Extreme Danger (McClouds & Friends #5)(92)

She lifted the rock, fingers white, arm trembling…and hesitated. She reached out with her other hand. Tried the door.

Unlocked. For God’s sake, any stress urper should know that a woman who had just puked her guts out probably did not have the presence of mind to lock her car. Unless she was a superwoman. And superwomen did not urp. No siree, no superwomen in the Sisterhood.

Becca felt like a total idiot, jittery from having worked herself into such a state. No time for dithering, though. She grabbed the sunglasses and the lipstick. She was now officially a thief. It felt odd.

She raced back to her car. Tore out of the parking lot, zoomed back to the hotel, tires squealing. No time for cogitating or knuckle chewing. She had to be quick, decisive. And as cool and smooth as soft-serve vanilla ice cream. She switched on her dome light, yanked her comb out of her purse and tried to tease her hair out into Dianaesque proportions. She slicked on some of Diana’s crimson lipstick, and was startled by the harsh effect. She needed dramatic eye makeup to balance it out. Fortunately, she had Diana’s Zsa Zsa Gabor sunglasses. She stuck her black-framed specs in her pocket, and donned the sunglasses. She would be virtually blind, but hey. Vision, schmision.

She glanced in the mirror and winced. She looked like a celebrity battered wife, but whatever. Becca shrugged off her coat and marched around the building, then flounced in as if she owned the place, squinting to get her bearings.

There were two desk clerks. One was the redhead who had checked Diana in. She sailed past them, down the hall, into the stairwell, knees wobbling. Estimating the time it would take a guest to get to her room and discover she’d left her key card inside.

She swept out again, grateful to find the big-haired redhead busy on the phone. She smiled at the other, an older woman with gray hair.

“Hi. I’m Diana, in room 317,” she said. “I’m so embarrassed, but it looks like I’ve locked myself out. Could you do up a new card for me?”

The woman smiled, tapped into the computer, and nodded. “Sure thing, Ms. Evans. I’d be happy to do that for ya.”

Please don’t ask for picture ID. Please.

Fate was kind. Moments later, card clutched in her sweating hand, Becca floated down the corridor, disbelieving, over her own sprinting feet. Terrified that it had worked. She was getting ever more expert at digging her own grave. Look at those shovelfuls of dirt, flying wildly this way and that.

She let herself into Diana’s room. The door slammed shut behind her. She felt a moment of letdown. No immediate revelations. It looked and smelled exactly like a million other economy hotel rooms. Two beds, quilted synthetic spreads, bathroom near the entrance, TV, wall unit air conditioner, ugly art. Empty. No suitcase, no purse. The box, the box. She had to find that white box.

She found it in the bathroom, perched on the fake marble counter-top. She approached it with a feeling of dread in her belly.

Becca took a deep breath, and lifted off the top. OK. Not a human head, or an embalmed space alien. Just a rack, with seven neatly labeled vials of dark liquid suspended in it. She lifted one out, and realized that the liquid inside was blood.

Beneath the rack were several small containers containing clear yellow liquid. Urine, for sure. Then there was a handful of sealed plastic bags with big cotton swabs inside them. The blood, urine and bags were neatly hand-labeled. F-121396-88991. The numbers followed a pattern. Two Fs, the rest Ms, which she assumed referred to male or female. Then a six digit number that she assumed was a birthdate. Then a five digit number. No names. If they were birthdates, 96 was the earliest year. Then a 98. The others were all in the oughts: 01, 02, two 04’s. One 06.

Children. Small children.

Another shudder went up her spine. Shadows, monsters, slithering in the dark, out of plain sight. She was afraid to know the answer to this riddle, afraid it would be something very bad.

She wished, piercingly, that Nick were there. Then she dragged a pen and scrap of paper out of her purse and hastily copied down all the numbers on the vials. Why, she had no idea. But it couldn’t hurt.

Rattle, fumble, click. Someone was trying to open the door.

Becca’s heart practically leaped out of her mouth, she was so startled. She looked around wildly for a hiding place. Closet? Bathtub?

She heard low, tearful cursing, a few futile thuds, as if someone were swatting the door in a fit of frustrated pique. The muttering receded.

Guarded relief flooded through her. Of course. Diana’s key card no longer worked since they had reprogrammed the lock for Becca. Thank God. Becca waited what she hoped was long enough for the woman to get down the hall, measuring time in galloping heartbeats.

She peered out the door and bolted like the hounds of hell were after her. The desk clerks had seen her and so had the security cameras. Chances were good that Diana would know in seconds that her privacy had been violated and would start making a big, fat fuss about it.

Becca really did not want to get into a catfight and exchange bitchslaps with Mathes’s whining, weeping, urping mistress. Besides, if Diana wanted to call the cops on her, she would have the moral high ground. Becca would be printed and booked, have a record. Before Zhoglo subsequently slaughtered her, of course.

Once she got on the highway, she fought to keep under eighty miles per hour, she was so eager to put distance between herself and that woman. She was so rattled, she shrieked when her phone beeped to inform her that she had finally entered her cell phone’s calling area.