“Did Esme talk about work much?” I wanted to ease the tension Susan had created.
“Oh, all the time. She was so lucky to find such a great job. Lauren and Henry could be very demanding, but they paid her well for it. Me, I run my tail off and kiss butt all day at my job and I don’t get paid nearly as well as Esme does, uh, did.”
“She ever mention violence or threats?”
“You mean toward Lauren?” Susan picked at a dry tissue.
“Anything. I’m just trying to get a feel for Lauren’s readers.”
“I think that was Esme’s favorite part of maintaining Lauren’s blog and Facebook pages. She’d come home and tell me about how someone ripped Lauren a new one for Sophie being so promiscuous. Or try to correct her on the ways that vampires live and feed. I mean read any paranormal series and they all have their take on what a vampire’s life is like. Esme just laughed. She’d say, ‘They know this shit is fiction, don’t they?’”
“Sometimes I wonder,” I said.
I wanted to get a better idea of Esme by her things, like at Lauren’s house. “Do you mind if I look in her room?”
“Actually, it’s my room. Esme stayed mostly with Sebastian or Lauren this last year. I took over the bedroom. She just kept necessities in the bathroom, and lived out of a suitcase when she was here.”
This made no sense. Why had Esme spent so much money to furnish this apartment if she was never here? And come to think of it, the décor seemed a little light for Esme. I would’ve expected black interior and dark fabrics.
“You said she hadn’t been living here lately. Did you have a falling out?”
“She got caught up in the vampire world, and then got the job with Lauren. She loves that job.” Sniffle. “Loved. Even without Sebastian, she loved the life, and loved the money. She was moving on. But I’d always be here for her. It’s still our apartment. Besides, I think everything in the apartment belongs to her. Or belonged anyway.”
I was still on the money comment. “Money? I didn’t think an author’s assistant made that much.”
“Apparently Lauren pays better than most. Look at this place. I can’t even afford IKEA, and all this is the real thing. We’d go antique shopping on weekdays, when I didn’t have to work. I’m a banquet server at the golf course.”
“I noticed she dressed well.”
“Oh, yeah, she’d take junkets to San Francisco just to buy clothes. Had a personal shopper and everything.” These thoughts seemed to cheer Susan a little. She grinned.
Her attitude lightened considerably. Maybe she really did miss her friend. But just moments earlier, she’d been bashing her. Or maybe she was only telling the truth about Esme’s personality, and what shaped it.
If she wasn’t going to let me in the bedroom, I’d at least try to get a look at the bathroom. Never underestimate the power of medicine cabinet snooping.
“I’m sorry. I drank an entire bottle of water on the way here. May I use your bathroom?”
“Sure,” she said, pointing. “It’s the door next to the kitchen.”
I went into the bathroom and locked the door. I figured I had about two to three minutes to do my thing before Susan got suspicious. I was pretty sure I’d been in the bathroom less than a minute when I heard a knock.
“What are you doing in there?” Susan’s voice sounded anxious.
10
After the bathroom snooping, I grabbed my handbag from the living room and couldn’t get out of that apartment fast enough. Was it guilt? I doubted it. But I suddenly didn’t feel comfortable. I’d barely been in there enough time to pee, if that’s what I had been doing, before Susan was banging on the door.
If Esme hadn’t been staying there, why were her prescription bottles still in the cabinet? They weren’t expired. As soon as I got in my car I looked at the photos I’d taken with my cell phone camera. Paroxetine and Dalmane belonged to Esme. The bottles with Susan’s name included stuff I’d never heard of: Tranxene, Lorazepam, and Skelaxin. There was one I had heard of, Halcion, which I knew was for insomnia. I’d have to get my hands on a Physician’s Desk Reference.
I looked at my watch. I still had time to stop by Henry’s hotel before I headed back home. Leaving Santa Cruz, I got on Highway 1 toward Monterey. Forty minutes later I was driving up the hill toward the hotel’s entrance.
On the drive over I kept questioning my impression of Esme. To me she seemed like a well-adjusted girl with a penchant for vampires. Even with her gothic look, she still acted like a caring, responsible adult. Was Susan painting a true picture, or giving me a side of Esme that I couldn’t disprove? I wondered what the boyfriend would say about Esme. Was Susan jealous of Esme? That wasn’t much of a stretch.
By the time I arrived, the sun had disappeared behind the golf course fairways and the fog had rolled in. I pulled into a space next to the handicapped parking. When I got out of the car, I could feel the dampness on my skin, and smell the combination of freshly cut grass and salt air. The atmosphere was chilling, so I quickly jogged up the stairs to the lobby, following the landscaping lights that put off an eerie glow from the fog.
The lobby screamed understated elegance and modern minimalist. I almost missed the reservation desk, as the blond wood of the counter blended with the wall behind it. But the black bowl on the counter gave me a clue as to the direction I was headed.
“May I help you?” The young man seemed to appear from nowhere.
“Yes, I’m here to see your guest, Henry Silke.”
He tapped the keys of a keyboard. Then tapped some more. “May I inquire, is Mr. Silke expecting you?”
“Yes,” I lied.
“And your name?”
“Mimi Capurro.”
He tapped a few more keys and scrolled down a list with his finger. “I see. Here you are. Room eleven-sixteen.” He pointed. “Just down that hall.”
I looked in the direction he pointed and thanked him before heading that way. Wow, I was on some sort of special guest list.
From the sign on the wall, eleven-sixteen was at the far end of the hallway to the right. As I turned I saw a door open. A man came into the hall. I looked up to see Brad Pitt walking toward me. Well, so he wasn’t really Brad Pitt, but he sure as hell looked like him. He didn’t look at me as I drooled over him, thank God, but my gaze was glued to his ass as he strolled past. I’m sure I smelled CK Man cologne.
I took a deep breath, inhaling his scent, and used every ounce of energy I had to not turn around and follow him. If I had followed, I could take down his license plate and find out who he was. Charles was always good for that kind of snooping, and he’d do it for me. No, I had work to do. I kept moving forward to Henry’s room. As I got closer I realized that Brad had come from Henry’s room. Huh?
The door was slightly ajar and I knocked lightly.
“Come in.” Henry called from deep in the room.
The reception desk must have let him know I was on my way.
“Uh, hello,” he stammered. He had pulled the sheets up around his body.
I grinned. Trying to look perfectly comfortable, I said, “How are you holding up?”
“It’s been hard. Lauren’s been calling a lot.” He sat up on the bed. “Would you excuse me?”
“Calling for what?”
“She wanted to know if we could get back into the house. Had Esme’s body been released, so her family could plan a funeral? They won’t, you know.” He said all this sitting up in the bed, trying to maneuver out of it.
“They won’t what?” I wasn’t following.
“Her family. They won’t plan a funeral. She’ll be lucky if they even claim the body.” He was still maneuvering the sheet around himself.
“From what I’ve heard, they’ll want to know when they can cash the life insurance policy.”
“That’s about right. So Lauren asked if I could make arrangements. As a twenty-something, Esme didn’t talk about death, only the undead. I think we thought we were immortal at
that age too.”
I remembered the charms. The Ankh was a symbol for immortality. “Do you think that’s why she wore the ankh?”
Henry struggled a bit more. “No.” His answer didn’t invite further questions.
I moved past the desk, where the flat screen television was showing The Weather Channel, and looked out the window. I again smelled the faint aroma of CK Man.
Henry finally yanked the sheet loose, wrapped himself, and shuffled to the bathroom. He smelled like soap, so I knew the aroma wasn’t him.
Oh, boy, did I have bad timing. Or good timing, depending on how you looked at it. But what was I looking at? Had Brad come from Henry’s room? It was nearly nine o’clock, so maybe Henry was ready to turn in. My imagination was having a really good time. I could have carried the scent of cologne in from the hallway.
Henry came back into the room. He wore a white T-shirt and red flannel pajama bottoms. He looked cute. Henry wasn’t a big man. In fact, when I first met him on Monday, he’d been dwarfed by Lauren. Esme would have been a better fit for him, as tiny as she was.
Getting a closer look I saw Henry’s eyes were bloodshot and swollen.
“Everything okay?” I sat on the chair next to the window.
“Not since Tuesday.” Henry flopped on the bed nearest the door. A piece of his comb-over spilled onto his forehead. He didn’t seem to notice.
I wanted to move the hair for him. “I’m sorry about everything. And I’m sorry I haven’t gotten over here earlier. You know Lauren has asked me to investigate?”
He nodded. Another hair dropped down.
“Is there anything compelling you want to tell me about that night?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. What do you already know?”
“I don’t have much. Actually, I don’t have anything. But I did talk to Susan, Esme’s best friend. She didn’t give me much, but now I have a few questions for you.”
“I’ve already talked to the police several times.” He looked drained.
“I only met Esme briefly. I wanted to ask questions about her work for Lauren.”
“Like what?” Henry snapped.
“She was Lauren’s assistant, right?”
Henry nodded.
“What did that entail?”
“She did everything office related. She scheduled Lauren’s appointments, kept up the website, monitored the blog and the websites, answered Lauren’s emails, answered calls, and she sometimes traveled with Lauren.” He said this in a monotone, as if repeating it for the hundredth time.
“Did she ever seem manipulative, or devious?”
Henry snickered. “Esme? All the time.”
“Really?” Maybe he’d confirm what Susan had said.
“She had to be to live with and work for Lauren. She sometimes had to be Lauren. And if that’s not devious, I don’t know what is.”
“And she liked her job, right?”
“A little too much. She’d moved in for God’s sake. Lauren took advantage of it, and had Esme working late hours whenever she was on deadline. Lauren writes three different series, so she’s always on deadline. But Esme was entranced and didn’t care as long as she got to focus on the vampire series.”
“What about the website and the blog? Did Esme ever indicate there might be physical danger?” I felt like I was going nowhere with this investigation, asking the same questions over and over.
“That’s the thing, I really think Lauren was mostly anonymous. Even our neighbors don’t know who she is. We tell everyone I’m an investor working from home, which is true since I invest Lauren’s money for her. Most people actually think Esme works for me. How would they find her?”
“Do you think Esme could have bragged about working for Lauren, and someone tracked down your residence?”
Henry considered this. “You know Esme was a vampire freak, right?”
“Yes.” I hoped the one word answer would prompt him to tell me something.
“She was a normal girl. Other vampire freaks aren’t so normal. They come in all shapes.”
“I know,” I said. “Have you ever heard of the Camarilla?”
Suddenly he didn’t look so drained. “What do you want to know?”
That was easy.
“Susan said it was a secret society of role players in a vampire game. She seemed to think it was an exclusive club of sorts.” Did I promise I wouldn’t mention her name? I don’t remember.
“She’s blowing it out of proportion. The only reason we’re secretive is because many players don’t want their employers or customers to know about their involvement.”
“We’re?” Did I hear him correctly?
“We, as in Esme, Sebastian, uh, The Prince, and me. And many others of course.”
“Okay, so it’s a role playing game. Who cares?” Who cares if you have a vampire fetish?
“You don’t understand. There are doctors, lawyers, and business owners amongst the players. Imagine a patient’s misgiving, if he were to find out his doctor dressed as a vampire and played games in the dark.”
“What’s the game about?” I really was trying to understand.
“We are a diverse group of kindred put together to decide our own fate,” Henry explained.
Yeah, that explained everything.
“Currently, the Kindred are in an uproar since the arrival of two Elders, Francis and Girard. They are battling for the possession of a magical scarab that has the power to bring vampires back to life. They pit Kindred against each other, creating strife.”
Sometimes when you overhear a conversation about a soap opera you think the people are talking about real life, and this was how Henry was talking. “This is a game, right?”
He sighed. “Yes. There’re elaborate character traits and we have a character sheet for each character. It includes their features, strengths, vulnerabilities, and magical powers. The Storyteller keeps the sheets safe, so no other character knows all the details since they can be used as leverage in the game. Each character belongs to a clan and these clans can be pitted against one another. Do you see?”
No, not really. “Alright, I’m getting it. Do you bite each other?”
I could hear the disgust in his voice. “The game is played with hand signs, denoting challenges, timeouts, and even invisibility. There is absolutely no physical contact. Our rules: Don’t touch, no weapons, and know when to stop. If you’re thinking the Camarilla had something to do with Esme’s murder, you are wrong. We aren’t violent.” He stood and paced the area from the bathroom to the window, stepping within a few feet of me.
He continued, “That’s the problem. The perception of violence. And that’s why the City of Santa Cruz is trying to stop the game.” I felt his agitation.
“Sorry Henry, I just don’t understand the role playing thing.” I wasn’t about to share The Rocky Horror Picture Show part of my life.
“We decide disputes and combat with rock, paper, scissors.”
I laughed. “So no fangs, no duels, no stakes through the heart? What’s the appeal?”
“No real fangs anyway. It’s the seduction of being someone else one night a week. Leaving the screaming brats, the bitchy wife, the nagging husband, the job stress, and becoming that character can be addictive.”
I finally got it. Who didn’t want to be someone else every once in a while? To be a member of the living dead wouldn’t be my choice, but what the hell, to each his own.
“Anyway, the Camarilla has a complex background that you probably aren’t interested in, and I won’t bore you with it. The gist is that everyone strives for power over the Kindred and will backstab and double-cross to achieve that power.” Henry sat back down on the bed.
“Sounds like quite a rush. But I still don’t understand the need for secrecy.”
“Like I said, some of the players could lose business if their patients or clients had a problem with their involvement.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“D
on’t you think they’d notice if they saw their doctor walking along the street, wearing a vampire costume?” I know my doctor well enough. I think I’d recognize her.
“Some of the costumes are very elaborate, with makeup and wigs, so no, they wouldn’t recognize anyone.” Henry seemed sure. “Other than that, it’s not that big a deal.”
“Susan made it seem as if a life could be in danger if someone told.” She’d sounded scared.
“Maybe Esme spooked her. Esme was quite the storyteller. She really enjoyed the game and took it seriously. That’s why we had the dinner meeting Monday night.”
Finally, I was going to learn something. “What meeting?”
“Like I said, they want to shut down the game. The Prince, Sebastian, Esme and I were working on a PR campaign to show the game in a better light.”
“Why stop the game?” I asked.
Henry turned and stacked the pillows against the headboard. “Complaints.”
“Complaints?”
“Santa Cruz is very touristy. With the movie The Lost Boys and the association the city has with vampires, several people have been spooked to see a vampire lurking in the shadows.” He leaned back and put his legs up on the bed.
“I get it. I guess I’d be a little spooked too.”
“But you see, if more people understood the significance of the game they’d come to Santa Cruz just to have a vampire sighting. Then they’d stay for dinner and drinks, and maybe buy a trinket in one of the stores. We could be good for the city.”
This was all very interesting, but where was it getting me. “Twice you’ve mentioned The Prince. Who is this prince guy?”
“It’s not my place to reveal his identity,” Henry said.
“Was it the guy who was leaving as I came in?” I wanted to know who that guy was. I wanted his phone number and address. Who cared if he dressed like a vampire and trolled the streets at night?
“What guy?” Henry tensed.
You’re not a very good liar. “The Brad Pitt look-a-like who was leaving when I came in.”
Gotcha Detective Agency Mystery Box Set Page 8