The Blue Room Vol. 2: The Blue Room Series

  The Blue Room

  The Blue Room

  VOL. 2

  Kailin Gow

  DEDICATION

  To all the women I meet who have inspired me with their lives, their courage, and their stories.

  Prologue

  Staci

  “Shit...” Terrence's voice is so cold behind me.

  “No!” I'm screaming; I’m sobbing. I'm going insane, I think – going absolutely mad. “No – no!”

  The one girl who was kind to me. The one girl who befriended me. The one girl who could have given me the answers to get out of here once and for all: lying dead in my arms.

  With a gun in her hand.

  Like she shot herself.

  But I'd seen her – moments before – in the throes of ecstasy – she looked so happy – she'd been so happy, so in love – so alive.

  Why would Roz kill herself?

  “Staci...” Terrence is rubbing my shoulders. “Staci, please.”

  I round on him, but I can't speak. The tears and the screams are coming too fast.

  “Staci – you can't be here.”

  “She – she killed herself?” I'm stammering; I'm stuttering; the words make no sense. “She k-k-k-illed herself? She can't – she didn't – I saw her – she was so happy.”

  “You can't see this.”

  Terrence grabs me by the arm almost roughly. He leads me down the hall – so swiftly – back into my room and locks the door. He frog-marches me into the shower and turns it on: the water soaks through my dress, already stained with blood. He pulls the dress off me and puts it into the garbage, tying the plastic bag shut.

  He washes the blood off my hands, my face, my naked body.

  He lets me cry in his arms.

  In those moments he's not Terrence Blue, the nightclub impresario, the master pimp. He's just Terrence, a boy, comforting a girl with such extraordinary tenderness I almost swoon in his arms. He's gentle with me, careful. He's shaking himself. His clothes are soaking wet in the shower, but he doesn't care. He just holds me.

  “I'm so sorry, Staci,” he whispers. “I'm so sorry you had to see that.” He swallows. “I can't believe it myself.” He takes a deep breath and shudders.

  “She was so happy...” My voice cracks. “She told me – she was in love.” I can't breathe either. “Why would she do it?”

  Terrence closes his eyes. “Roz…she got attached,” he says. His voice is almost cold. “She'd fallen for her patron – I know that much. She really loved him. Thought he loved her. But this place…we deal in fantasy. For him – it was just that. For her – maybe it was more. Maybe she told him she loved him. Maybe she took it too far – and he didn't feel the same way.”

  I feel sick to my stomach.

  A fantasy, that's all it is, I tell myself.

  A fantasy you almost succumbed to yourself.

  Just moments ago I'd been confessing my feelings to Terrence Blue – pretending like this place, like the things we did here, like any part of this life, was real. Just moments ago, I'd been as stupid as Rita.

  “It's happened before,” Terrence says. “Some girls get in too deep. It gets to them. Poor girl – she always seemed to have her head screwed on straight. Of all the girls here – I thought when I hired her she'd be able to keep her cool. I'd never have assigned her to Mr. X – not if I'd known...”

  Mr. X. Where have I heard that before?

  “What do you mean, Mr. X?”

  “To preserve anonymity,” Terrence says. “We never give the girls the clients' names. Every client is assigned a letter. Mr. A, Mr. B, all the way down to Mr. Z. Roz's client was Mr. X.”

  A vision comes to me. Rita, smiling, dangling the locket in front of me.

  Don't thank me. Thank Mr. X...

  Was that Rita's Mr. X, with his head between Roz's legs? With his tongue upon her clit? Making her moan? Driving her wild?

  “Does Roz have any family?” I ask.

  Terrence shakes his head. “Some distant cousins on the East Coast,” he says, “In New York. Nobody here.”

  I guess a lot of people with families don't end up in this business. Just a hunch.

  I shudder; Terrence holds me tighter.

  “Has this – happened before?” I ask.

  In the back of my mind: Rita's voice. Don't thank me. Thank Mr. X.

  “We've never had a suicide,” says Terrence. “Never before. It's atypical of the Blue Room – I guarantee...”

  My mind goes still.

  Then what happened to Rita?

  Chapter 1

  I'm still crying in the shower, bawling my eyes out, when at last Terrence turns off the water. “Staci,” his voice is so soft. “I'm sorry, but I have to sort this out, now. Before anybody finds her. Will you be OK, getting dressed?”

  I nod slowly – still dazed.

  “There's a bunch of nightgowns in your closet. Can you go put one on?”

  I feel so light-headed, floating through the room. I feel like my feet aren't even touching the ground. I feel crazy, wild. My mind is a white room.

  “What about the police?” I pull the nightgown over my head. “Shouldn't we call the police?”

  But Terrence is already on his cell phone, calling.

  “We have our own procedures,” he said. “Internal procedures.”

  “But the police?”

  He looks at me in surprise. “Why would the police come?” he said. “The guests at the Blue Room pay a high price to avoid any scandal. Bringing the police into this would be an unnecessary complication. Hello, Arnold?”

  He goes out into the balcony to make the call, closing the door behind him so I can't hear.

  I'm sickened by how cold, how businesslike he's become, all of a sudden. The same kind, sweet boy who was comforting me a moment ago is now a pimp, dealing with a dead hooker.

  Whatever he's saying on that phone call, I have to know.

  Whatever Roz knew, whatever Mr. X knew, whoever Mr. X is, I have to know. It might be my one shot at finding out what happened to Rita. It might be my one shot at finding out even if she's still alive.

  I think of Roz's face, blown half away, and that tiny fraction of hope that Rita's anything but dead gets even smaller.

  I tiptoe into the bathroom and crack open the tiny smoking window, climbing onto the toilet to get a better view. If I strain my ears I can hear what Terrence is saying.

  “Hi, Arnold? I need you at the towers, right away. Room 328. It's happened again.”

  Again?

  “No – he's fine.”

  No name – blast!

  “Nothing happened to him. His reputation will be intact – but the girl...she's gone. God rest her soul.” His voice shakes only a little bit. “You know what to do.”

  I'm in shock.

  So, this is the real Terrence Blue, I think. Pimp. Covering up deaths. Hiding from the police. The whole seedy operation revealed to me at last. The dirty reality underpinning the fantasy. I want to throw up.

  And here I am – thinking he had real feelings for me? Thinking he might have felt about me the way I felt about him! No – he was right. I was the patron, the client; he was playing a fantasy for me. Luring me into the world of the Blue Room. Making me think that the love I saw was real.

  Well, the only thing that's real is Roz's body with the brains blown out of her skull. A suicide over a love that never existed.

  How can I have been so stupid? I think. How can I have been so naïve? Terrence Blue wasn't a bad-boy in need of a good woman – he was a whoremonger, plain and simple. And I was a fool to think any different.

  I'm not going to make that mistake again.

  I
'm going to stay at the Blue Room. I'm going to find my way to this mysterious Mr. X. I'm going to figure out what happened to Rita, to Roz. And I'm going to get my revenge on all of them – all those rich men who think they can buy and sell love from desperate women, without family or friends, with some distant cousins in New York – and nothing else to call home. The Blue Room is a dirty business – and if I have to get my hands dirty to solve this mystery, then I'm no longer afraid.

  I just have to get as messy as the rest of them. No more illusions. No more willful blindness to the truth.

  Terrence Blue isn't my friend. He's my enemy.

  *****

  The next morning, I find a note slipped under my door. At first I think it's from Mrs. Walters, but the scrawled chicken-scratch isn't Mrs. Walter's careful handwriting.

  Come to the cafeteria at 8 am. Important breakfast meeting for all Blues Girls.

  I wonder who it's from. But after the shock of last night, I'm hardly in the mood to cause any trouble by being late. I hurriedly get dressed into a pair of sweats and make my way to the cafeteria.

  To my surprise, the room is empty. There's no breakfast being served – not even the smell of someone cooking. And there's no Blues Girls, either.

  “Hey!”

  I whip around to see the three girls from yesterday standing in the doorway: Brandi, Julie, and Scarlett.

  “What do you want?” Immediately I'm prickly.

  They're blocking the doorway, their arms crossed. I know at once that they mean business. I gulp as they come at me in one single formation.

  “What is it?”

  “Get her!”

  They're surrounding me like hawks. Then, they strike. One of them holds my wrists, pinning me against the table. Another one holds down my ankles. Brandi, the strongest of the group, sits on my stomach, straddling me.

  “You,” Brandi's face is a mask of rage. “What did you do?”

  “Me?” My mouth falls open. “What are you talking about?”

  “We saw you. We saw you go into her room. An hour later she was dead.” Brandi grimaces.

  “I – I don't know,” I answer as truthfully as possible.

  “Did someone put you up to it? Is that why you're here? Picking us off – one by one?” Hot tears sting Brandi's eyes.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Roz was our friend.” The way Brandi speaks, I know she's serious. She may have been spreading bitchy rumors about me earlier – but now I see honest grief in her face.

  “She was my friend, too....” I whisper. “What are you talking about?

  “Your friend?” Brandi pushes harder on my stomach. “So why did you kill her?”

  Kill her?

  My eyes fly open in shock so wide that Brandi relents.

  “If you didn't kill her – you must know who did?”

  “Roz killed herself...” I'm having trouble speaking with Brandi on my chest. “Didn't she?”

  “Tell us everything,” Scarlett grips my wrists tighter. “Tell us what you know.”

  “I didn't kill Roz!” I cry. “We were on the same side! I swear! All of us – we all want to know what happen.”

  Scarlett looks dubious, but Brandi nods, and they let me up.

  “Okay,” says Brandi. “Tell us what you know.”

  “She invited me to her room to talk...” I stammer. “Just to talk. But when I came she was busy with a client...so I left. I figured I'd come back later. After. And then I heard the gunshot.”

  “And you saw her body?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “And what was in her hand?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The gun – which hand was it in?”

  I try to remember. “I don't know,” I say. I picture it – I see her face again, staring up at me. “Her right, I guess.”

  “Roz was left-handed,” Julie says, softly.

  “What are you saying?”

  “What are you, stupid?” Brandi glowers at me. “Listen – we heard the story they're trying to sell us on. That Roz killed herself because her client jilted her. That she committed suicide over him. I'm telling you – that would never happen.”

  “Why?”

  “First of all – Roz may have been crazy over Mr. X, but she wasn't some emotional little girl. She was strong. She was brave. She had her head screwed on straight. Mr. X – on the other hand...”

  “What?”

  “He was crazy about her,” Scarlett cuts in. “Loved her so much it was scary. Was jealous of her other clients.”

  “He did?” I can't believe what I'm hearing.

  “So here's the thing,” says Brandi, “If Mr. X. finds out Roz's dead – he's going to be looking for revenge. And everybody knows Mr. X. is one of the most desirable clients on the list. He's going to think that one of us did it – maybe out of jealousy, who knows? He's going to look for somebody to blame.” Her voice trembles, and all her arrogance goes out of her. She's just a scared little girl. “Look,” she says, “Roz and us – we had a fight last night. Over Mr. X. She said she was going to skip town with him, that they were going to run away together, that they were gonna get married. That they were in love. And we – maybe we were a little jealous, so what? Maybe we thought she was getting up herself, trying to act like she was less of a hooker than we were just because her client wanted to put a ring on it? And maybe we said some things we regret. But we didn't kill her.” Brandi swallows. “But somebody did. And if we don't figure out who that somebody is – it could be any of us who goes out in a body bag.”

  “You think Mr. X. would have you killed?”

  I feel a chill go up and down my spine. That man Roz seemed to love – could he really be that dangerous?

  “You don't go to the Blue Room for an easy life,” says Scarlett. “There's nobody safe here. Whoever killed Roz – he must have had a reason. To get at Mr. X? To set one of us up?”

  Unless it was Mr. X.

  But he loved her, I think, for just a second.

  Then I remember: love doesn't mean anything in this world.

  Brandi nods. “We need to figure out the truth,” she said. “Before somebody else figures out a convenient lie.”

  But the question remains.

  If they didn't kill Roz – who did?

  Chapter 2

  As I sit alone in my luxurious suite at the Blue Towers, I'm more desperate than ever to find out the answers. This room, which was so stunning, so beautiful when I first moved in, now feels like a prison. Every painting on the walls, every sculpture in the corner, every elaborate “amenity” feels poisoned to me by what I know.

  And what do I know? I'm not even sure what to think now. I don't know anything, after all. All I have to go on are rumors, whispers, terrors. All I have to go on is the fact that Roz was left-handed, that the gun was in her right hand, that Brandi and Scarlett and Julie are all sure, so sure, that Mr. X. loved Roz too much to ever jilt her.

  But that's all I know about her, about him. I don't know anything, really. Secrets, lies, falsehoods. That's all this place is, I think. A place of lies. A place of beauty for sale, of illusions broken and maintained, of appearances to keep up in the name of discretion. Of Roz, lying there, dead on the floor, and nobody calling the police, everyone protecting the identity of the mysterious Mr. X. Everyone protecting the living man who wasn't there for the dead girl who loved him. The thought of it all makes me sick to my stomach.

  I have half a mind to wonder if it wasn't Mr. X. who killed Roz all along. Sure, they all said that he loved her. But if he's the same Mr. X. that Rita mentioned only a short time ago, he's hardly the most loyal or most faithful of men. Not exactly the man to be trusted with the heart of a good woman – or an woman at all, for that matter.

  I go over the suspects in my head for the murder.

  There's Mr. X. – X marks the spot, I think – about whom I know exactly three things. Rita loved him. Roz loved him. Maybe he loved Roz. Maybe someone killed Roz
to get to Mr. X – that's Brandi's theory, anyway. Used her to send him a message. A business deal gone wrong, maybe, or something else connected with the shady dealings of the rich and powerful. But two dead or missing girls associated with the same man? The only unifying factor in their story is X.

  Sure, Brandi swears that he loved her. But I know what love can be like. The sick, possessive, blinding sort of love men use to control women. That's nothing any sane girl would want, no matter how much she loved him back. That's the kind of love that demands more than mere reciprocation. That's the kind of love that demands your total freedom. That asks you for yourself. That can get you killed. Love alone is no reason to rule out Mr. X., I decide.

  It could be one of the others: Brandi, Julie, or Scarlett. Maybe one of them did kill her out of jealousy over her set-up with Mr. X. But it seems unlikely. After all, they wanted me to think it wasn't suicide. They wanted me to think it was murder. And they knew better than to leave the gun in Roz's right hand. If any one of them had killed her, they were doing a piss-poor job of covering it up. Plus, Brandi and the others seemed trustworthy – albeit in their own prickly way. They might be a little snarky, even a little mean, but they weren't killers. And they all genuinely seemed to like Roz – in spite of their jealousy. Who couldn't like Roz? I thought bitterly. She was the sweetest, the nicest-seeming, the most generous girl I'd met here so far.

  So I guess it wasn't too much of a surprise that she ended up dead. That seemed to be the way of things in the Blues universe.

  Then there was my mysterious patron – the sicko with the intense, degrading fantasies. I didn't know his alphabet yet – but I assumed it wasn't Mr. X., who was otherwise busy with Roz. He'd been a suspect earlier on, but I felt I could safely rule him out of involvement with either Rita or Roz.

  And then there is Terrence. Sure, he was with me when the gunshots happened, so he couldn't have shot Roz himself, but something about the cold, callous way he handled finding her body made my spine tingle. No, I decide – Terrence certainly wasn't trustworthy. There's a chance he could have been behind one – or both – murders. After all, corruption runs deep at the Blue Room, and Terrence is in charge of it now. Which means he knows how deep the corruption really goes. The buck stops with him – and with his beautiful blue eyes...