Али Брэндон - Double Booked For Death

She and Jake glanced up to see a bald, florid-faced man in his thirties leaning over the third-floor railing. He was wearing an undersized wife-beater undershirt that displayed his hairy belly and impressive crop of black armpit hair to distinct advantage. Darla gave a small prayer of thanks that the railing mostly blocked the view of his baggy blue plaid boxers.

Without missing a beat, Jake shoved her sunglasses up on top of her head and opened her eyes wide. “You mean the blonde?” she answered in feigned innocence. “Strange chick . . . she ran off as soon as our friend buzzed us in.”

The man muttered a few obscenities that could have been directed at them, the fictional Deb, or women in general, but to Darla’s relief he contented himself with that before turning from the railing. A door slammed after him a moment later.

“Nice neighbors your buddy Morris has,” Jake muttered as she checked out the numbers on the two apartment doors across from them. “Looks like his little slice of this paradise is number 3, on the second floor.”

Darla hurried up first, leaving Jake to make the climb at her own pace. Number 3 faced the street. She waited until Jake had joined her in the narrow hall; then, with a nervous look around first to make sure there were no witnesses, she knocked on Morris’s door. Once again, no one answered.

Jake motioned her aside and tried the knob. It turned readily enough, but the deadbolt locking the door kept the latter firmly in place. “Worth a try,” she said with a shrug. “You never know, people can get sloppy.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a key. Inserting it into the dead-bolt lock, she jiggled the key a couple of times while Darla recalled the overhyped news stories she’d seen about lock bumping. Apparently, there was something to the hype, for Jake grinned and tried the knob again. This time, the door swung inward.

Darla gave another uneasy glance about the hall. “Uh, isn’t this technically breaking and entering?”

“Technically, yes . . . but only if we get caught. Don’t worry, I’ll let you be lookout,” she said as she all but shoved Darla through the door and then pulled it closed behind them.

The tiny apartment was a studio, with the living and sleeping space all together. Instead of a bed, however, a futon sofa lay fully open. Its crisp white surface was accented with a series of oversized multihued pillows apparently sprung from the earthy loom of some itinerant weaver determined to use every spare color of wool at hand to make those covers.

The only other furnishings were an oversized desk of blond wood with matching chair and overstuffed bookshelf, and a six-foot-tall screen that divided off the section of the room nearest the alcove leading to a bathroom. Constructed of three random doors hinged together, their glass panes now replaced by rice paper, the screen looked as if it had been slapped together in an hour. Darla guessed, however, that it probably had come from some trendy boutique and had sported a four-figure price tag.

A second alcove led to galley kitchen big enough to turn around in, but not bend over. A two-burner stove dating from the turn of the twentieth century held a teakettle of the same vintage. While it was obvious that someone did own the place, it was equally apparent that it wasn’t lived in on a regular basis.

While Darla took up her post alongside the window—the three youths who had catcalled them were now sitting on a stoop across the street shouting insults to a passing Asian couple—Jake poked around the place. An empty laptop docking station sat on the desk, meaning that Morris carried his computer back and forth with him. Jake dragged out the stylish wooden trash can from beneath the desk and grimaced.

“I hate compulsive neat fiends,” she remarked as she turned it over to demonstrate the can was empty. “It’s hard to pry into people’s trash when they don’t have any.”

She pulled open the desk drawers and then glanced at the bookcase, which held mostly reference books and office supplies. Numerous volumes—hardcover and paperback—of the first two Haunted High books filled one long shelf.

“Look at this,” Jake said, sounding impressed as she pointed down the row. “English, French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese . . . and there’s probably five other languages I have no clue what they are. And, aha!”

Carefully, she picked up a large black three-ring binder propped next to the printer on the topmost shelf. She turned it so Darla could see that it was neatly labeled on the front with the words “Last Ghoul Standing.”

“It’s the next Haunted High book,” she exclaimed, leafing through the pages. “I thought you said that Hillary Gables told you there weren’t any more manuscripts.”

“Either she lied, or she didn’t know,” Darla replied, keeping her gaze on the street below lest Morris abruptly exit a taxi. “I wonder what Morris plans to do with it when it’s finished, now that Valerie’s gone.”

Jake, meanwhile, had put back the binder and wandered over to the divided screen. She peered behind it and then jumped back as if someone had reached out and grabbed her.

“Holy crap, you’re not going to believe this!”

Darla felt her stomach plummet. “Please don’t tell me that Morris is lying dead back there,” she said, wincing over the words. The last thing she wanted to see was another of the Vickson family’s cooling corpses.

Jake shook her head. “It’s even better than that. Come over here!”

With another look out the window—two of the three punks were now involved in a one-handed shoving match with each other that was hampered by the ongoing threat of pants on the ground—Darla went. With the same caution that she’d using peering into a rattlesnake den, she looked around the edge of the screen.

“Holy crap!” she echoed Jake, adding, “Wow!”

Hidden behind the screen were two freestanding racks filled with women’s eveningwear in various lengths and styles. Whether of silk, satin, velvet, or lace, the predominant color was black, though a few jewel tones and pastels were mixed among them. A short wooden shelf stood to one side. She counted on its shelves ten evening clutches stored individually in neat plastic bins, and twice that many shoe boxes with famous designers’ names imprinted on their sides. Darla reached reverently for one of the boxes and gently opened the top to reveal a lilac drawstring dust bag. Unfortunately, the pair of pumps nestled inside appeared far larger than the size 7-½ she wore.

She sighed. She’d always wanted to try on a pair of Jimmy Choos.

“Any one of those dresses probably costs as much as my whole wardrobe,” Jake observed with a similarly wistful exhale as she longingly fingered a red silk strapless number. “Damn, he has good taste.”

Letting the fabric whisper back into place, Jake went over to the bath alcove. “This must be where the magic takes place,” she said, indicating a vintage painted iron-and-glass vanity upon which sat several neatly organized trays of cosmetics. “And look, here’s Mavis in action.”

Photos ringed the lighted oval mirror that hung over the vanity. Most of the pictures were of Mavis and her clients. A few obviously were models, and others apparently actors, including a couple of B-listers whom Darla recognized from television. Also among the collection were a few shots of Valerie Baylor, including one where she appeared to be standing beside a clone of herself.

“Oh my God, it’s Mavis dressed as Valerie!” Darla exclaimed, pointing. “In that black wig, he could totally pass for her, no problem.”

Seeing the photos prompted her to remember her guard duties. Darla muttered a mild oath and rushed to the door, taking a cautious peek over the railing in case Morris had sneaked in while they were admiring his outfits. Seeing no one, she slipped back inside and made a beeline for the front window.