DECEPTION HOTEL: A Wedding, an Affair, and Murder for Hire

by Barlow, Madison

  “And now my sister gets to have it at no cost at all, and I’m stuck in this room, without a happy ending.”

  “Love shouldn’t come at a cost—”

  “Apparently it does.”

  “—And you’re not alone.”

  I thought of Andrew, his sole mission in life to get a better job, to be away, to be somewhere he could control everything but not be part of it.

  Peter reached out and took my hand, and softly tugged at it, asking me silently to follow him to the bed. I hesitated for a fraction of a second, but he looked so sincere, his eyes warm and his face concerned His hand was big around mine, assuring. I buckled and followed him. I sat down, and he sat next to me, looking at me like I had so much I needed to say.

  I looked down at my hands again. How much could he tell by just looking at me? How much was I showing him that I thought I’d locked away forever? The lump in my throat threatened to rise again, and I swallowed hard, forcing a smile.

  It didn’t last. Everything that I had pushed away for so long was pushing back now, like water against a dam wall, and it was threatening to break. There were cracks already, I could feel them, and Peter’s eyes just pushed it all that much further. I could never keep anything quiet if someone looked at me long enough without saying something. That had always been something Andrew never understood, something that saved me from breaking lately. I could feel my walls crumbling, feel the resolve to be perfect slip away and the chaotic mess of emotions that had defined me my whole life threaten to swallow me whole.

  “My parents,” I swallowed, trying not to cry, keeping my voice steady, “they just fell out of love. Just like that, like it was a mood. We’d grown up with how important family was. We were close when I was a kid, closer than I thought any family ever was.”

  He kept quiet, just looking at me, waiting for me to go on, and it left me little choice. The water was coming now, I could just as well ride it out.

  “I used to watch my friends. I saw how they were with their parents. They didn’t get along, the one didn’t understand the other, they never agreed. Even their siblings, where I wished I had a sister close enough to relate to, they had them all around them and they hated them. And I remember thinking that I was so lucky to have a family like mine, one where we respected each other, and trusted each other.”

  Tears formed in my eyes and blurred my hands into rough shapes, the outlines gone missing the waves of emotion.

  “I started growing up, and it happens like that, I guess. You realize that things you thought you knew as a child weren’t like that after all. Almost like Santa Clause, or the Tooth Fairy. Except, with me, and my sister too, I suppose, it was just the illusion of our family that had suddenly snapped into place.”

  I was aware that my voice had started to crack, started sounding a bit whinier, the way it always did when I talked and cried at the same time, the way I hated for it to sound.

  “My parents had never been happily married. When I brought home my first boyfriend, my mother unleashed the hell that was her marriage on me. I heard of every wrong my father had done her, every bit of pain that painted her as a victim. She told me over and over again how I would never be happy, that marriage was a waste of time, a waste of life.”

  “That must have been hard.”

  I nodded, the tears streaming down my face. I didn’t care now.

  “I think the worst of it wall was the fact that they never fought. They never fought with each other, but they didn’t fight for each other either. It just slowly died. A painful death, and I saw it happening right in front of my eyes. My father refused to do anything about it, he said he wasn’t wrong, there was nothing to do. My mother decided there was no way to fix it anymore. After years of being strangers to each other, they split up.”

  “Are you scared that will happen to you?”

  I nodded mutely, still looking at my hands. I was scared to look at his face now, scared of what he might think of me now that I had cried like a baby, like someone wanting attention or something.

  “It doesn’t have to, you know,” he said, and his voice was still warm.

  “I know,” I breathed in deeply, “I’ve developed a wonderful habit of fighting to make sure it never happens.”

  He chuckled.

  “It’s ridiculous, I know.”

  “It’s not. It makes sense. Good you’re giving me a heads-up.”

  His words ripped through me like a hurricane, and I looked up into his melted brown eyes.

  “You don’t have to be so scared of relationships, you know,” he said, reading more than was there. Or maybe it was there, but he was reading it wrong.

  “I’m not—” but he cut me off. His hand crawled onto my jaw and suddenly his face was right there, his breath warm on my skin. His lips were soft when they touched mine. His words flitted through my mind. I wasn’t scared of relationships. Plural. I was scared of one relationship. Mine.

  I pushed against his chest, but he murmured through his kisses, and kept kissing me. I wanted to stop him, wanted to tell him not to, but his hands on my face were so warm. And they were big and rough, from hard work, and it felt like they could keep the danger away somehow. It felt like I had been cold my whole life. I had been cold even under Andrew’s touch, under his warm looks that he used to direct at me, because he didn’t understand, he didn’t get that besides the spring at the beginning of our marriage, my whole life had been a cold, dark winter.

  A warmth spread through my body, and the iron fist in my stomach let go completely, finally letting me breathe in deeply. I was safe now, it made sense, he understood somehow. There had to be someone that understood. But it felt all wrong. I squeezed my eyes shut, and concentrated on the feeling that was buzzing through my veins now as his body inched closer to mine and his lips parted, asking for more.

  I wasn’t there for the rest of it. Or rather, I was, but I wasn’t the person I used to be. He stretched me out on the bed, and his hands ran over my body. It was different than I’d had it before. His hands caressed me like I was fragile, like there was something under it all that could break, and he had to be careful of that. It made me feel precious, like I had some sort of worth. A warm fuzzy feeling overtook my mind, and spread across my body, pooling wherever he touched me. It was wrong, and I knew it, but I didn’t want that to stop. I didn’t want the warmth to fade away, leaving me shivering in a black void again. I didn’t want to feel worthless again, like I did everything for everyone, and still meant nothing.

  The light went out. I heard it click by the nightstand where his arm had stretched to, and the moon intruded the darkness, no artificial light left to drive it away. He undressed me, and looked at me like I was a goddess, a rare, beautiful treasure that he didn’t deserve. His eyes were dark pools of black in the absence of light, the kind I could lose myself in, and I did, letting the feeling take over my body, letting my mind go numb.

  Chapter Eleven - Andrew

  I woke up to a very bright bedroom. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to keep the light away from the dull thumping that was happening somewhere behind my eyes, and groaned. I stretched out my arm, felt the bed next to me was empty and cold, and opened one eye a little to look around the room.The light flooded into my head immediately, and the room spun all around me. But I’d seen her, flying past me twice or so. Claire was sitting in the arm chair close to the door, reading something.

  “What time is it?” I asked and my voice sounded deep and husky. Why did I ever drink that much? How much did I even drink?

  “It’s nine.”

  “What time do we need to go down for the thing?” the ache in my head was increasing pretty fast, and my stomach starting turning too. I needed food. Good and greasy food.

  “You mean the wedding?” her voice was sharp, but she didn’t look up from the magazine, “that’s happening at three. So you have some time to fix yourself up.”

  I decided to ignore the spin of the room and the turn of my stomach, and go
t up, feeling shaky on my legs.

  “I think I’m going down to breakfast,” I said, and Claire nodded, not really listening.

  “You coming with me?” I asked.

  “I’ve already eaten.”

  When had that happened? Nine wasn’t that late.

  “So you don’t want to come down?” I asked, trying again.

  “I think I’m just going to spend some time up here, read a bit. Maybe go for a walk. You go on ahead.”

  The room was still spinning but that didn’t stop me from realizing how far away she was, further away than ever before. I walked towards her, hoping for any kind of recognition. I suddenly wanted her to notice me. If she could just look at me, that would be enough. But she didn’t look up, not until I was right next to her, and I was about to put my hand on her shoulder. She looked at me then, her eyes vivid and loaded with color. But they weren’t happy to see me. There was something deep hiding behind the green sea – I remembered getting lost in them in the beginning – and she had an expression on her face, something that looked like a mask, hiding what was really there.

  “You’ve had brandy.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I think so, yes,” I said, trying to remember exactly what I had chugged down my

  throat.

  “Maybe you should shower before you go downstairs. You can smell the brandy.”

  She didn’t say it in a mean way, there wasn’t a trace of anything hard in her voice, but it hit me in my gut like she’d physically punched me. Maybe it wasn’t what she said, but her face when she said it. I didn’t know. My hand was still hovering over her shoulder, and I pulled it back, nodding. I walked slowly to the bathroom. Sometimes, a whole night went missing, like last night when I’d drank too much and I can’t remember how many different bars we’d visited, how much I’d had, or exactly how I’d gotten home. And other times something as tiny as denial in her green eyes would happen in a second and it would punch me in my gut with such a force that I was sure the impression would last me a lifetime.

  Greasy eggs and bacon, and three glasses of orange juice later I felt more like the Andrew I knew, and the time passed more consistently, seconds turning to minutes, hours following one after the hour. It was time to get ready for the wedding.

  Claire was in front of the mirror when I came into our room, putting on her face, as she liked to call it. She was wearing a mint-colored dress that reached her knees, and I liked the length of it for a change. It also didn’t have a swooping neckline or draw attention to her chest. It accentuated the thin blue circle that outlined her irises, something that only showed with special colors and I hardly ever saw.

  “You look beautiful,” I said.

  She hesitated for a moment, curling her thickened lashes.

  “Thanks. I laid out your suit on the bed. I got you a tie that matches my dress. I hope you don’t mind.”

  I looked at the thin tie, and tried to picture the sliver of mint down my chest that would show I was with her. It was the first nice thing she’d gone out of her way to do in months.

  “Thank you, you didn’t need to.”

  “I did, it’s important to me that we look good for the photos.”

  She made it sound like it was about the image, but something in my chest leaped a little at the thought that she had made an effort to make it look like we were together. There hadn’t been any signs that she wanted to be with me for so long.

  We walked down the stairs half an hour before the ceremony was about to start, and took a seat in the restaurant that had been transformed into a chapel. We sat close to the front, reserved for family of the bride. I looked around, and waved tentatively at Mrs. Frye, who was sitting two rows in front of us, and off to the side. Claire hadn’t greeted her at all, I wasn’t even sure if she’d seen her, but I judged by the line her lips were pursed into that she knew she was there. I would never understand what was going on with their family.

  The seats filled up quickly around us and I recognized some of the faces from the night before, although I couldn’t say I could recall any of their names now. Music started from somewhere over a stereo, and it was a song I thought I might have heard on the radio a while ago. Harry was standing in the front, looking perfect, like he hadn’t had a drop to drink last night. Did he drink? I couldn’t remember.

  Then all the heads turned and Olivia was at the door, dressed in something that looked like lace had exploded in the room, walking at the tempo of the music. It felt a little wrong, her coming into something that wasn’t the wedding march.

  She looked a little frivolous for her age. I studied the dress as she came closer. Why did women do this to themselves? They were beautiful, just the way they were, and then they had to get ridiculous about it. When she was right across from me, almost to the front, I looked up at her face, and the realization hit me that it didn’t matter. The dress was her choice, her style, and all, but her eyes were what made her the bride. She looked at Harry like he was an angel, sent from heaven to save her. I had never seen her watery green eyes so soft and full of affection.

  Harry’s eyes were on her until the moment they were called to attention, and even then it looked like he’d rather be looking at her, his head tilted in her direction, his shoulders slightly turned. Something pushed up in my throat, and I bit down hard, clenching my jaws. If this feeling bubbling up inside of me was anything to go by, tears were going to come soon, and I was not going to cry. I was a man, for God’s sake.

  Why was I suddenly so emotional? I shook my head, trying to shake it off. I stole a glance at Claire next to me, and she looked emotional too. She had a skewed smile on her face, and her eyes were shinier than I’d seen them in a while, bright and filled with good approval.

  It was still there, wasn’t it? I could see it in her now, her obvious faith in love and that it can last. Why wasn’t she so optimistic about us? Sometimes I wondered if it was just me, just our love that wasn’t good enough, but love, in general, was something she still fervently believed in.

  A steely feeling settled inside of me. It didn’t really matter how far we’d slipped. We could still fix it. If it was possible for Olivia, the old maid that was bitter and emotional, to still find love, then we could still do something about us. We already had it, we’d been there. How hard could it be to rekindle it?

  I nodded to myself, satisfied. It was a warm feeling, the idea that there was still something that could be done. I was the head of our house, I had to take the lead. Bubbles surged through my veins and my heart raced. I realized that I hadn’t felt this feeling in a while, I was excited. There was hope, and I was looking forward to doing something about it. No more pathetic Andrew, buckling at his wife’s capricious whims. Of course she didn’t want me when I was so passive, stagnant even. Men had to fight for their woman. I intended to show her what it meant to me to be married to her, what I felt for her, and I would remind her what she felt for me. It still had to be in there somewhere.

  Right?

  Chapter Twelve - Claire

  “Wandering away from your husband again, are you?”

  I looked up with a start, and looked into the unpleasant black eyes of the receptionist.

  “Excuse me?” my voice didn’t sound as annoyed as I’d intended for it to sound. I was trying to hide the sinking feeling that was happening in my stomach when I realized who was standing in front of me.

  “Come on, don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about,” Gavin leaned against the door post, watching the coordination team set up the restaurant for the reception. I had escaped from Andrew for a while, to powder my nose, so to speak. He was in a strange mood, happy and sarcastic, and it made me nervous. Besides, I was curious about what they were doing for Olivia’s color scheme. She refused to tell me anything.

  I watched as they fastened strings of glass bubbles to a wire that ran across the room, giving it a dreamy look. The light reflected off it in a million directions. The color scheme was salmon with small
bits of silver and mint, and it was beautiful. Center pieces were being placed on every table that complimented the whole look.

  “You have an interesting relationship with your husband,” he said again, and I wished he would just go away.

  “I’m sure that’s none of your business,” I looked at him, trying to make my face hard, folding my arms across my chest so he wouldn’t see my hands tremble.

  “I see you’ve taken a liking to Peter Argentero. He’s an alright guy, I guess, if simple is what you go for. Andrew seems more like the suburban catch though, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

  Who was this kid?

  “Actually, I do mind you saying so. Peter is just a friend.”

  “Ah. A friend. Such a broad term, these days.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He chuckled at me, and held his hands up. I realized I was leaning forward, angry, and my face was drawn into a frown. I could feel the strain. I straightened up and focused on relaxing my face.

  “Don’t get all uptight on me, lady. Don’t suppose you’ll get all upset then if I tell Andrew about your friend?”

  The night before flashed in my mind, Peter’s naked chest, his strong hands finding places on my body I’d forgotten existed.

  Oh God, no.

  “Of course, what’s wrong with having friends?” I hoped I sounded nonchalant.

  He looked at me as if he was assessing me, perhaps trying to gauge if my reaction was sincere.

  He nodded as if confirming something to himself. I held his gaze a moment longer, hoping I’d convinced him, and then looked back at the decorating that happened in the hall, so that I wouldn’t look like I was trying too hard. After a while of me pointedly ignoring him, he turned and sauntered away. I glanced in his direction, making sure he wasn’t headed for the bar where I knew Andrew would be drinking, and then went there myself. If Gavin did decide to find him, at least he wouldn’t be able to say anything to him I couldn’t rectify on the spot.