Mummy Dearest: The XOXO Files, Book 1 (7 page)

“Isn’t it?” I wiped my eyes again. I glanced past his shoulder and froze. I’d left the curtains open about two feet. And neither Fraser nor I had given them a second thought. Anyone standing in the pool yard would have a perfect, if narrow, view of the inside of my room. And someone
was
standing in the pool yard. In fact, they were standing on the fenced patio right outside my room, peering in through the glass door.

As disturbing as that was…it got worse.

I gawked at the figure staring in at us. I
couldn’t
be seeing what I thought I was seeing. But there it was. A tall, white form swathed in bandages from head to foot. I couldn’t tell if it had a mouth, but the eyes were glowing red.

A mummy was watching us through the glass door.

Chapter Five

“Uhhhhh…” I gargled, my gaze fixed on the pale figure still hovering outside the door.

“A what?” Fraser asked, smiling down at me.

“There’s someone watching us.”

“
What
?” Fraser was up and off the bed in one leap. “Hey!” He ran to the glass door, struggling with the locks.

The white figure scrambled noisily over the wooden fence and sprinted away. I heard the pound of feet down the courtyard, the muffled, iron clang of the gate just as Fraser wrenched open the door to the patio, nearly throwing it off its track.

I had to stop to drag my jeans back on before I could follow him outside. By then Fraser was down at the end of the courtyard. His shadow smacked the gate and then cradled its hand, cursing quietly, which I took to mean our Peeping Ptah had escaped unscathed.

I gazed uneasily up at the wall of lit and unlit windows overlooking the swimming pool. Nobody home? If they were, they weren’t paying us any attention. I glanced around the empty yard. The scattered towels had been picked up, the chairs and tables tidied. The underwater lights illuminated the white cement belly of the empty pool, the pale, glimmering steps. It appeared unearthly in the dark night, like the watery entry chamber into another world. The courtyard itself was silent.

“The son of a bitch got away,” Fraser called, loping back my way.

“Did you see where he went?”

“The parking lot.”

“Did he drive off?”

He huffed a laugh. “What, in his monster mobile?”

“I mean if he’s still there—”

“He ran across the parking lot and I lost sight of him behind the McDonald’s.” Fraser followed me through the little gate in the fence around the patio. “That
was
weird.”

“I’ll say.” Inside the hotel room, I shivered, rubbing my goose-bump-covered arms. Wyoming in October was not exactly balmy. Thirty degrees was more like it. “Did you get a good look at him?”

Fraser’s cheeks were flushed with the cold and his sprint down the courtyard. “That mummy costume? Yeah. Freaky.”

“You should have seen him from the front. His eyes were glowing red.”

“Or hers.”

Our eyes met. “No way,” I said. “Not if you’re suggesting that was Merneith.”

“You have to admit this is a little out of the way for the average trick-or-treater.”

“That was no woman. He was too big for one thing. For another, did you watch him vault the patio fence?”

“This isn’t much of a fence. Karen or Jeannie could do it. My granny could do it.”

“Hold on. You’re not seriously suggesting—”

“No.” Fraser flashed me a dazzling smile. “It would make a great story, but no.”

“Good, because among other things, the princess isn’t wrapped up in swaddling, and her remains are about a third the size of that monster.
That
mummy was vintage Universal Studios.”

I was reminded of the bogus inscription on the princess’s sarcophagus. Coincidence? It had to be, right?

“I know. That was my thought too.” Fraser seemed remarkably cheerful about the whole incident. I, on the other hand, still felt seriously creeped out. How long had that weirdo been watching us? “I’m guessing our segment on the princess is pretty big news around here. Someone was probably trying to get in on the act.”

“Except this isn’t your room. It’s mine.”

He considered that. “Well, then someone probably heard you’re doing an article on the princess and same deal.”

“But what’s the point?”

“The point?”

“How can someone ‘get in on the act’ of an article in
Archeology
magazine?”

“I don’t know. What’s your theory?”

“I don’t have a theory.” I began buttoning my shirt again. “I just think it’s weird.”

He chuckled. “You think
that
was weird?” His face fell as he registered what I was doing. “You’re getting dressed?”

I nodded.

He hazarded, “You’re upset about what happened?”

I tucked my shirt inside my jeans. “You could say that.”

“Which part are you upset about? The BJ or the mummy watching me blow you?”

I groaned and put my hands over my face. “God. Don’t.”

“Well, jeez.” Fraser sounded astonished. “What are you getting so worked up about? You think the mummy’s going to go tell your boyfriend?”

I lowered my hands. “Could you just not say anything else?”

“All night?”

“All…night?” I stared at him blankly.

“We’re still going to dinner, aren’t we?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why?” He looked so disappointed, I felt guilty. More guilty than I already felt, which was n
ot a bad trick.

“Because…well, because.”

“Because you had a fight with your boyfriend and you let me—”

I put a hand up and he stopped. “Could you not keep saying that? Anyway, we didn’t have a fight.”

“Oh.”

My stomach suddenly growled so loudly that I half-expected to see an alien poke its
head out of my belly.

Fraser gave a short laugh. “Well, if he gets a vote,
he
wants dinner. So do I. I’m starving. Let’s grab something to eat and you can tell me why you were looking shell-shocked when I walked out of the elevator.”

I opened my mouth to tell him…whatever I was going to say, offer an excuse as to why, despite the fact that I’d let him suck my cock, I couldn’t confide anything personal to him, but my stomach interjected again with such an outrageously rude rumble that we both started to laugh.

“I guess I do need to eat something,” I admitted. I heard the echo of that and blushed, but F
raser let it go.

“Great. Grab your jacket. I saw a steakhouse about half a block from the hotel. We could walk it, if you want. Talk.”

So that’s what we did. I grabbed my jacket and we walked over to the Carving Knife. We passed dimly lit shop windows decorated with paper goblins, piles of carved pumpkins and mannequins dressed as witches. Now and then we spotted kids dressed like cartoon characters or superheroes flitting across streets. No one went for gypsies or witches or ghosts anymore. It was all Harry Potter and Lady Gaga and the blue people from
Avatar
.

Fraser and I didn’t talk about anything more important than the weather—clear and cold—and the old-fashioned architecture, and the fact that Walsh seemed to be well on the road to becoming a ghost town.

The restaurant was busy but not packed, and we got a table right away. The waiter arrived to take our drink order.

Fraser ordered another Jack Daniels. I said, “I’ll just stick with the iced water.”

“Water?” Fraser asked after the waiter departed with our order.

“I don’t really have a head for alcohol,” I admitted.

“Are you an alcoholic?” He asked it in such a straightforward, understanding way, as though he really cared and would be willing to accept any confession, that the question wasn’t offensive.

“No. Nothing so interesting. I just have a really low threshold for alcohol. A couple of drinks and I’m dancing on tables.”

“That sounds promising.”

I laughed. “Slight exaggeration, but I’ve learned the hard way to go easy on the booze.” Especially because Noah had zero tolerance for the silliness alcohol brought out in me.

Noah.

It was like getting slammed from the side. What the hell was I doing? What the hell had I
done
?

My expression must have said it all because Fraser said, “Why don’t you tell me what did happen tonight?”

I didn’t have the energy to pretend I didn’t know what he meant. As much as Noah would loathe the idea that I sat here spilling my guts to a stranger—never mind everything else I’d spilled—I did need to talk. I felt like I hadn’t talked, really talked, to anyone in two years. Not since Noah and I got together.

“I think I broke up with my lover.”

“You
think
you broke up with him?”

“I broke up with him, but I don’t think he believes it.”

“Do you?” Fraser’s eyes were intent.

“I think…maybe I do.” Unexpectedly my eyes stung, and I had to reach for my water. I took a couple of sips.

“I’m sorry,” Fraser said. He sounded comfortingly sincere. “What happened?”

“You mean aside from the thing that happened in my hotel room?”

He snickered. “Sounds like a fifties B film.
The Thing That Happened in My Hotel Room
.”

I laughed too, but feebly. “The sequel to
It Came from Outer Space
.”

“No pun intended, right? Anyway, I get the feeling that wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t already broken it off with…what’s his name?”

“Noah.” My throat closed and I said huskily, “Dr. Noah Chadwick. I’ve been in love with him practically since I started teaching at Claremont McKenna College.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Four years.” Just like that I was telling Fraser everything. How much I’d admired Noah long before we ever met and how kind and supportive he’d been to a very junior professor and blah, blah, blah.

The waiter came with Fraser’s drink in time to stop his eyes from glazing over.

“Sure you won’t have something?” Fraser asked.

“Maybe a glass of wine with our meal.”

“Then I guess we better figure out what we’re eating.”

The waiter sighed. We looked hastily at the menus again. I was too hungry to be picky. I went for the porterhouse with mushrooms, a side of baked potato with the works, and grilled veggies. Fraser started by ordering an onion loaf. Then he went for the prime rib, rare, and added a lobster tail as an afterthought.

“Lobster in Wyoming? Brave man,” I observed.

“I
am
brave,” he assured me seriously.

He proved it by adding garlic mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, and a dinner salad—with blue cheese crumbles.

The waiter and I were respectfully silent.

“You were going to order wine,” Fraser reminded me, handing his menu over at last. He didn’t say it as though I was scatterbrained and needed a keeper, but like he was attentive and looking out for my comfort.

“You know, I think I’ll have a cosmo after all.”

The waiter removed the menu from my hand before I could do further damage and retreated. Fraser took a hearty pull on Jack Daniels. “Wow. So your dream guy is a fifty-five-year-old anthropologist whose idea of a rip-roaring time is his mother’s garden party?”

“He looks like George Clooney.”

“
Oh
. Well, that does clarify things.”

“And that’s not fair about Mirabelle’s garden party. It’s an annual event, not something we do all the time.”

“I’m just teasing you.” His eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. It was pretty attractive.

I started in again. I told him about the huge scandal of Lionel’s affair with his TA, and how I’d basically got Noah on the rebound, and how everyone said it wouldn’t last, and how afraid I was that Lionel wanted Noah back—and that Noah wanted Lionel too.

“Hmm.” Fraser was noncommittal on that point. “Did you ever go out with guys your own age?”

“Of course.”

“But…?”

“Nothing. It was fine. I never fell in love until Noah. Noah was…”

“Handsome, rich, cultured, and your boss.”

I stared at him. “It wasn’t like that,” I said shortly.

“Why wouldn’t it be? That’s not criticism. I can see why you fell for him. He sounds perfect. Too perfect, if you want my opinion. I can see you don’t. So, what went wrong with this idyllic life you worked so hard to build?”

The waiter brought my drink, and I had a couple of sips thinking over that telling comment.
Worked so hard to build.
Not that all relationships didn’t take work, but should they take so
much
work? So much work that other people commented on it.

I explained how Lionel and a few other instructors in our department felt that I was up for tenure because of my relationship with Noah, and I explained why I had made the trip to visit the princess a priority, and then, haltingly, I told him about calling Noah and finding out he was having dinner with Lionel and my probably—I could see that now—sort of extreme reaction.

“What a shit!” Fraser interrupted. “You’re out of town working and he’s having a quiet, intimate dinner with his ex? The same jealous prick who’s stabbing you in the back?
Dump
his sorry ass.”

I have to admit his instant and fierce bias on my behalf was heartwarming.

“You don’t think I overreacted?”

“I think you’ve been
under
reacting for two years. I think you’ve been brainwashed. You’re smothering your personality to try and adapt yourself to this old geezer.”

“Fifty-five isn’t exactly—”

“I’m not talking earth years. I’m talking stick-up-your-butt years. He’s, like,
seventy-five
in stick-up-your-butt years. My God. Next you’ll tell me he drags you to the opera or flower shows or some shit like that. How many times a month does he make you visit his mother?”

I started to laugh. As a matter of fact, we visited Mirabelle every other weekend. Fraser’s gaze was still indignant but sympathetic too.

“If he wasn’t your boss and you didn’t live together, you’d have been out of there a long time ago. But it’s complicated, so you’ve put it off until tonight when you couldn’t take it anymore.”

I absorbed that silently. As much as I instinctively rejected the brutality of his assessment, I couldn’t deny there was truth to it. Breaking up with Noah was liable to have far-reaching consequences in every aspect of my life.