, and stepped through the glass toward Simon. “Is he—?”

“I’m sorry, dear,” Dot said, giving his shoulder a squeeze.

As Kenny called 911, Rosalyn placed two battery-operated lamps on the table, illuminating the room and allowing me to see Simon more clearly. The shattered glass wasn’t spread across the entire floor, but rather encircled Simon’s upper body like a devilish halo. Two of the larger chunks of glass were affixed to hinges, and one to a pewter lock. It was the glass case that had once held the early edition of Murder on the Orient Express. The hardback book lay on the floor next to Simon.

“Yes,” Kenny said into his phone. “We’re certain he’s dead.” He clutched his flashlight so tightly in his other hand I was afraid it would crack.

I stepped closer, getting a better look but careful to avoid the glass. There was no question Simon was dead. Unlike the first strange death that had taken place in the library, I didn’t see any obvious signs of violence—aside from the contorted look of fear on his face. Had the library ghost frightened Simon Quinn to death? It certainly looked like he’d died of fright.

“I understand,” Kenny was saying to the 911 operator. He clicked off, tucked the phone into his pocket, and took a deep breath. “It’s impossible for anyone to reach us until morning,” he said, his gaze falling to Simon.

“That can’t be right,” Tamarind said. “Isn’t that what snow plows are for?”

“They’re not going to plow in the middle of the night during a fierce storm,” Rosalyn said, “especially since Simon’s beyond needing medical help.”

“I’ll get a sheet to cover him,” Ivy said.

“Nobody goes near his body,” Kenny said.

Ivy gaped at him. “I don’t know where you’re from, but it’s more respectful to—”

“Not when there’s something far more important at stake,” Kenny said. “Simon was murdered.”

We all stared at him in silence. Even the wind outside calmed for a moment.

“He was in here alone, Kenny,” Rosalyn said softly, breaking the silence. “I know it’s upsetting, but—”

“Simon was in perfect health,” Kenny insisted. “He didn’t have a heart condition. He wasn’t frightened to death by a ghost. Someone did this to him. I mean, I know we don’t know what killed him yet…”

“If you’re right,” I said, “then that part is easy.”

“It is?”

“There are no visible markings on his body,” I said. “He was poisoned.”

Tamarind gasped.

“But he cried out twice over several minutes,” Kenny said, “and he didn’t leave the library for help. He kept himself locked inside the library. If nobody was in here with him forcing him to stay in the library, he would have left. How is that possible?”

“I don’t know,” I said, shivering as I thought of the locked room from the ghost story. “But what I do know is that we’re on our own at Tanglewood Inn—and there’s a good chance one of us killed Simon Quinn.”