Page 24 of Nothing Watching

But where she was lacking was in relationship experience. That had largely been missing from her life, and suddenly, she felt as if she was in deeper waters than she could imagine.

“Look, Juliette, I don’t know your situation,” he explained. “But I know enough, with my military tours, to have seen what a strain distance puts on relationships. Especially when they’re new. And policing, with the hours and the pressure on both sides, complicates it.” He shook his head, as if feeling annoyed with himself. “I hate to talk negatively like this. I don’t want to throw shade on your new relationship, but I want to be realistic. If he moves there, it’s not for a tour. He’s not coming back, he’s stationed permanently on the other side of France. And you’re here.”

Juliette let out a long, slow breath. Then she glared at him.

“We’ll be the exception, if it happens,” she said defiantly.

“I truly hope so. I’m rooting for you,” he replied apologetically.

The waiter was hovering, and Sierra was off her phone. Glancing at the menu, Juliette ordered the first thing that caught her eye, feeling a sudden lack of interest in food after that short discouraging conversation.

With their orders placed, Juliette redirected the small talk, wanting to get it onto a more positive spin.

“How are you finding your shared house in Paris?” she asked Sierra, hearing the forced cheeriness in her own tone.

Sierra grinned. “Oh, it’s amazing,” she said. “I’ve got these two housemates who are just the coolest. We’ve been exploring the city together and trying all the best cafes, and a few shows, and of course, all the tourist places. I’ve even been to a few of the museums and art galleries. They’re really interesting. Last weekend, we all had an outing to the Louvre, and it was an amazing place. And the week before that, we took the train out to Versailles on Sunday. It was amazing. Do you know you can rent bicycles there and cycle around the grounds?”

“That sounds great,” Juliette said, genuinely pleased that Sierra was finding so much to love about her new home city, and that this conversation had thankfully lightened the atmosphere.

Their food arrived, and they ate in silence, with Juliette’s hunger surfacing again. As she bit into the pork schnitzel, savoring the tender meat and the crispy coating, and the tangy potato salad on the side, it brought back better memories of Germany, earlier ones, where family time and dishes had been enjoyed, before her father’s murder.

Sierra was in raptures over the bratwurst, smothered in mustard and with sauerkraut on the side, while Wyatt, sticking to his guns, firmly refused to try any of it.

As they finished their meal, Sierra requested a takeaway box for her chocolate torte, and they then made their way up to their hotel rooms.

With no further research on the case to do tonight, she had other plans for her evening. When she was settled in her room, she promised herself, she was going focus on her father’s cold case. She was going to burn off her nervous energy by checking on each and every hotel employee who’d been working at the Hotel Kompfort at the time.

Juliette was sure that a criminal had been hiding among them.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Leaning forward on the plush upholstered chair in her hotel room, Juliette opened the email with the records from the Munich hotel, and then she clicked the link to the German police database that they’d accessed earlier today.

She took a deep breath, suppressing the guilt that flooded her, because she was not supposed to be using this database for her own objectives. She was only able to do it because they were in Germany, and had accessed the records earlier today. She could be in trouble if anyone found out what she was doing now.

Juliette was going to risk the trouble. This was her chance, and she had to pursue it with everything she had.

As she began her search through the database, Juliette felt vindicated, as if she’d delayed far too long in doing this and now, finally, she was ready. This was a big moment, and she hadn’t realized how impactful it would be. Determination was tautening like a steel wire inside her.

She scrolled through the criminal database, cross-referencing the list of employees at the Munich hotel.

It was slow going, and she needed to focus painstakingly on every name, and not miss a detail, but she was determined to leave no stone unturned.

Juliette sat there, hunched over her laptop, her eyes fixed on the screen as she scanned through name after name.

She caught her breath. Here was one.

The name was Kurt Mueller. He had been employed at the Munich hotel at the same time as her father’s murder.He’d been a low-level employee, a bellhop, but three years prior to that, he’d spent a few months in prison for fraud.

A criminal could have decided to go back to his old ways, especially if there was an incentive to do so. And Juliette had seen from her experience how easy it was for the bad guys to pinpoint ex-criminals. It was weird how they seemed to have a sixth sense about who had a record, and there was a magnetic pull that often drew the two together. This might have happened. Even if one of these low-level employees was not the killer, Juliette theorized that they could have been used by the criminals, by this faceless assassin, to enable access. After all, that hotel room door must have been opened by a normal key card. It hadn’t been forced.

So either someone had sneaked in—perhaps knocking and entering during turndown, pretending to be the real guest, or else, they’d obtained a card.

There had been nothing in the police report about any irregularities or entries during the turndown service, and in fact Juliette thought that there probably hadn’t been a turndown service in operation at the hotel at that time. So, someone had gotten a card from somewhere.

That was one link that might have made it possible. She’d have to track Kurt Mueller down. Were there any others?

After what seemed like hours, she found another name that caught her attention. Hans Gruben. He had worked at the Munich hotel for several years and had left shortly after her father’s murder.Perhaps that was significant. He had a history of assault. He’d attacked someone with a broken bottle during a drunken barroom brawl.

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