I heaved a long, drawn-out sigh. “I won’t kill Spindle.”
Lollie burst out laughing, spitting beer foam halfway across the room. When she finally stopped cackling like a wicked witch, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “What makes you think, even for a second, you could take Spindle, a professional killer?”
I tried not to take offense at her tone. After all, she’d never seen me lose my self-control. Normally I was a lover, a really good one, and not a fighter, but I’d been in my fair share of scrapes. Hell, thanks to Elly, I’d worn a dress to a seventh-grade dance and lived to tell about it. That didn’t happen unless you could hold your own. “It isn’t me you should be so worried about, Lollipop.”
“Last warning.” She crossed and uncrossed her long, luscious legs. “Stop calling me Lollipop or else I’ll be the one to kick your ass.”
“Fine,” I said. “No more Lollipop. But it’s time to come clean. I need the truth, Lollie. Tell me where I can find Spindle.” I slid down on the couch next to Lollie, our bodies close but not touching.
She bit her bottom lip. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t lying. I don’t know where Spindle is. It’s been years since we last . . . spoke.” Her hand reached for mine. “You have to believe me.”
I grunted.
Her grip grew insistent. “Please, Kermit. I haven’t seen him for years, not since the night I came home and found a red rose on my pillow.” She paused, her eyes locking on mine. “And a bloodstain on the floor that spelled my name.”
Later that night, I stretched out on Lollie’s couch, my belly full of hops and a pizza from a local pizzeria with the motto “We probably won’t deliver in thirty minutes or less.” In her bedroom, a few feet away, Lollie prepared for bed. A drawer opened and closed. I wondered what she wore to sleep. Was it something slinky and silky? Or was she the sweatpants and T-shirt type? Or better yet, did she sleep in the nude? I imagined her ink-covered body naked against white cotton sheets and groaned.
My mind drifted back to our earlier conversation, and the look of genuine fear in Lollie’s eyes. She had lied to me about Spindle, but for a far different reason than I’d first assumed. Fear was a powerful motivator.
I vowed, in that moment, that I wouldn’t let anyone hurt her, including a cursed frog prince with a target on his back. Sadly, I’d made much the same promise to another, albeit sleepier, woman a few days earlier. And we all know how well that turned out.
The scent of fresh coffee woke me a few hours later. I groaned, my head aching from a long, sleepless night of couch-surfing. Lollie puttered around in the kitchen singing a tuneless melody. She poked her head around the corner, looking beautiful but tired, deep bags under her mud-colored eyes. “Coffee?”
“Yeah,” I growled, staggering from the couch. Sunlight spilled from the windows, exaggerating the whiteness of the room until I thought for sure I’d go blind. “Curtains,” I muttered.
“What?”
“I’m buying you curtains. Bright red ones.”
She yawned and then took a sip of coffee from the cup in her hand. “Why?”
“The appropriate response is, ‘Thank you, Jean-Michel.’ ”
She rolled her eyes. “Thank you, Jean-Michel.”
“Better.” I grinned. “Mind if I grab a shower?”
“I’d prefer it,” she said, motioning to her bedroom and the adjoining bathroom. “Towels are in the top cupboard. New razor’s in the bottom shelf of the medicine cabinet.”
“Thanks.” I grabbed the cup of coffee from her hand and took a drink. “I like mine black,” I said, but carried her milky mixture of coffee, sugar, and cream into the bathroom with me.
“Hey—”
I closed the door on her protest. Whistling “The Alphabet Song”—I used to sing “The Song That Never Ends” but the water always grew cold before the last verse—I stripped off my boxer shorts and adjusted the faucet.
Oops, too hot. I twisted the knob the other way. Damn, too cold. One more turn, and everything was just right. I stepped into the shower and groaned as the water pounded away my sleepless night.
A bottle of pink-colored shampoo sat on the edge of the tub. I picked it up, inhaling the scent of strawberries. Kind of girly, but my natural masculine scent would overpower it soon enough. Dumping a handful into my palm, I scrubbed my body until it shone a healthy ruddy color. The shallow cuts on my backside from yesterday’s attack stung, but by the time I toweled off, I felt better than I had in days.
Things were looking up.
Clean and dry, a towel wrapped around my waist, I headed into Lollie’s bedroom. Perhaps Spindle had left some clothes when he disappeared all those years ago, I told myself. I wasn’t snooping. Not really.
I opened the first dresser drawer. Black lace met my eyes. I quickly slammed the drawer shut and closed my eyes, picturing Lollie with a tattoo snaking down into said panties.
The next drawer held rows of tank tops and an empty contact lens case. I pictured Lollie wearing geeky thick, black glasses and smiled. The next drawer after that offered T-shirts and sweaters in a variety of shades of black and white. All in all, the dresser held nothing overly suspicious, but noting very personal either. I moved on to the closet.
“Kermit?” Lollie called.
“Be right out,” I said, wrenching the closet open. An avalanche of shoes and the occasional glass slipper tumbled forth, nearly clobbering me in the head. I quickly slammed the doors shut.
“You okay in there?” Her voice floated through the door. “Your cell phone’s ringing.”
“Okay, I’ll be out in a second,” I said. My eyes scanned the rest of the room, falling on a small nightstand next to her bed.
I made my way across the room, sinking down on her soft bed. A picture sat on the nightstand next to a bottle of prescription sleeping pills and a heart-shaped box. I picked up the black-and-white photograph stuffed into an expensive silver frame. The image was of a tall, dark-haired man. He looked vaguely familiar, his avocado-colored eyes burning into mine.
Was this Spindle, the guy who’d taken my bride and possibly my future? The guy looked rugged, as if he spent most of his time outdoors without a care rather than attending to important princely duties, like yours truly.
My fingers curled around the picture frame as anger burned inside me. I wasn’t sure what bothered me most, the fact that Lollie kept a picture of a guy who’d threatened her or that she kept it on the table next to her bed. “I’m coming, Spindle.” I tapped the tip of my finger against the glass. “That’s a promise I will keep.”
Following my shower and a hot bowl of curds and whey minus the arachnid companionship, I checked the messages on my p-Phone. Six missed calls. All from the same number. Taking a deep breath, I punched in the digits with dread. My hands started to sweat as the phone began to ring.
“Locks,” Goldie answered, sounding distracted and a little frazzled, not to mention smoking hot in a dirty librarian way. “I said black, two sugars,” she said to someone on the other end of the line before returning her attention to my call.
“Hey, Goldie,” I began.
“Jean-Michel,” she interrupted. “Whatever it is you’re involved in, get out now before you wind up dead.”
“What do you mean?”
Her sigh reverberated through the line. “Your Beauty, well, she’s not quite the upstanding citizen one would expect. In fact, she’s one bad princess. Hold on a second,” she said. Paper rustled in the background. I hummed a tuneless song in my head. “Did you check the beanstalk for prints?” Goldie asked someone in the background. “Fine. Bag it, and then get the meat wagon in here to pick up the body.” Goldie soon returned to the matter at hand. “Sorry about that, Jean-Michel. I’m in the middle of a case. Wife called nine-one-one when she discovered her husband a lot less green and jolly, and full of bullet holes.”
“A tragedy. Really.” I rolled my eyes. “But back to Beauty. I asked you to check into her finances, and now she’s at the top
of Fairymerica’s Most Wanted? What the frog happened?”
Goldie laughed. “Twenty-eight missing fiancés. That’s what happened. The Cin City PD suspects Beauty is a serial killer known as the Black Window. But every time they gather enough evidence to arrest her, the evidence disappears.”
“Black Window?” I asked in disbelief.
Goldie sighed. “The Cin City chief of police is dyslexic.”
Chapter 37
“Where to, sir?” Karl asked as I folded myself into the front seat of our replacement vehicle, a banana yellow four-door Ford Princess. Zero to twenty-five in the amount of time it took a mouse to run up a clock (thirty-eight seconds on those stubby legs).
My head scraped the ceiling of the front passenger seat, leaving a trail of black hair and blood along the interior. “Ow! Damn it, Karl. What the hell kind of medieval torture is this? I’m a prince. I can’t be seen riding an ugly Princess.”
Karl’s eyebrow slowly rose until it reached his bald head.
“You know what I meant.” I pulled the passenger-side door closed, nearly gelding myself in the process. With the rest of the way my day was headed, a good old-fashioned neutering was looking good.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Karl ducked his head. “This was all the rental company had left.” He motioned around the cramped vehicle. “Apparently there’s a wicked drag queen convention in town and all the limousines are booked.”
I caught a flash of blue-black hair and leather out of the corner of my eye and winced, feeling a tad bit guilty for giving Lollie the slip a few minutes ago. But I wasn’t up to another argument.
The last hour of my life had consisted of a steady barrage of sharp-tongued female. First Goldie and her insane warning about my apparently crazy, ax-wielding, and sleepy bride, and then Lollie, who’d insisted, quite forcefully, on joining me on my quest for my aforementioned lazy, murderous soon-to-be wife.
Normally I would’ve jumped at the chance to get Lollie into the backseat of any vehicle. But yesterday’s near-death experience, not to mention Goldie’s dire admonition, had me rethinking letting her tag along. I didn’t want to see Lollie hurt. The very thought had me breaking into a cold sweat in the 104-degree heat. So I’d done what any frog prince in my situation would’ve done. I snuck out of the apartment like a rabid one-night stand.
“I can call around,” Karl was saying, “see if any other limousines are available.” He pulled out his BlackFerry and began to dial. Lollie’s face appeared in the window of the Rose. She glared at me and shoved the shop’s door wide.
“Forget the car,” I yelled to Karl. “Just drive.” Without waiting for his reply, I slammed my foot on the gas pedal, sending the car screeching into traffic. Karl swerved to miss an oncoming pumpkin carriage, overcorrected, sending us barreling toward a light pole, and then straightened the wheel.
In the rearview mirror, I watched as Lollie stood in the middle of the street, cursing my name. I winced as a particularly loud string of swear words drifted through the ugly Princess.
Damn, Lollie looked beautiful when she was pissed enough to kill someone. Her hair shone like coal in the harsh glare of the sunlight. And her eyes flashed black with violence. A part of me, namely my libido, wanted to stop the car and forget I’d ever heard the name Sleeping Beauty, let alone had to marry the serial-killing chit. Oh, the things one did for clean, clear, and ungreen skin. My p-Phone rang. I quickly looked at the caller ID and winced. “Hello?” I answered, innocently.
“Damn you, Kermit!” Lollie’s screech cut through the line, nearly puncturing my eardrum. “You’re going to get yourself killed. Stay away from—”
“I think it’s for you,” I said and shoved the phone at Karl. He shook his head. “Fine,” I heaved, sticking the phone back to my ear, wincing as Lollie’s screeching continued. After a particularly brutal outburst about the size of my brain, I interrupted, “Going in a tunnel. Gonna lose you,” I said and then promptly hung up.
Karl sighed. “Shall I send Ms. Bliss the standard flowers and a note of apology? Or is this more of a STD test and fifty bucks scenario?”
Twenty minutes later, we arrived at Sleeping Beauty’s palace sans ink-covered distraction. Without Lollie around, my mind stayed focused on my mission, which was to find Sleeping Beauty, at any cost. Proving she wasn’t some sort of deranged serial murderer would be nice too, but beggars couldn’t whine when I “accidentally” ran over their feet with my Jag. On the bright side, one-legged pants were all the fashion rave this year.
With a sigh, I knocked on the front door of the palace, Karl at my side. He shifted from foot to foot. “Stop it,” I ordered. “You look like a little kid who has to pee.”
He stilled, but only for a second. “Sir, is this really a good idea? What if,” he lowered his voice, “Beauty is waiting nearby for a chance to . . . ?” He made a slashing gesture under his chin. My manservant had been on edge since I first told him about Goldie’s warning. My own feelings were more ambivalent in nature. Even if what Goldie said was true, it hardly mattered in the scheme of things. Give me frog legs or give me death, either way the next day sucked.
“What? Give me a shave?”
“No, sir.” He gulped. “Kill you. What if she’s waiting inside to kill you?”
“Don’t worry so much.” I rubbed my chin. “I have a plan.”
“You do?”
“Of course.” I nodded. “If Beauty tries anything, I’ll just use you as a shield.”
Karl sucked in a sharp breath.
I grinned. “I’m kidding. You’re too short to make a good shield.”
“How considerate,” he said.
The door opened before I could respond. Marvin stood in the entrance, his beefy body stuffed into a ghastly jade suit with a wide lapel. I winced and took a step back. “My God, man. What the hell are you wearing?”
Marvin glared down at his outfit. “It’s for the wedding. Princess Beauty ordered these suits for all the staff.” He lowered his voice. “Before she . . . left . . .”
That bitch. Attempting to add me to her twenty-eight kills wasn’t enough for Her Majesty, she had to torture me with the emerald abomination in front of me to boot. What was wrong with her? I closed my eyes, mostly to avoid the glare of green. “No one’s suspicious of her disappearance, then?”
“I did as you said, sir.” Marvin’s eyes darted around. “I told the king that Sleeping Beauty needed her beauty rest for the big day, so he and the rest of the family should stay away.”
“Good man.” I patted his shoulder. “Now, please show me to Sleeping Beauty’s bedroom.”
“Of course, sir. Right away.” He motioned up the hardwood staircase decorated in sea green and orange ribbons for the wedding. I scowled at the puke-inducing color scheme and quickly dashed up the steps, Karl on my heels.
At the top of the stairs, I pulled to a stop. Handsome, Beauty’s lovesick stepbrother, stood in front of the room a few doors down from Beauty’s bedroom, the eerie room with the sewing machine, if memory served.
But it wasn’t the sight of Handsome that stopped me. Rather, it was the long straight pin in his hand. He looked up as I approached. “Why couldn’t you just leave her alone?” he whispered. “She was happy. Happy.”
I tilted my head. It was hard to find fault with his statement. After all, have you ever met an unhappy serial killer? However, his creepy tone sent Mother Goosebumps up and down my arms. Was there something going on between stepbrother and sister? Something less one-sided and more demented than I’d first presumed? Was he the reason the Cin City PD’s evidence of Beauty’s serial killing kept vanishing into thin air?
I shook my head. For a chick who rarely left her bed, Sleeping Beauty sure had a lot of suitors. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that she never left her bed.
“I hate you. Hate you. Hate you,” Handsome muttered. “You’ll pay for what you’ve done. You’ll all pay.”
Chapter 38
Handsome charged past me,
nearly knocking me over in his haste. “Nice talking to you too,” I called after him. “I’ll be sure to give Beauty your regards.” Once I found her.
“Sir,” Karl said, staring after Handsome’s not-so-handsome backside. “I fear Princess Beauty’s stepbrother is dangerous.”
“Really? You think?” I winced when Karl’s face fell. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m a little frustrated at the moment.”
Karl’s face wrinkled with disgust. “Not sexually, you moron,” I said. For a guy in his thirties, Karl was a terrible prude. Just mention the word “sex” and his face flamed red. “By the way, how was your date?” I grinned at my manservant. “Did you get any?”
“I . . . ah . . . ,” he choked out.
I watched him squirm, enjoying every second. Served him right for leaving me at Lollie’s yesterday, not that I minded all that much, spine-crushing couch and little boy blue balls aside.
Karl ducked his flaming face. “Ah . . . um . . .”
Before Karl stroked out, I took pity on him. “My God, Karl. Enough with the smut chitchat. I’m going to be a married man soon. I don’t need to hear that kind of talk,” I ordered, crossing my arms over my chest. “Now, we have a job to do. Sleeping Beauty’s not going to find herself, you know.”
“Yes, sir.” He rolled his eyes. “I’ll try to control myself in the future.”
“See that you do.” I nodded to the two guards standing at Sleeping Beauty’s bedroom door and entered the room. Stale air swirled to life, tickling the back of my throat. I sneezed.
“Bless you,” Karl said, closing the door behind us. He glanced around, his eyes filled with guilt. “Are you sure we should be in here? Won’t Princess Beauty be upset at the intrusion?”
“Probably.” I snickered. “But she’s already attempted to kill me. What else can she do? Send me to bed without supper?”
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