By Familiar Means (38 page)

“What?” I croaked, painfully aware that Sean was hearing all of this. “Why?”

“They're saying Kelly Pierce might not pull through,” she answered grimly. “Blanchard is on his way to arrest Jake and Miranda, and as soon as he can get the judge to finish up the paperwork, he's coming for you.”

Oh.

No.

Kenisha hung up without waiting for me to say anything else, and I couldn't blame her. She was risking way more than a reprimand with this call. I was a suspect. I was wanted, along with Jake and Miranda, and pretty soon Chuck Dwyer. All for something none of us did.

I had to end this. I had to find that tunnel. Now.

“Anna,” Sean laid his hand on my shoulder. “Anna?
Talk
to me, will you? What's happening?”

I bit my lip and glanced toward the doors. “Sean, I'm going to have to ask you to trust me.”

“I do trust you,” he said. “But you're still making me a little nervous here.”

“I know, I know, and I'll explain everything.” I put my hand on his. “I've just . . . I've got to do a thing first and it's going to look kind of strange. I just . . . need you to give me a second.”

Sean lifted his hand away. He also closed the book, with his finger stuck inside to mark the page. “I'm not sure I got enough cryptic in that, Anna.”

“I'll try harder next time. Just, if you hear somebody coming, say something, okay?”

“Only sort of.”

Despite this, Sean went and stood by the main door. He folded his arms in an imitation of an old-school bouncer. “Okay, boss. Do your thing.”

Yeah, Anna, do your thing.
I reached into my purse and I pulled out my wand.

“'S truth,” breathed Sean, channeling all his Dublin ancestry.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “'S truth.”

I closed my eyes. I pulled all my focus inside me.

In need I call, in hope I ask, an' it harm none, so mote it be, so mote it be . . .

Help me. Help me. Please.

I took a deep breath and I let it out slowly. At the same time, I lowered my mental shields. I gripped my wand like a lifeline. I tried to hang on to the need to discover the secret and the awareness that I must find the door that had to be here. The one I could not see.

Almost instantly, I heard somebody laugh. I felt a weight, like a palm pressing in the small of my back. A very cold, heavy hand. My heart stuttered and something inside my head was wrenched around. This wasn't my Vibe. This was something else. Something cold and familiar and very, very close.

Then, from the darkness of my own head, I heard music.

It wasn't real music, of course. It was the echo of music, the feeling of it—the happiness and celebration, the sense of motion and enjoyment. I was caught somewhere between vision and memory. Only it wasn't my memory or even the memory of the room around me. But it was there, sliding into my thoughts. I saw the ballroom was full to the brim. There was so much happiness, so much tension, so much
money
. Excitement surged through me, threatening to sweep me away on its tide.

A sharp, shrill sound cut through the whirl and enjoyment. The lights flashed.

The young man in the red blazer stood by the open door, ushering everybody out.
Quickly, quickly, everyone. This way. That's right. Nothing to worry about, just a raid.

My feet were moving, I was running with the rest. Perfect! We'd make our getaway right under the cops' noses!

“Anna?” Sean's voice sounded a long way away.

“Merow?” Something soft and heavy butted at my shins.

I blinked, my mind half in the present, half in the past. At some point, I'd crossed the ballroom and now I was standing beside the cherub fountain.

“Anna?” said Sean again. “How'd Alistair get in here?”

I blinked again and looked down. Alistair was in fact here, circling the fichus tree in the alcove beside the fountain.

“Um, open window?” I tried. My voice sounded thick. I wanted a drink of water.

“Not even,” said Sean as he strode across the ballroom. His shoes echoed loudly against the parquet floor. “We are having a little talk after this, aren't we?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “We are.”

Alistair rubbed his head against the edge of the ficus's brass pot. Hard. “Merow!”

I grabbed the edges of the pot and dragged it toward me. It was heavier than it looked. Underneath, flush with the parquet, was a shiny brass circle.

“Merow!” announced Alistair triumphantly.

Sean was looking at both of us, and I couldn't tell if he was impressed or scared, maybe a little of both.

“It's going to be a very long talk,” I said.

“Yeah. I'm getting that.”

But for right now, I stepped on that circle.

Something went
click
. Something behind the curved alcove wall creaked. I stepped on the circle again. Something behind the wall went
twang.
I put out my hand and pushed. The alcove's back swung inward. Sean came up close enough behind me that I could feel his breath against my ear.

I blinked into the dark until I could see the dust-covered stairway that ran sharply down to the right. As my eyes adjusted again, I could make out the riveted steel door down at the bottom of the stairway. I could also see how the dust had been cleared away from the middle of the treads.

Somebody had been down these stairs, and very recently.

Sean pulled out his own phone and shone its light down onto the steps. “Anna.” He pointed over my shoulder at the rust-colored splotches on the splintered wood. “Is that blood?”

I opened my mouth to say something; at least, I think I did. But I'd also forgotten to get my shields up again, so there was nothing between me and the Vibe that rose from that staircase. Anger wrapped around me, and cold fear, and absolute, utter disbelief.

“How . . . ?” I stammered. “How could he . . . Oh, that
idiot . . .”

Then the world was spiraling down into darkness and all I knew for sure was that somebody, somewhere, was laughing at me.

41

My head hurt. So did my neck and my shoulders. That was the first thing. The second was it was dark, and I was flat on my back. Somebody was making an undignified groaning noise. That, as it turned out, was me.

I stopped that, eventually anyway. I also opened my eyes and struggled to sit up.

I was on the bed in a comfortable hotel room. The curtains had been drawn and I had to blink hard to adjust my eyes to the dimness. A man got up off the desk chair and came over to the bedside. A stray sliver of light glinted on Clark Kent glasses.

“Didn't think you'd wake up so fast,” Dale Hilde said. “You were out pretty good.”

“I . . .” I shoved myself backward. My hands were shaking and my head was spinning. “Where's Sean?”

“Rounding up the backup, I think,” he said. “Grandmothers and bookstore owners and coffee hippies and probably the police. I said I'd call the ambulance and keep an eye on you.”

“Thank you,” I told him, my voice sounding shaky, hoarse
and unfamiliar. I coughed. “I'm sorry, but I think I need a glass of water.”

“Oh, yeah, sure, of course.” Dale went into the bathroom. I heard the water running. I could see my purse over on the desk by the window. I needed my phone and my wand. I needed somebody to know where I was. Preferably Kenisha and Pete. Now.

I swung my legs off the bed and tried to get to my feet, but my legs were shaking so badly, I dropped back down onto the rumpled spread.

Dale came out with a glass in his hand. “I really should have called an ambulance, I know.”

“No, I'm fine.” I gulped down the water. “At least I will be.”

“I just . . .” He ran his hand over his thinning hair. “I wanted to know what was coming first. You know who did it, don't you? You know who killed Jimmy Upton.”

I set the empty glass down and tried one more time to get to my feet. This time I made it. “I think it'd be a good idea to wait for the police before we talk about that,” I said. “Maybe we could go down to your office?”

“Please, Miss Britton,” Dale croaked. “Do you know who killed Upton? Was it Christine? My mother? I just . . . I've been fighting so long to keep us together. I just want to know.”

“I'm not sure,” I lied. “We should go downstairs and wait for the police.”

But Dale was just shaking his head. “You have no idea what it's like. I'm not the smart one. I'm not the ambitious one. I'm just the one who counts the beans and tries to keep things together, for the family.” His voice shook. “I love them, Miss Britton, even Christine, after all she's done to us. Please tell me who . . . just give me some kind of chance to get ready.”

I hesitated. I shouldn't. I knew that. But I saw the desperation in his face and my common sense melted. If it was my family, I'd want to know. I'd want some way to brace myself for it.

“It was Rich,” I told him. I'd suspected him, and my Vibe had confirmed it as I stood at the top of those hidden stairs.
“Your mother said Rich was the one who found her crying that night. He must have gone to try to talk Jimmy out of leaving.” I'd been thinking bribery was the Hildes' way of doing business, but it was really Rich's. He was the cover-up artist. When he couldn't charm somebody, he tried to buy them off, whether it was a competitor or a disgruntled guest—or me. My first idea about the five thousand had been the right one. It was a bribe. Only it wasn't Christine paying Jimmy to leave. It was Rich was paying him to stay, and it didn't work.

Rich was also the one with the bandaged knuckles, which could have been cut trying to force open a steel door so he could dump Jimmy's body into the tunnel.

I tried to lick my lips. “I think Jimmy laughed at him, maybe took a swing at him. I'm sure his temper snapped. I'm sure it was an accident.”

Rich always wanted to make everything better. I'd seen it for myself. Rich would give a client a free night for a minor mix-up. Rich would try to make up for getting Jake and Miranda implicated in the murder he committed.

Rich, who couldn't even get his family to promote him, had done this desperate, dangerous, disorganized thing because his mother was upset, and he had to make it all better.

“He wouldn't have planned it.” Dale's face twisted up tightly, and I knew he was trying not to cry. “Rich . . . he's impulsive. He always has been. He's got those good looks and that smile and he's always had people to clean up after him, so he never worries about the mess.” Dale shoved his fingers up under his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “You're right, you know; Jimmy laughed at him. Rich had cleaned out the register to try to buy him off. But Jimmy said the hotel was going down the drain and he wasn't going to stick around to watch. Said some things about our mother as well that wouldn't bear repeating.”

I stood there, paralyzed, and I listened to how Dale Hilde had stopped talking in the abstract. He lifted his head and now I saw it was tears shining in his eyes.

“You're right, Miss Britton. Rich did it. He held Jimmy Upton facedown in a men's room sink until he died.”

The men's room. I clapped my hand over my mouth before I could laugh—or swear. That was why I hadn't been able to pick up a Vibe about where Jimmy had been killed. He'd died in the one place I was not even going to think of searching.

“What you don't seem to realize, Anna, is that I saw it happen.”