Hello, my lovelies! Let’s get down and datey.
Standard reminder that you shouldn’t read Date Night unless you’ve finished Breaking News or you’re going to get smacked in the face with 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 NINE: Evidence of Vampirism
When we arrived back on our floor, we discovered that given the direction Paulette had come from when we’d seen her earlier, she could only have been coming from one room. Huzzah!
“Your deductive skills are very impressive, Charlotte Regina, but do you think you could keep your huzzahs down a little? Most of the people on this floor are probably trying to sleep.”
I doubted it. Not if their rooms had the same sex energy as ours. They’d be getting zero snooze minutes in if what it had done to us was anything to go by.
“Yeah, it was definitely the room and no other factors,” said Adam. “You’re still thinking quite loudly. If there is a murderer around here, they’ve definitely heard us coming.”
“But we didn’t even – oh. I get what you mean.”
He smirked and shook his head at me, slipping his arm around my shoulder as we walked to the door to Paulette and Ted’s room. Mmm, nice warm Adam with his sexy arms.
“It’s wild how nice you are to me in your head compared to the things that usually come out of your mouth,” he commented.
I ignored him. “How do you reckon she killed Ted? With a knife? It had to be something bloody for her to have stains all over her shirt like that, so stabbing makes sense. Or maybe she bludgeoned him with something. What stuff was there in the room that could be used as a weapon for beating someone to death?”
“Inside voice, Charlotte Regina.”
“Oops. Is this better?” I whispered.
“Still kind of a stage-whisper, but it’ll do. Your previous volume would have been enough to wake Ted and scare him away even if he actually had been murdered.”
We were outside the door of Ted and Paulette’s room now, so Adam knocked, probably hoping to get this over and done with.
“Like you don’t want this to end. Aren’t you sleepy?”
I nodded. “A little.”
“And I know how you miss the pigs when you’re away from them.”
I studied him, curious. Sure, I missed the pigs, but over time I was coming to the conclusion that I wasn’t the only one of us who needed to absorb pig energy daily to feel their best. Sometimes I thought Adam was just using me for access to my girls. (Of the hog variety, not the girls in my bra. Although…)
“Definitely using you for both.”
The door opened before I had a chance to respond and frowned at the man who’d appeared before me. What the hell? This guy wasn’t Ted.
“No, I’m not. Who are you? Why are you knocking on my door at this time of night?”
“We’re looking for Ted’s body.”
The guy stared at me for a moment. “Sorry, what did you just say?”
His mouth had that purple tinge you get when you’ve been drinking red wine. Or like maybe a vampire has after its evening meal.
“We’re worried about our friend Ted. He had a couple too many drinks and disappeared, so we were trying to find him and make sure he was OK.” (I did a really good job not thinking while Adam was talking so I didn’t undermine his story with my constant overly-honest verbal commentary.) “We thought this was his room number, but I guess we got it wrong.”
“Unless Ted’s in there with you,” I said, peering around the man. I didn’t see a dead guy on the floor. For a moment I thought I’d struck gold when I saw splashes of red on the lounge and floor, but then I clocked the two wine glasses on the coffee table and the empty bottle of red next to them and realised it was just spilled merlot. Guess his mouth wasn’t evidence of vampirism.
“Why do you keep mentioning vampires?” the guy asked, clearly made uncomfortable by my penetrating glare and keen intellect. “No, I’m made uncomfortable by you being a weirdo.”
“Sorry to bother you,” Adam said, like he actually cared about interrupting this dude. “Have a good night.”
The dude shook his head at us and closed his door with a little too much force to be polite.
“Since when do you care if people are rude?” Adam asked. “You did imply he was hiding a body in there and then say he looked like a vampire.”
“I guess.” I sighed. “That whole conversation was kind of pointless.”
“Was it?”
My brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Seriously? You figured it out yet?” He shook his head. “After all your bragging about how good you are at solving cases these days.”
I blame the alcohol.
“Of course you do.”
After thinking for longer than I should have needed to, I finally put the pieces together.
“Paulette was in this guy’s room.”
Adam nodded. “She was.”
“She must have gone back to his room after we went downstairs. They were drinking wine together and one of the glasses spilled everywhere. That was what was on her shirt.”
He smiled. “Yep.”
“And she threw her top out because she didn’t want Ted to see it and know what she’d been up to. Meaning he’s still alive. She didn’t kill him.” This was so disappointing.
“I know, Charlotte Regina. I’m sad about the lack of gruesome murder too.”
I don’t think he was being sincere.
“I definitely wasn’t. But on the plus side, we discovered that Paulette was sneaking into another guy’s room late at night.”
“I don’t know if I’m the person to judge someone on that front.”
He smirked. “Possibly not. You aren’t charging people money for marriage advice, though.”
“True. That is super dodgy, especially given how judgmental they were about our goatherd-life coach situation.”
“Super judgmental.”
“And for virtually no reason. They didn’t even know Pinecone was my brother.”
“I think if they knew that then they might have realised we were fucking with them.”
I nodded. He did have a point. “So what now? Do we just leave?”
“We could.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Or?”
“Or we could figure out a way to expose them.”
My eyes widened. They were total scammers, tricking people out of their money. It wouldn’t be quite as cool as catching a murderer, but they still sucked. “I like this idea. I also have no clue how to go about it.”
“I think we should go back to your place and sleep on it. It’s a weekend conference, so we have time to come back and mess with them.”
“You just want to see the pigs.”
“That may be a factor.”
I tapped my lips as I considered it. “Will you make me a midnight snack?”
“Of course.”
“Let’s grab Pinecone and the goatherd and head home.” While praying to Aphrodite that they were joking about leaving genetic material in the room, because I did not want to interrupt them in the middle of doing that.
“Don’t worry about it, Charlotte Regina. I’m sure they’ll put on pants before they answer the door. And if they don’t, next date night I’ll take you to therapy.”
Copyright © 2021 by Clare Kauter
All rights reserved.
I laugh out loud at your character’s antics. I’m waiting patiently for their next book!
Hahahaha, thank you so much! 😁💛