The Damsel in This Dress (11 page)

If she hadn’t already.

The man sitting across from Betsy looked around the table, grinned and said, “Confucius say, ‘
Man who goes to bed with sex on his mind wake up with solution in hand
.’ ”

Before anybody could take a breath, Soldier counter-Confuciused. “Confucius say, ‘
Man who walk through airport turnstile sideways going to Bangkok
.’ ”

Smiling and laughing, he turned to Betsy. “You got anymore in that head of yours, or can we get on with seeing your fortune cookie now?”

Betsy held the cookie in her hands but didn’t unwrap it. Nibbling on her lower lip she said, “Confucius say . . .”

Everyone smiled and leaned forward to catch her words. Delightful anticipation showed on their faces.

“Confucius say, ‘
Man with hand in pocket feeling cocky all day
.’ ” She felt the heat rising on her cheeks and covered her mouth with her fingertips and giggled.

Through the gales of laughter, Soldier said, “Okay, Miss Smarty Pants, you win.”

Betsy smiled into his eyes, and when he smiled back, she felt another one of those tugs. Oh dear. He was going to break her heart. And she was just in love enough to let him.

“What’s your cookie say, Betsy? Inquiring minds want to know.”

She unwrapped it and cracked it open with her fingers. Unfolding the paper, she read the words, then dropped the broken cookie and paper onto the table as though they’d burned her hands. Abruptly, she shoved herself back and stood, moving as far away as she could before her back slammed up against the ballroom wall.

Soldier looked down at the small piece of paper that had evidently caused her such distress. With one of his chopsticks, he turned it over.

The message was hand printed in red ink. It was simple and to the point.

Confucius say, “Woman who betrays, dies slow and painful death.”

“I
don’t need to go to the hospital. I’m just fine.” With a thermometer jutting out of her mouth like the stick on a sucker, Betsy looked flushed and nervous, which only added to Soldier’s worries.

“Sure, you’re fine now,” he argued. “But what if there was something in the cookie, or in the food?” He glanced at the paramedic about to take her blood pressure. The young man said nothing, but wrapped her upper arm with the sleeve and began punching on the bulb.

Betsy glared up at Soldier and spoke through the side of her mouth. “I didn’t eat the cookie. And the food was from the buffet. The same stuff everybody else had.” She slipped a loose curl behind her ear. “Besides, you wouldn’t even know what to check for. I don’t have any symptoms. Wouldn’t I have symptoms?” She looked to the paramedic as if for support in her cause.

He smiled. “Maybe, ma’am. Maybe not. You ought to listen to your husband.”

She gasped and the thermometer fell out of her mouth and into the paramedic’s quick hands. He looked at it. “Normal,” he said.

“He’s
not
my—”

“Blood pressure’s a little elevated, but that could be due to the excitement. Pulse is up, too. But everything else checks out okay.”

As the paramedic packed up his bags, Soldier thanked him and shifted his attention to Betsy’s face. She seemed all right. Should he make her go to the hospital or not? True, she exhibited no symptoms except stress, but she was bound and determined to not make a big deal of this.

The lab guys had arrived and were checking for latents, taking food samples, doing whatever they could to accumulate even the smallest bit of evidence from the crime scene. Not that it really was a crime scene exactly, which made things that much more complicated.

Soldier had interviewed the other six people at the table. Nobody had seen who’d placed the cookie on the table. And none of them had received odd fortunes in their cookies. No, they hadn’t seen anybody suspicious lingering or lurking or doing anything strange.

He smacked his note pad closed. Over the last hour, officers had gone from table to table asking if anyone had seen anything that might help them track this guy. No one had.

Soldier looked down at Betsy. She sat quietly, her hands clasped tightly in front of her on the white tablecloth. Her eyes were downcast, her shoulders slumped. He wanted nothing more than to take her into his arms, reassure her, protect her.

His heart gave that quick little jump he was getting used to feeling every time he looked at her. Or thought about her. Or heard mention of her name. How in the hell had she gotten to him so fast?

In confused frustration, he turned his attention to the matter at hand.

Whomever had slipped the cookie onto the table had vanished or blended into the crowd, which was even more worrisome. The cookie in question was being sent to the lab for analysis, and he hoped to hell it would show something.

It had been pretty easy to do. All it had taken was a pair of tweezers to pull the original fortune out of a cookie and replace it with the fake, then reseal the cellophane wrapper with a daub of glue. With the dining room a mass of chatting, hungry people, it would have been simple to walk by the table unnoticed and set the cookie where Betsy had left her notebook.

The ploy had worked, and now Betsy was a mass of nerves. She was being as brave as anybody could expect under the circumstances, but it bothered Soldier to see her tormented by this faceless, nameless bastard. It bothered him a lot.

He felt helpless. Watching her being victimized by a situation over which she had no control brought back all the insecurities he had felt after Marc’s death.

Will life never be the same as it was? Will everything I see, everything I do, every move I make from now on remind me of Marc’s murder? Will the guilt, remorse, frustration, gnaw at my guts fucking forever?

As Soldier blew out a harsh breath, Detective Atherton of the SPD approached him. “Aren’t you teaching a seminar in a half hour?”

Soldier nodded, shoving his introspections aside for the moment. Atherton was a nice guy and a good cop, a bit on the arrogant side, though.

“Yeah,” Soldier replied, “but what with all this—”

“Go on ahead,” Atherton interjected with a sniff. “I can take it from here. I’ll get the lab to move on the samples. If we find anything, I’ll give you a call.”

After the men parted, Soldier returned to Betsy. “I’ve got my class in a few minutes,” he reminded her, “and you, dear lady, are going to be teacher’s pet.”

She stood and faced him. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather go back to my room—”

“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I want you near me so I can check you for symptoms. The lab’s going to call when they get the report on your blood draw. If anything shows up, I want to be able to get you to the hospital ASAP.”

“If . . . if he’d put something into my food, wouldn’t I be feeling some symptoms by now? I mean, I feel okay.”

Soldier slipped his arm around her waist as she rose from the table. “Depends,” he said softly. Barely giving it a thought, he curled his knuckles under her chin to raise her face to his. The look in her eyes was one of complete trust. He could tell her she’d just swallowed a lethal dose of strychnine but she would be okay, and she’d believe him.

He didn’t deserve that kind of trust, but, godammit, it felt good.

Soldier smiled. “Don’t worry. It’s highly unlikely you’ve ingested anything. Most poisons taste terrible, and you didn’t make any remarks about taste during dinner. It’s been ninety minutes, and you’re not convulsing or sweating. Most anything toxic would have begun to show up by now. But I’m going to watch you while Atherton rushes the tests through. Then we’ll know for sure, and we can rest easy.”

She looked up into his eyes and smiled. “Okay. Um, before your class starts, though, I need to use the rest room.”

“Sure,” he said. “They’re just down the hall.”

The carpeting in the hallway was thick, their footsteps muted as Betsy walked beside Soldier. At the door of the women’s room, he knocked loudly. “Police,” he said. “Anybody in there?”

Betsy’s ears felt oddly sensitive, Soldier’s pounding reverberating through her brain like a gong. She shook her head to clear it, and tightened her grip on his forearm as a slight wave of dizziness made her head spin a bit.

She had to admit her nerves were just about shot. As soon as Soldier’s class was over, she was going to hit the hay and not get up until noon tomorrow.

When his call was met by silence, he pushed the door open and glanced around. Over his shoulder, Betsy could see there were only five stalls, all unoccupied.

“Okay,” he said. “Go on in. I’ll be right next door. If anybody comes in and tries anything, scream bloody murder and I’ll be there in a flash, uh, so to speak.”

Betsy giggled at the thought of Soldier’s jeans in disarray as he tried to button up while grabbing for his gun. The more she thought about it, the more she giggled. Then she giggled some more.

“It wasn’t that funny,” he remarked dryly as he turned and entered the men’s room.

Betsy sauntered into the bathroom and chose a stall. She closed and locked the door. Gosh, the stalls were so narrow. She suddenly felt very cramped, as though she’d just been locked inside a stand-up casket.

Hurrying to finish, she flushed the toilet then unlocked the stall door. Rushing forward, she gasped for air, the intense feeling of claustrophobia unnerving her, tilting her senses in abstract directions.

“Betsy Tremaine, isn’t it?”

Her heart lurched as she turned to focus on the woman who had quietly entered the facilities. Her face was familiar, yet it was strangely distorted. The look in the woman’s eyes was odd, almost challenging, definitely mocking.

“Oh, you’re Kristee, aren’t you? Kristee Spangler?” Betsy managed. Her mouth had gone dry and her lips seemed too thick to form words.

Kristee turned toward the line of sinks and proceeded to wash her hands. Betsy stared at her back, wondering why she felt so uncomfortable being alone in the bathroom with this woman. Should she scream bloody murder as instructed? Was Kristee going to assault her?

When Kristee reached for a paper towel, Betsy just about jumped out of her skin. She giggled at her own foolishness, but when she couldn’t stop giggling, she realized she was both nervous and scared.

Kristee bent to pick up her briefcase. When she stood, she faced Betsy with a wry smile on her face. Blinking rapidly, Betsy tried to focus on the woman, but things kept moving. Kristee’s eyes sort of slid around her face, and the wall behind her changed from a delicate almond color to bright orange, then back again.

“I h-have to leave,” Betsy managed to say. She knew she should wash her hands, but if she didn’t get past Kristee Spangler and out of the room immediately, she’d begin screaming.

As Betsy started to move, Kristee gave her a big smile. “Well, you go on now,” she said. Her voice was soft, but held an undertone of menace that Betsy couldn’t comprehend, yet couldn’t ignore. “Oh, and by the way,” she whispered, “have a nice . . . trip.”

Betsy watched as Kristee turned on her heel and left the washroom. The door swung closed, creating a breeze that hurt her ears.

Turning toward the sinks, she slowly looked at her own image in the mirror, and let out a bloodcurdling scream.

Soldier had just exited the men’s room when he saw a woman turn the far corner at the end of the hall. He only caught a glimpse of her back as she quickly left the corridor, either heading for her room or for the elevators.

From inside the women’s room, Betsy began to scream hysterically.

“Shit!” he bit out as he plunged through the door, his hand thrust inside his jacket, his fingers feeling for the butt of his revolver.

She stood alone in the bathroom, staring in the mirror, screaming her head off.

“Betsy!” he yelled. He grabbed her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Betsy, calm down! What happened?”

She stopped screaming and looked up at him, huge tears sliding down her flushed cheeks. Flinging her arms around his neck, she pressed her body as close to his as she could get. He felt her breasts, her belly, her hips, and more, pressing snugly against him, and had to stifle a very serious groan.

Circling her waist with his arms, he pulled her closer and bent to her ear. “Shh, honey. It’s okay. You’re all right. There’s nobody here.”

She calmed a little, then shuddered. “I’m sorry. I . . . I overreacted. It’s just that, well, she s-scared me—”

He pushed her to an arm’s length. “Who scared you?”

“Um, that Kristee Spangler woman. She came in here and washed her hands!”

“Okay. She washed her hands. Like, what, aggressively or something? Did she splash you with water?”

“No.”

“She do anything else?”

“No.”

“Did she talk to you?”

“Yes. But that wasn’t it. She was acting very strangely. Her eyes . . . they—they kept changing color. I think.”

There was silence between them as Soldier weighed this information. “You’ve been under a lot of stress. Was that what made you scream? That her eyes changed color?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head violently. “It was wh-when I looked into the mirror.” She peeked over his shoulder to the large mirror behind him. Rising up on her toes, she pressed her soft mouth against his ear. Her breath was warm and little chills zipped down his spine.

“What did you see in the mirror that scared you, Betsy?”

She paused for a moment and seemed to gather her courage. Finally, “M-My face,” she whispered. “It was m-melting.”

“That’s it,” he snapped. “I’m taking you to the hospital. I’ll cancel my class—”

“No!” Betsy insisted. “I’ve been waiting for this class, and so have many others. Don’t you dare cancel. I’ll be just fine.” She blinked a few times then rubbed her eyes with her knuckles. “You’re right, though. I am tired.”

When she lifted her face to him, he thought she did look especially weary. Her lids were half closed and her cheeks were flushed.

“Your class is only an hour long,” she urged, rubbing her nose with her index finger. “As soon as it’s over, you can take me up to bed.”

He
wished.

Nodding, he slipped his arm through hers and they headed down the hall to the Glacier Room. The chairs were all filled with happy, chatting people, and Soldier was relieved to see that Kristee Spangler was not one of them. He didn’t know what it was, but something had bothered him about her from the very beginning, and he couldn’t help but wonder if her presence at their table and her sudden appearance in the women’s room was a carefully constructed coincidence.

He would add her name to the list and send it off to Taylor tonight.

As he handed Betsy into the chair nearest the podium, she began giggling again.

“Something funny?” he asked.

She shook her head so enthusiastically, he thought she was going to fall off her chair. “Are you
sure
you’re all right?”