Rio smiled. “Maybe we should wait here for them or we’ll scare them away.”
“I’m sure we can make ourselves inconspicuous, if we spread out.” Jenna pushed hair behind her ears and lifted her chin. “We’ll bring them all up here at the same time. The tables are set far enough apart in the interview room next door to allow for privacy. Okay, get at it. Kane, will you call the lobby and ask them to call out the names? We’ll head downstairs.”
“Copy that.” Kane picked up the phone.
Eleven
Jedidiah Longfellow’s life couldn’t be any better. He’d secured Dakota Storm as his agent and she’d gotten him a great deal for his novel. His book Nailed It had flown to the top of the charts worldwide and paid out his very generous advance within a week of publication. He’d become an overnight success and although he’d missed the opportunity of being one of the featured authors at this convention, he’d been booked for others later in the year. He enjoyed being in the audience and absorbing the atmosphere. Listening to the speakers had sparked his imagination and he’d made copious notes on a new thriller he planned to write the moment he walked back into his office. For now, he’d enjoy the conference and all it had to offer. Being involved in a real mystery, even if it were just a game, was as good as it gets. He tucked his coat under one arm and turned to his friend. “We’ll have to sneak out. If anyone sees us going out the front door, they’ll know we have a clue. I’m not staying in a chalet and no one would venture out in a blizzard for fun.” He sighed and gestured to a fire exit. “They all have alarms. We can’t use them. Any ideas?”
“Of course.” His friend gave him a mischievous smile. “Follow me but keep at a distance. Now you’re famous, we wouldn’t want to draw attention.”
Jed moved through the crowd, keeping his friend in sight as they approached a set of double doors with a sign above it that read STAFF ONLY. His friend flashed a keycard over a scanner and walked inside. Jed hurried along, catching the door before it shut and caught up with his friend. “How did you manage to obtain a card to open the door?”
“I accidently on purpose tripped over the housekeeping attendant and snagged it from her. It was clipped to her belt. Hurry, we haven’t got much time. We’ll be missed if we’re late to the next session. The sheriff is checking everyone on the way in. It’s like a real murder mystery.” His friend slipped into a thick coat, pulled up the hood and headed down a long p
assageway. “We have to pass by a door to the kitchen. Keep your hoodie pulled down low, sunglasses on, so nobody recognizes us. Although most of the kitchen staff will be too busy cleaning up after lunch to notice.”
“Sure.” Jed shrugged into his coat and covered his head with the hood. He pushed on sunglasses and pulled on his gloves. “I’m ready, let’s do this.” Head down, he followed his friend out into the brilliant-white turbulent snow. He spotted the keypad on the outside door. “How are we going to get back inside?”
“They write the code on a chalkboard by the door.” His friend chuckled. “It doesn’t take a genius to know what it’s for. Worse case, we trek back to the front door. It’s all good, don’t worry. It’ll be fun.”
Jedidiah looked at the blinding-white snowscape. “Do you know where to go?”
“Yeah, Miss Storm was in chalet number forty-eight, so the ones under construction will be numbered from forty-nine.” A low chuckle came from his friend’s throat. “I bet we find another clue on the construction site. I figure it will be a photograph or something to guide us to the next one.”
As the blizzard howled around them, they took a pathway thick with snow and hustled along, but the going was slow and underfoot the pathway slippery. The icy wind buffeted them, chilling Jed to the bone. As the construction site came into view, he heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness.” He pointed to a gap in the trees. “Look, there’s a temporary access road. I bet that’s how she slipped away.”
“It looks deserted. There’re no vehicles here. I figure the workers left in a hurry.” His friend tried the door, and finding it locked, headed around back to a utility shed and peered inside. “Well, just as I figured. Lookee here. There’s a board with keys for the new cabins. I guess they leave them here because so many different contractors come by.” His companion took down the key for chalet forty-nine. “We’ll look in here first.”
Jed trudged through the snow. The cold had reached his bones. He should have worn his thermals, but inside the ski resort it was as warm as toast. He moved inside the chalet and looked around. “See anything?”
His companion was peering at the framework for a closet and turned back with a smile. “Hey, look at this. What does this remind you of?” Hoisting a nail gun in the air, his friend walked toward him.
Alarmed, Jed took a few steps away, but his back ended up against the bathroom door. “Put that down. It’s dangerous.”
“Not unless the compressor is turned on.” His friend grinned widely and walked to the machine and pressed the switch. The compressor hummed into action. “Oops, now I’m armed and dangerous.” The jerk aimed the nail gun at the wall and pressed the button. A nail flew out in a thunk and buried deep into the drywall. “Oh, that’s got quite a kick.”
Raising his voice above the machinery noise, Jed held up his hands. “Turn it off. We’ll get into all kinds of trouble if they find out you’ve damaged the wall!”
“They don’t know we’re here, Jed.” His friend moved closer. “I said, ‘What does this remind you of?’”
Alarmed by the strange look on his companion’s face, Jed lifted his hands in the air and dropped them back to his sides. “Okay, it’s the murder weapon I used in Nailed It. So what?”
“You didn’t research it very well, did you?” His friend shrugged. “You completely forgot to mention the compressor or how loud it is. It was a great choice of a weapon though. I’ve been thinking about a better use for it for some time.”
Not liking the way his friend looked at him, a chill ran down Jed’s spine. It was as if his friend’s personality had changed in a split second. “Well, you can’t just copy my killer’s MO. Find something original and you might get someone to publish you.”
“I figure, nobody owns a method of murdering someone. Let’s face it, just how many ways are there to kill someone? But I digress. Let’s get back to you. Did you consider how much pain your victim went through, when his killer shot nails into him? Did you feel his pain as you wrote the story, because to me, your depiction of the victim was weak. He was an easy kill. He refused to fight back even with words.” His friend rolled his eyes. “You know, I do believe you modeled the victim in your novel on yourself.” His companion snorted with laughter. “Here I am, brandishing a weapon at you and you should be afraid of me, but you’re just standing there waiting for something to happen.”
An uneasy feeling crept over Jed and he shook his head. “What do you want me to do? I’m not frightened of you. You’re hardly a threat to me, are you?” He looked around and noticed a hammer on one of the benches, grabbed it, and waved it. “There does that make you happy?”
“Deliriously.” His friend aimed the nail gun at the wall beside Jed and squeezed the trigger. The noise was frightening, almost like a real pistol. “But if you’re going to pick up a hammer, at least use it. Make it interesting. Thrill me, Jed. Can you at least try?”
Jumping away, as another bolt from the nail gun came way too close, Jed felt his gut tighten at the amused expression on his friend’s face. “Stop acting like a jerk or I’m going back to the lodge.”
“Oh, I’m not acting.” His friend’s expression had changed from amused to deranged. “I just wanted to know how it felt to kill someone with a nail gun. You didn’t give your killer a voice in your story, so no one will ever know what it was like, but you will.”
As nails shot from the gun, horrified, Jed turned to run, but it was as if his legs refused to move. The hammer fell from his grasp and clattered to the floor. He had to get away, call for help, something. Gasping for air, he held his bleeding chest. “You’re crazy. You’ll kill someone with that thing.”