by Lora Roberts
“I’m working for one of your guests. Hannah Couch.” I didn’t remember the room number. “One of the big suites. Possibly the Presidential one.”
He turned away to speak into a telephone, then let me in, directing me to a parking place far to the back, I guess so the bus was less visible amongst the Mercedes and Jaguars and even Rolls-Royces I saw as I drove to my corner. On the way to the elevator I stopped to tell him, “It’s a classic, you know. Extremely valuable. Don’t let anyone steal it.” Judging from his blank stare, he didn’t believe me.
The elevator was quiet and luxurious. Because it was chilly outside, I’d worn jeans and a sweater; there didn’t seem to be much point in dressing up to please Hannah, when she was not capable of being pleased.
I got out at the lobby to take the elevator to the Presidential Suite and discovered that it required insertion of a room key before it would take me there. I didn’t have a key. I could have asked the front desk clerk to take me up, but it grated on me to have to supplicate like that. I saw a bellhop with a cart piled with luggage, and by following him I found the freight elevator. He didn’t say anything when I got on. I got off at my floor and knocked at the kitchen door.
Kim opened it. “There you are. I wondered when you’d get here.” Her eyes were big in her thin face. She hustled me into the kitchen and closed the door.
“They’ve been at it all night,” she whispered. “I don’t know how much more I can take. Naomi went through every one of the little bottles of booze in the limo, and then she drank a bunch of stuff from the bar here. She was yelling, and Hannah yelled back. It’s been impossible. They didn’t knock off till way after three this morning.”
Don came into the kitchen. “You should have come out with me. Not stay here and listen to those two old biddies claw at each other.”
Kim didn’t smile. “I felt someone should be here. Just in case …”
“In case one of them jumped the other one?” Don smiled derisively. “Not likely. They’re just having a cat fight.”
“I don’t know.” Kim hugged herself, shivering despite the thick sweater she wore. “After what Hannah said, I just don’t know. I kept thinking about my uncle. His death was kind of sudden. What if Naomi did cause it? What else would she do?”
We stood around the kitchen in uneasy silence for a moment. “Hey, kid,” Don said finally. “Don’t go looking for trouble.”
“I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And they wouldn’t stop going at each other.” Kim dug a tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose. “It was awful.”
I set down my knapsack on the table and searched for a way to turn the conversation away from Kim’s fears about her aunt. “They’ll be ready to make up today.”
“Either that or Hannah will send Naomi off.” Don patted Kim awkwardly on the shoulder. “You’ll see. I’m going to get my cameras ready.”
He vanished into his room.
“Hannah told me she wanted to prepare crepes again,” Kim said dolefully. “But I think that was just to make Naomi mad. Can we cook at the bookstores?”
“Let me check the schedule.” I opened the knapsack and shuffled through papers. “It says here we’re supposed to give out cinnamon roll-ups. Whatever they are.”
“I made them.” Kim pointed to a neat stack of white boxes on the table. “We brought along a stock of Hannah’s special boxes, and since I couldn’t sleep last night, I baked. But this morning she came out and said we were going to do crepes.”
“She is wrong.” I sniffed. The air did indeed have the scent of cinnamon.
“Well, don’t tell her that.” Kim looked apprehensive. “She’s so stubborn, you know.”
The woman herself swept into the room. “Finally you’re here.” She didn’t look as if she’d spent most of the night arguing; her hair was arranged in its rigid iron curls, and her makeup was perfectly applied. “You’re late. We do have a schedule to keep, you know.”
“The radio interview is in fifteen minutes.” I went past her into the main room. “Where do you want to be during it? On this sofa? Is Naomi going to be out here?”
Hannah looked down her nose. “She doesn’t need to be present. She doesn’t need to come with us at all today. Perhaps she’d rather stay and find a bar.”
“I’ll check that the limo will be ready by seven-forty-five.” I escaped to the kitchen, and Kim followed.
Unfortunately, Hannah followed Kim. “I want some water. That room-service coffee was terrible. And they didn’t snip the end of the rose before putting in the vase; it’s already starting to droop.”
Kim pulled out the familiar green bottle. Silently she got ice and a lime wedge.
“Make me one too.” Naomi pushed in at the kitchen door. The little room was crowded, and not just with people; the bad vibes were rife. “My throat is as dry as Hannah’s shortbread.”
Hannah didn’t rise to the bait. She took her glass of water and stalked into the living room.
Naomi wouldn’t let up, though. She grabbed her own glass before Kim had even finished pouring it, and followed Hannah out the door. Plunking down her glass right next to Hannah’s on the polished mahogany coffee table, she slumped into a chair. She didn’t look perky at all. Her hair was pulled back in its usual severe bun, but wisps escaped to straggle around her sallow face, and the lines around her mouth seemed deeper than usual. Her hand shook when she reached for her glass.
“That’s my glass.” Hannah spoke sharply. Naomi didn’t acknowledge the words, but she did change the direction of her grasping hand. Her grip on the glass wasn’t good; its ice-beaded sides slipped through her fingers and landed on the oriental rug, spilling all over Hannah’s elegant Italian pumps.
“God damn it.” Hannah leaped to her feet. “You idiot. You drunken, washed-up has-been.”
“No more yelling.” Naomi put a hand to her head. “You did enough of that last night. People might get the perfectly correct idea that you’re a shrewish bitch.” She looked down at the mess on the carpet. “But I’m sorry about the shoes. They were very nice.”
Hannah kicked off the shoes and upended one. More water dripped onto the carpet. “Now I’ll have to change.”
“Can’t you wait until after the interview?” I looked at the clock. The radio station would be calling in ten more minutes.
“I don’t like having wet feet. Stall them if they call before I get back.” Hannah stalked off toward her bedroom, and I ran to the kitchen for a cloth to sop up the mess, then returned to the living room. Kim came out to help me, while Naomi staggered into the kitchen and returned in a minute with another glass of water.
Kim picked up ice cubes and dropped them into the glass Naomi had overturned. “This beautiful rug,” she said in distress.
“Bitch deserved it.” Naomi put her new glass carefully on the table next to Hannah’s, and shook her finger at Kim. “Don’t bother to defend her. Look how she’s treating your poor old aunt.”
Kim flushed. “Aunt Naomi—”
“She’s a snake. ‘Oh, Naomi, what a clever crepe maker. Of course I’ll be glad to produce it for you. Sign here.’ What an idiot I was. But she’ll pay.”
“Don’t talk so crazy.” Kim looked nervously down the hallway. “She’ll be out soon for her radio interview, and then we’ll have to load up and go.
“Not me.” Naomi’s expression of concentrated malevolence was frightening. “I’m never going to hop to her command again.”
“Naomi—”
“Don’t you Naomi me.” Naomi drew herself up. “Do you want to always be some little jumped-up gofer? You’re a fool, Kim. You want to see what happens to Hannah’s help? Just take a look. I know you think you could do my job. But I’m not going quietly. No one pushes Naomi Matthews around and gets away with it. You hear me?”
Hannah strode back out into the room, once more perfectly groomed. “The whole damned hotel can hear you.” She looked down at Naomi with contempt.
“Let them hear me. As
long as everyone knows you for the bitch you are, I don’t care.”
Kim, looking distressed, pushed one of the water glasses over to her aunt, but Naomi didn’t notice, so concentrated was she on Hannah.
“Since your livelihood is bound up in my career, I’d think you would care.” Hannah bent over, picked up a glass of water, and took a long swallow.
Naomi smirked. “You might be surprised.”
“What? You’re going to quit?” Hannah looked down her nose. “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think at all. If you did, you wouldn’t tangle with Naomi Matthews.” Naomi raised her own glass, sloshing some of the water onto the floor. “To you, Ms. Hannah Goddamned Couch. Or should I say ‘Roxy Ripper, Sexy Stripper’?”
Hannah stilled. “Don’t go on with that, Naomi. It wouldn’t be healthy for you.”
“You’ll find out who it’s not healthy for.” Naomi drank some of her water, watching Hannah intently. “Yes, I’m enjoying writing my book. Did you like the first couple of installments, Hannah? I have some tales to tell. And I will tell them. You bet I will.”
“You have nothing to say that anyone would be interested in.” Hannah set her glass down with a thunk.
“You seemed interested.” Naomi’s voice held a cold taunt.
“So it was you. I thought so.” Hannah took a step forward. Her hands clenched. “To think I trusted you.” She breathed deeply, her nostrils flaring. “You better not have shown that to anyone else.”
“I haven’t yet. But I think I will.” Naomi drained her glass, and reached out to set it on the table. She missed; the glass fell onto the carpet, making another wet spot. Kim knelt to apply the cloth once more.
“Naomi, you’re still drunk.” Hannah sounded disgusted. “Sleep it off. And either be prepared to act as a team member, or go on home. I don’t need you around if you can’t be helpful.”
“Helpful.” Naomi got unsteadily to her feet. “That’s right. We won’t be kept on the staff if we aren’t helpful. The queen has spoken. The goddamned queen has—”
Her voice thickened. She put one hand to her throat; her mouth opened and closed, working horribly. Her face contorted, her eyes bugged out. She fell back onto the couch, and then, as if in slow motion, onto the floor, striking the coffee table on her way down. Her body convulsed.
It seemed to last forever. I ran to crouch beside her. Her eyes rolled back, her mouth moved, but no sounds came out.
“Call an ambulance!”
Hannah, I saw, was petrified. Kim backed away, clutching the cloth she’d used to wipe up the spill. Her eyes were like saucers.
Naomi convulsed again. Froth appeared on her lips. I wanted to give her CPR, but she moved too much for me to get a grip on her. Her arms splayed wide, striking into the coffee table and the couch. I tried to hold her, to keep her from hitting her head or her body. Her convulsions were violent.
“Kim, call 911! Get help!”
“Right.” She couldn’t seem to look away.
“Now!”
She turned and fled. Naomi convulsed one final time, and was still.
I put a hand on her neck, then on her wrist. I felt no pulse.
Straightening, I looked at Hannah, who stood as if made from stone, her eyes wide and unblinking. Kim shouted into the phone in the foyer. Distracted, she hung it up. It began to ring.
“She’s dead.” I said it dully. Kim, sobbing, caught her breath. She clamped a hand to her mouth.
“No,” Hannah said. “No. Not dead.”
“I’m afraid so.” I stared at Hannah. She was looking at Naomi, but she raised her head and caught my gaze.
“What?” She saw Kim watching her. “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing,” Kim said, gulping.
“You think I killed her.” Hannah turned to look at me. “You think so too. You both think I killed her, because she was writing a book.”
“Not at all.” I tried to sound soothing.
“How could I kill her? She must have had a heart attack.” Hannah’s voice rose. “It was a heart attack. You were standing right here. I couldn’t have done anything.”
“I’m going to be sick.” Kim ran from the room, her shoulders heaving.
The phone rang on, unanswered. Hannah blinked and looked around the room, then swept her raincoat off the back of the couch where it had been draped. She clamped one hand around my wrist, reached into her handbag with her other hand, and pulled out a gun. It looked like a toy, but the metal on its sides gleamed dully, and somehow I knew it could do damage. “Come on,” she said.
“What?” I wasn’t functioning too well. I stared blankly from her to Naomi’s body on the floor.
“Come on.” Hannah pulled me impatiently into the kitchen. “Is this yours?” She pointed the gun at my knapsack, still keeping a tight grip on my hand. “Pick it up. You have a car, don’t you?”
“Sort of.” I took my knapsack off the table. “What are you doing? Why—”
“You ask too many questions.” Hannah glanced through the kitchen door, into the beautiful drawing room, and drew a deep, shuddering breath. Everything in the room seemed to point at the still form beside the coffee table. She swung the kitchen door shut and yanked me down the short hall that led to the freight elevator. “We’ll go this way.” She might have had twenty years on me, but she was taller, and very strong.
I could hear Kim upchucking in her bathroom as we rushed down the hall. Hannah pushed me out into the service hall and made sure the door was locked.
“Wait. This is a terrible idea. Why don’t we stay and—”
“We’re not staying.” Hannah punched the button to summon the elevator and waited impatiently. I tried to tug my hand away, but she turned the gun on me.
“Don’t give me any trouble. I could just shoot you and take your car.
“You don’t even know what it looks like.”
“I will soon.” She waved me into the elevator when the doors opened. “I don’t want to hurt you. But nothing gets in my way.”
Under the circumstances, I didn’t see what other choice I had but to go with her. Naomi was beyond help, and I didn’t want to be shot and maybe killed. The gun looked very efficient, and given the perfect way she did everything else, I was sure Hannah was capable of killing me without further ado.
The freight elevator went all the way to the garage. It was cavernous and rattly, and the ride seemed to take forever. Hannah didn’t speak. She watched me in an absentminded kind of way, her thoughts elsewhere. I wondered if I could rush her when the elevator finally stopped, but her attention sharpened. She arranged her raincoat so it hid the gun, and gestured me out into the vast space of the garage. Her steely look was meant to remind me that she wasn’t averse to shooting.
“Which is your car?”
I felt a bit of mean pleasure when I led her to the bus.
“This?” Her lip curled. “How the hell do you get into this thing?”
It flashed through my mind when I opened the passenger door for her that I could escape while she settled herself. But she gestured me to climb into the passenger seat ahead of her.
“Scoot on over.” She followed right behind me, more agile than I expected—but then, she probably did weight training and yoga every day.
She kept the gun pointed at me while I scrambled into the driver’s seat. “You are my escort, after all. So escort me out of here. Drive.”
I drove.
Chapter 9
The parking attendant didn’t seem to find anything unusual in me driving out such a short time after I had parked, accompanied by a woman whose face was familiar to the universe. I wanted to say something that would alert him to the fact that Hannah had her gun pointed at me, hidden from his view in a fold of her raincoat, but when I ventured a pleasantry she moved her hand closer to my side, and the look on her face made me quail. After all, she most probably had just killed her trusted, longtime associate. I assumed she would have no qualms about
killing me.
The attendant waved me through in a bored way. I stopped at the exit onto California Street and looked at Hannah. “Now what?”
She hesitated, and at that moment we heard sirens approaching the hotel. “That way,” she said, pointing away from the sound. “Move it.”
I moved it. While I signaled, shifted, whipped the bus around turns, I pondered what to do. My mind was not working too well. I kept seeing Naomi crumple and fall to the floor. I could have sworn Hannah had looked as shocked in that moment as the rest of us.
We drove down California toward Chinatown. Ahead the street narrowed and grew more congested. I had to stop for a moment behind a delivery truck parked in front of a small grocery store. The driver unloaded crates of glistening fish, their scaly bodies stacked like enormous sardines. Hannah moved impatiently as the driver engaged the grocer in an animated conversation.
I, however, welcomed every delay. At any moment, someone would recognize that the woman being driven past in the battered old VW bus was Hannah Couch. At least, that was my hope.
“So what are you trying to accomplish by this?” I took my attention from the traffic for a moment. “Flight is evidence of guilt, you know.”
“I’m not fleeing.” She stared straight ahead, but the gun was still pointed in my direction. “You’re kidnapping me.”
“No.” I pulled across two lanes of traffic, while horns blared around me and angry drivers yelled from their cars, and turned onto Montgomery. “You aren’t going to put this on me.”
“Do what you’re told or I’ll shoot.”
Ahead someone pulled out of a twenty-minute parking spot in front of a cappuccino place. I whipped into the spot, beating out a BMW, and killed the engine. “Go ahead. Shoot. I don’t know how you’ll blame me when I’m dead. And think, if it’s possible. Kim is telling the police right now how you and Naomi fought all night. Don will substantiate it. My friend who’s a police officer in Palo Alto will make it clear that I am not in the habit of kidnapping celebrities. You had better go back right now and face the music.”
“Look.” Hannah turned to face me. Her eyes were cold behind her spectacles, but somehow unfocused. I didn’t think anything I said got through to her. “You are going to drive me around in this horrible car until I can think of a plan, a really good plan. I always come up with a good plan eventually. That’s how I got where I am today. So drive, or I swear I’ll jump out of this car, scream that you’re kidnapping me, and have you thrown in the pokey so fast you won’t be able to take a breath. I have powerful friends. Everyone in the world will believe me. Drive, or go to jail.”
