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long brown hair, kinda scruffy, he checked me in. I’m looking for my
friend, she has long blonde hair, about five-foot-eight? Have you seen someone like
that around?”
    The hostess slowly lowered a novel she was reading. “Hi, Noire,
I’m Maddie. What’s your friend’s name and I can tell you if I’ve seen her?”
    Noire’s mind went blank as a freshly Zambonied rink of ice. How
was she going to explain she had no idea about her supposed friend’s name? “Uh—I
don’t remember. We use nicknames. Uh.” What was a good nickname? “Hers was Blondie.
Because she was blonde. Like the singer.”
    She couldn’t stop her mouth from moving, and her brain didn’t
seem connected to the words coming out of it. So Noire was more relieved than embarrassed
when Cam leaned over and whispered into her ear, “Blondie sounds more like a horse
name.”
    “Uh—” Noire continued. “What I mean is my other friend, who is
this guy right here beside me, is looking for Blon—”
    “Constable Campbell Dawson of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.”
Cam flashed his badge at the hostess. “Maddie, is it?” The girl nodded.
    Noire tapped him on the shoulder and mouthed “Thank you” before
moving aside. Cam’s returning grin sent her stomach into daredevil somersaults.
Then he smoothed out his expression and she watched him go to work.
    Noire didn’t particularly like the way Maddie’s eyelashes fluttered
at the Mountie, but he did have the information in less than two minutes. There
were only three guests at the hostel this week that matched the description of Jane
Doe’s body. Mel Vaughan, an American, and two sisters from Sweden, Hanna and Linn
Jonsson.
    Mel, they discovered, was sitting with the group of women at
the tables drinking wine.
    “I think I’ve met her,” Noire said quietly.
    “Have you seen the Jonsson sisters here before?”
    “Not that I know of. She’s the only blonde I remember. I asked
her a few things about Fawn but no one was very helpful.” She wrinkled her nose,
remembering her failure at trying to start up completely unsubtle conversations.
    “Mmm. Do you want to try interrogating them first?”
    “I think I’m good. I’ll leave the cop work to you. I swear I’m
a lot better with animals—people just confuse me.”
    “I know what you mean. But not to worry, though I may feel a
kinship with animals, half of me is human, and I’ve trained my human side well.
I can show you how it’s done.”
    She couldn’t tell if this sudden arrogance was a part of the
joke, or legitimate. She decided to tease him back. “But you’re so obviously law
enforcement—perfect posture, perfect amount of muscle, the military-short hair—they’ll
figure out what you’re up to right away.”
    “Exactly,” he said with an enigmatic smile. Cam gestured to his
duffle bag. For the first time, Noire noticed an iron-on patch of Dudley Do-Right,
the cartoon Mountie hero from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, on the pocket
of his bag . “I just need a place to change.”
    Noire pointed him toward the first of the hostel washrooms, glad
she could manage something helpful. Though she enjoyed the teasing, she was starting
to feel a bit put-out at her lack of contribution to the investigation since they
had left the island. She hoped she got to shoot something before all of this was
done.
    Now, why would she think that? Her guns were all the way back
in Algonquin. Unless she could borrow Cam’s. She wasn’t really a Smith & Wesson
kind of girl, but she really wanted to shoot something right about now.
    She thought about walking over to the women drinking and sitting
down with them. Taking a swig from the wine bottle and starting a conversation.
She decided against it. Instead, she studied the group. Eleven in total. Mel was
striking, with platinum blonde hair and an inch of purposeful dark roots showing
that didn’t distract from a very low-cut V-neck blouse. Many of the other young
women ranged from pretty to