Page 12 of Beautiful Deception

“I can trade my room,” Remo proposes, carefully closing my bedroom door so as not to startle me.

“I don’t want to be alone right now,” I mumble, scratching my arm through the loose long-sleeve shirt.

“Your friend is having a snowball fight with Joe Morgon.”

I don’t want Junnie to be worried, so I shake my head and make him promise not to bring it up to her. He thinks for a moment, and it feels like an eternity, but he agrees with a simple nod.

“Can I stay in your room?” I ask, wincing at how utterly inappropriate it is. “Just until she comes back.”

The host has a series of rules for the guests, one of which is to turn off the main lights after dusk. That means I’ll have to walk through dark hallways with wall lanterns and a chance of another brief blackout. The villa’s circuits are old and worn, but the owner wants to retain the mysterious and antique style, so there are intermittent blackouts.

“My room is cold,” he warns as he holds the door open.

I brace for the arctic assault, and it still shocks me at how fast the temperature swallows my skin’s warmth. After shutting the door, he throws me a different jacket. It’s a thicker one and falls to my lower thighs.

The one I returned is sprawled on the chair, reminding me of the minuscule black cube that fell from beneath the collar when I took it off. There’s not much of his belongings on display, just a duffle bag against the wall and a phone on the nightstand.

“So,” I mumble warily after he tells me to sit on his bed before I can ask for the chair. “How’s the investigation going?”

I expect him not to answer or to tell me he can’t give information on an active investigation. However, I’m curious about the details and progress. If the criminal is around, I’d like to avoid them and stay out of their way.

“You shouldn’t interact with others too much,” he advises while tightly closing the curtains where there was a peeking gap.

So, the culprit is here.

It can’t be Junnie and me because it’s our first time here. I know little about Dr. Kian and Remo, but my intuition tells me it’s not them. Possible bias and a whole lot of denial.

Dr. Kian is the only therapist I trust, and Remo may be the only one here with the specialized training to protect me.

That leaves Joe, Peter, Kimberly, the butler, and two maids. Avoiding six people is a challenge.

“Did you find anything?” I ask, picking at the shirt sleeve peeking from underneath his large jacket.

“It was Kimberly,” Remo reveals.

The unexpected news causes me to choke. I didn’t expect him to tell me who the culprit was. I scoot to the edge of the bed, fidgeting with bated breath as he taps something on his phone.

“The victim was her past lover,” he clarifies disinterestedly and puts the phone back on the nightstand. “The coroner found he had pulmonary fibrosis.”

“You think Kimberly pushed him down the stairs because it was incurable?” Even as I say that, I’m at a loss and unable to believe a single word.

Assisted suicide, I recall him saying that.

“That’s the speculation,” Remo starts, but he stops when a knock sounds from the door.

Dr. Kian walks in with two steaming mugs and is surprised to see me in the room. His concerned gaze skims over my appearance and drops the tension in his shoulders when he meets my eyes. He hands me a cup and gives the other to Remo.

My eyes dart back and forth between the cups, eventually piecing together the clues that I had intruded on their time.

Dr. Kian chuckles and takes a seat on the chair. “He was filling me in on his job. It’s safer to have someone watching his back.”

I nod semi-understandingly. We’re in a remote area with hundreds of dense trees, no cell service, and limited road access due to heavy snow.

“How far did he get?” he probes and leans on the chair, the shirt riding tightly on his bicep as he rests his chin on his palm.

“Kimberly pushing the victim down,” I reiterate while rubbing the mug with my thumb.

“If I were to make a guess, which I shouldn’t,” Dr. Kian says with a hesitated sigh. “It’s possible they planned it merely for shock value. He was an attention seeker, based on what I can see from the gathered details.”

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