IN ROOM 33 (3 page)

"Not today, sport, I'm bushed. You and Rupert's mutt are on your own."

"Please, come. Please," Gordy begged.

"Nope." Wade flopped down on the sofa he'd bought from a local garage sale. Not bad. He stuffed a cushion under his head. "My plan is to grab a twenty-minute nap, a sandwich, then start on the sixth floor."

"I can help." Again the bright expression, the expectant stare.

Wade eyed him. Gordy was a big guy, over six feet, with more than enough muscle to man a mop. And the help would be appreciated, but he hesitated. Maybe it was the eight-year-old brain in the twenty-four-year-old body that made Wade uncomfortable—some weird thing about using child labor.

Or maybe he wanted to be alone in the dark, dusty halls, think of better days, better times.

He had to go a long way back for those.

"Please," Gordy begged. "I work good. Honest."

"Okay," he said. "Why not? You can give me a hand on six. Fair enough?"

"How much?" Gordy turned all business.

"So now you turn union on me?"

"Huh?"

Wade laughed. "Standard rate, Gordy. It's the best I can do."

"Okay." Gordy looked pleased, even though Wade guessed he had no idea what standard rate was. Wade also knew he'd take a handful of quarters if that was the offer. "Now beat it. Go walk Mr. Rupert's dog, and when you're done come back here, and we'll go to work."

When Gordy was gone, Wade got up and walked into his tiny kitchen—added to the suite sometime in the seventies. He'd spent hours repairing the cupboards and painting. Hell, since he'd come to stay at the Philip, he'd become a regular home engineer. But he'd barely scratched the surface of what the Phil needed.

It was a good thing old Joe hadn't lived to see the decline and fall of his precious hotel—or his grandson. Wade didn't know which would bother him more. Damn, but he still missed the old man, more than ever since coming back to the Philip.

He worked on building himself a sandwich, glanced out the window to the street below in time to see Gordy and Melly turning the corner. They'd be going to Blackberry Park. Wade frowned. That place was a half-square-block nightmare, and anybody in there after dark was looking for fresh scar tissue. Why the hell Seattle's finest didn't clean it up, he couldn't figure. He also couldn't figure how Gordy managed it every day and met with no trouble at all. Maybe the locals knew better than to tangle with his mom, the woman who taught Gordy to ask "How much?" every time someone hired him—even if he couldn't assess the answer. It was her way of being sure he got something. No way was Cherry Ripley letting Gordy be taken advantage of. She was passionate about two things—her AA meetings and her son.

Wade went back to making his sandwich, the idea of passion, any kind of passion, a distant memory.

He stopped abruptly, braced both hands on the counter, and dropped his head between his shoulders, rigid with suppressed tension.

Shit. He felt like shit. What kind of man didn't go to his father's funeral? What kind of man carried a load of shame—and hate—around heavy enough to sink him? And what kind of man had a north wind blowing through the hole where his heart should be?

A guy who fucked up, that's who. A guy who'd driven the fast lane, foot hard on the pedal, with a five-inch stiletto heel holding it in place.

Deanna
.

He let the name loose in his brain, tested its impact. Not hate. Not love. Not even regret. Just a sea of humiliation, born of his own pride and stupidity.

His head ached, so he went to the bathroom and downed a couple of pain relievers. He needed a drink. But like a lot of other goddamn things in his life, the slow burn of amber down his throat was off limits. Hard liquor and drinking alone didn't do anything for his head two years ago; it sure as hell wouldn't now.

If he didn't have that mop waiting for him, he'd have to start weaving baskets.

* * *

Joy Cole breezed into her rented condo, walked to her desk, and stowed her laptop and briefcase. It was July, and hot as hell in Victoria. Unusually hot over the whole Pacific Northwest. Anxious to pare down, get rid of her jacket, she headed for the bedroom and tossed on cotton shorts and a spaghetti-strap tee.

In the living room, she turned on the stereo, tried to find soothing, mellow music. But for all her twirling and button pushing, she found only loud guitars and heavy doses of rap.

She gave up and gave in to her agitation.

She should be happy. It wasn't every day she got a contract for twelve feature articles and a travel budget dreams were made of. Her move to
All-World Travel Magazine
had really paid off. After this stint in British Columbia, she'd fly to Bali, then from there to Singapore and on to Australia and New Zealand. A great trip that paid great money.

And she was apathetic as hell.

One hotel room too many? Maybe. Or one too many nights alone. She could barely remember her last relationship, but she was pretty sure it ended in an airport bar, sandwiched between Timbuktu and Zanzibar... or somewhere. As she recalled, it wasn't much of a relationship, and the sex was barely a five on the one-to-ten meter. Right now she'd settle for a three and a decent conversation.

Okay, she wasn't going there. The minute she started admitting to something as sappy as loneliness, she was doomed. Joy Cole didn't do sappy.

Maybe if she poured iced tea on her inertia, she'd roust it, get a grip. She was always okay as long as she kept moving—and avoided thinking too much. She made a line for the kitchen and along the way hit the message button on her phone.

The voice on it stopped her cold.

"Joy, it's La—your mother." There was a pause as if the mother concept had disrupted her thought process. "Something has come up, so would you call me, please. I'd like you to come to Seattle. It's about Stephen?... He died, you know. It's important, Joy, so please call me right away." The voice mail ended on a click.

He died, you know.
The words echoed.

Joy didn't know. She plopped on the edge of the sofa. Not sure how she felt, she sorted through a few feelings. Regret? Some. As stepfathers went, Stephen Emerson hadn't been bad, just not particularly good. During the time she'd lived with him, aged twelve to seventeen, she'd rarely seen him—or her mother. The last time had been strictly by chance, in a San Francisco hotel lobby. She frowned, tried to remember. Maybe eight months ago?

They'd had a drink together. He'd looked a bit downcast, she'd thought then, and he'd been a lot mellower than she remembered him.

He'd asked a lot of questions and seemed genuinely pleased to hear her life was, as he put it, "on a good and sensible course."

Naturally she'd left out the bad bits. The bits that were anything but sensible.

Their hour together was pleasant enough, and they'd parted with his hugging her—a first, as far as she could remember. Then he'd made an odd comment about parent-child relationships, what he called the "sad mess of them." When he'd said he wished things could be different, she didn't know if he meant her and her mother's twisted bond, or his and his son Wade's, who'd bolted within days of when she and Lana had moved into the Emerson family home. Looking back, she should have followed his lead. But barely twelve, she'd been painfully confused about where she stood in the bright new world created by Lana and Stephen's marriage. She'd even made a half-hearted attempt to fit in.

Joy got up, shook her head.

What a pair they'd been! Hopping from one place to another, Switzerland for skiing, Hawaii for sun and surf, The Hague to see the tulips, Paris because it was spring, and they just
had
to get some "truly good food," then to Italy for the grape harvest.

She could still hear her mother's smooth voice, "Be a good girl for Nanny, Joy." There'd be a quick peck on the forehead while Stephen called impatiently from the limo waiting to take them away. That damn kiss, intolerable at twelve, and by sixteen, a serious maternal misstep. Then off they'd go.

Away, away, away...

The little girl that was Joy wanted to go, too; see all those exotic, tempting places; be grown up enough, free enough, to get lost in a mysterious world that offered unending promises. It was never about the Herculean task of trying to bond with Lana, be with Lana. Through time she'd learned that wasn't possible. No. It was about getting away from her.

She veered off Memory Lane. Nothing but wasted emotional gas. In a remote corner of her heart a remnant of love for Lana remained, a tiny silk knot that couldn't be untied, but it rested tenuously beside a vein that had bled too often in the cause of mother love. Maybe, someday, she'd have the courage to open it again. But not now. For now, she'd keep her shields up, her questions—particularly about her father—in the same locked box they'd been in for over twenty years. Repression had its rewards.

She got up. No point in slogging back through her childhood, that barren landscape she'd traversed without a guide. Worse than some, better than others, it was her cut of fate's cards, and she'd dealt with it years ago. Or thought she had.

She retraced her steps to the kitchen and replayed her mother's message. She was sorry to hear of Stephen's death, but she reminded herself it had nothing to do with her. Unless Lana needed something...

With Stephen gone and unable to provide, there was a chance Lana was looking for a stand-in.

Her mouth went dry and every self-protective instinct she'd honed so carefully through the years sparked to life. Rising to the top of her mother's toady list was not a good thing.

If Joy were smart, she wouldn't return the call. Miserable excuse for a daughter that she was, she didn't relish a reentry into her mother's life, couldn't suppress the flutter of panic at the thought of talking to her.

As mother and daughter they were an uneasy fit, always had been; Joy doubted the length of time they'd spent apart had changed that.

"Give your head a shake, woman. You're a big girl now. Able to leap tall buildings in high heels and spandex. You can manage a normal conversation with your mother"—she slapped her forehead—"and you're talking to yourself."

Disgusted, she made her iced tea, took a long, satisfying drink, and walked out to her balcony—if you could call two square feet a balcony. She'd phone her mother in the morning, but she didn't intend to go to Seattle. She had a trip to organize and less than a month to do it—a prospect that held as much appeal as talking to Lana. But Joy knew one truth. Her mother was the black hole of attention-getting, and she didn't plan on falling into the pitch again. She'd worked too hard for her own life.

Her life. Drum roll, please...

A sterile, windswept land of hotels, airport lounges, lost luggage, ever-creased clothes, cell phone calls, and laptops with dead batteries. Oh, and not to forget the mountains of fast food slowly turning her thighs into fat-cell incubators.

She laughed at herself. What a self-pitying, ungrateful idiot she was. She had it good, damn good.

She just didn't have it right.

She sighed, pressed the cool glass to her forehead, told herself she'd feel differently tomorrow. And as far as Lana was concerned, she'd learned how to hold her ground years ago. If she were lucky, she hadn't forgotten the drill.

* * *

"Shut up!" the boy hissed at the girl. "Keep it down, will ya!"

The fire escape, with its noisy metal stairs, was bad enough, but if Nelly didn't stop with the chatter, someone would hear them for sure. Luke should have known that last beer would put her over the top, but—he smiled—it would make the sex easy.

The girl slapped a hand over her mouth, but it didn't stop either the giggle or the hiccup. "Okay, but are we almost there?" She spoke through the hand covering her mouth, but at least she was quieter.

"Yeah," he whispered back. "Just one more floor."

The good thing was the stairs were on the alley side of the hotel, and most of the rooms on this side, except one, were empty. Hell, most of the hotel was empty. He'd been scoping it out for a month. Of the thirty-six rooms, less than half were occupied. Getting in, and getting out, without being seen would be a piece of cake.

Nelly giggled again, and again he shushed her. Christ, if it wasn't for those boobs of hers, he'd have brought Christa instead. "Here it is." Luke put his face to the window and looked in. Black as tar in there. Good. He worked the crowbar under the old, wood-sashed window, added a bit of muscle, and it lifted. He stepped over the sill and gave Nelly a hand in.

He opened his backpack and pulled out a blanket, a six-pack of beer, and a candle—no harm in a little romance. The finger of flame offered by the lit candle barely formed shadows in the blackness of the room. Luke spread the blanket over the bed's sagging mattress.

Nelly took her hand from her mouth and squinted into the darkness. "Cool," she said.

"Our own private hotel room," he said. "Just like I said." Luke didn't intend to waste a bunch of time. "Now, Nelly Moses, you come over here." He sat on the edge of the bed and spread his legs.

The obliging Nelly stepped into the vee of his legs and put her hands in his hair, while Luke slid his hands under her tee to lock onto her breasts. Breasts that made a little B&E worth it.