What to do? Here was the thing: there could be something in Mizuki’s personal belongings that could help find the killer, and if she was not in the room, Nikki would have an opportunity to check it out. It seemed like Robinson would have already searched the room himself. He could do that, couldn’t he? Probably not without a search warrant, but had Mizuki’s room been a top consideration yet? Nikki didn’t believe so. Nevertheless, searching private belongings really was wrong-plain and simple. Yes, she’d asked Simon and Marco to do it, although for some reason having them search Kensington’s stuff hadn’t seemed as wrong as it would be to go through Mizuki’s things. She was a nice woman who’d been thrown into this horrible mess. Robinson should really let her go home. Man, she was overthinking this stuff. Her frazzled brain only made everything more confusing and complicated.

“Are you okay, dear?” Eddie asked.

“Fine. I’m fine.” She smiled at her. “You know, I think I might check on her, take her some tea. If she isn’t in her room, I can leave it for her as a treat.”

“That would be nice,” Eddie said. “I’ll get you the key to the room. You know a funny story. I left my house keys here the other day, and when I got home, I couldn’t get into the house. My neighbor came over and reminded me that I keep a key under a potted plant.” She laughed but looked kind of sad at the same time. “Getting old is a bitch.”

Nikki put an arm around her. “Aw, Eddie. Come on. You’re not getting old. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Everyone gets forgetful sometimes.”

“I am getting old, hon, and it’s not sometimes. It’s happening more often. Soon I may have to retire for good.”

“I hope that’s not the case, but we’ll understand. You let me know what you need from me and Malveaux, okay?”

“You’re a good girl.”

A few seconds later, Eddie came from the back room with a key for Nikki to enter Mizuki’s suite. “Here you go.”

Nikki told her they would have coffee next week when the event was over and talk about the future. She thanked her and went outside to head back up the stairs. Then she knocked again on the hotel door. Still no answer. She looked around, put the key in the hole, and turned. The door opened and she pushed it slightly, calling out Mizuki’s name. She opened the door wider. No one was there, but Mizuki’s suitcase was on the bed and looked to be half-packed.

The clothes in the suitcase all looked expensive. Nikki peered down at them-designer labels, including the shoes. Was Mizuki headed home? Had Robinson told her that it was okay to go?

She hesitantly lifted up some of the clothes. Wait a minute. Here was a DVD case. Maybe this was the DVD that Iwao kept trying to hand to Alan. There was no one around so Nikki opened the case. There was a DVD in it, but there was no label. It was just blank. What could be on it? Nikki wanted to know but she couldn’t do that. This was the woman’s private belonging. She squeezed her fists together and closed the case up, placing it back down on the clothing.

Nothing in the room seemed out of the ordinary. It was quiet except for the roaring of the gas fire. Why had she left that on? She must not have gone far. Nikki also spotted a silk robe over one of the chairs facing the fireplace.

Nikki looked a little closer around the room. Typically, in every room, a bottle of Malveaux wine would be on the console table. Every day, if it was empty, a new one would be replaced by the staff. There wasn’t one there. Nikki looked around the room; it wasn’t anywhere. She’d have to talk to Housekeeping about this. She ran her finger over the desk for dust. There was a little. Whoever had been cleaning this room would have something to answer for. While she was at it, she figured she’d better check the bathroom and make sure they’d replaced the towels.

When she came around the corner, she stopped. The room started that spinning thing it did whenever this type of thing happened to Nikki-which was becoming far too often. There, lying on the floor, with her eyes wide open with a corkscrew lodged into her chest and a wine cork stuffed into her mouth was Mizuki. Dead.

ROBINSON looked as disgusted as Nikki felt. He had to be thinking exactly what she was: how could this have happened right under their noses? He was in the room now with the investigation unit that consisted of himself, a crime scene investigator, another homicide detective, and a few other people-Nikki hadn’t a clue what their roles were, but she knew to stay out of their way.

Nikki leaned back against the wall outside the suite trying to remain calm and not conjure up that image of Mizuki dead. Nikki now felt confident that whoever had killed both Iwao and Mizuki was involved with the S.E.E. members. It hadn’t been a deranged killer loose on the wine train. Nope, the killer was right here at the hotel and in plain sight. Why would that person seek out Mizuki?

If the motive was clearer as to why Iwao had been murdered, then the motive as to why his mistress was now being zippered into a body bag would also become clearer. But as of now, Nikki hadn’t figured out any concrete motives.

She figured Mizuki had had information that might have led to the killer and the killer had also banked on that and silenced Mizuki before she had a chance to communicate her tale in her native tongue. That had to be why she’d been killed.

Once Nikki had found Mizuki and placed the 911 call, and the police had first arrived, an officer went down to the tasting room, where the fun was still going on. He’d informed them there had been a death and that all the members were to go to their suites until someone came by to interview them. They hadn’t a clue as to what had happened at that point. Nikki figured at least one of them would have some idea, because one of them had to be a killer.

The members were all accounted for, except for Simon and Marco. Where in the heck were those two, and what if something bad had happened to them? She picked at her nails and worried herself sick.

Robinson came around the corner. “We need to talk.”

“Okay.”

“Not here,” he replied. His face drawn and unsmiling, he grabbed her arm.

“Hey.”

“Hey, nothing. Come on.”

She wasn’t about to argue with him. They went down the stairs and headed to the café. No one was there and they went back into the kitchen, passing the hanging rack of pots and the professional gas stove and oven. He finally stopped in front of the wood fire oven, let go of her arm, and turned toward her. “I thought you were hiring security,” he said.

“You suggested it, but no, I haven’t had a chance. I didn’t think this psycho would kill someone else.”

“He did.”

“No kidding. Why am I getting the feeling that you’re blaming this on me? You’re the cop.” She put her hands on her hips.

He crossed his arms. “I’m not blaming you, Sands. But here’s the deal. You run this place, and from what you told me, you coordinated this whole event. Okay, so I got one dead guy on a train. I’ve been working every angle of this investigation on Yamimoto, talking to everyone I can who was on the train that might have seen something. Then I got the CSI people on the train, and I can tell you the train company isn’t too happy with having to shut down a train and lose business. I thought maybe I had some decent leads, thought there could be answers there. I put myself out and asked for a little help from a friend, and now the dead guy’s geisha winds up corked to death on the bathroom floor. What up?”

She made a face at him. “What up? I don’t know what up. I’ve done everything you asked me to do. I’ve looked, listened, and told you everything.” She didn’t like his tone at all. “What up? God, why don’t you tell me?”