“This is Black Rock Falls.” Rio chuckled. “If they did that, someone would use it as a weapon to kill somebody for sure.”
Jenna moved her phone light around. People were peering out of doors asking what had happened. Phones glowed in the hallway. “It’s just a power failure. Go back in your rooms and try to keep warm. It shouldn’t be too much longer.” She looked at Kane. “Maybe we should call the manager. People are worried.”
“What floor are we on?” Kane walked to the door to the stairs and pulled it open. “Second floor. We might as well go back downstairs and see what we can do to help.” He looked at the girls. “I think we should stick together. Grab hold of Zac’s arms and take it slow. I don’t want anyone falling down the stairs.”
“I’ve got them.” Zac held out his hands for the girls. “Em, use your phone to guide us.”
They made their way down the stairs. Jenna clung to the handrail. The light from the two phones cast unusual shadows, making it hard to see the steps. Used as a fire escape, the staircase had a damp musty smell, as if the cement hadn’t dried, and a strange haunting echo seemed to whistle up toward them. Their footfalls sounded like an old man shuffling along in bedroom slippers. She tightened her grip on Kane’s warm hand, glad of having him beside her. She sure wouldn’t like being alone in this stairwell in the dark.
They finally reached the ground floor and tumbled out into the foyer. It was chaotic, with everyone talking over each other, all huddled around the light from the fireplace. Some had their phone flashlights, but most seemed to believe the blackout was part of a game. Big fat candles had been lit and placed along the front counter. Jenna headed in that direction and waited for the manager, Mr. Brightway, to finish speaking to a guest. She raised her voice. “Is there anything we can do to help?”
“Yes, maybe they’ll settle down if you speak to them.” Brightway pushed a hand through his hair. “I have the maintenance crew checking for a fault. It must be substantial to prevent the generators from taking over.”
“Where are they?” Kane leaned on the counter. “With everything that’s been happening, I think one of us should be with them when they check out the fault.”
“They’re out back of my office. There’s the main power box in there.” Brightway met his gaze. “Be my guest.”
Jenna walked back to Rio. As the only one of them in uniform, he’d be the best person to speak to the crowd. “Try and calm these people down. Get them seated if possible. I’ll go with Dave and see what’s happening.” She looked at Emily and Julie. “Stick to Zac like glue. Any of these people could be a killer. Don’t trust anyone. We won’t be long.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine.” Emily smiled at her.
“Keep out of the crowd until we get the lights back on.” Kane narrowed his gaze at the girls. “Are we good?”
“Oh, Uncle Dave, you’re getting more like Dad by the day. We’re all grown up now.” Julie grinned at him. “I can scream real loud and Zac is armed. Do you really think anyone will try to kill us with everyone watching?”
“Humph.” Kane walked away shaking his head.
Jenna chased after him and they walked into the manager’s office and soon found the men examining the circuit board. It was a huge complicated contraption and men were moving power from one grid to another manually. “Have you found the fault?”
“Yes and no.” A man in coveralls was peering at a gadget in his hand. “We have a major problem on the north corridor on the third level. I’ve isolated that floor and we’ll power up the rest of the complex, but it means going door to door to find out which room has the fault. As you are aware, the passkeys require electricity to gain access to the rooms. We have master keys to use in an emergency, so we’ll head off there now. The guests won’t be able to use the elevators until all the floors are reconnected.” He handed Jenna and Kane a passkey. “You’ll need these. They open everything. After a power cut, some of the doors to the stairwell lock to prevent the spread of fire and the lights go out. You’ll find battery-operated card readers beside the doors inside and out if you get into trouble.”
“Copy that.” Kane pocketed the key. “So, you can use these to lock the doors as well?”
“Yeah, and if you need to turn on or off the lights.” The man smiled. “There’s a box inside the stairwell. It’s pretty simple to use. One switch is all.”
“Okay, we’re coming with you.” Jenna lifted her chin. “We need to know if this was an accident or a deliberate sabotage.”
“Sure.” The man smiled at her. “But it’s probably water leaking onto something. In a blizzard anything is possible.”
“We’ll go tell the manager. Maybe he can move the people back into a restaurant or something.” Kane shrugged. “This may take a while.”
Jenna nodded. “Good idea. I’ll go and speak to Mr. Brightway.”
After bringing everyone up to date, Jenna and Kane headed up the stairs following the four-man maintenance crew. The flashlights made it easier to negotiate the stairwell, but it seemed even darker than before. Finally, they spilled out onto the third floor. In the pitch black, the crew’s flashlights made round arcs on the walls that reminded her of the Hollywood searchlights. They pushed out into the hallway and split up to door-knock. They asked the guests if anything had happened to the appliances in their room and found nothing. Many rooms didn’t reply and the crew used the master keys to enter. They had a quick look around and left until they came to room 3/24 and Jenna heard one of the crew swear. She hurried toward him, Kane close behind, his phone light bobbing in the dark. “What’s happened?”
“An accident, it looks like. There’s someone floating in the tub with a hairdryer.” The man’s face was ashen in the flashlight beam as he stepped out into the hallway.
The maintenance man turned to go back inside the room. “I’ll pull the plug from the wall and we can get the power back on.”
“Wait! Everyone stays here. Don’t touch anything.” Jenna grabbed his flashlight and pushed inside with Kane on her heels. Her gaze settled on a naked woman floating just under a film of spent bubbles in the bathtub. A blue hairdryer lay across her chest. The woman’s eyes were fixed in death and staring, her mouth hung open. Pushing shock to one side, Jenna turned to Kane. “Get a few shots and then we’ll disconnect the hairdryer.” She pulled out her notebook and wrote down the time they’d discovered the body. “We don’t have to worry about the time of death. It would have been when the lights went out. It must have been close to ten-thirty.”
“It was ten-twenty-five.” Kane accessed the camera on his phone. “I checked the time on my phone.”
As Kane went to work, Jenna pulled on surgical gloves and went back to the sitting room. The smell of perfume hung heavy in the air and a bottle of white wine sat open on top of a bar fridge. She walked into the bedroom. Discarded clothes littered the bed and an overflowing suitcase suggested the woman hadn’t bothered to unpack. A phone sat on top of a laptop beside the open suitcase. She could see Kane through the door moving around the bathroom. The room had two doors. She’d taken the other to the sitting room. After moving the flashlight around the bedroom, her gaze settled on a purse on the nightstand. Inside, she found a few hundred in crisp bills, credit cards, the woman’s ID, and some promotional bookmarks belonging to Kitty Pandora out of Superstition, Oregon. She stared at them, shaking her head and looked up as Kane walked from the bathroom. “Take a look at this. Is this a coincidence or what?” She walked to a box of books on the luggage rack and, juggling the flashlight, read the back cover. “This book is about a woman who was murdered by electrocution.”
“Frizzled, huh? It’s not a coincidence.” Kane aimed his phone light on the cover. “This is a homicide. I found hairbrushes and product on the vanity. There’s no way she decided to dry her hair in the tub. No one is that stupid
, and it’s all set up for her to style it in front of the mirror.”