FIERY ILLUSIONS (Keeper of the Emerald Book 2)

by B. C. Harris

  Once we reach the opposite side of the street, I turn and stare at the hotel. No matter how hard I look I can’t see Radwin.

  My cell phone vibrates.

  Instead of Drew, I’m surprised to find a message from Jamie.

  We have made a great discovery.

  Great discovery?

  I send a text message back to Jamie.

  What do you mean great discovery?

  As I wait for his response, Squirt keeps peering into the screen of my cell phone as though it’s alive.

  My phone vibrates again.

  It’s Drew…

  The stalker is leaving the back door of the hotel.

  I shudder. It frightens me to think that we were in the same building as this horrible woman. I realize this is our perfect opportunity to rescue Jasmin if we can find her.

  I respond to Drew’s message.

  Be careful. Don’t let the Stalker see you. Have you seen Radwin?

  My phone vibrates. It’s Jamie.

  I think we’ve found your aunt. What’s happening with Jasmin?

  Found my aunt? That’s great news. Maybe I can learn more about my father. Maybe I can learn more about the secrets my mother is keeping from me.

  Before I reply to Jamie, Radwin appears in front of me. He has a big smile on his face; actually one on each of his two faces.

  “Radwin, did you find her?

  “Yes, I think so. But I’m not completely sure.”

  “What do you mean? How can you not be sure? Did you see her, or didn’t you see her?”

  Radwin hesitates before responding. He flies closer towards me.

  “Emily, I found a room where I think Jasmin is tied to a chair, except that there is more than one Jasmin in the room.”

  “More than one Jasmin,” I exclaim. “How is that possible?”

  “I’m not sure,” Radwin says. “As I looked in the window I saw more than one Jasmin. It was vey confusing.”

  More than one Jasmin?

  Forcing myself to concentrate on the task at hand, I say, “Radwin, which window were you at when you saw Jasmin?”

  As Radwin holds out a paw to point to the window, my cell phone vibrates.

  It’s Drew.

  The Stalker vanished down the street. Do you want me to follow her?

  No. I text back. I need you to meet me at the front of the hotel. We’ve found Jasmin.

  My eyes lock onto the window that Radwin is pointing to.

  “Got it,” I say.

  I rush towards the hotel entrance with Squirt perched on my shoulder and Radwin flying around me.

  As we reach the large glass entrance door, Drew runs up to us.

  “Where is she?” Drew says.

  “On the second floor. I’ve got to reach her before the evil woman returns.”

  I push the large glass door open.

  We run to the elevator.

  “Drew, I’m going up to the room. I need you to stay here. If the Stalker returns back to the hotel, you need to text me immediately.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Drew says.

  “Yes. I need you to stay here to warn me if the Stalker returns.”

  Drew reluctantly nods. From the disappointment on his face, I guess that he would like to be the person who actually rescues Jasmin.

  The hotel clerk is looking suspiciously at me and my unusual friends. I avoid having eye contact with him.

  Fortunately, the elevator door opens right away.

  I push the button for the second floor. The elevator doors are slow to close. I wonder what I would do if the clerk suddenly appears and asks me what I’m doing in the hotel.

  Before I can answer my own question, the doors close.

  Radwin looks concerned as he looks around inside the elevator, but he doesn’t say anything.

  The elevator stops. The doors open slowly. Judging by the firmness of Squirt’s grip on my shoulders, the brief experience was frightening to him.

  During the last few minutes I mentally calculated the location of the room we are seeking by considering the location of the elevator in relationship to the front entrance of the hotel. My best guess is that our destination is one or two rooms to the right of the elevator.

  As we exit, I turn to the right. I guess that the first door that we pass is not the room that we want. Walking a little further, we reach the next door, the one that I guess leads to the room where Jasmin is being held as a prisoner.

  Stopping at the door, I say, “We need to find a way to open the door.”

  “What do you mean?” Radwin asks.

  I gaze at Radwin. How can I briefly explain to him that almost everyone on my planet has to keep their doors locked to avoid being robbed or attacked? As I view my world through Radwin’s eyes, I’m embarrassed. In order to be safe, we have all created our own little prisons where we attempt to escape from each other.

  “How horrible,” Radwin exclaims, having read my thoughts.

  I had forgotten that Radwin was able to read people’s thoughts.

  “We need a key to open the door,” I say as I point at the narrow slit in the door where a plastic card is required.

  “Where do we get such a key?” Radwin asks.

  I look around searching for a member of the hotel cleaning staff.

  “Follow me,” I say as I begin to walk along the hallway. After turning a corner, a little past the elevator, I notice a cleaning cart positioned at the end of the hallway. “At the end of the hallway someone from the hotel is cleaning one of the rooms.”

  “Are you saying that people don’t clean their own rooms?” Radwin utters in amazement.

  I ignore his question.

  “The person who is cleaning the room has a small plastic card, likely on a string or cord attached to her waist. The card can be used to open all the rooms. We need Squirt to take this card from the woman so we can open the door to the room where Jasmin is being held as a prisoner.”

  “Me do, me do, me do,” Squirt says eagerly.

  “Let’s wait here,” I say to Radwin. We’re now four or five rooms away from the person who is cleaning.

  As I stop, Radwin halts as well. At the same moment, a young woman in a white and purple hotel uniform exits from the room and places some cleaning materials back on her cart. After this, she closes the hotel room door.

  The young woman has long brown hair and deep bags under her eyes. Although she appears to be in her early twenties, she moves like she is much older. She takes a card that is dangling on a cord from her neck to open another door.

  “Do you see the card?” I ask Squirt. “It’s hanging from her neck.”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” Squirt replies as he streaks towards the woman.

  Something tells me that this is not going to go smoothly. I don’t think Squirt realizes that the card is on a cord that is around the woman’s neck.

  Squirt leaps though the air. The tiny zakabibble grabs the white plastic key-card. As the cord pulls taunt, Squirt is whipped backwards into the face of the terrified woman.

  She screams, perhaps thinking that she’s being attacked by a squirrel or some other small creature. As she attempts to twist away from Squirt, he continues to grip the card tightly in his paws, causing him to swing back and forth against the woman. As she continues to shout for help, she begins to hit Squirt. Suddenly Radwin flies at the woman, blinking his lights like he’s an emergency vehicle trying to reach the scene of an accident.

  For a moment, I think that the cleaning woman is going to faint, but she manages to recover.

  As the terrified woman slaps her hands at Radwin who is buzzing around her, I notice Squirt chomping his way through the cord that is holding the key-card.

  I hear a door open behind us. We have a growing problem. Soon, a hotel security guard will be alerted.

  Squirt falls to the floor, bounces like he’s on a trampoline, then charges towards me, proudly holding the key-card in his paws. When he reaches me, he pushes t
he card into my hands, smiling like he just won an Olympic gold medal.

  “Radwin, come!” I shout as I flee down the hallway past a middle-aged man who is standing flabbergasted at his hotel room door.

  “Help!” the cleaning lady yells.

  The instant I reach the room where I think Jasmin might be, I slip the key-card into the slot on the door.

  The door opens.

  As I step into the room, I see an older woman sitting on the edge of the bed. When she sees me, she screams.

  I rush from the room, slamming the door behind me.

  Moving to the next door, I try the card again. I hear the elevator doors ominously opening behind us.

  The hotel room door opens.

  A commanding voice shouts, “Stop!”

  I briefly turn to see a security guard who is exiting from the elevator.

  Ignoring him, I rush into the room along with Radwin and Squirt.

  There are mirrors set up around the room. I see Jasmin’s reflection.

  I slam the door shut and lock it.

  “Jasmin!” I shout.

  I hear her grunts of panic.

  Jasmin is tied to a chair in the middle of the room. Her mouth is taped shut. Her eyes are begging for help. Surrounding Jasmin are ten to fifteen large mirrors, all reflecting Jasmin’s image.

  Pushing some mirrors out of the way, I rush to Jasmin. I rip the tape from her mouth, perhaps a little too hard as she reacts in pain.

  “Emily,” she cries. “I’ve never been so happy to see you.”

  That’s a nice change, I think to myself.

  Suddenly, the hotel room door opens slightly. The security guard must have a master key. Only a thin chain on the inside of the door is preventing it from fully opening. I know the security guard could break this chain if he forced himself against the door.

  There’s nowhere for us to go.

  My cell phone vibrates.

  It’s Drew.

  The Stalker is entering the hotel.

  - 23 -

  A CLOSE CALL

  I’m frantic. We’re trapped.

  It’s time to use my emerald, but first I try to free Jasmin.

  The hotel security guard is pushing hard against the door. At any second, the small chain keeping the door locked is going to break. Worst of all, the Stalker is on her way up to the room.

  I struggle to untie Jasmin.

  Squirt is bouncing on the bed in a limnit world of his own. Radwin is hovering in a corner of the room.

  Suddenly it hits me. This is an opportunity for the police to capture the Stalker. She kidnapped Jasmin. I believe that she murdered an innocent man at Splendid Gardens and attacked my frail grandmother. If this evil woman was in jail, I would have one less worry.

  I call 911.

  Instantly an operator responds.

  “Yes, I need your help. I’m at the Westview Hotel. I’m on the second floor. My best friend was kidnapped and brought to this hotel. Although we have found my friend, her kidnapper is returning.

  As I continue to talk to someone from the police department, I walk over to the door.

  “Stop pushing,” I say to the security guard. “I’ll open the door. My friend has been kidnapped. We need your help. The police are on their way.”

  As the security guard backs away from the door, I unlock the chain and pull the door open.

  “Look!” I say. “My friend has been tied to a chair in this room. She was abducted.” Then to underscore my words, I say, “I’m on my phone with the police.”

  The security guard is in his twenties. He has as many tattoos on his arms as he has keys dangling from a ring on his belt.

  He’s flustered, muttering something about us breaking into the room, but obviously not having a clue what to do next. His eyes shoot back and forth between Jasmin and me.

  I hear the elevator opening. It’s either the police or the Stalker. My gut tells me it’s the tall woman. I hear a voice on my phone asking me what is happening.

  “Do you have a gun?” I whisper urgently to the security guard.

  He shakes his head.

  Before I can explain anything about the evil woman to the security guard, the Stalker appears at the open door.

  I tremble.

  The woman’s face radiates anger, although large dark sunglasses prevent me from seeing her eyes. I think she’s going to attack us. I’m convinced that she’s not my mother, but everything happens too quickly for me to be one-hundred percent sure.

  “That’s the woman,” I say as strongly as I can. “That’s the woman who kidnapped my friend. Don’t let her get away.”

  The security guard takes a step towards the Stalker. In a flash, her hand lashes out, the blade of a knife ripping into the chest of the security guard.

  He falls backwards clutching his bloody chest.

  I hear a siren. Then another.

  The woman’s resemblance to my mother is uncanny.

  Just as I think she’s about to lurch at me, she turns and flees from the room.

  “Stop her!” I shout even though I don’t know who I’m shouting at. The security guard, who might have been the only person to stop her, is lying in a pool of blood, fighting for his life.

  “Emily, untie the ropes,” Jasmin begs.

  No sooner are the words out of her mouth, then two police officers, a man and a woman, appear at the door of our room.

  “A tall woman with short black hair and dark sunglasses kidnapped my friend. She stabbed the security guard. She just ran down the hall. Someone has to stop her.”

  Before the police react, my cell phone vibrates. It’s Drew. I read his message.

  She’s left the hotel. What’s happening?

  I rush to the window and look outside. The Stalker is running across the street.

  “There she is,” I shout. “She’s crossing the street.”

  Both police officers race across the small room to the window.

  “That’s the woman,” I point. “The one with dark pants and the black T-shirt. She’s the woman who kidnapped my friend. I think she’s also the woman who killed the worker at Splendid Gardens.”

  The female police officer immediately speaks into her walkie-talkie. “There’s a suspect, a tall woman dressed in black, who is fleeing into the parking lot on the east side of the street in front of the hotel. She might be armed and dangerous.

  At the precise moment that the officer finishes speaking, two more police cars slide into place in front of the hotel. Several officers leap from their cars and turn towards the parking lot.

  The Stalker has disappeared. I look frantically in every direction. She’s nowhere to be seen.

  The police officers stop in their tracks on the street as they scan for the woman.

  How could she possibly disappear? It seems like everyone in the room is holding their breath. Even Squirt has stopped jumping on the bed. Another problem hits me. If the police see Squirt and Radwin I have some difficult explaining to do.

  Given the number of mirrors scattered around the room, and the confusion of what’s happening, I guess that the police haven’t seen them yet. Taking a few steps towards Radwin, I whisper, “Take Squirt and go to Drew. It’s important that no one sees you.”

  Radwin nods as though he understands the importance of my request.

  As I turn back to the window, I see Radwin flying to Squirt and leading him out of the room.

  “The woman has vanished,” the male officer says to me. “Do you have any idea where she was going?”

  “No,” I say. At the same instant I notice a compact black car exiting on the far side of the parking lot. “Could she be in that car?” I say to the police officers.

  “The black car! Don’t let it get away,” the female officer barks into her walkie-talkie.

  By the time the officers on the street get back to their cars, the black car is gone.

  Although the police cruisers screech away from the hotel, I guess that the Stalker has escaped.


  My cell phone vibrates.

  It’s Drew.

  I got her license plate number.

  I smile.

  I wonder if I will give the police the Stalker’s license plate number. Probably not, I think. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to involve the police after all. We need to track this woman on our own.

  - 24 -

  MY DAD’S SISTER

  I’m in my basement panic room, sitting at my computer. With the Internet in front of me along with a bank of security monitors, and CNN in the background on my TV, I feel like I’m monitoring the world.

  My mother is working late which I expected after she picked me up at the Westside Hotel. I wondered if the police might find some clear pictures of the Stalker on the hotel security system, but not too surprising to me, there was a virus in the digital recording system that wiped out all images over the past week. When I heard this, I celebrated because it meant they wouldn’t have any pictures of Squirt and Radwin.

  Squirt is sleeping on a couch while Radwin is glued to the TV. After escaping from the hotel, they found Drew who brought them back here after I returned home.

  While the police and hotel management tried to figure out what happened to the security video recording system, I concluded the obvious – the Stalker had corrupted the system.

  After my mother arrived at the hotel, the police questioned me for almost an hour.

  Why did Jasmin leave the school to follow the woman? Why were there so many mirrors inside the hotel room? Had the woman hurt any of us? Describe the woman to us. How did I know Jasmin was at the hotel? How did I know which room she was in? The cleaning lady said that a squirrel or a gerbil stole her key-card. What really happened? And so on…

  Realizing that the police knew nothing about Drew, I kept him out of the story, as I also kept Jamie, Michael, Squirt and Radwin out of the story. And of course when they asked about the mirrors, I shrugged and kept the emerald out of the story as well. I didn’t have an explanation for the mirrors. Wasn’t that the job of the police to determine why there were mirrors in the room?

  I told the police that when Jasmin saw the woman in our school, she recognized her from the description I had given her from what happened at Splendid Gardens. She followed the woman to the Westside Hotel before she disappeared after texting me her location.