A ring of onlookers had crowded around front of the hotel entrance. I eased my way in. I went up to a woman in a white sweater over her sundress holding the hand of a young boy. “What’s going on?”

“There’s been a murder,” she answered anxiously. “That’s what all those sirens were about.”

“Oh,” I mumbled.

Now I was really starting to get scared. Tess lives here. I pushed out of the crowd, not even thinking about myself. Hotel staff in black uniforms were being ushered outside. I latched onto a desk clerk, a blond woman I recognized from earlier in the day. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

“Someone’s been killed.” She shook her head, dazed. “A woman. In the hotel.”

“A woman.” I held her eyes. Now I was starting to freak. “You mean a guest?”

“Yes.” Then she looked at me funny. I couldn’t tell if she remembered me or not. “Room 121,” she said.

My world started to spin. I stood there, numb, feeling my lips quiver. I tried to say something, but nothing came out.

Room 121 was the Bogart Suite.

Tess is dead, isn’t she?

Chapter 14

I WATCHED just long enough to see the stretcher loaded into the flashing morgue van. That’s when I saw Tess’s hand, dangling through the body tarp, those three gold bracelets hanging from her wrist.

I backed away from the crowd, feeling as if my chest were going to explode. All I could think was that I had just left her, a few hours before…

I had to get out of there. The Palm Beach police were all around. I was afraid they’d be looking for me, too.

I made it back to my car just as the shakes took over my body. Then this awful knot hurtled up in my throat. I threw up on somebody’s manicured lawn.

Tess was dead.

How could that be? I had just left her. I had just spent the most wonderful afternoon of my life with her. The hotel maid said murdered. How? Why? Who would kill Tess?