Purr-fect Getaway (A Wonder Cats Mystery Book 5)
Page 7
“Mom, if the last time you did this was over twenty years ago and it kept you in bed for about a week, why do you think it is a good idea to do it now?”
“That was before I got good at it and learned how to pace myself. Plus, I want to know what is in that room, don’t you?”
“Well, yeah,” Bea said. “But not at your expense.”
“I’m just going to get one of the officers to open the balcony door. Then I’ll just lie in wait until everyone leaves and let you guys in. Easy peasy.”
“Easy peasy, she says.” Bea looked at me, rolling her eyes. “So there’s no talking you out of it?”
That was a dumb question, and Bea realized it right after the words tumbled out of her mouth.
“Okay, Mom. When are you going to make your move?”
“The easiest thing to do is wait. I’ll just stand outside the door. Sooner or later, the boys will be done with their questioning.”
“How are you going to just stand outside the door?” I asked.
“Like this.” Aunt Astrid rubbed her hands together and raised them over her head, chanting what sounded like the Chinese practice words I always tried to pronounce from the backs of the fortunes inside fortune cookies. As she lowered her arms over her head, her face, her neck, and all the way down her body, she became like the elegant pearl-and-gold tapestry wallpaper that covered the interior of the elevator. If I looked hard, I could see her eyes blinking and a wide smile on her lips.
“You love this, don’t you?” I asked.
“I do,” she said, the wallpaper rippling around her lips. “I used to keep an eye on Bea this way when she was a little girl.”
“Oh, Lord. Please don’t tell me things like that,” Bea said, sounding very much like me. I laughed.
“I hope you stopped once she and Jake started dating.”
“You two are terrible,” Bea said, averting her eyes to the numbers at the top of the door.
“I’ll ride the elevator back downstairs. Once I’m in the room and alone, I’ll call your rooms from inside. Come around back to the balcony, and I’ll let you in.”
Bea and I nodded and got off the elevator on the third floor. Two people, a man and a woman, their bags packed, were hustling onto the elevator.
“I just can’t stay in a place where people died,” the man said to the woman, who nervously nodded in agreement. Aunt Astrid would get to hear more of their conversation as they rode the elevator back down.
“Little do they know how many people die all over the place every day,” I said. “I think the challenge would be finding a place where someone didn’t die. Good luck with that.”
“Right?” Bea said, pulling out her plastic key. “I’ll see you in a little bit. Try and get some rest before Mom calls.”
I nodded and headed down the hallway to my room. Once inside, I snapped on the television, piled the pillows high on top of each other, and got comfortable. Who knew how long this was going to take? Aunt Astrid could be down there matching the carpet and loveseat for a couple of hours before they finished going over the place. And maybe there was still a chance that the whole thing could be a normal cause of death. Suicide. Overdose. Maybe the death of those two women was something that didn’t have a supernatural influence.
I tried to focus on possibilities, but my mind kept drifting back to Blake. His being here made me mad. He was half the reason I’d had to be shanghaied and brought here.
It would have been easy for me to blame Blake for everything. But a part of me still held out hope that maybe it was all a mistake. He had been nice to me in the car outside the Roy house. Well, he had been annoying and condescending, but it was in his usual way. I could deal with that. Plus, his mind worked in such a fascinating and calculated way that I was finding it hard to believe he could have anything in common with Darla.
I looked down at myself and thought Darla had quite a bit that I didn’t. I could hate her for being mean to me, but I couldn’t begrudge her the fact that she was blessed with so many things going for her. Looks. Money. What else did a girl need to get by? Common sense and dry wit couldn’t pay for a spin cycle at the Laundromat.
Oh, snap out of it, Cath! I shook my head and pulled my hair back. You sound like a high school freshman. It was true. I was starting to annoy myself, and that was quite an accomplishment, because usually I was more than satisfied with myself.
Sitting down at the desk, I began to scribble some notes about the women who had died. They had to have checked in today or yesterday, since it was now almost 2 a.m. Wow, that man, Mr. Kline, had gotten out of that room just in time.
The knock on the door shocked me out of my thoughts. It had to be Bea coming to get me.
“I’m ready if you…” No one was there. Again, I stretched my neck out, looking toward the fire escape then down toward the elevators. “What is it about me that makes this so much fun?” I shut the door quietly. Other people at the spa slept nicely in their beds with the lights off and nothing pulling itself out of the wallpaper or dropping down from an astral plane to suck out their life force like the juice of an orange slice.
Before I could get to the desk to sit back down, the knock came again.
I peeked out the peephole and saw nothing.
“I’m not opening for you.”
Nothing but the room’s heater kicking on made any noise. Tiptoeing back to the desk, I sat down just as the remote control for the television flew across the room, banging into the wall.
“Now you just stop that right now! If you cause any damage, I’m going to get stuck paying for it,” I said, trying to sound brave.
Standing up, I realized that for the first time in my life, I felt like I didn’t want to pursue this. But if something was watching me, I had to save face, right? As I reached down to pick up the remote, I saw my hand shaking so fast it looked like a blur. But my fingers worked, and I held it tightly while walking back to the desk.
Again the knock on the door.
“Did you invite friends?” My voice trembled. I walked over to the door. Just as I was about to peek out the peephole, I had a dreadful thought. What if I went to look and something looked back at me, something with sinister red or yellow eyes?
Show no fear. My thoughts sounded much braver than I was feeling, that was for sure. I got on tiptoe and looked at the peephole without putting my eye right on it. The light of the hallway was all that showed through. A deep breath came out that I hadn’t even realized I was holding.
But no sooner had the hair on the back of my neck begun to relax than another earnest knocking came at the door. Three quick raps. Loud. Serious. I looked at the crack at the bottom of the door and saw that something was moving back and forth.
Images of the tentacles from the Prestwick house popped into my head, and a cold sweat coated me.
“That’s nowhere near here,” I mumbled to myself. “We put a lock on that place. Nothing is getting through. I checked it and double-checked it.”
But I hadn’t been myself for so long. What if I had missed something, and it got out? What if it had followed me here? My whole body began to shake, and I realized that if I didn’t open that door and face whatever was on the other side, I might as well just lock myself away forever.
Swallowing hard, I stomped to the door, grabbed hold of the cold lever in my hot, sweaty hand, pushed it down, and yanked it open with such force that it banged against the little rubber nub protruding from the wall to prevent the door from doing damage when a crazy woman yanks it open.
Standing before me was something I was not prepared for.
Little Beastie
“Can I come in?” Blake asked, his eyebrows pinched together as if I had somehow annoyed him by answering the door.
I stepped aside for him to enter and thought what a scandal it would have been at one time for a single lady to have a single man in her hotel room. What would Darla think? She might just call off their wedding if she ever were to find out he was behind closed door
s at a health and wellness spa.
Wait! No one said they were getting married. I cleared my throat, wrapped my arms protectively around myself, and waited for him to speak.
“I’ve got a question to ask you.”
I held my breath as he looked searchingly into my eyes. It made me feel self-conscious, like I was dressed up and my slip was showing or I had a run in my pantyhose.
“Okay.” I shrugged. Did he even know why I was being so standoffish? Had Darla mentioned anything about how mean she had been to me in high school? Even if she told him with quivering lips and sad eyes, explaining how cruel I had been to her every day. Or did Blake just think I was the jealous type, acting hurt, all the while plotting revenge like Medea in that Greek tragedy?
It was funny that Medea had popped into my head. She was the only female character to not only set the wheels of murder in motion but to screw up big time, killing her own children instead of Jason’s mistress, but still the gods hadn’t punished her.
Of course they hadn’t. Jason was a jerk. Medea had a few miles on her, sure. She wasn’t the prettiest thing in the world, but she’d helped him get the golden fleece. She’d saved him from getting killed. But that wasn’t good enough. Nope. Jason had to go and pick a woman so different from Medea it was like comparing a dandelion to a rose, and when he did this, it drove Medea insane. Why should she be punished when Blake drove her to do it?
No. Wait. Not Blake. Jason. I was thinking about Jason in the old story, that low-down, dirty dog. Not the low-down, dirty dog in front of me.
“Are you all right?” Blake asked, his voice sharp like the clashing of cymbals.
I nodded.
“Just trying to remember a movie I saw. What did you need?” I thought I recovered quite well from that and didn’t look like too much of a stuttering dunce.
“I said, did you happen to see the two sisters around the spa? They had just checked in. From what I have gathered so far, they dropped their things in the room and tried to cover the entire grounds within a couple hours.”
Wrinkling my nose, I thought but had to shake my head. I couldn’t be sure that I hadn’t seen them. My head had been in such a haze that they might have walked right up to me, but I wouldn’t have known it. But my gut assured me that our paths had not crossed.
He added, “A girl was murdered here during the Prohibition era before it was a hotel and spa and when it was a small shack doubling as a speakeasy and hideout for…unsavories.”
“Interesting,” I said, hiding my urge to ask questions. “But I think I heard Bea say all this was on the website. I mean, aside from the two girls who died today. The other death was common knowledge.”
Even though I wanted to get involved in Blake’s theory, even though my heart was breaking at the sight of him, I kept my distance and kept my spine straight, shoulders back, and gaze unflinching. Glancing at myself in the mirror, I was happy I appeared calm and indifferent, because inside I was like a room full of puppies fighting over one bone. Everything was being tugged in different directions, but no progress was being made in any.
I desperately wanted Blake to say something nice to me, something kind that I wouldn’t have expected. But since it was obvious the conversation was going to focus on these two mysterious deaths, I gave up.
“Was it listed on the website that over the past ten years, there have been two other deaths on separate occasions?”
I wasn’t sure I liked Blake’s tone. If he had just come in here to lecture me on facts I had no knowledge of, this conversation was going to be pretty short.
“No, Blake. I didn’t actually read anything about the place. Bea made all the arrangements. Maybe you should talk to her if you need those facts.”
Hadn’t the boys looked at the webpage? This sort of surprised me since Jake had said that he knew the spa was the party place for all things paranormal.
“What did Bea tell you?”
I got the feeling that Blake was stalling. The only time a guy did something like that was when he was trying to say something you didn’t want to hear but couldn’t find the right words or right time.
I repeated people’s reports of seeing things move in their rooms and hearing knocking at the door when no one was there. Disembodied voices. But I left out the astral spiders and wild women who shape-shift. And it was a good thing I did.
“Those things are just publicity stunts,” Blake said when I mentioned the online comments about the place. “Come on, Cath. You don’t really believe in all that stuff. You are much too smart.” Blake snickered as he took a seat at the desk and pulled out the little black leather pad all detectives seemed to use to write down their notes.
Suddenly I felt only two feet high.
Didn’t Blake remember? Hadn’t the Prestwick house impressed itself in his head like it had in mine? Didn’t it haunt him and stare back at him in all its horrific glory from shadows in dreams and in reality? Could something be attached to him, feeding off him, like what had been on me?
“But Blake, how can you say that? Don’t you remember—”
“The ordeal at the property? I remember your storming in to play amateur detective and lousing up a crime scene. Then bringing your whole family to do more of the same.”
His words held such bite that I couldn’t help but wince.
“You know, Cath, I understand it’s trendy and hip to be different, to be unique, to even be something you are not. But you and your aunt need to get a better grip on reality. Otherwise there may come a day when someone with authority overhears you and decides you’re too great a risk to society, locks you both up, and throws away the key.”
I couldn’t stop myself.
“But you were there. You saw all the—”
“I didn’t see a damn thing, Cath. Nothing at all happened at that house except for you contaminating the scene. Jake will back me up on this.”
Jake? This made me feel like I was in that movie with the people being taken over by pods. Jake wouldn’t flip on us. Not on his own family. He certainly wouldn’t do anything that would hurt Bea. All you had to do was see them together and you’d know he wouldn’t betray her gift. Not for money or fame or even to appease his weirdo partner.
Blake was wrong. Dead wrong. I watched him as he stared into his little leather notebook.
“Then what did you come to my room for, Blake?” My voice sounded like a china teacup that had fallen onto a hard ceramic floor.
“I had a couple theories I wanted to go over with you. Those sisters who died had no other family. They were orphans. Their mother and father died under curious circumstances.”
I thought of my own mother. Of course I did. But Blake didn’t know anything about her. He didn’t know anything about me, but it was pretty obvious he had already formed an opinion that was none too flattering. Yet here he was in my room asking for advice.
“I think they committed suicide,” he continued. “The markings on their skin look like symptoms of arsenic poisoning.”
I said nothing. The words I wanted to speak had jammed between my head and my heart, and nothing but a couple peculiar chokes came out.
“But the odd thing was that their lips and fingertips were blue, and that is a symptom of cyanosis.” He didn’t look at me and instead stared at the wood-grain design of the desk.
I couldn’t move. It was as if I was surrounded by a swarm of hornets and didn’t dare move for fear of getting stung. But my mind was whirling wildly with thoughts, ideas, comments, and emotions all flashing at super speed but not long enough for me to hold on to a single one.
“You need to leave,” I blurted.
That got his attention. He looked up at me as if I had just burped out loud.
“You do. You don’t need me for this. I’d like to go to bed. Not play detective.”
Slowly and deliberately, Blake stood up from the desk, tucked his notebook back into his inside pocket, straightened his tie, and headed toward the door, shaking his head.
It was a brief hesitation. If I hadn’t been staring at Blake with disbelief, I would have missed it. But there it was: a flash of reluctance during which I thought maybe he would stop, turn around, say something nice, something soft to restore my hope that maybe he was hiding feelings for me. But he pulled the door open, stepped out, and let it fall shut on its own without so much as a good-bye or good-night or kiss my ass.
That was it. I was alone. I shivered.
“Pull yourself together, Cath,” I mumbled to my reflection. “You’ve got a fine fellow who wants to take you for dinner. If nothing else, maybe he’ll be a good guy you can call if there is a spider in the tub or that light bulb you can’t reach in the hallway goes out.”
I walked to my balcony. Pulling the curtain aside, I remembered the little bird that had died out there. Quickly I pulled the heavy door open and stepped onto the platform, looking around to where I had seen him, but I saw nothing.
Letting out a long sigh, I felt relief that the little beastie must have just stunned itself. I double-checked and found no feathers, no ants, no nothing. He had to have come to and flown off. Good. Good.
Funny how that gave me hope just as Blake Samberg had tried to take it all away from me. Maybe he was more compatible with Darla after all. Or maybe she had gotten to him as I suspected she might have, feeding him her version of things and glossing over or leaving out her own contribution to my pain and suffering.
“Tom Warner seems nice,” I said out loud, as if that might make the words more convincing.
But he isn’t Blake.
“Who cares?” I gritted my teeth. “Blake Samberg thinks I should be locked up and that I’m crazy. If only he knew what I could have done to him just then! I could have torn his voice right from his throat! I could have paralyzed him from the waist down! I could have made him think he was drowning in the middle of the room! All of this without even laying a finger on him!” These words came out of my mouth hot and final.