The Blue Room Vol. 7 Page 4

  But I spy something else that interests me: something else that seems very strange indeed. Some girls are sparsely booked: getting maybe one booking every two weeks, or every week, or every other night. But other girls...how can it be? They're not only booked up, they're booked solid. Their clients end a minute before they begin again, or even overlap? How do these girls get from Mr. A. to Mr. B. – showering, freshening up, changing, looking as perfect and pristine and clean as they do – in a matter of minutes or seconds? After all, one girl can only be in one place at one time.

  Unless....

  What about two girls?

  I'd heard about it happening before, in other escort services. It had never occurred to me that it could also happen here. Girls subcontracting themselves, starting a franchise. Hiring other girls who looked just enough like them to be convincing to take on their lesser clients. Offering them slightly less money – or a lot less money – than they themselves were making, then skimming a tidy piece of the profits. Becoming a secondary pimp, essentially. And the girls they chose to service some of those clients weren't necessarily tested, either. They weren't held up to the stringent standards of Mrs. Walters. They weren't in the system. They were just ghosts: invisible Blues Girls who, on paper, didn't exist.

  How industrious, I think. The prostitute has become the pimp.

  Oh no, no, no, I think, shaking my head in despair. The Blue Room is even worse than I thought.

  ******

  Staci

  I wake up the next morning in a clean white bed of satin and feathers. My muscles are so relaxed. I'm the most comfortable I've ever been. For a second I forget where I am and think only that I must have had a long, deep sleep somewhere safe, somewhere warm. My childhood bedroom, perhaps. Or a spa. I can't remember. All I remember is this feeling of goodness, of wholeness deep inside of me.

  Then I open my eyes, and all the pain starts over again.

  Terrence physically stopped me from leaving the Blue Room after I discovered the truth: that he and Danny had set me up as “bait” for the killer that was stalking the Blue Room victims. Laid me out like prey for the vultures.

  After that, I don't remember anything. I shut down. I remember flashes of things: Terrence pleading with me to stay, his hands so rough on my wrists. Danny trying the same thing. Xander...

  Yes, I think. Xander was here. I remember him cradling me in his arms, hand-feeding me my favorite foods, laying me down ever so gently in the tub and washing my skin until it was clean at last, as if he could scrape away my worries off my skin. It felt good to have him there. But I hadn't been able to speak to him. I felt like if I opened my mouth, I would melt into empty air. I would give up yet another part of myself. And that was something I wasn't ready to do. Not yet.

  Then I see Xander's note. I can't help but smile at the words he chooses: at how lovely his words look on the page. I want to trust him, I think. Want to trust him so badly. Want to believe that he means the words he says.

  But how can I?

  That secret – that thing he wants to tell me about. What is it? Was he engaged to someone else? Did he have another lover? Or – was he Roz's killer? Or Rita’s killer? But why would he tell me if he were – unless...

  Unless what he said was true. Unless he really had had a change of heart and wanted to be with me as his true love, despite the past.

  I think back to how much I wanted him last night. I wanted to be with him so badly, to be with him as his real lover. But I was afraid. I didn't understand what was going on, and Terrence and Danny were acting so weird – were they just panicking and worrying about my exposing the Blue Room, or were they more dangerous, with more sinister secrets off their sleeve? I wasn't sure if Xander was in with them or not.

  I have to do some research. I have to find out the truth.

  I pull out my laptop. I access the hotel's wifi network. I type in the words I should have typed in long ago: “Xander Blue.”

  So many results come up. Newspaper articles about his wealth, his charity giving, about the death of his first wife. More information than he's ever shared with me is available in public: for all the world to see.

  I click on an article in the Los Angeles Herald.

  There's a photograph of Xander with an elderly woman dressed in diamonds and furs, the like of which make my eyes bulge out. He looks as handsome as ever. I realize I’ve never seen a photograph of him before and the sight makes my knees go weak. Even in photographs the strength of his smile, the dazzling loveliness of his gaze, makes me half-swoon with desire for him.

  Then I look at the caption.

  ALEXANDER BLUE WITH HIS GODMOTHER, GLORIA TANNENBAUM. MRS. TANNENBAUM WAS THE PRIMARY INVESTOR IN BLUE'S FIRST VENTURE, INDIGO INDUSTRIES.

  Xander and Gloria Tannenbaum. Together. The man I love and my grandmother: the woman who has been trying to kill me since before the day I was born. My greatest love and my worst enemy in cahoots. Gloria Tannenbaum, his godmother. A major investor in his company. Which means that he is indebted to her not just personally, but financially. A relationship like that could be pretty damn close. Close enough that you'd even kill to keep it strong. Xander would have everything to gain by making sure that the lost Tannenbaum heir never resurfaces. Maybe even by killing her.

  My whole body is shaking. My knees wobble. And that feeling in the depths of my chest? That's my heart breaking.

  All men are liars. I know that now. And the men who say they love you? They're the worst liars of all.

  What a fool I have been. What a fool I have been…what a fool...

  Everything goes black.

  Chapter 6

  Staci

  I do not know how long I sleep for. Sleep is a merciful gift: one that allows me a fraction of oblivion, that allows me a temporary escape from the horror I feel. I barely even remember the steps that it took me to get there: from my living room chair, where I was sitting with my laptop, to my bed. I must have gotten up. I must have taken off all my clothes, because they are strewn all around me now. I must have gotten into bed. But I don't remember it. All I remember is the agony I feel: an agony unlike anything I have ever known before. Pain rips through my body. My nerves are on fire. I am shaking, shaking so uncontrollably you'd think it was freezing in here, but no, it's burning, and I'm burning up with it. My whole body. My whole mind. Every part of me: overwhelmed, consumed, destroyed.

  I think I stared at the computer screen for a while. I must have. Trying to will myself to believe that the words I see written on the page aren't real. Trying to will myself into believing that it's not true, that Alexander Blue isn't the godson of Gloria Tannenbaum, but of course already I know it's fruitless. As something sickening sinks into the pit of my stomach, I think it's always been true. I've just never noticed it. I've always known, haven't I, that something was up with Xander? He was too good to be true, even from the start. Sauntering into the gym the way he did, engaging me in conversation, bringing me out, getting to know me. The way he treated me when we were together: touching me so delicately, so gently. Making me come over and over again. Whispering those words to me, those sweet nothings that taste so bitter now as I whisper them again with new gall. My darling, my love. He has the audacity to say he loves me!

  And it's all a lie.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  I knew Xander was not to be trusted – I knew he was a Blue. Maybe he was mixed up in something to do with Rita's disappearance, or with Roz. I hadn't ruled any of that out. But at the very least, the one thing I'd never imagined is that he would have anything to do with the Tannenbaums: the very family that destroyed my mother's life, and nearly destroyed mine.

  Xander is more than just a mysterious businessman looking to protect his own cynical interests. Even that I could have forgiven – almost. Business is business, after all, and if he had secrets, it was my fault for trying to find them out. I was the outsider, the interloper, the Blue Girl. But now I know the truth and it's worse even than my worst nightma
res. Xander sought me out: because of who I was. From the first he was in league with the Tannenbaums. How can I trust a single word he says? How can I trust any moment we shared together? Was he spending all that time with me to get my trust, to make me fall for him, so that he can backstab me at the opportune moment: finding a way to shut me up – perhaps forever?

  I shudder as I think of the possibility. Could it really be true that Xander Blue was plotting to kill me? After the day I've had, after the dark side I've seen of Terrence and Danny, I no longer put anything past the Blue clan. Xander isn't just a threat to my safety, or my finding out about the secrets of the Blue Room. No, he's a threat to my life.

  And all that horror, that pain, washes over me as I fall asleep. My sleep is mercifully, blessedly, dreamless: devoid of nightmares. I don't dream of Xander. Not this time.

  The nightmare waits until I wake, to return.

  Then –

  It hits me all over again. Who Xander is. What he has done. And once more I want to break down into tears, to cry and cry and cry until there is no moisture left inside of me.

  When I wake up, it is the next day. Light shines through the window-blinds. There is a note slid under my door.

  Puzzled, I go to read it. I recognize Mrs. Walters' fine, careful, calligraphic handwriting.

  Mr. X. has requested the pleasure of your company on his private yacht this evening. He has booked you until tomorrow. He says it is particularly important you make yourself available as, he has asked me to relay to you, he has something very important to tell you.

  Strange...I think. Why would Mr. X. go through Mrs. Walters to book me? Usually he just books me directly.

  Unless...he was afraid I would try to back out. Maybe he's afraid I'm getting suspicious, that I'm figuring out his identity. Maybe he thinks I'd try to refuse. But now that Mrs. Walters knows, now that it's a formal booking, there's no way for me to get out of it without Mrs. Walters getting wind of it. And refusing a booked client could mean expulsion from the Blue Room – or worse. I can't dare do it.

  A night on Xander Blue's private yacht. I could almost smile. A couple of days ago such an invitation would have made me among the happiest girl in the world. But now the thought terrifies me. What could Xander want to tell me – that he won't tell me on dry land?

  I can see it all: envisioning every horrible second. I can see myself standing on the yacht, letting myself become delirious in Mr. X.'s arms. I can see myself leaning over the prow as Xander says “look out, look at the full moon, how beautiful it is.” I can see him put his hand ever so delicately on the small of my back. And I can see him give it a little push....

  How easy it would be to push me overboard. The waters would close over me: so black, so deep. And that would be the end of me. Nobody would ever think to look for me out there. Nobody would ever so much as bother to ask what happened to a dead whore.

  Is Mr. X. going to propose to me or kill me?

  I don't know. I don't know anything anymore.

  My reverie is interrupted by a knock at the door.

  I go to my door to see a pert, buttoned-up young maid in Blue Towers regalia bearing a tray. “The bar sends this up for you,” she says, smiling. There's a delectable-looking cocktail on the tray.

  I breathe a sigh of relief.

  Good old Ben, I think. The bartender at the Blue Room is the only person left I can trust. He's the only person I know who hates the Blue Room as much as I do. Maybe more since Ben knows what a mess I am. We went out for drinks a couple of nights ago and even then he could tell that something wasn't quite right. He seemed worried about me then – typical Ben, making sure I’d drink away my problems. Not exactly the psychologically healthy way of coping, but it's Ben's MO – and right now I care less about long-term psychologically damage than a short-term assuaging of the pain I feel.

  I sit on the sofa with my drink and drain it in one long gulp. It tastes hot: like whiskey, fireball, cinnamon and ginger – pleasant, warming flavor.

  But there's a strange, bitter aftertaste.

  Gotta tell Ben to lighten up on the weird liquors, I think.

  Then it hits me. A wave of pain. My throat feels like it's burning up. And my stomach starts to clench: an agonizing cramp that makes me cry out in shock. I'm breaking out into a cold sweat: ice-cold, clammy, my skin feels like the skin of a stranger.

  Something's wrong, I think.

  I don't know what happens next. My survival instinct takes over. I'm running on pure adrenaline. The next thing I know, I'm huddled over my toilet with my fingers down my throat, desperate to vomit: to chuck up every milliter of this drink – this poisoned drink – and I'm not thinking anymore, but only repeating the same refrain in my head, over and over again Get it out get it out you have to get it out.

  And then I pass out.

  I must have hit my head on the toilet bowl, because when I wake up it's dark again, and there's a knocking at my door.

  It's loud – so loud. It sounds like it's hitting me right in the skull.

  I think I'm bleeding from my head. I put my fingers to my temples and they come back wet, slick with blood.

  A poisoned drink.

  So the drink wasn't from Ben, after all.

  I've been stupid, so stupid. My pain over Xander had put me off my game, made me forget the cardinal rule: nothing at the Blue Room is what it seems.

  Another knock. Then another.

  I can't answer the knocking. My knees are too wobbly. I feel so sick.

  Who would try to poison me? Not Xander – if he wanted to kill me, it would be a hell of a lot easier to push me off his yacht and make it look like an accident. Who else could want me sick, or dead? Julie or Brandi? Roni Taylor? Terrence? Maybe everybody in this place. Maybe they're all in it together – waiting for the moment I give up and die.

  The knock on the door becomes insistent and at last I am able to crawl to my feet. But then I slump back down again to the floor.

  I hear a loud BEEP and then Xander enters, holding a master key card.

  He's all dressed up in formal attire – like he's about to go out for the evening. Is it evening already? My head is hurting so badly and I'm drenched in sweat and still feeling so, so sick. I can barely register his presence.

  If he's come to kill me, I think vaguely, stupidly, I hope he does it quick. It'll stop this awful feeling in my head...

  Then the idle thoughts turn real.

  He really has come to kill me. He poisoned me to make me weak, so I'd go to the yacht...

  “Staci?” He rushes towards me. “Staci, what's wrong?”

  I want to run away. I want to hide. But my legs won't move. They're stuck to the floor. My whole body is like lead.

  I'm cowering in my sheets, soaking them in my sweat. Trying to run.

  It's like those nightmares you get as a kid. Trying to run and finding you're frozen to the floor as the killer gets closer, ever closer.

  But this time, the nightmares are real.

  Chapter 7

  “Staci?” Xander is calling my name. “Staci – Staci – what's going on?”

  Don't come any closer! I scream. Except I don't scream it. I can't. My lips are so clammy with sweat that they seem stuck together, and my whole body is too weak to let me move them. I want to scream but no words are coming out. Nothing is coming out of me. And I'm shaking, shaking so violently that I keep hitting my head against the tiles of the bathroom floor, as I try to crawl...to where, exactly? To safety? Nowhere is safe. Not here. And now Xander has come to take me to his yacht...or to kill me here...

  “T-T-T-....” I try to say. I know you're in with the Tannenbaums, I want to say. But I can't. The words won't form.

  Xander takes another step closer and I cower in terror. I flinch, expecting...something. A blow, a strike, I don't know what. Him to wrap those powerful manly hands of his around my neck and start squeezing, choking the life out of me until everything goes black once again.

  But that's not what h
appens. Instead, Xander is gently pressing his hand against my head, feeling my fever.

  “Jesus, Staci. You're burning up – what happened?

  He is cradling me in his arms: so softly, so delicately. I've never experienced anything like this before. He's kissing my forehead, smoothing my hair, comforting me the way you might comfort a sick child. His hands against mine are so light. There's no sign of that primal, dangerous energy in him that so frightened me earlier. Instead, he's caring, calm. It's almost easy to believe that he wants me to get well, that he cares about me, that he wants me to be safe, that the words he says are true.

  “Staci!”

  I gag. My stomach is rising up again: more of the poisoned drink is there to be thrown up. I have to get it out, I think – have to expel this poison from my body before it kills me. My fear of Xander is secondary to my fear of dying of...whatever this is.

  “Toilet!” I finally force the words out.

  Luckily, Xander understands what I mean. He pulls me up over the toilet bowl and holds back my hair as I throw up, over and over again, retching every last drop of that drink out of my body. Then I collapse into his arms.

  He takes me in his lap: cradling me.

  “What's wrong, Staci? Stomach bug? I've never seen you like this...”

  Mrs. Walters would kill me, I think wryly through my haze. Blues Girls are not supposed to have needs or desires or bodily functions. They're never allowed to be sick or gross. They have to be perfect all the time: a 24/7 performance for their men. And I've just pulled the curtain down.