Carol Higgins Clark Boxed Set - Volume 1: This eBook collection contains Zapped, Cursed, and Wrecked. (9 page)

J
ack Reilly and Keith Waters were standing in the front room of Zora’s Menagerie, the brand new SoHo gallery that had been burglarized. Zora’s was scheduled to have its opening reception the following Saturday, but the first show was up and had already created a buzz. Specializing in delicate quirky glass sculptures made by award-winning artists from all over the world, the magnificent glass slipper on display in the front window had caught the eye and imagination of many passersby. Now, like Cinderella, the slipper had disappeared into the night, along with more than twenty other glass sculptures. The remains of two of the works of art now covered the floor, smashed to smithereens. Only a handful of sculptures were left untouched.

One of the owners of the gallery, Leon Peters, a man in his sixties with wet, white hair and flushed cheeks was having a meltdown. He couldn’t stop waving his arms as he ranted about the break-in and the gorgeous exhibit that had been destroyed. Having run straight from the pool in his apartment building several blocks away with his wife, Zora, he was wearing a Hawaiian bathing suit, matching shirt, and sandals.

“Our treasures!” he cried. “Zora and I opened this gallery to realize our dream. We both love the play
The Glass Menagerie
—we saw it on our first date thirty-five years ago. We both love glass sculptures. After I retired, it finally dawned on us that we should share our love of glass with others. We felt it was our destiny to bring people together in a gallery that was spiritual and aesthetic. People who are sensitive to glass! We worked years to make this happen!”

“I’m so sorry,” Jack said.

“Did you know that the Bible stated that glass was more precious than gold?” Leon asked, still motioning wildly.

“No,” Jack answered sympathetically. But I guess the thieves must know, he thought.

“I feel as if a piece of my soul is gone. Zora’s too! Some thug is probably damaging those sculptures as we speak. Some no good thug who never heard of bubble wrap! Those pieces have to be treated delicately. Every single one of them is worth tens of thousands of dollars. We traveled the world over to collect them. Each piece had its own wonderful story!”

“I assure you, we’ll do everything we can to apprehend whoever did this, Mr. Peters,” Jack said, trying to calm the distraught man.

“Why couldn’t the thieves have stuck to sneaker stores? I hear that’s where the big break-ins were during the last blackout.” Peters turned at the sound of his wife’s voice. She’d been in the back office. “Zora, darling, come here. Be careful of the broken glass.”

Zora, a plain, petite woman with a dark tan, was about the same age as her husband. It was obvious that she too had hurried out of a swimming pool. Her wet black hair was pulled back in a ponytail and bobby-pinned to the back of her head, and she was wearing a muumuu in the same tropical print as her husband’s trunks. “If I got my hands on whoever did this, I’d wring their necks,” she pronounced. “The world is full of selfish people. Selfish people who don’t know right from wrong.”

“I’m afraid you’re right,” Jack said quietly.

“We had so many plans,” she continued. “Glass is what you’re supposed to give as a present for fifteenth wedding anniversaries. Once a month, Leon and I were going to host a party for couples who were marking such a happy occasion.” She shook her head. “I suppose that’s going to have to wait until their sixteenth anniversary, now isn’t it?”

“Not if we can apprehend whoever did this,” Jack answered. “We have a great team of detectives—”

“All we know is that they broke through the backdoor and the alarm system was out because of this blackout!” Leon cried. “They didn’t leave any clues! I’d like to sue the power company!”

Calmly Jack said, “Why don’t you two go home and get some rest? I’ll have one of my men stand guard here until tomorrow when we can get the door replaced and when we hopefully have the power back on.”

“I’m not abandoning ship!” Leon cried.

“But, dear, we’re both wearing wet bathing suits,” Zora said practically.

“It’s boiling hot in here! They’ll keep us cool.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

A few moments later, Jack and Keith left the gallery and got into Jack’s car. They both sighed.

“This has been some night,” Jack said.

“It sure has.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“What?” Keith asked anxiously.

“You know Regan called twice about the crazy woman Kit was with,” he said, reaching into his glove compartment. He pulled out the plastic bag with the small stun gun. “Before we got home tonight, someone broke into our loft. Regan walked in on them but didn’t realize it until she went up on the roof when the blackout struck and they locked her out. They made their escape but accidentally left this behind.” He handed the bag to Keith. “I want to bring it to the office and get it traced.”

“Someone broke into your apartment? Are you kidding me?” Keith said as he stared at the weapon.

“I wish I were. Now Regan is out on the hunt with Kit for a wacky woman who brands the men she picks up in bars. And a Chip Jones is somewhere in this city, not knowing how badly his evening is going to end.” Jack started the car.

“Do you want to send detectives over to your apartment now to investigate the break-in?” Keith asked.

Jack shook his head. “That can wait. There’s too much else going on right now. Sometimes these wackos go over the edge. I’d like to help Regan locate this poor guy before he ends up in a dark alley.”

L
orraine and Clay were passing through the lobby of the Treetops Hotel when the hotel greeter, a man in his fifties with a smooth face and a blank expression, clad in an outfit that resembled that of a Buckingham Palace guard, stopped them.

“Miss Lily,” he said solicitously. “Are you enjoying your stay here at the Treetops?”

Lorraine flashed her Hollywood smile. “It’s marvelous. Couldn’t be better.”

The greeter nodded. “I’m so pleased. May I be of assistance to you in any way?”

“Could you get us a cab?”

He smiled. “Why on earth would you want to leave your home away from home, especially during the blackout? Why not stay here and enjoy a meal in our air-conditioned lounge? Our piano player just got here. He is taking requests.”

Lorraine wanted to scream but kept smiling. “We’re both actors. We want to feel the pulse of the city on a night like this. With any luck, one of these days we’ll be in a movie about a blackout. If we don’t go out now, what experience would we have to draw on?” She tilted her head flirtatiously.

Bowing slightly, the greeter replied, “Of course. And I do hope that, should you play such a role in the future, you mention that you were able to come back to the Treetops Hotel and relax in luxurious comfort after you completed your research.” He sounded as if he were reciting a line from a canned speech.

“I’ll make sure the Treetops Hotel is listed in the closing credits,” Lorraine laughed. “Now how about that cab?”

“At your service. Your wish is my command.”

Lorraine and Clay followed him out onto the sidewalk in front of the hotel. The only lights were from the headlights of the cars that were slowly passing by, none of them cabs. The greeter blew his whistle over and over, ever more frantically, but it was all in vain.

There were no cabs anywhere.

“Can you call us a car service?” Lorraine asked.

“I tried before for someone else. None of them are answering their phones.”

“Most luxury hotels have some sort of car that they use to transport guests around town,” Lorraine said. “Don’t you have one of those?”

The greeter looked personally wounded. “We weren’t expecting to open tonight. We have a limited staff,” he said defensively. “The employees of the Treetops Hotel are doing their best to ensure your comfort under these conditions.”

Lorraine reached in her purse and pulled out a ten dollar bill. “I know you are. We’ll walk. Don’t worry.”

The hurt look vanished as the greeter stuffed the bill in his pocket. “We look forward to welcoming you back to your home away from home.”

Not as much as I look forward to getting back, Lorraine thought. “Clay, let’s walk over to Fifth Avenue and see if we have any luck.”

“Your wish is my command,” Clay muttered as they started along Central Park South. The street was dark and fairly quiet. There weren’t many people out. On Fifth Avenue there wasn’t a cab to be had. They might as well have been standing out in a cow pasture.

“Let’s start walking,” Clay suggested.

Lorraine groaned. Within two blocks, her feet were aching again. She was wearing her five inch heels, the ones she’d put on in her hotel in England. It was hard to believe that that was less than twenty hours ago.

As they walked south, Clay kept his eye on the road, constantly signaling for a cab or any car that might stop and pick them up. It was hopeless and strange. Strange to be on Fifth Avenue in New York City in almost total darkness and realize there was no way to get a ride downtown. Normally there was always a gypsy cab or a car service driver who wanted to make a buck between jobs. But tonight people who usually took the subway, something Lorraine would never even consider, spent their money on cars.

Lorraine kept teetering along. “Let’s stop for a minute,” she whined. “I’m getting blisters.”

“Why are you wearing those shoes?”

“I told you. The airlines lost my luggage.”

“Those are hardly traveling shoes.”

“I have to look my best, especially when I’m traveling. You never know when you might meet a producer or director in the first class lounges or end up next to one of them on the plane.”

“I wouldn’t know. My seat is always in the back in the ultra-ultraeconomy section. Usually next to a screaming kid.”

Lorraine sighed. “Clay, I can’t walk all the way down to Tribeca like this. I just can’t.”

“Isn’t the thought of getting those letters back giving you strength?”

“I’m getting blisters!” Lorraine cried, stopping dead in her tracks and stomping her foot. But she’d stopped on a grate, and the heel of the shoe she stomped slipped between the metal pieces and got stuck. When she tried to pull her shoe out, the heel snapped off.

“Oh, no!” she cried. “These shoes were my favorite!”

“Your favorites are the ones that give you blisters?” Clay asked wryly.

“I guess so!” Lorraine kicked off her shoes, pulled the heel out of the grate, and stood barefoot on the sidewalk. Despite her disappointment, the feeling of her bare feet on the pavement was heavenly. “Mama Mia, that feels so much better. But I can’t walk barefoot, Clay. I might step on glass or a nail or something.”

“What do you propose we do?”

“I don’t know. Why did that stupid airline have to lose my luggage?”

“I wish I could answer that for you, Lorraine.”

“Can you carry me?”

“All the way to Tribeca? No way.”

“There’s a lot of money at stake.”

“Not enough to pay for chiropractors for the rest of my life. Listen, Lorraine, I live on Ninth Street. Let me run down there and get my bicycle. I’ll come back and get you as fast as possible.”

“You can’t leave me all by myself.” She looked around. “It’s dark and deserted.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I’m scared,” Lorraine whined. “I could get mugged.”

“Then how about if we go back to the hotel? It’s only about eight blocks. I think I can carry you that far. Your friend the greeter is dying to welcome you home. You can shoot the breeze with him until I pick you up on my bicycle.”

“Won’t that look weird?”

“Lorraine!”

“I’m sorry. Okay. Give me a piggyback ride.”

He turned his back to her, leaned down, and she jumped on board. Her legs wrapped around him, her arms around his neck, they started back up Fifth Avenue. “I’ll walk the last block,” she told him. “To be seen like this wouldn’t be good for my image.”

“Don’t worry,” he muttered. “I’ll gladly drop you when we get close.”

R
egan, Billy, Melanie, and Cal Hopkins, the head of security at the Gates Hotel, made the arduous journey up a dark, hot stairwell to Georgina’s room. By the time they reached the forty-second floor, they were all sweating.

“Kit’s lucky she had that bunionectomy,” Billy commented as he took a long slug of bottled water.

Cal had handed them each a bottle before they started the trek. “I don’t need anyone passing out on me,” he’d said. They followed him down the long hall. He stopped and trained the flashlight on the door of Georgina’s room and unlocked it with a master key. He pushed the door open. Slowly he started inside.

Regan’s first impression as she shone her flashlight around was that Georgina was not a neat freak. There were two queen-size beds, one of them covered with a jumble of clothes. A half-full suitcase was open and on the floor. A quick check of the bathroom revealed the basics most women bring on a trip. Cleansing cream, moisturizer, toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss, hair spray, makeup, etc.

“Nothing looks too unusual,” Regan commented. She took a quick look through the clothes on the bed. She found nothing hidden there or anywhere in the suitcase. A couple of stylish but wrinkled dresses were hanging in the closet. They still had the price tags on them. Maybe the fruits of her shoplifting, Regan thought. Three pairs of shoes were on the closet floor. A quick look through a leather portfolio on the desk revealed nothing but papers regarding the insurance convention. “Melanie, you’re the only one of us who knew her. Is there anything here that strikes you odd in any way?”

“No,” Melanie said with disappointment.

Regan opened the drawers of the dresser. The top two were empty. In the bottom drawer there was a pillow in a red pillowcase. “Does this belong to the hotel?” Regan asked Cal.

“No. A lot of people like to travel with their own pillows. I know my wife does. She wants a flat pillow and can’t stand hotel pillows that are big and fluffy or hard as a rock. Trouble is, she sometimes forgets to bring it home. Our guests do the same. You wouldn’t believe the stuff people leave behind!” He whistled. “It’d curl your toes.”

“I’d like to talk to you sometime,” Billy said. “I’m a stand-up comedian and I’m always looking for material.”

“Really? Well, stop by one of these days. I’ll show you our lost and found department. If you can’t find a few jokes from what piles up in there, then you should give up on comedy.”

“Thanks,” Billy muttered. “I accept your challenge.”

Something made Regan pull the pillow out of the drawer. The red pillowcase looked worn out. She walked over to one of the beds and slid the pillow out of its case. The zipper of the stained shabby pillow was partially separated from the pillow itself.

“I wonder why she doesn’t get a new one,” Melanie commented. “I know she makes good money. I mean, she makes more than I do and my pillow doesn’t look like that.”

Regan unzipped the rest of the zipper and reached inside. Her fingers touched on what felt like small pieces of thick paper. She reached and pulled them out. “Photographs,” she murmured. Quickly Regan placed six photos next to each other on the bed. As she and Cal shone their flashlights over the images, they all gasped.

Five photographs were of different men’s arms with angry red welts that spelled out
I AM A SNAKE
with varying degrees of clarity.

“Her friend wasn’t kidding!” Melanie said. “Oh, my God! She is so cruel!” Unconsciously, she rubbed her arms. “Regan, you have to find that guy tonight.”

“I intend to do my best. Now what about this?” The sixth picture was of a young girl of about ten, standing in front of a redbrick restaurant with a woman who appeared to be in her sixties. There was a neon sign in the window that was hard to decipher. “I wonder if this is Georgina with her grandmother.”

“Who else’s picture would she keep in her pillowcase?” Melanie asked as she stared at the photo. “She told me she was so close to her grandmother. The girl looks like it could be Georgina…”

Cal took the picture in his hands and studied it. “Wait a minute! I recognize that place and that woman!”

“You do?” Regan asked, astonished.

“It was a little hole-in-the-wall called Nunzio’s on the Upper East Side. I used to go there more than twenty years ago with my friends. It was open until four in the morning and was always jammed. This lady was the bartender! She was one tough broad but she made the best margaritas in town!”

“Are you sure?” Regan asked.

“Yes! This woman had a picture of her granddaughter behind the bar.” Cal smiled. “She bossed everybody around. Especially when she saw a guy who wasn’t treating a girl right. She threw more people out of that joint.” He paused. “She used to say they should be boiled in oil…We all got a big kick out of her.”

They were all silent for a moment. “She made margaritas?” Regan asked.

“Yes.”

“Kit said Georgina drank a margarita tonight. You say the bar isn’t there anymore?”

“No. The woman died in a terrible car accident years ago when she was on vacation. The owner eventually sold the place. I was so shocked when I heard she had died. It seemed like she was going to outlive us all.”

“So that’s what happened to her,” Melanie said softly. “Georgina never mentioned how she died.”

Regan sighed. “Cal, where on the Upper East Side was the bar?”

“Up in the Eighties off of Second Avenue.”

“Could you get me the exact address?”

“I’ll find out for you right away.”

Regan glanced again at the pictures of the hideously scarred arms. “We’ve got to find Georgina. If her grandmother worked on the Upper East Side, she might have gone back up there tonight. Let’s get going. I’ll call the police in Atlanta from the car.”

“I’m coming with you,” Melanie cried. “I don’t care what Dexter says. He was too much of a wimp to come up here with us. If I lose my job, so be it. Those pictures are awful! I want to help you find Georgina before she brands anyone else. Kit knows what she looks like but she’s on crutches. I can run in and out of bars and spot her easier than you can from just a picture. Especially since the bars are so dark tonight.”

Regan looked at the young girl with affection. She remembered the way she felt when she was Melanie’s age and started to work on cases, fueled by a desire for justice. “It’s fine with me, Melanie. But I’d hate for you to get fired.”

Melanie threw her arms in the air. “If I can’t risk my job at this age doing what I think is the right thing, then when can I? Besides, how would it look for my company if after hiring a nutcase like Georgina, they fire me for wanting to help find her?”

“Good point, Melanie. Now let’s get going.”