Death at the Voyager Hotel Read Online Free

That would be more intimate and personal than Paula
simply standing in front of the assembly and making an announcement.
    “Okay,” she
said to the teachers finally, when the plan had been worked out, “go out there
and be strong for our kids.”
    They filed out
of the office, leaving Paula to reflect for a moment on what was happening. It
felt unreal.
    “Madam Djan?”
    Paula turned at
the soft voice at the door. It was Ajua.
    “Madam Djan,”
she said again. “What has happened to Miss Heather?”
    “Come,” Paula
said, beckoning.
    As she
approached, Ajua’s chin quivered and her eyes welled up in advance of the first
tears that would break the dam. Somehow, she knew something was terribly wrong.
Blessed or cursed, she possessed that kind of intuition. Paula held her tight as
the girl began to weep.



CHAPTER THREE
    At the end of an awful day of shock and grief, Paula was
drained, but she felt that she had one more duty before heading home: she had
to talk to Oliver alone. She called him into the office and shut the door. He still
looked shattered as he slumped into the chair at the side of her desk.
    “How are you
doing?” she asked him softly. “Will you be okay tonight?”
    He gave a tiny
shrug.
    “Maybe you
should stay with a family member,” Paula suggested, “so you’ll have someone to
talk to?”
    He nodded.
“I’ll be going to my brother’s house.”
    “Good.” She
paused. “I’m so sorry, Oliver. I know Heather meant a lot to you.”
    He was staring
vacantly at the wall. “I don’t know what to think…what to say.”
    “Did you see
her yesterday?”
    “Yes.”
    “And she seemed
okay?”
    “She was fine,”
he said dully.
    Paula sensed
this wasn’t the time to ply him with questions. Maybe later. His head was in a
fog right now.
    “Shall I drop
you at your brother’s place?” she offered.
    “No, thank you.
I’ll be okay.”
    “You can take
the rest of the week off, if you like.”
    “It’s better I
work,” he said, shaking his head. “It will keep my mind occupied.”
    “All right, then.
But if you want some time, just let me know. Otherwise, I’ll see you tomorrow.
Call me if you need to.”
    “Thank you.”
    He got up
slowly, as if he had aged decades in just one day.

    When she got home, Paula tried to phone Heather’s father,
Michael Peterson, in Portland, but he didn’t pick up. She left a message. Heather
had often spoken about her father, and in glowing terms. On the single occasion
she had mentioned her mother, she had revealed that Glenda Peterson suffered
from debilitating multiple sclerosis. It had appeared to Paula that it was a
painful topic for Heather.
    By the time
Paula’s husband Thelo got in from work, she had put their eight-year-old twins
Stephan and Stephanie to bed after reading to them. Paula and Thelo had been secondary
school sweethearts who had never considered marrying anyone else but each
other. A year younger than his thirty-five, she was a social worker by training
while he was an ex-detective sergeant with the Criminal Investigations Department , a division of the Ghana Police
Service.
    In his eighth
year on the force, disaster befell Thelo as he and two other detectives pursued
a car being driven recklessly by a fugitive wanted for murder. Rounding a sharp
corner, the suspect ditched the car and the police vehicle came around too fast
to avoid a collision. It flipped onto its side and rolled twice. The constable
who had been driving and the chief inspector accompanying Thelo were both
killed. The murderer got away, although he was later captured in another city.
    As for Thelo,
his lower right leg had been crushed under the weight of the overturned vehicle.
Several times in the following months, he had come perilously close to an
amputation, which was averted only by a determined doctor who refused to give
up. In the end, Thelo kept his leg, but the trauma resulted in loss of bone and
left him with a limp that had improved only somewhat