In a Fix (18 page)

A short stroll brought us to a four-story structure that fit right into the medieval town. The white facade had a pinkish cast in the early-morning light, and the steeply pitched roof was lined with dormers. Looked like a nice hotel. Not that I’d expect anything less from a place Billy would deign to stay.

“Would you like me to walk you to your room?” Kevin asked once we were inside, motivated perhaps by courtesy, or more likely by loneliness. I looked around the gorgeous reception area, with its intricately carved wooden check-in desk and plastered archways, pretending it wasn’t new to me.

“Well, about that … see, my friend has the key, so I have to wait for hi—uh, her to get back. I’ll sit here in the lobby. I’m sure she won’t be much longer.” I just hoped the other Mina came along soon. I had to warn Billy about the Vikings before he found himself snatched off the street with no idea about my previous contact with them.

“I’ll wait with you,” Kevin offered magnanimously.

“No! I mean, that’s not at all necessary. You go on to bed.” Despite the sunrise, it was still the middle of the night by the clock. “Really, I’ll be fine here. Look—there’s a nice, comfy chair for me.”

I needed him to get gone, so I could slip out of Mina’s aura before I ran into my twin. I’d been afraid to drop her before, because there was no way I could’ve explained being a different person if the Vikings had caught up to me during my thrilling getaway. Now they might find it odd to see another woman in clothes exactly like the ones they had provided for me, but they couldn’t be certain there was a connection.

Kevin plopped down in an elegantly upholstered seat beneath a mural of a medieval outdoor scene. “No, the least I can do is keep you company, since you waited for me to get out of the bushes, even after I didn’t let you use my phone. That was pretty cool.” I suspected it was more that he didn’t have anything better to do, being without his cell phone, but I couldn’t say that. Resigned, I parked myself next to him.

“So,” I said, turning my chair slightly so I could see out of a nearby window, “where are you and your friends from?”

He either said Indiana or Iowa, or maybe Idaho. Something with an “I” anyway. I wasn’t exactly paying attention, because outside the window intermittent groups of tall, blond men kept walking by and I was fighting the urge to jump up and run the other way. Still, it would be rude to let him know his conversation was less than riveting, so I said, “Um, that’s nice. I’ve heard it’s really fun, er, there.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure. Fun,” he said. Then he added something about dentist offices and walking over hot coals, but a couple of the Viking types from outside chose that moment to enter, so my heart attack got in the way of hearing him clearly. They weren’t Nils and Per, but they might’ve been.

“Coals, dentist … yeah, I hear you. No fun at all.” I scanned the room for less open places to wait. The pair of men went to the desk. Within a few minutes, an attendant came. They spoke to her in what sounded like Swedish—I’d have to be an idiot not to recognize it by now—and she answered them in kind, handing them a piece of paper. One of them looked casually over his shoulder at me and Kevin, but his eyes didn’t linger. He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and spoke softly into it as they left the lobby for the lounge.

I directed my attention back to Kevin. His mouth was still moving and he didn’t appear confused, so I guessed our conversation was going all right. I broke in. “Uh, excuse me, Kev—you don’t mind if I call you Kev, do you? No? Thanks. Listen, do you think if I asked at the desk, they’d let me back in my room, even without ID? I mean, if the girl there recognizes me? I really need to get some sleep.”

He looked a trifle disappointed, but said, “They might. It’s worth a shot.”

Apparently someone else thought so, too. Literally. The bullet whizzed above my head and embedded itself in the wall behind me, leaving me with a fine coating of plaster dust, and the running stag in the mural without a head.

I counted myself lucky it wasn’t the other way around.

Chapter 17

“Whoa! What was that?” Kevin jumped up, blocking me. Chivalrous I’m sure, but stupid. I grabbed his arm as I dove for the floor, bringing him with me.

“Stay down!” I said, lifting my head only enough to get a gander at the door. It was closed. No one had come through it unless they were invisible. I scanned the lobby; nobody there either. The person behind the desk had ducked. I looked more closely at the window next to the door and saw the small hole with a spiderweb of lines radiating from it.
Okay
. Somebody outside was trying to shoot me. Or Kevin, I supposed, though that didn’t seem as likely.

“Kev, where’s your room?”

“Second floor, right down the hall from yours. Why? You wanna go there?”

A second bullet hit the wall, lower than the first. Now the stag was missing a leg. “Might be a good idea,” I said.

“Right.” He started rolling sideways toward the stairwell. Kevin might not have been the sharpest crayon in the box when it came to girls, but he knew how to make an exit. I followed his example. My legs were so tangled in my dress by the time I got to the door, I couldn’t crawl through it when he held it open for me. He grabbed my elbow and yanked me past him, giving my rear a final shove over the threshold before he followed me.

As soon as the door swung shut behind us, he helped me to my feet. I grappled with my dress, loosening its grip on my knees and hauling the hem up to my thighs.
There. That should make the stairs easier.
I flew up half a flight, realized Kevin was lagging, and looked back. He was standing on the bottom step, mouth agape, staring at Mina’s lovely limbs.

Geez. “Come
on
! We have to get to your room before they follow us.”

He gave himself a small shake, like a poodle after a rain shower, and started climbing. “Yeah, right. I’m coming.”

That would explain the expression on your face
, I thought wryly.

Kevin’s room was the third one down the corridor on the right. I tried not to watch while he fumbled in his pocket for the key, giving him a chance to adjust himself without too much embarrassment. After my recent experience with Benjamin, I empathized.

The room was larger than I expected, with a pair of twin beds, and a wing chair by the window. One of the beds was as rumpled as the young man in front of me; the other was made with military precision. Either he occupied the room alone, or …

“That’s Phillip’s,” Kevin said. “He’s kind of anal about neatness. Among other things.”

I shrugged. “Hey, don’t knock a clean-freak roommate. I had one in college, and never once had to clean the bathroom myself.”

“Yeah, that’s a plus. Phillip’s my roommate back at State. If I toss my dirty clothes onto his side of the room, sometimes he’ll even do my laundry.”

I laughed. “I like the way you think, Kev.”

He grabbed a pile from the chair and tossed it onto Phillip’s bed. “Sit. Please. Can I get you something to drink?”

I stayed by the door, listening for telltale footsteps. “Sure. Water, if you have it handy.”

He pulled a plastic bottle out from under his bed. “It’s not exactly cold.”

“As long as it’s wet.” I gulped half the bottle. Escaping kidnappers was thirsty work.

Kevin stared at me. I could see the wheels turning behind his eyes.

I sighed. “Go ahead. Ask.”

“Okay,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“It’s kind of a long story.”

He sat on the edge of his bed, elbows on knees, chin in palm. “I got nothing better to do.”

Still no noise from the hallway, so I crossed to the window and checked the street below. Nobody hanging around with a gun. I turned to Kevin and sat in the chair he had so thoughtfully cleared.

“We-e-ll,” I started, brain whirling madly to come up with something plausible. Best to keep it from Mina’s perspective, I decided. “Look, I shouldn’t tell you this. It might not be safe for you to know.”

“Worse than getting shot at?” He had a point.

“They were shooting at me, not you. For now. If you hang around me, though, I can’t guarantee they won’t add you to their hit list.” I pushed myself up from the chair. “In fact, I should probably get out of here right—”

Kevin stood and blocked the path to the door. “Come on. You have to tell me more than that. Maybe we should call the police.”

“Not feasible, Kev. The local cops would only complicate the situation.”

“What situation?” he persisted.

How could I explain something I wasn’t sure of myself? “Okay. Some Swedes kidnapped my fiancé.” Kevin’s face fell a little at the mention of a fiancé, but he recovered nicely. “I’m not sure why. Maybe just for money—he’s got plenty—but nobody has asked for a ransom. I came here because it’s the last place he was seen before he disappeared. Now I’m a target, too.”

“I still think we better call the police.”

“If we do that, they might kill Trey. I can’t risk it. Listen, I’m going to leave now. Pretend you never saw me, okay?”

The room door opened with a bang. Kevin and I dove for the floor between the twin beds at the same time. Luckily for me, he landed first, or I would’ve been squashed like a bug.

Phillip strolled in, followed by the girls. They looked down at us, eyebrows rising in unison. The princess’s mouth dropped open. “K-Kevin? What…? I mean, I thought … what about Em?” she wailed.

“Glad to see you’re recovering there, bro,” Phillip said. Sardonic, straight up, with a twist of envy.

“This isn’t what you think,” I said, pushing myself off a dazed Kevin.

The princess’s hands perched on her hips and her voice hardened. “Here I thought you needed some psychic space to get over that bitch Emmie, and you take up with the first slut you meet in Sweden!”

Ah. So that was the way the wind was blowing. I glanced at Kevin, who looked about as bewildered as a boy could.

“Listen, you two. I think you may have the wrong idea here—” I started.

“Ha!”

“Cool it, Jennifer. Let her talk,” Phillip said, grabbing all the clothes from his bed and tossing them onto Kevin’s. He smoothed his duvet, picked a piece of lint off it, and stepped back. The kid really was too anal.

I stood up, leaving Kevin on the ground staring openmouthed up at Jennifer. Boys can be so oblivious.

After clearing my throat, I began again. “See, after we realized we were staying at the same hotel, Kevin kindly offered to walk me back, and to wait with me until my roommate could bring me my key. While we were talking downstairs, some gunshots were fired into the lobby, so we got out of there as fast as we could. Since I didn’t have my key, we came here. When you came in so suddenly we were still feeling a little skittish about the shooting, so we dove for cover. It’s simple, really.” I looked at Kevin, trying to signal that I didn’t want to go into the rest of it with his friends. Apparently, subtlety was wasted on him.

“Don’t forget to tell them about your kidnapped fiancé.”

Thanks, Kev.
“Yeah, I was getting to that.”

Hope flared in Jennifer’s eyes—I guess the idea of the boy you like getting shot at is better than the idea of him hitting on some strange woman—but Phillip’s face maintained a healthy skepticism.

“Well, you see—” I choked to a stop when I saw Mina’s face peek in through the doorway. “Billy!” I yelped. Panicking, I pointed at my face and shook my head, willing him to understand.

He got the hint, and pulled out before the others saw him. When he poked his head back in a second later he was a completely different woman. Same basic build, but redheaded, a little older and longer in the face, and absolutely gorgeous.

“Knock, knock. I’m looking for a friend of mine,” Billy said in a smoky voice.

I crossed to him at once. “Billy, there you are. I’ve been looking for you for hours. Guys, this is my roommate, um, Wilma. Only she hates to be called that—who wouldn’t?—so everyone calls her Billy. Right, Billy?”

“Right you are, darling. I’d sue my parents for saddling me with that name if I could, but it turns out the courts won’t allow that.”

“Is she here supporting you through your ordeal? That is just so sweet!” Jennifer gushed. At least she no longer wanted to assassinate me. That was something.

“Um, yes. That’s exactly what she’s doing—helping me find my fiancé. She’s had experience with kidnappings before.”

Billy looked sideways at me. “Yes, indeed. A friend in need, and all that. In fact, I have a few leads to discuss with you, so maybe we should get back to our room. Ta, all.” He took my elbow and began backing toward the door.

“Wait,” Kevin said, finally getting to his feet. “What if it’s not safe? Don’t we need to find out who shot at you?”

Again Billy stepped up, speaking rapidly as he continued pulling me out of the room. “I’m on it. I’ve just been speaking with the police—undercover, very hush-hush—and they are taking it from here. I saw them a few blocks away, chasing someone—the shooter, no doubt. Thanks for looking after my friend. I’m sure everything will be fine now. Go on about your vacation. See you around.” He closed the door behind us and dragged me down the hall.

“My God, Ciel. What the hell are you doing here?” he said as soon as we were alone in his room.

“It’s kind of a long story.”

“I’m listening.”

I took a deep breath and filled him in on everything that had happened since we parted company back at my office, minus a few insignificant details, like me maiming his car and Nils kissing me, but I included pretty much everything else.

Billy looked impressed when I got to the part with the frying pan. “Beaned him, did you? Think you killed him?”

“Oh, God—I hadn’t even thought of that! What if I did? I could be a murderer!” I felt a little sick.

“Nah. Self-defense. Justifiable homicide at worst.”

“Gee, thanks. I’ll sleep ever so much better now,” I said, with a twist of my mouth.

“Don’t worry, cuz. It’s harder to kill somebody than you might think. He might only have permanent brain damage.”

I cut him a look. “Give me your phone. I’m calling Mark.”