Chronicles Of The Keeper - Summon The Keeper Part 3

"I was tired, I was wet, and I had a headache," she pointed out defensively. "All I could think of was getting out of that storm."

"You think he fuzzed you?"

"Where would he get the power? I was distracted, all right? Let's just leave it at that." After another short struggle with the sofa, Claire managed to heave herself back up onto her feet. "Since the site's in the hotel, or Smythe wouldn't have bothered deeding it to me, and since I can't sense it, I'm guessing that it's so small it never became enough of a priority to need a Keeper and Smythe finally got tired of waiting. I'll close it, and we'll move on."

"And the hotel?" Austin reminded her.

"After I seal the site, I'll give it to young Mr. McIssac."

"You think it's going to be that easy?"

"Isn't it always?" She picked up a squat figurine of a wide-eyed child in lederhosen playing a tuba, shuddered, and put it back down. "Come on."

"Come on?" Trotting to the end of the table, he jumped over a plaster bust of Elvis, went under a set of nesting Chinese tables, and beat her to the door. "Where are we going?"

"To get some answers."

"Where?"

"Where else? Where we were told not to go."

Austin snorted. "Typical."

Room six was on the third floor. As well as the standard lock, the door also boasted a large steel padlock on an industrial strength f.l.a.n.g.e. Both locks had been made unopenable by the simple process of snapping the keys off in the mechanism.

"Seems like a lot of fuss over a small site," Austin muttered, dropping down from his inspection.

"Well, he could hardly have guests wandering in on it regardless of size." Releasing the padlock, Claire straightened. There were a number of ways she could gain access to the room, but most of them were labeled "emergency use only" as they involved the kind of pyrotechnics more likely to be deployed during small Middle Eastern wars. "I wonder if young Mr. McIssac has a hacksaw."

"Ms. Hansen?" Dean put the tray down on the desk and pushed his gla.s.ses back up the bridge of his nose. She wasn't in Mr. Smythe's suite, her suite now, he supposed, and she wasn't in the office. He hoped she wasn't upstairs packing. Am I fired if she leaves?

Footsteps descending the stairs seemed to confirm his worst fears, but when she came into view, she wasn't carrying her bags. She hadn't even put her coat on.

"Oh, there you are, Dean."

There he was? He hadn't gone anywhere except to get her the coffee she'd asked for. "I brought cream and sugar," he told her as she squeezed under the counter flap. "You didn't say how you took it."

"Definitely cream." She poured some into the mug and frowned at the sugar bowl. "Do you have any packets of artificial sweetener?"

"Sure." As far as he could tell, she didn't need to watch her weight. While not quite a woman a man could see to shoot gulls through, she was on the skinny side and that much cream would pack on more pounds than a bit of sugar. "I'll go get you some."

"Dean?"

He straightened in the lobby and turned to face her over the counter.

"Bring your toolbox, too."

Cradling the coffee mug in both hands, Claire leaned against the wall and watched Dean work. He'd had no trouble cutting the padlock off, but the original lock was proving to be more difficult.

"I think you should call a locksmith, Ms. Hansen. I can't get in there without damaging the door some."

"How much?"

He shrugged. "If I get my crowbar from the van, I could probably force it open. Just stick it in here..." He ran a finger down the crack between the door and the jam where the tongue of the lock ran into the wall. "... and shove. It'll crack the wood for sure, but I can't say how much."

Claire took another swallow and considered her options. As long as Dean stayed out of the actual room, there should be no problem; only the largest of sites were visible to the untrained eye. "Go get your crowbar."

"Yes, ma'am."

When the sound of Dean's work boots clumping against bare wood suggested he'd reached the lobby, Austin stretched and glared up at Claire. "Couldn't this have waited until after breakfast? I'm starved."

"Could you have actually eaten not knowing what we were in for? Never mind. Stupid question."

"You've got your coffee, the least you could've done was given me the cream."

"The vet said you're not supposed to have cream." She squatted and rubbed him behind the ears. "Don't worry, it'll all be over soon. Waiting out on this side of the door has me so edgy, I'm positive the site's in there."

"In a just world," the cat growled, "it would've been in the kitchen."

His boots wet from the run out to the van, Dean slipped them off at the back door and started upstairs in his socks. Making the turn on the second floor landing, he heard voices. I guess she's talking to the cat.

Voices. Plural, prodded his subconscious.

You're losing it, boy. The cat's not talking back.

She had her back to him when he stepped out into the third-floor hall. "Ms. Hansen?"

Claire managed to bite off most of the shriek, but her heart slammed against her ribs as she whirled around. "Don't ever do that!"

Jerking back a step, Dean brought the crowbar up between them. "Do what?"

"Don't ever sneak up on me like that!" She pressed her right hand between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "You're just lucky I realized who you were!"

Although she was a good six or seven inches shorter than he was and there was nothing to her besides, somehow, that didn't sound as ridiculous as it should have. "I'm sorry!"

Austin banged his head against her s.h.i.+ns and she looked down. "You took your boots off."

"They got wet."

"Right. Of course." Bringing her breathing under control, Claire waved him toward the locked door. "Break the lock, then step away. If there was a fire in there, you won't want the mess tracked into the hall."

Dean flashed her a grateful smile as he jammed the crowbar into the crack. Since coming west, he'd found few people who appreciated the kind of problems involved in keeping carpets clean. "Yes, ma'am."

"And stop calling me ma'am. You make me feel like I'm a hundred years old." When she saw him fighting a grin, Claire rolled her eyes. "I'm twenty-seven."

"Okay." A confidence given required one in exchange. "I'm twenty-one." As he pulled back on the bar, he glanced over at her expression and wondered how she knew he was lying. "That is, I'll be twenty-one in a few months."

"So you're twenty?"