IN ROOM 33 (40 page)

He stepped back from his task at the same time Joy hung up the phone. Side by side, they stared down at the sullen ancient in the chair.

Wade couldn't resist asking, "What the hell is with you anyway, Rupert? Your parents force-feed you beets? Lock you in a closet? There has to be a reason a man carries around a load of hate as big as yours for over sixty years."

Rupert, until now resolutely looking away from his captors, turned back at Wade's question. His smile was cryptic and cold. "Had my love for your grandfather not transformed itself to hate, I would not have survived. Hatred sustained me, empowered me. It gave shape to my life, a reason for living, and a necessary focus. One cannot live a life without passion. And the most passionate of all emotions is hate." A drizzle of frothy saliva seeped from the corner of his mouth; his eyes, already set deep by the passage of too many years, narrowed to hooded slits.

Rupert gestured with his chin at Joy, sneered. "You enter this whore of a girl and your body ignites, every nerve and fiber inflamed, straining for sexual release. You are at an apex, a point of ardor without boundaries. A place so high a freefall is inevitable. You talk of love—as I once did to Joseph—and you believe you have discovered heaven." He shook his head. "You have not. What you have done is expose yourself, the searing weakness of your own need. You have risked all that you are. And what you have found is the gateway to your own hell."

"Jesus..." In Wade's heart, the word came closer to a prayer than it had ever been. The air left his lungs and words left his mind.

Joy stood beside him in utter quiet, her shoulder brushing his. If there was a response to Rupert's hate-laden diatribe, neither of them knew what it was.

When they stared down at him in silence, Rupert sneered at each of them in turn and turned his face from theirs. Fine with Wade. In the distance he heard sirens. Even better. The sooner this piece of dreck was out of his sight, the happier he'd be.

Joy went to the table, picked up the flickering candle, and held it high to enlarge the circle of light. When she spotted a lamp, she walked toward it, put her hand under the shade, and flipped it on. Its light was enough to trap the three of them in a watery glow; they looked like escapees from the local morgue.

Joy glanced toward the terrace. "Should we go out there? Take a look?"

Wade shook his head, feeling weak now, and a little disoriented. He pulled himself together. "Let's leave that for the pros. David said Michael was in a large storage box. He shouldn't be hard to find."

"The planter with the tallest trees. Don't forget that one. And dig deep," Rupert said, keeping his eyes averted. "David's little girlfriend is there. Bones by now, I'd expect. But no doubt her parents will appreciate the remains. Such a shame when a teenage boy, testosterone, and tequila come together. Anything can happen. Not David's fault, really."

There was a loud knock on the door, and Joy, looking startled and unnerved, moved toward it."They've come for you, Rupert," she said.

Rupert's head came up on the first knock. His skin was chalk white, his lungs pumped visibly against his rib cage, and his breath came in short sharp gasps. He curled his fingers around the armrests of the chair, embedded his nails deep into the fabric.

"Take it easy, old man," Wade said, too aware suddenly of the blood running down his arm, soaking his shirt."Just breathe." He grabbed his numbed left arm, held it close to his body, and took his own advice.

For a second it looked as though Rupert would say something; instead he set his lips into a tight line, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes.

He was bathed in terror.

Wade was bathed in blood, and his eyes were glazing over. Damn! He was going to pass out and miss the damned finale.

Joy came back, followed by two police officers and two paramedics just as Wade sank to his knees.

"Wade!" she screamed and ran to his side.

Before he went under, he felt hands pulling at his shirt, another on his pulse. Joy's hand on his forehead? He couldn't be sure.

What he did hear was a voice... far away now, say, "Greg, get over here, fast! I think the old guy just checked out."

Checking out... The Philip. Christian Rupert is checking out.

Chapter 20

Wade woke up briefly in the ambulance. "You're a lucky bastard," the paramedic named Greg told him. "Two bullet wounds, one a pinstripe, the other a bit meaner. Some stitches, and you should be on your way. Lost some blood, though." Wade's eyes closed on that bit of news. When he woke up again, he was in emergency, a doctor basting him together on one side and two cops asking him questions on the other.

When his brain opened for business, he did his best to fill them in, and not notice that a certain blond someone wasn't anywhere in the immediate vicinity.

The bigger cop finally snapped his notebook closed. "One thing's for sure, the old Philip's had a helluva busy night. Bodies in penthouse planters, huh? That's a twist." He cocked his head. "You know, my dad was a cop, and he took the odd call from the Phil. He said something about a 'room of doom' thing. Said some people believed the place was actually haunted." He raised his eyebrows and smiled. "You ever hear about that?"

"Yeah, I heard." He winced as the last stitch went in.

"What's your take?"

Wade put his head back on the pillow, smiled. "Fiddlesticks."

"Huh."

"I'll be happy to tell you all about it... but another time. Okay?" He'd tell them Rupert's part in Room 33, just not tonight. He was tired. All he wanted to do now was go home and lick his wounds. And he sure as hell wouldn't admit the wound hurting the most was Joy's absence.

"Yeah, okay." He tapped his notepad on the bed. "You take care. Forensics will be around the hotel for a while. So stay away from the penthouse, okay? We get any more questions, we'll be in touch."

Wade nodded.

When he was patched to the doc's satisfaction, they wheeled him out with bandaged arm, a sling, and a handful of painkillers.

The first person he saw outside the ER was Joy. She looked tired, her pale skin in contrast to the purple-and-blue bruises on her throat. She got to her feet and came toward him. For a second it looked as though she'd hug him—which he was all for—but she stopped when she saw his arm.

"Are you okay? Will your arm be all right?" she gingerly touched the sling.

He got out of the chair and said his thanks to the attendant before saying to Joy, "The arm will be fine. I'll have a couple of matching scars. Nothing serious."

"You were lucky."

He looked at her. "I am now—that you're here."

Silence.

"I'm here," she said, giving him an unreadable look. "The question is, for how long? When you're up to it, we have to talk, Wade. About you. Me. The Phil."

He didn't like that
for how long?
comment of hers, but he nodded, then gestured toward his arm. "Now's as good a time as any. Talk's about all I'm good for right now."

"Can you make it to the car?"

"Yeah, let's get the hell out of here."

* * *

Wade downed another painkiller while Joy went to her room to get him an extra pillow to prop up his arm.

When she came back, she started to fuss over him, and he reached out his good arm and pulled her down beside him.

"You said you wanted to talk."

She chewed her lip, appeared to gather her thoughts. Her eyes went all bright and watery. He brushed a tear away with his thumb. "Hey, what's this?"

She forced a smile. "In a lesser woman, it would be a tear. For a Cole woman, it's a full-blown catastrophe."

He waited.

The smile dropped from her mouth. "I love you, Wade. I've fallen so hard and so fast, it's frightening. Tonight, when you passed out... I thought—"

"Don't go there. I'm fine. Stick with the 'I love you' thread."

"I do—love you, I mean—but there's something about me you don't know."

He brushed a tendril of hair from her forehead. "Go on." Whatever she told him, he'd handle it—if it meant holding on to her.

"I was married."

"You told me."

"I didn't tell you everything." She got up, stood in front of him. "It was years ago. I was twenty-one. His name was Matt Sheldon. We were married for three months, and when I left him I was a million dollars richer."

Wade didn't like the uncomfortable tightness in his chest. "That's a lot of money."

"Yes, it is." She stopped, massaged her forehead.

"That it?" he prodded.

"No." She shook her head. "From the beginning his parents opposed the marriage—particularly his mother, but she never said why. Matt said not to worry, it would work out when they came to love me like he did. But a couple of months into the marriage, he started acting strange. He didn't seem to have any energy, didn't want to go out. Didn't want to do anything. I tried to get him to the doctor, but he wouldn't listen, insisted it was a virus of some kind, that it would pass. A month after that, I found a note saying he was sorry—'he had to go'—and a bank slip showing a deposit into our joint account for a million dollars."

"Generous." Wade knew the word bit the air.

"Yes. Generous." She looked at him."You're thinking I should have given it back. That three months of marriage didn't warrant that large a settlement. And you're right."

"Why didn't you? Give it back." The question was pure curiosity.

She laughed. The word "mirthless" came to his mind. "At first I was hurt—totally wrecked, to be honest; then I got mad. A week after he left, I called him at his mother's, told him he could have his damn money. He told me not to be crazy, to 'have fun with it.' He said he wanted me to have it, and that someday I'd know why. He said he loved me and hoped the money would make up for what he'd done. I didn't understand any of it, got angry all over again, but by the time I'd got myself together enough to think about talking to him again... he was dead."

"Dead?"

"He was twenty-four, and his heart gave out."

"Whoa... tough."

"It turned out Matt had a heart condition when he married me. Knew he didn't have much time left. I guess I was... some kind of last grasp at life. When he started to get sick again, he went home to die, because he didn't want me to see him failing." She pushed her hair back roughly, her face tight with old pain. "I loved him, Wade. He was funny, brave, and—with me, at least—full of life. I tried to give the money back—to his mother. She wouldn't take it, said she'd promised Matt she wouldn't, that he wanted me to think of him when I spent it and to remember how much he loved me. The next day, I went to the bank and told the banker to do something with it and tried to forget about it."

"A million dollars is damn hard to forget."

"Easier than forgetting Matt. And the fact that he didn't believe in me, denied me the chance to be there for him at the end, when he needed me the most." She swallowed hard. "I couldn't be there when my dad died, and I wasn't there for Matt... It just wasn't right."

Wade wanted to touch her, but she remained standing over him, her arms clasped, her posture rigid. "His death, Joy. His choice. Put it away. From what you've said about him, that's how he'd want it."

She nodded, but without conviction. "I ignored the money for a long time... then, when I saw the Phil, thought what it could do—" She met his eyes. "I don't want you to hate me, Wade. I don't want you to think..."

"You're your mother?"

"Something like that."

"Come here." He held out a hand, and she took it before again sitting beside him on the shabby sofa. "That money is yours, sweetheart. It was a gift. You have nothing to feel guilty about."

"I was afraid to tell you."

"First mistake among the many to come." He kissed her because he couldn't stop himself, but he was careful to hold himself back. His body wouldn't do him any favors tonight. "There's one thing we do have to settle."

"The Philip," she said without hesitation.

"Yes. I want us to be partners. Fifty-fifty. I want you to sell me half the hotel."