Foul Play on Words

by Becky Clark

  Was the cop right? Was this all my imagination?

  I jumped when I heard voices outside my door. I tiptoed over and put my eye to the peephole in time to see the backs of two men pass by.

  When my heart stopped racing, I decided to go about things systematically and pulled out my yellow tablet. Plopping into the desk chair, I listed all the facts I absolutely knew.

  Hanna missing.

  Hanna’s voicemail. Was it really her? I didn’t even know what she sounded like.

  Viv in debt. I tapped my pen, then added, I think.

  Jack and saRAH lied about knowing Hanna at first.

  saRAH in my room even though Do Not Disturb sign out.

  Hanna disappears a lot.

  Hanna dating Michael Watanabe.

  Watanabe was—perhaps is—a drug dealer.

  Roz somehow linked to Hanna’s rehab facility.

  Chef mysteriously fired.

  Garth is Hanna’s father. I tapped my pen. But does he know?

  Photo of me and Garth on Hanna’s Symwyf page. Why?

  Garth wasn’t traveling the world.

  Brad Pitt staying in this hotel.

  Greg Pitt lost everything due to Viv helping those fighting against him.

  B. Pitt’s comment that Viv ruined this life.

  Then I got stuck. Seriously? That was all I knew?

  I drew an angry line bisecting the page. As I read each fact, I wrote a new list underneath it.

  Hanna—disappeared herself.

  Viv—faked the kidnapping with or without Hanna’s help. To raise money?

  Jack—angry with Hanna meddling in his love life

  saRAH—ditto.

  Michael Watanabe—got Hanna hooked again? Faked her kidnapping? Drug deal gone bad?

  Roz—involved in drug deal and rehab?

  Chef—??

  Brad Pitt—same as B. Pitt? Grudge against Viv?

  Greg Pitt—Grudge against Viv?

  Garth—found out Viv lied to him all these years about Hanna?

  This new list didn’t clarify anything for me. In fact, it made everything fuzzier. But one thing was still as crystal clear as the fish tank in my dentist’s swanky office.

  I called Viv again. Voicemail. I wanted to call Ozzi and Lance, but I knew they’d both try to talk me out of what I knew I had to do.

  I stepped out of the elevator in the lobby and searched the area. The bar was crowded and the dogs and handlers were either performing their tricks or standing around in clumps chatting or sniffing butts. I made a circuit of the lobby, ending on the side near the conference rooms. I didn’t see who I was looking for.

  I peeked into the ballroom, which had been created by the opening of accordion doors in the Willamette, Columbia, Mount Hood, and Multnomah Rooms. The opening night banquet was well underway. Round tables seating eight were piled high with mostly empty do-it-yourself bowls that once held toppings of bacon, shredded cheddar cheese, chili, chives, and sour cream. The majority of plates were scraped clean of their loaded baked potatoes. Seemed everyone had been pleased with Jerry’s culinary offering.

  The writers stared raptly at Garth, who was giving his banquet speech in a dressier kaftan than he’d worn earlier. It was midnight blue, imprinted with grinning gold suns and half-moons wearing spectacles, but this kaftan was knee-length. The angled side seams pointed toward his bare feet like two arrows.

  I walked the perimeter of the room but still didn’t see any sign of Brad Pitt. He wasn’t in the lobby or the bar area, nor was he in the banquet room.

  Garth rearranged the pointy arrow sleeves of his kaftan before leaning into the microphone. “Let me leave you with an original sonnet and interpretive dance I’ve written to mark this occasion—”

  I was curious but feared I’d carry eternal scars from witnessing such a performance. I hurried for the exit and ran smack into Clementine.

  “Did you finish those shirts yet?” she whispered loudly.

  “Not yet.” I tried to step around her but she planted one lime green stiletto in purple-striped stockings in front of me.

  “You promised. We need them.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll go right back upstairs and finish.”

  “You better.”

  I hurried away and hoped she wasn’t watching as I veered to the front desk.

  The name tag of the man working was crooked and I tilted my head to read it. “Good evening, Paul.” I smiled what I hoped was a friendly looking smile and not something that screamed UP TO NO GOOD. “I’ve forgotten the room number of my friend, Brad Pitt. Can you please refresh my memory?”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I can’t give out guests’ room numbers. But let me connect you to his room with the house phone.” Paul clattered on his keyboard for a moment, then looked up and said, “We don’t have anyone here by that name. You said it was Brad … Pitt?”

  “Yes.” I showed him my teeth again. “Are you sure?”

  He checked again, then looked up, apologetic. “I’m sorry. No Brad Pitt here. No Pitts of any kind, in fact.”

  This time I grinned wide and meant it. “Thanks so much!”

  Brad had checked out of the hotel. Either he’d never been involved in the kidnapping or, if he had been, he’d already collected the ransom Viv cobbled together and disappeared with it. I didn’t know how she’d raised the money, but however she did it, that was a bridge I could help her cross later. I only knew that Hanna was safe and that I didn’t have to go upstairs and call all those people George Bailey–style tonight. I could actually do that ironing I promised Clementine.

  I stepped away from the front desk and tried Viv’s number again. Still no answer. A knot of unease formed, but just as quickly dissipated. Viv was probably reuniting with Hanna and didn’t want to be disturbed.

  The crowd surged out of the ballroom and into the lobby, signaling the end of Garth’s banquet speech. I hoped everyone would recover from his interpretive dance. Please, dear God, for the love of all that is holy, let him have been wearing undies. Protect those fine, unsuspecting writers.

  Clementine saw me standing there and gave me the stink-eye again, so I raced for the elevator to beat the hordes of people wanting to go to their rooms.

  I made it to the eighth floor on the first elevator and felt lighter than I’d felt since leaving Colorado. Light enough that even wrestling the ironing board from where it had collapsed between the bed and the wall couldn’t even make me cranky.

  Sixteen

  A smart woman would have remembered the rude awakening

  of the night before last, when the ironing board took a nosedive in the wee hours. Unfortunately, a smart woman was not staying in my room. I rubbed my elbow where I’d banged it during yet another frantic flight from the Ironing Board Monster.

  I checked my phone for any calls or texts that had come in last night while I was sleeping. None. I turned the ringer back on.

  That knot of unease returned.

  I’d been sure that with Brad Pitt checking out, Hanna’s kidnapping, or whatever it was, was over. But still not getting any calls or texts from Viv made me waver. Perhaps Brad Pitt wasn’t involved after all? Perhaps I’d jumped the gun?

  The Do Not Disturb sign remained on the outside of my suite door, and I contemplated removing it since it hadn’t previously prevented saRAH from coming in to clean. But when I left, my hands were full of T-shirts and in-room coffee, so I decided to leave the sign swinging on the door handle for all to see. Besides, I had plenty of towels and tiny soaps and shampoos, and I figured the maids had enough to do with all the canine guests.

  Juggling the T-shirts piled in the crook of one arm, I was halfway to the elevator when I heard a noise in the hallway behind me. Worried I’d been shedding a trail of shirts, I turned to check. No path of shirts, but I saw a figure duck dow
n behind a maid’s cart near my room. The noise I heard hadn’t seemed to be the rumble of the cart, but it must have been. I continued toward the elevator.

  I pushed the button with my elbow, trying three times before lighting it up. In the process, I lost my tenuous hold on the wobbly pile of T-shirts and they fell into a dismal heap on the floor, blocking one of the doors to the elevator. I knelt and scooped to collect them, raising my head toward movement down the hall, ready to apologize for the mess. Instead, I saw a floral print headwrap duck into my room. saRAH!

  Again going to clean my room despite the Do Not Disturb sign?

  I kicked the T-shirts up against the wall and away from the elevator, then tiptoed back down the hall. My Do Not Disturb swung provocatively exactly where I’d left it, visible to everyone walking by. The cleaning cart was three rooms down and my door was shut tight.

  I slid my key out of my back pocket and in one deft movement was in my room with the door closed behind me. I stood frozen in the alcove, assessing the situation. A bit too late I realized I could be in danger. That’s what happens when my curiosity leaps ahead of common sense.

  saRAH was in the bedroom, and apparently hadn’t heard me because I heard her unzipping my suitcase. I looked around for a weapon, but the only thing I saw was the telephone on the desk. I tiptoed over and unplugged the handset from the cord. How I longed for my parents’ ancient rotary phone. That thing had some heft to it. When you angrily hung up our kitchen phone, the recipient of your ire felt it in their kidneys. This flimsy piece of plastic in my hand might squish a spider, but only if you were lucky and it was mostly dead already.

  It was too late to seek out a new weapon, though, because suddenly saRAH came out of the bedroom. I raised the phone like a shield. She took a step back and gasped. I suspected it was because she saw me, not the toy phone.

  “Why are you in here?” I waved the phone at her.

  “I’m cleaning.”

  “Then why is your cart not outside?”

  “I’m trying to get my steps in.”

  I checked her wrist. “No Fitbit.”

  “I use an app on my phone.”

  “Okay, then why don’t you have any cleaning supplies with you or an armful of wet towels or anything?”

  “Because I brought in new shampoos and soaps for you.”

  “Were you putting them in my suitcase?”

  Our staring contest lasted either thirty seconds or fourteen years. Couldn’t be sure. But she blinked.

  “Fine. I’m not here to clean your room.”

  I waited for further explanation. And waited. “So what exactly are you doing in here?”

  saRAH glided to the loveseat and folded her graceful legs under her. “Hanna has disappeared.”

  “But I thought she—”

  “And I’m sure it has something to do with the drugs that you and Michael Watanabe are dealing.”

  I knew what every single one of those words meant, but strung together like that, the meaning stumped me. “Me? Drugs? Dealing?”

  She stared through me until I almost believed that I was in the wrong here.

  “I’m not dealing drugs!”

  “Then what was in that bag he delivered to you on Thursday?”

  “Food. From his restaurant.”

  “Twice in one day?”

  She was tracking my calories? Not cool. I didn’t want to admit that I’d had an ulterior reason for wanting to talk to Watanabe. Instead, I patted my belly. “It’s so good! I might already be addicted to—oh! You heard me say he got me hooked!”

  saRAH nodded. “I was picking up the linens from the restaurant.”

  “Well, he did get me hooked. On yakisoba.”

  “Then why didn’t you eat it?”

  “How do you know I didn’t eat it?”

  “There was no trash in your room afterward.”

  “The front desk told me I couldn’t bring outside food into the hotel, so to bribe them, I gave it all to them.”

  “After you took the drugs out.”

  “No!”

  She raised her smug eyebrows.

  “That was a trick question,” I said. I realized I still held the phone in the air, so I slowly, perhaps even threateningly, lowered it to my side. “Let me ask you a question, and it’s not even a trick. Even if I did buy drugs along with my yakisoba, what in the world does that have to do with Hanna?” If saRAH was wrong about me dealing drugs, she was probably also wrong about Hanna still being gone.

  saRAH thought for a moment, all the while keeping her gaze on my face. “Hanna’s been clean for eight months. You and Watanabe show up here at the same time she goes missing. He claims he’s delivering food for minimum wage and out of the business. You claim to be a friend of Hanna’s mom.”

  “I am a friend of Hanna’s mom. But why would that be suspicious in any way?” This conversation seemed to have as much, if not more, to do with Michael Watanabe as it did with Hanna. Was all of this a jealous ruse to keep me away from Watanabe? Did saRAH think we had something going on? Well, two could play this game. “I saw you with Michael Watanabe by the pool. Does Jack know you’re stepping out on him?”

  “I’m not!”

  “Then what were you doing with him, all hidden out there?”

  She burned me with her laser-like stare before answering. “I was asking him about Hanna.”

  “What a coincidence. I asked him that, too. But I didn’t have to skulk around to do it.”

  “Coincidences are never just coincidences,” she said.

  “Yes they are,” I said.

  A million examples raced through my mind. Identical twins, separated at birth, who go on to lead essentially the same lives. Norman Mailer, who wrote a novel about a Russian spy only to find out later that a real-life one lived upstairs from him. Mark Twain’s dates of birth and death, marked by the appearance of Haley’s Comet seventy-four years apart. Three of us on a panel at a writers’ conference having the same birthday. Running into my neighbor last year in Santa Fe while at my mom’s house for Christmas.

  Or coming to Portland the same day that my friend’s daughter was kidnapped.

  “Coincidences are always coincidences,” I said firmly. “And why are you all of a sudden so concerned about Hanna?”

  “We’re friends,” she finally said.

  I was unconvinced.

  She kept staring at me.

  “Did you find drugs in my room?”

  She quirked her mouth as if the word was painful to say. “No.”

  “So, by your logic, Watanabe and I are dealing drugs, but you didn’t find them. If there are no drugs, I would have had to sell them in, what, thirty-six hours?”

  “That’s how it’s done.”

  “So maybe you’re looking for wads of cash?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you find any?”

  “No. But you interrupted me.”

  “By all means, continue your search. I’ll even help.” I waved a magnanimous arm, offering her the living area. I moved to the coffee table, right in front of her, and unscrewed the mouth and ear pieces of the phone’s handset. I held it out for her inspection. “No drugs. No cash.” She didn’t move. “Go ahead. I’m waiting.” I stepped toward the bedroom. “Did you finish in my suitcase? Although you must not think too highly of my drug dealer skills if you assume I’d toss everything in there on top of my undies.”

  We had another staring contest. I lost.

  “I didn’t buy drugs from Watanabe,” I said flatly. “And I can’t prove a negative. Ask him.” I screwed the phone back together.

  “I did.”

  I didn’t look at her. “What did he say?”

  “That you ordered Japanese food.”

  “See? Another coincidence. Now get out of here before I tell your boss.�
��

  I ushered saRAH out of my room and watched her leave the hallway, ignoring the cleaning cart. A uniformed maid stepped out of the room two doors down and gave me a cheery greeting as she grabbed two drinking glasses and a roll of toilet paper. I sighed and tossed the Do Not Disturb sign on the floor inside my suite before heading back to the elevator and my discarded T-shirts.

  I saw Jack at the far end of the hall, wheeling a large suitcase for a man carrying a Boston terrier. Jack was performing his concierge routine, just like he’d done for me when I checked in. He set the guest’s suitcase down, stepped forward to unlock the door, gave a gentlemanly sweep of his arm to usher the guest in first, and picked up the suitcase to follow. Odd, then, to see him pocket the room key instead of handing it over to the guest, as he’d made a show of doing with me.

  It wasn’t my room, or my key, but it made me uneasy all the same. First, saRAH’s odd beliefs and overwhelming need to search my room, and now Jack acting odd while doing his job. I fought the impulse to crawl into bed and tremble under the covers.

  As I passed the open door of the suite, Jack bent down to pet the Boston terrier and didn’t see me. I was glad, because I probably would have blurted something about saRAH, and I hadn’t quite processed everything yet.

  saRAH said that Hanna was still missing. Surely she would have heard if her friend was found. Wouldn’t she? And now Viv being AWOL—on the very day the kidnapper had threatened to start whacking attendees?

  Perhaps Viv and Hanna were debriefing, or celebrating now that the crisis—whatever it was—was over. But surely she’d call to let me know? Wouldn’t she? Viv knew I was worried.

  I was glad the pile of T-shirts remained heaped on the floor near the elevator where I’d kicked them. I didn’t need an extra dose of Clementine’s wrath if I had to tell her the shirts had disappeared. I loaded them into my arms.

  Nothing made much sense. Not only were my old questions not answered but it seemed I collected new ones like T-shirts. By the armful.

  I pushed the elevator button, not sure if I wanted Jack to finish his business with the guest and join me or not. I couldn’t form an opinion as to whether Jack was behaving mysteriously or normally. Moot point. The elevator door opened. I rode down alone.