“Yes. I did want out, and I got out,” I told her. “And my life has never been better.”
“Ah, see, I knew you’d understand. Sometimes you have to get out of a relationship and then things get better.”
I didn’t like where this was headed. My eyes darted around the room. What could I do to get away from Wendy? Crawl up a stack of boxes? There was no real way out, except for the passageway that Wendy was blocking.
“What about you and Saundra?” I asked. “You were friends. Did you want out of that relationship? Was she stealing designs from you?”
“Saundra? My friend? Ha! Such a pretentious name, Saundra, don’t you think? She’ll always be Sandy to me—and she was more a business partner than a friend. It had been that way for years. Commerce, plain and simple.”
I decided to keep her talking. She’d blocked me into the long narrow room, and she knew it.
“You were both successful. Certainly there couldn’t have been any jealousy between you.”
“Oh, Jax, you’re right, no jealously. But greed, there was plenty of that. And creativity? There wasn’t much of that—at least for Sandy. I had plenty of creativity for the both of us.”
I kept quiet, trying to figure out what my options were, hoping to keep her talking.
“Did you ever sell something and then wish you hadn’t? Did you try to get that something back and have someone stand in your way?”
“I’ve tried to live without regrets, but it’s hard,” I said. “What about you?”
“The only regret I have is that I showed you this bracelet. You saw the scratch on my wrist from your damn cat,” she said quietly. “You know I was in your room. And you know what? That’s fine. When I saw you in the lobby talking with that security guard the night after Saundra died, I knew you were poking around trying to figure out what happened to her. I admit I was trying to scare you, calling you on the phone and telling you to stop it. And destroying your room? That was me just trying to scare you enough so you’d go home and stop trying to figure out who had killed my dear, dear friend,” Wendy said with a twist of sarcasm in her voice.
“You know, speaking of friends, I think Tessa’s looking for me,” I said, hoping that Wendy would let me go if she knew that Tessa would be barging in searching for me at any moment. No such luck.
“I’m going to tell you something I probably shouldn’t tell you. But I want someone to know. Someone to understand what it’s been like for me all these years.”
“Look, Wendy, you don’t have to tell me anything. Let’s just say goodbye and call it a day. I’m tired, aren’t you?” I said, hoping I could derail whatever confession I was about to hear from her. I would much rather that she confess to someone official than to me. Especially since I was feeling vulnerable, trapped in this small room with someone who clearly had murderous intentions.
“Oh Jax, it’s okay. I’m going to tell you, and then, like with my dear friend Sandy, I’m going to zap the life right out of you. It worked so well on her, don’t you think?”
I knew this for certain: Wendy was riding the crazy train.
“Where do people’s creative ideas come from, Jax?”
I stood still, saying nothing.
“Jax, when I ask you a question, you need to answer it.” Wendy grabbed a cable from the floor and flung it at me.
I dodged the cable. “From their imagination?” I said.
“Sorry, Jax, that is incorrect. That’s a good answer, but not accurate. In Sandy’s case, do you want to know where she got her creative ideas? Do you?” Wendy asked, lurching forward. “She got her ideas from me.”
Wendy pulled on a fist-sized cable hanging from the ceiling. “Oh, what a shame, this one isn’t powered up. It’s got no juice, no energy. Kind of like my dear friend Sandy. Even before she died, she was dead creatively. Sad but true.” Wendy dropped the cable, and we watched it swing back and forth, like a noose on the gallows.
“You don’t have to tell me any of this.” I didn’t want to hear anything more. She was going to confess and then she was going to kill me. That’s what crazy killers do to the person they confess to—and I really, really didn’t want to be that person.
“Let’s try another one now, shall we?” Wendy unclipped the thick black cable from a power box, like the kind I’d had in my booth. “Oh dear, another dead one. It’s hard to find a live wire around here,” she said, laughing at her cleverness.
“You see, at first it seemed like a terrific idea,” Wendy continued, inching toward me. “Sandy paid me for my brilliant designs. I had so many ideas, and she had dried up creatively years ago. She was willing to keep buying my ideas, and I just kept thinking up new things. When I asked you where creative ideas come from, there were a couple of correct answers. One answer: You buy them from a friend. Another answer: You steal them, which is what it seems dear old Sandy did to Minnie, stole a design from that poor young woman.
“I’d been trying to break out of my deal with Sandy for years. I wanted all my designs back. Designs that she’d made her living with, that she’d made thousands of dollars on. I sold her all my best ideas, and what did that leave me? Polka dots. Stupid, boring, crappy polka dots.”
“You could have just made your own designs and not worried about whether Saundra made them or not,” I said. “You didn’t have to just make dots.”
“Oh, and have my work be called derivative—copying the work of the great Saundra Jameson? I don’t think so. No, no. That simply wasn’t possible,” said Wendy, moving toward a large metal electrical cabinet with its door ajar, a padlock hanging open on the outside.
“Wendy, seriously, I don’t want to hear this. Let’s just get out of here, and we’ll see if we can clear this up,” I said, stepping as far back from her as possible.
“Oh, now, this looks like a live one,” Wendy said, reaching inside the cabinet.
Steadying herself, she gripped the cabinet frame and yanked on a well-worn plug. An arc of electricity burst from the panel, lighting up the room with a pulsing release of energy. Like lightning, the flash hit Wendy hard, slamming into her and pushing her backward into a stack of boxes. Screaming, Wendy crumpled to the floor. The room crashed into darkness. I climbed past Wendy and her scooter, staying low to avoid the smoke that was filling the room.
I stumbled through the dark ballroom and found Ryan in the lobby.
“Wendy was electrocuted!” I grabbed Ryan’s hand and pulled him into the darkness. He flicked on his flashlight as we ran past the empty tables. We rounded the corner into the utility room. Wendy was lying face-up on the floor, her eyes half-closed, a smoking power cord next to her. The acrid smell of melted wire and burnt skin hung in the air.
I looked closely at Wendy. She was still breathing, but barely.
“Wendy confessed to killing Saundra and tried to kill me, too.”
“I’ll call for medical help,” Ryan said, kneeling next to Wendy.
Leaving Ryan with Wendy, I sprinted through the darkness and into the bright lobby. I found Tiffany in the conference room she’d been using for her chats.
“Detective, we have solved the murder of Saundra Jameson,” I said, out of breath.
Tiffany’s perfect eyebrows arched in surprise. “I already have the culprits in custody,” she said, looking disdainfully at me. “Better luck next time.”
“Detective? I think you should go check the utility room,” I said. “You’ll find the real killer in there.”
Tiffany headed into the darkened ballroom.
FORTY-ONE
RYAN AND I WATCHED as a gurney holding Wendy Wilson was pushed through the hotel’s back doors by a crew of emergency technicians, followed closely behind by Detective Tiffany Houston.
“I think Detective Houston can handle things from here. Now, Ms. O, may I escort you to your room?” Ryan asked as he wrapped his arm around me.
“My room? Does that mean I can stay another night?”
“Yes, it does,” Ryan said as we got
into the elevator and pressed the button for the penthouse suite. The doors slid shut, and Ryan reached up and put his hand over the camera so the guards watching the elevator’s video stream wouldn’t be able to see us. He kissed me, the longest, best kiss I’d ever had.
“That’s strange,” Ryan said, removing his hand from the camera. “The trapdoor up here by the camera is open. Someone working on the elevator must have forgotten to close it. No wonder it’s been so cold in here.” He reached up and pulled the small door shut.
Mystery solved. No ghosts here at The Red Rose Hotel.
“But one thing is mysterious. Why does it smell like women’s perfume in here?” Ryan asked.
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you all about it sometime.”
“Would you like to come in?” I asked when we arrived at my room. “Gumdrop went home with Val, and Tessa went with them.”
“That means you’re alone?” Ryan asked. “Because I have been assigned to keep a close eye on you. A really close eye.”
“Do you want to see how close you can get?” I asked.
“Oh, yes, I do,” Ryan said as he closed the door behind us. “First we’ve got to make sure your suite is secure. Let’s check the bedroom.”
The radio on Ryan’s belt crackled to life. “Ryan? It’s Marie. We’ve got a situation down here in reception.”
Ryan pressed the button on his radio and responded. “Marie, I’m off duty now.”
“No one else is answering. We’ve got a man, he looks like he’s got a gun—”
“Jax, I’m sorry, I’ve got to go,” Ryan said, and not waiting for me to respond, he dashed out the door.
“Goodbye,” I said with a sigh as I closed the door behind him. It was going to be a lonely evening. I dug through the mini-bar and found a tiny bottle of champagne and a precious box of Godiva chocolates, then headed toward the bathroom to draw a bubble bath. I was finally going to get my Double Bubbles.
FORTY-TWO
RYAN FOUND ME the next morning while I was putting the last of my show supplies into the trunk of The Ladybug.
“Jax! Great news!”
“I get to spend another night?”
“No, sorry, but I hope you weren’t too lonesome last night without me.”
“I survived.” On champagne and chocolate. “What about the gunman?”
“It was a false alarm. The guy had an umbrella,” Ryan said with an exasperated sigh.
“Of course it was. We are in Portland, after all.”
“I did some checking into Carl Shulman’s background, and he used to work on the security staff at the University of Oregon campus. Detective Houston checked her database, and it looks like Carl may be the guard who turned Miles over to the police when he hit that cop in the face with his protest sign. We’re looking at whether Miles was trying to settle that score.”
“Ryan?”
“The coroner is looking at a ukulele case as the murder weapon. Can you believe—?”
“Ryan? Can we talk about something else? I’m kind of all murdered-out,” I said.
“Of course, sorry,” Ryan said. “I just got carried away.”
“Will you come up and visit? Seattle’s only a few hours away,” I said.
“I applied for a position in the Seattle Police Department a few months ago. All I need to do is pass my final exams, and hopefully I’ll get hired. With luck, I’ll be moving closer to you,” Ryan said. “They asked me last week for my references, which means I’m on the short list of candidates. Can I give them your name?”
“Sure, I’m happy to help,” I said, wondering if he’d actually move to Seattle some day. It seemed like a long shot.
Ryan pulled me up close and kissed me. “I’ll see you again,” he said. He let go of me gently, looking at me intensely with those deep, mocha eyes. My whole body felt warm and flushed. I put the top down on The Ladybug so I could cool down, but I didn’t think it would help much.
• • •
When I got home, Tessa’s car was parked out front. I drove around back and let myself in through the studio. “Tessa? Tessa? Are you here?” I called as I dropped my suitcase at the backdoor.
Gumdrop cruised down the hall toward me.
“Gummie! Are you feeling better after your trip?” I picked up my cat and placed him on the kitchen counter. I pulled a bowl out of one of my cabinets. What was this? New cabinet knobs! My entire kitchen had them, and better still, they were the color of Ryan’s eyes. Who had installed these? I was pretty sure I knew who the culprit was: Val.
Gumdrop paced impatiently back and forth across the counter, waiting for his treat, completely unimpressed by my new cabinet hardware. I opened the freezer, flicked a catnip ice cube into the bowl, and placed it on the floor. Gumdrop launched himself off the counter and attacked the catnip cube.
I headed out my front door, then turned and knocked on Val’s door. There was a booming bark from the other side of it.
“Val, open up. It’s Jax.”
“What’s the secret password?”
“We don’t have one.” At least I knew what the password was this time.
“I’m sorry, that is incorrect. I changed my password,” Val said through the door. “I heard that it’s a good security measure to change your password now and then.”
“Open the door right now!”
“Oh, good, you know the new password.”
Val opened the door, and Stanley nearly bowled me over. “Stanley, back off,” I said, but it was too late. My shoes were already covered in slobber.
“Tessa, I thought I saw your car out front. What are you doing here?”
“Returning Stanley.”
“Did you see my present?” Val asked.
“So it was you! Thank you so much. Those knobs are perfect. Where did you get them?”
“At the Saturday Market. I bought them the same day I bought the Cosmos bead, and we were so distracted by the bead, I never got a chance to give you the knobs.”
I flopped down on Val’s bright pink sofa, resting my head on one of the zebra pillows.
“You’re never going to guess what happened after you left,” I said.
“Oh, did you and Ryan get a chance for a little horizontal hokey-pokey?” Val asked.
I ignored the question.
“I almost died—nearly got electrocuted. And I found out who Saundra’s murderer was.”
“We already know who the murderer was, it was Minnie,” Tessa said.
“But it’s not Minnie. It’s Wendy.”
“No way! I can’t believe it,” Tessa said. “And what about Miles?”
“Yeah, but did you get a little nookie?” Val asked.
“I’m not saying.”
“Aha! That means yes.”
“No, it means I’m not going to talk about it.”
“Let me Vulcan Mind Meld you. Please. I can find out without you saying a word.”
“No way, Val.”
FORTY-THREE
A FEW DAYS LATER, I had a visitor at my front door.
“Detective Grant? What a surprise.” I had wondered if the stern detective might stop by again. After our last phone conversation, it sounded like he might. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see him, now that I had Ryan in my life. Ryan wasn’t exactly in my life, but he had potential, especially if he moved to Seattle.
“Come in,” I said. I’d never seen Zachary Grant looking so casual. He looked like a different guy in khakis and a navy polo shirt. And while he looked a little stiff around the edges, he had a sexiness about him I’d never quite seen before.
“Nice to see you again, Jax,” Zachary said.
I was glad the house wasn’t too much of a train wreck. The dishes had been done, and I’d recently de-furred the sofa and rugs.
“Have a seat here at the kitchen table.” I was nervous to have him in my house. Detective Grant had always snarled at me when he could have smiled, and it was only recently that he had shown any signs of warmth. “Thanks for
getting rid of the scary guy who was lurking around on our front porch.”
“No problem. One of our officers had a talk with him. Turns out he had a couple of priors, so you won’t be seeing him again for a while.”
“I’ll let Val know that she doesn’t need to worry about him.”
“I suppose you’re wondering what I’m doing here,” the detective said, taking off his dark-framed glasses and setting them on the table. He went from Clark Kent to Superman by simply removing his glasses.
“Yes, I am. Is this business? Personal?”
“A mixture. Your name popped up in the most unusual way. I was reading some applications for new recruits to the police force…”
I knew where this was headed.
“Did you come across an applicant named Ryan Shaw, by any chance?” I asked.
“As a matter of fact, I did. He lists you as a personal and professional reference.”
“I can vouch for him. Very professional. He helped solve a murder at a hotel in Portland.”
“And personal?”
“He’s a nice guy, an upstanding citizen.”
“Just how personal are you talking about?”
“Detective Grant, that’s none of your busi—“
“Zachary.”
“What exactly are you asking? Does the nature of my relationship with Ryan Shaw have any bearing on his application to the Seattle Police Department?”
“That depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“On whether you’d be willing to go out with me if Ryan moved to Seattle.”
“Are you asking me out?” Oh dear, life was getting complicated.
“Yes, I suppose I am,” said Zachary.
“And Ryan?”
“No, I don’t want to go out with him,” Zachary said, cracking a smile. “I think he’ll be moving up here if he accepts his job offer. And you, do you accept my offer?”
“Yes, I suppose I do.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A Bead in the Hand (Glass Bead Mystery Series Book 2) Page 20