But as I switched off the lights and pulled back the sage and peach colored quilt on my bed, I realized I was not entirely alone.
Writhing in the center of my sheets was a long, slick black snake, its forked tongue hissing menacingly.
CHAPTER TEN
I'd heard that adrenaline could make people perform superhuman feats such as lifting a car off a loved one, and at that moment, I knew it was true, because my backward leap nearly carried me clear across the room. I wasn't aware that I was screaming, but I must have been, because seconds later, doors banged and footsteps sounded in the hallway. Almost immediately, someone pounded on my door and I heard voices yelling.
"Are you okay?"
"What's going on?"
"Should we call someone?"
I would have responded, but all my own voice seemed able to do at current was whimper. With a shaky breath and my eyes fixed firmly on the snake, I put my back to the wall and circled around to the door. It felt agonizingly slow, but the last thing I wanted to do was make any sudden movements that might spur the reptile into action. If I had to guess, his beady little eyes were tracking me just as carefully as I was watching him. I was seconds from either having a heart attack or peeing my pants by the time I finally felt the door handle behind me and wrenched it open.
A handful of concerned looking people stood on the other side. Most I didn't know, but one person I recognized—Jaden Plume, the Evil Prince, wearing a black silk robe over black silk pajama bottoms, his face slick with moisturizer.
"What's wrong with you?" he asked. "Why were you shouting cusswords?"
Was I? Well, that was a little embarrassing.
Wordlessly, I pointed to the bed. One of the women shrieked when she saw the snake and quickly retreated back to her own room. I didn't blame her in the least.
Jaden, on the other hand, stepped into the room, taking charge. "Stand back," he unnecessarily told me.
Trust me, I was staying as far back as humanly possible from the coiled intruder.
Jaden very calmly belted the sash of his robe, went right over to the bed, grabbed the snake near the head, and hauled it up into the air. It unfurled like a flag and hung from his hand, looking none too pleased.
Jaden pointed his chin at the bed. "Give me that pillowcase."
"Don't do it!" one of the remaining women yelled. "The snake might've touched it!"
"That snake is perfectly clean," one of the men said. "Her feet are probably dirtier than that snake."
"Don't be ridiculous," the woman said. "Her feet look perfectly clean to me. Look, her nails are even painted."
"I just took a shower," I said, for no good reason.
Jaden sighed. "Believe me, this snake is nothing to worry about."
I stared at it, hanging there like a fat homicidal fork-tongued rope. I didn't buy it. And he was not cleaner than my feet. After all, he'd dragged himself through the forest to get to my bed.
"He's not poisonous," Jaden assured me. "It's just a common garter snake. These guys are all over this area. I'll just put him in a pillowcase, take him outside, and let him go. If you'll hand me a pillowcase."
Giving them both a wide berth, I circled back around to the far side of the bed, shook one of the pillows free from its case, and tossed it to him.
"You need to hold that open for me," he said.
I pulled my hands back. "I don't think I do."
"Oh, for Pete's sake," Mr. Snakes-Are-So-Clean said. He stepped into the room and snatched up the pillowcase, holding it while Jaden threaded the snake into it.
"Want me to come back after I dispose of this?" Jaden asked. "Make sure there aren't any others in here?"
Oh, great. I hadn't even considered that. Of course, now it was all I could think about.
"Uh, no," I said, trying to regain some of my dignity. "I'm fine."
He gave me a look like he didn't believe that any more than I did.
But he shrugged and thankfully took the now wiggling (ew, ew, ew!) pillowcase full of reptile outside.
"Sorry for the disruption," I said to the remaining few hotel patrons.
"If I were you," one of the women said, "I'd ask for a partial refund. It's completely unacceptable to have a snake in your bed."
"Better than bedbugs," Mr. Snakes-Are-So-Clean said, heading back to his room three doors down.
The woman glared at him. "Is that what you think?" She glanced back at me from the doorway. "Trust me. Talk to the manager. Get the refund. I've done it lots of times."
Why did I think she probably packed her own snake?
After everyone had gone back to their own rooms, I locked the door and spent ten minutes checking every square inch of space in case my visitor had had a traveling companion. When I finished that, I did it all over again. Especially under the bed and in the shower. Just in case, I closed the tub drain and lowered the toilet lid.
Finally, when I was satisfied that I was alone, I called the front desk and requested a change of sheets. That snake might have been a clean freak, but I'd sooner sleep in the bathtub than crawl into that bed after he'd crawled out.
It was nearly eleven by the time housekeeping had come and gone and I was reasonably sure I was sleeping alone. I fell into a fitful sleep that was punctuated by dreams of giant snakes, wily old authors, and medieval swords being wielded by a maniacally laughing Detective Bartlett.
Predictably, I woke up exhausted. I filled the hotel's mini coffee pot with water and a couple of the pre-filled filters and plodded straight into the shower. I stood under the hot spray for ten minutes before switching it to cold for a final minute. It did the trick, waking me up if not totally refreshing me. I dressed in a pair of skinny jeans, a soft pink off-the-shoulder top, and a pair of cute pink heels that really had no business being in Moose Haven. But they felt like me, so I put them on anyway. I was just finishing up a quick mascara and lip-gloss routine when I heard a knock at my door.
"Maddie! Open up!"
Dana. In the time it took me to cross the room to open it, she'd knocked three more times. I opened the door, and she practically fell into the room.
"It's disaster! Everyone is talking about it. I'm all over Twitter!" Her hair was uncombed, and she wore no makeup. Her eyes looked like she'd been crying, and she was waving her phone around in one hand as if it were a shake weight.
"What's a disaster?" I asked, urging her to a chair by the window. "What happened?"
"I'm a suspect!" she said, dropping into it with a sigh.
Well, I could have told her that. "Dana, I'm sure the police are looking at every angle," I said, sounding unconvincing even to my own ears.
But Dana shook her head. "No, you don't understand. It's all over the internet. Everyone is saying I killed Frost."
My heart dropped into my stomach. "Who's everyone?" I clarified.
Dana turned to the phone in her hand and swiped to change screens. "TMZ, E! Online, the L.A. Informer, everyone!"
I shook my head in disbelief even as the headlines stared back at me from the device in her hands. "But how on earth would they have picked up on this? You haven't even talked to any reporters."
"Yeah, that's the best part," she said, heavy on the sarcasm as she scrolled deeper into one article. "Apparently some 'unnamed source' inside the police department confirmed to E! that I'm a suspect in Frost's murder!"
My mind immediately went to Bartlett and his news magazine watching wife. Would he have leaked Dana's name to the press?
"What am I going to do, Maddie? It's all over social media. It's all over Hollywood. It's all over the world!"
"World?" I mumbled, watching her switch to a social media site.
"World! Ricky called me early this morning. He heard about it in France."
"I can't imagine that went over well."
"Oh yeah, he was thrilled to find out his wife is a murderer."
I shook my head. "Okay, now you are being dramatic. You know Ricky would never think that of you."
&
nbsp; She sighed. "I know. But everyone else does. Look." She held her phone up so I could see a thread of comments on one article.
I scanned the first few. She was right. The reactions were not kind—most of them accusing her of everything from being a crazed diva to having delusions of being a real Elf Princess and killing him in an epic coup.
"Listen to this one," she said, reading off the screen. "'We all know the reason Dana had to want Frost dead—he found out she can't act her way out of a paper bag.'" She closed her eyes and thunked her head back on the edge of the chair. "This is it. The end of my career," she moaned. "This movie was supposed to launch me to A-lister status, but instead it's going to bury me in the has-been graveyard."
"Okay, first of all, this is not the end of your career. It's just a bunch of nasty gossip." I took her phone from her, closing all of the media apps. "You and I both know that you are not a murderer."
"We might be the only ones," she mumbled.
"And secondly," I went on, "you are a brilliant actress, and everyone will see that once this movie hits theaters."
"If I'm not behind bars by then," she said, eyes still closed, body slumped like she might just melt right into the chair.
"Well, lucky for you, the police don't convict based on popular opinion."
Dana lifted her head. "An opinion that they created. Unnamed source? Might as well just say guy-named-after-a-pear."
I pursed my lips. "Yeah, I'd had that thought too." I got up. "Want some coffee?"
She rubbed her eyes with her fists. "More than anything."
I went to the mini pot and poured two paper cups full, adding a couple pods of creamer and several sugar packets to mine. I handed the other to Dana and sat on the edge of the bed opposite her.
"I had some excitement of my own last night," I said, partly to take her mind off social media.
She blew on her coffee. "Oh?"
"A visitor. Of the reptile variety." I filled her in on finding the serpent in my bed and the Evil Prince Jaden coming to my rescue.
When I finished, she was shaking her head. "Maddie, that's terrifying. You could have been killed!"
"Maybe died of a heart attack," I conceded. "But Jaden said it wasn't poisonous."
"Still. How scary."
"Trust me, it was."
She sipped at her coffee thoughtfully. "How could it have gotten in here?" she asked, eyes darting around my room.
I shrugged. "I don't know. Jaden said they're all over this area. I mean, I supposed he could have slithered in any number of ways." Which, now that I was thinking about it, was slightly terrifying. I suddenly pictured all manner of creepy crawly slithery life making its way into my hotel room.
Dana frowned. "I don't see how. I mean, the doors have weather stripping. Windows are closed. It's not like there are any exposed vents or drains to the outside." She looked up to meet my gaze. "Maddie, I think someone deliberately put that snake in here."
That thought was even more terrifying than things slithering in.
"Who? Why? How?" I asked, unconsciously clutching my cup a little tighter.
"How…I don't know. Maybe they borrowed housekeeping's master key or something. I mean, it's not Fort Knox here."
She had a point there. "Okay, let's go back to why, then."
"If I had to guess, I'd say as a warning." Dana's eyes got that light in them again. "Maddie, you made someone nervous yesterday. Possibly the same someone who killed Frost."
That was a disconcerting thought. "I didn't mean to," I squeaked out.
"Who did we talk to?" Dana stood up and started pacing as she sipped her coffee. "There was Selma Frost—maybe she caught on to the fact you didn't quite buy her fake tears."
"Possibly fake," I said. "Remember, she might have a tear duct problem."
"And didn't you question Tarrin about Elora's issue with Frost's spending? It's possible it got back to Elora that you were asking the right questions, and she got nervous you'd find out she killed Frost to save her bottom line."
"I don't think Elora even knows my name," I protested.
Dana ignored me, ticking off more suspects. "Oh, but first we talked to Alia, remember? When she told us about Frost kicking Ravensberg off the set."
I nodded. "Yeah, and later when I called her out for lying to us." Which in hindsight, maybe I shouldn't have. I wondered how Alia felt about garter snakes.
"And then you chased Ravensberg too!" Dana said, stabbing a finger toward me for emphasis.
"He ran first," I said by way of defense. "If he hadn't run, I never would have chased him."
"Yeah, but maybe it was just enough to spook him. To let him know you were on to him."
"But I'm not on to him," I protested again. "I mean, we don't even really know anything about him except that he and Frost didn't see eye-to-eye on the film."
"And Frost kicked him off the set. And he vowed revenge. And he's still in town, lurking around suspiciously."
"Lurking is a strong word," I said, though my protests were feeling more and more feeble. Honestly, of those four, I could easiest envision the grisly mountain man looking Ravensberg grabbing a spare snake and dropping him in my bed.
I shook my head, not wanting to envision anyone doing anything with snakes ever again. "Okay, so assuming you're right and the snake did not voluntarily slither in here on his own. What do we do?"
Dana stopped pacing and perched on the edge of the chair again. "Well, I say the first thing we do is track down this Ravensberg and find out exactly where he was two nights ago."
While I was hesitant about that idea, I had to admit that Dana looked a lot better than she had when she'd first come into my room. Her sadness had been replaced with purpose. And at least tracking down the author would keep her off social media for a while.
"Okay, so where do we start looking for him?" I asked.
Dana grinned. "I have an idea."
Oh boy. I could hardly wait to hear this one.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"Tell me more about the type of place you're looking for," the rental agent said. Her name was Betsy Hough. She was a solid, blocky woman with a soft jawline and bright green readers perched on a slim, straight nose. Her smile was pleasant, and she seemed genuinely delighted to see us. Given that hers was the only desk in the Moose Haven Realty office, it was obvious that her professional calendar was less than full. Apparently Moose Haven wasn't a bustling hub of real estate activity. In fact, Moose Haven Realty was the only place in town to find a rental property, as Marci at the Hungry Moose had told us when we'd gotten breakfast that morning.
The office itself was as pleasant as Betsy. Light and bright, with pale yellow walls and glossy white-painted furniture. Benign waterscapes hung behind her, and an oversized vase of plastic sunflowers sat in the front window.
"We don't want anything too big," Dana replied. "My husband and I are looking for a cozy vacation spot, and Moose Haven is so charming."
"Isn't it?" Betsy's pleasant smile widened. "I just love it here. Moose Haven born and raised!"
Poor thing.
"Let me show you some pictures. We have a fairly extensive inventory." She glanced up at me. "And are you interested in a rental property as well?"
"Not right now," I told her. "But I'll keep you in mind."
"Wonderful. Let me give you my card, then." She slid it across the desk to me. "That's my cell number on the bottom there. Feel free to call me anytime. We don't operate on a rigid nine-to-five basis around here. I'm free any time. Now, then." She turned back to Dana. "Tell me what sort of vacation home you're looking for?"
"Like I said, nothing too big. It's just for my husband and me. We're newlyweds."
"Oh, isn't that just such a special time?" She turned to her computer. "And when would you be interested in taking possession?"
"I'm not exactly sure yet," Dana said. "It really depends on my husband's business schedule."
"Of course." Betsy's fingers moved deftly across the keyboard.
She angled the monitor so that Dana and I could view it. "Now, we have a fairly good inventory to choose from at the moment. You're lucky it's not elk season!" She chuckled. Cleary everyone in town knew what happened in elk season. "We have several that are near the lake, very exclusive community. A couple closer to town if you like the nightlife."
I had to bite my lip to cover a smirk.
"And of course, there are the cozy forest cabins."
"Actually," Dana said, "I was hoping to rent something near a friend of mine. J.R. Ravensberg? He said he rented a place through you recently?"
"Oh. Well, yes, that's correct. We did handle that transaction."
A light of triumph hit Dana's eyes. "Wonderful! Do you have the address of that cabin?"
Betsy opened her mouth to speak but then seemed to think better of it. "Oh, that was you testing me, wasn't it?" She laughed, slapping her knee with her hand. "Mr. Ravensberg told me he highly valued his privacy. I assured him we never give out our client's info. I bet he told you to test me while you were here, am I right?"
The light snuffed right out of Dana's eyes. "Uh, yeah." She managed a weak laugh. "Just a test. You passed!"
Betsy clapped her hands. "You celebrities. You're a hoot!"
"You do keep records of rental transactions, though, right?" Dana asked her.
She nodded. "Oh, of course. But as I assured your friend, they are very secure. Our equipment may not be new," she added, patting her square monitor, "but we keep our security up to date."
"Oh. Lovely. You have up-to-date security." Dana looked like someone had kicked her puppy.
"And all of our signed paperwork is stored in the back." Betsy pointed past her to a hallway where I could see a restroom and another closed door farther down that I assumed to be a storeroom. "And nobody gets back there without going through me." She gave us another pleasant smile that I'm sure was meant to reassure us of how trustworthy she was.
In reality, it was just deflating our hopes.
"So, let's take a look at some properties now, shall we?" she continued, oblivious to our disappointment as she turned back to her computer. "You speak right up if you see anything you like, or anything you don't like. That will help me narrow it down to something that suits your taste."
Peril in High Heels (High Heels Mysteries Book 11) Page 9
