IN ROOM 33 (4 page)

The kiss was damn good, too.

They started to strip, and when his zipper snagged, Nelly giggled again. "You know what you're doing, right?"

"Isn't my first time, if that's what you mean." He was glad it was dark, because his face was hotter than burned rubber. He got the zipper down, and Nelly pulled off that skimpy cotton thing she wore over those hooters of hers.

In seconds he was on top of her and buried deep.

A second after that, a hand grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked him out—and upright. Nelly covered her breasts and scrambled back against the headboard. A knife tip gouged under his chin and a trickle of sticky warmth ran along his neck. His sixteen-year-old cock withdrew like a threatened turtle.

"Hey—"

"Shut up." The knife moved, made another shallow cut. "You've got thirty seconds to get your bare asses out of here or this"—he jabbed again—"will do serious work."

The man's head jerked in the direction of Nelly. "Much as I hate the thought of you covering up them titties of yours, sweetheart, you go first."

Nelly moved as if someone had slammed a hot brand on her butt; she stuffed her legs into her jeans, and yanked on her tee. The next second she was out the window, then she stopped. "You let him go or I'll scream." She sounded scared, and her voice squeaked like a little girl in a schoolyard.

Luke was impressed, until the knife made a short, shallow slit under his ear, and his own hot blood seeped under the neck of his Tee.

"You scream, sweet thing," the man holding him said, "and your boyfriend is raw meat. Now get the hell out of here."

Luke heard her clang down the fire escape in quick time. The man shoved him from behind. "Now you, limp dick. Get out of here and don't come back. And keep your mouth shut. You tell anyone about this, and I'll fuckin' find you. You got that?"

"Yeah, I got it." Luke made for the window, caught a glimpse of the guy when he straddled the sill on his way out. Shit! The guy was a freakin' mountain!

As Luke scrambled down the fire escape, he heard the man laugh. "Thanks for the beer, dickless."

When the kids were gone, the man picked up the backpack, tucked the six-pack under his arm, and blew out the candle. When he closed the door of Room 33 behind him, he was grinning.
Man, that piece had a nice set on her.

Maybe hanging around this dump was gonna have some perks after all.

Chapter 2

Joy sat on the edge of her bed and stretched. She was still stretching when the phone rang. She looked at her bedside clock—not seven yet. Almost ten in New York—had to be Connie about that piece she'd just sent in for
Travel World.
What was it again? The Scottish Moors... no, Irish castles, that was the one. She slid into work mode and picked up the phone.

"Joy Cole here." She managed to sound brisk before stifling a yawn. A phone call before coffee—what could be worse? She stood, headed for the kitchen.

"It's me."

"Mother?" Joy stopped in the middle of the room, unable to associate Lana's voice with the early morning hour.

A silky laugh traveled down the line. "I knew my call would surprise you."

"Surprise is for popped balloons and tax refunds—this verges on trauma. You haven't got out of bed before ten since... hell, you never got out of bed before ten."

"Maybe I've changed. It has been a while, after all."

Nearly six years, but who was counting? But change? Joy didn't think so. "I'm sorry about Stephen. And I was going to call today. What happened?"

"Heart."

"No warning?"

"For Stephen, yes. According to his lawyer, his doctor told him months ago how serious his condition was. He didn't share that with me." Her statements were matter-of-fact, and her tone conveyed neither resentment nor despair. No change there.

Joy had a surge of pity for Stephen. Sick, dying, he must have known sharing his pain with Lana was out of the question, sensed what Joy knew from experience: Lana didn't
do
death and dying—at least, not someone else's. Certainly not Joy's father's.

She went to the window, peeked out into a blinding morning sun, and rubbed her forehead, not knowing where to go next. "I assume you're okay?"

"I'll miss him, of course."

"Uh-huh." Joy doubted it, but maybe in the end it wasn't Lana's fault. She just didn't have any of those still waters that ran deep. More of a summer creek in a drought.

"I tried to call you several times. About the funeral. But you were away." She paused. "Your office said Paris, I think."

"Just got back."

"Lucky you. I love Paris."

"Everybody does." Joy girded her loins, figuratively speaking. "Is there something I can do for you, Mother?" She held her breath. There was always something you could do for Lana. It was the
how much
you had to worry about.

"You can come to Seattle for a visit. That would be a start."

"Can't. I'm leaving for Australia any day, and I've got a lot of prep to do." Okay, so she did make it sound more imminent than it was, but as a buffer, it was all she had.

Silence.

"This isn't about me, Joy."

She sounded annoyed, which was odd. Lana seldom got angry. She was often hurt, saddened, prettily confused, painfully thwarted, terribly disappointed, and on occasion elegantly resigned—each emotion carefully choreographed—but never plain old mad. "What is it about?"

"Stephen. He left you a hundred thousand dollars and a hotel. You have to come and take care of things." Her tone was without inflection or emotion.

"He
what?"
Joy's lungs imploded. "Why would he do that?"

"I have no idea. He also left you a letter which I'm to give to you. Maybe it will explain things."

Joy unthinkingly tugged on the blind pull, freeing it to flap and crash its way to a tight roll at the top of the window. The sun exploded into the room to fry what was left of her brain cells.

"The hotel—it has to be the Philip."

"Yes. Ghastly place. It should have been taken down years ago."

Joy remembered it. She'd been there once when she was twelve or so. Old, run-down, dirty, and smelly, as if everyone in the place survived on boiled cabbage.

"Are you still there?" Her mother's voice jolted her out of the foggy memory.

"I'm here," she said and rubbed the lines, bow-tight now, between her eyes.

"Good. I checked, and there's a ferry leaving Victoria for Seattle in a couple of hours. Can you be on it?"

She exhaled, felt a part of her hard-won life slip out on the breath. "No."

The word shocked them both into a brief silence.

Lana's tone was measured when she responded. "I'm afraid you have to come, Joy. Stephen, for some inexplicable reason, tied our fortunes together. The will really can't be settled without you."

Joy's stomach headed south. She cursed inwardly, not liking the word "tie" the least bit. "Then it will be next week. It's the best I can do." She wanted her life for a while longer yet.

Lana let more silence filter along the line. "Fine. I'll see you then."

Click
.

Joy stared at the phone in her hand, listened to the dead connection for a second or two, then signed off.

A hundred thousand dollars and a hotel.

She made for the kitchen; even an inheritance didn't stem her need for her morning coffee. She fiddled with the thick pad of coffee filters, her fingers unable to do what they'd done for years—pull one from the pack.

She rested a thigh against the red-tiled kitchen counter, set the filters back on it, and tried to level off her emotions.

It would
not
process. Stephen Emerson had been her stepfather for five years, most of which she'd spent alone in that ridiculous big house arguing with the staff and growing her horns of independence by smoking cigarettes, failing exams, and, for a time, running with a damn dubious crowd. Of course, no one noticed.

And now this insane inheritance—after one drink in a hotel bar. It made no sense. The man must have had more money than he knew what to do with or there were major strings.

Joy hated strings.

And that old, beat-up hotel. What in heaven's name would she do with the thing? She'd been in enough hotels to last her a lifetime—she certainly didn't need one of her own.

* * *

Wade stood outside Room 33, Lars and Rebecca beside him.

"We're not kidding, Wade, something went on in there last night. Maybe two o'clock or so." Lars spoke urgently. "You should take a look at least."

Wade wondered how the hell he'd let himself be elected caretaker, when he hadn't even run for the damn job. He'd started cleaning the place for something to do, and the next day, somebody in the hotel—he suspected it was Sinnie—dropped a set of keys off at his door and anointed him king. His dumb luck, the management company supposedly responsible for the place hadn't bothered to replace the former caretaker who bolted months ago. So here he was, standing at Room 33's door with a ragtag contingent of tenants breathing down his back.

Maybe Room 33 was one of the things that had drawn him back to the Phil, but he never planned on visiting it with an entourage.

"I didn't hear anything," he said. "And I'm only two doors down. And"—he tried the door—"the room is still locked. Maybe you heard me sleepwalking."

"You sleepwalk?" Rebecca said. "Cool."

"Rebecca, he's kidding," Lars said. Rebecca rolled her eyes. "And as for the lock," he gestured toward the bulb-shaped keyhole, "this one's original—you could open it with a paper clip."

"Tell me again what you heard," Wade said.

"A couple of thuds, as if something dropped, then someone rattling down the fire escape—in a big hurry. They made a hell of noise."

"That outside fire escape hasn't been used for years. Not since they put fire stairs inside in the sixties."

"Someone used it last night, Wade. I can't believe you didn't hear it," Lars insisted.

Wade hadn't heard it, because he hadn't been here at two o'clock, but he wasn't about to tell Lars and Rebecca that. When he couldn't sleep, which was damn near every night, he walked, sometimes ran, until he was exhausted. Better that than counting stains on the ceiling. Counting his sins.

Lars and the very pregnant Rebecca lived in Number 26, along with two cats, a snake-mean parrot, and ten tons of art supplies. They'd been living in the Philip for a couple of years. They were maybe twenty or so, generally broke, crazy about each other, and cause-happy. The first week Wade was here, Rebecca had proudly showed him a newspaper photo of Lars chained to a towering cedar in Oregon, where they'd spent time saving trees.

"You think there's anything to that 'room of doom' stuff?" Lars asked.

Wade's head snapped up. "Where did you hear about that?" He hadn't heard that stupid phrase in years.

"Found an old clipping behind the front desk."

"Yeah, well, don't believe everything you read."

"I don't, but I thought maybe you did. You still haven't opened the door," Lars prodded.

Wade's gut contracted, and something with a thousand legs crawled along his spine. But it wasn't an urban legend inspired by an old newspaper piece that was holding him back. What did was his business.

Mike came up behind them. "What's goin' on?"

Wade turned, looked up. Ex-wrestler, ex-con, Mike was a huge man. Mostly gone to fat, but Wade, judging from how easily the man moved, knew there was lots of muscle under the blubber. "The artists here say they heard something in here last night."

"Yeah—me, too. Let's take a look."

Wade decided to get it over with and turned the key in the lock, but it was Mike who pushed the door open, and it protested every inch.

"See?" Rebecca said to Lars. "I told you I heard creaking."

Mike gave the door one final shove to open it fully, and everybody peered in. Nobody walked in.