its inception in 1950 until the present. I flipped through the high-gloss pages, hoping the section I needed would be in there. And in one of the back appendices, there it was. A listing of every book and best seller ever published by Hightower Books.
Please, let me be right. Please, let me be right.
I frantically scanned the titles, decade by decade, and when I got to the nineties, I hit pay dirt.
Number one on the best-seller list eleven years ago was The Thrill of Off-Trail Hiking. The book Nana said George had read and taken to Yosemite with him. The book he'd dismissed as being too dangerous to try. The book endorsed by a bevy of expert climbers, one of whom, I suspected, was an Englishman named Robert Adcock, who'd endangered himself and his wife by going off trail, and who'd died because of it -- because of the book published by Philip Blackmore.
That was it! That was the connection. It had to be. Duncan blamed Philip for his sister's death, and he'd gotten even by poisoning him.
OH MY GOD! Okay, I might be wrong, and I might be sending the police on a wild-goose chase, and I might end up with egg all over my face again, but I couldn't sit on what I knew. I had to tell someone.
I rooted through my shoulder bag for my Florence guidebook and punched in the digits for the Florence police office.
Dead air. Static. More dead air. If I hadn't liked my new hairdo so much, I might have plucked every hair out of my head in frustration.
I resumed pacing and worried my lip some more. Okay, now what? I...I should call Duncan. No matter what else happened, he needed to be told about the police coming to the hotel tomorrow morning so he could alert the guests to stay here rather than attend the memorial service. I just hoped when he learned the police were going to conduct an interrogation that he wouldn't try to skip town. I guess if he did, we'd know for sure he was guilty.
Heart pounding, I punched in Duncan's number.
BZZ. BZZ. BZZ. BZZ.
Busy signal. Oh, God. I was almost relieved! But I wondered where he was and who he was talking to...and what I was supposed to do now.
Section 2E of my Escort's Manual stated that no matter the situation, the savvy tour escort always prioritized her agenda and took care of first things first.
Okay. I could do that. I scanned the room, visualizing what I needed, then began gathering things into a pile. Post-it notes. Pen. Pocketknife. List of guests with corresponding room numbers. Cell phone.
I think that covered it. Noting the first name on the list, I headed up the central staircase to the third floor and stopped in the deserted hallway before Duncan's room, but I didn't knock. Nope. My days of being cornered by crazed killers were over. No way was I going to place myself in harm's way again. I wasn't a total moron. I was an Iowan. I was raised to learn from my mistakes.
I punched in Duncan's cell phone number again.
BZZ. BZZ. BZZ. BZZ.
I pressed my ear to the door.
Silence.
If he was in his room, I'd be able to hear him talking, but I couldn't hear a thing, which meant his room was empty. He was out. So if I left a note on his door, he'd see it when he got back and could take care of the business at hand without having to talk to me. Yeah. I liked that idea. It sounded much more safe to me than blurting out in the panic of the moment, "You did it!" and being targeted as the next victim to get clobbered.
I scribbled a note in my tiniest writing telling him about the change of plans and indicating that I'd tell the Iowa group to save him the trouble. I slapped the note onto the door and with my knees a little wobbly from nerves, sprinted back down the stairs to the second floor. Okay. That had gone well. With relief adding a little spring to my step, I checked my list again and began knocking on doors.
No answer at Mom and Nana's room. I left a note.
No answer at the Teigs' or Stolees'. That's right. They had dinner reservations. I left a note.
No answer at Alice Tjarks's room. Another note.
I rapped on door number five, relieved to have one of the Severid twins, minus her name tag, gaudy