IN ROOM 33 Read Online Free Page A

assume you're okay?"
    "I'll miss him, of course."
    "Uh-huh." Joy doubted it, but maybe in the end it wasn't Lana's fault. She just didn't have any of those still waters that ran deep. More of a summer creek in a drought.
    "I tried to call you several times. About the funeral. But you were away." She paused. "Your office said Paris, I think."
    "Just got back."
    "Lucky you. I love Paris."
    "Everybody does." Joy girded her loins, figuratively speaking. "Is there something I can do for you, Mother?" She held her breath. There was always something you could do for Lana. It was the how much you had to worry about.
    "You can come to Seattle for a visit. That would be a start."
    "Can't. I'm leaving for Australia any day, and I've got a lot of prep to do." Okay, so she did make it sound more imminent than it was, but as a buffer, it was all she had.
    Silence.
    "This isn't about me, Joy."
    She sounded annoyed, which was odd. Lana seldom got angry. She was often hurt, saddened, prettily confused, painfully thwarted, terribly disappointed, and on occasion elegantly resigned—each emotion carefully choreographed—but never plain old mad. "What is it about?"
    "Stephen. He left you a hundred thousand dollars and a hotel. You have to come and take care of things." Her tone was without inflection or emotion.
    "He what?" Joy's lungs imploded. "Why would he do that?"
    "I have no idea. He also left you a letter which I'm to give to you. Maybe it will explain things."
    Joy unthinkingly tugged on the blind pull, freeing it to flap and crash its way to a tight roll at the top of the window. The sun exploded into the room to fry what was left of her brain cells.
    "The hotel—it has to be the Philip."
    "Yes. Ghastly place. It should have been taken down years ago."
    Joy remembered it. She'd been there once when she was twelve or so. Old, run-down, dirty, and smelly, as if everyone in the place survived on boiled cabbage.
    "Are you still there?" Her mother's voice jolted her out of the foggy memory.
    "I'm here," she said and rubbed the lines, bow-tight now, between her eyes.
    "Good. I checked, and there's a ferry leaving Victoria for Seattle in a couple of hours. Can you be on it?"
    She exhaled, felt a part of her hard-won life slip out on the breath. "No."
    The word shocked them both into a brief silence.
    Lana's tone was measured when she responded. "I'm afraid you have to come, Joy. Stephen, for some inexplicable reason, tied our fortunes together. The will really can't be settled without you."
    Joy's stomach headed south. She cursed inwardly, not liking the word "tie" the least bit. "Then it will be next week. It's the best I can do." She wanted her life for a while longer yet.
    Lana let more silence filter along the line. "Fine. I'll see you then."
    Click .
    Joy stared at the phone in her hand, listened to the dead connection for a second or two, then signed off.
    A hundred thousand dollars and a hotel.
    She made for the kitchen; even an inheritance didn't stem her need for her morning coffee. She fiddled with the thick pad of coffee filters, her fingers unable to do what they'd done for years—pull one from the pack.
    She rested a thigh against the red-tiled kitchen counter, set the filters back on it, and tried to level off her emotions.
    It would not process. Stephen Emerson had been her stepfather for five years, most of which she'd spent alone in that ridiculous big house arguing with the staff and growing her horns of independence by smoking cigarettes, failing exams, and, for a time, running with a damn dubious crowd. Of course, no one noticed.
    And now this insane inheritance—after one drink in a hotel bar. It made no sense. The man must have had more money than he knew what to do with or there were major strings.
    Joy hated strings.
    And that old, beat-up hotel. What in heaven's name would she do with the thing? She'd been in enough hotels to last her a lifetime—she certainly didn't need one of her own.
    * * *
    Wade stood outside