Elisabeth Crabtree - Pink Flamingo Hotel 01 - Death by Pink Flamingo (5 page)

I clamped my hand over my mouth.
Sylvia was lying beneath the sand. Her nightgown was stained an ugly red.

Snap.

Heart thudding in my chest, I grabbed Felix and whirled around brandishing the iron flamingo like a weapon. I was disarmed almost immediately as Jesse wrenched Felix out of my hands. Shock written over his face, he looked from Felix to the body before finally settling on me. “Dear God, Anna, what did you do?”

CHAPTER
FIVE

I stepped back as
Jesse knelt down next to Sylvia. He glanced up at me in disbelief. “You stabbed her?” He glanced down at Felix. “With a lawn ornament?”

I didn’t know what horrified him the most
: the thought of my murdering someone or my supposed choice of weapons. I decided not to worry about it. I had far more pressing problems at the moment. Namely, Sylvia’s dead body. “I didn’t kill her. I found her like this.”

Jesse
looked up at me doubtfully.

“Come on,
Jesse. I know it’s been a while, but you know I wouldn’t kill anyone.”

“No, of course not. Why would you?” he aske
d. “She only accused you of murdering your Uncle Max six hours ago. Why would you kill her?”

I roughly pushed back my hair as the wind off the ocean blew it in my face. “I didn’t kill my Uncle
Max either.” My head began to pound as sudden realization gripped me.
I’m the most likely suspect. No one will believe I didn’t do it.

“Several people heard you complain
last night about your uncle’s will and how you were stuck with her.”

“I wasn’t complaining.” I shook my finger at him. “I was simply stating a fact. It was not a complaint. I didn’t really hav
e a problem with it,” I said with a nervous giggle. I groaned.
That didn’t sound the least bit believable. I was definitely going to have to work on that during the trial.
I froze.
Dear Lord, I was already anticipating a trial.
“This can’t be happening. I’m innocent. I was sound asleep.”

“Alone?”

“Of course alone,” I snapped. “I wouldn’t be out here by myself if I had someone with me.”

“This isn’t good
, Anna. You really should have come up with a better alibi.”

“Alibi?
” I screeched. “I don’t need an alibi. I didn’t kill her.”

He shushed me and looked around
nervously.

“I didn’t kn
ow I was going to need an alibi,” I said, dropping my voice to a whisper. I fell to my knees next to him and clutched his arm. “See, that proves I didn’t kill her. If I had killed her I would have made sure to have an alibi. See? I didn’t kill her. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t be stuck with her forever. I knew that. Only until—” I snapped my mouth shut.

“Until she died,” he supplied helpfully.

“She was fifty years older than me, had high blood pressure, and smoked like a chimney.” I pushed my hair out of my face. “I figured that, combined with her anger issues, time was on my side.”

“That’s not the only motive you have.
I overheard Sylvia and Danielle talking about how you killed your uncle and that they were going to work together to prove it. Everyone in the dining room heard them.”

I
hung my head. Strong fingers tilted my chin up. Jesse’s dark brown eyes bored into mine. “What happened?”

I sat back on my heels and described exactly what I heard and saw before finding
Sylvia’s body. “She was already dead. Please believe me.”

Jesse
looked at me. His eyes travelled from my face to my hands, which were still gripping his forearm like a life line. He blew out his breath. “I believe you.”

I leaned back in surprise. “You do?”
I wasn’t sure how any reasonable adult could, considering he found me standing over a dead body brandishing a murder weapon but I clung to his admission like a drowning woman.

He gripped my arms and dragged me up with him as he stood. “We need to move quickly before someone sees us.”

“Wh—what are we going to do?” I asked as my teeth chattered more from shock than any feeling of cold.

“
You’re going to go get cleaned up. Make sure to put the clothes you’re wearing into a bag and hide them.” He glanced down at Sylvia’s body. “I’ll take care of them later.”

“What are you going to do
now?”

“
I’m going to get rid of the body.”

“
Jesse, you can’t. They’ll accuse you too. It’s bad enough that I’m in trouble.”

“
Anna, I don’t believe you did this, but Danielle will crucify you to anyone who will listen. She’ll run around town telling everyone that you’re guilty. Think about it for a second. That shirt you’re wearing is covered in Sylvia’s blood and,” he said pointing to the little embroidered logo above my heart, “it has your name stitched into the material. It’s like a confession. Plus your fingerprints are all over the murder weapon. Not to mention that it’s all over town how you two got into a knock down drag out fight on the lawn yesterday afternoon.”

“We did not fight. I tripped,” I pointed out weakly.
“We need to call the police. I’ll just explain to them what happened. They’ll see I’m telling the truth.”

“
Don’t be stupid. You wouldn’t be the first innocent girl in this town to go to jail for a crime she didn’t commit. Remember, Tiffany Wallace was accused of killing her father. That turned out not to be true, but she still went away for his murder and there was less evidence against her than there is against you. It’s not going to take much for the cops around here to finger you as their prime suspect. Let’s not help them,” he said spacing out each word. “All right?”

I nodded.

“Good. When do you officially open today?”

“Ten. My first employee will get here at seven to take down the decorations from the party.”

Jesse looked around. “That doesn’t leave us much time. Go on and get ready. I’ll take care of everything here.”

I turned around and raced toward the
garden gate. I slid to a stop as I came nearer.

The gate was wide open.

I briefly glanced back at Jesse, wondering if he had been the one to open it.

He was hunched over, trying to roll
Sylvia onto her side. He stopped suddenly and looked toward the ocean. After a few seconds, he returned his attention to Sylvia.

Deciding not to bother him at the moment, I ran past the gate, through the garden, flung open the door to the indoor pool,
ran past the pool, down the hallway and up the stairs, taking them two at a time up to my room. I ran as fast as I could, a part of me convinced the murderer was right behind me.

As soon as I got to my door, I brought out my key, cursing slightly as it slipped from my fingers.
I froze, heart beating wildly as the sound of footsteps reached my ears.

That was a footstep, wasn’t it?
I thought, frozen in place, straining my ears for another sound. I glanced down the empty hallway. I could have sworn I heard someone. Certain that someone was coming, I quickly retrieved my key and in a blur, opened my door, slammed it shut and sank down to the floor, hugging my knees to my chest. Waiting. Only after several minutes passed by without incident did I start to relax again.

I had to think.
Who could have killed Sylvia? She wasn’t the nicest person in the world, but she had lived seventy plus years without someone killing her, so what changed tonight? Who had a motive to kill her? Besides me,
I thought miserably.

I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes as another question came to my mind.
Just exactly what was Jesse doing out there this early in the morning?

Unsettled,
I reached up and slid the other lock into place, just as a shadow passed by my door.

* * *

“Knock, knock,” Victoria said as she rapped against the heavy wooden door to my office.

Startled, the stack of cash I had been counting fell to the
floor.

Victoria
stopped at the entrance to the office and looked down in amusement. “Oh, it’s raining money already?”

Dropping to my knees, I glanced up and plastered a bright smile to my face. “Hardly. They’re only ones.”

She knelt down and helped me gather the money together before sitting down in the chair in front of the desk. “So, how’s everything going?”

“Good,” I said a bit too quickly. “Fine. Everything’s fine.”

She lifted one black eyebrow. “Really? What’s wrong?”

I stood up and sank into my office chair. “Nothing. What could possibly be wrong?”

“Well, it’s your first day and you already look like a member of the walking dead, so I’m thinking quite a lot.”

Snorting,
I glanced toward the mirror above the credenza.
Dear Lord, she was right
. Deep dark circles had taken up residence under my blue eyes, which appeared dull and sleepy in the office light. I ran my hand through my dark brown shoulder length hair. Obviously, finding a dead body did nothing for one’s looks. Neither did standing at the door of my room with one eye pressed to the peep hole for several hours this morning.

It
definitely didn’t make me look bright eyed and bushy-tailed
, I thought with a grimace. Horrified, I glanced away from my reflection as I waved my hand dismissively. “Oh, it’s just jitters. It’s been pretty hectic here today.”

“Uh huh.”
Victoria leaned back and folded her hands against her stomach. “You’re not upset about what Beatrix Allen wrote in this morning’s paper, are you? You shouldn’t take it seriously. I doubt it will hurt your business any.”

My eyes widened. “What article?”

Victoria bit her lip. “You haven’t seen it yet?”

I leaned my head back against my leather chair.
I had completely forgotten about the reporter. “How bad was it?”

“Well, she said the hotel looked beautiful,”
Victoria said brightly.

“And?”

“And then she went into your Uncle Max’s death.” Victoria winced. “She called it suspicious.”

“Did she accuse me?”

“She skirted around the issue—Dad said she wouldn’t want to be sued for defamation or libel—but she did sort of hint at it.”

“
Wonderful.” I closed my eyes.

“
So, has Sylvia been giving you any more problems?”

“Not since
this morning.” I bit my tongue.
Probably not the best answer
. “She decided to go visit a friend in …” I paused as I tried to remember if Sylvia had any friends. My memory coming up blank, I blurted out the first town I could think of. “Tallahassee.”

Victoria
’s eyes narrowed. “Today, of all days?”

“Sure, why is that so strange?” I winced. I was sounding more like I was fishing for information than simply asking a question.

“Well, it’s the hotel’s grand re-opening,” she answered with a shrug. “I figured the only way she’d leave is when they carried her cold dead body out of here.”

My mouth fell open as I let out a strained
chuckle. “That’s crazy. She just went to visit family.”

“I thought she was visiting friends.”

“Friends and family. Why are you here?” Realizing how rude that sounded, I quickly added, “I mean, I thought you would be out chasing Detective Casey.”

“I was. Turns
out, he’s a really fast runner. I made it all the way to the lake before collapsing in an undignified heap.” She pressed her hand to her heart. “It felt like my heart was trying to escape out of my chest. I was gulping down air and panting. For a second there, I thought I was going to die. I was gasping so much, I couldn’t even flirt.”

“Y
ou really must be out of shape then,” I said with a laugh.

“I exercise every day,” she protested. “
I’m always playing tennis.”

“Prancing around the country club in a tennis skirt is not playing tennis.”

She waved her hand dismissively. “Please, I spend most of the time running away from the letch from the
Herald
who’s always there. He’s the main reason I’m in as good of shape as I’m in.”

“
Uh huh, I think you were saying something about gasping and wheezing.”

“I didn’t say anything
about wheezing.” Victoria pushed her hair away from her face. “It was such a shame too. I was looking good up until then.” She looked up happily. “Luke had to help me back to my car. I don’t think I left him with the best impression, but …” She smiled. “He’s very strong and very nice. He’s coming by here in a few minutes.”

My stomach dropped.
“Oh, why?” I asked trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

“To take me out for
a late lunch. I thought we would give you some more business, so I convinced him to have lunch with me in your dining room.”

Relief flooding my body, I said, “G
ood. Great. Thanks.”