by Linda Welch
This wasn’t a hotel room; it was a whole goddamn apartment! No kitchen, but the wet bar with full-sized fridge, microwave and sink made an adequate substitute. I ran my fingers around the rim of a stemmed crystal glass, making it hum; held it up to the light and saw prisms dance.
In the bedroom, I kicked off my sandals and lost my toes in the ultra-thick cream carpet. The cherry-wood walk-in closet could have held mine, Royal’s and half Clarion’s clothes. Okay, so that’s an exaggeration, but big does not do it justice. Is there such a thing as a bed larger than king-sized? Royal lolled on an island-sized square draped in patchwork gold, bronze and chocolate. It had a little fold-up step stool to help the average-sized person climb aboard.
I grinned at Royal. “Does this come with room service?”
He lay back on the satin pillows, hands linked behind his head. “Sweetheart, it comes with anything you want.”
***
Three hours after taking a shower and a nap in a bed I could live in, I leaned on my elbow to gaze at Royal’s face.
“Mornin’, sweetheart.”
I gave him the evil eye. “Evening.”
He smiled up at me. “That does not look like a happy, smiley morning - excuse me, evening - face.”
I didn’t feel happy and smiley. My head ached.
I refused to let his smile soften me. “That could be because my partner set me up.”
He theatrically widened his eyes. Wide-eyed innocence from Royal made me want to laugh, but I resisted.
“I wondered why we’re in this luxurious suite.” I waved my hand at the room. “This is the Embassy Suite, reserved for diplomats and extremely wealthy people. It costs twenty-five-hundred dollars a night!”
“We’re only here for two days.”
I ignored that. “Then your friend Chris Plowman sends up his compliments, with an invitation to join him for supper.”
He didn’t even have the grace to look abashed. “Supper? Not dinner?”
“What has that do with anything?”
“There is a difference.”
Seeing a poor attempt to distract me, I gave him an eyebrow. “Christopher Plowman owns this place. I bet we’re not paying a dime.”
Royal started to slide out the sheets. I lay on him with a hand either side his body, making the sheet taut across his arms and chest. “Mr. Plowman has a problem, doesn’t he, Royal.”
He winked at me. “That’s my girl, best detective in the American northwest.”
Yep, I figured it out, although I might have taken longer had I not heard the gentle knock at the door. A man in a white uniform wheeled in a trolley with a silver coffee service, and a note for Royal from Plowman. I know, I shouldn’t have opened the envelope, but I did, and look what I found.
I waved the thick vellum paper in his face. “’Royal, I hope you’re comfortable in the Embassy Suite. I am eager to see you again, my friend. If you and your companion will join me for a casual supper at six, we can discuss my problem. I do hope she can help. Chris.’”
I held his gaze. “Problem?”
“Mm, that does rather give the game away,” he admitted. “Can I get up now?”
I made a sound through gritted teeth. “Not. Yet.”
“Your snarl is very sexy.”
I had one of those intuitions. “You knew! You heard the coffee arrive and saw me read the note.”
He closed his eyes, inhaled. “And you smell so good.”
“Royal - ” I began, but before I knew what he intended, I lay on my back, swaddled in the sheet like a mummy.
“You are altogether too sexy for me to resist, especially when you are annoyed.” He pulled aside one edge of the sheet. “Now, what have we in here?”
And that was that for a time.
Chapter Six
We stepped in the foyer and hunger roiled my stomach as the wonderful aroma of grilling steak drew me like a magnet. I’m a food aroma junkie; let me get a whiff of steak grilling on the barbecue, onions sizzling in the pan, bacon, I’ll track it faster than you can snap your fingers. I followed the tantalizing olfactory trail to a restaurant just off the foyer, except a sign on the wall called it The Dining Room. We made to enter, but a guy in a white tux intercepted us and spoke quietly in Royal’s ear. Royal nodded, and we followed the guy past the The Dining Room, down a short hallway to a small, windowless room like an alcove. Mellow light from an overhead lamp bathed the small room, picking out the silver gilt lines running down the teal wallpaper, making silverware on the single round table softly gleam. A man rose to his feet as we reached him.
A demon, with pale, shimmering gray shoulder-length hair cut by glittering black strands, his eyes the same pale gray with pupils black and glossy as hematite. His pale-blue, light-weight suit and waistcoat beautifully draped a lean body. His gaze on me ran a shiver down my spine. He smiled at Royal, revealing the tips of his pointed white teeth, and reached over the table to shake hands.
A low slow voice, a smooth, upper-class English accent. “Royal, my dear friend. I cannot tell you how good it is to see you again.”
He released Royal’s hand and made a half-bow in my direction. “And this must be Tiff, as lovely as Royal described.”
Hot little sparkly sensations tingled over my skin and erupted inside me. I could listen to his voice all day. I smiled warmly as I relaxed.
I came bolt upright as I realized demon seduction had me in its sensuous, velvety grasp. Plowman tried to charm me, right in front of Royal, and I let him! Yeech! I bit down on my lower lip and pasted a bland expression on my face.
Royal smiled at his friend. “I hope we did not keep you waiting.”
“Not a problem. Do sit,” Plowman said as he took his seat.
Royal sat on Plowman’s left with me next to him, so I faced our host across the small table. “You’re British?”
Royal’s eyes twinkled. “Chris is no more British than I. He lived in London for a year, many years ago, and decided to become an English gentleman.”
Plowman tossed his head, making his hair sift to one side. “To each his own. You decided to become a police officer and bury yourself in rural Utah.” He spread his hands in a need I say more? Gesture.
We sat in silence as a waiter in a neat white uniform with a folded linen cloth draped over his arm put a fragile china coffee service on the white damask tablecloth, plus a matching bowl brimming with raw brown sugar and small jug of milk. Another waiter pushed in a trolley which held four heavy silver chafing dishes and a silver tureen. He whisked off the tureen’s lid to present squares of cheese-covered toast afloat in French onion soup. The smell of slightly charred onion and rich broth made my stomach rumble. The dishes held grilled steak, vegetables oven-roasted in rosemary olive oil, sweet corn and scalloped potatoes. Yet another waiter put down a large bowl of green salad, a carafe of French dressing, a basket of bread rolls and bowl of butter pats.
“This looks good. I hope you did not go to any trouble,” Royal said as he used heavy silver tongs to transfer a slab of steak to his dish.
“Not at all. With your appetite, I knew you wouldn’t want to wait until eight for dinner, so I ordered a simple supper,” Plowman replied. “But I hope you’ll join me for dinner tomorrow evening. You did bring a tux?”
And that meant? I cocked my head and widened one eye at Royal.
“No, I did not,” he told Plowman.
He winked at me. “Dinner at The Hermitage is something of an affair. Men wear tux, woman wear cocktail dresses or evening gowns.” Then he busily helped himself to everything else on the table.
No fancy dinner tomorrow night for us, then. I brightened - we could go find a family diner, they serve the best food.
Savory steam rose from the dishes. I ladled soup into my bowl and loaded my plate with steak, corn, veggies and potatoes. One thing missing. I smiled at the waiter. “Can I get some ketchup, please?”
The man’s head went up, it kind of reared, and he looked down his nose at me. I saw
right up his nostrils.
“Madam?”
“Ketchup. For the steak.”
“Um, Tiff. . . ,” Royal murmured.
Oh, I knew what I said wrong. I smiled at the waiter again. “Sorry. Tomato sauce.”
The fellow still stared at me with a chilly countenance. I didn’t know what I did wrong, but his expression indicated I committed a serious breach of etiquette, or at least broke some minor law.
Royal made odd wheezing noises in his throat. When he recovered, he leaned in and spoke low in my ear. “How can I explain? Putting ketchup on food is considered an insult in establishments such as this.”
“My chef would be outraged by the mere suggestion,” Plowman drawled.
I looked from Royal to Plowman, then snorted. They were joking, weren’t they? I peeked at the waiter from beneath my brows. He looked dead ahead, as if our conversation swept beneath his notice.
“Ketchup would mask the flavor,” Royal said.
“You are. . . .” I gauged his expression. Not joking, although a tiny quirk of his lips betrayed amusement.
I eyed the snooty waiter again and growled under my breath: “Forget it.”
I unfolded my linen napkin, laid it over my knees and spooned up the soup.
I caught Plowman’s eyes on me, a dreamy look in them. I frowned back. His eyes narrowed as he stared with more concentration. Then he reached over the table as if to take my hand. I slapped his down. The nerve of the man!
Royal burst into laughter as he overloaded his fork. “Chris, that does not work on Tiff.”
I glared at Plowman, damping my temper with an effort, miffed his lecherous pursuit didn’t bother Royal in the slightest. Okay. I could play that game. Damned if I’d let either know it aggravated me. I nonchalantly pushed my soup bowl away and dug into my steak.
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Plowman, giving Royal a look meant to caution him.
“Your magic won’t work on her. She sees us as we are, not the smoothed-over version her people normally see.”
Smoothed-over?
The demon laid his knife and fork on the edge of his plate. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“I wanted to surprise you.”
I crinkled my brow. “You knew he’d try it on me?”
“Of course; Chris never changes.” Royal flashed his teeth at Plowman. “And I knew it would not work on you.”
I swallowed buttery corn. “Why would you want to influence me?” I asked Plowman.
He shrugged one shoulder fluidly and smiled thinly. “Because I can.”
“Not this time, buddy. Not with this girl.” I scooped up more corn.
His smile tightened. “Apparently not.”
His expression changed to uncertain as he spoke to Royal. “Good grief. What did you do to your teeth?”
Royal grinned, the better to show off his even white teeth. “I had them capped.”
Plowman sounded stunned. “Whatever for?”
Royal’s gaze softened. “I like to kiss human women.”
“Woman,” I emphasized.
Plowman twitched an eyebrow and said sourly, “So do I, old boy, and often. But I don’t feel a need to mutilate my teeth.”
I contemplated him over my fork. “Royal didn’t care to put his will on every woman he kissed to make her forget the feel of his teeth.”
“If you got out in the world more, Chris, you would know many get their teeth capped, for the same reason,” Royal said.
“To kiss women?” I asked.
“I’ve not had complaints so far,” Plowman said.
Royal pointed his knife at our host. “You don’t have a family. Imagine having to endlessly charm your wife and children so they don’t feel your teeth.”
“Perhaps if I find a woman as attractive as Tiff to settle down with, I’ll change my mind,” the demon said with a calculated look at me.
He took a bite of potato, a little half-smile hovering on his mouth and said no more on the subject of teeth.
I didn’t trust demons and Plowman validated my judgment when he tried to put his will on me.
I learned about demons years before I saw one. Lynn is the single person I know who sees them as they truly are, as I do, and when she told me what she knew, I hoped never to meet one. It was not a case of fearing what I didn’t understand - I understood they were fast, strong, and used people as a means of sensual and sexual gratification - they were alien to my world in both appearance and nature, a danger to my fellow human beings. How can you trust a supernatural . . . whatever, who masquerades as human?
Truth be told, as we ate supper in that fancy hotel and I contemplated my opinion of Plowman and demons in general, I didn’t know how far I could trust Royal, not after Russia. He would never be cruel for cruelty’s sake, or vengeful. He would never hurt me physically. I did trust him to have my back if danger threatened. But I could not forget he owed allegiance to Bel-Athaer’s High House.
I had to ask myself, if the High House again ordered him to do what he knew would be abhorrent to me, would he?
Sometimes, usually in the middle of the night, I called myself a fool. But then I looked at his sleeping face, felt his warmth, replayed our day together, and a smile curved my mouth. He made my heart race and my bones turn to Jell-O. Just looking at him, I felt a warm tingle inside. I missed him when we were apart. I didn’t believe in happily-ever-after, but I knew life without Royal would be a shadow of what it was with him.
After I got through my teens, I never thought I’d again see the day I became an emotional mess. Yet here I was. . . .
I concentrated on my food, letting their conversation wash over me. Plowman used his silverware in a peculiar way. Like most right-handed Americans, I carve a piece off the outer edge of my meat, lay my knife down and switch my fork to my right hand, stab the meat and voila! Plowman forked his steak at the edge, cut the piece off and put it in his mouth. No laying down utensils, no switching hands. Odd, but I must admit to an economy of motion. Maybe a British thing?
I avoided Plowman’s gray eyes, though I felt them on me. When I didn’t watch where I stuck my fork, my gaze drifted to Royal. He wore his long hair pulled back in a tail, the metallic copper-gold glimmered in the lamplight. His coppery eyes glinted as he moved his head. He met my eyes, we both smiled. For a moment, I forgot another person sat at our table.
Plowman cleared his throat, reminding me a third person sat with us. I concentrated on my food again.
I did not say a word until I swallowed the last mouthful and took a sip from my glass. Then I jumped in. “Right. About this ghost. . . .”
Plowman sighed heavily. “I expect Royal told you this . . . intrusion, is causing us considerable inconvenience?”
“He didn’t tell me a thing.” I leaned back in my chair and hooked one arm over the back. “I felt it when we walked in here.”
“I told you she would know,” Royal said to Plowman.
Plowman put his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers. He stared at me for a good half-minute, then gave me a brief nod. “Very well. We began renovations to the attics three years ago. The workmen spoke of odd occurrences. Blueprints, pencils, small items, moved to other locations. I didn’t take much notice at the time. But when we made the suites available to our guests, they reported unpleasant . . . anomalies. A member of my staff circulated the story that a woman died in an attic room. Naturally, I reprimanded him, but I checked into it all the same. Ten years ago, before I purchased the hotel, an employee murdered his companion of the moment up there.”
This didn’t sound right. What anomalies could a shade impose on the living? “What did your guests see?”
“Furniture tipping over, objects flying across the room.”
No, definitely not right. I puffed out a breath through pursed lips, sucked one in. “Whatever you have up there, I don’t think it’s a ghost.”
“Poltergeist?” from Royal.
I let my gaze wander to the
wallpaper. Poltergeist? Maybe. I dropped my chin and frowned at Plowman. “Were there children among your guests? I’ve heard they can unwittingly instigate this sort of paranormal activity.”
Plowman shook his head. “No children.”
“And she was murdered?”
“Yes. Royal said you can communicate with murder victims.”
“Not just them, anyone who died a violent death. This woman, what happened to her killer?”
“Caught, convicted and spent two years in prison until another inmate killed him.”
I rubbed at my scalp “Doesn’t make sense. For a start, she shouldn’t still be here after her killer died. She definitely couldn’t hurl solid objects - there are rules.”
“Like those Lindy Marchant broke when she left her apartment to look for you?” Royal said, brows arcing.
I have encountered a few rule-breakers, and Lindy Marchant topped the list. Shades should remain at their place of death until their killer dies, but Lindy walked two blocks to my house because she wanted me to find her little boy. To further complicate matters, Lindy wasn’t murdered; she died a natural death and should not have lingered.
“Whatever it is, it has to stop.” Plowman looked agitated; his knuckles rapped the table. “This manifestation threw a vase at a guest. We were nearly embroiled in a lawsuit and I no longer dare offer the suite.”
“Okay,” I conceded. I grimaced at Plowman. He was letting us stay in a luxury suite at no cost. “I suppose I could look at this ghost.”
***
Muted voices and muffled footfalls drifted up the staircase. Unlike the foyer, the floors above boasted thick carpet in hallways and the back staircase. We took the stairs because the elevator to the top floor had broken down, again. Plowman said it did so regularly. He attributed that to the shade, but I doubted it. From what he said, the shade was confined to the suite, else peculiarities would have been noticed in the rest of the hotel
