Charlaine Harris - Deadlocked

“This way she can be visibly elsewhere,” Bil said. “If Felipe suspected her complicity, he could have her kil ed. He can’t do that to you. You’re Eric’s wife. But that’s a worst-case scenario. We’l pul the trick off.” He pul ed a khaki fishing hat out of his back pocket and pul ed it over his head. I forbore to comment on the way he looked.

“What trick?” I asked, instead.

“Wel , it is a sort of conjuring trick,” he said. “Now you see him. Now you don’t. Remember, there are two guards in there with him. They’l open the door, and your job is to make sure it stays open. I’l come in and do the rest.”

“You couldn’t just break the door down?”

“And have security here in two minutes? I don’t think that would be a good plan.”

“I’m not sure this is, either. But okay .”

I marched down the hal and knocked on the door of 507 with the knuckles of my left hand, managing this by kind of wedging the tray into the corner formed by the door and its frame. I smiled big at the peephole and took a deep breath to let my chest do its thing. I sensed the appreciation through the door. I counted the heads inside the room: three, as Bil had told me.

The tray was not getting any lighter, and I was conscious of a definite relief when the door opened. I could hear Bil ’s footsteps coming up behind me.

“Al right, come on in,” said a bored voice.

Of course, both of the guards were human. They would have to be on duty during the day, too.

“Where you want this?” I asked.

“Over there on the coffee table’l be fine.” He was very tal , pretty heavy, with very short gray hair. I smiled at him and bore the laden tray over to the low table. I squatted and slid it into place. The other guard was with Colton in the bathroom, waiting until I left to emerge; I read that right from his brain.

The room door was stil open, but the guard was standing close to it. After a second’s anxious search I spotted the plastic folder containing the check and handed it to the hulk without getting closer to him. He made a little face but moved nearer, his hand extended, the door he’d released beginning to swing shut. But in slid Bil , moving smoothly and silently at the man’s back. While I kept my eyes fixed on the folder, Bil reached up and around to hit the man in the temple. The guard dropped like a sack of wet oatmeal.

I grabbed a napkin from the tray and wiped my fingerprints off the tray and the folder while Bil shut the room door.

“Dewey?” said the man in the bathroom. “She gone yet?”

“Uh-huh,” Bil said, deepening his voice.

The second guard must have sensed something was up, because he had a gun in his hand when he opened the bathroom door. He might have been prepared with weaponry, but he wasn’t mental y prepared, because at the sight of two strangers he froze, his eyes widening. It was just for a second, but that was al it took for Bil to leap onto him and sock him in the same place he’d hit the hulk. I kicked the gun under the couch when it fel from the guard’s hand.

Bil hurried to pul the unconscious man out of the way while I darted into the bathroom to untie Colton. It was like we’d done this a dozen times! I confess I felt pretty proud at the way it was going.

I looked Colton over while I began working on the duct tape across his mouth. He was not in great shape. Colton had worked for Felipe in Reno and then fol owed Victor to Louisiana, where he’d been employed at Vampire’s Kiss. His apparent devotion hadn’t stemmed from affection but from a thirst for vengeance; Colton’s mother had died as a result of Victor’s teaching a lesson to Colton’s half brother. Carelessly, Victor had never dug deep enough to get the connection, and as a result, Colton had been a great help to the Shreveport plan to eradicate Victor. His lover Audrina had taken part in the fight and paid for her devotion with her life. I hadn’t seen Colton since that night, but I’d known he’d stayed in the area and even kept his job at Vampire’s Kiss.

Colton’s gray eyes were ful of tears after I yanked the duct tape off. His first words were a stream of profanity.

“Bil , we need a handcuff key,” I said, and as Bil began rummaging in the guards’ pockets to track it down, I cut the tape around Colton’s ankles.

Bil threw the key to me, and I unlocked the cuffs. Once I tossed them aside, Colton didn’t know what he wanted to do first: rub his wrists or massage his stinging face. Instead, he flung his arms around me and said, “God bless you.”

I was startled and touched. I said, “This was Bil ’s plan, and now we’ve got to skedaddle before anyone comes looking. Those guys wil come to eventual y.” Bil had reused the handcuffs on the hulk and was using Second Guard’s own belt to secure his arms. The rol of duct tape they’d used on Colton was also heavily deployed.

“See how you like that, motherfuckers,” Colton said, with some satisfaction. He stood up and we went to the door. “Thanks, Mr. Comp-ton.”

“My pleasure,” Bil said drily.

Colton seemed to take in my scanty outfit for the first time, and his gray eyes widened. “Wow,” he said, one hand on the doorknob. “When Palomino brought in the food last night, I caught a glimpse of her. I hoped she recognized me and would do something for me, but I never expected this.” He looked at me again before forcing his eyes away. “Wow,” he said, and swal owed.

“If you’ve finished ogling Eric’s woman, it’s time to get out of here,” Bil said. If his voice had been dry before, it was toast now.

“Just don’t let anyone see me,” Colton said. “And after I get out of this town, I never want to talk to another vampire in my life.”

“Though we’ve risked our lives to rescue you,” Bil said.

“Time to work out the philosophy later,” I said, and they both nodded. In a second, we were on the move. I had a napkin in my hand, and I used it when I shut the door of 507 behind us. We went down the hal in single file and reached the staff elevator, passing only one couple on our journey.

They were completely wrapped up in each other and didn’t do more than stop groping for a moment in reaction to our presence. The staff elevator came quickly, and we stepped on to join a middle-aged woman who was carrying some dry cleaning in a plastic bag. She nodded to us and kept her eyes on the floor indicator. We had to go up with her before we could go down, and my palms started sweating with anxiety. She was ignoring Colton’s disheveled condition with a deliberate air. She didn’t want to know, which was great. It was a relief when she stepped off.

When we began our descent, I was terrified someone would be waiting for us on the fifth floor; the door would open, and we’d be confronted with the two men we’d left bound. But that didn’t happen. We got down to the second floor, and the doors whooshed open. There were several other workers there: another room service server with a rol ing cart, a bel man, and a woman in a black suit. She was very wel groomed and wearing high heels, too, so she was definitely higher up on the food chain.

She was the only one who paid us any attention when they al crowded on. “Server,” she said sharply. “Where’s your name tag?” Palo-mino had worn one on the upper slope of her right breast, so I clapped my hand to the place mine should have been. “Sorry, it must have fal en off,” I said apologetical y.

“Get another one right away,” she said, and I looked at her tag. “M. Norman,” it said. I was sure I wouldn’t get a surname. Mine would say “Candi”

or “Brandi” or “Sandi.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, since now was not a time to start a class war.

M. Norman’s gaze went to Colton’s handsome face, admittedly marred by the removal of the duct tape and admittedly a little bruised. I could see a little crease between her brows as she tried to figure out what could have happened to him and if she should ask any questions. But her tailored shoulders lifted in a tiny shrug. She’d exerted her authority sufficiently for one night.