Sophie Katz 06-Vanity, Vengeance and a Weekend in Vegas Read online

  And Anatoly was nowhere to be found.

  I had to do something right now! But what? I started to reach my hand towards the woman, as if to feel her pulse but quickly withdrew it. People with bullet holes in the middle of their foreheads did not have pluses!

  I felt myself gag against my fist. I tore my eyes away from the woman and yanked my dresses out of the closet. I had to get the bag too. I gagged again but forced myself to pull it out from underneath her. She flopped forward and I nearly screamed before I finally resolved to shove her back in the closet with my foot and then slam the door.

  Someone wanted it to look like this was my room and now a woman…a woman who was recently hitting on my boyfriend, a woman who I had paid a stranger to follow, was dead in the closet.

  Calling the police was simply not an option.

  I bit down harder on my fist. What were my options?

  Oh yeah, I needed to get the hell out of there.

  I threw my dresses and Anatoly’s jacket in my bag and with effort managed to scrunch his duffle bag in there too. Using my foot I opened the door, then thought better of it and used the washcloth to wipe down the doorknobs and undo the deadbolt so the door would actually lock behind me. Swiftly, and keeping my head down, I walked toward the elevator.

  And with each step toward the elevator the same thought rang through my head.

  What happened to Anatoly?

  Chapter 5

  “I’m a very forgiving person…particularly after I’ve made my enemies pay.”

  --Death of the Party

  Anatoly was still the only thing on my mind as the elevator doors opened to the main lobby. If he could just be down here, waiting for me…even if he was with another woman I just needed to see him! I stepped out and scanned the room.

  “There you are!”

  I froze and turned toward my sister’s voice. She was no more than fifteen feet away and by her side was my friend, and Dena’s cousin, Mary Ann Bettencourt. Mary Ann’s chestnut brown curls bounced loosely around her porcelain features complimenting her green hoodie and light grey knit, straight-legged pants while Leah’s chemically straightened hair was pinned up and she was wearing a knee length charcoal grey pencil skirt paired with a bell jacket cinched neatly at the waist.

  “Oh yay, we found you!” Mary Ann squealed. “We didn’t know your room number and I was beginning to think we’d have to spend the whole night looking for you! How come you didn’t answer my text?”

  “My room number?” I asked blankly. I had fallen through the looking glass, no doubt about it. First I had been confronted by a dead body in a closet and now I was being faced off by Mary Ann and my sister…who was apparently trying to channel a 1980s version of a bitchy Joan Collins. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to run away screaming, I wanted to cry…what I didn’t want to do was stand here in this lobby having a conversation.

  “I don’t know why you’re here,” I said as calmly as I could manage, “but we’ve got to leave.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know why we’re here?” Mary Ann asked. “Leah said you guys were turning this trip into my bachelorette party!”

  A flash of guilt crossed Leah’s face but when she looked at me her expression switched to panic. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Oh dear Lord, tell me you’re not married!”

  “I didn’t get married, “ I said, grabbing her arm and pulling her toward the door. Mary Ann fell into step beside us. “Mary Ann, call Dena and tell her you’re here with me and that she and Marcus should meet us back at our room at the Encore right now.

  “The Encore?” Leah asked confused. “But isn’t this where you’re staying?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Because I called and the front desk confirmed that you were a guest here…did you book rooms at two hotels?”

  I froze, still twenty feet from the main exit. Pivoting toward her I met her brown eyes with my own. “There’s a room booked under my name here?”

  “I called five different hotels asking to leave a message for guest, Sophie Katz. This is the one that had a reservation for you. I figured there’d be a good chance that this is the place you’d pick, seeing that they have a movie theater that shows Hitchcock and all that other stuff you’re into—”

  “They said they had a room booked under my name,” I said again.

  “I don’t get it,” Mary Ann interjected. “I thought you said this was all arranged with them, Leah. Didn’t they tell you which hotel they were staying at?”

  “She didn’t arrange anything with any of us,” I snapped as I quickly scanned the lobby for anything or anyone suspicious. Was the green-eyed man around? Did he have anything to do with this? “You really need to call Dena and tell her to get out of this hotel. It’s important.”

  “Okay,” Mary Ann said uncertainly as she reached for her phone

  “Come on, we’re getting a cab back to Encore.”

  “Can’t we just walk?” Leah asked.

  “Look, you’re crashing my party,” I hissed as I resumed my march to the door. “You are not in a position to complain to me about my itinerary and right now I’m telling you that the next thing on the itinerary is getting out of here. Do you understand that or not?”

  “But you’re not married,” Leah said, as she followed me out into the cold night air.

  “Fucking hell, Leah, no!” I stepped close enough to whisper into her ear. “I didn’t get married again, but I did find a dead body in a closet.”

  Leah didn’t react immediately. She seemed to need to take a second to process the information. “Why do you keep doing this?”

  “What?”

  “What? It’s gotten to the point that when I see the words body discovered in a news article I immediately start scanning for your name, that’s what!”

  “Keep your voice down,” I hissed and started pulling her toward a cab. I could hear Mary Ann talking to Dena on the phone. I could tell from Mary Ann’s side of the conversation that Dena was pissed, most likely at me, but I was just going to have to explain later. Right now the most important thing was to get everybody out.

  We all piled into the car and I gave the driver our destination. As we pulled onto the strip Mary Ann hung up and looked over at me and then the overnight bag that was now squeezed between the front-seat and my knees. “Something bad happened, didn’t it?” she asked.

  I stared out the window at the overly bright lights of the city. “You have no idea.”

  “Okay, so help me understand this,” Marcus said slowly. It hadn’t taken us long to get back to the Encore and we were now all in his and Dena’s room. I was standing by the window, my arms tightly crossed over my chest and the overnight bag I had removed from that room right by my side. Mary Ann and Leah were sitting on one of the double beds and Dena was sitting at the desk refusing to look at anyone but Marcus who was standing in the middle of the room. Marcus turned to the two newest arrivals.

  “Why are you here again?” he asked.

  “I thought Sophie might do something stupid,” Leah explained, “and I wanted to be here to chaperone. I knew that if I brought Mary Ann with me Sophie wouldn’t be able to just send me home.”

  “And you thought Sophie would do something stupid?” Dena muttered but Marcus pressed on.

  “And Sophie, you went up to Anatoly’s room?”

  “It wasn’t his room,” I said quickly.

  “It was the blonde’s room?” he asked.

  “No, not really…I don’t think so.”

  Dena gave me a withering look. “You barged in there like a first class stalker and you don’t even know whose room it is?”

  “Go easy on her,” Marcus murmured, “drunken heartbreak makes people do crazy things.”

  Dena didn’t look like she wanted to take it easy on me. “So I take it you went up to his room and found him with the blonde and now you…what? You stole his overnight bag to get revenge?”

  “This isn’t his overnight bag, it�
��s mine.” I unzipped it and pulled out the duffle bag. “This is his bag. It was in the room but he wasn’t.”

  “Maybe this isn’t a good time to say this,” Mary Ann hedged, “But I’m so sorry to hear about you and Anatoly. If it makes you feel better, I really don’t think it’s a permanent break. True love always finds a way!”

  All of us in the room took a second to stare at Mary Ann like she was an alien from outer space (a real possibility) before turning back to the subject at hand.

  “So the blonde let you in?” Marcus asked.

  “No! No! She didn’t let me in! She couldn’t let me in because she was in the closet!”

  There was a long pause before Mary Ann clapped her hands happily. “This is great news!” she squealed. “Anatoly couldn’t have been having an affair with a lesbian! He still loves you!”

  Leah dropped her head in her hands and sighed.

  “You’re not understanding me,” I said slowly. “She was literally in the closet!”

  Dena cocked her head to the side. “Really? That’s a new one for me. Usually when people talk about a closet fetish they don’t mean it literally but…”

  “Oh dear Lord, Dena, not everything is about sex!” Leah burst out. “What Sophie’s trying to tell you is that there’s a dead bimbo in Anatoly’s hotel room closet!”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dena held up her hands. “Have you gone mental? How the hell did you come up with that?”

  “No, she’s right,” I said, fighting back tears. “I found her in there with a bullet hole in her forehead. And look,” I reached into Anatoly’s bag and pulled out the ammunition. “Anatoly’s got bullets in his duffle bag.”

  Marcus’ mocha skin looked about two shades paler. “Anatoly killed the bimbo?”

  “No! He would never do that! But…” I looked down at the bullets, “someone did and Anatoly’s nowhere to be found.”

  “Oh, wow.” Mary Ann shook her head. “I was so much happier when I thought he was making friends with lesbians.”

  Marcus pressed the base of his palms against his forehead. “We have to call the cops.”

  “There’s more,” I said quickly. “As I was saying before, it wasn’t actually Anatoly’s room.”

  “You also said you didn’t think it was hers,” Dena reminded me.

  “That’s right.” I took in a deep, shaky breath. “I think it was mine.”

  I proceeded to tell them everything. I had to stop once to throw up but my friends were too shocked to mind much.

  “So that’s it,” I said when I had finally finished.

  “This,” Marcus said slowly, “is incredibly bad. The police are going to be looking for you.”

  I shook my head. “I cleared all my stuff out of the room and I wiped off my fingerprints.”

  “But if it’s registered under your name…” Leah’s voice trailed off.

  “Eventually they’ll figure out that I didn’t book it! And…and there’s nothing to place me there!”

  “Except the security cameras in the hallway outside the room,” Leah pointed out, “and the stranger who gave you the room number. But aside from that, nothing.”

  Security cameras! I hadn’t thought of that.

  “Maybe whoever booked the room did so for a really long time,” I suggested. “I don’t think hotel maids vacuum closets. And they always keep the air conditioning up so that’ll keep her from getting too smelly. It could be more than a week before they find her!”

  Dena banged her cane on the floor in frustration. “Could you go throw up again so I can talk to sober-Sophie? It’s a cool hotel room, not a fucking meat freezer! And you said you kicked her back into the closet with your shoe! That means she is on your shoe right now!”

  I screamed and ran into the bathroom to wash off my shoe…and to throw up again.

  When I got back I flopped down on the bed and pressed my face into a pillow. “Why is this my life?” I wailed.

  “Yeah,” Marcus mused, “why is that?”

  “And what about Anatoly?” I gasped looking up. “What if something happened to him? What if he’s hurt?” I knew that it could be worse than hurt but I couldn’t go there. Couldn’t even entertain the possibility.

  Mary Ann moved to sit next to me. “He isn’t. If he was hurt you’d feel it,” She patted her heart. “You’d feel it in here.”

  “Oh for God’s sake,” Dena muttered. “She already threw up twice, no need to make us all nauseous.”

  “Yes, and honey,” Marcus said gently, “it’s possible that Anatoly is a murderer.”

  “I’m telling you that’s not possible!” I propped myself up on my elebows. “I should never have kicked him out! I shouldn’t even be in Vegas! All he asked for was the chance to explain! Six years we’ve been together and I didn’t even give him that!” I started crying, crying so hard that it even brought out the nurturer in Leah who handed me Kleenex and mumbled a few sympathetic words.

  “I want to call him!” I cried.

  “Sweetie, you have his phone,” Marcus reminded me.

  “I don’t care! I just have to hear his voice.” I snatched up my phone and dialed Anatoly’s number. I listened to his phone ring. I had programmed a special ringtone for myself into his phone so he would always know it was me; Wild Horses by the Rolling Stones. He had kissed me for my efforts. As it played now the memory of that kiss came hurling at me like a brick, knocking the breath right out of me. When his voicemail eventually picked up I put it on speakerphone and clutched my hands in my lap as I listened intently to the sound of his voice.

  “I’m unavailable right now. Leave your name and phone number after the beep.”

  I swallowed my tears as the beep sounded. I leaned over the silent phone and screamed, “You son of a bitch, where the fuck are you?”

  Dena clicked the phone off with a sigh.

  “What am I going to do?” I moaned.

  “I think there’s only one thing we can do,” Marcus said. “We wait to see what the morning brings.”

  Sleep was not a possibility. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling. I had managed to puke out most of the alcohol which left my head a little clearer than I wanted it to be. Dena and Marcus were sleeping…well, probably sleeping, in the adjoining room. Before arriving in Vegas Leah had booked a room at Hotel Noir after “confirming” that I was staying there. Now she had canceled that (grumbling the whole time about the hefty last-minute cancelation fee) and Mary Ann had booked a room at Encore for the two of them, although they hadn’t been able to get one on the same floor as us. Of course the fact that there was now a record that my sister had booked a room at Hotel Noir was going to make it even harder for me to convince anyone that the room apparently registered under my name was never registered by me.

  At around three a.m. I gave up and pulled myself together enough to go out. I didn’t want to wake my friends but I couldn’t bear the idea of sitting alone in my room.

  In jeans and a tank top I went down to the lobby with a book that I knew I wouldn’t be able to focus on and sat down on a cushy chair that gave me full view of everyone coming and going. Even at this hour of the night the place was bustling.

  No one seemed to be paying any attention to me, except one redhead in a little black dress sitting about thirty feet away from me. She seemed to be glancing over in my direction every few minutes before returning her attention to a magazine she was reading. Or maybe she wasn’t looking at me. Maybe she was looking behind me toward the casino. Was I being paranoid?

  I shifted slightly in my seat and tried not to be too obvious about examining her. Even from across the room I could tell she was pretty with a perfect little figure. The hot pink stilettos suggested that she wasn’t a cop or a lesbian so my suspicions about her checking me out were probably unfounded.

  And then she looked up and we locked eyes.

  Shit.

  I watched, frozen in place, as she closed her magazine, got out of her seat and crossed the room to where I was. “E
xcuse me,” she said as soon as she was only a few feet away. “But are you Sophie Katz?”

  Was there any reason to say no? Again, there was no way a cop would wear heels like that. It would be like a lifeguard wearing chainmail. But if she wasn’t a cop she might actually be dangerous…

  …and she might know where Anatoly is.

  “Yes,” I said after I had let way too much time pass for my response to sound natural. “I’m Sophie.”

  The redhead smiled and sat down in the seat next to me. “I recognized you from the picture on the back cover of your books. I just finished your last one.”

  She was a fan? I let out a little relieved laugh. “If you can recognize me when I’m this much of a mess I am in serious need of a new publicity shot.”

  Again, the woman smiled and let my self-deprecating comment pass without correction. That in and of itself was a little odd. “I also just read this really interesting article in USA Today,” she said. “It was about how some mystery authors have real life experience with crime. Like, you, Pamela Cope and Amanda Preston.”

  “Yeah,” I said cautiously, “but Cope and I have worked to expose crimes while Preston actually beat a woman to death when she was a teenager. I really feel that’s an important distinction.”

  “I see your point.” She crossed her legs and looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “But that certainly makes Preston qualified to write about murder, doesn’t it? She knows what it feels like to take another person’s life. Do you think you’re as qualified as her?”

  The question took me off guard. “No,” I said quietly. “I’m not.”

  “So you’ve never killed anyone?”

  I had. I had shot him at close range. It had been self-defense so technically it wasn’t murder…but still, I took a life. I had expected my actions to haunt me. I thought that after the shock had worn away I’d be overcome by remorse or at least some level of guilt.

  But I didn’t feel any guilt at all. Most of the time I didn’t even think about it. And that meant that it was possible that Preston and I had more in common than I cared to contemplate.