All Natural Murder by Staci McLaughlin Read Free Book Online Page B

pocket and peered at the screen as if mystified. “But it might be the only way.”
    “Great. You contact Clarence. I’m off to find Esther.” I wound my way through the plants and back onto the path. This time, when I approached the cabins, I spotted the maid’s cart in front of the first cabin, the door partly ajar.
    I popped my head in and saw Esther running a dust rag over the dresser top, her faded red peasant blouse sticking to her back in places.
    “Esther,” I said.
    She jerked around, a hand flying to her top button. “Mercy me, you scared an extra five years off my life.”
    “Zennia mentioned that Heather is out today, and I wondered if you needed help with the rooms.”
    “That would be peachy. Only two cabins have guests right now, but we’re expecting a full house after tomorrow’s check-in, so I was freshening up the other rooms, too. Why don’t you do cabins four and six, where the guests are?” She held up a little American flag on a wooden stick. “I’m also putting these flags you ordered in each cabin to start off the holiday weekend.”
    “Great, I’ll do that, too. Which reminds me, I’m hanging the balloons and banners this afternoon.”
    “I can always count on you,” Esther said. She returned to dusting.
    I grabbed the vacuum handle with one hand and the pass key dangling off the cart with the other and rolled down to cabin six. A D O N OT D ISTURB sign hung from the knob. I moved down two doors, where the knob was empty, and knocked. No answer, so I used the key to let myself in, steeling myself.
    Two months earlier, I’d been in this exact situation when I’d entered a cabin and found a dead body. I’d cleaned the rooms several times since then, but I always got a little shiver when I first walked in.
    The cabin was dark, the blackout curtains drawn. I pulled the cord, and sunlight poured into the room, making me squint. Several papers lay on the floor, and I gathered them up into a stack. I glanced at the top sheet. Baseball teams and odds ran down the page. Maybe this guest liked to bet on the games. I set the pages on the coffee table, near a stack of magazines.
    Other than the papers on the floor, whoever was staying here was relatively neat. This person had remade the bed, smoothing out the tan spread with its embroidered leaves. No trash littered the floor, no clothes hung off the chairs. The only other signs of occupancy were a rolling suitcase in the corner, a partly open closet door, and the magazines.
    The bright color of the clothing in the closet drew my attention, and I took a peek. A padded jumpsuit, like race-car drivers wore, hung from the rod. Pictures of flames and rocks covered the thick material. A matching helmet with flames sat on the closet floor. I returned to the magazines, wondering what they had to do with the clothes and helmet in the closet. The top one showed an off-road vehicle leaping over a dirt hill. I poked through the rest of the stack. All three magazines focused on off-roading or racing.
    Ashlee’s comments came back to me. Was this person somehow involved in the big monster truck tournament this weekend? What other reason could they have for that outfit in the closet? I picked up a magazine and flipped through it, seeing page after page of dirt tracks and mud-covered trucks.
    “Find something to your liking?” a voice boomed behind me.
    With a squeal, I dropped the magazine on the floor and whirled around. The guy from the pool stood in the doorway, water from his slicked-back blond hair running in rivulets down the side of his head and over his bare chest. His hair was a smidge too long, his arms a little soft. I could see the hint of a six-pack outline under the layer of flab covering his belly, making me wonder if he’d been sipping a can from a different kind of six-pack lately.
    “I’m so sorry, sir. That magazine caught my eye while I was vacuuming your room.”
    He gestured at the vacuum sitting in the corner. “It works