When it finally crumbled under the pressure from two policemen and the door flew open, four startled, pale people—wearing “Team Glitzy Mitzy” ball caps—stared back at four officers, their guns drawn and pointed at them.
Well, The Case of the Missing Interns was solved.
But what in all of Heaven were they doing locked in a room?
Plot twist.
Chapter 3
“Put your hands where we can see them!” the big officer bellowed roughly, his stance wide, his eyes narrowed.
And that was when two of Mitzy’s volunteers began to openly weep, throwing their hands in the air, their arms trembling. “Pl-please, please don’t shoot!”
Margot was the first to react. She nearly toppled over the officers to get to the volunteers, but it wasn’t to see about their safety and inquire about their well-being.
Nay, she had daggers in her eyes as she literally pushed one officer out of the way—while he held a loaded gun, mind you.
“Where have y’all been?” she rasped, that hysterical tone in her voice returning. “Do you have any idea what’s happened? I’m going to kill all y’all!”
I winced. Oh, dear. Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to mention murder when we might be in the middle of investigating one. I was about to redirect her back to the table, but Alma beat me to the task.
She latched onto Margot’s arm and swung her around, gripping her by the shoulders, her heavily made-up eyes intense as they honed in on the assistant’s face.
“Mama, get a hold of yourself! You can’t go knockin’ officers of the law out of the way or you’re gonna end up in the clink. You hear me, Margot Winters? Get it together right now!”
I was surprised to hear a small hint of a southern accent from Alma now, too, that wasn’t there when she’d been talking to Octavia about Ames. Maybe she hid it? But why?
It was as though Margot suddenly realized the volunteers had been in jeopardy, and giving them what for because they’d disappeared wasn’t going to earn her brownie points with anyone, because the person who’d clock those points on her scorecard was dead.
Instantly, she crumpled against Alma and began to cry all over the drag queen’s rhinestoned shoulder. I wasn’t sure if it was shame for how she’d treated these traumatized kids in front of the crowd that made her so openly begin to weep, or the horrific events of the evening had begun to resurface.
Recognizing us, the police let us help the kids up the stairs while the paramedics brought blankets and bottles of water.
Most of them didn’t look much more than twenty at best, and they were all chalk white and shivering.
I began wrapping blankets around shoulders and leading them to chairs where they could sit and take a moment before the police began to question them, while a few questions of my own bounced around in my brain.
One young woman shivered so violently, I thought surely I’d heard her bones rattle. She was tiny and blonde and her eyes, now rather raccoon-ish from crying and her mascara running down her cheeks, were the size of quarters. She was whom I zeroed in on because she looked like she needed the most attention.
With a sympathetic glance, I tucked the blanket tighter around her neck, bending at the waist so she could see me. “My name is Trixie Lavender and I’m here to help. Can I get you anything else? Tell me what I can do for you and I’m on it.”
She looked at me as she pushed the ball cap from her head and let it fall to the floor, her face stricken as tears began to fall. “It was so dark in there and no one could hear us. No one! We yelled and yelled, but…” Her words tapered as she stared off into space.
“What’s your name?”
“Nikki. Nikki Peters,” she replied, her voice scratchy and hoarse, likely from screaming for help.
Now we were getting somewhere. “Can I call someone for you, Nikki?”
But she shook her mussed head and gave me a dejected look. “No…no thank you. I have my phone in my back pocket.” Then her eyes grew intense and she gripped my wrist. “But we couldn’t…we couldn’t get any…” She hiccupped and gulped back another sob. “We couldn’t get any bars to call for hel-help. We were in too…too deep.”
I didn’t understand what she meant by in too deep. They were just beyond the door when the police broke it down. Maybe all the raucous and loud music had prevented us from hearing their cries for help?
“I don’t understand, Nikki. You were only a room a way. What do you mean you were in too deep?”
She took a swig of water and used the scratchy blanket to wipe under her eyes, smearing her eyeliner. “No, that wasn’t the only room down there. We were locked into another room. There’s a big tunnel that leads to a room. A dark, cold, ugly room!” she said, her voice gaining momentum as her fingers twisted together and she shivered again.
“A tunnel?”
Her breathing shuddered again before she gathered herself. “I think it’s a janitor’s closet. We were trapped in there, Miss Lavender. Someone locked us in,” Nikki hissed. “We couldn’t see two inches in front of us it was so dark, but Mickey, one of the other volunteers, managed to pry the door open after we felt around for anything that would help get us out of there. Julie remembered she’d seen some janitorial stuff just before someone turned the lights off and slammed the door. She felt around in the dark and found a hammer and Mickey used the claw end of it to pry the door open part of the way and then we knocked it down.”
Huh. The more I heard, the more I felt this was certainly looking like murder. Margot hadn’t been unable
