can’t end the contest,” pleaded Lucille, looking as if she were about to cry. “Please, Emily. I’ve never been much good at anything in my life, but I’m good at geocaching, so please, don’t take that away from me. Cameron and I can actually win this thing. We’re this close.” She indicated a sliver of space between her thumb and forefinger. “I know I can afford to pay for my own trips, but just once in my life, I’d love to win something more exciting than another free scratch card at Hy-Vee.”
I forced a sympathetic smile. “Whatever we decide, we’re going to be fair. Whether we continue the contest or not, someone is going to end up with a free trip. That’s a promise. Okay?”
Looking beyond Lucille, I noticed Erik Ishmael and Alex Hart in the outer lobby, making their way toward us.
“They’ve been gone a good long while,” Cameron quipped as the kilt-wearing duo entered the room, looking oddly disheveled and out of breath. “I wonder what they ended up doing that the rest of us missed out on?”
I shook my head. “Don’t know.” But their arms were empty, so they obviously hadn’t been power shopping.
“By the way,” said Cameron, “I remembered where I’ve seen Erik before. Came to me last night. His stage name is Fast Freddie Torres.”
I frowned. “Stage name?”
“Yah. He owns some of the fastest hands and feet in the world. I saw him perform in Vegas years ago. Fast Freddie Torres. One of the greatest kickboxers who ever entered the ring.”
FIFTEEN
“DICK TEIG ADDED ANOTHER prescription to his drug list,” Wally informed me. “It apparently slipped his mind when he filled out the form you sent him.”
I’d arranged an after-dinner meeting with Wally to discuss whether we needed to make another appeal to the group for full disclosure on their medical history forms. Knowing guests were afflicted with thyroiditis or athlete’s foot might not make any difference in a medical emergency, but it might make the medical examiner’s job a little easier should anyone else suffer the misfortune of landing on his autopsy table.
“Nana mentioned Dick had stopped by the Urgent Care Clinic before we left Iowa. Something about an acid reflux attack at the Senior Center’s All-You-Can-Eat Taco Buffet. So what’s he taking for it? Ranitidine? Omeprazole?”
Wally handed me the form. “Viagra.”
“Oh.” I pinched my mouth tighter than a closed fist and forced my shoulder into a casual shrug. “Did you know Viagra has recently been found to have a dual purpose?”
He flashed me a wry look. “It can actually cure acid reflux?”
“No, but it apparently works wonders with altitude sickness.”
Wally grinned. “I’ll remember that if I ever plan an orgy on top of Mount Everest.”
We were sitting in my room with its twin beds, wood paneling, late-model TV, and starving artists’ landscape art hanging above the headboards. The rug was tatty, the space cramped, and there was no vanity in the bathroom to store things on, but we had an immersion heater that boiled water in less than a minute, and two cups that didn’t have chips in them—a circumstance that had probably caused the rating in the official hotel guidebook to soar from one star to two.
Wally perused another form. “In the spirit of full disclosure, Margi Swanson adjusted her weight by a few pounds. Upward. She says she’s retaining water. Your father adjusted his weight by a few pounds. Downward. He claims to have lost significant muscle mass over the last three days.”
I grinned, disbelieving that Dad had wanted to appear more bulked up on paper.
“Osmond Chelsvig changed the year he was born.”
“I knew it!” I slapped my palms triumphantly on my knees. “I knew he had to be a whole lot younger than ninety-six.”
Wally shook his head and jerked his thumb toward the ceiling.
I froze. “He’s older?”
“And trust me. You don’t wanna know by how many years. Your grandmother switched her height from four-foot-ten inches tall to four-foot-nine.”
“Oh, my God. She’s lost a whole inch?” Mom was right. Nana was shrinking faster than a snowman in a heat wave. Which made me question the wisdom of her impulse to ditch her entire supply of supplements at breakfast.
“And that’s it.” He grabbed the wad and waved them in the air like day-old newspapers. “If some of these people have medical secrets, they’re taking them to the grave with them.”
“Neither of the Gordons expanded their information?”
He shook his head. “We’d be smart not to waste our breath on Stella and Bill, Emily. They’ve