Annabelle Archer BoxSet, page 97
part #1 of Annabelle Archer Series
Kerry put her hands over her face and started crying. “I had no idea. He told me he just wanted to keep people from being hurt. I thought I was helping.”
I slipped an arm around her shoulder. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. He fooled everyone.”
I led her out of the ballroom and walked her slowly down the stairs as she sniffled and wiped her eyes. When we reached the lobby, I spotted Richard wearing his leather cross-body bag with Hermès’s head poking out of one end.
“Annabelle!” Buster’s voice boomed in my ear. “He’s making a run for it.”
Before I could head for the executive offices, I heard screaming and felt the floor shake under my feet.
The assistant manager ran into the lobby, a deranged look on his face and his combover falling into his eyes. He looked over his shoulder and shrieked. I didn’t blame him. Buster and Mack, decked out in black leather and chains from head to toe, both lumbered after him at a remarkably quick pace given their bulk.
Mr. Anderson tried to head for the front door, but Mack leapt into the air and tackled his legs. The men landed with a thud that shook the lobby. Buster piled on, and I heard the assistant manager squeak as a gun flew out of his pocket and bounced across the carpet. Hermès let out a torrent of barks and jumped out of Richard’s bag, dashing over to growl at the fallen man.
Stuart rushed into the lobby, breathing hard. “What’s going on?”
I pointed to the gun at my feet. “There’s your phantom gun.” I then pointed to Mr. Anderson, whose limp form was being peeled off the floor by Mack while Hermès yipped in approval. “And there’s your ghost.”
18
“Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” Reese said on the other end of the phone. “Both of your biker florist friends tackled the perp and he survived?”
I stood a few feet away from my friends as we waited in the lobby for my car. “He was a bit shaken up, but nothing was broken. He did get fired and arrested, though, so it still wasn’t a great day for him.”
“And was I right about following the money to find the motive?”
“Actually, you were,” I said. “The assistant manager was related to the original founder of the hotel and had grown up feeling like his family had been cheated since the resort is worth so much now. He’d cobbled together an investment group to buy the hotel if he could decrease its value enough, hence the poltergeist stories.”
“And it might have worked if you hadn’t come along. I’ll bet he didn’t expect a wedding team to blow his plan out of the water.”
I laughed. “That’s what he said as they dragged him off, but he used the word meddling.”
I didn’t mention the pleasure that I’d taken in seeing Brianna and Kerry leave with their tails between their legs after being questioned by the police for their part in the fraud. I felt a little bad for Kerry, who’d been taken advantage of because of her naiveté, but not the least bit bad for Brianna, who’d taken glee in slandering the resort.
“I’m just glad you’re safe.” Reese’s voice became serious. “And I’m glad you’re coming home.”
“Oh, really?” I twirled a strand of hair around my finger.
“Yes, really.” His voice became low. “I have lots of plans for you. Starting with a romantic dinner out.”
I felt my face become warm, and I pulled my sweater away from my neck to cool off. “That sounds perfect.”
“Annabelle,” Kate called. “Your car’s here.”
“I’ve got to go,” I said to Reese, hating that I had to wait to find out about his plans for me. My imagination was already going into overdrive.
He sighed. “Drive safe, and call me when you get home.”
I said I would and disconnected, slipping my phone into my pants pocket. I joined my crew in grabbing our bags to carry to the car, taking a last look at the beautiful lobby. I would miss the wood-burning fires and the fresh mountain air, not to mention the slower pace.
“Remind me never to go on vacation with you again,” Richard said, holding his Prada duffel bag in one hand and Hermès in the other.
I hoisted my black overnighter onto my shoulder. “I don’t know why you’d say that. It was a perfectly lovely weekend.”
He gaped at me. “Guns were fired, and we ran a sting operation that ended up in a person getting tackled in the lobby.”
“I thought it was a hoot and a half,” Fern said, holding the door open. “I especially liked getting to practice my lifting skills.”
“Should I be worried you’re such a good pickpocket?” I asked.
He inspected my hair and tucked a loose strand behind my ear as I passed him. “Not as long as rich women need their hair done.”
My black Volvo sat idling under the portico. I opened the trunk with my car keys, wishing I had a newer model car so I could pop the truck with a remote, then I dropped my overnight bag inside.
“I’m with Fern.” Kate tossed her carry-on bag next to mine. “We all made a pretty good crime-fighting team. Maybe we should do it professionally.”
Buster snapped his fingers. “Like the A Team.”
Richard placed his designer duffel bag gingerly in my trunk and shook his head. “Heaven preserve us.”
Mack swung both Fern’s and Kate’s suitcases up into my car. “It couldn’t be harder than working with brides.”
“You know that’s right. I love it when a plan comes together,” Buster said. “And I have to admit that it was a rush to apprehend the suspect.”
“I think the word you’re looking for is crush,” Richard said.
Fern put a hand on Mack’s arm. “I thought it was spectacular. It was like watching a pair of water buffalos take down a gazelle.”
“If the gazelle had a bad combover,” Kate said.
Fern opened the door to the back seat and placed his Louis Vuitton duffel bag in the middle. Richard put Hermès down in the car, and the Yorkie ran to take his place on the hump between the back seats.
“We should all be proud that we saved a bunch of people’s jobs,” I said.
“Including mine,” Stuart said as he joined us outside.
I threw my arms around him. “Thank you for spoiling us with the dinners and spa treatments.”
He patted me on the back as I hugged him. “After what you did for me and for all the hotel staff, I don’t feel like I did enough. You’ll have to come back for a weekend on us when you don’t have to flush out fake ghosts.”
Kate raised her hand. “Count me in.”
I nudged Stuart. “Unless you’re working at a luxury hotel in New York or DC, in which case we’ll be your first visitors.”
“Fingers crossed,” Stuart said. “I do have one question for you, though. How did you figure out the connection between our assistant manager and the hotel’s founder?”
“It was a tip from one of your guests,” I said. “A little girl I met in the pool. She mentioned a Dr. Anderson, and we took it from there.”
Stuart raised his eyebrows. “Anna?”
“How did you know?” I tilted my head at him. “Don’t tell me you learn the names of all your guests.”
Stuart shook his head. “No, Anna’s been here for years.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Anna drowned in the pool over a hundred years ago. She’s a ghost.”
Suddenly, I felt cold. “That’s impossible.”
“Was she wearing a dark old-fashioned dress each time you saw her?”
Now that he mentioned it, the dress had struck me as a bit out of fashion, but I thought that was because I couldn’t see her well from so far away. I thought about Anna and felt a pang of sadness that she’d drowned so many years ago.
“Quite a few of our guests have seen Anna.” Stuart put a hand on my shoulder. “She’s perfectly friendly. As is the gentleman in room 217.”
“So your resort is definitely haunted after all?” Kate asked.
Stuart held up a finger. “We’ve never claimed it wasn’t haunted. We just said that the story about poltergeists was false. Our ghosts are delightful.”
“I, for one, hope not to run into any spirits for a while,” I said. “I’ll be happy to get back to our ghost-free weddings.”
“Be careful what you wish for, Annabelle,” Kate said, sliding into the passenger’s seat. “Just because our weddings don’t have ghosts, doesn’t mean they aren’t deadly.”
I had to admit, she was right.
BOOK 7: EAT, PREY, LOVE
1
I dropped my black carry-on bag in the foyer of the hotel suite and rubbed the deep groove it had left in my shoulder. Next time I wouldn’t pack so much for the plane, I told myself. Not that I’d be getting on another thirty-plus hour flight anytime soon.
The trip from Washington, DC, to Bali, Indonesia, had gone through New York and Taiwan before reaching the exotic island that would be home for the next week. It had taken over a day of travel to arrive, and I could feel the exhaustion begin to overtake me as I followed my Balinese room butler while he gave me a tour of the spacious suite.
“Your living and dining room, Ms. Archer,” the man said, sweeping an arm to encompass the beige-and-teakwood furniture that decorated the room. A large round mirror hung over a table that held an arrangement of white orchids and a russet-colored urn with a lid.
I took a quick peek at myself in the mirror. Aside from the fact that my long auburn hair hadn’t been washed in almost two days, and most of my makeup had worn off, I didn’t look as tired as I felt. “Call me Annabelle.”
“Okay, Ms. Annabelle.” The man grinned and swept an arm in the direction of the flat-screen TV on a polished-wood console.
I lifted the fresh-flower garland from around my neck and placed it on the round dining table beside a glass bowl of tropical fruits, feeling my stomach growl at the sight of the food. When had I last eaten? At this point, the meals on the airplane were a blur of blandness. I ran my hand over the bumpy green skin of a small fruit I’d never seen before and wondered if it would be sweet or tart.
“Your bedroom and closet, Ms. Annabelle.” The butler led me from the living room to the bedroom with a king-sized bed covered in white linens with huge wall mirrors to each side. This room, like the first one, had one entire wall of glass that looked out onto the balcony and was covered with beige linen drapes. He pulled open the drapes and light poured into the room.
I blinked at the brightness and made a mental note to close the curtains before I changed. I then poked my head into the walk-in closet with a series of blond wood drawers beneath the long hanging racks on two sides. “This is larger than some apartments in Georgetown.”
The butler smiled again and nodded. I fell in step behind him as he showed me the final room—the marble and glass bathroom with a sleek freestanding tub at one end, broken up by a long stretch of countertop and double sinks before the glass-enclosed shower at the other. I opened a frosted-glass door next to the shower and the lid of a modern-looking toilet rose automatically.
“It’s motion activated,” the butler explained, waving his hand up and down to demonstrate how to raise and lower the lid. “And the seat is heated. You have a control panel to the side.”
Wow, I mouthed.
The butler gestured to the glass wall at the far end of the bathroom. “The hot tub is outside on the balcony. You let me know when you want to use it, and I will remove the cover and turn it on for you.”
I looked at him. “I have my own hot tub?”
The dark-haired man smiled and nodded. He seemed pleased by how impressed I was with the suite. “Would you like to use it now?”
I waved away the thought. “No, not now. I should unpack first.”
He bobbed his head and smiled some more. “If you need anything at all, you call me.”
I followed him back through the suite, tipping him with American dollars since I hadn’t had the chance to change money yet. He seemed pleased as he closed the front door of the room behind him, although I suspected he would have smiled even if he’d been disappointed. So far the Balinese people had impressed me as the happiest people I’d ever met. Certainly they smiled the most.
I took a deep breath, enjoying being alone in my room after such a long time in a plane surrounded by people. I slid off my black cardigan and draped it over the back of a teak wood chair as I crossed the living room and pulled open the sliding glass door that led to the balcony. The long marble balcony stretched the entire length of my suite with a covered sunken hot tub at the far end and a collection of dark brown and cream lounge furniture topped with orange throw pillows that filled the remaining space. As tasteful as the furniture was, it was the view that had me catching my breath.
Standing at the glass balcony wall, I could see the blue of the Indian Ocean in front of me, blocked only by clusters of tall palm trees and one of the hotel pools dotted with lounge chairs at its edge as it ran the length of the resort. To my right, ivory curtain-draped cabanas sat along the side of the pool, and I could hear a few people splashing around in the clear water. I looked past the pool to the cliff that jutted out into the ocean and spotted a multitier Balinese temple perched on the edge. It reminded me of a wedding cake with its white layers getting progressively smaller until it reached a point at the top. As the owner of Wedding Belles, one of Washington DC’s top wedding planning companies, I had weddings on my mind more than most people.
I took a deep breath, smelling the faint scent of salt water and feeling my shoulders relax. I sat down on the nearest lounge chair and stretched my feet out in front of me, letting my head drop back against the cushion and closing my eyes. I breathed in slowly and tried to let the plane trip melt away.
“Can you believe this place?” Kate’s voice jerked me out of my moment’s peace. My assistant’s head was leaning over the divide between my suite and hers, her blond bob moving in the breeze.
“It’s pretty amazing,” I said.
She took in my balcony and nodded in approval. “You have a hot tub, too. I’m going to come over and check out your place.”
Her head disappeared before I could tell her that our rooms were probably identical, so I reluctantly rose from the lounge chair and walked to my front door as the doorbell chimed.
“Don’t you love the fact that we have doorbells?” she asked when I’d opened the door. “It’s probably because you wouldn’t hear someone knocking if you were all the way in the bedroom or bathroom. Speaking of bathrooms, can you believe that shower? Our entire crew could fit inside.” She lowered her voice as if an imaginary person might overhear us. “And the toilet seat is heated.”
I was amazed that Kate had as much energy as she did after our long trip and lack of sleep. I was also surprised that she’d already changed out of her leggings and hoodie from the plane and was wearing a pink-and-white sundress that, per usual, showed plenty of leg. “The hotel is spoiling us; that’s for sure.”
Kate kicked off her pink kitten heels, leaving them behind in the foyer. “I mean, we’ve been on FAM trips before, but this is incredible.”
I had to agree. As wedding planners, we’d been invited to stay overnight and familiarize ourselves with various hotels and resorts (the phrase “FAM trip” was short for “familiarization trip”), but never had we been invited to Bali and put up in suites in a luxury oceanfront resort that had been named one of the top in the world.
“When do you think we meet the other people on the trip?” Kate asked as she flopped down on my couch and tucked her bare feet under her.
I shrugged. “The official events don’t begin until tonight’s dinner.”
“Did you see the attendee map they emailed us? There are planners here from Paris, Australia, and Japan. It’s so cool that we’re the only planners from DC.”
I didn’t want to tell Kate that I’d been a little intimidated when I’d seen the list of the forty other planners, florists, and caterers who would be joining us. One of the LA planners had even had his own reality show.
“Don’t worry, Annabelle.” Kate seemed to read my mind. “We’re just as fabulous as the rest of the people here. Our Rose Garden wedding was featured in Insider Weddings magazine just last month.”
“And I’m sure that’s one of the reasons we’re here,” I said, joining her on the couch and lifting the glass dome off a plate of miniature sweets on the coffee table. “The owners of the magazine are co-sponsoring the trip.”
“Booking that White House wedding definitely made up for some of our past disasters.” Kate took a mini tart topped with tropical fruits when I held out the plate.
“I hope you don’t go around telling people we have wedding disasters,” I said, popping a tartlet in my mouth and sighing at the sweetness of the fruit and pastry cream.
Kate swallowed and dabbed at the edge of her mouth. “Well, what would you call the murders?”
I gave her my sternest look. “I would call them an off-limit topic of conversation on this trip.”
She held up her hands. “Fine. You’ll have to tell the rest of the gang, though. You know how Fern loves to gossip.”
I thought this was rich coming from Kate since she was usually the person to whom our friend, and go-to wedding hairstylist, Fern loved gossiping.
Kate stood up and bounded out to the balcony. “Do you think we can see their rooms from ours?”
I followed her with a little less bounce in my step. “Maybe. They should all be on the same floor as us.”
Kate craned herself over the glass barrier. “Fern, Richard, Buster, Mack!” She paused as she waited for a response, but no one answered.
“Maybe they don’t have their balcony doors opened.” I leaned my forearms against the glass and looked down on the pool area. “Richard looked pretty tired when we arrived. He might be taking a nap.”
