“That explains a lot, actually,” Ten said, sounding absentminded.
“Last question,” Ronan began. “Is there a history of domestic violence at the hotel? Either between guests, staff or both?”
“Maybe,” Lainie said. “The cook saw Kurt grab me last night and said something strange when I got away from him.”
“What did he say?” Ronan asked.
“The curse struck again.” Lainie paused. “More customers walked into the bar and I didn’t have a chance to ask what he meant.” She looked over her shoulder and saw her coworker tapping his wrist, as if to say she’d been gone long enough. “I’ve got to get back to work.”
“You have my number if you think of anything else. It could be important,” Ronan said.
“I will.” Lainie hurried away.
“We’ve got some research to do,” Ronan said. “What do you say we order room service and get to it?”
“Sounds good to me.” Ten turned to Everly. “Do you want to stay down here with Aurora and have something to eat?”
“Yeah! Those wings look really good.” Everly hopped off her stool.
Ronan grabbed her drink and brought his daughter to Fitzgibbon’s table. He explained to Fitz what was going on and slapped sixty dollars on the table for drinks and apps. “Go wild, ladies.” Ronan pointed between Everly and Aurora.
Taking Ten’s hand, they headed to the lobby and pressed the button to summon the elevator. Ronan knew curses were usually based on a real event, like when the Boston Red Sox traded Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees back in 1919. It was said the Babe cursed the team and the Sox went eighty-six years without winning a World Series, until 2004 when the curse was reversed.
What if Lainie was right and therewasa curse? What if Walt was still here at Hurricane Pointe and none of the psychics could sense him? Ronan shivered. They needed to get to the bottom of this and quick before Lainie and Kurt became the latest victims in a cycle they were powerless to stop.
8
Tennyson
When they’d gotten back to their suite, Ten had ordered dinner from room service. Chicken noodle soup for Ronan, and a Caesar salad with grilled chicken for himself. He’d kept his eye on Ronan while they ate, in case his sick stomach came back. Thankfully, it hadn’t. Ten had no doubt his husband would be back to normal and wolfing down pancakes at the breakfast buffet in the morning.
“How do you want to go about this investigation?” Ten asked, knowing these sorts of cases were Ronan’s bread and butter.
“I’m going to look through the police database for incidents occurring at this hotel. Thanks to a case we worked jointly with the Providence police, I’ve got login credentials for their database. Why don’t you look for information about Vivienne and Walt? Where are their graves, for a start? Why did no one claim their bodies?” Ronan wore a puzzled look. “How do you not come forward and claim your daughter’s body?”
Ten frowned. He’d been wondering the same thing himself. “The hurricane hit during The Great Depression. People were on the move looking for work or were forced to move in with other relatives. I guess it’s possible that no family could be found. Based on what Lainie told us, this area was a mess after the storm. Maybe their relatives were displaced by the storm and they didn’t have access to a phone or newspapers.”
“Maybe,” Ronan agreed. “I wouldn’t have stopped until I found my daughter.”
“Same,” Ten agreed. He wouldn’t have eaten or slept until his child had been found and laid to rest. He grabbed his phone andpulled up the website forThe Providence Journal. According to the page, the paper had been in existence since 1829. Most of which had been digitized. He typed “Holbrook Pointe” into the search field. The articles that came back mostly dealt with Davidson Holbrook mourning the loss of his only child, Henry, in the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. After his death, the family had gone to wrack and ruin, with Davidson’s wife, Cecile, passing two years later. Five years after that, Davidson sold the house and land to a developer from New York, who wanted to create an upscale retreat for rich people who didn’t have the kind of money needed to spend summers in Newport like the Vanderbilts. Lastly, were the articles about the hurricane. He clicked the first one and couldn’t believe what he saw. “Oh, wow!” Ten muttered.
“What?” Ronan asked.
Ten turned his phone toward Ronan. “This is what the hotel looked like before and after the hurricane in 1933.” The pictures were one on top of the other. The devastation was catastrophic. The wrap-around porches were completely wiped away, as were most of the heavy river stones that comprised the hotel’s façade. All of the windows on the first floor were broken out and there was a gaping hole taking out nearly the entire right side of the building.
“See this line?” Ronan pinched out the photo, where a dark, dirty line was visible just above the blown out windows.
“Yeah, what is it?” Ten asked.
“The high water mark.” Ronan shook his head. “It’s gotta be twenty feet from the ground to this spot. I can’t imagine how terrifying it must have been when the storm-driven waves came ashore. Vivienne and Walt didn’t stand a chance. Did you find any articles about them?”
Ten scanned through the articles. “Yeah, this one talks about the number of dead and missing people. There were 138 people killed in Rhode Island alone and dozens of people were missing.” He kept reading until one line of the article stopped him cold. “The owner of the hotel at the time of the hurricane was a man named Albert Cross. He’s quoted in the article as saying he mourned the loss of Vivienne and Walt, but that they’d been given the order to evacuateone daybefore the storm was set to strike. What were they still doing at the hotel when the hurricane came ashore?”
“That’s a good question to ask Vivienne the next time you speak to her. Didn’t Lainie say that she’d gone back for something she forgot and that Walt drove off without her?” Ronan asked, sounding puzzled.
“If Walt and Vivienne were killed in the storm, who knew the circumstances of their failed evacuation?” None of this made any sense to Tennyson.
“Maybe the timeline Cross gave was wrong?” Ronan was silent for a few seconds. “What if he was lying about giving the order to evacuate one day before the storm hit?”
