Paranormal Erotic Romance Box Set (16 page)

“Whatever, it doesn’t matter,” I said and grabbed his arm.
“Guess what?”

“Just tell me, I’m not in the mood for games.”

“You are not telling me that the collector of people is
squeamish, are you?” I said.

“Sophia, I collected girls to fuck,” James said and shook
his head. “Are you going to tell me or break my balls?”

“Okay, okay. I listened while the officers spoke to Mr.
Conway, who, by the way, is even more shaken than you, and they said they’re
going to question Brandt real good. They think he did it!”

“What about his girlfriend?” James asked.

“They probably don’t know about Nellie yet, but I’m not
worried about it. She will get it. Brandt is a coward. When faced with prison,
he’s not going to protect that whore. He’d roll over on her if they offered to
shave even one second off his sentence in exchange for giving her up.”

Another officer ran into the room and whispered into
Detective Trenton’s ear.

“He’s cuffed already?” Detective Trenton said to the
officer. “Okay, let’s do this.”

“Already?” I said to James. “They have Brandt already?”

“Rich girl gets killed in a luxury hotel known for
mishaps? Yeah, I can see them moving fast,” James said and stroked my hair.

“Conway!” Detective Trenton said and grabbed Mr. Conway’s
shoulders. “Conway, get it together!”

“I can’t believe it happened again,” Mr. Conway said and
sobbed.

“Yeah, some dumb luck,” Detective Bonner said. “Look, we
are here to solve a murder. We don’t give a shit about the Battleroy’s latest
public relations fiasco. All we care about is punishing that girl’s killer.”

“Yes,” Mr. Conway said and rubbed his eyes. “Yes, of
course.”

“So, Conway, you with us?” Detective Trenton said.

“Uh-huh,” Mr. Conway said.

“Good, Officer Hanaran is going to take you to your
office,” Detective Bonner said and snapped his fingers at a red-headed officer.
“We need all records...everything. Okay?”

Mr. Conway nodded.

“Good and remember, Conway,” Detective Trenton said, “a
speedy resolution to this murder will help you too, understand? It would be
good if you could remember any violent outbursts or predatory-type behavior.”

“Oh, no, there was none of that.”

“That you can remember now,” Detective Bonner said and led
Mr. Conway toward Officer Hanaran. “Just go with Hanaran. Get the records. Something
may come to you.”

“Yes, maybe,” Mr. Conway said and looked into the living
room and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Bobby.”

“Who’s Bobby?” James said.

“No idea. Maybe Mr. Conway remembers Brandt’s name as
Bobby?”

James shrugged his shoulders and put his arm around my
waist.

“I’m sorry today is officially the day the world learns of
your death,” James said and kissed me on the forehead.

“Bonner,” Detective Trenton said, “go quietly and tell the
Crime Scene people to move to the far end of the room. Then you, Franco and
Smyth get on either side of him. I’ll clear a path. I don’t want a scene, get
it?”

“Gotcha.”

Detective Bonner ran between the living room and bedroom
gathering photographers and other forensic people and moved them to the far
corner of the living room.

“What the hell?” I said and looked at James who peered
over the crowd toward the sliding glass door that led to the private beach.
“James?”

“Just wait,” James said and grabbed my arm.

Detective Bonner grabbed two other burly officers and walked
to the back of the room.

“No!” A man said and cried.

“What’s going on?” I said to James.

“Clear a path!” Detective Trenton said and pushed people
aside as he walked through the crowd.

The people in front of me parted and James gripped my arm
tightly as I saw what he already saw.

A young black man sat on the couch in the living room. He
wore a Battleroy Hotel bellman’s uniform. His hands were handcuffed in front of
him and his head turned from officer to officer.

“I just found her!” he said. “I didn’t do this!”

“Bobby Allen,” Detective Trenton said, “you have the right
to remain silent...”

“No,” I said and struggled to free myself from James as
Detective Trenton read the hysterical boy his Rights.

“Sophia, you can’t,” James said.

“The fuck I can’t! I will die a thousand deaths before I
see this guy go to jail. He did not kill me.”

“There is nothing you can do.”

“Let go of me,” I said. “I’ll write a note. I’ll leave it
on the windshield of one of the cop cars.”

“It is against the Law,” he said.

“The Law allows innocent boys to be put in jail? This is
ludicrous.”

The detectives lifted Bobby Allen to his feet. He begged
the officers to listen to him, but no one cared to listen to Bobby Allen. When
they informed him that he would be walked through the front of the hotel rather
than taken out the back way, he wailed.

“Please! Listen, I’ll talk to you, I will, but I am
begging...please take me out the back!”

“Why?” one of the officers said. “If you didn’t do
anything like you say you didn’t, why do you care?”

“My mother and father work here,” Bobby Allen said.
“They’ve worked here all their lives. My mother is working right now. Please
don’t do this.”

“Should’ve thought of that before you did those disgusting
things to that poor girl,” Detective Bonner said.

“No, please,” Bobby said as the officers pushed him toward
the door.

Bobby Allen dug his heels into the carpet and stopped the
procession.

“Resisting!” one of the officers said.

Bobby Allen got a hard blow across his back with a
nightstick.

“This is not right!” I said.

“I know,” James said.

They dragged Bobby Allen toward the front door and
suddenly they stopped him beside us.

“Fuck, he pissed himself,” Detective Bonner said.

Bobby Allen hung his head. Tears streamed from his eyes
and he turned and looked right at me. James threw his arms around me and
restrained me.

“I will do something, I promise,” I said as they dragged
Bobby Allen out of the room. “They will know who did this!”

“Sophia,” James said and loosened his grip on me after
everyone left. “I--”

“Fucking cowards, all of you,” I said.

“It’s not our fault,” he said.

“Oh, not our fault? Give me a break. You know this is
wrong,” I said and stared at my sheet-covered body in the bedroom.

“Sophia, let’s go to the beach or the caves. Let’s just
get out of this room.”

I looked at James, at his beautiful face, and it broke my
heart that I was angry with him.

“James, I need to be alone.”

“Yes, if course,” James said and nodded. “Where will you
go? I promise I won’t bother you, I just want to know.”

“I want to go to the rafters,” I said.

And then I was there, in the rafters among the beams where
I spent my first terrifying night. James looked up at me and blew me a kiss.

“I am sorry, Sophia,” he said.

“So am I.”

He walked out the door and I cried. I cried as I watched
the Medical Examiner and the technicians lift my body off the bed and wheel me
out of the room on a gurney. I cried for my parents and my brother and sister
and Katt who would learn on that day I was murdered. And I cried for Bobby
Allen who was surely more terrified than I.

I sat in the rafters and tried to think of ways to help
Bobby Allen and crucify Brandt and Nellie. It was much more than revenge now.

Though Massachusetts hadn’t executed a prisoner since 1947
when Phillip Bellino and Edward Gertson died in the electric chair for
murdering Robert Williams, the death penalty was still on the Massachusetts’
books.

I knew that the cops, the hotel and my parents would push
for a speedy resolution to this and Bobby Allen would certainly suffer for
their hurried investigation. I was his only shot for exoneration and I
controlled Brandt and Nellie’s ultimate fate, but these rules or laws or
whatever James talked about presented a challenge.

I needed to figure out how I could steer the course
without doing the steering. The newspaper box in the lobby that provided guests
with copies of the
Boston Globe
would be my only link to any information
on the case. I vowed to make this my death’s work.

The investigators stripped the bedroom of the mattress
which my body decayed upon and left the box-spring in the room. There was a
large stain on the white cambric that covered the wooden slats. When everyone
was gone and the suite was dark, I stared down at that stain from the rafters
and screamed.

I rested my head on one of the beams and closed my eyes.
At one point during my sixteen hour sleep, I heard a light rap at the front
door to the suite. I knew it was James and I turned my head and fell back to
sleep.

I dreamt I was an Inquisitor and enacted a special torture
just for Brandt and Nellie. I ripped their bodies apart with my hands, pulling
flesh from their sinewy tendons, squeezing marrow from their bones with my
teeth. I allowed them the opportunity to beg for mercy, to plead with me to
stop hurting them and after, I cut their tongues out of their mouths. And when
they passed out because they could no longer endure the pain, I woke them with
buckets of ice. An epic bloodbath, I drank of them until there was nothing
left.

I awoke to more ruckus as police officers, though in
lesser numbers than the day before, took more pictures and surface swabs around
the suite. As I watched the officers going to work in the rooms, James snuck
into the bedroom, hiding behind a particularly large cop.

“I can see you, you know,” I said.

He shook his head and looked up at me.

“I’m sorry,” he said and held his arms out. “I’m just
checking on you. I brought you something that I’d like you to take a look at.”

James placed a large, red leather-bound book on the edge
of the box-spring.

“What is it?” I said as I peered at the book. “It looks
like a family bible.”

James looked up and smiled.

“It is, of sorts. It’s our history of this place. I think
it may help fill in some gaps.”

“Thank you. I’ll read it later.”

“Okay,” he said as he looked around the room. “So, how are
you?”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Yes, I see. Can I sneak anything in for you? Something to
eat? Drink?”

“I’m neither hungry nor thirsty.”

“But you’ve not had anything at all,” he said and shook
his head.

“Well, it’s not like I’m going to waste away to nothing.”

“No, I suppose not,” he said. “So, what have you been
doing?”

“Oh, you know,” I said and stretched, “just hanging
around.”

“Ha, good one,” he said and looked around the bedroom. “I
see they removed--”

“Me,” I said. “Yeah, yesterday evening. They took the
mattress too.”

“Testing it probably,” he said and rubbed his hands
together. “You sure there’s nothing you need?”

“The
Globe
,” I said.

“Well, I’ll check the library. Never actually seen one
around, but I can’t say I’ve ever looked,” he said and moved closer.

“No, not
a
globe, the
Globe
,” I said. “As
in, the newspaper.”

“Ah, the
Globe
, okay. Checking the baseball
scores?”

“No. You know why.”

“Sophia,” he said and looked down.

“Never mind, I’ll get it myself.”

“No, it’s okay. I’ll grab a copy late tonight when
everyone goes to bed,” he said.

“James,” I said and sighed, “I’ll get the paper myself and
yes, I’ll make sure no one is around to see a newspaper floating by itself
through the lobby. Don’t worry about it. I know that probably sounds passive
aggressive, but it’s not, seriously. I don’t want to involve you in anything
that may be against the rules.”

“Sophia, I don’t want you involved in anything that is
against the rules.”

“I know,” I said and frowned.

“Are you sure I can’t do anything for you? You know, I do
a hell of a tap dance,” James said.

James shuffled his feet and moved his arms up and down. I
bit my lip and covered my mouth so he couldn’t see me smiling as I watched him.
He was, without a doubt, the worst dancer I have ever seen in my life.

“Here comes the finale!” James said.

He did two spins, tripped over his feet and fell to the
ground. James scrambled to one knee and held out his arms and looked up at me.

“That’s a smile,” James said and pointed. “Your eyes are
smiling. That’s good enough for now.”

He walked toward the door and turned around and winked at
me before he left.

I rested my head on the beam and stared at the stain on
the box-spring. I came down from the rafters and grabbed the book and brought
it back up with me.

The book’s pages were heavy parchment and the edges were
lined in gold. It was hand-written in the most beautiful script and reminded me
of the antique volumes by the Grimm brothers that my mother kept behind glass
and were off-limits to her children’s grubby hands.

I read the story of the Battleroy’s history while I was
once again filled with red rage and hate as I thought of Brandt and Nellie.

PART
II

“For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright,

who art as black as hell and as dark as night.”

William Shakespeare

The land on which the Battleroy Hotel sat was first
inhabited by the ill-fated Nauset Indian Tribe and the tribe’s relations with
explorers began around the time of Columbus’ voyage to the New World.

The Nauset were largely suspicious of the explorers but
Adelaide’s father, a sachem in the tribe before Adelaide’s death, encouraged
his people to interact with the explorers. Her father thought the Nauset could
teach the men much about survival and in turn, the explorers would reward the
Nauset’s hospitality.