Run Rose Run(85)

Ruthanna pulled away from him and fluffed her wig in agitation. “Thank God,” she said. “I’ve run a nonstop prayer since I heard. Poor Jesus must be up there going, ‘Will someone please shut that woman up?’” She laughed nervously, twisting her pink-nailed hands in front of her. “She’s really going to be okay?”

“Yes. But she has to stay here for a little while.”

Ruthanna’s expression grew grim. “Jack called. He said it’s all over the Internet already. ‘Woman falling from Vegas luxury hotel looks suspiciously like rising country star AnnieLee Keyes.’ Eileen is doing her best to calm the rumors, but these people are vultures, Ethan.”

But Ethan was distracted by the policeman now entering AnnieLee’s room. The man left the door open, and so Ethan could hear him introduce himself as Officer Gates. He looks like he’s been out of the academy for all of five minutes, Ethan thought.

Officer Gates took out a notepad and asked AnnieLee to tell him what happened at the Aquitaine Hotel.

“Isn’t it obvious?” AnnieLee said, the fire still in her voice. “I fell off the balcony. I should sue the hotel for it!”

Gates gave a tiny, noncommittal nod. “Can you talk about what exactly you were doing on the balcony? And how you…fell? The railing’s nearly four feet high, Ms. Keyes, and you’re not particularly tall.”

AnnieLee crossed her thin arms. “I don’t see why you need to bring my height into it, Officer Gates.”

“Ma’am—”

“And I am sure as shit not a ma’am.”

“I apologize,” Gates said as Ethan rolled his eyes in the hallway. They must not really think AnnieLee was a danger to herself, he thought, or else they would’ve sent someone who knew what he was doing.

“I went out there to get fresh air. To take in the view. I don’t know what I was thinking. I mean, I used to climb all over everything when I was a kid. I was never afraid of heights. I could balance like that guy—what’s his name? The one who walked the high wire between the Twin Towers.”

“Philippe Petit,” Ruthanna whispered beside Ethan. “I met him once in Paris.” Her hand now squeezed his forearm tightly. “She’s telling the truth, isn’t she? That it was an accident?”

Ethan thought carefully before he answered, remembering the tragic story of Ruthanna’s daughter, Sophia. Ruthanna would never know if Sophia had been so heartbroken over the breakup with Trace Jones that she’d killed herself in that hotel room—or if it had all been some kind of terrible, drunken mistake.

He covered Ruthanna’s hand with his. “I don’t think she wanted to die,” he said gently.

Ruthanna’s tense shoulders dropped. “That means a lot. You know her better than anyone,” she said.

Which is not saying much, Ethan thought.

“But I can’t stop thinking: What if she wasn’t ready, and I pushed her too hard?” Ruthanna said. “Sometimes a thing you think is a favor ends up being the heaviest kind of burden. But by the time you realize it, it’s too late, and you don’t know how to take it back…” She stopped and looked up at him through her big dark glasses. “I don’t want it to be my fault,” she whispered.

“It’s not your fault,” he said. “All we’ve ever done is try to help her. But sometimes I get the feeling that she’s not used to being helped.”

Patience, the nurse from earlier, approached. “Are you the husband?” she asked Ethan.

“Friend,” he said quickly.

“Have you noticed any changes in her sleeping or eating lately?” she asked as she shut the door to AnnieLee’s room.

“No,” he said. He patted Ruthanna’s hand. “She was happy. Excited. She has a lot to look forward to. I don’t think she was trying to hurt herself.”

But what, then, was she trying to do? he thought. The word came to him, sudden and surprising as a slap in the face. Escape.

“Sir?” Patience said. “I asked you if you knew any of her next of kin that we could contact.”

Ignoring her, Ethan turned to Ruthanna. “I’m sorry,” he said. “AnnieLee wants me to get her things, and I should probably go do that.”

When he was almost out the door, he heard the nurse say to Ruthanna, “Do I know you, ma’am? You look awful familiar to me.”

Ruthanna demurred in her low, rich voice. “Oh, I’m not from around here, darlin’.”





Chapter

76


Back at the Aquitaine Hotel, the manager visibly trembled as he let Ethan into AnnieLee’s room. “…just beside ourselves,” he was saying from the hallway. “Never in a million years would I ever…” He looked up at Ethan. “If there’s anything we can do—”

“Thank you,” Ethan said, and firmly shut the door in the man’s tanned, worried face. The poor man was probably expecting to be hit with a lawsuit any minute, and Ethan would have felt sorry for him if not for the fact that every ounce of his own concern and worry was being used up by the infuriating, intoxicating AnnieLee Keyes.

As Ethan turned around to face the hotel suite, he felt a jolt of adrenaline. Without even taking another step into the room, he knew that someone else had been in there with AnnieLee, and that the man had not been invited.