by Kailin Gow
But the plan had gone wrong. Ben – to his credit, I guess – had tried to back out, and Roni had shot him dead in front of me before being apprehended by Xander and Terrence's bodyguards. I'd been reunited with my father. Given money, status, the Tannenbaum name – and the one thing I'd always wanted for my mother and for myself: security. The knowledge of where my next meal was coming from. The knowledge that I wouldn't be killed in my sleep, abducted, hurt again...
Roni had been taken away. I'd decided to leave Xander for Terrence, to marry him, to seek something like normalcy: something I knew that Xander – my fantasy Mr. X. – could never give me.
Then I'd done a really stupid thing.
I'd trusted somebody.
I'd trusted Jaymie Wakely to continue my work at the Blue Room: investigating its secrets, its corruption. I'd liked her, despite her mysterious air, her refusal to speak of her past, the confusion that come over her face when I so much as made an idle comment about her childhood. I'd trusted Jaymie to do what I could not: to take over the Blue Room I no longer wanted any part of.
And then she'd told me – she'd found out a secret, discovered a connection between my long-lost, late grandmother Gloria Tannenbaum and the Blue Room, figured out what it was a rich society matron like Gloria wanted with a bunch of high-end courtesans. She couldn't tell me in front of my fiancé – Terrence would overreact, she said.
She lured me to the Blue Room. She had me come into her room – alone, without telling Terrence where I was going. And then she'd turned on the light to show me Ben – dead Ben – dead Ben, who had tried to kill me – right in front of my face.
And that's where I'm sitting right now: my heart pounding, bile rising in my throat, wondering how the hell we got from there to here. Wondering what the hell Jaymie Wakeley is doing with Ben – and, for that matter, why the hell Ben is alive.
“Don't worry,” Jaymie says. “I can explain.”
“Ben?” At last I find my voice. “What are you doing here?”
“Listen – before he speaks –,” Jaymie's voice is low and urgent. “You need to understand something, Staci. Things aren't what they seem in the Blue Room. Right, Ben? And that includes Ben. You need to tell her who – or what – you really are.”
“But you're dead...” Shock has blunted my senses, dulled my brain.
“I'm not dead,” Ben sighs in a hoarse, gravelly voice. “Sometimes I wish I were. Hell, even as a ghost I'd look a hell of a lot better than I do right now.”
“Then who are you?” I ask. “What the hell did you think you were doing – trying to betray me like that? You could have had us both killed if you'd listened to Roni's plan.
Pain flashes across his face. “I know,” Ben says softly. “I know I betrayed you – didn't I? I'm sorry, Stace – I was so desperate...it wasn't you...I just wanted to get out. All I cared about was getting out.”
“And you thought Roni Taylor was your ticket to freedom? Are you still in league with her, now? Because she's going to prison for a long, long time...”
Ben shakes his head mournfully. “You don't understand,” he whispers. His voice is full of sharpness and pain. “Roni and I were never in league. It wasn't like that. You have to understand – we weren't working together, exactly. We just had a mutual interest in common: something that got out of hand...”
“A mutual interest?” I ask. “And what was that mutual interest, exactly.”
A sad, strange smile comes over Ben's gaunt face – an expression that chills me to the very bone. Am I safe with Ben right now, I wonder? But there's no way to move.
“We both wanted you out of the Blue Room – albeit for different reasons. Getting out of the Blue Room was my priority – and hers. I did it nonviolently. I tried to scare you off – by making you suspicious – making you afraid that someone close to you could have killed Rita and Roz...”
“I know who killed Rita!” I shout. I can't keep the anger, the pain, the hurt out of my voice – the knowledge that even now, there's nobody in the world I can trust.
“But you don't know who killed Roz,” Ben says, his voice low and even.
Then the door slams open.
I breathe a sigh of relief as I see who it is rushing into the room. It's my fiancée, Terrence, looking as handsome as ever, urgency and panic across his chiseled-marble face, his bright blue eyes full of concern.
“Staci!” he cries. “Are you all right? I came after you as soon as I figured out where you were – I woke up in the middle of the night and you were gone...I called everywhere – the concierge said he'd seen you...” Then his eyes fall on Ben, standing like a wraith by the bed. “What the fuck?”
Ben smiles, his teeth glittering with his eyes, as he looks around the room. “You don't know the killer,” he says again, “even though the person who killed Roz is right here in this very room.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
But before I can say a word, Terrence has lunged at Ben, punching him square in his injured, bruised face. Ben falls to the ground at once, but before Terrence can pummel him further he leaps catlike at out of the way – moving like a ninja, swift and sure, avoiding Terrence's every swing of his fist. The two of them stare at each other with a palpable, heady mixture of hatred and fury: this is one serious grudgefest.
Terrence is obviously taller and stronger than Ben, and in better shape, but Ben is more agile – as if he magically has the ability to dark aside from every punch. But they keep on fighting, the two of them together.
“Stop!” I cry. “What's going on!”
At last I am able to rise, but Jaymie holds me back, her strong arms tight on my own.
What is Jaymie doing? Why is she detaining me? What is she doing with Ben – anyway? And what did Ben even mean about Roz's killer being right here in the room. It can't have been Terrence – he was with me, wasn't he when the tragedy happened. And Ben can't have done it – but that only leaves...Jaymie.
Was Jaymie Roz's killer? And have I been duped again – walked straight into Jaymie's perfectly laid trap like the fool I was?
“No,” I whisper, tears filling my eyes. “No, it can't be...”
*****
Dear Readers!
Thank you for all your amazing and wonderful support!
This is the End of Vol. 2
Part 3 just released and is available here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CHTETY4
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If you enjoyed this novella, please leave a review, and recommend it to a friend.
The Blue Room, which features most of the characters from Blue Room Confidentials is complete and available at:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013XRVS48
*****
The Blue Room Confidentials Series features some characters from The Never Knights Trilogy
For 17 and Up
A quick read, all three books in The Never Knights Trilogy is available here:
http://www.amazon.com/Never-Say-Knights-Series-ebook/dp/B008X2NCT8
If you liked Blue Room Confidentials, you would like
Other Adult Romantic Thrillers
From Kailin Gow, found at:
Kailin Romance
http://www.kailinromance.wordpress.com.
