WAS ten past nine when Bart took the service elevator to the first floor, then followed the strains of a waltz to the Glacier Ballroom. According to information in the hotel lobby, the ballroom was the site of fabulous Christmas balls held every Saturday night in December. The soirees were acclaimed as a not-to-be-missed activity, and Bart had no intention of missing this one.
Not that he was into balls, but it was an excellent opportunity to check out the guests, at least sixteen of whom also had been guests the night the woman had been abducted, and he’d been shot. Apparently, people couldn’t get enough of this place. Considering the prices they charged, he found that pretty amazing.
But then the hotel did have an ambiance he hadn’t expected. Elegant, yet the staff was warm and friendly. Breathtaking scenery, rugged yet serene. Remote, but there was a shuttle that made a run a few times a day to the ski trails an hour northwest of here.
He adjusted the jacket of the black suit he’d “borrowed” from the servant supply closet on the first floor. The fit wasn’t great, but it would do for a waiter. For the most part he hoped to go unnoticed amid the party crowd. He was here to observe and overhear, not to be seen.
The ballroom was already crowded when he followed a middle-aged couple through the open double doors. Men in black tuxes and women in elegant dresses that swept the polished wood floor filled the dance floor and sat at white-clothed tables listening to the music and sipping champagne.
Huge crystal chandeliers hung from the domed ceiling, and everywhere he looked there were huge bouquets of flowers and tables of food accented with delicately carved ice statues. It was a far cry from his usual Saturday night burger and a couple of beers at Jake’s Bar and Grill.
The band started a new number, this time a tune he recognized, though he didn’t know the name of it. A woman walked past him, close enough that the silky fabric of her gown brushed his fingers and the fragrance of her perfume crawled inside him and evoked a memory he’d thought was dead and buried.
It got to him a lot more than it should have. He took a few steps backward, then stopped, mesmerized by a woman across the room.
Her hair was the color of molten gold, though the strands that caught the glow of the chandeliers took on a reddish tint. It was piled high on top of her head, with curly tendrils falling about her cheeks and forehead.
Her dress was emerald-green, cut low enough to show cleavage. It fit tightly around her tiny waist, then swirled into yards of satin that didn’t stop until they reached the floor. But the jewel of the outfit hung from a silver chain around her neck, a huge emerald surrounded by pale yellow diamonds. He’d never seen anything so spectacular in all his life.
He looked around, half-expecting the rest of the people to be staring at her the way he was. They weren’t. They were dancing, filling crystal flutes with the champagne that bubbled from a fountain or snaring delicacies from the trays of waiters who meandered the ballroom.
Only he seemed to be enchanted by the woman, and not just by her physical appearance and the pendant. She had an ethereal quality about her that made it seem as if she were more dream than reality.
He started toward her. A middle-aged woman in red bumped into him. Her champagne spilled and dripped onto his slacks and the toe of his shoes. He bent to brush it off. When he looked up again the woman in the emerald gown had disappeared.
He hurried across the room, searching the crowds for a glimpse of her. When he didn’t find her, he pushed through the double doors that led to the garden. Still no sign of her.
Yet somehow he knew he’d see her again.
Chapter Two
The cold sneaked into Carrie’s lungs as she and Rich tramped the near frozen ground. The mountains had a whole different feel at night. Eerie shapes coalesced in the mist, and crept across the rugged terrain at the far edges of their flashlight beams like translucent shadows.
The decline grew sharper, and she had to grab on to the trunks of spindly trees or to low-hanging branches to keep her balance as her boots crashed through the layers of leaves, twigs and exposed roots.
“I still can’t imagine why the man dragged Elora all the way out here to kill her,” Carrie said.
“Maybe he wasn’t planning on killing her. He may have been taking her somewhere, then panicked when he crossed paths with Bart.”
“Taking her where?”
“Maybe a mountain hideaway or an old cave. It might have been a kidnapping that turned deadly.”
Could have been, but she hadn’t uncovered any evidence to indicate that was the case. “The body was found over there,” she said, aiming the beam of her flashlight at the ravine just past a downed tree. There were still remnants of the yellow crime scene tape. The rest had been blown away.
Rich stepped over the trunk of the fallen tree, then shot a beam of light into the ravine.
Carrie stayed back. “You’re not crawling down in the ravine, are you?”
“No, I can see enough from here. Mainly I wanted to get a feel for what it was like out here in the dark. It helps me put myself in the killer’s shoes.”
“I don’t know about the killer, but I’m sure Elora must have been terrified.”
“Yet she apparently didn’t make enough fuss when they left the hotel that anyone noticed.”
“He probably had a gun to her head. She may have even been gagged.”
“Or she may have known him. I’m sure you checked for any sign of a lover’s triangle.”
“I checked. Not even a hint of one.”
“And the husband checked out.”
“I didn’t find any reason to suspect him. If anything he seemed very much in love with her. He’d even blown his Christmas bonus to bring her here for their tenth anniversary.”
Carrie was certain Rich would check all this out for himself, if he hadn’t already. He was just getting her take on the details, probably to find fault with it.
“But they’d argued just before she disappeared?”
“He wanted another drink and she wanted to go back to the room so she could call and check on the kids. She stormed off, and that was the last time she was seen alive.”
“But one of the shoes she was wearing was found by the back service entrance?”
“Right.”
“Have you got any leads on those markings the killer carved into her stomach?”
“No. One squiggly line intersected by a straight one, but not at right angles.”
“Yeah. I’ve seen the crime scene photos,” Rich said. “Still hard to figure. He had a gun, so why kill the woman by slitting her throat?”
“And then throw her into a ravine,” Carrie added.
“That made sense. Like the condom he used, the water would make it more difficult to collect
