After a few excruciatingly long seconds clacking across the marble lobby where, thankfully, no one seemed to be paying any attention to her, she was able to slip into the cover of one of the long guest room hallways. The Dead Guy Suite was on two, but there was a maid cart dead ahead. It was cleaning time and the staff were doing their rounds. She had expected to find the laundry room first to grab a uniform but she knew an opportunity when she saw it. She scanned the cleaning cart as she approached. The maid was inside a room and Maggie’s quarry was hanging by a strap from the cart. Without breaking stride, she yanked the passcard off the cleaning cart—the maid inside the room far too busy making the bed to notice—and disappeared into the next stairwell.
*
It took her longer to find the laundry than she’d expected. The hotel had a basement level, so that’s where she’d started. It had looked promising, with concrete floors and undecorated hallways—just the sort of place one would expect to find a laundry room and supplies, especially maid uniforms. However, what few rooms there were housed things like boilers and plumbing and electrical. Necessary, Maggie supposed, but annoyingly unhelpful to her.
It took almost an hour before she found the extra maid uniforms in a supply closet on the sixth floor. As she slipped on the white coveralls and pink apron over her street clothes, she realized she probably could have been in and out of the Dead Guy Suite in the amount of time she’d taken searching for a maid outfit. She shrugged and tied the apron behind her back. Better to have a cover story if she were discovered. Not that she wanted that kind of complication—but she was learning to expect them.
She took the stairs back down to the second floor. There would be no elevator trips during this adventure. The hallway was quiet. Not ‘too quiet,’ but quiet. In fact, she might have welcomed some ‘too quiet’—an eerie but empty hallway giving her the chance to slip into the room completely unnoticed. As it was, however, there were always a few guests walking from point A to point B. Luckily, her maid costume afforded her a measure of invisibility, as it signaled to the hotel patrons that it was socially acceptable to ignore her.
Nevertheless she kept her face turned down and away as she walked to the end of the hallway, then counted room doors on the way back.
One… Two… Three… Four. Dead Guy Suite.
She glanced around suspiciously, trying not to look it. There was one heavy-set man at the far end of the hallway near the vending machines. He was unlikely to notice her and even less likely to remember her. She pulled the passcard out of her apron pocket and slid it through the door’s card reader. Two seconds and one flashing green indicator light later, she pushed open the door and slipped inside.
*
“I wonder if it’s true,” Emma Valentine remarked to her neighbor in the next cubicle, “that they always return to the scene of the crime.”
“How’s that, Emma?” replied Abby Jameson, the forensic scientist next to her. She had her face pressed against a microscope. “I’m kind of trying to concentrate here.”
“I said, I wonder if it’s true that they always return to the scene of the crime.”
“Who?”
“The criminals.”
Jameson lifted her face from the device. “Why would they do that?”
“I’m not sure,” Valentine replied. “Maybe to see their handiwork.”
“Oh, okay,” Jameson said. Then after a moment. “So what?”
Valentine grinned. “Well, that’s just it. If we can match the non-victim DNA, we could wait for the killer to return to the hotel room.”
“You still going on about that hotel murder?” Jameson sighed. “Don’t you have any other cases?”
Valentine tapped her lips. “I don’t know, Abby. There’s something about that one. Who removes a victim’s spine?”
“Maybe it was my husband,” Jameson joked. “He needs a backbone.”
Valentine laughed and shook her head. “No, this was something sinister. I just hope we can match it before the killer’s already been and gone.”
*
Maggie scanned the hotel room. She wanted to do her thing and get out as fast as possible. The hour searching for the maid costume had given her extra time to consider the most efficient course of action. There had been blood on Sarah’s picture frame, and there had been blood—lots of it—in the bathtub. The blood from the frame showed her the bathtub, so she wondered what the blood from the tub would show her.
‘Nothing’ was the apparent answer as she stepped into the bathroom.
It had been completely redone. Fresh paint and what seemed to be a new shower. She pulled out her phone. The photo of the dead man was still there and pulling it up confirmed that the hotel management had—wisely, she supposed—completely replaced the shower/tub enclosure.
“Damn,” she muttered. But she could hardly blame them. ‘Mind the blood’ was hardly a selling point.
She crossed her arms and frowned at the room. She’d come a long way and gone to a lot of trouble to just give up because of some entirely foreseeable redecorating. She raised a hand to her face and tapped pursed lips.
There were three choices. One, give up and leave now. That wasn’t really an option. Not for her.
Two, figure out something else to inspect in the hotel room. Not bad, but still, an admission of defeat.
Or three, smash forward and figure out some way to make her original plan work.
Her frown curled into a smile. Option three it was. She had an idea.
She dug a fingernail into the caulk surrounding the shower enclosure. She scraped away until she got enough to grab, then she started peeling it off.
She doubted they bothered to paint under the new shower cover.
A few minutes later the caulk was curled up on the floor and the surprisingly thin plastic of the shower wall was pried away and propped open several inches by three wooden hangers from the closet. Maggie was peering into the gap, looking for bloodstains and wishing she’d remembered to bring her flashlight. Heck, she should have brought an entire toolkit, although she supposed that might have been suspicious: a maid with a tool box.
She peered into the gloomy gap, spying a myriad of stains on the drywall. They had definitely not painted before the new, slightly larger shower had been installed. That left a thin strip of old white paint before the newer, yellow-beige color started. She decided that was her best bet and squinted low, guessing that any blood would likely be closer to the floor.
She wondered how the cops did it. How did they distinguish between blood stains and regular stains—mold, dirt, chocolate? She’d seen TV shows where they used some sort of test that made the blood glow in the dark or something. One more thing for her toolbox, she supposed. She located a small, dark stain near the floor. It was sort of a blotch with a half-hearted drip extending below it. It seemed like as good a candidate as any. She would have liked to have cut it out and taken it somewhere more conducive to the divining spell, but again no tool box, and anyway she didn’t know what to use to cut drywall. She’d have to do the spell where she was, kneeling on the floor of a hotel bathroom in a maid costume. How dignified.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the section of frame she had brought with her. She could hardly carry an entire picture frame in her pocket, and it was broken anyway, so she’d snapped off the side with the glass embedded into it. She laid it down next to the maybe-blood stain and prepared to cast the divining spell again.
She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. She might not remember the exact words from the Dark Book, but she remembered the words she’d used on the frame back at her flat. She opened her eyes and said them again.
“
Again, it took a moment, and again, she didn’t know what to expect. She’d never cast the spell on two objects at once. But she cared about the connection between the stains more than anything else, and she couldn’t think of a better way to find it out. As the glow
s began she wondered how they would interact. Would their rising mists combine to form a single image? Or would their images appear on top of each other, making it impossible to decipher either?
It turned out to be a little of both.
Two images arose, one from each location, next to each other but forming separately. Maggie had been expecting faces or people like she usually got—a scene unfolding, like a television show with the sound off. So it took her mind a few moments to realize what she was looking at. She had been most interested in the connection between the objects. The magic must have understood that and answered accordingly. She was looking at two glowing double-helixes—strands of DNA, rotating slowly before her eyes, their well-known twisted-ladder appearance easily recognizable to even the most science-averse person.
They spun slowly in front of her face, then began to float toward each other. As she watched, she noted something that was confirmed as the images reached each other and combined into a single, rotating strand of DNA.
They were identical.
There was only one conclusion: the blood from the frame was the dead man’s. He had been in Sarah MacKenzie’s apartment.
She just didn’t know when. Or why. Or what it meant.
She also ran out of time to think about it. Someone was opening the hotel room door.
*
“Oh! I almost forgot the most important part,” Valentine announced to no one in particular.
Jameson only offered a mumbled, “Hm?” as she continued her microscopic examination, but that was fine with Valentine. Her real audience was Det. Benson. She typed another email.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: One more thing
The non-victim blood was XX. Whoever was in there, it was a woman.
-E
*
Maggie snatched up the frame piece and shoved it back into her pocket. There was no time to fix the shower. And no time, or place, to hide either. The door flew open with a slam and Maggie could do nothing but look through the bathroom door and feel her heart sink. It was the same large and unintelligible woman who’d spotted her by the loading dock weeks before.
“Yoo thar!” she bellowed. “Whut are yoo dooin’ heer?”
Maggie closed her eyes. Her luck had finally run out.
“I tol’ Mary tae cleen up theese rooms. Why isna she in heer a’ doin’ it?”
Or not. Maggie opened her eyes again, eager to take the opening the woman had just given her.
Then the woman noticed the carnage behind Maggie. “Good laird! Whut a’ happened thar then?”
Maggie just shrugged. She knew better that to open her mouth and remind the woman of her accent.
“Did yoo find that then?” the woman asked.
Maggie nodded earnestly. Well, it wasn’t really earnest, but she wanted it to look that way.
“Oh, good laird almighty!” The woman threw her hands up in despair. “Those gests will haff some esplainin’ tae doo, I dare say.” She pointed out into the hallway. “Goo an’ get Mary. She needs tae see this afore those folks check oot.”
Maggie nodded again and dashed into the hallway. She had no idea who Mary was, even less where she might be. But it didn’t matter. She was getting the hell out of there.
23. Now I Really Need a Drink
Maggie sprinted down the first available stairwell. She pulled off the maid’s uniform and stuffed it into a garbage can at the entrance to the first floor hallway. She slid the passcard under the door to the men’s room off the lobby—the better to throw suspicion off of a female suspect. Then she darted outside into the safety of the warm Edinburgh afternoon.
She walked as fast as she could as far as she could until she felt her side splitting. When she finally slowed down, she figured she was at least a mile of winding streets away from the Hotel Regency and its Dead Man Suite.
By the time she’d made her way back to the right neighborhood and found the pub where she was meeting Ellen and Stuart, she was more than a little ready for a pint. What she wasn’t ready for, but was nevertheless standing at the bar as she stepped up to order her drink, was Iain Grant.
He looked even more surprised than she was. Of course, she at least knew they were both in the same city. He actually spilled his drink on himself when he saw her.
“M-Maggie?” he managed to stammer. “What are you doing here?”
She wasn’t ready for this. Sure, she knew they were in the same city. Sure, she figured she might run into him somewhere. But she expected that to be someplace like downtown, where everybody went sometimes. What the hell was he doing in a pub near some dumpy hotel Ellen had picked because it was cheap? And why did he have to be so goddamn handsome? No, she was definitely not ready for this. Deflectors to full force.
“I could ask you the same thing,” she replied.
Hey, it worked last time.
“What am I doing here?” he repeated, dumbfounded. “I live here.”
She crossed her arms. “So I hear.”
Iain crossed his too and glanced around. “You’re not here to see me, are you?” he realized. “This is one of your little junkets.”
“Junket?” Maggie sneered. “Nobody really says ‘junket.’ And anyway, it’s none of your business. So don’t judge me. You gave up your right to judge me when you walked away.”
“You never gave me a chance to judge you,” Iain countered.
“And now I know why,” Maggie rejoined. “You would have walked away.”
“I walked away because you lied to me,” Iain defended, “not because of what I saw.”
Maggie shook her head. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know I was keeping secrets. You knew. You loved it. You were all, ‘Ye’re a mysterious lass, ye are, Maggie Deveroo,’ and ‘Och, me wee lassie’s got her secrets, she doo.’”
Iain crossed his arms and tried to look offended. But the faintest of smiles alighted in the corner of his mouth. “That’s not what I sound like.”
“That is exactly what you sound like,” Maggie replied. Her own smile crept into the corner of her own mouth, much to her irritation. “And anyway, that’s not the point. You knew. You didn’t know it all, but you knew. I trusted you and you walked away.”
Ian’s eyebrows shot up. The smile disappeared. “Trusted me? That’s exactly what you didn’t do. You didn’t trust me. You don’t trust me.”
“I did,” Maggie protested. Then she set her jaw and looked down. “And damn it, even if you don’t deserve it, I still do.”
Iain uncrossed his arms. “You do?”
Maggie frowned and lowered her own arms. She looked up at him “Yes.”
He nodded for several moments. He looked down at his drinks for several seconds more, obviously in thought. Then he took a deep breath and looked up again. “Prove it.”
“What?” Maggie was stunned by the sudden demand.
“Prove it,” Iain repeated. “Tell me exactly what you’re doing here in Edinburgh. You’re not sight-seeing, I know that. Tell me the truth.”
Maggie’s heart exploded with adrenaline. Conflicting emotions cascaded over her. She’d never willfully shared the magic with anyone. It was ingrained to keep it secret. Besides, where did she start? The Lost Weeks? The murdered man in the bathtub? Could she trust him that far? Or would he call the police? Magic was one thing, murder was another. Besides, you don’t test trust. You accept it. You earn it. Demanding proof of it unearned it. Her anger in being challenged, coupled with her fear of being turned in, overcame her longing to rest her cheek on his chest again.
“I’m sight-seeing,” she asserted. “With Ellen. And her new boyfriend. That’s all.”
They both knew she was lying.
It felt like someone had just died.
She fought off the regret clawing at her heart. She made an ill-advised decision to go on the offensive. She glanced around. “So is that tramp here with you?”
Iain nearly spilled his drink again. “Heather’s not a tramp,” he shot back.
“Heather?” Maggie repeated the name and rolled her eyes. “Oh, well, what a bonnie Scottish name that it. Och and haggis and all that.”
Iain set his chiseled jaw. “Don’t be a—” But he stopped himself.
“Oh please.” Maggie swirled her hand at him. “Finish your thought. Don’t be a what?”
Iain narrowed his eyes. “The word I was going to use started with B,” he admitted. “Then I thought of changing it to ‘witch,’ but I thought you might think it was a compliment.”
Maggie shook her head and swallowed the lump in her throat. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
And it certainly wasn’t supposed to be like what happened next. The tramp arrived. Heather. Bonnie wee Heather.
She stepped up and stood way too close to Iain. She looked Maggie up and down, not even trying to hide her disdain. “Who’s this?” she sneered.
“Maggie,” Iain answered woodenly. He didn’t look away from Maggie. But he didn’t move away from Heather either.
“Oh,” said Heather. That was it. No, ‘Nice to meet you.’ No ‘I’ve heard a lot about you.’ Which told Maggie that Heather had heard a lot about her and it was not nice to meet her.
Heather slipped her arm through Iain’s. He stiffened a bit, but didn’t resist. “So what brings you to Edinburgh, Maggie?” she asked. “Are you really that desperate?”
Maggie immediately felt better about not liking Heather. It was one thing to be a rival. It was another to be a ‘witch.’
“Hardly,” Maggie replied. “I’m here for something else.”
“Oh really?” Heather took a sip from her beer. “What’s that?”
“I’d rather not say,” Maggie demurred.
“Typical,” Iain grunted and glanced away.
Maggie had gone through a lot of emotions that afternoon. Worry about her plan. Satisfaction at it working. Panic at being discovered. Relief at escaping. Surprise at encountering Iain. Sadness at their conversation. Jealousy at seeing Heather. She’d just about had it.
Last Rite (Maggie Devereaux Book 3) Page 11
