Slumber (2 page)

She lifted her throbbing head, grateful that the airbag didn't deploy. She'd missed crashing into the trunk of a colossal oak by millimeters.

Ruby twisted in her seat, and a pair of eyes met hers. A massive black stag stood stock still on the path. Watching her.

“Holy shit,” Ruby breathed, afraid to move. She'd occasionally seen small brown deer grazing on the groomed lawns and fields, but she'd never seen a stag before, and certainly never one this big. The animal was almost heartbreakingly beautiful, both feral and delicate, with its sleek hide, slender legs, and six-point antler rack like a crown of thorns.

Its calm liquid gaze met hers. For a weird moment, Ruby felt like the stag was examining her, too—as a rare curiosity that happened to be crossing its path.

A bird twittered overhead, and the stag tossed its head and let out an ear-splitting bellow. Then, just as suddenly as it appeared, the creature bunched its haunches and leaped back into the forest, instantly swallowed up by the trees.

“That was so freaky.” Dazed, Ruby blinked at the empty spot where the stag had stood. Did she really see that? She felt dazed by the encounter, dreamy. She rubbed her eyes and gave the ghost of a half-laugh. She really needed to stop reading Shelley's fairy tale book.

A glance at the clock on the car's dashboard told her she was already a half-hour late for the job. She shifted into reverse, took her foot off the brake, and backed out onto the rutted lane once more. She drove on as fast as she dared, alert for more movement among the branches. It was only a couple more minutes before the trees thinned, the road became smoother, and she was pulling up to an enormous silver gate with giant stone gargoyles crouched on either side. Embedded in one of the gargoyles' outstretched hands was a modern security pad. It should have been a whimsical touch, but the gargoyle's face was contorted into a leer, a mix of pain and pleasure. Ruby shuddered and quickly swiped the security card provided by the agency. The gate swung open ponderously to reveal Cottingley Heights.

“Whoa,” Ruby muttered. This was no vacation “cottage,” as the local elites called their ten-room McMansions, or even a mini-palace à la
MTV Cribs
, super-tacky and overloaded with architecture. Ruby had lived her whole life in the shadow of people who had fortunes enough to build whatever they wanted, and she'd seen everything from faux castles with moats, to an underground hobbit house complete with a round door and statue of Gandalf on the lawn.

But Cottingley Heights felt different. It really
was
old in a bone-deep way, maybe centuries old, with thick vines covering the stone walls and a roof broken up by turrets. It was four floors tall, and most of the mullioned windows were half obscured by unchecked creepers. Roots from unseen trees pushed up the cobbles in the driveway until they were bumpy and uneven. She drove past statues of angels and ancient goddesses, drowning under writhing ivy, and parked the minivan next to a fountain. The unmoving water was slimed and green; the frolicking cherub in its center headless. She got out of the van, the hair on the back of her neck prickling. The garden was hushed and silent. Really, really silent.

While she was unloading her cleaning supplies from the back of the van, a caw shattered the quiet. She looked up to see a crow flying down from the battlements, some small dead creature caught in its claws. Ruby flinched and covered her head as it swooped toward her then away to the trees beyond. She flushed, annoyed with herself. It was just a bird. Running into that stag must have left her spooked.

Massive iron studs striped the thick timber of the front door. Per the instructions on the agency's spec sheet, Ruby swiped the card into another discreet security pad beneath a frond of ivy. It beeped, unlocking the door with a mechanical click. Gingerly, she pushed it open. “Hello!” she called. “It's Happy Housekeepers.”

Silence. She let her eyes adjust to the shadowed interior, expecting to see a beautifully appointed entryway, tasteful elegance, something to impress visitors.

Instead, she was looking at a bombsite. A
trashed
bombsite.

The mess covered every inch of the cavernous foyer. Smashed glasses mixed with feathers and flower petals, and empty bottles of Veuve Clicquot and Dom Perignon lay discarded. Streamers, tinsel, and colorful beads draped the sweeping spiral staircase that rose from the back of the foyer and dangled from the enormous crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Light streamed weakly between purple velvet drapes that were spattered with liquid and glitter.

“Jesus,” Ruby muttered.

She tried to shove the front door wider to wrestle her vacuum cleaner and cleaning bag inside, but something was blocking it. She finally got the door open wide enough to see that the obstacle was the bust of a dignified Roman gentleman. Lipstick doodles gave his marble face a Charlie Chaplin mustache. The coup-de-grace was a stained Hermès scarf tied around his forehead, hippy-like. Some strange sympathy for him made Ruby pull off the scarf and toss it onto a pile of feathers.

Heart sinking, she picked her way over the glittering debris. Once she'd got through the foyer without cutting herself on broken glass, she poked her head around the first door she came to. “You have
got
to be kidding,” she moaned.

A magnificent indoor pool sat right in the middle of the room, all kinds of crap floating in the illuminated water: party favors, clothing, jewelry. Cushions littered the floor, red wine stained the white upholstered furniture. The air reeked of pot, sweat, alcohol, and stale perfume. On the bar, a half-empty bag of white powder spilled over several rolled up bills.

Everywhere Ruby looked, she saw lavish destruction. Snapped stemware. Torn designer clothing. More empty champagne magnums. Shredded flowers. Several open bottles of Hennessy cognac had been thrown into an enormous fish tank. The fish were dead.

Ruby gazed about in dismay. She'd just walked into the day after the most decadent party ever. And she was expected to clean it up while the people who made this mess were sleeping off their fun. “This totally sucks,” she said to the silent room.

Well, she'd only been hired for four hours. She'd do as much as she could in the allotted time, but she was only one person. This mess needed an entire team and several days. She unloaded a couple of industrial-sized garbage bags out of her cleaning kit, put on her plastic gloves, and got to work.

Room after room was the same. Glittering filth. The stench of bacchanalia. As she shoved a ripped up Versace dress into the trash, along with crushed flowers she couldn't identify, Ruby began to feel sick. No, not just sick. Sickened. She'd lived her life as the child of one of the silent army of service workers who eked out a living doing distasteful chores for the rich. She'd seen a thing or two over the years of helping her mother. But nothing like this—the sheer wastefulness, the gleeful wallowing in obscene destruction. Who had that kind of money? And where were these people? The house was completely silent except for Ruby's footsteps crunching over broken glass and jewelry. Her eyes widened at the sight of a huge plasma screen television knifed from end to end. Draped over it was a silvery chinchilla cape soaked in red wine. A frippery that could have paid their rent for an entire year, now casually ruined.

Ruby found herself clutching the fur in anger. Then she stuffed it into the garbage bag.

She'd already filled three huge bags until she could barely drag them. Before she went any further, she needed to find the service exit. A house this size probably had a commercial dumpster out back, and she had a feeling she'd be loading it to the brim today. She started down one of the hallways, ignoring the doors on either side for the moment, and came to a dead end at a blue door with a gold symbol painted on it. To Ruby, it looked like an Egyptian hieroglyph of some kind of insect. She tried to open it but it was locked.

A trail of glitter like that in the foyer disappeared under the door. Glancing back, she saw that it snaked all the way along the corridor. Ruby knelt down and caught some of the glitter on the tip of her finger. It was as fine as dust, nothing like the craft stuff Shelley stared at wistfully in Target. It reminded Ruby of a butterfly that had landed on her hand once, wings shimmering.

After a final, hopeless pull on the handle, she tried the door to the right, hoping it would lead her to at least a kitchen. Instead, she found herself in a room dominated by a massive California king canopy bed reflected in a wall of mirrors. A bedroom. Empty, of course.

Luckily, she'd only been hired to clean the common areas, not the bedrooms. But she couldn't help peering around. The room was a mix of animal print and chrome—and some of those animal skins looked like the real deal. Light streamed from a skylight onto a rainbow pile of clothing and jewelry heaped on the leopard skin carpet. The stuffed head was still attached. Like the others, this room smelt like marijuana, musky perfume, and souring champagne.

A silky green garment was pooled at her feet. Automatically she picked it up. It was a Chanel gown, the color of a saturated emerald, the beadwork on the bodice stunningly intricate. She'd never in a million years be able to afford an outfit like this.

Ruby turned to face the wall of mirrors, Curiously, she held the gown against herself, covering her Happy Housekeeper's work polo and faded jeans. Even wrinkled, the folds draped beautifully, the silk whispered against her skin. Ruby smiled.

There was a click and an adjoining door opened. A young woman walked in.

Ruby blinked at her, too surprised to even drop the dress.

The girl's eyes swept Ruby up and down. Her fists clenched.

“What the
hell
are you doing?” she snarled.

The girl strode toward Ruby. She had to be 5'11, with long legs exposed under a stunning silver crepe mini. Her iron-straight black hair fell glossily down to her waist, the perfect frame for her high cheekbones and pouty lips. She snatched the dress from Ruby, tossed it on a zebra-striped chair, and stared at her. Her eyes were the same emerald shade as the discarded gown. Ruby had the sense that she was being sized up—and found a low-life.

“Cat got your tongue?” the girl snapped.

Ruby gave herself a mental shake. “I'm from Happy Housekeepers,” she said. “I've been hired to clean up after your”—she waved her free hand toward the wreckage in the hall—“party.”

“So you thought you'd help yourself to the leftovers?”

Ruby flushed. “No. I got lost, that's all. I wanted to find—”

“Spare me your excuses.” Black-tipped nails flashed as the girl flicked her explanations away. “Speaking of getting lost, maybe you should, you know, do that.”

What. A. Bitch.

“I'm sorry I disturbed you,” Ruby forced herself to say evenly.

“I'll bet you are.” The girl leaned forward, but the look in her eyes was anything but friendly. “Let me give you some advice. Watch your step while you're here. And don't pick any roses—the thorns are quite…sharp.”

Hastily, Ruby backed out of the room. What the heck was
that
supposed to mean? Was the girl coming down off some designer drug? Or still high? Ugh. She grabbed her vacuum cleaner.
Focus, Ruby. Just get to work, then get the hell out.

She remembered Mom's advice when they'd last tackled a really big job.
Keep it methodical. One task at a time
. She pulled her cell phone from her jeans to check the time. She'd already been here almost an hour. Okay, so she couldn't find a service exit, but she could still vacuum. Ruby went back to the main foyer and dragged the appliance back to the corridor. She began running it over the long trail of glitter, wincing as it noisily sucked up chunks of glass and God-only-knew-what. She followed the trail up until where it ran under the locked blue door, then switched the vacuum off and wheeled it down an adjoining corridor.

On the left was another door, this time slightly ajar. She nudged it open, hoping she wouldn't find another crazy bitch's bedroom on the other side—and dropped the vacuum in shock. The light coming from a deep pink shade revealed an opulent spill of pillows covering the floor. On them, three half-naked teenage couples were making out.

“Oh! I'm sorry, I…”

No one seemed to have heard her speak or the thud of her vacuum falling over. She stood blinking as the smell of sex and pot wafted over her. A frizzy-haired girl in a red silk kimono lifted her head, blearily glanced at her with perfect almond eyes, and then went back to nuzzling someone on the ground. Nearest Ruby, two boys, both beautiful, with faces that were the mirror image of each other, snaked their limbs together, dragging their lips across each other's mouths.

What is this, some sort of teen supermodel orgy?

A laugh from behind made her jump. She turned to see more teenagers sauntering up the corridor, each more striking than the last. Two guys, their shirtless torsos cut and toned as if they'd stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue, regarded her with bright-eyed interest. “Hi there,” said one with blue-black curls tumbling over his forehead and an accent that sounded Mediterranean. “You're pretty.”

“Oooh, she sure is!” said a girl with Asian features and a swirling dragon tattooed on her neck. She licked her lips.

The three of them closed in on Ruby, backing her into the shadowy room.

“Er, I'll just…get back to work…” Ruby's throat closed over her protest.

All of them had impossibly perfect bodies. Maybe they were students from of one of those exclusive prep schools where everyone was rich, gorgeous, and spoiled. Perhaps the adults who owned this place—wherever they were—had so much money they didn't care if their kids had a party and trashed the place.

“Mmm, who is this?” said a girl with ebony skin and topaz eyes. She languidly raised her head from a cushion. “What's your name, pretty girl?”

“Wanna come play with us?” said another girl with white-blonde hair and luminous pale skin. She was twined around the dark girl, who stroked her long hair. The blonde gazed at Ruby with her lips half-parted.

“What are you doing here?” one of the boys asked. Ruby turned to him, then quickly looked away as she realized he was wearing nothing but super-skimpy briefs.

“I'm working,” she answered stiffly.

“Working?” The boy's forehead wrinkled. The others looked confused as well.

Seriously? Seriously
.

“Yeah. I'm the cleaning lady,” Ruby said, trying to keep her anger in check as they circled her. “And I'd like to get back to work since, you know, there's a lot to do.”

“You're way too pretty to work,” the blonde girl purred. “Come with us, we'll give you something much better to do.”

The dark-skinned girl reached out and stroked Ruby's arm. She snatched it away, but the blonde was tugging at the hem of Ruby's work shirt. She was wearing a turquoise lace teddie and murmured that she had another which would suit Ruby perfectly.

“No, really!” Ruby shrank back from their grasping hands. “I have to go. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have interrupted…”

But the more she protested, the more they laughed at her. With a sense of rising panic, she heard a voice from among the couples on the floor say, “Need some X to calm her down? There should be a few pills left on the bar…”

Reaching hands pulled her into the room, and Ruby's panic shifted into fear. “Get off me!” She shoved at the blonde who'd been yanking at her shirt. The girl laughed and thrust her back into the arms of the black-haired boy.

“Amleth, to me!” squealed the pretty Asian girl, and the boy gave Ruby a vicious push into her arms. She ran a palm over Ruby's hip.

Ruby didn't even stop to think. She drove her elbow into the girl's stomach so hard that the girl stumbled back, tripped on a pillow and fell.

Cruel grins split the teens' faces, and they burst out laughing at the girl sprawled on the floor. Ruby wasn't sticking around to see if she was all right. While the others were doubled over with laughter, she seized the moment and ran out of the room.

She heard someone behind her yell, “Chase!” and the sounds of scrambling. She looked over her shoulder to see the boy—Amleth—and the dark-skinned girl coming after her. The look on their faces was anything but playful—they'd turned intense and menacing, like wolves bringing down a rabbit.

Ruby's heart stuttered as she ran down the hall toward the front door. She knew if they caught her it wouldn't be good. Headlines flashed in her head:
Cleaning Woman Found Drugged and Beaten; Teen Girl Gang-Raped at Teen Sex Party
…

“That's enough,” a male voice rang out. “Amleth, Subira, leave her alone.”

Ruby skittered to a halt in front of the stairs in the wrecked foyer, her heart beating wildly. A guy of about eighteen was crouched on the end of the banister, balancing as easily as a gymnast, gold hair spiking up from his head like a crown. At least this one was fully dressed, in jeans and a crisp white button-down. His feet, though, were bare, and his black eyes were a disconcerting contrast to his fair skin and hair.

Ruby heard heavy breathing from behind and spun around but saw that the two teens had stopped chasing her. Their eyes were fixed on the guy in the jeans. The girl, Subira, danced on the spot like she was trying to choose whether to run toward Ruby or away from her.

“Leave her alone?” Amleth asked. “But why?”

“You're scaring her.” The guy in the jeans leaped lightly down from the banister, cat-like, and put himself between his housemates and Ruby. Her breath caught in her throat.

“So?” Amleth pouted.

“So I said to leave her alone.”

“But she looks like fun,” the ebony-skinned girl whined.

“Let her be. Go on.” He spoke with authority, like he was talking to a child. “The party is fun. Go back there. Now.”

“But—”

Ruby saw the muscles in the boy's back flex under his shirt as he folded his arms. It seemed like the whole room around him dimmed, just for a second, like clouds around the bright sun.

“I said, go back to the party. I won't ask again.”

Reluctantly, the two half-naked teens backed away.

Amleth gave Ruby a look of regret over his shoulder. “If you change your mind…” he said, before he and Subira disappeared back down the hall.

Ruby let out a breath and felt her heart rate slow to normal again.

Man, that was
intense
.

The blond guy turned to her, concern carving shallow lines into the creamy skin on his forehead. “Are you alright?”

She nodded, though she wasn't at all sure.

“I'm sorry about that. They didn't mean to scare you. They wouldn't have really hurt you.”

Really?
Ruby wondered. But her panic was already fading. She guessed maybe he was right. What just happened wasn't any weirder than the stuff she'd heard going on in rock stars' summer mansions—she'd just never seen anything like it firsthand before.
Don't freak out. Just do the job, and get out of here.

“They don't know when to stop sometimes, that's all.”

Without thinking, Ruby gave a pointed glance to the empty champagne bottles piled on a hall table. “Obviously,” she said. Then she bit her lip. She didn't need to offend this guy, especially after he'd come to her rescue.

But he didn't seem offended at all. In fact, a friendly smile lit his whole face up, which—
holy cow!
—took his good looks to sky-high levels of smoking hot. Ruby found herself blinking at him, her heart racing with a whole new kind of thrill.

“Yeah, the party got a little out of control last night,” the boy said with a sheepish laugh. “I'm sorry about that too. We didn't make it easy on you.”

Ruby gaped at him. Probably really unattractive, but she was stunned. After the bedroom bitch and the scary make-out session, the last thing she expected to find at Cottingley Heights was real sympathy.

She shook herself. She had a job to do, and she needed to get on with it. “I'd better get back to work. Thanks for helping me out.”

“No problem,” he said. “They call me Tam. What are you called?”

She hesitated. “My name's Ruby,” she answered after a few seconds. Even though he was nice—and hotter than the sun—something about him bugged her. But she couldn't put her finger on what. Maybe it was the way he spoke: his language just this side of formal, his accent American but kind of unplaceable. Or maybe it was the way his black eyes focused on her, unblinking. As if seeking something inside her.

He didn't seem to notice her awkward pause. “Ruby,” he said thoughtfully. “That's a pretty name.”

Ruby stiffened. Was he coming on to her too? “Thanks,” she answered shortly. “Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get to work.”

“I'll give you a hand.”

“No, you don't have to, honestly. You've been super-cool already, and I don't need a knight in shining armor.”
I've been getting by without one all these years
, she added to herself.

“I know I don't have to.” He flashed his dazzling smile. Without waiting, he started clearing bottles off the hall table that seemed to have served as an impromptu bar, dropping them into the half-filled recycling bag Ruby had left there earlier. Ruby watched him for a startled moment.

Well, if he wants to help clean up his own mess, that's good, right?

She shrugged, fetched a garbage bag, and continued picking up debris from the floor: a discarded silk blouse striped with a honey-like substance, a soggy Louboutin pump that had been used as a champagne glass, judging by the puddle in the bottom.

Into his own bag, Tam tossed a bent light fixture that had been pulled out of the wall like someone had been swinging from it. “I really should talk to the others about dialing back the mayhem. It's not good for property values. Good thing the neighbors live far away.” He looked at her expectantly.

Waiting for her to answer him. As in, have an actual conversation. With the cleaning lady.

Okaaay.

“Have you lived here long?” she asked at random.

“Feels like centuries.” He brushed a pile of confetti off a table and into the garbage bag with an efficient sweep of his arm. “You seem kind of young to be cleaning people's houses full-time. Are you a student?”

Oh shit, was he trying to find out if she was ditching school? Was he going to rat her out? Then in the next instant she realized that was ridiculous. If she was supposed to be in class, so was he for sure. “I'm a junior,” she hedged.

“I bet you're buried in the college app process right now. NYU, right? The drama school?”

She paused mid-clean and stared at him. “How did you know?”

“I guessed. You've got movie-star looks. Isn't taking a shitty job like cleaning houses what all actors do before they make it big?”

A laugh sputtered out of Ruby before she could stop it. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“The shittier the job, the bigger the career, they say.”

“Then mine will be massive.”

“I've got a couple of ditches that need digging out back if you really want to blow up.”

“I'll stick to cleaning toilets, thanks all the same.”

He chuckled, and she couldn't resist a giggle. He seemed so friendly, so real. She had a hard time imagining how Tam could be involved in the over-the-top partying. Plus, he was hot. As in, really, really hot with broad shoulders filling out the button-down shirt, and a narrow waist hugged by low-slung jeans…