by Mara Webb
“Can you see Kate?” I asked.
“Yeah, she’s charging right at us,” Ryder replied.
“Well, isn’t this cozy,” she grinned, looking at the pair of us.
“There’s a fire and she can’t walk fast enough to get out of there,” Ryder replied.
“Hey, no judgement from me. I just think it’s pretty cute, and there is no reason for you both to still be cuddled like this. Just put her down, Ryder,” Kate instructed. Before Ryder had a chance to move, Kate carried on talking. “Oh, and Emmy is totally not here by the way. I have a bad feeling about it.”
“She’s still inside?” I gasped. “We have to get her out!”
“We don’t have to do anything,” Ryder said. “There will be volunteer firefighters here any minute now and they can run in and search the building. It’s not your job, Sadie. Besides, if you hobbled on in there and found Emmy unconscious, do you think you could drag her out in your current state?”
“Fair point,” I muttered. Ryder lowered me gently to the ground, and as I straightened up, I made eye contact with someone in the crowd that was staring right at me. I tried to step forward but winced in pain as I moved. I stepped again but stumbled and Ryder caught me.
“Hey, where are you going?” Ryder asked.
“Miller,” I said quietly. Miller must have seen Ryder carrying me, we hadn’t seen each other since the werewolf incident, I didn’t even know if he was aware that he had injured me. He looked at the bandages on my leg and I think he figured it all out. He retreated into the group of people waiting in the parking lot and then disappeared.
13
“Kate, I am begging you to do something for my leg,” I asked. “I don’t care what it involves, I just need this pain to go away quickly so that I can walk around on my own two feet.”
Kate had seen Miller too; she understood the mess that was growing around me.
“Honestly, I would just take some Tylenol,” she said, pulling a packet out of her pocket. “I’m serious.”
I took the packet from her and Ryder handed me his water bottle. It would probably take at least twenty minutes for the medication to kick in, but I couldn’t wait that long to see where Miller had gone. Ryder reached out to stop me and I batted his hands away.
Kieran was still wandering around ticking off names, maybe Emmy would show up all on her own and I could just focus on getting my sort-of-boyfriend to stay in one place so we could talk. What did I even want to say? I knew he would be feeling guilty about hurting me, but he wasn’t the one that had done anything, not really.
I had a brief thought about The Hulk, or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. When those men did something terrible in their ‘monster’ forms, could the human be held accountable? Did Bruce Banner have to take responsibility for all the damage the Hulk did to buildings? I didn’t blame Miller, if anything it was my fault. He had been a regular guy until I’d shown up. My arrival had triggered some werewolf DNA in him to activate and now he was suffering with the consequences.
I couldn’t see him in the parking lot. I looked down the path that lead to the shore, he was on his way to the boats.
“Miller!” I shouted out. He didn’t turn, so I shouted again. Still nothing. I tried to run a few paces but fell, tripping over a protruding stone in the dirt. The path sloped downward, and I tumbled, only stopping as Miller grabbed me and pulled me up. So that’s how to get his attention. “Why are you walking away from me?” I asked.
He gave me a pained look and then pointed back up towards the hotel. “I could have killed you,” he said. “Look at what I did to you. I am supposed to be the one that protects you from harm, but who protects you from me, huh? It’s him!” He was referring to Ryder and I felt sick with guilt, what did I feel guilty for?
“It was an accident,” I protested, reaching to his face to turn his gaze back to me. “I’m fine. This is going to heal up and then—”
“Then you have to walk on eggshells around me in case it happens again,” he said. “What if that woman hadn’t died? We could have been back up in our room when I shifted, you would have been trapped in the Honeymoon Suite with me. I could have killed you, Sadie.”
“But you didn’t. I don’t want you to go anywhere, please don’t leave me here without you.” I was surprised by how desperate I was coming across, but I was desperate. I wanted him to be with me.
He was considering what I’d said, that was a start, right?
“I’ll be gone before it gets dark,” he said. I smiled, then tried to stretch up onto my tiptoes to kiss his mouth. The movement cause a shot of pain to race through my leg, but Miller had seen what I had tried to do. He lifted me up and I wrapped my legs around his waist. Our kiss was interrupted by the sound of sirens.
Miller put me down, turned and crouched in front of me, then lifted me up again so that I was on his back. He carried me piggy-back style until we got to the hotel and I could see what was going on. The volunteer fire fighters had arrived. Kate ran over to us and pulled at Miller’s arm so that he would follow her. She was taking us to a side door to get back into the building.
“You want me to take Sadie into a fire?” Miller asked.
“There isn’t a fire, don’t be so naive!” she called out. “It’s a distraction so that someone could run around inside here, unseen.”
“You are very confident,” I replied. “I feel like you don’t suggest running inside a building that has active fire alarms blasting through the air unless you are really sure that there isn’t actually a fire. I buy it. Miller?”
“Here’s me thinking I’m the dangerous one,” he muttered. Kate held open the door and we snuck inside. The Tylenol was beginning to work, and I could feel that the pain was subsiding.
Kate jumped over the reception desk and started frantically hitting every key on the keyboard.
“What are you doing?” Miller asked.
“I’m looking for Emmy’s room number,” she replied, rolling her eyes as if it had been obvious. “I’ve seen people in movies trying to hack into computers and this is exactly what they do.” Miller lowered me onto my feet and walked around to Kate’s side.
“Move over,” he insisted. Kate stepped out of the way and folded her arms defiantly.
“Here we go. Typical man thinks he knows how to do every little thing just because he’s been raised to think he’s going to inherit the earth. You know what, I thought you were one of the good ones, Miller. I tell you, when the patriarchy collapses, I’ll have a front row seat, popcorn in one hand and a mimosa in the other,” Kate ranted.
“She’s in room thirty-two. Third floor,” Miller announced.
“Since when did you know how to hack computers?” Kate asked.
“It’s not hacking when the computer is unlocked. It’s just database software, I clicked on the icon that looked like a magnifying glass and typed in her name, there’s only one person in this hotel called Emmy,” he explained.
Kate was weighing up whether she should say anything else, but Miller was already on the move. He looked back briefly to check if I was safe to follow. I gestured for him to keep moving. I hadn’t spotted Ryder on our way back into the building, I wondered if he had seen my reunion with Miller. I would have to worry about that some other time.
Kate bounded ahead of me on the stairs, Miller was also moving fast but kept stopping so that I didn’t fall too far behind. I was determined to get there on my own, but if we discovered that there really was a fire, then I would gladly let Miller carry me. How does that saying go? Is it ‘pride comes before third degree burns’?
When we got to the third floor, Kate was knocking loudly on Emmy’s door. There was no response from inside, but we realized that we were in trouble as the smell of smoke hung on the air. There’s no smoke without fire, right? So, where’s the fire?
Miller threw his body at the door, but it didn’t budge. He took a few large steps back, then charged at it again, this time it cracked around the door handle and he was
able to push his way inside. The smoke billowed out and we realized that the source of the fire was here, in room thirty-two.
“Emmy!” I shrieked. She was lying on the carpet, a few feet away from a blazing trashcan. Miller and Kate grabbed a blanket and smothered the fire, it was easily contained but had produced enough smoke to have set off the alarms.
She had a pulse, that was a good sign. There was blood around her hair line, it looked as it she had been hit with something.
“It looks like some sort of camera, but it’s all melted,” Miller said, peering into the trash can. “I can’t see what was set on fire, all this ash suggests there was paper in here.”
“The pillowcases are missing from the bed,” Kate pointed out. “I reckon someone stuffed them around the camera and threw a match in.”
“The camera with the photo of Rick and Derek?” I said. Darn it. We’d only told one person that the photograph existed. “Did anyone see Derek downstairs?”
Kate shook her head. Miller looked confused as he had no idea who Derek was.
“We need to get her seen to,” Kate said. “Should I call Brielle?”
“Won’t there be some medical personal with the fire fighters?” I asked.
“Have you seen them? They probably don’t even have the resources to deal with this trash can fire, never mind a medical emergency. I’ll get Brielle to use the tunnels, she won’t be long. The rain won’t have been enough to flood them. Can you get Emmy up to your room? It’s closer than mine,” Kate said.
I nodded, then Kate disappeared out into the corridor. I looked around and spotted that the cable connecting Emmy’s phone had been cut. Who would do that?
“If I carry her, can you walk? You look like you’re in pain,” Miller said.
“Just get her up to our room,” I said. I saw a glimpse of a smile when I referred to it as our room. Miller scooped Emmy up off the ground and I followed him out to find the staircase. I held tightly to the handrail and used it to pull myself up each step. The Tylenol had certainly taken the edge off, but the aching made my leg feel heavy.
I wondered if Miller knew that there had been a possibility that, without treatment, I could have become a werewolf too.
Miller was unable to open the door until I got there, he couldn’t shoulder-charge the door with Emmy in his arms, and without putting her back down onto the ground he was unable to reach for his key. By the time I caught up he was bending down to do exactly that, but I quickly swiped my card and the lock clicked.
I pushed down the handle and we walked inside, only to realize that the room wasn’t empty. There was a man sitting on the balcony chair, he was facing out to sea. This room got more foot-traffic than Grand Central Station.
Miller carefully lowered Emmy to the bed, then reached behind him to pull a gun out of his waist band. My eyes widened. He had a gun? Since when did he have a gun? He had given me a piggy-back in the past hour and I hadn’t felt it against my leg, had it been there the whole time? He had the weapon aimed at the man on the balcony.
“No need for that,” the man called out.
“Turn around slowly, keep your hands where I can see them,” Miller said. He complied. His face looked slightly familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“I wanted to talk to you both, this seemed like the best place to get you alone,” he smiled.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I’m Susan’s son, Thomas. I was told that my mother had died and so I came to find the people that would be responsible for looking into her murder,” he explained.
“Murder?” Miller repeated, still aiming the gun at Thomas. “What makes you think it was murder? We haven’t heard anything from the doctor’s office to suggest foul play.”
“Have you asked many questions?” Thomas asked. “Who have you interviewed about this so far?”
“It happened last night and there’s been a lot to deal with,” Miller said.
“That’s how you are describing the werewolf situation?” he laughed. “Don’t worry, I won’t go round telling everyone, although I imagine most of them know by now. I think that you should both be a little more anxious to apprehend the killer. Who knows when he might strike again?”
“He? You make it seem like you know who did it,” I said.
“Not necessarily, but I have my suspicions. I’d be looking into my stepfather first of all,” Thomas said, smoothing down his golfer’s polo shirt.
“Rick?” I asked.
“Yes. Maybe it was all an accident, and my grief is sending my imagination into overdrive… but that would make Rick the unluckiest man alive, wouldn’t it? Who else would be so unfortunate to have two wives die by ‘accidental drowning’?”
14
“Hold on,” I said, gesturing for Miller to lower the gun. “Rick is your stepdad?”
“Yes, I think I just said that,” the guy shrugged.
“You don’t seem all that cut up about your mom,” Miller added. He was still aiming for the guy and I wondered why he thought this man was a threat, I suppose the fact that he had broken into the bedroom was a red flag.
The stranger in the room looked at Emmy’s unconscious body and raised an eyebrow.
“We weren’t really on speaking terms. Haven’t been for a number of years, in fact,” he said.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Did you ever speak to her?” he replied. I nodded. “Then surely you know. She was involved in the college admissions scandal before those celebrities got famous for it,” he sighed.
“What?” Miller said.
“You must have heard about that, surely,” the guy laughed. “The whole deal was that my mom, just like those parents from the news, didn’t want her son going to some low-rent college and embarrassing her. My grades were predicted to be fine, just not good enough for the elite places. That’s when she really got to work…”
“She helped you cheat on the exams?” I guessed, remembering what I’d seen on TV when the story broke a few years ago.
“How can you cheat? They have people in the rooms, don’t they? You have to give ID and then sit in a room with examiners watching you,” Miller said.
“My mom paid a psychologist to award me a certificate saying that I needed special provisions due to a learning impairment. When exam season rolled around, we flew out to California for a funeral, that’s what she told me anyway, then she had that shrink call my school to say that he would be able to facilitate the exams taking place out there.
“Next thing I know, we are on a plane back to Hallow Haven and I haven’t taken a single test. My mom had some genius kid take the admission exams for me and the doctor signed off to say that he had observed me completing them. The psychologist isn’t allowed to work anymore, I think he’s in jail. I don’t know how my mom got out of it, I guess her lawyer was charging the big bucks that day.”
“So, you stopped talking to her after that?” I asked.
“Pretty much. I’m not sure who blew the whistle on the whole mess, I didn’t even know it had happened until it all came out. Obviously, no college would touch me after that,” he sighed. “Should I be asking more questions about this unconscious woman?” He looked down at Emmy.
“There is a doctor on the way,” I replied. “It seems like you have a pretty good reason to want your mom dead, why do you think we should be looking at your stepfather?”
“Listen, my mom was an interfering hag at the best of times and, yes, she ruined my life—”
“These sound like motives,” Miller mumbled.
“My point is, I made my way in the world without going to college and I’m doing well now. Things just didn’t go to plan for a while, but you know what they say, ‘when you make plans, God laughs’,” he smiled. “I was hoping to reconcile with my mom this weekend and introduce her to my fiancé, but I guess that’s not happening.”
Kate burst through the door with Brielle right behind her, she looked at Miller who was still aiming the gun at the
strange man by the balcony doors and raised her hands in an attack-stance.
“No, no, no!” I muttered, hopping over to Kate and grabbing her arms to pull them back down to her side. The last thing I needed was for her to use her magic to blast this guy out of the hotel. “This is Susan’s son, he was just…”
“I was just leaving,” he grinned. “I’ll be downstairs in the bar if you need me. I’ll be doing the sensible thing and staying in public areas with plenty of witnesses, that seems like the best way to stay alive around here. You need to speak to Rick, promise me you will.”
“We will be pursuing all leads,” Miller nodded.
“Thank you. My name’s Callum, by the way,” he said, walking toward the door and past Kate.
“We’ll be seeing you, Callum,” Kate hissed. She put a hard emphasis on his name and glowered at him as he left the room. Brielle was already by Emmy’s side and checking out her head injury.
“Well, that was weird,” I sighed.
“You’re telling me!” Kate beamed. “How did you get another hottie in this room, Sadie? You crafty witch!”
I shot her a look, and she obviously read my mind and knew to stop talking. I’m sure she didn’t need the ability to actually read my mind though, the expression on my face was making my thoughts pretty clear. Miller didn’t know that Ryder had spent the night in this room with me. I wanted it to stay that way.
“She’s waking up,” Brielle announced. We turned to look at Emmy as she started to open her eyes and wince as she reached up to touch her head.
“I feel like I’ve been hit by a golf club, probably because that’s exactly what happened,” Emmy groaned.
“Someone hit you with a golf club?” I repeated. “Did you see who it was?”
“The guy from the picture, he came to my hotel room and knocked on the door. I opened it thinking it was you guys and then bam, he hit me,” she replied.
“Wait, Derek hit you?” Kate asked.
