Asking for Trouble - Leslie Kelly [81]
It was soon joined by several more items, including the guest records from the final few months the hotel had been in business. A few names showed up more than once, but one visitor had come back to Seaton House six times between March and June.
When he saw the notation on the final visit, Simon frowned. Though no smell preceded it, he felt a throbbing begin in the base of his skull, as if he were about to get one of his headaches. But he knew it wasn’t a migraine. Something else was making his blood pound harder in his veins and tension flood through his body.
He’d been looking for a suspect in the recent events targeting him. But what he greatly feared he found was something much—much—worse.
Almost dazed as the possibilities flooded into his head, clicking into place, he closed the books, rose from the table and walked back to the kitchen.
Lottie, looking so sweet and sexy in her tight jeans and a big white apron, obviously heard him come in. “Perfect timing, the pasta’s just about al dente.”
“Lottie,” he murmured, standing numbly in the doorway.
She spun around. “What is it?”
“I think…” He paused, hating to continue. A part of him didn’t want to bring the words out into the open, to give them life and make the possibility real.
Dropping a slotted spoon on the counter, she hurried over to him, putting her hand on his chest. “Tell me.”
He did. “I think it’s possible that my uncle’s death wasn’t an accident.”
At her stricken look, he continued, “As bizarre as it sounds…I think someone who wanted this hotel might actually have murdered him to get it.”
IT TOOK A WHILE to make her understand his suspicion. Simon knew it sounded crazy and as he walked back to the shadowy restaurant with her, he told her so.
“I had a feeling. An intuition at first. Seeing the name so many times.”
Taking down another chair so she could sit with him at one of the small tables, he began showing her what he’d found. The notes, the planner, the ledger. “One name kept popping up. She came here so often and always stayed in the same room.”
Lottie’s jaw dropped. “She?”
He nodded. “Yes. The same woman. And apparently she met with Uncle Roger a couple of times during her stays—he had her initials marked in his planner.”
“It could have been about something else,” she said, though she sounded doubtful.
“It could have. But it wasn’t.”
He opened a book his uncle had used as a private journal. “Uncle Roger was old-school. The hotel had a computer but it was archaic. He did just about everything by hand, including making notes to himself. Check out the one on May fifteenth.”
Lottie looked at the book and read it. “Who’s Andrews?”
“The lawyer.”
She read the single paragraph to the end, her eyes growing wide. “He scheduled an appointment to talk to his lawyer about L.M. How to convince her he wasn’t selling, and to ask if there was a legal way to bar her from staying at the hotel.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, my God, she was the buyer and she kept coming up here harassing him about it. How bad must it have been if he wanted to try to prohibit her from ever staying at the hotel again?”
“I can’t imagine. He was the nicest old guy you’d ever want to meet.”
Simon swallowed, wishing he’d done more to stay in touch with his uncle. In May he’d been finishing up the Atlanta book and preparing for his trip to Charleston. He’d probably called his only living relative three times that entire month. “I didn’t know this was happening. If I’d realized someone was bothering him, you can bet I would have done something about it.”
“Of course you would have.” She put her hand over his, reading the next entries in the journal. There weren’t many more—his uncle hadn’t written any kind of diary, he’d just made detailed notes about important things going on in his life.
One entry the first day of June had mentioned Simon.
S called. Another book in the fall. What a success—his mother would be so proud.
Simon had had a hard time reading that one. And when