by EC Sheedy
"Everybody here does checks on old Rupert. Door knocks, we call them. He sets them up, changes them all the time." She took a bite of her sandwich. "We knock, he answers, we go away. When Sinnie goes to clean his place, he gives her an envelope for everyone who's done knock duty. That's what we call it." She stopped. "I guess he's afraid of getting sick or something. Kind of sad, really, poor old guy."
Sinnie gave a disparaging snort. "There's nothing poor about Christian Rupert. That old man's got enough money for a hundred lifetimes."
Wade studied her. "How do you know that?"
Sinnie looked down, as if she'd said too much, and Cherry laughed. "Sinnie knows everything."
Wade bought that but decided he'd leave his Rupert questions for later. "So, how long has this door-knocking routine been going on?" he asked.
"Since the old goat quit going out. Years ago, now." Sinnie poured herself a mug of tea. "He gives me a list from time to time, names of the people he wants to knock, times, that kind of stuff. He calls it 'the schedule.' Sometimes there's odd jobs. Window cleaning, the odd repair of something or other. Stuff like that. Most everybody's okay with doing it. Money's good."
"So he picks the people?"
"Uh-huh." Sinnie looked away. "He's particular about that."
Lars interrupted. "Old Rupert isn't going to be happy about all these people going off. Especially if Natalie and Nick leave. Nick's been cooking for him—all that special stuff he likes so much."
Wade leaned against the bathroom door he hadn't managed to escape through. But suddenly, he wasn't in any hurry. He was curious. "It seems the old man keeps people pretty busy around here. Door knocks, dog-walking, cooking, cleaning—"
"—gardening," Cherry added. "Mike takes care of that."
"Right, Gordy told me that." Wade scratched his chin idly. "I should be insulted. He's never offered me a job."
Sinnie piped up, "Who cares about old Rupert and his jobs, anyway? The big thing is why's everybody leaving the Phil? What's happening around here?"
Sinnie was right. Rupert wasn't the issue, but he'd definitely caught Wade's attention. He pushed away from the door and stared at the assembly in his kitchen. "If you guys will vacate my place, I'll have a shower. Then I'll do some checking and see what I can find out. My guess? The people on five got nervous about what they heard"—he arched a pointed look at Sinnie—"and moved on." He wasn't sure he believed it himself, but he couldn't see the point in everyone being upset without knowing the facts.
They all filed out, but as usual, Sinnie had the last word. "Where's the Cole girl?"
"How the hell should I know?"
"You should be nice to her. Maybe keep her close—and an eye on her."
"Go, Sinnie, just go." Slowly, he closed the door on Sinnie's ham-handed attempts at matchmaking. He and Joy had made their decision. Hands off. He intended to abide by it. Besides, he was about to become a busy man.
He was going to buy the hotel.
It wasn't going to be easy, but he knew if he took his head out of his armpit long enough to think it through, he could do it.
Hurdles? Sure. One of them money. Zero collateral and a shiny new prison record wouldn't help, either. But Sinnie was right. The Hotel Philip was in his blood as it had been in his grandfather's before him.
If buying it meant lining Lana's pockets, he couldn't have done it. But Joy? Not a problem. Hell, he'd be doing her a favor. Once he convinced her of how much work was involved, the time it would take, the extent of the risk, she'd be glad to take the money and run. Especially if he made her an offer too good to refuse.
And maybe, when he was on his feet and the hotel was operational, they could—
He cut the thought. First things first. And the first thing was money. Money to buy the hotel, and money to refurbish. Wade had some but not enough.
But Sinnie had given him an idea. And it hadn't been about the missing tenants. He'd keep his promise to check up on them, but right now he had other things on his mind.
If Christian Rupert had the money Sinnie said he had, he was a logical choice as an investor. Wade would put in what remained of his cash, then offer Rupert a straightforward business deal for a loan with a fixed repayment schedule with interest higher than the going rate.
Those terms, and the assurance the old man would never see a wrecking ball raze his home of over half a century, made a solid offer. Wade saw no reason he wouldn't take it.
* * *
Joy got back to the Phil shortly after noon. It had started to rain through the sun, cloudbursts that created steaming sidewalks and damp summer clothes. To the east the sky was dark, bundled clouds rolling across the sky like a herd of black bulls.
Anxious to get back to the hotel—her hotel, Joy didn't stop for lunch. Her mind buzzed with plans, and questions—how to tell Wade about the money, how to tell Lana she was going on an allowance while Joy built up the hotel.
She skipped the elevator and took the stairs, noticed a few light bulbs were out. She'd see to that herself, not bother Wade with it. When she pushed open the fire door leading to the third floor, it was even darker. Lights out here, too. Odd. She was sure there hadn't been so many burnt-out lights when she'd left this morning. Her mind shifted from plans to place—then puzzlement. Maybe most of the bulbs had been replaced at the same time, she thought, or maybe she needed to use a higher quality bulb.
The heat and rain had made the windowless hall muggy and uncomfortable. Joy quickly walked the few steps to her room, anxious to open a window.
She reached for her doorknob—yanked her hand back as if she'd touched a flame. Her door was ajar. Her stomach tightened, and she took a step back, looked up and down the dark, very empty corridor. Unlike the other tenants at the Phil, Joy always locked her door. Some habits weren't worth breaking.
Light from her room seeped through the partially open door to draw a thin blond line on the hall floor.
Every light in the room had been off when she left this morning, she was sure of it. Her heart pounded in her ears, and she looked across the hall to Wade's room, considered knocking on his door, but decided against it. She'd faced worse situations than this in some of the seediest hotels in the world. She'd handle this one. But it was nice to know if she screamed loud enough, he'd be there.
She moved back toward her door, listened intently for several minutes. Heard nothing. Then, preparing herself for a run down the hall—and that scream, if necessary—she gently pushed Room 33's door open wide enough for her to see most of the room. The hinges gave a dull scrape of complaint, and she paused again. Still no sound. Her chest stopped heaving.
"Anyone in there?" she said, both deepening and raising her voice.
Nothing but silence.
Joy pushed the door open, suddenly and so forcefully it slammed the wall with a loud crack. She flipped on the overhead light.
The room was empty.
Except for the stark, blood-red words scrawled on the wall above her bed.
"GET OUT AND STAY OUT!!!"
Joy dropped her bag on the table and sat heavily in one of the chairs, her heart resuming its loud thump within her chest. Who would write such a thing? Who would want her out of the Phil? And why?
She swallowed her unease, told herself to think things through.
She'd locked her door and the lock was intact, which meant whoever did this had a key. Other than Sinnie, the only other person she knew for sure had keys was Wade. He had keys to all the rooms—she'd seen him use them. But even though he'd made it plain he didn't want her here, particularly in this room, she couldn't make herself believe he had anything to do with this.
A clap of thunder brought her to her feet, every nerve jangling.
"What the hell!" Wade stepped into her room through the still-open door.
Joy's hand flew to her hammering heart. "God, you scared me."
He scowled at the harsh red scrawl over her bed, his expression ominous. "And that didn't?" He gestured rigidly at the
writing.
"I was just trying to figure it out."
"What's to figure? Pack your bags. Go back to the Marriott."
"That"—she pointed to the words on the wall—"is unfriendly, Wade, not threatening." She gave him a direct look. "Although listening to all that bristling authority you just dished out, I might think it came from you." But somehow his exercise in control had calmed her.
"I'm more of a modern guy. I'd text." Then he scowled at her. "I'm assuming that question was a joke?"
"The best I could come up with."
"Bad joke. One that follows your bad move in actually moving in here. I should never have let you take this room in the first place. Big mistake."
"I hate to remind you of this, but I own this hotel and I chose to stay here. You had—and have—nothing to say about it." She matched his glare with one of her own.
He blew out a breath, looked mad as hell. "Yeah, you made the choice, but it was a lousy one." Then he added, more softly, "I don't want you in here. This damn room is jinxed."
Her mouth dropped open. "You can't be serious."
He looked grim but said nothing.
"You do believe it. All that 'room of doom' stuff." She couldn't hide her amazement. Mister calm, cool, and controlled, believing in ghost stories.
"I didn't say that."
"But you're not denying it," she said.
He twisted his lips, absolutely glowered at her.
"Look, the Phil isn't in the best of neighborhoods—anybody could have picked the lock and played a prank. That"—she gestured with her chin at the defaced wall—"doesn't mean the room is infested with evil spirits. You don't honestly believe someone is going to come in here and do me in, do you?" She would have laughed if his expression weren't so stoic. "Rooms aren't jinxed. You're overreacting to somebody's idea of a bad joke."
He looked at her a long time, as if considering a set of options. When he finally spoke, his voice was strained, his expression dark.
"My mother committed suicide in this room"—he waved a hand toward the bathroom—"in there, a year after my father married your mother."
Chapter 10
Joy's body weakened as if drained, reeled as if punched. She'd heard Stephen's wife had died not long after she and Lana moved into Stephen's home; she hadn't known her death was by her own hand. No one had told her that. Wade's face was hard, tight.
"I'm so sorry," she said. "I didn't know."
"Sit." He pointed to the loveseat against the wall. "We might as well get this over with."
She didn't know what he was talking about, but she did as he said and sat down. He took time to think before he started talking.
"When you first asked me about the 'room of doom' thing, I ignored you, because it's a question I've never been able to answer. But after my mother," his gaze slid toward the bathroom door, then abruptly back to her, "I researched the place. There were the incidents written up in that old clipping, sure. But there were more through the years. Mostly during the late fifties and sixties. This little piece of real estate"—he waved a hand around the room—"has hosted fires, vandalism, robberies, drug overdoses, suicides—my mother's wasn't the only one—and three violent deaths. Add to that list two other murders in which the bodies were found elsewhere, but the victims were last seen in this room. The press never let it go and eventually the Phil's business started to dry up. My grandfather, who'd always resisted closing the damn room—pure stubbornness, I'd guess—finally did. But it was too little, too late."
"But your Mom died in—"
"Years later. You're right." He nodded, walked to the window. His back to her, he said, "She was always fascinated with Room 33, talked about writing a book on it. No one in the family was surprised she chose it." He looked back at her. "She had a sense of humor, my mother, about everything except Lana Cole taking her husband. That, she couldn't handle."
"With all the other... ugly things that happened here, was there ever any doubt it was—" She stopped, somehow unable to say the word.
"It was suicide, all right. Her note made that clear. She said she didn't want to wake up anymore, didn't want to go on pretending she was stronger than she was."
"So she came here and—"
"Ran a tub of warm water, stepped in, and cut her wrists open." His eyes were stark. "She was missing for two days before we found her."
Joy got up from the old sofa and crossed the room to stand in front of him. She held herself very still. "And she blamed my mother?"
The pain in Wade's eyes morphed to anger. "I don't know who she blamed. There was nothing in the note, no one named specifically, just what she saw as her own failure to make my father happy. But I know that if human hearts actually do break, hers did. And she chose this room, and Stephen and Lana's first anniversary, to kill herself." Wade narrowed his gaze on her. "How I see it? When my father's weakness—coupled with his then-substantial fortune—collided with your mother's greed and selfishness, my mother didn't stand a chance. Lana played Dad with the touch of a master. If I could even once believe she gave a damn about him, maybe..." He shrugged.
"It takes two, Wade. He must have wanted it, too." It was a small defense, but all she had.
Wade jerked his head in reluctant agreement. "My mother spoke to yours once, did you know that?"
Joy's stomach lurched. "No."
"She asked Lana to leave her husband alone. Your mother laughed, said she 'never left a man alone if she could help it.' She suggested my mother get rid of the 'pig fat' she had around her middle, learn to give a decent blow job, and find herself another man."
Joy went to stand at the foot of the bed, clutched one of its tall foot posts, and held on. She didn't want to think about her mother's acid tongue and cold heart, afraid she'd retch. The bold letters spit at her. GET OUT AND STAY OUT!!! She had the fleeting notion that Wade's mother had scrawled the words from the other side.
He came up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders. "I don't usually talk about any of this. Too damn hard, I guess." He nodded to the words on the wall and his voice firmed. "If you insist on staying here, will you at least look around the hotel, take another room?"
"I could, but I don't think it would make any difference. Every one of them has walls to write on. And at least here I'm just across the hall from you. I don't feel I should cut and run. If I do that, Room 33—"
"Room 33, what?"
"Wins. Room 33 and all its rumors and old secrets wins." She took a breath. "Everything you've talked about? It's in the past. I think it should stay there."
"I can't change your mind?"
The word "yes" trembled on her lips, but she shook her head to indicate a negative, too aware of the weight and heat of his big hands sliding to the base of her neck, resting there, before massaging her nape with his thumbs.
"Then you can bet I'll keep my eye on you, Joy Cole. That okay with you?"
"Okay." She smiled, turned to look at him.
"Good." He paused. "And for what it's worth, I don't confuse you with your mother. Not anymore." He squeezed her shoulders and streams of warmth traveled down to pool in her chest. "You're much more beautiful—and honest."
She gave him as direct a look as possible, given his nearness and the disparity in their heights. "You should know that you and this room aren't the only ones with secrets. There are things you don't know about me, and like it or not, I am my mother's daughter. Nothing will change that." Through the gathering sensual mist in her brain, she saw that dark light—the money. He'd know then how much like her mother she was. She should tell him but... later.
She'd tell him later.
He stroked her lower lip with his thumb, studied her mouth. "Nothing will change this, either." His head came down and his lips, firm and slightly open, moved over hers. "You believe in fate, Cole?"
She couldn't breathe, let alone talk. She was suspended, waiting for his mouth to center, find hers, claim it. "Fate..." She let the word out on a slow exhale. "Never thought
much about it." She shifted closer, until her breasts pressed into his chest. He was hard, taut muscle, above and below. He parted his legs to hold ground, receive her flush against him. Enfold her.
The heat—
Too sudden, and with it the reflex to hesitate, pull back, the sense she was going into perilous territory. But to say no against Wade's mouth was impossible.
She wanted him, every female sinew and nerve in her body shouted it at her with sure sexual conviction. She found her voice again. "What about you? Do you believe in fate?"
Wade caressed her skin, brushed kisses along her cheek, her jaw, her parted lips. "I do now. There's something about us together. Something inevitable." He lifted his head and his dark eyes poured heat into hers. "I like the taste of you, Miss Cole, the feel of you in my arms. And I've been wanting more of both since you"—he smiled—"hauled that sweet ass of yours into the Phil."
He took her mouth in a kiss so scorching it seared her mind, her heart—the soles of her feet.
Joy forked her fingers through his heavy hair, her heart stammering, her mouth taken—conquered—by its first contact with his tasting, probing tongue.
"Jesus..." he muttered and released his hold to look down at her. "You're like a mainline aphrodisiac." For a moment there was something close to fear in his eyes, then his gaze, heavy with desire, dropped to her lips. He shook his head, half in resignation, half in wonderment. "I think I'm fucked." A slow smile turned his lips. "In the best possible way, of course."
Lana met his eyes, tried to smile back through the sexual mist adrift in her mind. "Not yet, you're not. But hold that thought." She pulled his mouth back to where it belonged. When they parted, breathless, she said, "This—us thing—it has to happen. I want it to happen, but no promises, no illusions. Okay?"
"Sweetheart, I gave up on promises and illusions the day I went to prison." He kissed her again, a kiss of heady sensual potential. Then he lifted his head and leaned his forehead against hers. "But there's no chance I'll make love to you in this room." He stepped back. "And, much as I want it to be, it isn't going to be now."
