The Hotel - 23

Someone was banging on the door to my room. I groaned as I checked the time and saw it was only six A.M. Friday morning, meaning I'd gotten maybe four hours sleep, if that. Getting up, I went to see who was there at such an ungodly hour.

"We've found her," Edwin said the second I opened the door. He was wearing a winter jacket and boots, with gloves tucked in the jacket pocket at the moment.

"Alive?" I asked, hoping against hope.

"I'm afraid not." He came in when I stepped aside. "There's a stand of aspen deep in the forest and some of them were felled by a bad snowstorm last winter. Henry decided to move a few of the lighter ones, to see if she had crawled underneath to find shelter from the snow or, to be honest, to see if she'd used them to hide from somebody, if that's what was going on."

"Damn it all to hell." I sat down on the bed, shaking my head. "Could he tell…?"

"How she ended up under them? Yes. Someone put her body there."

"Fuck!"

Edwin sat beside me, his arm around my shoulders. "I've called into town to have the sheriff come up here. Orville—don't laugh, that's his name, as much as he hates it. Before you say anything, his father was the sheriff before him. Anyway, Orville went to college to study criminal justice, joined the police force, and a few years later when his father became ill he returned to take over his job."

"Tell me you're not leaving her there until he arrives," I replied, pulling away to look at him.

"If I had my way, we wouldn't, but he insisted. Something about seeing it in situ. Henry's standing guard. At least we can be thankful for one thing, the snow has let up."

"Am I the only one you've told so far?"

"Yes. I figured you'd want to break the news to your people."

"Not really, but I've got no choice."

"I'm going to email the guests who are due to arrive today know you're going to cancel the show," he said.

I thought about it before replying, "Hold off until I've talked to everyone. They may want to do it in spite of this, as an homage to Tessa, if that makes sense." I smiled grimly. "Presuming the sheriff doesn't arrest one of them for her murder."

"I do hope not, but they are the logical suspects. All of you are."

"Me included. I know that."

"All right. I'll leave you to it and go down to wait for Orville." He gave me a quick hug, which surprised me, and left.