I think it’s finally time for me to accept that Sunday nights are cursed.
Some of you might have seen that my website’s been down. Then there was the week my computer broke. Then every social event on my calendar happened on a Sunday. (Yeah, I know. Me. At social events. Disgusting.)
So… I’m thinking I’ll be changing the night these go up in hopes of breaking the curse. Friday, maybe? Saturday? We’ll see!
REMINDER: if you haven’t read up to Breaking News (Charlie Davies Book 11), this contains spoilers!
Table of Contents:
- Frustrated
- Very Educational
- Dingle
- Pinecone
- Genetic Material
- Sex Energy
- Thinking Out Loud
- Damp Is Sexy
- Evidence Of Vampirism
- Snackster
- A Lick In The Dark
- Armpit
- Stay Vigilant
- No Sense of Shame (FINAL CHAPTER)
CHAPTER EIGHT: Damp Is Sexy
Adam clearly thought I was jumping to conclusions.
“Yes, I do think that, but I’m up for sneaking around the hotel with you anyway.”
I frowned. “Really? Why?”
He shrugged. “Seems kind of fun. I feel like we’re going to see some weird shit in the back rooms of this place at night. But just so we’re clear, I’m definitely choosing where we go for our next date.”
“Sure, babe.” Like that was going to happen.
“You said that second part aloud, Charlotte Regina.”
Damn it.
“It’s OK,” he said. “I’ll choose something at least as fun as going through garbage in an alley.”
“I don’t think I believe you. You’re going to make me do nerd stuff, aren’t you?”
“Definitely. There will be costumes involved.”
“As long as it’s not a clown costume, I’m open to it.”
He shuddered. “How dare you bring that up.”
I smiled sweetly. “Sorry.” I was no sorry at all.
“I know you’re not sorry. The evil goblin smile gave it away.”
“That’s my friendly smile.”
“Sure it is.” He put his arm around my shoulder and I leant against him he helped me wobble out of the alley and back into the hotel lobby. I wondered if another drink might help my stability. “The answer to that is always no, Charlotte Regina.”
“I want to dance.”
“Let’s solve this murder first, hey?”
I looked up at him and narrowed my eyes. “You already said you think I’m wrong about Ted being dead.” I giggled. “Ted and dead rhyme.” I shook myself. “But anyway, if you think I’m wrong then I might as well dance, right?”
“If you start dancing, someone is going to end up dead. Probably an innocent bystander. And I don’t know for sure that Ted’s still alive. Maybe you’ll prove me wrong. Wouldn’t you like to prove me wrong?”
I grinned. “I love proving you wrong.”
“There’s that goblin face again.” He bent down and kissed the top of my head. “So where do we look for this body first?”
“The laundry room. They’re always in the laundry room.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Have you ever investigated a death where the body was found in a laundry?”
I stuck my bottom lip out. “No.”
“Then are you sure that’s where you want to start this investigation?”
“They’re always in laundry rooms on TV. You know, a severed head rolling around on a spin cycle. It’s a classic.”
“Given that Paulette threw her shirt in the bin rather than deal with the stains herself, I’m not certain that she’s all that big on doing laundry. Besides, it seems like a lot of effort to move the body through the hotel. High risk of getting caught.”
“Unless she killed him in the laundry room.”
He nodded at my very clever idea. “It’s not that clever, Charlotte Regina, but I guess it’s possible. Why would the two of them be in there, though?”
“Sex?”
“You think they went to the laundry to have sex? Why?”
“I think Paulette told Ted that’s why they were going there, but really she just wanted to kill him somewhere it was easy to clean up.”
“OK, but why would he buy that story?”
“Like you don’t find clean laundry sexy.”
“I do,” he admitted. “But mostly that applies to clean sheets already on a bed. Still in the washing machine? Not so much.”
“But then they’d be damp. Damp is sexy.”
He laughed silently. “More of your impeccable dirty talk.”
“Maybe she said she wanted to sit on the washing machine while they did it for the extra vibration. I don’t know. In my experience, it doesn’t take a great amount of effort to convince a guy to have sex wherever you want. Except when it comes to you, apparently.”
“I swear to you, any time you aren’t seriously injured, I will take zero convincing.”
“You’d better be telling the truth about that.” I was now seriously regretting the times earlier in the week when I’d insisted on solving mysteries rather than getting Adam naked.
“I’m with you there. Although mystery-blocking ourselves is a handy tactic for now.”
“I think the laundry is a good place to try. I bet I’m right about Paulette convincing Ted to follow her there for sexy times.”
He studied me. “It isn’t secretly a fantasy of yours to have sex in a laundry room, is it?”
“What? No.”
“But damp is sexy. And the machines vibrate.”
“Shut up,” I grumbled.
“All I’m saying is that you came up with those reasons very quickly.”
“I’m not trying to convince you to come to the laundry room for sexy reasons. I’m just taking you there for murder reasons.” I paused. “To investigate, I mean. Not to murder you. I like you too much for that.”
“Thanks, Charlotte Regina. I’m still not sure I’m on board with your theory, though. How would Ted and Paulette even know where the laundry room is? It’s not like there are signs. It’s not open to the public. I’m not sure it’s the right place to start our investigation.”
“Maybe we should start the investigation on the dance floor instead.”
“Let’s find this laundry room.”
After twenty minutes of sneaking around and hiding and searching and pretending to be spies – “Only you are pretending to be a spy, Charlie, and can you hum your special theme tune a little quieter?” – we finally found the laundry room.
When we walked in, Adam raised his eyebrows. “I take it all back. This is incredibly sexy.”
It was disgusting. Mouldy and humid and stinky like fifty wet dogs. I love dogs, but that was not a smell you wanted in a place where things were meant to be clean.
“On the plus side, I now definitely won’t be tempted to have sex on the sheets in our room,” he said. “In fact, I don’t think we should sleep on the sheets at all, even fully clothed. It doesn’t seem like a good move from a health standpoint.”
“Agreed,” I said. “And I’m starting to think it’s unlikely that Paulette murdered her husband in here. I can’t imagine anyone voluntarily spending enough time in this room to do something like that.”
Adam nodded. “Let’s check the machines quickly for any severed heads and then get the fuck out of here.”
“Good idea.”
We searched, but there was a disappointing lack of decapitated murder victims.
“Are you really disappointed he’s not dead?”
“We don’t know he’s not dead. He’s just not in here. We should keep looking.”
“You don’t want to head home instead?”
I frowned. “You want to cut our date night short?”
“Of course not, but I was serious about us not sleeping on those sheets. We should probably pick up your brother and Will and drive them home as well before they catch something incurable.”
“And then what, you’ll go home?”
“I could stay at your place.”
“My bed is too nice for that to be a good idea.”
“Don’t the pigs generally sleep in your bed?”
I nodded. “Good point. They probably won’t allow us to so much as cuddle. They like having the middle of the bed. We’d mostly be cuddling them instead.”
“So what do you think? Should we go?”
“Let’s double-check Ted’s not dead first. Once we confirm there’s no case, we can head out. I’m still suspicious about Paulette throwing away a shirt with red stains outside the hotel like that.”
“We should go to their room and knock. Quickest way to know if something’s up or they’re both inside, alive and quietly resenting each other.”
“How are we going to get the number?”
“We ran into Paulette outside our room, so they’re probably staying nearby,” Adam pointed out, using his sexy clever brain. “Thanks. I’m glad you find my brain sexy.”
“Only as long as it’s still inside your body.”
“Good to know.”
“Let’s head back to our floor and try to find where Ted and Paulette are staying.”
Copyright © 2021 by Clare Kauter
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