Chapter 8
“W e are changing rooms,” Royce noted, “on the sly, so nobody knows.”
She stared at him blankly. “Not even the Dutch government? Not even MI6?”
“No, not even them.”
“Okay, fine.” She hopped to her feet, grabbed her single plastic bag, and added, “Good thing I travel light.”
They just smiled at her. Rick said, “Give us five.” He looked at Royce sideways. “You want to do the honors?”
“Sure.” And, with that, he walked to the front door and slipped out.
“What does that mean?” she asked Rick.
“He’ll find a room that is unoccupied for us to go to.”
“I thought I heard the hotel say that the place was full.”
“It might be full as far as the books go, but that doesn’t mean all the rooms are occupied.”
“Why wouldn’t it mean that?” she asked, clearly confused and staring at him. Rick just laughed. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why wouldn’t it mean full?”
“Because they hold back a certain number of rooms all the time, for unexpected visitors, for owners, for various clients who are either regulars or who will pay a lot more money to get a room without a reservation,” he explained, with a smirk. “It’s all about supply and demand.”
She didn’t like where he was going with that. “Seriously?”
He nodded. “Of course. It’s standard operating practice.”
She frowned. “That seems highly illegal.”
He laughed. “Making a living isn’t illegal, and offering VIP treatment to those in a position to pay more isn’t illegal either. It might be unethical and irregular, but that doesn’t make it a crime.”
“Maybe it should be,” she stated, still staring at him. “If I was here earlier and got a room, then came back a little bit later to book a second room for a friend, and they were almost all out and charged me a premium rate, that seems to be a rip-off.”
“And yet if you really needed that room, you would be happy to get it,” Rick pointed out. “So, while you might think it’s a rip-off, and maybe it is, you would still be happy to take it and to pay the premium rate. I’ve certainly seen it happen more than enough times to make me believe it’s a common practice. If it’s not the standard practice at all hotels, I’ve seen it happen enough to make me think it’s worth a shot here.”
“Interesting,” she murmured, then shrugged. “So, what you’re really saying is that, even if the hotel is full, Royce should find us an empty room.”
“Exactly.”
“But how?”
He laughed. “Just leave that to him.” She frowned at him, and he shook his head. “No, I’m not telling you. That’s up to Royce. Let’s just say that you’re not the only one to have strong… instincts .”
“I know he’s got strong instincts,” she stated for emphasis. “Yet I highly doubt that finding a room requires his instincts. Now he did need those instincts when he found me,… bouncing from window to window to see if anybody was inside.”
“Is that what it seemed to be from your point of view?” Rick asked, a grin on his face. “Did he bounce from window to window?”
She raised both hands. “I don’t know. He was just… suddenly there.”
“How did you react?”
“How do you think?” she muttered. “I was absolutely stunned to see him, but, as soon as he was gone, I realized what a godsend it was. Since I didn’t know how to help myself out of that situation, I tried to put myself in a position where maybe I could at least get free somewhere and find him later.”
“I wonder how you would have found him?” he asked, studying her carefully.
“Maybe I wouldn’t have, although the rooftop deck was a brilliant idea, if I do say so myself. Why do you ask?” When he just shook his head, she frowned. “You’re prattling on about that energy stuff again, aren’t you?”
His grin flashed. “Hey, that energy stuff has saved us many times.”
“I’m not surprised,” she murmured. “It’s pretty wild and wonderful, depending on what you can do.”
“Have you ever done anything, outside of tarot cards?”
“No,” she murmured, “and I usually just do them for fun.”
“ Usually ,” he repeated, pouncing on the word. She glared at him, and he chuckled. “Believe me that I know an awful lot of people who would have had you bring your tarot cards out long before now, just to see what kind of answers you would give us on questions right now.”
“Maybe, but these are my tarot cards, and I’m the only one who’s ever handled them,” she shared. “I certainly wouldn’t take kindly if somebody else did.”
“Interesting,” he noted, studying her. “I’ve heard that before, how owners of tarot cards can be quite possessive.”
“I don’t know that it’s possessive as much as they become tuned to our own energy.”
“Ah, that makes sense.”
Since he’d brought it up, she asked, “Do you know others who do tarot cards?”
“I do. Quite a few of them, and they all have a caveat that tarot cards are fine, but Ouija boards are not.”
“I used a Ouija board,” she said, with a smile, “until it was taken away from me. I presume you approve.”
“I do. I’ve seen some pretty rough things happen with Ouija boards. Doorways get opened, and, the minute that happens, it’s pretty damn hard to close it, and those things—people, spirits, whatever, that come out from that open doorway—are not anything to mess with,” he muttered. She stared at him, and he nodded. “Yeah, I get it. It’s fun and all that good stuff, but it’s also dangerous as hell.”
“I haven’t had any negative experiences,” she stated, “so what you’re saying surprises me. Although I have had a long affinity with tarot cards, so the Ouija wasn’t a big focus. I only used it when the cards would tell me to.”
“Interesting. As much as I want to ask how the cards tell you something”—he stopped and raised one eyebrow—“I somehow feel you’ll say you intuit the answers.”
Silence came.
He chuckled. “Right. That’s what I thought. I’ve also known some people who were very good at Ouija boards, but that’s because they were true mediums. Thus, when people came through, they had the ability to pass on messages. One in particular comes to mind. She could shut them down, which is a very valuable trait. However, we also had a case where a murdered spirit walked in and controlled the medium. We had to fight tooth and nail to push her back down.”
“It still sounds like fiction,” she muttered.
“Yep, but for somebody who’s handled tarot cards, you know perfectly well how little fiction is involved.”
“Yet most people would be horrified to hear you say that.”
“I’m not most people,” he said instantly. “I have seen some things in this world, and people do unbelievable things. You have absolutely no idea how incredibly messed up this world is out there.”
“I always wanted to know more about the various energy workers,” she shared. “It’s not exactly something you can talk about or deal with very openly. I knew of a woman doing a bunch of research way back when on energy workers, and I thought about contacting her, but I never did.”
He laughed at that. “Don’t suppose that was Dr. Celia, was it?”
She looked at him in surprise. “I think it was. Why?”
“She’s Terk’s wife.”
Heather stared at him in delight. “You’re kidding? I would love to meet her,” she shared warmly. “She was doing work that was very close to my heart.”
“It might be close to your heart, but it’s definitely her field,” Rick noted. “We all refuse to be tested by her, which aggravates her to no end.”
“But that doesn’t mean that the work she does isn’t valuable.”
“It is valuable. She just has to find somebody as a test subject who won’t be worried about other people finding out what they can do,” Rick explained. “We’ve all come too far in our specialized world to let anybody in that deep.”
“She must be totally frustrated with you guys then.” Heather stared at him. “I would have thought it was a trust thing.”
“Oh no you don’t,” he began. “You don’t get to throw that in my face. It’s not about trust. It’s knowing that she’s a researcher who will publish her work,” he clarified, shaking his head as if he wanted to get rid of something evil. “If we knew for sure it would never go anywhere outside of our team, that would be a different story. But it’s not because this is what she does, so we know perfectly well that she has to publish her results. That’s a part of any projects funded by grant money, and that’s her job,” he stated, with a laugh. “Knowing those parameters, a few people have worked with her, and lots of others just smile and tell her no way.”
“The fact that you can even tell her that and still keep peace and quiet in the family is huge.”
“It is, but again that’s where the trust part comes in,” he stated, smiling at her. His phone buzzed a few minutes later with a text, and he pulled it out to read it.
She got up and came closer. “Did he find one?” Heather asked Rick. He looked over at her, one eyebrow raised. She shrugged. “It’s him. I know that.”
“How do you know that?”
She frowned, not liking the look he was giving her. “If I say instincts , you’ll probably laugh at me.”
“Nope, I sure won’t,” he replied comfortably. “It would make me feel a whole lot better if it was.”
“Was what? … Instincts?”
“Yes, because that would mean that you turned yours on.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure what’s going on in that sense,” she muttered, as she looked around. “Every time I sleep I kind of wake up still in a half-groggy state.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure that he was giving you something, a light sedative. Something to keep you a little bit calmer, a little bit more controllable,” he said, with a smile. “And I’m not so sure that it’s all out of your system.”
“So you’ve mentioned before,” she noted, then motioned at his phone. “And?”
“It was Royce, and he has found something. We’re supposed to leave this room with all your belongings and ours, and follow his instructions.”
Snatching up her bag again, she walked to the door. “Let’s go.”
He laughed, walked over to her bedroom, and quickly locked that door, then headed to his bedroom, where he grabbed his bag and Royce’s. Then together, the two of them walked to the stairs.
“Stairs, not elevator?” Heather asked.
“Stairs,” he confirmed. “Most people don’t take the stairs because they prefer the comfort and ease of an elevator,” he noted. “So we’ll encounter the least amount of people if we use the stairs.”
She nodded at that. “And it goes along with being healthy.”
“Health nut?” he asked her.
“I’m not a health nut, but I try to be conscious of it and make little changes that can make a difference.”
“Little changes?”
“You know, park farther away in a parking lot or have greens more than anything else. Although here, I can tell you that diet-wise it sucks.”
He laughed. “When you’re on the run, food is food, so we can’t worry about it until we get to where we have a choice. Right now, our choices are limited, so you’ll have to just do what we do and deal with it.”
“Of course,” she said, “but, if nobody knows where we are, how on earth are we supposed to get food?”
“Oh, don’t you worry about that.” Rick chuckled. “Our people have ways in and out.”
She rolled her eyes. “Good, because I’m craving a steak.” He raised one eyebrow at her, and she nodded. “Medium rare, with a baked potato and lots of greens.”
“Anything else?” he asked, amusement coloring his tone.
“Yeah, with peace and quiet to eat it,” she muttered.
“I think we’ve got that handled too,” he said, with a big smile. “We’ll just have to see how our new accommodations are first.” And, with that, he led her up four flights of stairs.
By the time she reached the fourth landing, he was holding the door open for her. “I need to get in better shape.” She struggled to catch her breath. “Are you guys always this fit?”
“Yeah, but we also haven’t been living under a great deal of stress the way you’ve been of late,” he pointed out. “It plays havoc with your health.”
“I’m totally happy to be walking away from that nightmare,” she said. “It’s not exactly the kind of life I had hoped to live.”
“Nope, and we’re getting there,” Rick replied. “Just remember that. We’re getting there.”
She continued down the hallway, and, as they came around the corner, Royce held open a nearby door for them. He smiled and waved her inside. She quickly dashed inside, seeing a much nicer suite than they had been in before. “Wow,” she whispered, looking around. “Are you sure it’s okay that we stay here?”
“I’m positive.” He flashed her a grin. “Don’t worry. I didn’t steal it.”
“No, but I’m not sure what kind of magic you had to pull to get it for us. They could have given this one to us in the first place, but they didn’t. So chances are it’s either way more expensive or they had a reason for it.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Royce said smoothly. “It’s ours now.”
And, with that, he closed the door behind them.
*
As soon as Heather was inside, Rick announced, “I’ll be back in a second,” and he stepped out into the hallway.
Royce stood close to the windows, his phone out. “She wants food,” he called out to Rick as he went to close the door to the suite.
“Yeah, I got that earful on the way up. Red steak and the works. You?”
“Make that two more of it all.”
“That’ll be delivered there then. I’ll be back in a little bit.” Rick looked around and nodded. “Nice choice. It’s really quiet up here.”
“It’s definitely a more expensive offering that we probably wouldn’t have been given on our own.” Royce had a laugh. “But it’s all good, and it’s ours for the night.”
“What if we have to stay longer?” she asked.
“I hope we don’t for your sake, but I’m sure I can arrange to have it for one more night if need be.”
And, with that, Rick took off.
Royce turned from the window and smiled at her, as she sat on one of the big couches and asked, “So, do the accommodations suit you, milady?”
She laughed. “This is the level that I’m kind of accustomed to, at least when I’m traveling with Faheed,” she murmured. “But I was totally okay with the other room too, particularly if it didn’t come with strings.”
“This doesn’t come with strings,” he stated, smiling at her. “Not everything does.”
“I’m starting to think maybe everything comes with strings of one kind or another,” she muttered. “Yet I hope you’re right. It would be nice to have some things in life not always be so mercenary and materialistic.” She looked around and asked, “Where has Rick gone off to?”
“To get food,” he replied instantly.
“Maybe to order it from room service, but I doubt that’s everything he’s up to,” she declared, with a bright smile. “Although I did tell him that I was getting quite hungry.”
“He took notes, so he’ll go get three times your order.” She blinked at him, not quite understanding. “We’ll just have the same thing,” he explained. “It makes it easy.”
“Good, I hope you guys like steak.”
“Love it, all red meat.”
“Of course,” she said, with a laugh. “Don’t suppose I could have a laptop, huh ?”
“Sure you can,” he replied, as he pulled his out of his duffel bag and handed it to her. “I can just work off my phone for a little bit.”
“How can you do that?” she asked.
“We’re sorting out research, so you can have the laptop for a bit. I know that Rick’s coming back with food soon, so I’ll just keep working in the meantime.” When his phone rang, he walked to the far end of the room to take the call.
Terk didn’t bother with a customary greeting, just shared what he had found. “We’ve checked out the top three names you gave us from her company. All three of them are in some degree of financial trouble, in particular Dan, yet he seems to be the most stable. His gambling problem is in trouble again quite severely, though we don’t see any signs of communication between him and Faheed or Saheed either. However, we’re still looking. The guy with all the ex-wives just got a loan, apparently from a family member, to put him into a better position. We found Maria. She’s changed careers and didn’t want any contact with Heather after leaving. She said something about wanting a complete change including her friend group, but we will keep looking. She may be in another country, for all we know.”
“That’s good,” Royce noted, “so chances are all three may be off our list.”
“I would like to think so,” Terk began, “though I’m just not sure who else might still be on this list, so I don’t want to take anybody off just yet.”
“Agreed. Heather did say that Faheed had grilled her quite a bit about her number two in command, which is Dan, and she felt if anyone would be approached, it would be Dan. One, he’s male, and, as her number two, he would be in the know on a lot of the details of running the company,” Royce explained.
“Good, so we’ll do a deeper dive into Dan. Where are you now?” Terk asked him.
“We’ve just changed locations within the hotel,” Royce replied. “I arranged a place quite a few floors away, and we have placed an order for room service back at our assigned room. Meanwhile, Rick has gone to secure additional food for us as well.”
“Good, I’m glad you changed rooms,” Terk said. “We can’t be too careful here.”
“Exactly, and nobody appears to think that she’s in any trouble, but she doesn’t feel the same way. And, if we can get her to feel a little bit more comfortable, she might remember a few more things. We are wondering if Faheed might have been lightly drugging her and possibly Hannah too. Oh, and the thing with her sister sending out handwritten letters, any joy on that angle?”
“Not yet,” Terk replied. “Rick did tell us about it, and we’ve started looking, but, so far, there isn’t much to find. We don’t have any way to track letters, outgoing or incoming, not without an address, so that could be hard to do.”
“Right, they were headed to England, we think.”
“How do you know that?”
“Heather remembered this as an afterthought, after I updated you on all the original answers she gave on my follow-up questions. She watched the maid affixing a stamp on one of the letters and caught that much of the address on the front of the envelope. Hannah wouldn’t say anything about the letter, just smiled and went about her business. One more of those things that her sister didn’t want to share with Heather.”
“Seems her sister didn’t necessarily share anything.”
“I’m not sure she did. Heather’s also wondering if her sister was kept lightly sedated and docile through other medications as well, but we brought up that idea.”
“That would fit with Faheed’s MO, wouldn’t it?” Terk asked thoughtfully. “The man didn’t want resistance, and women were meant to be seen and not heard, so keeping them in a drugged state would have been right up his alley.”
“I’m not sure that it was a constant thing, or just whenever Hannah may have protested something she didn’t like in her life. I don’t know,” he muttered. “And it could even have been something that caused the supposed heart attack. Heather mentioned that her sister had always had health problems but didn’t elaborate, other than to add that Heather had always suspected a good share of it could have been Hannah just seeking attention. When you consider that she was young and at least reasonably healthy prior to her death, it does make you wonder if somebody was giving her something, under the guise of keeping her calm, and that becomes even more likely.”
“Probably doing it off and on for the duration of their marriage.”
“Hannah also wouldn’t talk to Heather about anything personal or private. She would just basically shut the door, so we don’t really have any way to know what their marital life was like. That would have been basic things a sister would typically share, but Hannah didn’t talk. Maybe she wasn’t allowed to talk, couldn’t talk, or didn’t want to talk. We don’t know. It could be any of the above. Heather mentioned that Faheed and Saheed both had random women when they wanted them, and Hannah didn’t like it but had apparently made peace with it and wouldn’t discuss that either.”
When the call ended, Royce walked back over to the couch, where Heather was sitting with his laptop. “I see you have a few emails.”
She lifted her head and stared at him, blinking several times. “God, just being out of circulation for a while has my whole life exploding.”
“Major problems?”
“Not that I’ve seen yet,” she replied. “I do have very competent staff, but it looks as if we have orders that were canceled, orders that shouldn’t have been, and I’m still trying to figure out why.”
“Just ensure you don’t respond,” he cautioned.
She looked up, startled, then asked, “Do you want to tell me why? I’ve just been drafting a few replies, though I’ve not sent them.”
“Create them if you want but don’t send them, not until we’re back in England.”
Swallowing hard at that reminder, she sighed. “Good timing. I didn’t even consider that.” She shook her head in disbelief. “God, how quickly this all went out of my head. It’s embarrassing.”
“You just got busy and caught up in your own world,” he said, with a smile. “No need to feel bad about it.”
“I do though,” she muttered. “You specifically told me not to contact anybody, but, from this distance, it didn’t even seem that an email met that standard, so I just was going full steam ahead. What an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot, but we sure don’t want anybody to know anything about your whereabouts or how and when you’ll be arriving. That has to be kept from everyone.”
“Right. In that case, I’ll close out of this email, and I will deal with all of it when I get back. That will be tomorrow, right?” she asked, staring at him intently.
“Hopefully, yes, given Mother Nature’s willingness to get rid of all the mess out there.” As he spoke, he pointed out the window, where the storm could be heard raging on.
She stared at him. “It’s not the first time I’ve considered that we, as a society, are so lucky that we aren’t caught in all these storms and that we do have facilities to hide out in, versus our ancestors, who had a much different life.”
“Exactly,” he agreed. “Yet, in the old times, we still had assholes who wanted to take it away from us.”
She winced because, once again, it was a reminder of things that she was trying to forget.
He added, “Also, there’s no update on the letters that Hannah was sending or receiving.”
She shrugged. “It’s one of those curiosities, but I don’t really have any answers. I hope we get them at some point.”
“Me too, and you’re right. It’s a curiosity. I want to get to the bottom of it, but, if we don’t, well, sometimes we just don’t get all the answers we want.” Regardless, the letters would bug him. Particularly if Hannah was murdered. The letters meant something to him. “What about your sister’s personal things?”
“Faheed has all of it.”
“You weren’t offered anything as a reminder, a keepsake, or something?”
She snorted. “Saheed gave me one of her hair clips, as if I should be pleased that he did that much.” Royce pondered that, frowning, but he didn’t say anything. “I guess that’s not normal, is it?” she asked. “I didn’t even think to ask. I mean, she had been married to Faheed for five years. It was her new life, separate from me.”
“That goes along with everything else that you know about your relationship with her and also your sister’s with Faheed, doesn’t it? Keeping you calm, keeping you in control, just lightly medicated, so everything’s good.”
“ Great ,” she muttered, staring out the window. “It infuriates me to think that’s what I was reduced to.”
“But you’re not anymore,” he reminded her, knowing inside she was recovering just fine. Her energy was smooth, still gaining in health, as he could see the darker bands softening lightly. The drugs were finally being washed through her system.
She took a deep breath and nodded. “No, not anymore,” she whispered. “And, for that, I owe you a debt of gratitude. I could be dead by now.”
“Maybe you would have been fine,” he said, with a wave of his hand. “Maybe we’re assuming behaviors, motivations, or other things about Faheed that aren’t founded. So, let’s try not to judge him until we know more.”
She snorted. “Too late,” she muttered. “I’ve already judged him and found him to be a very crappy human being. But then, so is his brother, and frankly I don’t know if one is worse than the other. I also don’t know if both are involved in something nefarious. What about the other wives?” she asked him. “I don’t think—or at least I don’t want to think—that Hannah knew she was one of his four wives.”
“Would it have mattered to her?”
She winced. “I prefer to think it mattered, but again I don’t know.”
“All I can tell you is that he’s been married four times, and in each case the wife died, leaving him a fortune.”
“Yes, so I’ve been told, but I need to know why, how, and what is going on. You really think that’s what he was planning for Hannah?”
“I have no way of knowing,” he admitted, “but, when you think about it, your sister’s death fits the pattern, hoping he would get your family’s business. What is it worth?”
“Around one hundred million dollars,” she replied. “However, I haven’t looked at the bottom line in a while. We were inching up over $80 million last time I checked.” When he stopped and stared, she nodded. “As I said, my father trusted me with the company, and that’s another reason I’m feeling horrifically betrayed at the moment. Surely I would never have abandoned my father’s trust nor left the business without proper oversight in place.”
“No, you wouldn’t have,” he agreed. “You know that inside yourself, which is why this outrage is hitting you even harder, because you know perfectly well that’s not something you ever would have done without interference.”
She took a deep breath. “Yet somehow I feel as if my father is up there, staring at me in horror.”
“I don’t think he would do that. I suspect he would tell you to take it easy before you join him.”
“Ouch.” She frowned at him. “That’s a shitty response.”
“Your father trusted you, so trust yourself,” he stated, sitting down beside her and picking up her hand. “I get that you’ll look at men in a very different way after this.”
She shook her head. “Not all men, that’s for sure. Yet I do admit that anything to do with Faheed makes me very nervous.”
“Did he make you nervous before?”
She nodded. “When Hannah first married him, I was very perturbed. However, he treated her so well, and she seemed to be so happy, I just couldn’t make an argument for how I felt about him out of it. She was obviously very well taken care of.” She looked around the room. “How long will the food be?”
“Not long.” He studied her intently.
She raised her hands in frustration. “I’m fine.”
“Are you?”
“Yes, I will be,” she murmured. Then she gave him a beaming smile, adding, “As soon as I get food.”