"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Dena held up her hands. "Have you gone mental? How the h.e.l.l did you come up with that?"
"No, she"s right," I said, fighting back tears. "I found her in there with a bullet hole in her forehead. And look," I reached into Anatoly"s bag and pulled out the ammunition. "Anatoly"s got bullets in his duffle bag."
Marcus" mocha skin looked about two shades paler. "Anatoly killed the bimbo?"
"No! He would never do that! But..." I looked down at the bullets, "someone did and Anatoly"s nowhere to be found."
"Oh, wow." Mary Ann shook her head. "I was so much happier when I thought he was making friends with lesbians."
Marcus pressed the base of his palms against his forehead. "We have to call the cops."
"There"s more," I said quickly. "As I was saying before, it wasn"t actually Anatoly"s room."
"You also said you didn"t think it was hers," Dena reminded me.
"That"s right." I took in a deep, shaky breath. "I think it was mine."
I proceeded to tell them everything. I had to stop once to throw up but my friends were too shocked to mind much.
"So that"s it," I said when I had finally finished.
"This," Marcus said slowly, "is incredibly bad. The police are going to be looking for you."
I shook my head. "I cleared all my stuff out of the room and I wiped off my fingerprints."
"But if it"s registered under your name..." Leah"s voice trailed off.
"Eventually they"ll figure out that I didn"t book it! And...and there"s nothing to place me there!"
"Except the security cameras in the hallway outside the room," Leah pointed out, "and the stranger who gave you the room number. But aside from that, nothing."
Security cameras! I hadn"t thought of that.
"Maybe whoever booked the room did so for a really long time," I suggested. "I don"t think hotel maids vacuum closets. And they always keep the air conditioning up so that"ll keep her from getting too smelly. It could be more than a week before they find her!"
Dena banged her cane on the floor in frustration. "Could you go throw up again so I can talk to sober-Sophie? It"s a cool hotel room, not a f.u.c.king meat freezer! And you said you kicked her back into the closet with your shoe! That means she is on your shoe right now!"
I screamed and ran into the bathroom to wash off my shoe...and to throw up again.
When I got back I flopped down on the bed and pressed my face into a pillow. "Why is this my life?" I wailed.
"Yeah," Marcus mused, "why is that?"
"And what about Anatoly?" I gasped looking up. "What if something happened to him? What if he"s hurt?" I knew that it could be worse than hurt but I couldn"t go there. Couldn"t even entertain the possibility.
Mary Ann moved to sit next to me. "He isn"t. If he was hurt you"d feel it," She patted her heart. "You"d feel it in here."
"Oh for G.o.d"s sake," Dena muttered. "She already threw up twice, no need to make us all nauseous."
"Yes, and honey," Marcus said gently, "it"s possible that Anatoly is a murderer."
"I"m telling you that"s not possible!" I propped myself up on my elebows. "I should never have kicked him out! I shouldn"t even be in Vegas! All he asked for was the chance to explain! Six years we"ve been together and I didn"t even give him that!" I started crying, crying so hard that it even brought out the nurturer in Leah who handed me Kleenex and mumbled a few sympathetic words.
"I want to call him!" I cried.
"Sweetie, you have his phone," Marcus reminded me.
"I don"t care! I just have to hear his voice." I s.n.a.t.c.hed up my phone and dialed Anatoly"s number. I listened to his phone ring. I had programmed a special ringtone for myself into his phone so he would always know it was me; Wild Horses by the Rolling Stones. He had kissed me for my efforts. As it played now the memory of that kiss came hurling at me like a brick, knocking the breath right out of me. When his voicemail eventually picked up I put it on speakerphone and clutched my hands in my lap as I listened intently to the sound of his voice.
"I"m unavailable right now. Leave your name and phone number after the beep."
I swallowed my tears as the beep sounded. I leaned over the silent phone and screamed, "You son of a b.i.t.c.h, where the f.u.c.k are you?"
Dena clicked the phone off with a sigh.
"What am I going to do?" I moaned.
"I think there"s only one thing we can do," Marcus said. "We wait to see what the morning brings."
Sleep was not a possibility. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling. I had managed to puke out most of the alcohol which left my head a little clearer than I wanted it to be. Dena and Marcus were sleeping...well, probably sleeping, in the adjoining room. Before arriving in Vegas Leah had booked a room at Hotel Noir after "confirming" that I was staying there. Now she had canceled that (grumbling the whole time about the hefty last-minute cancelation fee) and Mary Ann had booked a room at Encore for the two of them, although they hadn"t been able to get one on the same floor as us. Of course the fact that there was now a record that my sister had booked a room at Hotel Noir was going to make it even harder for me to convince anyone that the room apparently registered under my name was never registered by me.
At around three a.m. I gave up and pulled myself together enough to go out. I didn"t want to wake my friends but I couldn"t bear the idea of sitting alone in my room.
In jeans and a tank top I went down to the lobby with a book that I knew I wouldn"t be able to focus on and sat down on a cushy chair that gave me full view of everyone coming and going. Even at this hour of the night the place was bustling.
No one seemed to be paying any attention to me, except one redhead in a little black dress sitting about thirty feet away from me. She seemed to be glancing over in my direction every few minutes before returning her attention to a magazine she was reading. Or maybe she wasn"t looking at me. Maybe she was looking behind me toward the casino. Was I being paranoid?
I shifted slightly in my seat and tried not to be too obvious about examining her. Even from across the room I could tell she was pretty with a perfect little figure. The hot pink stilettos suggested that she wasn"t a cop or a lesbian so my suspicions about her checking me out were probably unfounded.
And then she looked up and we locked eyes.
s.h.i.t.
I watched, frozen in place, as she closed her magazine, got out of her seat and crossed the room to where I was. "Excuse me," she said as soon as she was only a few feet away. "But are you Sophie Katz?"
Was there any reason to say no? Again, there was no way a cop would wear heels like that. It would be like a lifeguard wearing chainmail. But if she wasn"t a cop she might actually be dangerous...
...and she might know where Anatoly is.
"Yes," I said after I had let way too much time pa.s.s for my response to sound natural. "I"m Sophie."
The redhead smiled and sat down in the seat next to me. "I recognized you from the picture on the back cover of your books. I just finished your last one."
She was a fan? I let out a little relieved laugh. "If you can recognize me when I"m this much of a mess I am in serious need of a new publicity shot."
Again, the woman smiled and let my self-deprecating comment pa.s.s without correction. That in and of itself was a little odd. "I also just read this really interesting article in USA Today," she said. "It was about how some mystery authors have real life experience with crime. Like, you, Pamela Cope and Amanda Preston."
"Yeah," I said cautiously, "but Cope and I have worked to expose crimes while Preston actually beat a woman to death when she was a teenager. I really feel that"s an important distinction."
"I see your point." She crossed her legs and looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. "But that certainly makes Preston qualified to write about murder, doesn"t it? She knows what it feels like to take another person"s life. Do you think you"re as qualified as her?"
The question took me off guard. "No," I said quietly. "I"m not."
"So you"ve never killed anyone?"
I had. I had shot him at close range. It had been self-defense so technically it wasn"t murder...but still, I took a life. I had expected my actions to haunt me. I thought that after the shock had worn away I"d be overcome by remorse or at least some level of guilt.
But I didn"t feel any guilt at all. Most of the time I didn"t even think about it. And that meant that it was possible that Preston and I had more in common than I cared to contemplate.
And a disturbing little voice in my head told me that if there was someone out there who had harmed my Anatoly I could kill again, with no guilt whatsoever.
And another little voice told me this was a very strange question for a reader to be asking. "Are you asking if I"m a murderer?" I asked. "Because obviously the answer to that would be no."
"Interesting," the woman mused, "and yet you write about it so convincingly. Have you ever interviewed anyone who does have experience with killing? Like, have you interviewed ex-cons, or cops or military guys?"
"I think the experience of a soldier fighting to defend his country is significantly different from the experiences of someone who kills for personal interest," I glanced toward the entrance. Perhaps when a pink stiletto-wearing stranger tries to start up a conversation about murder the appropriate response is to just get up and leave.
"True, but I didn"t necessarily mean American military," she continued. "You know in some countries there"s a lot of crossover between the police, military and crime families. In Russia for instance-"
I snapped my head back in the woman"s direction. "Excuse me?"
"I was just saying that in Russia being part of the military doesn"t preclude you from involvement in crime or even in the Russian mafia....or as they call it the Bratva."
I felt myself go rigid. "Who are you?"
Her smile broadened. Leisurely, she checked her diamond Cartier watch and stood back up. "You should go back to San Francisco and write another one of your wonderful books. Vegas is no place for a novelist. It doesn"t provide a conducive ambiance for creativity."
"What are you saying?"
"I"m saying that there"s nothing for you here. Go back to San Francisco. Tomorrow morning if you can."
She started to turn but I immediately got up and grabbed her arm. "Where"s Anatoly?" I hissed.
"I don"t know what you"re talking about."
"The h.e.l.l you don"t! Who are you?"
"Do I need to call security over?" the woman asked, her voice sweet and sympathetic. "They might even call the police. Would you like to talk to the police tonight?"
I let go of her arm. "Just tell me where he is."
"There you are!" Marcus" voice carried across the lobby tinged with notes of anger and panic. I turned to see him striding toward me. He grabbed me by both my arms and squeezed a little too tightly. "I can"t believe you just took off like that! Tonight!"
"She knows where he is! This woman knows everything!"
Marcus gave me a puzzled look and then glanced behind me. "What woman? You mean that redhead you were just talking to?"
I broke free of Marcus and whirled around. I caught a glimpse of her as she stepped out the front doors of the lobby "No, no, no, no!" I cried and then took off after her at full speed, Marcus close on my heels.
"Who are we chasing?" he asked as we ran outside.
I came to an abrupt halt and swiveled my head back and forth trying to get a glimpse of red. No one should be able to move that fast in stilettos. It just wasn"t possible, was it?
"Do you see her?" I asked urgently.
"No, she must have jumped in one of the cabs or something. Who is she?"
Desperately I stared out at the street that was littered with cabs of various colors. "She"s gone," I whispered.
"Who!" Marcus demanded again. "Who"s gone?"
"I don"t know. But she gave me a warning. She told me to go back to San Francisco first thing tomorrow."
"Or what?"
"Good question. But I guess we"ll find out because I"m not going anywhere."
Marcus released a heavy sigh. "Are you really going to stay here and risk our lives to rescue your h.o.r.n.y, married, mafia-lovin"-boy-toy? Because that song"s even too pathetic for Nashville."
"Anatoly is not a boy-toy." I snapped.
Marcus brought his fingers up to the bridge of his nose. "You need sleep, Sophie. You"re not going to be able to do anything without that."
I bit down on my lip. I knew he had a point. I could feel the exhaustion tugging at me and without sleep I would be left with a debilitating hangover when the sun came up. Perhaps if I had been more rested I wouldn"t have allowed Little-Miss-Evil to get away so easily. But I knew that if I lay down the images of that woman in the closet would come back to haunt me and yank me out of unconsciousness. I sighed and started walking toward the strip.
"Where are we going now?" Marcus asked as he matched my pace.
"Isn"t it obvious?" I asked. "I"m going to see if any of the local drug dealers peddle Ambien."
CHAPTER 6.
"The vibrator was the fifth domestic appliance ever to be electrified, coming over a decade before the vacuum cleaner. It"s comforting to know that every once in a while society gets its priorities right."
--Death Of The Party We never did find a dealer who sold Ambian but we did find a very nice prescription drug addict who allowed me to b.u.m a couple of Valium off her and after twenty minutes more of staring at the ceiling of my hotel room I was finally able to get to sleep.
I dreamt I had a closet full of monsters and standing between it and me was the redhead in her pink stilettos...and in her hand was Anatoly"s gun.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"You know who I am," she replied, coyly. Behind her the monsters scratched at the closet door.
"Are you guarding me against the monsters?"