Her gaze shot to a half-eaten plate of scrambled eggs on a table beneath the window. “He got room service. He called for room service—did everyone know, did the morning staff know of—”
“Ma’am,” said the paramedic. “You need to step out of the room. The coroner is on his way. You need to leave everything as it is.”
“Coroner?”
“It’s protocol in an unexpected death.”
“Will there be an investigation? Will the coroner inform next of kin?”
“When we know who they are, and there’s always a death investigation in cases like this.”
Her knees buckled slightly. She couldn’t swallow. Absurdly, she wondered how this was going to look on her résumé. Would the RAKAM Group still consider her services in the future? What if it was her fault that he’d ingested shellfish? Or eaten food that had come into even the briefest contact with allergens?
The manager took her arm, but she shrugged him off. “I need to call my boss.”
Amanda marched out of the room and walked a short way down the corridor. She stopped and dialed the number she’d been given for her contact at the RAKAM Group.
It rang and rang. Then it clicked over to a recorded message.
“This number is no longer in service.”
She frowned, checked her phone. Had she pressed the wrong button? She tried to call again.
It rang four times, then came the same message. “This number is no longer in service.”
Dumbstruck, she slowly lowered her phone. The voice of Stella Daguerre, the pilot, echoed through her ear.
It’s just as well Dan Whitlock is not coming . . . My plane, as it’s configured, takes a maximum of eight including me, the pilot. Your boss was made aware of this when I was contracted. I made it clear. So how can there be an extra passenger if the RAKAM Group didn’t know Dan Whitlock was going to get sick and bail?
Amanda tried the number one more time.
“This number is no longer in service.”
THE LODGE PARTY
DEBORAH
Deborah Strong peered out the plane window. Beyond the yellow wingtip, ragged mountains speared up from shimmering lakes, and rivers cascaded and sparkled. Pristine snow lay thick upon the taller peaks. Brutal, brown avalanche scars were scored down the steeper flanks. The forests were dark green and endless. She saw no sign of human life anywhere. It was beautiful. Distant. Hostile. The plane banked sharply. Her stomach swooped and she turned away, feeling slightly nauseous, wishing she hadn’t downed that breakfast muffin so fast, because it was about to come up.
Deborah was seated at the very rear of the plane, right in front of a canvas curtain that divided the passengers from the luggage. Beside her, at the opposite window, sat the security woman, Jackie Blunt. Jackie had a really dark aura. Deborah found her intimidating. Every now and then she’d catch Jackie staring at her.
Katie Colbourne was seated in front of Deborah. Katie filmed out the window. Bart Kundera sat to Katie’s right. Deborah liked his looks. Handsome in a bold sort of way that could almost be ugly with a few genetic tweaks in another direction. Such was the lottery of life. Bart had won. And he had a good vibe. Easy smile. He appeared capable. Nice. Nice enough that Deborah had glanced at his ring finger. He wore a wedding ring. Of course he did. Not that she was looking, just that in her experience all the good ones were taken, and many of the not-so-good ones as well. She knew all about the not-so-goods.
The older married couple, Nathan and Monica McNeill, sat directly behind pilot Stella Daguerre.
Stella was all confidence and authority. Definitely the kind of attributes Deborah wanted of a pilot who took a heavy chunk of yellow-and-blue metal up into the sky, and who consequently held passengers’ lives in her hands. It amazed Deborah that this thing could even get into the air, and now that they were in the sky, it all actually felt quite graceful, especially with the high-end headphones canceling the raw, throaty growl and shuddering metal parts of the plane. There was something magnetic about Stella. She wasn’t pretty. Kind of hardened and gaunt, really. Perhaps it was her clear gray eyes, her cool silver hair cut pixie short, her slender, athletic physique that all combined to make her compelling. Perhaps it was her centeredness. Her self-assuredness. Her ease with being a strong and capable woman. Deborah admired that.
Stella was the kind of woman she’d want as a friend. But also the kind of woman Deborah felt was above her, and who might never deign to see Deborah as an equal should she even begin to make overtures. The cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Steven Bodine, sat in the copilot seat beside Stella. He’d made a beeline for that seat, not bothering to even feign a gesture of offering it to anyone else.
Deborah’s phone vibrated in her hands. She glanced down at the device. As soon as they had taken off and were safely in the air, she’d posted to her social media account one of the photos she’d shot at the floatplane dock. Already three little hearts showed under her post. She smiled at the sight of them.
“I thought the pilot said to put phones in airplane mode.”
Deborah’s head shot up at the sudden sound of the voice inside her headphones.
Jackie Blunt.
The woman was staring at her. There was a strange look on her rough face. A prickle of unease crawled up the back of Deborah’s neck.
“Still got reception, then?” Jackie asked, her voice once again coming in through Deborah’s headset. It felt too intimate, as if the woman were right inside her brain. Deborah nodded, heat flaring into her cheeks. She was both embarrassed and angry that Jackie had called her out via a system through which everyone on the plane could listen in.
“I forgot,” Deborah said quietly, coolly, and she turned off her phone.
Jackie’s gaze dropped to the phone in Deborah’s hands. Deborah realized Jackie Blunt was studying not the phone, but the small tattoo of a swallow on the inside of Deborah’s wrist. Deborah quickly turned her wrist over and looked away. Her heart thudded. She felt as though this security woman had seen right into her, knew exactly who she was, where she’d been. What she’d done. Her therapist’s words filled her mind.
You do not need to be defined by the darkness of your past. You deserve a good life, just like everyone deserves a good life. You have atoned. You have a right to feel worthy.
Deborah sucked in the meaning of the words. She had no reason to fear Jackie Blunt. Zero reason to feel inferior to Stella Daguerre, or anybody. She had as much right and status on this junket as anyone else here. She was being considered for a high-end boutique housekeeping contract, and she’d worked her freaking butt off to get to this point. Harder than most would ever have to work, because she’d started in a shittier place than most. And she’d discovered she was good at the housekeeping business, good at managing staff, good at finding the right people to build her team. Good at making contacts in the industry. And through it all she’d met a wonderful man with whom she planned to spend the rest of her life. And she had a secret. She was carrying his baby. And when he returned home, she would tell him, and they would marry.
“You remind me of someone,” Jackie said quietly in her ear.
Deborah started. Slowly her attention returned to Jackie. The woman’s dark eyes narrowed as she studied Deborah. “Kat . . . Kata . . . Katarina, I think her name was.”