IN ROOM 33

by EC Sheedy

  "I know, Sin. Joy and I found the photograph. We were looking—"

  "—doesn't matter now." A tear oozed from the corner of her eye. "I couldn't ever prove anything. I just knew. And I was scared, Wade. I shouldn't have been so scared." She grabbed his hand, squeezed. "He set Mike on me. He wants me dead. My own brother."

  "Why, Sin? Why would he do that?"

  "Because I know what he wants. What he'll do..." She tightened her grip on his hand. "You've got to take care of the girl. If she won't sell the hotel, he's going to kill her so that mommy of hers inherits. I heard David yell at Chris—"

  "Grange?" Wade's heart dropped stone-cold in his chest.

  "Christian's very own boy. Always has been. He practically raised him."

  "Jesus!" He'd been set up! And Grange was nothing more than a front man for Rupert. All his talk of protecting Joy, her safety. Bullshit!

  Wade shot to his feet. "You didn't have a setback tonight, did you, Sin?"

  She looked confused. "Been getting better all afternoon."

  Two nurses, one seriously male, pushed open the door."You have to leave, sir. And you have to leave now."

  They didn't have to say it twice. He leaned over, planted a quick kiss on Sinnie's papery cheek, pushed past the hospital bouncer crew, and flew out the door. There was a phone down the corridor, he remembered.

  He called Joy's cell. No answer, and she hadn't bothered with a land line to the room. No point in calling Cherry's place; Wade had sent them to the movies. Cursing himself nonstop, he took the stairs to the hospital's main entrance two, three at a time. He was outside in seconds.

  The rain was heavy, but traffic was lighter now. With luck—and navigation under the radar of Washington's finest—he'd be at the hotel in twenty minutes. He prayed luck would be enough.

  Chapter 18

  Joy added a couple of notes to the margin of her article and leaned back in the chair. Her stomach told her she hadn't eaten since late morning, and that a sandwich—at least—was required. She was halfway through slathering on the mayo when she heard a rap on her door.

  She walked toward it. "Wade?"

  "It's David, Joy. I know it's late, but I need to talk to you about your mother and me."

  "Not the hotel?"

  Silence.

  "Okay—that, too. There is something you need to know. It'll only take a minute, but if you're busy, I can come back."

  For a few seconds she listened to the sound of rain being driven against her window by the gusting wind, not sure why she hesitated, but she did. The emptiness of the hotel, most likely—or the usual woman-afraid-of-the-dark syndrome. She considered both. Neither was life-threatening, nor was Grange—unless a woman wanted to be bored to death.

  She'd been handed an opportunity to dig into the relationship of the slick Mr. Grange and the sick Christian Rupert—she'd be crazy not to take it. She opened the door.

  David stepped in smiling, and she closed the door behind him. He scanned the dimly lit room. "I've heard about 33, but I've never been in it. Quite the reputation."

  "So they say." Joy went back to the counter and finished making her sandwich. "Like one?" She held it up.

  "No, Lana and I ate late. Thanks."

  She munched, watched him. "So what's on your mind, David? Another offer on the Phil?"

  "Would you be open to one?" He'd been looking around the room; now his attention shot to her.

  She drank some milk, but shook her head. "No."

  "I didn't think so." He snorted softly. "That would be a stroke of luck—and I seem to be out of the running for those lately. The thing is"—he centered his gaze on her—"you really did bring this on yourself. It's not really my fault." He put a hand in his pocket.

  "What are you talking about?" The change in his eyes made her uneasy, made her stomach muscles tighten.

  "I'm talking about pressure, Joy. The things we have to do, the choices we don't get to make."

  "Such as?"

  "To live or to die. Completely out of our hands, really." He rubbed his forehead, his expression taut, filled with regret. "And unfortunately, you have to die. Tonight. Because that madman who lives in the penthouse says so. And I'd best get on with it before Emerson gets back to play the white knight."

  Joy stared, tried to assimilate his words. Only a three-letter one came through. Die.

  Her cell phone rang. David, obviously startled by it and now abreast of the table she'd been working on, immediately picked it up, turned it off. He set it down—right beside Smitty, which she'd stuffed under some papers beside her laptop. Now he was between her and it. Damn! "Are you saying what I think you're saying?" Stupid question, but a stall.

  "I have to kill you," he said, his tone flat. "I don't want to, but I have to. I like you. I do. You're tough, smart, and determined. Just like Lana." He grimaced on the name Lana as if in pain. "She'll be sad to lose you—and I hate that. Hate the idea of hurting her."

  Joy's mind went into overdrive. She listened to him in a state of shock. She had to think, to stall. She steadied her sandwich plate and glass of milk in her hand. As weapons they were zip, but they were time-buyers. And time, the next few minutes, were what it was all about. Milk. A sandwich. And the knife! She'd dropped it into the sink before the knock on her door. But first she needed words. A delay. "I don't understand," she said. "Why kill me?" The words felt rusty, rose from a throat coated in emery.

  "Rupert thinks I'm doing it for him, but I'm not." He smiled a tight, malicious smile. "When this is over, the joke's on him."

  "What joke? I want to know." She was desperate, brainless, plan-less. Think! She sidled toward the sink.

  The hand David had in his pocket moved. A gun? Every nerve in her body shot to red alert. She froze.

  Not a gun.

  He drew out a long, silk scarf, slowly, gracefully. It poured out, a brilliant stream of reds, blues, and yellows. Joy moved again, closer to the sink, and put a kitchen chair between them.

  She tried to think, but mesmerized, her mind was trapped by David's slow, deliberate advance. The flutter of silken color across his jacket front.

  He wrapped a length of scarf in each hand, taping his palms like a boxer readying for a bout.

  She watched, frozen, fascinated, sandwich in one hand, milk glass in the other. Say something. Do something. Delay, delay! Stay calm. "David. Why are you doing this?" She raised her voice, inched along the counter.

  Her brain was alive with fear. Thoughts meshed into a stark, indecipherable muddle. She had a gun, she'd taken self-defense, she'd bested routine trouble more times than she could remember. But there was nothing routine about David's expression; it was grim with horrific purpose. Her gaze flicked from his eyes, fierce and sad, to the lethal silk he flexed between his hands.

  He advanced as if she'd hadn't spoken.

  She forced herself to take a bite of her sandwich, and chewed, slowly, very slowly, uncertain if she could swallow. Another inch or two and she could reach the knife. Time, she needed time. "Tell me about Rupert, David. You were his proxy for the tax lien purchase."

  His eyebrows raised. "Very good. It looks as if you've inherited your mother's cool. Checked on the back taxes, did you? I knew you—or Emerson—would get around to that." He snapped the silk, stopped moving forward. "But to set things straight, that viper on the roof is not my client. He's my blackmailer." He took another step toward her. "He's owned me since I was seventeen years old. And the day I get my hands on this hotel is the day he starts dying."

  Joy looked over his shoulder to the door.

  "Don't even think about it."

  She took another drink of milk, another bite of her sandwich, dry oats and motor oil. "What I'm thinking about is why he owns you. Why you'll turn killer to own a seedy property in a lousy part of town."

  "I am a killer. A fact Rupert reminds me of every day of my life."

  She set down her sandwich and the milk—left her hand to rest on the edge of the sink. She'd have one ch
ance.

  "Me?" he sneered. "I wouldn't kill a sick rat for this pile of junk. But getting control of this place is the only way to get free of that bastard. He thinks I'm doing it for him. That's a laugh." He stepped around the chair. "Here's how it really works. I kill you, your mother inherits, I buy—and presto. Lights out on the Phil. Power off. Phones disconnected. No one here to knock on the asshole's door. He's a dead man. And I'm a free one."

  He frowned, lifted the silk, and took a breath. "You know, that maniac up there is easy to hate. But I don't hate you, Joy. I don't. If you'd only have accepted my offer"—he snapped the silk—"this wouldn't be necessary."

  He lunged, Joy screamed, swept the sandwich and milk carton and glass toward him. She plunged her hand into the sink and grabbed the blade of the knife. It slipped away.

  "Don't fight me. Please."

  Only inches away, he lifted his arms, the dazzling sliver of fabric pulled straight between them, a design to loop the silk over her head—around her throat.

  Paralyzed, her back pressed against the wall, she stared, her muscle and sinew rigid as cable.

  Move. She had to move.

  He lunged.

  She dropped to her knees. The sudden move confused him, stalled him, and before he could react to her not being in his grasp, she head-butted him in the groin and scrambled along the floor.

  "Son of a bitch."

  She didn't look back. Couldn't get to Smitty.

  The bathroom, the bathroom... Close the door. Lock it.

  Her mind screamed instructions.

  In the tiny room, still on her knees, she rolled to her back and kicked to slam the door closed.

  Too late! His foot was lodged in the opening, and he was pushing to open it, cursing like a wild man. Pleading with her to make it easy. She braced herself against the porcelain bowl, prayed it would give her enough leverage to hold the door closed, and planted her sneaker-clad feet hard against it.

  Hold the door closed. Think!

  Suddenly David let up his pressure on the door, yanked hard to withdraw his foot. The door closed.

  He was going to ram it.

  He'd break her ankles. She rolled sideways.

  Grange hit the door full force and without her holding it back, he came in wild, out of control. He stumbled over the toilet bowl, and his knee hit the tub edge with a crack, before he fell—directly on top of her.

  His weight crushing her, holding her in place, he didn't waste time trying to loop the scarf around her neck. Joy rounded her body into a tight ball, put her head down and her hands behind it in aircraft emergency landing position. David looped an elbow instead. She curled tighter, tried to work herself into the cramped space between the toilet and the bathtub.

  "Jesus, Joy, cut it out. I have to do this! Don't you understand?" He grabbed her by the hair and yanked her from the tight corner. Her eyes watered and her scalp burned as if someone had poured acetone on it. "Get up." He ordered, his fingers fisted in her hair. "Now!"

  Joy grabbed the hand yanking her hair, and shot her foot out, fast and hard. It connected with his ankle. He cursed, but his grasp on her held.

  Using her hair as his grip, he rammed her against the edge of the bathtub. The first shock was to her wrist. The second was to the back of her head.

  The universe, stars and colors, danced in her skull, a mad swirl, glittering from gold and red to black. Blacker. Her muscles slackened and she went under.

  Only a second, but enough.

  The smooth silk circled her throat, lethal as a wire garrote.

  Still on her knees, she clawed at it, desperate to curl her fingers into its deadly fold, pull it free.

  He dragged her out of the bathroom, along the floor, and across Room 33's sitting area. If she could get to her feet...

  As if he knew her thoughts, David planted a knee in her back, shoved her face hard into the old carpet. Blood spurted from her nose.

  The silk digging deeper into her neck, her eyes bulged and dried.

  Her vision blurred and her lungs emptied.

  Air. She needed air. Air that lay thick and nourishing on the wrong side of the tightening silk. Gray shadows centered in her eyes, then shifted and rolled as if driven off by a wind even darker. Thoughts splintering.

  Her win steeling.

  She blinked hard, and from the corner of her eye saw her computer cord. She crawled her fingers toward it and with the last of her strength wrapped a hand around it and pulled.

  The laptop crashed to the floor on the other side of the table along with a flutter of files and paper.

  No Smitty. No Luck.

  The distraction was less than a second, but it was enough for her to suck in a teaspoon of air before he again tightened the noose.

  Out of oxygen and options, she sank into a storm of light and growing splotches of black. And more black. Blacker.

  Then... a voice, metal hard.

  "David, for Christ's sake, what are you doing?"

  Abruptly the silk loosened, and though still tight to her throat, more air filtered into her empty lungs. The rush of it made her light-headed. Confused.

  "Lana!" David's voice, sharp. Frightened?

  Lana here. Mommy, Mommy...

  "Get away from her."

  "You don't understand. I have to do this. For us."

  More air coming in. Light into blackness. Blood in her nose. She tried to move, to turn. Couldn't.

  "I said, get away from her!"

  A shrill voice, not Lana's. Lana's voice is cool like quiet water. The knee, deeper into her back. The scarf, tighter again. Sounds of choking. Hers.

  "Trust me, darling, this is for the best."

  "You're insane. Killing my only child is for the best?"

  "Jesus, Lana. Think, will you? I do this... thing, you get your ten million, and I get what I want—my goddamned life back!"

  The silk constricting. A band of steel. A circle of death. No! she wanted to live. Lana... Too tired. Dying. In a second she'd be dead. Only a second between life and death. Can't breathe. So cold.

  A sharp sound. A shot? Metal singing into flesh to make blood splatter and fall. Metal to maim... to kill. Then a jerking, grinding spasm of silk at her throat, searing skin, embedding cloth and color deep into her larynx.

  A gasp. Hers. And a wild, desperate grasp for air. Carpet fibers joining the blood in her nose. Short, panting breaths.

  A weight across her shoulders. Moans. Not hers.

  Blood, warm and slow, drizzling over her ear.

  "Joy! Are you all right?" The weight on her back falling off. Pushed off? Someone rolling her over. "Tell me you're okay." Lana was on her knees, pulling at the silk around her throat.

  Joy could only breathe, not talk. She took deeper breaths, filled her lungs until they hurt. "I'm okay," she croaked. She blinked a couple of times and looked at her mother as if for the first time. Lana's eyes were alive with a wildness Joy had never seen before. Fear. Joy knew fear and reached out to soothe it. "Mom."

  Their embrace was fierce, too hard. And long. They held each other, neither letting go until their hearts, beating one against the other, found a shared rhythm.

  Lana pulled away first and turned her head abruptly, but not soon enough for Joy to miss the sheen in her eyes. The first time she'd ever seen her mother cry. When she again looked at Joy, the sheen was gone, replaced by an ironic wonder.

  She glanced at David, supine on the worn carpet, brilliant silk trailing across his broad chest. Her magnificent eyes wide with shock and grim amusement, she said, "My God. I think I just killed the best lover I've ever had." She blinked, gave Joy a slight, curious smile. "You always were trouble."

  Joy swallowed, tried to smile back, but could only stare.

  Wade burst into the room, scanned it, and came to his knees beside Joy. "Are you all right?" He ran his hands up her arms, cupped her face."Jesus, I'm sorry—I should have been here." He looked, stricken, at David's still form. "He could have killed you."

 
; Lana leaned over David and lifted his hair from his forehead, the gesture careful and tender.

  "He tried hard enough," Joy said. "But thanks to... my mother, he didn't finish the job." She raised her hand to her throat, touched it gingerly; it felt like a stab. "Help me up, would you?" For the first time she noticed her hand was bleeding. Not badly, but Wade quickly gave her several sheets of paper towel.

  Lana said, "He's alive."

  Wade went to Lana's side. Joy didn't want to go anywhere near the man. She saw a pool of blood growing slowly under his right shoulder.

  "Grange, can you hear me?" Wade asked.

  Grange mumbled, "Lana, I didn't want to..."

  "He's okay," Wade said, looking at her mother. "It looks as if you hit him on or below the right shoulder." His shirt and jacket were bright with fresh blood.

  "Lana," he moaned again.

  "I'm here, darling. I'm here." She shot a beseeching glance toward Joy. "Call 911... please."

  Joy, still weak and unsteady, located her cell phone on the floor among the fallen papers and put in the call for an ambulance, then the police. She got towels, too, and handed them to Lana.

  Wade snarled in David's face. "An ambulance is more than you deserve, you son of a bitch!"

  David's eyes focused blearily on Wade. "Had to. The old man..." Either he stopped or his voice gave out. Joy couldn't tell.

  Lana pressed a towel to his wound. "Shush, now. Help is coming."

  Wade took Grange's face in his hands, none too gently. "The old man what?"

  "Let go of him," Lana said, her tone flat and hard. "Can't you see how weak he is?"

  "I see a man who tried to kill your daughter. That's all I see. I repeat, what about the old man?" He released his grip, stood back.

  David's gaze drifted to Lana. He lifted a shaking hand, touched her face. "I love you."

  "And I love you." She kissed his forehead. Reverently, Joy thought. "But it really was a bad idea to try and kill my daughter."

  Wade cursed, looked about to explode. "Forget the hearts and flowers stuff." He shot a furious glance at Lana before looking back at David. "What about Rupert? What's he got to do with all this?"

  A long silence filled the room. It looked as if David had said all he would, or could. There was so much blood on the carpet a person could drown in it.