Dead Girl Running (Cape Charade #1)(51)

That would explain…this… Kellen touched the scar on her forehead.

Oh God. She’d been through this a million times before, plucking at her mind, seeking memories. If the truth hid there, she couldn’t find it, only fragments of fear and, perhaps, insanity.

She pulled up the resort employee group email, then sat with her fingers on the keys, ready to address the issue of safety…as soon as she figured out what to say. She didn’t want to shout out that Lloyd Magnuson was missing when no one was sure what had happened to him. At the same time, she had to say something. Finally, she typed a brief note that let them know Annie was recovering, expressed her sympathy for those who had known Priscilla Carter, gave the assurance that law enforcement would investigate and that they had a new security director on his way. She included a heartfelt request that everyone be extra vigilant and take every care of themselves and others. Finally, she asked them to report to her anything they observed that struck them as peculiar, and thanked them for their continued diligence. She pressed Send, shut down the computer and the lights and sat in the dark room.

She had found herself unable to tell Mr. Gilfilen about Nils. She considered Mr. Gilfilen a trustworthy man, but she wasn’t willing to jeopardize a federal sting operation based on her belief.

She knew she would not tell Nils about Mr. Gilfilen. She didn’t completely trust Nils.

She didn’t trust Sheri Jean. Or Mara. Most definitely not Chad Griffin. Adrian and Mitch she believed would guard her back in a combat situation, but when it came to making a profit by whatever means? She felt a wobble in her trust-o-meter.

She couldn’t even confide in Birdie or Temo. Anything she said would put them in danger. So she would say nothing. She would tell no one what she knew from any source; she remembered her aunt’s favorite saying, “Of course I can keep secrets, it’s the people I tell them to who can’t keep them.”

This news about Lloyd Magnuson changed everything. He’d gone to the Virtue Falls coroner with the body of one of the Librarian’s victims…and disappeared. Sure, it was possible he’d hit the bars and run into trouble. But no one had seen him, and seriously, who went on a bender with a plastic container of rotting flesh in the trunk?

So what exactly had happened? The Librarian had disposed of Priscilla’s body somewhere close to the resort on the coast, it had washed ashore, and when the identity of the body became known, the Librarian had been alarmed. Perhaps having the body examined by a coroner might somehow lead to the Librarian’s identity.

Yes. What they’d discovered had worried the Librarian and made him, or her, take extraordinary measures to reacquire Priscilla’s body, and what happened to Lloyd Magnuson as a result didn’t matter. Except it did. The guy’s only crime was being a part-time policeman.

Kellen had, she realized, cratered in on herself, erecting that familiar ice wall between herself and everyone else, the way she had after the explosion, in those traumatic days in New York and on the grim streets of Philadelphia…

Turning on the desk light, she pulled a yellow tablet close, got a pen and in her brain pulled up the files for each person she deemed a suspect. If she believed everything Nils Brooks had told her, and she more or less did, then the Librarian was one of these people. Probably. And if she or he had a couple of flunkies, they’d be on the list, too. Probably.

She jotted down each detail about each person.

Then she checked vacations. She knew when Jessica had been killed, so she looked for the employees who had been gone in January. Which was just about everybody except her, who wanted to hunker down here, and Birdie, who didn’t want to go home to Detroit. Oh, and Carson Lennex had been in Machu Picchu, a fact that hadn’t mattered before and now seemed grossly ominous. She weeded out a few names, but—the Librarian ran a big operation at multiple sites. What size was the Librarian’s organization?

Oh. And a large number of the Yearning Sands staff were still on vacation. What if Nils was wrong and the Librarian wasn’t currently here?

So many questions, and none of them easily answered.

Kellen tore off the paper and shrugged into her oversize coat, then headed down to employee dining. It was late; she needed something to eat.

There she found Temo digging through the freezer and loading ready-made dinners into a Yearning Sands Resort insulated tote bag.

“You’re back!” she said. “How was LA? Did you find friends to hire?”

“No.” He was brief to the point of being curt.

“Did you clear up the family situation?”

“Sí. Yes. Everything is fine.” He didn’t look as if everything was fine. He looked tired, he had two days’ growth of dark beard on his chin and his scowl brought his forehead down over his eyes.

More problems in the Iglasias family, she guessed. “How’s your mom and your sister?”

He looked back into the depths of the freezer, grabbed another couple of meals without looking and dropped them into the bag. “Fine. Good! Well, my mom’s in prison, but other than that—”

“That’s something different, isn’t it?”

“First time for federal prison, sí, but no.” He had a bitter set to his mouth. “I’ve bailed her out of jail more than once.”

“Is your sister okay?”

“She is now.” He shut the freezer a little too hard. “I placed her with relatives.”