Authors: Kailin Gow

The Blue Room Vol. 5 (6 page)

BOOK: The Blue Room Vol. 5

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Chapter 10

I can't
believe what I'm seeing. I can't believe anything is real. The past twenty-four
hours have been a whirlwind.

Rita
is dead. Rita is not really my best friend. Rita was a PI, sent by my father, a
Tannenbaum. The whole time I've been infiltrating the Blue Room, I've been
thinking that I'm doing it for Rita's sake: to find out what's happened to her.
But now I realize that the truth is far more insidious than that. Rita was only
ever at the Blue Room at all because of me. And so it's my fault she's dead.

I
don't even know what to feel. Part of me is devastated: mourning my best
friend. Part of me just wants to give up now, to curl up and die right here on
the bank floor. The girl I loved more than anybody else in the world is gone
for good. I've spent so much time and effort trying to track or down: and now I
know I'm too late. If I'd only found her sooner – only a couple of days sooner
– everything could be different. I could have saved her. I could at least have
said goodbye.

But
what would she have said, then? Would she have lied to me?

Because
along with my pain there is another emotion coursing through my veins. Anger.
Rage. That Rita lied to me. For years, my best friend, my soul sister, was
essentially living a fantasy with me. She was pretending, the way I pretend
with my clients, when really she was taking a paycheck to be my bosom buddy.
Sure, she said in the letter that she came to truly love me, but can I even
believe her anymore? Can I even believe anything? I've given up my whole life,
my independence, my dignity, to get justice for a woman who never needed it.

How
could Rita lie to me like that? I trusted her.
I think of the nights we
spent together, sitting and talking until dawn in our pajamas, trading stories
and secrets nobody else knew about. Those nights I thought I knew her down to
her core. Those nights I thought I knew her soul. But now I see how wrong I
was. Now I see that the intimacies we shared were no different from those I
share with Xander or with Terrence: a role that two people play when one person
wants something from the other, when money changes hands. My best friend was a
prostitute, I knew that already. But what I didn't expect was that I was one of
her johns.

I'm
so angry with her I want to kill her. Then I remember that she's already dead.
Then I think I'd do anything, anything at all, to have her back with me again.
I'd give my life for hers. Even now. Even in my fury, I mourn her. As long as I
didn't know where she was, I had hope: hope that we would find one another,
hope that one day we would at last be together again. But now all that hope is
gone: and with it my last shred of innocence.

Fuck
them all, I think. The Blues. The Tannenbaums. They can all rot.

All
I want is revenge.

I
want to leave the Blue Room altogether. But now that I know my own family is
connected with the Blue Room, making that decision is harder still. Do I cut
and run, the way my mother did twenty years ago, assuming a new name, a new
life? Do I run and hide from the Blues, the Tannenbaums, this whole world of
the global elite that seems to exist purely to destroy those who stand in their
way?

But
then I think of my mother: lying there on the floor among the disheveled
remnants of her life. I think of her among the broken glass, the overturned
furniture, terrified. I think of her spending twenty or more years terrified
because the mother of the man she loved threatened to kill her – and her child
– for daring to bear a child that the family didn't want.

Of
course a woman like that would be in league with Roni Taylor.

It's
what I'd always expected of people like them. Never trust the rich. Never trust
anybody.

Don't
trust the Blues.
That's what the letter said. Well, I won't make that
mistake again. I won't trust Xander. I won't trust Terrence. After all, they're
financially beholden to the people who want me dead. For all I know, one of
them could be behind Rita's death.

One
of them could be trying to kill me, too.

Wave
after wave of realization crests over me. I feel so tired, sick, overwhelmed.
All I want to do is lie down. But I have to get back to the Blue Room. I have
to get back to my life so I can figure out what to do next.

I
take Rita's gun. I finger it slowly, running my hand over the cold metal. It
feels so good in my hands. Heavy. Strong. Powerful. Right now, this gun is the
only means I have to keep myself safe.

And
there are so many dangers out there.

Mr.
X. – but who could it be? Could it be Xander? Or not? Could Xander be playing
me and trying to lead me off course? Mr. X. is the one who killed Roz, whom
Rita was seeing, whom Rita was tracking down. For all I know Rita could have
been one of his victims, too. Didn't the nurse say Rita had been banged up
beyond recognition when she arrived at the clinic? But did Mr. X. do the
banging?

I
arrive back at the hotel. Immediately I notice something is wrong. My door is
open.

Terrence?

He's
snuck up on me before. But Terrence said he'd be gone for a few days – he can't
be back early...or can he?

I
tighten my fingers around my gun in my purse as I slowly open the door.

“Staci!”

I
gape in shock.

It's
my father.

I
keep my hand on the gun.

“What
do you want?” I'm shaking a little, but I don't want to let him see. “How did
you get in here? How did you know I was here?”

“Staci...”
my dad rises.

“You've
got a hell of a lot of explaining to do, you know that? Your manipulations,
your lies....I know about Rita.”

“Staci...”

“I
know who she is. I know who hired her. But someone hurt her. Someone killed
her. Did you betray her?”

“Staci,
I would never...”

“Rita
died at the Blue Room. The same institution that apparently your family's been
funding for decades. And you mean to tell me you and your sick family weren't
involved? Do you even know what happened to Mom? How she had to flee the
hospice, only to come back to find her whole house ransacked. She doesn't feel
safe anywhere – and who knows how long she has left?”

I
take out my gun. I point it directly at him.

“You'd
better start talking, Dad. If that's even who you really are.”

“Put
the gun away, Staci, let me explain.”

“How
about you explain now and I'll keep the gun where it is, thanks?”

He
sighs. He puts his head in his hands. He looks weary. Old.

“Staci,”
he begins “I'm so sorry. I know what you must be feeling right now. This is a
difficult time for you – I should have been honest with you from the beginning.
I see it now. I was just so concerned for your safety. Let me explain how
things really happened. Yes, I'm your father – of course I am. And I loved your
mother so much. I didn't know about you until so much later...and even then I
was afraid to go near her. My family is a ruthless one. We have rituals, ways.

“My
family was never happy with me falling for your mother. They had other visions
for me. Other plans. They wanted to set me up with appropriate women from
families of similar standing and wealth: my marriage was supposed to be a
business deal. A child outside of marriage would have been devastating for me.
I was far less “marriageable” if it was known I had a child already – a child
who could rival any heir I had with a woman from a family like the Rothschilds.
And so my mother did anything she could to keep me away from Genny. I had no
idea...no idea...” He looks so sad I almost feel sorry for him.

“But
something's happened now that changes everything, Staci. My mother, Gloria
Tannenbaum, passed away a couple of weeks ago. That's why I wasn't with your
mother these past couple of days. I had to take care of her estate. And that's
when I found the will. My mother wanted to pressure me to get married and have
children, so she put in the will that I could only inherit the Tannenbaum
fortune if I'd shown that I had an heir. It's a Tannenbaum family tradition
that my mother never changed. And so: now I must come forward to show the world
you. That you are my child. My heir. My only offspring.”

I
gape at him. Heir to a fortune – me? That can't possibly be right. And yet...

Then
everything goes dark.

The
sound of a door opening; the lights plunge everything into chaos. I see a dark
figure coming towards me, a black gloved hand reaching for my gun...

Then
someone else is there: the door opens a second time; someone shoves me so
violently I see stars and fall to my knees.

“Staci!”
My father is crying my name.

But
then I hear a woman's voice in my ear: low, strange, and yet uncannily
familiar.

“Go!”

That's
the last thing I hear before something knocks me out.

When
I wake up, a few minutes later, my father is gone. The assailant is gone. The
mysterious woman is gone.

Only
one thing remains. A smell I could recognize anywhere. A smell that fills me
with nostalgia, with longing, with confusion.

Rita's
perfume.

*****

Well, that’s it for Part 5

Thank you for reading

The
Blue Room Vol. 5.

I hope to have Part 6 ready by the end of next month
(fingers crossing!)

The best way to not miss any of my new releases
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*****

Also, The Blue Room Series
features some characters from
The Never Knights Trilogy

For 17 and Up

The first book, Never Say Never,

is now Free on Amazon

At:
http://tinyurl.com/nm3hqbx

A quick read, all three books in The Never Knights
Trilogy is available here:

http://www.amazon.com/Never-Say-Knights-Series-ebook/dp/B008X2NCT8

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