Death Checks Inn (Aspen Valley Inn 1) (9 page)

Embarrassed Lacey quickly assured him that she would be fine and pushed him towards the door.

As he stepped out on the deck, he grew serious.

“Give me a few days to tie up the investigation and then I will take you on a real date.
I promise,” he said.

Lacey smiled and nodded and thought to herself as
she went back to the kitchen, they really were moving excessively fast. She guessed murder had that effect. She liked the idea of being courted by someone she was already very interested in.

She also liked the idea that possibly none of her guests were killers. 

Lacey went to her sister and placed her arm around her shoulders, “Hey, Sis, how about a trip into the big city of Colorado Springs for a nice dinner?”

Charlotte gladly accepted but only with the stipulation that margaritas would be
included with the meal.

Dan overhead their
plans and asked Lacey if she could take a moment to set a pass code for the new alarm system before she left.

She thought for a moment and then
chose a four-digit number.

She could tell that Dan would like to accompany
the two of them into town but she really didn’t want to start something that blurred the lines   around their relationship. She still needed to get him to complete the work she had for him at the Inn.

After a brief tutorial on the workings of the security system given proudly by Dan they left in
Charlotte’s car laughing together happily.

Dan looked after them wistfully and then began packing up his tools to head home for the day. He wondered if he should actually set the alarm.

He decided not to since that would make it obvious that he had watched Lacey enter the code. Better, that no one knows that it wasn’t really a secret.

He wasn’t the only one watching Charlotte and Lacey drive away.

It was quite late when Charlotte’s car pulled into the circular driveway of the Inn.
They had really enjoyed an evening of no drama good food and lots of laughter.

Charlotte offered
to come in with Lacey but Lacey thought that idea ridiculous.

“Go on home,” she urged Charlotte, “Remember Wyatt will be calling to check up on me later.”

Charlotte watched as her sister entered the front door and then flicked the deck lights to let her know she was okay.  Charlotte drove away humming to herself.

Lacey checked her
watch; Wyatt was probably still working since he was coordinating all the information being gathered from the other jurisdictions.

She felt light and carefree for the first time in too many days.
She decided to go on up to her apartment and take a long leisurely soak in the giant claw foot tub she had in her private bathroom.

She quickly checked all the doors and windows on the first floor.
After making sure that everything was locked, she went over to her new security system keypad.

She entered the code she had chosen and with a satisfied smile headed upstairs.

Pink-cheeked and relaxed after her bath she climbed into her bed and opened her laptop. She wanted keep a log of each guests stay and their preferences ect. She had set up a program to document this. She was happy that she could try the system out with real information.

She connected her digital camera into the port and
began the download. All the photos taken this week would be matched up with the written report of each guests visit. She liked the idea that she could use these photos when she sent thank you cards and invitations to encourage her guests to return. These would remind them of the wonderful time they had while staying at the Inn. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

As she was waiting for the download her cell phone rang, she quickly
answered, excited to talk with Wyatt. They spent at least half an hour talking the usual couple small talk. This included a lot of flirting and giggles. They were both in a hurry to build on the closeness that had engulfed them just a few days ago. After much discussion about where to go on their first official date, they warmly ended the phone call with a promise to meet for coffee tomorrow morning at the Elkville Café.

After hanging up she smiled as she realized she had not been this into a man since college. Only this time she w
as sure the man was worthy of her love. Yes, Wyatt was very deserving, such a good and honest man. Even his job involved protecting people and making the world a safer place.

She wondered if he was afraid of being alone with her, she giggled a little and thought he sure would be if he knew how quickly she wanted to skip the dating and move right into the
next stage.

Probably just as well that one of them was being sensible she thought as she went back to working on her computer.

She was sorting through the downloaded photos deciding which ones went with each guests file and which were general snapshots of the Inn that she could use for advertising.

She sighed as she noticed a couple of shots taken of Heather on her first night. She and Charlotte had taken quite a few pictures of the grand opening reception. She didn’t remember Heather staying for long but here she was in two of the photos.

The first one just showed her standing alone in the center of the room as if she didn’t quite know what to do with herself. The other was taken during the tour of the upstairs.  Heather was standing right in front of the mining equipment display and appeared to be seriously studying the contents of that art niche. That niche had contained the murder weapon, the antique railroad spike.

Lacey enlarged these two photos and looked closer.

Heather was definitely looking very interested in the spikes on display. Lacey studied the other photo, the angle showed Heather close-up holding her wine glass, but in the background the staircase rising to the second floor was clearly visible.

Hidden in the shadows at the top of the staircase was John Braverman seeming to stare down with a distorted sneer on his face. His gaze seemed to be directed at Heather Mason.

The Braverman’s had not joined the celebration that night. Was he irritated at the noise the
partygoers were making on what was after all his honeymoon?

Of course, that was it. It had been a lively group. She minimized those photos and moved on.

She smiled at one that showed Cody Westerfield looking at Charlotte’s back as she passed through the crowd serving wine. She would save that one for Charlotte and prove to her that that cowboy was definitely interested.

Her favorite pictures were the ones taken at the barbeque held out in the sanctuary. Everything looked so magical with the fairy lights and cozy
nightglow surrounding everyone.

There was stream rising up from the spa and even the
moon was visible in the night sky in a few of them.

She wanted to save these and use them to entice people to visit the Inn, maybe put these on the website.

One of the photos had been taken from outside the huge wooden gate. She had wanted to get one from the perspective of looking in at the celebration inside the stucco walled enclosure.

People were mingling and laughing inside the
lighted area inside the gate and yet there was some illumination surrounding the walled area because of the twinkling lights.

She really liked this one, she thought as she used the magnify function to see how it would look as the screensaver for her webpage.
As she looked closer, she saw something at the corner of the shot near the wall but several feet down from the gate.

There
were two people deep in conversation. Even though it was shadowy, she could recognize both.

In this
picture, Tricia Moore was grasping John Braverman’s arm in what looked like a desperate gesture to make him listen to whatever she was saying with her face very close to his. Lacey moved her curser to the corner of the photo and zoomed in. Yes, it was clear that they were having a very serious discussion. How could that be, she wondered, they didn’t know each other. However, this picture showed that they clearly did know each other and it looked very suspicious to Lacey.

Her mind was
racing, thinking back to the last week’s events. She had had several conversations with Tricia and she had never mentioned knowing any of her guests. Hadn’t the Braverman’s been out for the romantic dinner she had planned for them that night? She didn’t remember them even making an appearance at the barbeque.

She
shrugged no need to be melodramatic; there was probably a simple explanation. She went back to the pictures of Heather Mason. Poor dear, she really wasn’t joining in but that was no crime. She was looking closely at the mining equipment but she had probably looked closely at the other exhibits too.

Lacey looked
again at John Braverman’s expression at the top of the stairs. It was a menacing look but perhaps his night of passion with Miranda was being disturbed, she was sure that would make a man angry.

Nevertheless,
she could not think of an explanation for the pictures of Tricia and John. They seemed to be familiar with each other. They were obviously talking about something important.  It just didn’t make any sense.

She saved the four pictures into a file and
then decided to also email them to her smart phone.

That is what she would do she thought tiredly, she would bring the pictures to show Wyatt when they had coffee in the morning. He would
come up with satisfying answers to the questions she had about the pictures.

She put the computer back on the desk in her little sitting area and climbed wearily back into bed.  Her cell phone rang
again and she jumped startled at the sound in the quiet bedroom.

It was Charlotte just checking in.
They talked for a moment about the great evening they had enjoyed and then Charlotte asked if Wyatt was there. Lacey told her that he was working but she wished he were at the Inn.

“I’m sure you
do,” laughed Charlotte.

“No
really,” Lacey said, “I found some pictures I want to show him.”

“What
kind of pictures?” asked Charlotte.

“Well, it’s weird
,” pondered Lacey, “I found some pictures from the grand opening that just don’t make sense.”

Charlotte said firmly, “If you found something about those murders you better call
Wyatt right now.”

Lacey reassured her that they were probably nothing and she would talk to him about them in the morning.

She couldn’t resist teasing her sister just a little about the picture of Cody Westerfield and promised to show her all of the pictures tomorrow.

They said their goodnights. Lacey turned off the bedside lamp and snuggled into the covers to get some much needed rest.

She fell asleep thinking about seeing Wyatt in the morning. Her man…she thought sleepily.

Lacey became gradually aware that something, some no
ise was trying to intrude into her sleep-muddled brain.

Just as her subconscious was rising to the surface complete silence descended again and she drifted back to sleep.

Then something fell nearby and brought her rigidly upright.

She
was still not completely awake but getting there. She rubbed her eyes and instantly became alert, there it was, something or someone was moving around in her apartment.

She listened intently, there, that rustling noise. Someone was here!
She moved stealthily under cover of the muffled sounds coming from her sitting room and crept carefully to the doorway.

For a
moment, she couldn’t seem to register what she was seeing. She must have inadvertently made some sound because just then, Tricia Moore looked up from the subtle glow of Lacey’s laptop screen.

Lacey stepped backward and tried to gather her senses and get back into the bedroom and shut the door.

The sitting area wasn’t that large and in an instant, Tricia was holding tightly to her arm and pulling her towards the small love seat in the window alcove.

Now, Lacey noticed the small black gun in Tricia’s other hand. Still confused she started to speak.

Tricia waved the gun close to her face and spoke first.

“Too bad little girl
,” she said with a menacing whisper, “But I was going to have to get you up anyway. I can’t find them. Now tell me where they are!”

Lacey sputtered, “What, what are
you looking for?”

“The pictures!” Tricia spat between gritted teeth, “The interesting pictures you were telling your sister about.”

Lacey thought quickly, “I don’t know what you are talking about,” she lied.

“Oh no you don’t girlie.
I’ve been watching and you spent a lot of time on this laptop. They have to be there. Now show me where!” Tricia demanded.