Page 116 of Summers at the Saint
CB sez will tk w/ TE. Something not rite
Parrish’s shorthand was a mystery. But she’d definitely been interested in the mattresses. Maybe it was time for Livvy to revisit the warehouse.
She scrolled through the Saint’s phone directory until she found the name of the engineering guy who’d met her in the warehouse after her encounter with Colonel McBee, tapped the number, and was relieved when he picked up immediately.
“This is Ronnie. What do you need?”
“Hi, Ronnie. It’s Olivia in guest relations. Are you working today?”
“According to my timesheet, yeah.”
She laughed at his lame joke. “Is there any chance you could meet me at the warehouse this morning?”
“What’s guest relations want in the warehouse?”
He had her stumped, but why did he care? “Something I need to check on.”
“Whatever you need, I can check that for you,” he said.
“Uh, is there a reason I can’t go down to the warehouse like I did last time?”
“New rules. Mr. Burroughs thinks people have been pilfering. Anybody goes in there has to be supervised and sign in and out.”
“Huh. Thanks anyway.” She didn’t want anyone to know what she was looking for.
Charlie Burroughs had instituted new rules. He’d tried to get her fired. Felice too. Could all of this have something to do with the bitch book?
She opened her door. The dorm was quiet, but predictably, the lounge area was a mess, littered with empty beer cans and a pizza box, not to mention the lingering scent of weed. The television was on, but muted.
“Typical,” Livvy muttered as she paused outside Felice’s bedroom door.
She knocked softly. “Felice?” she whispered. “You up?” She knocked again. “Felice!”
“Hell nah. Go away. It’s my day to sleep in.”
Livvy jiggled the door handle. Knocked again. “Let me in, Felice. This is important.”
The door opened suddenly, and Livvy tumbled inside.
Felice stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at her. She was dressed in gym shorts and an oversized Miami Dolphins jersey.
“What’s so important you had to wake me up on my one day to sleep in?”
“I think I might have an idea about what Parrish was writing about in the bitch book.”
“That couldn’t wait ’til later?”
Livvy showed Felice the page in the bitch book with the note about the beds. “These little chicken scratches? The common denominator is ‘CB.’”
“And you think that’s Burroughs?”
“Maybe. Here’s the other thing. I wanted to get into the warehouse to compare the mattress labels on the beds in the new wing to the ones in storage. Because, maybe, they’re not the same beds. I don’t know. Maybe I’m grabbing at straws. But the guy I called in engineering says there’s a new policy—instituted by Burroughs—that anybody who wants into the warehouse has to sign in and out, and be supervised.”
Felice perched on the side of her bed, her pillow clutched across her abdomen.
“I don’t like the guy, but why would he want to kill Parrish? Over some mattresses?”
Livvy tapped the bitch book with her fingertip. “What if he was ripping off the hotel? I don’t know—substituting cheap mattresses for expensive ones? Parrish figured it out, after she saw the McBees’ mattress, and what if she threatened to tell her aunt? Like, maybe this first line is questioning why the beds are bad, and she’s making a note to check with purchasing? That’s what ‘pch’ could be? And the second note, she’s thinking she’ll check with her aunt—‘TE’?”
