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Authors: Dorothy Howell

BOOK: Clutches and Curses
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“He sounds like a real jackass,” I said.
She huffed a short laugh. “Like you wouldn't believe.”
“I'd believe,” I assured her. “I work retail.”
She glanced at the registration desk, then whispered, “Come on.”
I followed her through the swinging door to the kitchen. It wasn't a big, full-service kitchen like most hotels have, just the basics, since the Culver Inn had no dining room. The remains of the breakfast buffet had been packed up in coolers and bins, ready to be carried out.
She dug out a muffin. I wolfed it down.
“So what are you doing in Henderson?” she asked.
“The department store chain I work for is opening a new store here,” I said, nibbling crumbs off the paper.
“Yeah? Which one?”
I don't usually tell people where I work. Not that I'm ashamed of it, but—well, okay, maybe I'm ashamed of it.
“Holt's,” I said.
She handed me a carton of orange juice from the cooler. “There're some nice things in Holt's. But the clothes, jeez, they're . . . awful.”
Immediately I knew this girl wouldn't simply be one of those people I talk to because their life is so crappy it made mine look better. And we wouldn't be just friends, but BFs
forever
.
“I'm Haley,” I said, and put out my hand.
She put another muffin in it and said, “I'm Maya.”
I peeled off the paper. “Oh my God. These things are delicious.”
“I made them myself,” Maya said.
I chugged the juice. “You made them? Yourself? Like from a mix or something.”
“It's my own recipe,” she said and smiled proudly. “I'm a culinary major at UNLV. I want to start my own bakery as soon as I graduate. One more semester and I'm done.”
I gulped down the last of the muffin. She was going to the university? Actually attending classes? Graduation was in sight? And she already knew what she wanted to do?
I hate my life.
“Of course, first I have to get the money for my fall semester classes,” she said. “I'll manage—one muffin at a time.”
Maya wrapped another muffin and a banana in a couple of paper napkins and gave them to me.
“You may as well take them,” she said. “The motel pays me a flat fee for catering breakfast, no matter what gets eaten—or what I bring.”
“Thanks,” I said, slipping the food into my purse.
“I've got to go,” Maya said, closing up the cooler. “Guess I'll see you tomorrow for breakfast?”
“I'm supposed to have a room but the desk clerk says nothing is available. She's checking with the manager now,” I said.
“Bradley,” Maya grumbled. “He's the manager. The guy's a complete jerk. Come on.”
I grabbed another muffin out of the bin—just so Maya wouldn't think I didn't like them, of course—and followed.
The lobby was deserted. Amber stood at the registration desk clicking away at the computer keyboard when we walked up. Her wax smile morphed into something friendlier at the sight of Maya.
“Haley really needs a room,” Maya said.
Amber threw me a quick glance. “I know. But there's nothing available.”
Maya leaned in a little. “You and I both know there's a room available.”
Amber squirmed. “I tried to contact Bradley, but I couldn't reach him. And you know I don't dare—”
“Look, Amber,” Maya said. “You're in charge here. Just give her a room.”
Amber cringed. “You know how he is.”
Even
I
knew how Bradley was, and I hadn't even met him.
“Amber, you're running the desk—so run it,” Maya insisted.
She fidgeted for a moment, then finally squared her shoulders and said, “Well, okay.”
All I could think was thank God Maya and I had bonded over my handbag. Otherwise, I'd be out on the street.
“I need to see some I.D.,” Amber said, “and a credit card, in case of damage.”
I handed them over. Back at the keyboard again, Amber ran a plastic room key card through the reader.
“Room three-thirty-four. There are only four rooms in that wing. You'll be the only one there,” she said.
I started to get a weird feeling.
“Something happened up there and we're not supposed to book those rooms,” Amber said.
My weird feeling got weirder.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I'm making an exception for you,” Amber said, holding up the key card. “Do you want the room, or not?”
“Yeah, of course I want the room,” I said, and managed a weak little laugh. “I mean, it's not like somebody got murdered up there or anything. Right?”
“Enjoy your stay.” Amber slapped the key card, my driver's license, and my credit card into my hand and walked away.
Oh, crap.
C
HAPTER
5
I
wheeled my suitcase out of the elevator on the third floor and headed left toward room 334, my new home away from home. The carpet and wallpaper screamed '70s, just like the lobby.
Honestly, I didn't get it. This whole section of Henderson hadn't been developed back in the day, so just why the decorator had wanted to incite motel guests to throw on some bell-bottoms and dance the bump to
Brick House,
I didn't know. My best guess was that the Culver Inn management had gotten the furnishings from some other bankrupt motel chain at a discount—a whopping discount, obviously.
At the end of the long hallway, I turned left again. Just as Amber had said, only four rooms were in this wing of the motel. I found mine on the left at the end of the hall.
From the look of things, this area hadn't gotten any attention from the housekeeping crew in a while. The place was dusty. Something smelled weird.
Jeez, I hoped that wasn't the scent of toxic mold growing under the carpet.
I stopped outside my door and glanced around. One room next to mine, two across the hall. An exit sign above the door at the end of the corridor flickered in the dim light. It was deadly silent up here.
Maybe a week at the spa with my mom wouldn't have been so bad.
I pushed that thought away, hurried inside my room, threw the dead bolt, slid the security chain, and switched on all the lights.
The room boasted amenities not found in the upscale hotels in Vegas: end tables with lamps bolted to them, pictures screwed into the walls, the TV remote tethered to the bed frame. The bathroom was small, the closet smaller. Orange shag carpet, a silver and brown bedspread, and avocado green drapes completed the bad-acid-trip look the decorator seemed to be going for.
Actually, a week at the spa with Mom might have been okay.
I pulled back the drapes, sending a flurry of dust motes into the air, and looked outside. This particular room wasn't raking in an upcharge for its incredible view.
The Culver Inn was U-shaped, and my room was on one side of the U. Below was a swimming pool, now drained; leaves and mud lay in the bottom. A dozen ratty umbrella tables surrounded by broken chairs completed the patio-from-hell effect.
A couple of large boulders, a half-dozen tall palm trees, and a wrought-iron fence enclosed the grounds and separated it from the motel's service area. There was a small building that I guessed held the pool and maintenance equipment, and some Dumpsters.
Beyond that, the desert stretched for a few miles to a housing tract just visible on the horizon. In between lay piles of rock and construction debris. Seemed the construction companies didn't bother to haul away their leftover crap, just dumped it in an open spot in the desert.
Spa week with Mom flashed in my mind.
I looked down at the swimming pool again.
I thought about Mom and the beauty queens.
Yeah, I'd rather be here.
I took a quick shower, pulled on my pajamas, and yanked back the bedspread. Nothing crawled out. I crawled in.
 
A really annoying buzzing sound woke me. I rolled over and realized the alarm clock was going off—at two in the afternoon. Not unusual for Vegas. The alarm had probably been set the last time the room was used, back during the Bush administration, I guessed.
Immediately, a hunger pang hit me. I threw on jeans and a T-shirt, stuffed my laptop into an awesome Betsey Johnson tote, and left the room.
Despite the fact that my room was crappier than crap, I was grateful for it. I intended to thank Amber for putting herself out there so I could use it, but when I got to the lobby, she wasn't on duty. Another woman in the hideous Culver Inn uniform stood behind the registration desk. I got my car from the parking lot and hit the road.
Driving was the ideal time to check phone messages, I'd found. Of course, it could be against the law to use your cell phone while driving in Nevada; I didn't know. I was sure some law-abiding citizen would scream at me from the next lane, or offer a helpful hand gesture, if it was.
I expected my voicemail box to be loaded with calls from Ty. It wasn't. The only message was from Marcie, asking me to call her right away. I pulled to a stop at a red light on St. Rose Parkway and punched in Marcie's number. She picked up immediately.
“Are you sitting down?” she asked.
No how-are-you, no what's-up, no oh-my-God-you're-not-going-to-believe-what-happened. This must be big.
“I just picked up your mail, like you asked,” Marcie said. “And you got . . . something.”
My spirits lifted. Wow, this must be great. Marcie wouldn't have called otherwise. I'd probably gotten a refund or rebate on something. Maybe some rich relative had died—which would be tragic, of course—and left me a wad of money. I could use it. My checking account was on life support at the moment.
“It's from the IRS,” Marcie said.
My breath caught. A wave of fear washed over me. Sort of like when you show up at a department store wanting to buy the latest handbag but don't see any in the display cases.
“Would that be the International Refund Service?” I asked.
Yeah, okay, I didn't know if there was such a thing, but there could have been. I mean, I'd been in Europe a few weeks ago, shopping diligently, doing all I could to maintain the international balance of trade. I'd maxed out a significant number of credit cards converting U.S. dollars to pounds and euros and God knows what else. And who knew how that conversion stuff worked, anyway. Maybe they'd realized they'd made a mistake. Maybe they were sending me a massive refund.
Or maybe I'd really been cursed.
“It's from the Internal Revenue Service,” Marcie told me.
Crap.
“Want me to open it for you?” she asked.
“No.”
“Come on, Haley, you have to face this.”
Marcie was right—she's almost always right about things.
I hate it when other people are right.
“You did file your taxes, didn't you?” Marcie asked.
I did a quick calculation. I'd filed my taxes electronically on April 14, a full thirty minutes before the deadline—beating my own personal best—and had already received my six hundred dollar refund. That was about six weeks ago. Would the IRS contact me now, after they'd sent me the refund?
The traffic light changed and I drove forward with the line of cars.
“I'm opening it,” Marcie said. A few seconds passed, then she said, “Did you get a refund this year?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Well, they want it back,” Marcie told me. “Plus penalties and interest. Plus another two grand. Call it three thousand.”
“What?”
I shot across two lanes of traffic. Horns blew. Tires screeched—and I don't think they were mine.
Then, like a desert oasis, I spotted a Starbucks.
“I'll call you back,” I told Marcie, and snapped my phone closed.
I cut off an SUV and whipped into the parking lot, grabbed my laptop, and rushed inside Starbucks.
Chocolate had a calming effect on people, didn't it? I think I read that somewhere. I intended to put that little bit of info to the test—right now.
The guy behind the counter prepared my grandé mocha frappuccino with whipped cream and extra chocolate syrup—no way would anything smaller get me through a crisis of this magnitude—and I found a seat at a table in the corner.
Oh my God. How could I owe the IRS three thousand dollars? And, better yet, how could I possibly
pay
the IRS three thousand dollars?
I sucked down half of my mocha frappuccino, then forced myself to slow down. While chocolate and caffeine had definitely helped solve a number of problems in the past, I couldn't afford brain freeze at a time like this.
I opened my laptop and logged onto my bank account. I needed facts. Then I could proceed calmly and quickly to a solution.
I checked the balance of my checking account and nearly launched myself out of my chair. Only a couple hundred bucks. I checked my savings account. Jeez, did that “minus” symbol mean I'd overdrawn it? How had that happened?
Maybe I should take an accounting class next semester.
Anyway, no time to worry about that now. I checked the balances on my credit cards and found I had some—not a lot—of available credit on all of them.
I dug a pen and paper from my tote and made a quick list of upcoming expenses and things I needed to buy. I had to get the tire that had blown last night repaired. The fender that had been scraped in the Holt's parking lot had to be fixed, too. There was that traffic ticket I'd gotten. It would be expensive, plus I might have to go to traffic school. I needed to eat while I was here, so I'd have to have money for that, too.
I looked at the calculations I'd made. Yikes! No way did I have enough money to cover everything.
A horrible vision flashed in my head. I was in Vegas, for God's sake. What about seeing a show, or hitting a great buffet? What about shopping?
An even more horrible thought bloomed in my brain: what if I found that Delicious handbag but didn't have enough money to buy it?
Oh my God. This was a crisis of staggering magnitude. Where was my best friend when I needed her?
I drained my frappuccino. I desperately needed another one. But should I spend the money for it?
Immediately, I disregarded the notion. I had a massive problem to solve involving not only basic survival and high finance, but the acquisition of the season's hottest handbag. This was no time to worry about a couple of bucks.
I got another frappuccino and sat down again. By the time I was half finished with it, I felt calmer. Not because I'd come to any brilliant conclusions or flashed on a fantastic solution of what to do. I just decided to forget the whole thing for a while and move on to something else.
Like the murder I was suspected of.
Really, what else could I do?
I Googled my way to my high school's Web site. I didn't even know they had one, but there it was. Good ol' Monroe High, private school to the rich and affluent—and those who could convincingly fake it.
Seeing the photo of the school with its ivy-covered walls, swaying palms, and manicured lawns reminded me of how glad I was to be done with all of that. I'd almost rather face the Iraqi secret police than go back to high school.
My older brother and younger sister and I had all attended Monroe. It was near our house, so most of the students were from our neighborhood.
I didn't know exactly how our family ended up living in the upscale area. Mom's grandmother left the house to her, along with a trust fund. Nobody seemed to know—or was willing to tell—what my great-grandmother had done to get all that money in the first place.
Scholarship kids from other areas of L.A. attended Monroe, too, lest our school might have been considered stuck up and snooty, which, of course, it was. With tuition and fees topping fifteen grand per academic year, what else could you expect?
Attending Monroe High was a lot like surviving in the business world. Networking, who you knew, and who you could meet were important. At private schools, though, most of this was used for evil.
Making connections was often about pretending to be friends with someone just because their family had access to something you wanted—a sky box at Dodger Stadium, an “in” with the casting director at Dreamworks. Social ranking among students was big, based on wearing the latest designer accessories—whether or not they complemented our uniforms. If a student didn't come from a wealthy family, they faked it. “Smart” kids were befriended by “cool” kids just for help with grades.
Not that I had ever done any of these things, of course.
But since we were literally locked behind a gate during school hours, I learned to survive. And, of course, thrive.
That's how I roll.
I scrolled through the Monroe High Web site, seeing pictures of the computer lab, art studio, theater, TV studio, gymnasium, and classrooms, and remembered Courtney Collins.
I hadn't really thought about Courtney since high school. She was one of those girls I was glad to never see again after graduation. Our only connection was some classes we'd had together.
Plus, there was that whole thing with Robbie Freedman.
Courtney had not been my best friend—not even my sort-of friend. Honestly, I'd never really liked her. She didn't seem to know that, though, which was really irritating because she always talked to me and sat next to me in class.
Everything about Courtney annoyed me. First of all, she was really nice. I mean
really
nice. Like, she didn't have enough sense to see what was going on around her and know she should be upset, or mad, or something.

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