Fairest (9 page)

When I hung up the phone, I screamed, “She's not dead. That bastard lied to me!”

I took her necklace out of my jewelry box and hurled it across the room. My neck hurt from breathing too hard, and I left the bedroom and went to the kitchen. I grabbed the vodka from the freezer, twisted off the cap, and drank two large swallows. Ice and heat flooded my throat, and almost instantly, I felt calmer. I put the bottle back in the freezer, dug my cell out of my purse, and called Colby.

“Hey, beautiful,” he answered.

“Don't ‘hey, beautiful' me. Your guy lied to me! Skye called me this morning. She's at the Marriott on Canal.”

“What did I say about talking about this over the phone?” He sighed loudly. “I'll deal with it. You should sober up, sweetheart.” With that, he hung up.

I clicked my phone off and dropped it into my purse. Colby would deal with it, huh? Well, he better. It might have been my money, but he was the one who made all the arrangements. If anyone found out what we were up to, he would be in as much if not more trouble than I would.

I felt the nerves, again. Colby told me to sober up. Well, poo on him. I went back for more vodka.

Colby would fix it. Sure. Yes. Everything would work out just as it should. Everyone would get what they deserved
—
fair and square.

The knock on the door woke me. Gina bolted upright in her bed with her fists raised. As Carly said, Gina was jumpy. She was a year younger than I was but taller and tough. I patted my hand to her and waited until she dropped her hands and stopped breathing hard. From the open door between our room and Nate's, I heard a TV and him chatting. In particular, I heard Terrell and guessed that all the guys were still hanging out in there.

I looked at the clock, verifying it had been long enough for all our dirty clothes to have been washed. “It's probably our laundry,” I said to Gina.

When I got up to answer the door, Terrell came over and stood in the doorway between our rooms. I looked through the peephole and saw a man dressed in a hotel uniform with a cleaning service cart behind him.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Miss Daniels?” he asked. “Housekeeping.”

“Oh.” I looked at Terrell, who shrugged. I unlatched the chain, twisted the deadbolt open, and opened the door.

From behind his back, the man pulled a gun. I yelped and tried to slam the door shut. He was much too strong for me and easily pushed open the door so he could enter the room.

“Let's do this nice and quiet, now,” he said. He glanced over to where Gina crouched between our beds. “That will cost extra.”

The man kicked the door shut and revealed Terrell, who stood behind it in the pass-through doorway. Terrell dove at the man, knocking him sideways and causing him to fire his gun across the room at our window instead of into me. From the other room, Nate barreled into mine and helped Terrell tackle the gunman. I ducked between the beds, and Gina and I squealed as the guys wrestled with my attacker.

“Why are you after Skye?” Terrell asked the man.

He didn't respond. The gun waved through the air, and Terrell grabbed it as Nate struggled to control the man's arm. The gun went off again, firing into the bathroom. Nate managed to wrench the gunman's wrist. With a bark of pain, he fired a third time. Then, all three guys went still.

“What? Oh my God.” I scrambled around the end of the bed and over to them.

AJ and Isaac now stood in the doorway, open-mouthed. I jerked Nate from the top of the pile. A quick pat down and shirt inspection showed me he was unharmed. When Terrell stood, we saw that Terrell's shirt was red, and the assassin had a large, bloody patch on the chest of his uniform.

“Oh, shit.” I clapped my hand over my mouth. “Is he…is he dead?”

The three of us leaned over him. His eyes were glassy, empty. Terrell felt his pulse and nodded to me. “Yeah.”

“Great. What are we gonna do?” Nate asked. “Do you think anyone heard? His gun has one of those silencer things on it.”

Between the beds, Gina fell to her knees and began wailing. AJ and Isaac bolted over to her and helped her onto the edge of her bed with her back to the dead guy in the floor. It was my first body, and as the shock hit me, I shook as if I had violent chills.

“Damn,” Terrell said. “I never actually killed anybody before.”

“You didn't kill him,” I chattered. “He had the gun.”

“Don't matter,” Nate said. “That guy's white. Terrell and I are black. Who's gonna look like the victim? His handprints are all over the gun.”

“That's just crazy.” I shook my head a little too wildly. “It was an accident. He attacked all of us.”

Another knock came at the door, and when I checked, it was Carly with Dee. “What are you guys watching on TV?” she asked in a motherly tone. “You woke up Dee.”

“Go over to Nate's door,” I said. I looked at AJ. “You guys take Gina in there, too.”

They did as I said, and I went into the boys' room, shutting the door between the rooms. I let Carly in, and her eyes went wide when she saw how upset Gina was. She looked at me, and my face must have told her that we were all having a bad afternoon. I tugged her toward the go-between door.

“The guy,” I waved my hands, “I mean a guy came back for me.” I jerked my head at my door. “Dee doesn't need to see what's in there.”

“Dee,” Carly said, “Stay in here, and watch TV with Gina. I'm gonna go in Skye's room for some grown-up girl talk.”

“Okay,” she said, smiling and hopping up onto AJ's bed.

I opened the door just wide enough for the two of us to slip through and closed it behind Carly. While Terrell and Nate quietly told her what happened, I went over to the dead man. After gagging once, I bent down and picked up the gun. I used my T-shirt to rub the gun clean. Gingerly, I pulled the waistband of his pants away from his body and stuffed the gun into his pants.

“There.” I looked at them. “What do we do with him?”

“It's almost dark. We could take him to the dumpster,” Nate suggested.

“How did he know where to find you?” Terrell asked.

“I don't know. Maybe he traced my credit card. Lizette is the only one who knew I was here.” Carly looked at me meaningfully, and Terrell coughed. “Oh…oh, no.” I shook my head. “She wouldn't do that. I don't even bother her, for God's sake.”

“I think it's highly likely that your stepmom paid someone to off you,” Nate said. “Must be some reason why.” I shrugged. “You got a lawyer or something?”

“No,” I said reflexively, but then I thought of Linc. “Uh, I know somebody, though.”

Before I made the call to Linc, I called down to the front desk to apologize in advance if we disturbed anyone. I claimed we were watching TV too loudly and two of the boys had a minor scuffle. The concierge who replaced Roger on the shift swap said no one had complained, but he appreciated my apology.

After that call, I got my phone and scrolled down through my numbers until I found Linc's. Using the room phone again, I made the call. The phone rang five times and went to voicemail.

“Linc, this is Skye.
Please
, call me back at
this
number. Don't call my cell, because it's almost dead, and…I lost my charger.” I hung up the phone and looked at what passed for the adults of this rag-tag group of homeless children. “Now, we wait and hope he isn't out doing something stupid, like I expect him to be.”

While we waited, Nate and Terrell used one of the spare blankets from the closet to cover the body. I wrapped up in my bedspread to try to stop the chills. Carly went out and wheeled the laundry and cleaning supply cart into the room. Terrell tried to wash out his shirt in my sink, and I thought I should go back down to the shops and get him another one. For it to be our first murder, I thought we were handling it quite well.

All three of us jumped when the phone rang. “Hello?” I answered quietly.

“Skye,” Linc drawled loudly. “I wish you could see Whit's face. It's priceless.” I smirked and felt stupid for doing it, since he couldn't see me. “To what do I owe the honor of a personal phone call?” I heard music in the background and laughter.

“I need a lawyer, and I thought of you,” I said.

“Whoa, hold on a sec.” After a moment, the background noise cut out completely. “What's going on?”

“Someone tried to kill me, twice.” Carly came over and sat next to me. She rubbed her hand up and down my back, and I found it helped me stay calm.

“
What
?” It came out upset, outraged, and disbelieving all at once. “I will kill him.”

“Uh, well. That's why I'm calling. He's dead.”

“
What
?”

As quickly and quietly as I could, I gave Linc the rundown of my last two days. I told him about the man outside the House of Blues and about running until I stopped in an old, abandoned hotel. I told him about meeting my accomplices and moving to the Marriott. I told him about calling Lizette, the new guy, the fight, and the gun.

“Were you hurt?”

“No. I mean, I have a raw neck from my necklace, but no one was hurt.”

“Where is the body?”

“Uh, over on the floor. I wiped the gun, and the guys covered him with a blanket.”

“You wiped the gun?” he asked in a tone as if I was stupid.

“I didn't want Nate and Terrell to get in trouble. I'll take the blame for it if necessary.”

“Skye, no one is going to believe that a five foot three waif with big tits took down a guy like you described to me.”

“I don't see how my breasts have anything to do with it,” I grumbled. “I don't care. They didn't do anything wrong.” Nervous and impatient, I said, “Can you help me or not?”

“Yeah,” he said and then cursed. “My dad is going to kill me for being drunk, but I'll call him. Then, I'll call you back.”

“Okay.”

“Skye,” he said and paused for a bit. “Don't touch or move anything else, and don't worry.”

He hung up, and I put the phone back on the receiver. “He said not to move or touch anything else. He's gonna call me back.”

Nate went into his room to check on everyone. When he came back, he reported that they really were watching TV. Gina had calmed down, and Dee was still oblivious.

The four of us—Nate, Terrell, Carly, and I—sat there for what seemed like an hour. When the phone finally rang, it had only been twenty minutes. It was Linc's father. After the world's briefest introduction, I related the entire story to him.

He told me not to move or touch anything else. He said he would take his private jet—his
private
jet—and help me in dealing with the police. Meanwhile, he would have some of his people dig into Lizette and any others who might have a reason to want me dead. When I asked if that wasn't the job of the police, he told me it was, but he preferred his people to do their own investigating.

“Stay calm, young lady. I will help you take care of this.”

“Thank you,” I whispered.

When I hung up the phone, Terrell said, “Let's move out of this room.”

I nodded. “Carly and I will go back down and get you a new shirt, just in case.”

“Yeah, and we'll check and see if the laundry is ready, too,” she added.

Carly and I took the elevator down, but we didn't talk. I felt like a zombie at that point, sort of shambling around without any real direction. Carly picked out the clothes, and I paid for them. After that, I followed her to the laundry. Carly spoke to a woman there who gave us an enormous, plastic bag containing our clothes.

Together, Carly and I dragged it to the service elevator and then down the hall to my room. Terrell changed, and we moved into Nate's room. Everyone except Dee was a little on-edge. She seemed just as happy as always. She let AJ borrow her monkey so he could pretend it was King Kong. He shot it down from the top of the TV with the little airplane—part of a set of toy vehicles I'd gotten for him.

I didn't have the stomach to dine with a corpse next door, so we all went down to have dinner in the hotel restaurant. I ordered crawfish
Étouffée
but didn't eat much of it. I imagined that, living on the streets in a big city, these kids had seen just about every horrible thing there was. A dead man didn't rattle them as much as it did me. I hated that. Their childhoods had been so destroyed, a dead guy in the same room with them wasn't the most disturbing thing to happen to them.

“When this is over, I'm going to do something more permanent for y'all, for all orphans here.” I looked at each of them. “I swear.”

“You've already made it better for us, Skye,” Terrell said. The others either nodded or verbally agreed with him. “But, we believe in you.”

“I'm glad,” I said and felt renewed by their trust in me.