Dead Girl Running (Cape Charade #1)(20)

The woman who had been Cecilia had kept her promise to herself. Greenleaf was nothing but a nightmare she visited when sleep came hard and darkness held reign.

Birdie sighed, a soft breath of sadness. “Yes. Sometimes it is.”





8

At the airstrip, Kellen parked the van and she and Birdie got out their ponchos—every Yearning Sands vehicle was always equipped with dry ponchos—and donned them. They turned on the runway lights and prepped to receive the plane, then climbed back into the van to wait. “It’s good to be busy,” Kellen said. “When the memories hover like bat wings.”

“This is a different kind of busy than the holidays.” Birdie handed her the roster. “We’ve got newlyweds from Wenatchee. Six ladies from Alaska. A single guy from Virginia.”

Kellen knew. In her brain, she had already started an entry for each guest, and as she met them, she would finish filling them out. She said, “The single guy. Nils Brooks. I took his reservation. He asked for an isolated cottage with a view of the ocean and the mountains. He wants to be alone to write his first book.” She looked sideways at Birdie. Nils Brooks was not the first author to arrive and demand privacy to write.

Sometimes they even did it.

“So he’s going to want someone to haul room service out to him through rain and snow and wind?” Trust Birdie to see the practical side of things.

“Figure on an ATV parked at the kitchen door all the time.” Kellen’s phone rang. She answered.

Sheri Jean said, “I’ve got this afternoon’s three receptionists from town who slid off the road into a ditch. One of them is hurt, the other two tried to push the car out and are covered in mud. I can transfer one of my people to the front, but the concierge has a dentist appointment and Mara says she can’t help me with coverage.”

Someone beeped in. Kellen looked. No kidding. It was Mara.

Kellen ran the employee schedule in her mind, hooked the two of them into a conference, smoothed their ruffled feathers, presented them with a solution that both could live with and got off the phone.

Birdie gave Kellen the side-eye. “Have you always been able to do that?”

“Do what?”

“Know the location, schedule and qualifications of every employee and juggle them around until they fill the needed space. You don’t use a computer. It’s in your brain.”

“It’s a gift.” With her fingers, Kellen circled the round scar on her forehead.

“That thing looks like you were shot.”

Kellen took her hand away. “It’s a birthmark.”

“Sure. What dumbass would ever believe that?”

“The doctor who did my Army physical.”

Birdie did such a double take Kellen was glad they were parked. “You convinced a doctor that that is a birthmark?”

“I told him that’s what it was. He convinced himself. He couldn’t believe that anyone could survive a gunshot to the skull, much less be walking and talking. He couldn’t find any problems like seizures or schizophrenia or, you know, outbursts of maniacal laughter.” Kellen remembered the terror she’d felt during the military doctor’s staccato interrogation. “Most important, he couldn’t find an exit wound.”

“Whoa. There’s no exit wound? Is it a birthmark?”

“I guess.” It wasn’t. But when a person couldn’t recall a whole year of her life, that threw a lot of stuff into doubt: memories, skills, maybe even sanity.

“You don’t know?”

“If you’d been shot in the head, what would you know?”

Birdie nodded thoughtfully. “Good point. Speculation is that your lover shot you.”

“I wouldn’t think so.” Pause. “Dunno.” Pause. “There’s speculation?”

“You know how the boys and girls are. Gossip is their life’s blood.”

“The boys and girls?”

“The boys and girls at the resort who spend too much time making beds. The staff who stand around waiting for guests to arrive and have nothing to entertain them until—oh God!—everyone arrives at once, all the crises need to be dealt with now and no one has time to catch their breath. Same shit as in the Army, only without all that messy death.”

They both nodded. Birdie might be maligning “the boys and girls,” but Birdie and Kellen had both been there, in the military, doing the most boring grunt work day after day until the moment the mortars started raining down, the enemy advanced and suddenly there weren’t enough seconds in a minute. Resort work was usually less dramatic, but the atmosphere was comparable.

Birdie grinned at her. “Want me to make up a big lie? Entertain them?”

“Ick.” The idea of speculation gave Kellen the creeps.

“Your husband caught you with your wealthy lover, shot you both and turned the gun on himself. They both died, but you lived, and in your despair, you joined the military.”

Too close for comfort. “The wealthy lover and the husband? That’s so done.”

“You’re right. I could make it juicier.” Before Kellen could tell her no, Birdie drew a quavering breath. “I want people to talk to me again, to meet my eyes and forget my husband died in my arms.”

“I swear I didn’t tell them.”