NIKKI sat next to Alyssa in the treatment room inside the hospital, holding her hand and watching Petie get a cast wrapped around his arm while a nurse demonstrated talking Elmo for the tyke. Thank God he’d only broken his arm. When Nikki had heard the words “hospital” and “Petie,” she’d thought the worst. But the little guy had apparently been playing on the jungle gym when another toddler decided to be malicious, as toddlers can be, and pushed him off. That toddler had been punished with a time-out, but Nikki would still like to bend him over her knee. Petie wound up landing wrong and making a clean break in his arm. However, with his condition, he needed to be monitored and looked after with a bit more care than the average child.
“Thank you for coming. I’m sorry I had to take off suddenly and leave the hotel.”
“Please don’t be sorry. He comes first. The hotel is fine. You know that. Most of the guests were with us anyway, and those who weren’t would have found help if they needed it. I’m just happy Petie is going to be okay. How are you?” Nikki realized that this had to be stressful for Alyssa, even though there was relief that her child was not hurt worse than he was. Alyssa and this baby had been through more than enough, and any hiccup along the way had to be hard to deal with.
“I’m okay. I really am. Look at him. He’s so precious.”
Petie was laughing his head off at Elmo, while the doctor wrapped the cast. “Yes he is.”
“How about you? How are you with all the craziness at the hotel? I haven’t even talked to you about last night’s murder. I heard about it this morning from one of the members. He brought down a suitcase that didn’t belong to him, he said. I forgot about it with all of this. I stored it in the back room.”
“Oh. That shouldn’t be a problem. Did anyone else come down and claim it?”
Alyssa shook her head. “No.”
“Who brought it down?” Nikki asked.
“Cute guy. I don’t know, maybe thirty, in good shape. Dark hair, on the tall side, and lean build. Nice guy, kind of weird, though, because he wouldn’t look me in the eyes, and that always gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
Nikki figured Alyssa was talking about Kurt Kensington. She’d checked him in yesterday and noticed the same thing. He was either busy fiddling with his hands, looking down, or looking away. “Well, do you know who the suitcase belongs to?”
“He didn’t say. After he left, I pulled back the cover on the plastic info card and it read IWAO YAMIMOTO.”
Nikki sat up ramrod straight. “Yamimoto? You sure?”
“Don’t think I’d forget a name like that.”
“Iwao Yamimoto was the man who was murdered last night.”
“Oh. I didn’t know. Oh, my God!” Alyssa replied.
The doctor looked up at them.
Nikki lowered her voice. “Yeah. I think that must have been Kurt Kensington, one of the S.E.E. members, who brought down the suitcase. What I want to know is, why did he have Iwao’s suitcase and why did he only bring it down this morning?”