If I Should Die_ A Novel of Suspense - Allison Brennan [146]
She wondered if she would ever find someone where she didn’t forget those small touches that said I love you.
FIVE
Lucy couldn’t sleep.
Her first night here, it had been the silence that kept her awake. Tonight, it was the howling wind as the snow continued to fall. That, coupled with the disturbing thought that someone in this lodge had murdered Vanessa Russell-Marsh.
She tried a hot shower, and while that eased her sore muscles, it did nothing to help her sleep. Finally, she put on her robe and left her room just after midnight. There was no light under Patrick’s door, but she knocked anyway. “Patrick?” she said quietly.
She heard a moan and movement. Patrick opened his door, alert. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I—” She felt stupid. “I can’t sleep.”
He groaned. “Warm some milk in the microwave.”
“Never mind. I’ll go find a book to read.”
She half-expected Patrick to go downstairs with her, but he closed his door and went back to bed. She wasn’t surprised, she supposed. They’d had a busy and strenuous day, physically and emotionally.
The hall lights were left on low throughout the lodge. Lucy padded silently in her slippers down the staircase, across the foyer, and slowly opened the double doors to the library. They’d left Trevor there to sleep; Grace had made up the last available room for him, but he was too drunk to walk upstairs and had ended up back on the couch.
Angie DeWitt gasped. “Oh, you startled me!”
“I’m sorry,” Lucy said. “I didn’t know anyone was up.”
Angie was curled in a chair wearing a fluffy robe, a stack of books next to her. Trevor was snoring on the couch, all blankets on the floor. “I couldn’t sleep and thought reading would do it, but Kyle can’t sleep with the light on. And I wanted to check on Trevor. He was so upset. Justifiable, but—I didn’t want him to do anything stupid.”
“You have a kind heart.”
She shrugged. “Kyle says I have a bleeding heart, but I just laugh at him. He can act like a hard-ass sometimes, but he’s the sweetest guy on the planet, especially when he doesn’t think anyone is looking.”
“That’s when it’s most important,” Lucy said. “I won’t stay long. I just wanted to grab a book since I couldn’t sleep either.”
Lucy perused the bookshelves, but nothing jumped out at her. She realized that she was worried about Steve Delarosa, and Grace, and Trevor Marsh. She couldn’t get Vanessa out of her mind, or the cryptic postcard she’d had the Larsons send her brother. Lucy didn’t want any of them to be guilty of murder.
She found it doubly odd that Kyle DeWitt had fainted—or nearly fainted—and complained of being dizzy. Very similar to Steve. Had the two of them been somewhere that no one else had? Could Vanessa have been exposed to the same thing and been killed by it?
There was no place for any of them to go now. And with Grace and Beth both living here, it didn’t seem likely that whatever was causing the dizziness was airborne.
Lucy understood Steve’s deep desire to keep his family lodge running. Businesses were hurting everywhere, and it couldn’t be cheap to maintain this place, especially with only six guest rooms in the winter, and a few cabins open in warmer weather. The food, the heating, the generator for electricity, routine maintenance. And losing Leo to a heart attack had been doubly tragic, because being this isolated had delayed getting him quick help. And then for Steve to find out that his father’s nest egg was gone …
Lucy liked the family and wished she could help. That was one of her greatest assets, Patrick had always told her, as well as one of her greatest weaknesses.
“You want to save the world, Lucy. But sometimes the world doesn’t want to be saved.”
How many times had she heard that! She wanted to scream, “I don’t care!” But she did care. About the world, and the people in it. And she could never seem to sit idly by and watch good people suffer.
But what could she do? She wasn’t a doctor; she couldn’t examine Steve. She wasn’t a businesswoman; she couldn’t tell the Delarosas