Page 8 of Half the Summer's Night
Besides, there’s no fun in it. She only came to me because the kill was at the Palm Breeze Hotel, not because she actually knows it’s me.
“You can talk to anyone you’d like,” I say. They didn’t see anything, of course. Not even Maria, who found Mr. Nielson’s body. “Although I’m not sure they’ll have anything for you. It does seem like it was an accident.”
God, it hurts me to lie to her about that, especially when disappointment flickers darkly through her expression.
“I appreciate it,” she says, squaring up her shoulders. “I really just—I mean, maybe this one was an accident, but—” Shegives me a thin, trembling smile. “But if there is a killer out there, we should do something about it, shouldn’t we?”
My throat is too dry to speak, so I just nod. All my emotions are twisted up strangely because Abi being here means my messages worked, and I desperately want to know what she knows. What shethinksshe knows.
But I also don’t want her solving anything too soon.
“If it’s not too much trouble—“ Abi prompts.
Embarrassment floods through me. I need to stay focused. “No, of course, it’s not. I’ll call up Maria now, and I can let the other staff know they can talk to you if they have anything.”
My heart is racing at a million miles per hour, but god, it’s so lovely the way Abi smiles gratefully at me. I can feel the relief rushing through her, too. I suppose she was afraid I was going to turn her down or kick her out of the hotel. As if I wouldeverdo that, even though it’s utterly bizarre to have her in the same room with me and have her aware of it.
I fumble for the phone on my desk and stab in the number for the housekeeping department, trying very hard not to look too closely at Abi, to play it cool so she doesn’t suspect there’s something wrong with me. That I’mthe one she’s looking for.
The phone jangles in my ear. When Darcy, the head of housekeeping, answers, I manage to say, “Could you send Maria up to my office when she gets a chance? There’s someone who’d like to talk to her,” and have it sound normal. Like I’m just a normal 28-year-old hotel owner and not a killer who finally impressed the woman he’s been pining over for a decade.
“Thanks,” Abi says when I hang up. “I really do appreciate it.”
I clear my throat and pull on every ounce of training that Uncle Nash gave me in his time on this earth. He said it was for my own good, and I suppose it was, in its way. But it still hurts to have to pretend.
“Of course,” I tell her. “Anything to catch a killer.”
3
ABI
The owner of the Palm Breeze Hotel is not at all what I expected. He’s a lot younger, for one—probably the same age as me. But he’s also handsome in a way you never seen in the guys around here. Most of them are either cowboy rednecks who wandered in from the ranches to the west of town, or wannabe surfer types who drink at the bars along the beach and watch the weather report for hurricanes, since that’s the only time we get waves worth surfing on.
But Rowan Hanover is different. He has this kind of nerdy awkwardness to him that I find incredibly charming, and the fact that he had aBlood Raiser 3poster in his office is genuinely surprising. And not even the regular poster! The Italian one! Most people, men especially, hate the third movie. But he has a framed painting of Vivienne Hartley up on his wall in all her blood-soaked glory.
I know I shouldn’t be thinking about the Blood Raiser movies or about Rowan Hanover, even with his soft, curling hair and big dark eyes and a shy, infectious smile. I’m here to find out what happened to Mr. Nielson. To find anythingthat will get Kaplan to take me seriously instead of continuing to see me as the unpopular freak who killed a football star when I was sixteen.
That was also ruled an accident. But unlike the deaths in Rosado, itwasan accident.
Mostly.
I shove the thought aside. Rowan set me up with a table in the hotel’s dining room, closed before the lunch rush. It’s a nice table, too, right next to the sun-warmed window that looks out over the hotel’s glittering swimming pool and then, past that, to the vine-covered dunes and the Gulf of Mexico.
He brings me over a pitcher of water, his hair falling casually into his eyes. God, he’s cute.
“Just let Maddie know if you need anything else,” he says, pointing to the hostess. “She can call down to my office. And I’ll tell the staff they can come up here and talk to you if they have anything they want to share.”
He pours the water with a practiced flourish and gives me another one of those shy, crooked smiles. My heart flutters around in my chest.
Has this guy seriously lived in Rosado this whole time? I think about all the nights I chatted with Penelope and Chloe, my two best friends who, unfortunately, live on opposite sides of the country, about my dismal dating options here. It seems I was missing at least one possibility.
“Good luck,” he adds, setting the pitcher on the table. “Hope you find something out.”
That just sets the butterflies to fluttering even more. Because it feels like he believesme, which is not something I can say for the other men I’ve told this to. Uncle Vic would probably have come around at this point, but having the confidence of a ghost doesn’t really mean much.
“Thanks,” I say, wrapping my fingers around the glass of water.
Rowan leaves me alone after that, and Maria, the housekeeper, comes in a few minutes later. She looks a littledrawn, with a big crease down the center of her forehead. “Are you the police officer?” she asks.
