Death by Vanilla Latte

by Alex Erickson

  I swear, he shrugged before he jumped down and headed to his food dish. Apparently, he wasn’t convinced I’d be coming back home to feed him later.

  “I don’t blame you,” I muttered, rising to feed my cat for what I hoped wouldn’t be the last time.

  23

  “This is it.”

  I turned in to the indicated lot and parked. The hotel Cameron was staying at wasn’t one of those big chain hotels you saw everywhere, but rather, it was a small, family-owned one that looked more like a cheap roadside motel than anything. We wouldn’t have to go inside a main building to reach his room, which could only help our chances of getting in unseen.

  “At least it’s kind of dark,” I said, still buckled in. I was warring with myself on whether or not we should carry through with our plan or if we should turn around, go home, and share a tub of Rocky Road. The overcast sky was doing little for my nerves.

  “Light’s burned out,” Dad said, nodding toward the light in question. “Noticed it when I stayed here. His room is just under it.”

  “Not exactly a high-quality establishment,” I muttered, eyeing the building. More than one light was burned out, actually, and one of the doors was boarded shut. I didn’t take it as a good sign.

  “No, it isn’t,” Dad chuckled.

  Besides my car, there were only nine other vehicles in the lot. From where I sat, I counted at least twenty rooms, with more around back. It was a wonder the place hadn’t gone out of business yet. Pine Hills wasn’t exactly a vacation destination. Maybe it did double as a long-term motel for some of its guests. It was the only way the place could stay afloat, I imagined.

  “You should have told me you were coming,” I said. “You shouldn’t have stayed here.”

  “It wasn’t so bad,” Dad said with a shrug. “It has . . . personality.”

  I gave him a sideways stare before unbuckling. “I guess we’d better get started.” I glanced around the lot at the cars. “Do you know what Cameron drives?” I asked. “I want to make sure he’s already gone.”

  Dad shook his head. “I don’t know. I never paid attention.”

  Knowing my luck, Cameron was probably sitting in his room, watching us.

  We got out of the car and slowly made our way to the front of the hotel. The place didn’t even have a real name; just a big sign proclaiming it to be HOTEL, done in all caps. A VACANCY sign blinked below it. No one was outside, guests or employees. The door to the office was to the left of the building, and we were headed to the far right. From my vantage point, I saw no one inside the office, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

  Dad led me to room 119, which was on the lower floor. A metal grate stairwell led upstairs to the only other level of the motel. If anyone were to step outside above us, we’d hear them.

  “Wait!” I said, stopping right before the door. “We don’t have a key. How are we going to get in?” I was almost relieved we wouldn’t have to do this. There was no way I was going to break a window or try to bash in the door.

  “No need,” Dad said, a grin a mile wide spread across his face. He reached into his jacket pocket and came away with two thin pieces of metal.

  “Are those lockpicks?” I asked in a high-pitched whisper. “How did you get lockpicks?”

  “Tools of the trade,” he said, kneeling in front of the door. “We’re lucky this place still uses old-fashioned keys. Keep a lookout for me, would you?”

  I spun to face the parking lot, heart hammering in my chest. Not only were we sneaking into a room we had no right being in, we were legitimately breaking and entering. “Tools of the trade?” I said in disbelief. “You’re not a thief; you’re a writer. Why do you have lockpicks?”

  Dad was silent a moment, the only sounds being the click of the picks entering and moving in the lock. Then he said, “When I first started writing Bobby Drake, I wanted to know how to pick a lock like he did so the story rang true. I found a professional willing to teach me. He showed me how it was done, and then gave me the lockpicks as a gift afterward. I named a character after him, you know?”

  “And you just happened to have them on you?” I asked, unable to believe he’d never told me about this before.

  I glanced back just as Dad shrugged. “You never know when you’ll need them.” Another definitive click. “There!” He stood, smiling like he’d just cracked a safe at Fort Knox. He turned the knob and pushed the door inward with a bow. “After you.”

  I gave my dad an incredulous look before stepping into the room. He slid in behind me and quietly closed the door before flipping on the light. After a moment’s thought, he locked the door.

  “Just in case,” he said.

  “There’s not much to see,” I noted, looking around the small room. The bed was a single that sagged in the middle, though the sheets looked clean. There was an end table with a lamp on it, and a small three-drawer dresser with an old box television atop it.

  And that was it. No extra amenities here. The closet was closed, and another door across the room led to a bathroom that had only a stand-up shower, a toilet, and a tiny sink. One of the two lights inside was burned out, but at least there was a window to let in a little extra light.

  Unsure where else to start, I started there, in the bathroom. Cameron’s shampoo, a bar of soap, and a small black bag sat on the floor next to the shower. There was no room on the tiny sink for any of it, not even a razor. I opened the bag to find his deodorant, toothpaste, and toothbrush. Nothing else was in the room, not even a trash can where he might have tossed an incriminating document.

  I returned to the bedroom as Dad stepped out of the closet, carrying a suitcase. He set it atop the bed, glanced at me, and then opened it.

  “Just clothes,” I said, peering over his shoulder. He sorted through them quickly, checking the bottom of the suitcase to make sure Cameron didn’t keep his secrets hidden beneath his boxers.

  “Nothing,” he said, zipping the suitcase closed and carrying it back to the closet. “Not even a hidden compartment.” He sounded almost disappointed.

  “Was that all that was in there?” I asked, checking my watch. We’d already been there for twenty minutes. I couldn’t believe how quickly time had passed. While I hoped Rita would keep Cameron busy for the next hour or so, I wasn’t counting on it.

  Dad stood on his tiptoes and checked the top shelf of the closet. “Nothing else but this.” He showed me a plastic hanger that had been broken in two and discarded.

  I huffed and glanced around the room. “If he is reading the local authors’ manuscripts, where would he keep them?” I wondered aloud.

  “Maybe he has them in his car,” Dad said, pushing both his palms into his back and wincing. “He doesn’t spend a lot of time here. It would be a lot easier to keep them in his car in case he needs them while at your shop.”

  “Maybe,” I said with a frown. “But wouldn’t he read them here?” I walked over to the bed, and then on a hunch, dropped to my knees. I flipped up the skirt and peered under the bed. “Bingo!”

  The manuscripts were stacked by twos, right where I’d found the ones in Rick’s room at the bed-and-breakfast. I pulled them out and set them atop the mattress, heart now racing. Was there a reason that I’d found them hidden under the bed in the exact same way as the ones in Rick’s room? Or was it simply a convenient storage space for bulky manuscripts?

  I sorted through them quickly. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but felt it was important.

  Most of the names across the top were the same as the ones I’d found at Rick’s. Rita’s was missing, though I assumed Cameron had taken it with him, since he was meeting her for dinner to discuss the novel. Harland’s novel looked a bit worse for wear, which didn’t surprise me, knowing the man. The paper was thick, and it had obviously been typed on a typewriter, rather than on a computer. The front page had a coffee ring on it, as if he’d used it as a coaster before turning it in.

  I set it aside, exposing the one beneath.<
br />
  “Barrett Drummand,” I said, reading the name across the top. A worn rubber band held it together. With a frown, I reached into my pocket and removed the one there. They were the same tan color.

  I did a quick check of the rest of the manuscripts to see if Theresa’s was among them. I found it at the bottom of the stack.

  Out of curiosity, I flipped to the same page as the one I’d taken from Rick’s room, starting with Barrett’s. Instead of the single line, there was a wall of text. Theresa’s, however, held the same single line: “to the death!”

  My eyes drifted to Harland’s manuscript and its bent and dirty pages. The rubber band was the same tan color and was old, though not nearly as cracked and ancient as the ones the Drummands used. Was there a reason for that? Could Harland have jumped out of the window, manuscript in hand, having accidentally broken Theresa’s rubber band? He would have been sweating, and likely in a panic, so it was unlikely he would have been too careful of the pages while on the run, hence why they looked so beat up.

  But if he’d taken his manuscript with him after the murder, why go back later? Had Justin seen another fat man that day, not Harland? I had no way of knowing for sure.

  “Hey, Buttercup.” I looked up to see Dad holding a laptop. “Look what I found.”

  I restacked the manuscripts and returned them to their hiding spot under the bed before joining Dad. He glanced at me once and then opened the laptop lid. A quick swipe of the screen, and then a blinking cursor awaited input of a password.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  Dad focused on the screen. “We figure it out.” He quickly typed something into the space that came up all asterisks, so I had no idea what word he’d attempted to use. Whatever it was, it didn’t work.

  “We should probably go soon,” I said, glancing at my watch. Surprisingly, another twenty minutes had passed. I tapped my watch face, wondering if it was running fast. It sure hadn’t felt like we’d been there for forty minutes.

  “I can do this.” Another password, and another failure.

  “Did you hang out with a hacker at some point and learn trade secrets from her?” I asked. “Because, if not, there’s no way you’re going to be able to guess his password.”

  Dad glanced at me. “That’s a good idea. I might have to see what I can set up before I work on my next book.”

  I hadn’t meant to give him ideas. “Can we go now?”

  “Give me a few more minutes.” Another attempt equaled another failure. “I might not be an expert, but I do know most people aren’t as careful choosing their passwords as they should be. People will sometimes use things like ‘12345.’” As he said it, he typed it in. Another failure. “Or ‘qwerty.’” It didn’t work, either.

  “They also use the names of family members and pets,” I said. “Do you happen to know his cat’s name?”

  Dad tapped his fingers on the keys in thought. “What do we know about him?”

  “He was, up until a few days ago, Rick Wiseman’s assistant. Other than that, I’ve never met him before.”

  Dad typed in “Rick” and then “Wiseman.” Both failed.

  “He’s now an agent himself.” My eyes widened. “Wait!” I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and brought up Cameron’s Web site. I went to the “About Me” page and scrolled down, turning the phone to my dad.

  He smiled and typed in “Brony.”

  “And we’re in.”

  The laptop began booting up as Dad and I shared a high five.

  “What do you think we’ll find?” I asked, excitedly. There might be a confession inside, or perhaps a detailed diary discussing Cameron’s dissatisfaction with Rick’s treatment of him. Maybe there would be links in his browser’s history, leading us to sites on how to kill your boss. The possibilities were endless.

  The laptop finished booting up. Dad used the trackpad to open the first folder there. The files were all JPEG, titled by date. Dad and I glanced at one another before he opened the first.

  The photograph was grainy, hard to see. It looked as if it had been taken through two windows—a car’s and a house’s. Squinting, I was able to make out Rick’s face . . .

  And far more of him than I ever wanted to see.

  “Close it!” I said, turning away.

  “I think I know her,” Dad said, looking closer instead of closing the photograph. I heard him click over to another photo.

  “Is it similar to the last one?” I asked, not daring to look.

  But before he could tell me, we were interrupted by the distinctive sound of a key entering the lock of the hotel room door.

  24

  There was no time to think.

  The only window in the room faced the front door, which meant it was completely useless to us. Both Dad and I were on our feet, the laptop on the bed, forgotten. We could stand there and wait for Cameron to walk in and catch us in his room, or we could try to find another way out.

  I, for one, didn’t feel like trying to explain this to the cops.

  “The bathroom,” I hissed, grabbing Dad’s arm and dragging him toward the tiny space. The window there was small and high up, but it was our only chance of escaping notice, unless we wanted to hide under the bed all night and wait for Cameron to leave.

  Dad jerked the bathroom door closed behind us just as the front door opened. I held my breath and listened, eyes wide, heart pounding so loud, it was practically all I could hear. Dad held his finger to his lips needlessly, ear pressed to the door. Muttering came from the other side, but I couldn’t tell for sure if it was Cameron, or perhaps the killer come to finish off yet another literary agent.

  There was no telling how long we had before whoever was in there decided to check the bathroom, so I turned to the window. It was just as I remembered it, small, and set high up on the wall. I thought that if we sucked in our guts, Dad and I might be able to squeeze through. The drop would be a big one, but not so bad that I thought we’d get more than a few scrapes and bruises.

  I glanced back at Dad and reevaluated my assumption. I might be able to get out through the window. Dad, however, looked as if he’d end up getting stuck.

  But it was our only shot.

  I pointed toward the window. He nodded in understanding, though he looked skeptical. I couldn’t reach the frame from the floor, so I carefully stepped up onto the toilet. The cheap plastic lid groaned and sagged inward from my weight. I prayed it would hold as I gingerly tested the window. I was afraid it wouldn’t open, but when I pressed on it, it squeaked outward. Cool air blasted me in the face, and I sucked it in greedily. Freedom was so enticingly close, I could smell it.

  “Boost me,” I whispered. I grabbed the window frame and waited for Dad to give me a good shove on the rump.

  “One,” he said, placing his hands on my butt. “Two . . .”

  The bathroom door opened, and the light flicked on. “What are you doing in here?”

  Dad’s hands vanished, and I just about fell over backward at the loss of support. I scuttled off the toilet and turned to face Cameron, who was standing in the doorway, small pocketknife in hand. He looked confused, rather than angry, which I hoped meant we might be able to talk our way out of this.

  I raised my hands to show him they were empty. “Uh, hi, Cameron!” I said, mind racing for something to say that wouldn’t get Dad or me stabbed. “We stopped by to say hi and saw the door was open. When you weren’t here, we thought maybe someone broke in and we were checking the place out for you.” The lie fell clumsily from my lips.

  Cameron’s face bunched in further confusion as he looked at me. He then glanced down and seemed to realize he was holding the knife out toward us in what could easily be construed as a threatening manner. He flushed and closed it before shoving it into his pocket. “And you were halfway out the window, because . . . ?”

  “Checking escape routes?” I supplied, unconvincingly.

  Dad actually rolled his eyes at me, but it was the best I could do while under d
uress.

  Cameron’s eyes moved from me to Dad and back again. I thought we might be able to rush him, knock him over, and get out before he could right himself if it came to that. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to decide how much of our story to believe, or if he was debating on the best way to kill us.

  Before I could spring into action, however, he heaved a sigh and turned away. “Come on out of there so we can talk.”

  Dad and I exchanged a glance before following him into the bedroom. I took a quick look around for something I could use as a weapon, just in case he came after us. Cameron had sounded so resigned, it made me wonder if he was about to confess to Rick’s murder. Anytime someone admitted anything like that to me, a violent escape usually followed. I wanted to be prepared.

  Cameron sat on the edge of the bed, next to his laptop. He glanced at it, shook his head, and then said, “I didn’t kill Rick.”

  “Why would you say that?” I asked, feigning surprise.

  “I know about you,” he said. “Rita wouldn’t shut up about it at dinner. We were supposed to talk about her book, and all she kept talking about was how she based it on your life.”

  “My life?” I asked, not quite believing what I was hearing.

  “She kept saying you are some kind of genius when it comes to solving crimes.” He shoved his glasses up onto his nose and then glanced at Dad. “The both of you.”

  “I just write stories,” Dad said, holding his hands up as if warding away the compliment. “This is my first time.”

  Cameron gave him a wry smile before continuing. “While we ate, she said you were currently trying to solve Rick’s murder, which I was happy about. At least I was until she started asking questions. Something about her demeanor made me realize that things weren’t exactly on the up-and-up.” He shrugged. “So I came back here.”

  I winced. “We weren’t going to take anything,” I said. “We wanted to eliminate you as a suspect if you were innocent.”

  Cameron gave me a long look before shrugging. “I get it. I don’t like that you broke in here when you could have simply asked to have a look around. I have nothing to hide.”