Menace in Christmas River (Christmas River 8) Page 15

  “Have you heard any news about…?” she said, trailing off and swallowing hard.

  I shook my head.

  I wasn’t about to tell anybody what I thought Daniel had said concerning Cliff until I could be certain that it was really true.

  “We don’t know anything yet,” I said.

  She closed her eyes for a long moment and let out a distressed breath.

  I knew from personal experience that it wasn’t easy seeing somebody hurt as bad as Cliff had been. It wasn’t like seeing something on television – something you could just turn off and walk away from. When you saw somebody hurt or killed in real life, the image had a way of playing over and over in your head relentlessly, giving you no peace of mind.

  And if you didn’t find a way to come to terms with it, seeing something like that could drive you mad.

  I scanned the room, wondering how long Holly had been sitting alone like this with her thoughts. It was obvious that Julie wasn’t all that concerned about her assistant. And I couldn’t help but feel somewhat responsible for not following up sooner to see whether or not she was okay.

  But a lot of people had been in need these past few hours, and I had tried to do my best to help the ones that I could.

  I took a seat in the auditorium chair next to her. Kara took the one on the other side of the young woman.

  “What a day,” Holly finally mumbled. “It’s been like a nightmare come to life.”

  “Yeah, I won’t argue with you there,” I said.

  “I’m sorry about earlier,” she said, turning toward me. “I mean, when I found Mr. Copperstone. I know my reaction was kind of extreme. But when I came out of the restroom, and saw him lying there outside on the ice… and I went over to see if he was okay, and…”

  Her voice wavered and she trailed off, as if the words were too weak to support the emotions behind them.

  “I’ve always been really squeamish around blood,” she said. “I remember my mom taking me to the doctor’s when I was a little girl to get blood drawn once, and I had a fit. I mean, something about it just…”

  She rubbed her face.

  “You don’t have to explain anything, Holly,” I said. “I’ve been in your shoes before. I’ve come across somebody who’s been hurt real bad. I know what it feels like.”

  “You have?” she said

  I nodded.

  “Something just kicks in… it’s like you have no control of how you act. Other people don’t understand it. They see things on TV and think they know what it would be like. But they don’t.”

  I thought back to last summer, when I’d seen the body of Rip Lawrence in the brew house at Geronimo.

  I hadn’t screamed. But I could understand why Holly had reacted the way that she had.

  “Yeah,” Holly said, nodding slightly. “That’s just what it’s like…”

  Kara shot a glance at me, and I knew that she was getting antsy, wanting to ask Holly the questions about Julie.

  I didn’t know exactly how to broach the subject – it wasn’t an easy transition, to go from talking about something so emotionally scarring to whether or not her boss had been romantically involved with Cliff Copperstone.

  There really wasn’t any way around it, though. It was going to be messy. But the questions needed to be asked.

  “Holly, there was something we—”

  “Look, Holly,” Kara said, cutting in abruptly. “I’m sorry you discovered Cliff. I’m sorry you were disturbed by it. But we need to ask you a few extremely important questions right now. And we need you to be honest and truthful about them.”

  I felt my mouth pop open slightly at Kara’s rash and forward statement.

  Holly seemed to snap out of her distant daze, and a serious, very present expression drifted across her face.

  “Questions?” she said. “Questions about what?”

  She swallowed hard then, the gulping sound loud enough to hear over the loud chattering in the auditorium.

  “It’s about your boss,” Kara said, without missing a beat. “We need to know what was going on between her and Mr. Copperstone.”

  Holly looked away suddenly, not meeting either of our gazes.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what you—”

  “Look, we know Holly,” Kara said. “We know about the two of them. And we know you know too. But what we need you to tell us is just how far it went. Just how serious it was between the two of them.”

  Holly leaned back and crossed her arms defensively.

  “I don’t think that’s any of your business,” she said. “Nor is it mine. That’s between Ms. Van Dorn and Mr. Copperstone, and it’s not my place to—”

  “But see, that’s where you’re wrong, Holly,” Kara continued, playing the part of seasoned interrogator. “It’s not just between Julie and Cliff. Not if she was the one who bludgeoned him this afternoon.”

  Holly’s eyes inflated to the size of Christmas tree ornaments when Kara said the word “bludgeoned.”

  “But… But… Mr. Copperstone fell on the ice,” she said. “He hit his head on the ice. That’s what… that’s the only way it could have happened.”

  “That’s not how it happened,” I said, cutting in.

  I glanced at Kara.

  We both sensed it: Holly was like a young sapling in a wind storm. All she needed was a stiff enough breeze, and she’d break.

  “Someone did that to him, Holly,” I continued. “Someone who hated him so much, they tried to kill him.”

  She shook her head.

  “No…” she muttered, as though the word had just escaped her mouth without her knowing it.

  “Yes,” Kara said. “That’s why it’s absolutely imperative that you tell us about Julie and Cliff. We know you know something. And you can be a big help if you tell us, Holly.”

  The small woman leaned forward in her chair, looking down at the ground for a long moment.

  Then, after an extensive pause, she looked back up at me.

  “Will this nightmare ever end!?” she said in a hushed, distraught whisper.

  I didn’t have an answer for her.

  Chapter 40

  “I don’t know anything with absolute certainty,” she said, not meeting either Kara’s eyes or mine. “All I know is that there were several instances in the last few weeks where it was nearly impossible to get a hold of Ms. Van Dorn. Which I’d say, after working for her for nearly six months, is quite unusual.”

  Holly let out a long, guilt-ridden sigh.

  “And then, last night…”

  Kara arched an eyebrow, sensing that we were close to what we were after.

  “Last night what?” I said after a few long moments of silence.

  She swallowed hard.

  “Last night, I was supposed to drop off the event itinerary for Mr. Copperstone at the resort,” Holly said. “Earlier in the week, that was what Ms. Van Dorn had told me to do, just to be certain that he knew what the schedule for the day was. So I drove up to the resort last night. It was around 9 p.m. or so, right around the time the storm really started rolling in. And I tried to call up to Mr. Copperstone’s room first to let him know I was there, but there was no answer. I figured maybe he was still back in town. So I decided to slip the itinerary under his door.”

  She paused for a long moment, as if thinking about something.

  Then she resumed.

  “So I went up to the third floor,” she said. “And I knocked on the door, just in case Mr. Copperstone hadn’t heard his phone ringing? But when nobody answered, I started writing a note to let him know that he should scan the itinerary to familiarize himself with what the day would entail. But as I was writing the note, I… uh…”

  She closed her eyes.

  It seemed as though she was struggling with the idea of betraying her boss like this, which I took as a sign of good character.

  A lot of people in her shoes, with a boss like Julie Van Dorn, might not have had such feelings of loyalty
. The slippery PR woman certainly didn’t inspire it.

  “I heard something,” she continued. “Behind the door. Somebody was in there. And it wasn’t Cliff.”

  She bit her lip.

  “And you think it was Julie?” Kara said.

  Holly nodded, closing her eyes again.

  “But couldn’t it have been anybody?” Kara said, playing the devil’s advocate. “Why do you think it was her?”

  Holly bit her lip.

  “I don’t think,” she said. “I know.”

  She sighed.

  “After leaving the itinerary under the door, I headed back into town. But as I was leaving the resort parking lot, I noticed a familiar car in one of the visitor spots.

  “It was Ms. Van Dorn’s. I’d know that red Mustang with those ‘PRL-ADY’ vanity plates a mile away. She was there, and not that I’m an expert on my boss’s life, but there was no reason that I could think of for her to be there last night other than…”

  She rubbed her face.

  “Than you know…”

  I did know.

  Had Julie still been in Cliff’s room when he’d asked me to come in for a nightcap? Had she heard the whole conversation between us?

  If I’d been in Julie’s shoes, hearing the man you’re involved with invite another woman in for a nightcap would have made my blood boil.

  “Not that it’s any of my business,” Holly continued. “I mean, they’re both consenting adults. They can do whatever they want. But this morning, Ms. Van Dorn was in a… she was in a really bad mood. And it wasn’t just because of the weather, either. You see, I think she suspected I might know. And she was taking it out on me. I also think…”

  She swallowed.

  “I also think she had a fight of some sort with Mr. Copperstone,” she said. “That, or maybe they were trying to keep things very quiet about all of it in case I had blabbed. I mean, Ms. Van Dorn virtually ignored him the whole day. She could hardly look at him and used me as the intermediary between them. I don’t know if you noticed that.”

  I rubbed my chin.

  I hadn’t noticed that. But then again, I wasn’t paying much attention to Julie. I was focusing on how not to blow my lid while judging alongside a jerk like Cliff.

  I shook my head at the mean thought I’d just had.

  What happened to him – being practically left at the altar – didn’t excuse his behavior today.

  But it did offer some insight into how he’d become the way he was. And after finding out about his past, I couldn’t so casually throw around words like jerk anymore in reference to him. It just felt wrong somehow.

  I looked over at Kara.

  Her eyes were wide, and I could tell that all sorts of scenarios were playing out in her head about Julie bludgeoning her lover.

  If what Holly was saying was true, then Julie most likely had the most motive of everybody in this building-full of people to hurt Cliff Copperstone. I could see her being a jealous type – somebody who didn’t take rejection well. Somebody who, when she didn’t get what she wanted, might make a drastic decision.

  But when I tried to imagine her actually stealing a hammer from Marty Higgins and bashing her lover over the head with an entire roomful of people nearby… it just seemed hard to believe.

  Kara, however, didn’t appear to have a hard time believing it.

  “Thank you, Holly,” she said, placing a hand on the young woman’s frail shoulder. “You’ve been very, very helpful. Thank you for being so brave.”

  Holly let out a long-winded sigh.

  I could tell by the look on her face that she didn’t feel brave – she felt guilty. Guilty for betraying Julie, even though it seemed Julie hadn’t given her much of an incentive to keep the secret to herself.

  “Do… do you guys really think Ms. Van Dorn could have done that to…”

  She trailed off.

  There was a long, awkward silence as both Kara and I realized that yet again, we didn’t have an answer for her.

  Chapter 41

  As I watched her thread her way through the crowd, I knew things were about to get ugly.

  Real ugly.And real fast.

  Julie, who had been sitting with a TV reporter holding a microphone on the opposite side of the auditorium, had taken notice of us talking to her assistant.

  A few moments later, she had left the newsman behind and was walking swiftly toward us, each step filled with purpose.

  “Shoot,” I mumbled. “Now look what we’ve done.”

  I felt my insides tighten with dread.

  Her eyes locked on mine, and I braced myself for the worst.

  Chapter 42

  “Look, I’ll be honest: I was out of line earlier, girls” she said, tossing her head back, the blue highlights of her black hair shining in the auditorium lights. “I’m woman enough to admit that. It was low of me to bring up your indiscretion, Cinnamon.”

  There was nothing more that I wanted to do than correct her – because there was no “indiscretion” to use against me. All I had done was driven a man back to his hotel room.

  And she very well knew that.

  Because she’d been there, too, and most likely had heard the entire thing.

  But I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to lay out any of our cards on the table.

  Julie Van Dorn sighed, as if she sensed that her attempt at apologizing just wasn’t going to cut it for me. She ran a hand through her hair, and shot a look around the room for a long minute.

  “It’s just, you have to understand where I’m coming from. This Championship? It’s turned into a full-scale disaster, the fall out of which is blowing in my direction. This is the kind of thing that makes national headlines, ladies. And as you know, there are a few members of the press that are stranded in here with us. You can see just how much stress I’m under, can’t you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Something this big can ruin careers,” she said. “You understand? So I’m sorry if I was rude to you earlier, Cinnamon, but I’ve just got a hell of a lot on my mind. And I’d appreciate it if you could show a little understanding and not talk to anybody about who should get the blame for this disaster.”

  She looked from me to Holly, but refused to even so much as glance in Kara’s direction.

  I was about to say something. Something that would pardon her and let her be on her way for the time being. Something that wouldn’t clue her in to what we knew and what Holly had just divulged to us about Julie’s romance with Cliff Copperstone.

  But before I could say a thing, Kara got in the way.

  “You don’t even care whether he’s dead or alive, do you?” Kara said.

  I shot a frustrated look in my best friend’s direction.

  I appreciated how direct and honest Kara was – most of the time. But sometimes, her inability to hide what she was thinking and feeling could be problematic.

  And in a situation like this, that personality trait could be downright deadly.

  Julie snapped her head backwards like she’d just been smacked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You could care less whether your lover lives or dies,” Kara said, standing up. “All you care about is how you’re going to get out of this.”

  “Kara,” I rasped.

  But the damage had already been done.

  Julie’s eyes flickered.

  She didn’t say anything for a long moment. She just looked at Kara as though she was debating between punching my best friend in the midsection, or kicking her legs out from under her.

  For a second, I was worried that the woman was about to do something even more extreme than that.

  But instead, she just calmly cleared her throat and narrowed her cat-like eyes.

  “I don’t know what the two of you are getting at,” she said. “But I just hope that you have your story straight. Slander is a very serious matter, and believe me…”

  She looked from me to Kara dramatically.

  “If
I find out that you’ve been saying something that could negatively impact my reputation, I won’t hesitate to bring you to court, ladies.”

  Her eyes drifted down to Holly, and she gave the meek woman a look that could have frozen sunshine.

  I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed as though Holly’s days were numbered at Julie’s PR firm.

  Kara’s eyes did some flickering of their own.

  “Yeah, you’ll be in court, honey,” she said. “But you’ll be sitting on the defendant side. And it won’t be for slander, I can tell you that much.”

  Julie leaned in closer to Kara.

  “Look, I don’t know what you’re implying, but I swear, if you—”

  “That’s enough,” I said in the strongest voice I could muster.

  Kara had just laid out all of our cards on the table and for no reason whatsoever that I could see.

  And continuing down this road with the meager resources that we had at the moment wasn’t going to accomplish much more than salt water would stave off thirst.

  Julie lifted her head up arrogantly and straightened out her dress.

  “You’re going to regret speaking to me this way, you little tart,” she said to Kara in a not-so-veiled threatening tone. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

  “Oh, I know exactly who I’m dealing with,” Kara said, never one to back down.

  Julie let out a snort. She turned on her heels and walked angrily across the room.

  I watched as she hiked up the steps, heading out into the hallway.

  Julie now knew that we suspected her of something.

  And we were going to be cooped up with her now for who-knows-how long.

  Kara seemed to know my thoughts exactly.

  She had blown whatever advantage we’d had.

  “Sorry, Cin,” she whispered, sheepishly. “I just… I just can’t stand that woman. I couldn’t just sit here and let her spew her B.S. like that.”

  I could have been angry with my best friend over it. After all, she’d just opened up a can of worms – the contents of which could be downright lethal.

  But for some reason, I wasn’t as angry as I might have been.