Serious Moonlight(18)

“How do you know it’s Raymond Darke?”

He shoved both hands into his pockets and gave me a slow shrug. “I have my methods. And I can prove it to you. I’ve been trying to figure out why he comes to the hotel for a couple of weeks now. But if you’re interested, maybe we can team up.”

“Team up?”

“Just as friends,” he cautioned. “Less than friends—coworkers.”

What did he mean by that? My emotions were all over the place. A real mystery in the hotel? Involving a famous writer? It was almost too good to be true.

“Forget everything I said before. There’s no need to talk about what happened between us,” he said. “You were right. We’ll leave the past in the past, as you suggested. Onward and upward.”

“Um . . .” I didn’t know what to say. Shouldn’t I be happier about this? It’s what I told him I wanted. I should be relieved.

He was doing that walking-backward thing again, heading outside and leaving me at the market entrance. “Just think about it. If you want to know more, hit me up at work tonight. Maybe we can investigate together and figure out what he’s doing at the hotel every week. Maybe it’s something nefarious and scintillating,” he said, waggling his brows comically.

Before I could answer, a female Oscar Wilde stepped to my side. “Nefarious and scintillating? My favorite subjects.”

Daniel blinked.

“Uh, this is my aunt Mona,” I said.

“The aunt who’s not an aunt?” Daniel said.

“More like fairy godmother,” Aunt Mona said, extending a gloved hand. “Ramona Rivera. You can call me Mona. And you are . . . ?”

“Daniel Aoki,” he said, shaking her hand vigorously. “I work with Birdie at the Cascadia.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, practically purring. “I’ve heard about you.”

If there were an all-powerful being that ruled the universe, it would have surely heard my desperate prayer to please, oh please, have mercy and strike me down. I needed a natural disaster and pronto—earthquake, tornado, tsunami. Anything.

Unfortunately, no one answered my prayers. I was still standing and deeply mortified.

Daniel, however, was elated by this revelation. I mean, he completely lit up. Just for one lightning flash of a second. Then he almost looked embarrassed. Then . . . nothing. He scratched his chin absently and darted a glance at me under the cover of dark lashes.

Right. I got snippy with him about telling Joseph at work about us. Guess I told someone too. Yikes. Was he mad? I couldn’t tell.

He told Mona, “I really dig your entire Mad Hatter look.”

She primped her green hair, pleased. “Why, thank you. I created it myself.”

“Well,” I said, overloud, squelching any further conversation. “We’d better be on our way.”

“Pshaw!” she said. “We have all the time in the—”

“We’d better be on our way,” I repeated, elbowing her in the ribs.

“It’s cool,” Daniel said. “I probably should go too. It was nice to meet you, though.”

“The pleasure was all mine,” she said dramatically.

He walked backward and called out to me, “Think about what I said and let me know. Remember what Elvis told you.”

“Right. Fate.” I tried for a casual laugh, but it came out sounding nervous.

“Maybe I was wrong about fate. See you at work,” he said as he jogged away, leaving me alone with Aunt Mona.

“Oh, my,” she murmured, watching him go. “And just what did the boy say that you are supposed to be thinking about, hmm?”

I shook my head. “Not a date, so don’t get your hopes up.”

“My hopes are always up, darling,” she said. “And by the way . . .” She made a sign in the air and set a reverent hand on my head. “Blessing conferred.”





“I’m nosy.”

—Jessica Fletcher, Murder, She Wrote (1984)





7




* * *



The hotel staff meeting was boring and unnecessary. I spent most of it trying not to think about Daniel and what happened at the market, but it was difficult, because his eyes kept flicking toward mine from across the break room, and every time our gazes met, my pulse went a little erratic and my heart became a trapped rabbit, pounding on my ribs and begging to be set free.

Stupid, silly rabbit.

When our shift started, I was relieved to throw myself into work and was promptly inundated with late-night guest requests. One of them involved discussing a luggage issue outside the entrance with Joseph, which was completely awkward, because now he wouldn’t look me in the eye, and that made me feel guilty . . . and I wondered just how much Daniel had told him. I thought about the expression on Daniel’s face after Aunt Mona had opened her big mouth—I’ve heard about you—and then only a few moments later how he said that maybe he was wrong about fate. Did that mean he only wanted to be friends? Was that possible, after what we’d done?

Apart from me obsessing over interpreting Daniel’s emotions, nothing else notable happened for the first part of the night, and when a lull came, I skipped my ten-minute break after feeding five unrented goldfish at midnight and instead used it to search archived guest ledgers.