Oliver glanced around and spotted me.He hurried across the lawn in my direction.
“What’s going on?”I asked, practically running to meet him.
“I think you can probably check Nick off your list of suspects,” Oliver said.
I frowned, glancing toward where Deputy Young stood at the edge of the cliff near the rock wall in exactly the same place Peanut had fallen just the day before.
“What do you mean?”I asked.
Oliver glanced in that direction too.“Nick is dead.”
TWELVE
“What?”I gaped at Oliver.“How?Was anyone else hurt?”
Cameron was nowhere to be seen.“Oh no, please tell me Cameron is okay…”
I’d never figure myself if something happened to Cameron now that my mother had put it into my head that I wasn’t being a great girlfriend to him.
“He’s fine.He’s inside the inn talking to Justin.”
“What about Daphne?”I was firing questions at Oliver rapidly, but I couldn’t help it.
This was the last thing I had expected.
Henry came up behind Oliver, looking grim.“Hey, Sophie.”
“Hi, Henry, I was just asking about Daphne, Nick’s girlfriend.Or former girlfriend.Lover?”I wasn’t sure how to classify her given what I’d seen in Bar Harbor and what Daphne herself had told me.
“She’s the one who found Nick dead.”Oliver glanced around and lowered his voice.“Soph, Nick was found in the exact same location as Peanut.He went over the edge of that same cliff.”
“What?”I looked back and forth between him and Henry.Henry nodded.I couldn’t even wrap my head around it.
“Two Santas dead in two days,” Henry said.“This is just unimaginable.Who is going to want to stay here now?They’re going to start calling this place the Homicide Hotel.”
Oliver frowned at him.“That’s the least of anyone’s concerns right now.”
“Not mine.Do you know how much money we’ve sunk into this place?”
Oliver looked as disgusted with Henry as I felt about Cameron’s same reaction to Peanut’s death.Maybe it was easy for me to be dismissive about losing money because I’d frankly never had any, but it still seemed offensive that losing cash was more important than the loss of lives.
Even a gambling alcoholic like Peanut and a jerkface philanderer like Nick.They were still human beings with people who cared about them.
“I don’t know how much money you’ve sunk into it and I don’t care,” Oliver said flatly.
“What makes you think it’s a homicide?”I asked, mainly because I was very curious but also because I didn’t want Oliver and Henry to argue further when everyone was so stressed out right now.
Henry stared at me.“What?”
“You said people will call it the Homicide Hotel.They won’t do that if it’s not a homicide.So you must know it’s a homicide.”
“I don’t know that at all.It was just a figure of speech!People will start to gossip.They’re not going to call it the Before His Time Bed and Breakfast.Or the Fall Off a Cliff Captain’s Inn.”
Huh.I stared at Henry and decided he and Oliver could fight all they wanted.I was going to speak to Justin.Though I had to give Henry credit for a clever ad lib of titles.
Without a word, I just moved past him and started toward my parents.I could hear Oliver saying, “What is your problem?”in a voice Oliver reserved for people who spilled drinks on him on the dance floor at LA nightclubs.This wasn’t going to end well for Henry.
“Mom.Dad.”I found my parents, who were huddled together on the south lawn.“Are you okay?”
