Page 63 of Chasing Lynda

Thankfully I have remote access to the hotel guest log and I provide law enforcement with a complete list of the guests.

After a head count, my heart plummets when we find out that five people are unaccounted for; three women and two men aren’t inside the restaurant and aren’t answering their phones. They were all staying on the eighth floor, the one that appears most affected by the fire.

I make a couple of phone calls while everyone is served breakfast, finding alternative accommodation in nearby hotels and guest houses for the current guests.

The fire brigade captain sits us down once once all the guests have been loaded into a few coaches to be relocated at least for tomorrow night.

“It’s obvious that the hotel will not be accessible until we make an assessment of its safety. The fire looks serious enough to cause structural damage.”

I’m not surprised by the not so great news. “I’m pretty sure that it’ll take a few days at best before we can even start to think about repairs?” I ask and the Fire Chief confirms it.

“As soon as we establish that it’s safe to enter the premises, you’ll be able to get your insurance to survey the damage,” he informs us. “However, there are a few things that will delay that.”

The police sergeant on duty nods glumly. “There’s going to be a criminal investigation to establish exactly what happened. The coroner’s office is already here to collect the five bodies our colleagues extracted from the eight floor not too long ago.”

Dodge covers his face with both his hands. Bennett tightens his arms around Lynda, who’s sitting by his side, hiding her face in the crook of his neck.

I shake my head. “I’m in charge of safety inspections and licenses. If there’s any liability, I’m the one who should be held responsible. We missed a few fire inspections. Just one under our management, but—”

Dodge interrupts me. “Don’t be ridiculous, Carter! I’m the resort owner, so if there’s any responsibility, I’m the one—”

The Fire Chief interrupts us both. “It isn’t official yet, and we’ll have to wait until a full investigation is carried out, but from our preliminary inspection, the fire doesn’t look like the result of a malfunction or lack of maintenance. It looks like it was intentional.”

I don’t know if I should feel relieved or appalled.

Dodge voices the thought that immediately came to my mind before I can. “So that would mean that we might not go down for murder or manslaughter, but it also means that getting the insurance to pay up will be a real bitch.”

The chief nods. “It’s going to be complicated. There’s criminal implications of course; and I’m pretty sure your insurance company will open an investigation before paying any sums to repair the damage.”

Fuck.

I look at Dodge’s stunned expression; lately his life seems to be going down in flames, and ours by default; and I’m not trying to be smart with puns right now.

The police sergeant agrees with the chief. “Yeah, you’re looking for a few months at best. Be reassured that the police department will do everything in our power to find out who set this fire. Material aside, this is now a murder investigation with five victims. I’ll begin by talking with each of you. I hope you’ll understand that we need to rule out any involvement in tonight’s events.”

I shake my head. Of course the first thing the police thinks is that one of us started the fire to commit insurance fraud. They’ll be even more convinced that this is the case, once they find out that the resort isn’t exactly profitable and if they dig into Dodge’s disastrous family finances.

Of course all our alibis for the hours between midnight and 2 a.m. check out. “Bennett, Zane and I were together at the club all night. We left around 1 a.m. and returned to the penthouse suite. Each of us went to bed in our rooms.”

The sergeant writes it all down. “What about you, Mr. Butten?”

Dodge looks at all of us. We weren’t going to mention the fight at the club, but once the police view the CCTV footage, they’ll see what happened. He explains about the situation at the club. “My security staff handled the rowdy guest and his party and I decided to go back to my room.”

The sergeant asks the obvious question. “Can anyone confirm that you in fact went to your room and stayed there the entire night?”

Lynda speaks up. “I went with him. We were together until Bennett and Zane came to tell us about the fire and that we needed to leave.”

If the sergeant is surprised by the fact that Lynda just admitted to being in Dodge’s bed while now she’s practically sitting on Bennett’s lap, he doesn’t show it. His attention is attracted by something else. “Who’s Zane? You all keep mentioning a Zane but I don’t see—”

Zane enters the room, followed by our head of security. The grim expression on his face isn’t promising. “I’m sorry, Sergeant. After the coroner left, I was talking to your tech team, providing them with the credentials to access our CCTV footage. I was helping them figure out the various settings and we’ve come across something interesting.”

He sets down the tablet he’s carrying, pressing play on a segment of footage from the cameras on the eighth floor.

A man exits the elevator, looking around the empty hallway as if he was trying to make sure that there’s no one around. He’s carrying a plastic bag.

Dodge gasps but Bennett is the first one to talk. “That’s Buck Monroe! What the fuck is that motherfucker doing back at the hotel in the middle of the night?”

We observe Monroe extract the universal key-card that opens every door in the entire resort, entering a room. The clock on one corner of the screen keeps ticking and Zane fast forwards to nine minutes later, when Monroe exits the room empty handed and with a satisfied smile on his face.

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