“She did not say.”
“Did she leave anything for me?”
“She did not.”
“Is there anything here that belongs to me?”
“Such as?”
“Luggage.”
“There might have been.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“A roughshod suitcase was delivered days ago,” he said. “I believe it was meant for you.”
“Give it to me.” I shook my Glock. “Right now.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
I shook my Glock harder.
“The elderly gentlewoman took custody of it.”
“What was in it?”
He didn’t answer.
My Glock and I took a step forward.
“A belt,” Lurch said. “A large bejeweled belt.”
For a minute there, I thought I’d found the money.
Again.
THIRTEEN
In the elevator, I scrolled through endless missed calls and text messages from Baylor, one quitting his job right then and there. I had a very recent message from Fantasy; Gulf Costumes was out of Elvis. There were fourteen messages from Colleen in Bradley’s office: please call, please call, please call, the ovens, the ovens, the ovens at Danish. There were seven messages from Gray Donaldson in Casino Credit, the last three 911, and one last message from my husband. Checking in. Colleen told him she’d been unable to reach me for hours.
I texted him back—all was well (and by all was well, I meant we were alive)—then called Colleen.
“Davis,” she panted. “Where have you been?”
I didn’t know where to start.
She did. She started and almost didn’t stop. When would Lost and Found reopen? The front desk, the concierge’s station, valet, and the main cash cage in the casino had all turned into makeshift Lost and Founds. Cell phone mountains were forming. Everyone who’d lost a phone, in their efforts to find their phones, were having others dial their numbers, and the stacks of cell phones endlessly ringing at the satellite Lost and Found locations were causing disturbances. The ovens were completely down at Danish because of a wiring problem, and none of our electricians were brave enough to drop between the ovens from above to get to the faulty wiring, and as a result, the dessert bar at the casino buffet, Plethora, was empty, and that was in addition to no desserts at the many other restaurants Danish supplied, and there wouldn’t be desserts in the foreseeable future because none of the restaurants with operating ovens were willing to share. The water in the Olympic-sized swimming pools behind the hotel had reached Jacuzzi temperatures. One had already closed and the other was right behind it. The guests—in their efforts to cool off, drinking giant Velvet Elvis cocktails—were falling asleep in the warm water. There’d been a three-mobility-scooter pileup and subsequent senior citizen brawl in the casino when three little old ladies vying for one slot machine couldn’t work it out peacefully. There’d been so many Housekeeping callouts that as of four o’clock, almost half of the seventeen hundred Bellissimo hotel guest rooms still hadn’t been serviced. When would Lost and Found reopen? And on. And on.
If I had my husband’s job, I would go to my office every morning, close the door, lay my head on the desk, and cry until it was time to go home. If anyone knocked on the door, I’d tell them to go away.
“Where are you, Colleen?”
“I’m on my way home,” she said. “I couldn’t take one more minute. I’ll be in first thing tomorrow.”
I couldn’t very well say anything about her leaving early, considering I’d been AWOL for days.
Next up, my mother.
I texted to confirm everyone had returned home safely. They had. I told her I’d be there as soon as possible. She texted back and told me to scurry, because sinner was almost deadly. I was starving, but the deadly part of dinner didn’t necessarily appeal to me. And it was nowhere near dinnertime.
I checked the time.
It was. It was somewhere near dinnertime.
Colleen hadn’t left early.
It was late.
Late-late.
It was almost five, Central, which made it almost three, Pacific, so I did what anyone else who didn’t have five million dollars and couldn’t come up with that much money in five minutes would do. From my husband’s computer in his empty office on the executive floor, I tried to hack Seattle City Light’s system to cut the power to the title company waiting for the wire—Nelson Title on Westlake Avenue—but couldn’t. Seattle City Light’s system was protected by a Meraki MX firewall I could probably crack, but not in thirty minutes. Instead, I hacked the operating system of the twelve-story building the title company called home and triggered the smoke detector alarms. It must have been a very large building, because I triggered nine hundred alarms. I held my breath and counted to ten, knowing by then, the entire building would be evacuating. No doubt Nelson Title could throw a rock and hit a cybercafé, but no one in their right mind would accept a five-million-dollar wire over an unsecured server. Just as I was shutting down Bradley’s computer, a Bellissimo-wide security alert flashed. The Magnolia Suites on the southeast side of the hotel tower on the twenty-eighth floor, which was to say directly below my home, were being evacuated. What was described by several guests as nuclear waste sludge was pouring onto the verandas and seeping into the private pools. From above. Environmental Protection was on the way.
I let my head thud to my husband’s desk.
I texted my mother again. Is Bea watering the tomatoes?
Jess.
Tell her to stop. Right now.
She texted back. I not short you goofing to light you new tarpit.
Honestly, it didn’t matter if I liked the new carpet or not.
I didn’t care.
Whit well your beast tome?
I texted back. I’m on my way.
I took my time.
* * *
Just inside my front door, I sniffed. It wasn’t right, but it wasn’t as wrong as the Penthouse, and couldn’t possibly be as wrong as the outdoor spaces below me that were being evacuated. I quietly sniffed my way down the hall and to the living room, where I heard the familiar strains of Frozen and intermittent claps of thunder.
The cat.
I stood quietly in the wide doorway, taking it in. My foyer floors were travertine, my kitchen floors ceramic tile, and eight of the other nine thousand square feet of flooring in my gargantuan home was hardwood. I had sisal-rugs-on-hardwood galore, but very little wall-to-wall carpet: Bradley’s and my bedroom, Bex’s and Quinn’s playroom, and the living room. It was all the same carpet, too, a dove-gray frieze wool. Earlier, just that morning, in fact, Maintenance had managed to round up enough dove-gray frieze to lay the living room carpet back as it was. That afternoon, they had not. They’d replaced my living room carpet with casino carpet. And casino carpet was loud. Everything about a casino was loud. The aggressive carpet on an acre of casino floor under slot machines and blackjack tables worked. The blood red, circus blue, shamrock green, and school-bus yellow paisley-confetti-starburst patterned carpet didn’t work in my home. I felt sorry for my furniture. One of my upholstered sliders in particular, because Bea Crawford was in it. Rocking a sleeping baby boy.
“Hey.”
Two little blonde heads and a set of furry ears popped up from the new carpet.
The cat, in a crate beside Birdy’s chair, honked.
Bex said, “How was jail, Mama? Did you have fun?”
I cut my eyes to Bea, who nodded at Quinn. “Nothing gets by that one, Davis.”
That one whispered in her sister’s ear. Bex said, “Mama? Can we watch Frozen after this?”
“Sweetie, you’re watching Frozen now.”
“But after this—”
“We’ll see,” I said, certai
n, before the day was done, they’d be watching Frozen again. No telling how many times.
“If we’re going to watch it again, could you pop me some Jiffy Pop?” Bea asked. “And melt me a stick of Oleo for it?”
I didn’t bother.
A quick after-incarceration shower and a much-needed change of clothes later, from my bedroom safe, I reloaded the gun Biloxi PD unloaded for me, tucked it, just in case, then bypassing my living room where Frozen was going strong, I went in search of my mother.
Guess where I found her.
Just guess.
“Davis.” She shook a wooden spoon in my face. “I have meatloaf, hot slaw, roasted potatoes, fried okra, butter beans, cornbread, and hummingbird cake for dinner.”
Oddly, standing in the middle of the kitchen, I didn’t smell meatloaf. Or hummingbird cake. I tilted my head and tried again.
“It’s the fertilizer,” Mother said.
The doors were closed. Not only were the patio doors in front of us closed, which would surely mean the other doors were closed too, Mother had rigged rolled bath towel barriers at every juncture where glass met wall.
“Mother—”
“It’ll be okay, Davis. The smell will die down.”
“Before it kills us?”
She put an arm around my shoulders and turned me away from her towel barricade handiwork. “I made meatloaf,” she reminded me.
“And what’s that noise?” I looked at my kitchen ceiling.
“They’re installing something upstairs.”
The new heat and air unit. Above my kitchen?
“Meatloaf?” my mother reminded me.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m starving half to death, but you’ll have to save me a plate again, because I have to work tonight.”
“More for me,” Bea Crawford, who shouldn’t have even been there, and who had the hearing of a bat, and who was the only thing in my home louder than the new carpet, except for maybe the sneezing cat, yelled from the sofa. “Say, Davis. Have you ever seen this movie?”
We stepped into the living room, where I noticed rolled towels snaking all the way around the veranda doors too, something I’d missed earlier because my eyes couldn’t get past the casino carpet, then I realized what else was missing. Or who, rather. The wingback chair was empty. “Mother, where’s Birdy?”
Mother stared at the empty chair. “Bea? Where’s Birdy?”
Bea’s orange head swiveled. “She said she’d be right back.”
“You let her out?” Maybe I could have been a little less accusatory.
“Let her out?” Bea could have been a lot less defensive. “I didn’t let her out. She’s got two legs, you know.”
“Where’d she go on her two legs, Bea?”
“To her office. Something about the wrong suitcase at Hoity-Toity’s.”
“Wrong?” My voice jumped an octave. “Bea, Birdy doesn’t classify suitcases as right or wrong. She only identifies them as lost or found. Who made that distinction for her?”
Bea’s head jerked back. “Would you mind speaking American? I didn’t understand a word of what you said. And where’s my popcorn?”
I reached for the remote and paused Frozen, much to Bexley’s, and by extension Quinn’s, dismay. “Did anyone see Birdy talking to someone about a suitcase? Did anyone overhear Birdy on the phone discussing a suitcase? Can anyone tell me who told Birdy she had the wrong suitcase?”
They all went Quinn on me.
I started the movie again, tossed the remote, and made a run for it, yelling the whole way. “Call me if you need me, Mother! Bex and Quinn don’t like hot slaw or okra! I’ll be back in time to tuck you in, girls! If Birdy wanders back before I find her do NOT let her out again!” I raced to the elevator and called Fantasy. “Hey,” I panted. “We have a problem.”
“You don’t have a problem,” she said. “I found an Elvis costume just your size. I, on the other hand, have a problem. Reggie’s mad at me.”
Reggie, Fantasy’s husband, was forever mad at her, and me by proxy, when we stumbled onto a job that had us working around the clock. He thought those days were over. (So had I.) “Tell me later,” I said. “Meet me in Lost and Found.”
“How am I supposed to meet you in Lost and Found? I’m at the Santa Superstore in Gulfport.”
“What?” I hopped off one elevator and onto another. “Why?”
“For Elvis costumes, Davis. We’re working the Double Trouble banquet tonight. There’s no way out of it. The only Elvis costumes left in South Mississippi are here and they’re red velvet. The capes spell out Elfis in rhinestones.”
“How is a Santa store even open in June?”
“It’s not,” she said. “I had to bust in.”
“So you want to be arrested twice in one day?”
“Like I had a choice.”
“Get out of there, Fantasy, and get back here. Birdy’s on the loose.”
“What do you mean, Birdy’s on the loose?”
“She found the wrong suitcase at Bianca’s and is on her way to Lost and Found with it.”
“Run that by me again.”
I ran it by her again.
“Who told her she had the wrong suitcase?”
“That,” I said, “I don’t know.”
“Where’s the right suitcase? And what’s in it?” she asked. “The money?”
“I’m on my way to Lost and Found to find out.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
And that’s when I got my first break of the long, long day. A day that never really started because I’d slept so very little the night before. As I stepped out of the sub-basement elevator on my way to Lost and Found, my phone blew up in my pocket with Megan Shaw alerts. Her phone had pinged into the Bellissimo network. She was back. At the Bellissimo. I found her—or, rather, the blue dot that was her phone—on the executive floor. She was at the opposite end of the hall from where I’d been a half an hour earlier setting off smoke alarms in Seattle. I stumbled down the dark tunnel on my way to Lost and Found watching Megan Shaw’s phone travel in the same direction several floors above me. I lost her when she stepped into the employee elevator just past Bradley’s office and didn’t pick her up again until she exited the elevator on the convention level of the casino. Megan Shaw was at the Double Trouble slot machine tournament.
I called Baylor.
“What?” He wasn’t happy. “I’m busy.”
“What are you doing?”
“Your job,” he said. “I’m at the tournament.”
“In the convention center?”
“We didn’t move it, Davis.”
“How close are you to the employee elevator?” I was having trouble breathing.
“Which employee elevator?”
I rounded a corner to see a thin light coming from the cracked door of Lost and Found. I picked up my pace.
“The one that goes from the executive floor to the convention center.”
“I’m two feet from it,” he said. “I just stepped out of it.”
“Baylor!” I stopped dead in my tracks. “Megan Shaw was in that elevator. You rode the elevator with Megan Shaw?”
“What?”
At some point, I started moving again, and had I not slowed down, I wouldn’t have been able to navigate the disaster that was the Lost and Found floor. I’d have wound up on it. “Birdy?”
“Oh, hello there, Davis.” She was seated at her small desk, her eyeglasses—finally—perched on her nose. “You want to know what it says?” She held up and shook what must have been her copy of Friday’s Incident Report.
Baylor said, “Are you talking about the Casino Credit cashier? The baby’s mother?”
“Yes.” I held up a wait-a-minute finger to Birdy. “You just rode the elevator with her. Did you he
ar me? Megan Shaw was on her phone in the employee elevator from the executive floor to the convention center.”
“It says—” Birdy, who wasn’t waiting a minute, zoomed in on her Birdynotes. “Hold the blue bag for M until Monday.”
I covered the mouthpiece and said to Birdy, “Where’s the blue bag, Birdy? And who is M?”
“No, she didn’t,” Baylor said into one of my ears just as Birdy said into the other, “I don’t know where the blue bag is, and I don’t know who M is. Maybe Mortimer?”
I scanned the clutter that was the Lost and Found floor and said to Baylor, “Yes, she did. Just now. She was in the employee elevator on her phone.”
“There were two people in the employee elevator,” he said. “I was one and Megan Shaw wasn’t the other.”
“Well, who was?” I covered the mouthpiece of my phone. “Birdy! There’s a blue bag.” It was a blue baby bag a foot from her chair, the only blue bag in sight, and there was only one baby in the nightmare I was living: Megan Shaw’s. The M in Birdy’s note must have been Megan. “Right beside you.” I pointed to a quilted blue backpack covered with zooming Hot Wheels between—and why not?—two black spinner suitcases. “Can you reach it, Birdy?” Then to Baylor, I said, “Who?”
“Who what?” he asked.
“Who was the other person in the elevator?”
Birdy rolled her chair to the backpack in half-inch increments.
Baylor said, “You don’t want to know.”
So it was Clone.
Clone, the thorn in my side, the woman who’d taken my celebrity double job, the woman who I went to enormous lengths to avoid, Clone. Had I slowed down long enough to give Clone an ounce of consideration, something I never gave her, I might’ve guessed she was in the heist mix.
“And she was on the phone,” Baylor said.
Why was Clone on Megan Shaw’s phone? “Was on the phone, Baylor? Was? Is she still on it? Because we really need to know who she’s talking to.”
“Hold on,” Baylor said.
“What in tarnation?” Birdy was unzipping the blue backpack one tooth at a time.
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