Page 3 of Nothing Watching

Taking a deep breath, Juliette dialed the international code for Germany, and then the hotel’s number.

After a few rings, a woman picked up the phone. “Hello, this is the Hotel Kompfort, how may I assist you?” she said in German.

Juliette quickly composed herself and replied in fluent German, “Good morning, I was wondering if you could help me with some information? I’m trying to investigate an incident that happened at your hotel about ten years ago, and would like to get a list of staff members who were working there at that time.”

The woman on the other line hesitated for a moment, then said, “I’m sorry, that’s a rather unusual request. I’m not sure what you’re referring to. Could you give me more details?”

Juliette took a deep breath. “My father was killed in one of the rooms at your hotel. I’m trying to find out if anyone on the staff at the time has any information that might help me understand what happened.”

There was a long pause, and then the woman said, “I’m sorry to hear that, but I don’t think I can help you with what you need. The hotel has changed ownership. Most of our staff are new since the renovation.”

“Surely there must still be records?” Juliette pushed. She wasn’t going to accept a flat refusal.

“I will ask our manager,” the woman said. She didn’t sound as if she was going to rush off and do it, though.

“Please, can I leave my number with you for when you get an answer? And what’s your name?” That was the best way to get accountability, Juliette knew.

Reluctantly, the woman gave her name, and Juliette left her number.

She hung up feeling frustrated, as if coming to this a decade too late would mean there were never any answers to be found.

But maybe, she thought, there were other routes she could go. Once she’d pushed through the layers of trauma and also the distance that time had created, she had to remember she was an investigator at heart. She had earned her reputation for solving crimes by looking at evidence that others had missed.

What was she missing now?

“Well, what do I know?” Juliette asked herself aloud. She checked the points off on her fingers.

“My father was murdered at night. Someone knew where he would be. Someone got into the hotel, and into his room. They stabbed him and they left and nobody ever found out who they were. Now, ten years later, I’m trying to figure out who they were, how they got in, how they knew where he would be.”

She sighed, wondering if this needle-in-a-haystack quest would ever get answers.

Then, feeling like she’d had a minor epiphany, she realized that perhaps she was going about this entirely the wrong way.

She’d been asking all the wrong questions.

Now, with a suddenness that felt like a ray of light into the darkness of this case, she realized what the right question would be.

CHAPTER TWO

“It’s all about why this happened. That’s what I haven’t focused on enough,” Juliette said softly to herself. “Why was he killed? Someone did it for a reason. There must have been something happening at that time, something he was either involved in and trying to fix—or they didn’t want him to be involved in it at all.”

She added a new point to her list, writing it in big capital letters.

MOTIVE! Someone had a reason to want him dead.

Enthused by this angle, she cast her mind back, trying to remember any political or diplomatic events that could have been happening around the time of her father’s murder. She thought back to the conversations they had had before he had left for Germany, but nothing seemed to stand out as particularly significant. She pulled out her laptop and began to search through news articles and archives, looking for anything that could be related.

That hazy memory tugged at her again. What had he said, and why couldn’t she remember it now?

As she searched, looking through news article after news article but not finding anything that seemed relevant, another idea came to her. Whatever it was might never have made the news. Her father’s death might have prevented it from happening, if he’d been working to expose something or someone. That, after all, was the point of an assassination.

What had happened to his possessions after his death? They hadn’t all been in that hotel room. He’d been staying in a hotel because his trip to Germany had been a brief one. He’d been based elsewhere at the time. In Turkey, she now remembered. He’d been in Turkey for a few months and had been running his office work from there. She recalled now that his possessions had been packed up a week or two later and shipped into storage.

Her father had been a clever and cautious man. If he’d suspected that something was afoot or that someone was targeting him, then perhaps he’d left some evidence elsewhere. Or else, she could piece together the clues.

“Storage, storage. Where was it?” Juliette sank her head into her hands, twining her fingers through her tawny blond hair, thinking hard.

After a minute, she remembered.

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