C
HAPTER
26
“W
hoa, dude, is this like illegal or something?” Cliff asked.
We were in the third floor stairwell of the Culver Inn, outside the door that led to the hallway my room was on. Our voices echoed off the concrete walls and steps. It was dusty and hot in the airless passageway.
“We're in pursuit of scientific truth,” I said. “Isn't that covered in your ufology mission statement?”
“Yeah, well, I guess,” Cliff said.
“Okay, then, let's go,” I said, and clapped my hands together.
“Are you sure they're aliens staying in there?” he asked, nodding toward the adjoining room.
Of course there were no aliens sleeping off an all-nighter in the room on the other side of the wall. There were no aliens anywhere. But it was the only excuse I could give Cliff to get him to come over and do this for me.
Yeah, okay, I'd lied. What was the worst that could happen to me? I'd get cursed or something?
“There's only one way to find out for sure,” I said, and gave him my move-it-will-you eyebrow bob.
Cliff dug through the big toolbox he'd brought overâ his ufology field investigation kitâand pulled out an electric drill.
“Hey, hang on a second,” he said.
He didn't say anything for a minute. I figured he was waiting for whatever thought had shot through his brain to circle back around.
“Like, uh, what if the noise wakes them up?” Cliff proposed. “What if they all take off?”
Good grief.
“This breed of gray aliens doesn't sleep,” I said. “They put themselves into suspended animation for a designated time period.”
“Yeah?” he asked, looking unconvinced.
“I saw it on the History Channel,” I told him.
He nodded. “Oh, yeah, well, okay then.”
Cliff gunned the drill a couple of times. It was really loud in the stairwell.
“Hey,” he said, grinning really big. “This is like, you know, like the real Dana and Fox.”
“
X-Files
isn't real, Cliff,” I said. “It's a TV show.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said, as if that only made it better.
“Drill,” I said, and tapped the wall. “Right here.”
I'd selected a spot on the common wall between the stairwell and the room across the hall from mine. Cliff started drilling.
It was a long shot, but something was going on in the rooms in this wing of the motel. Something illegal. Something Bradley knew about. I'd thought about it every way I could, and that was the only thing that made any kind of sense.
There was no other reason for the rooms to be off-limits to guests. Nothing else explained the voices in the hallway, the late-night visitors, the mysterious pickup truck I'd seen parked near the maintenance shed. No explanation for the huge turnover in employees that assured nobody would be around long enough to question anything.
Cliff pulled the drill bit out of the wall and stepped back.
“Okay,” he whispered. “We're in.”
He knelt down and dug through his field investigation kit until he came up with another tool.
“A borescope. See, it's got a camera on the end,” he said, and fed the tiny tube through the hole he'd just drilled.
I waited, bouncing on my toes, using all my strength to hold back and not rip the thing out of his hand and look through the gadget first.
“Whoa, dude!”
Cliff said. He jumped back, his eyes huge.
Oh my God. There weren't really aliens in there, were there?
He looked at me, grinning and nodding his head big-time. “This is
way
better than aliens.”
I peered through the eyepiece into the interior of the room.
Oh, yeah. Way better.
Â
Cliff yammered all the way from the third floor to the parking lot, but I wasn't listening. I just went with him to make sure he got out of the motel immediately.
I'd cleaned up the drywall dust from the floor of the stairwellâokay, I'd just spread it around and mixed it with all the other dirt and dust up thereâwhile Cliff plugged the hole with something that looked a lot like gray Play-Doh. He didn't seem to know exactly what it was and I figured I could go on living without knowing.
“You'll hook me up when you get, you know, all the details?” Cliff asked as we stood next to his Taurus.
“You bet,” I said.
I had no intention of telling Cliff anything, but, oh well. That's the way it had to be. He'd have to live with itâif he even remembered I was supposed to give him the info. I waited until he drove away, then walked back into the Culver Inn plotting my next move.
“Miss Randolph?” someone called.
I spotted a woman in the lobby standing beside a couch, eyeing me.
Wow, she looked fantastic. Classy, elegant. Mid-forties, I guessed, full-on hair, makeup, and nails, dressed in a cream-colored YSL suit, four-inch Jimmy Choo heelsâoh my God, was that a Delicious handbag tucked under her arm?
She walked over, poised, calm, sedate. “I'm Madam CeeCee.”
“I love your handbag.” I think I moaned that.
She smiled pleasantly. “I know.”
For a moment, I was so stunned at seeing the Delicious, I didn't remember that I'd told her where I was staying. And how did she know who I was? Was she just an awesome psychic, or had the desk clerk described me?
I preferred to think she was an awesome psychic.
“Where did you find it?” I asked, my gaze still glued to her handbag.
“It was a gift,” she said softly.
“I'm dying for one of those.” I'm pretty sure I moaned that, too.
“I know,” she said. “Please, let's sit.”
We settled onto the couch. Now that she was right in front of me, I couldn't let her leave without telling me how to break this curse. But I couldn't mislead her. What if she put another curse on me?
“Look, like I told you on the phone, I'm having some financial difficulties right now,” I said. “But I'll have money very soon.”
“I know,” she said softly.
“And I'll pay you every cent of your fee,”
“Yes, I know that, too,” she assured me. “Now, tell me about this curse you're under.”
“Some crazy old lady waved her finger around and called on the powers of the universe to curse me,” I told her.
Okay, it sounded kind of lame when I said it out loud, but Madam CeeCee didn't seem to think so.
“And why did she do this?” she asked. “What precipitated her actions?”
I thought back, trying to remember everything that had happened that day in Holt's. I'd been serving Bolt, the energy drink. The old lady was in the women's department and had asked for help with the bathrobes, then got mad when I couldn'tâokay, wouldn'tâhelp her.
“She said American girlsâmeaning me, I guessâhad everything,” I said. “She said we gave nothing in return and that we were selfish.”
Madam CeeCee considered this for a moment.
“Of course, now I understand.” She nodded and smiled. “To lift this curse, you must simply perform a selfless act.”
Oh, crap. A selfless act?
That wasn't really
me.
Hardly the sort of thing I did best.
“That's it?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied, looking altogether pleased with herself.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “Don't you need to look in a crystal ball? Check my aura or read my palm?”
“That's not necessary.”
Okay, I didn't want to seem ungrateful but, jeez, there had to be a better wayâbetter for me, that isâto get rid of this curse.
“You can't shake a dead chicken at me instead?” I asked. “Chant something, maybe?”
“The universe doesn't work that way,” Madam CeeCee said. “You've gone too far in one direction and been selfish. Now you must go the other way and do something selfless, so the cosmic forces will balance.”
Oh my God. That's exactly what Taylor had been blabbing on about with her reverse world theory.
Maybe there was something to it.
“Exactly how selfless does this act have to be?” I asked.
I mean, really, no need to go overboard, provided I could actually pull off something selfless.
“How large is your curse?” she asked.
Oh, crap. I was screwed, all right.
“You have another question,” Madam CeeCee said.
Something had definitely been on my mind for daysâwell, longer than that, actually. Hopefully, she'd give me an answer I liked better than this selfless-act thing.
“I've got this boyfriend,” I said. “I'm not sure he's the right one for me. Can you tell me?”
Madam CeeCee frowned a little, leaned back, and looked me up and down. A full minute crawled by while she just stared.
“All I can say is you've met the man who is your destiny,” she told me.
“Who is he?” I asked.
Madam CeeCee got to her feet. “You already know him quite well.”
I got up. “Yeah, okay, but what's his name?”
“Look in your heart. You'll find your answer there.”
She smiled and walked out of the motel.
How could she just leave like thatâwithout giving me his name?
I knew a lot of men. I knew a lot of men quite well. Did that mean it was Ty? Or some other man likeâ
Oh my God. Could she have meant Detective Webster? Or Cliff?
Oh, crap.
Â
It was a Louis Vuitton day. Definitely a Louis Vuitton day.
I'd called in sick at Holt's, using the touch-of-the-stomach-flu excuseâit's a classicâthen loaded up some shopping bags and headed to the mall.
After carefully calculating the prices of the items I'd bought for myself since arriving in Vegas, I selected a few and returned just enough to buy a totally awesome DKNY business suit and accessories.
Returning clothingâespecially the fantastic clothes I'd boughtâwent against everything I stood for, but hey, I could be strong when I had to be. Besides, I could always return the suit and buy those items again.
So here I stood in the lobby of the ultra-chic Corona office building, heading for the elevators. The guard at the security desk gave me a nod as I walked past. I hadn't expected any trouble.
Not only was I wearing a fabulous black suit, semi-sensible shoes, my hair in a no-nonsense up-do, but I'd channeled my mother's I'm-better-than-you attitude, which had gotten me through many a tough situation.
At least Mom was good for something.
I took the elevator up to the top floor, got off, and approached the receptionist's area. The office was huge, opulent, decorated in neutrals with desert landscape watercolors on the walls. Floor to ceiling windows across the room offered an incredible view of the vast expanse of the desert. I'm pretty sure I spotted the Chrysler Building on the horizon.
“May I help you?” the receptionist asked.
She was an older woman, well dressed, perfectly groomed, wearing an earpiece, and seated at what looked like the helm of the space shuttle.
I walked over and ratcheted up my I'm-better-than-you attitude another notch.
“I'm here to see Helen Pennington,” I told her, and gave her my name.
She consulted her computer screen, and said, “I don't see an appointment scheduled.”
“I don't have an appointment,” I told her. “But Helen will want to see me.”
The receptionist's heavy brows drew together. “I'm sorry, but Mrs. Pennington can't see anyone today without an appointment.”
I'd expected this. In fact, I'd hoped for it.
I gave her an understanding smile, and said, “Would you give Helen a message for me?”
“Certainly,” she said, picking up her pen and looking relieved that I wasn't going to be any trouble.
I was about to make her day, big time.
“Tell Helen I'm here to talk with her about her son Bradley growing marijuana in the rooms of the Culver Inn,” I said.
Her hand froze over her notepad. She looked up at me.