Read Death of a Six-Foot Teddy Bear for Free Online Page B

Binky is missing.” He cinched up the belt on his bathrobe. “Both him and his exercise wheel were not in the room when I got out of the shower. Someone has taken him. He’s got a big performance tomorrow.”
Ginger was having a hard time imagining what the motive would be for squirrel abduction. “I haven’t seen him. I’m so sorry.” She did feel empathy for him. Phoebe was missing too. But telling him that her hunting cat was also loose in the hotel would only increase his fear.
The security guard checked his watch. “Why don’t you report your problem to the hotel desk, Mr. ah—?”
“Simpson. Alex Simpson.”
“Mr. Simpson, why don’t you inform the front desk of your loss?” He made the suggestion as though he were reading it from a cue card. This guy probably checked his watch every twenty minutes, counting down to when his shift in Weirdville would be over.
She imagined he had a very normal life: playing golf on the weekend, mowing his lawn. She pictured him with two kids, named Hannah and Joe, and a wife who drove their Volvo to her part-time job at Cracker Barrel. His world was not filled with men racing through lobbies in bathrobes, kidnapped squirrels, and romantic interludes between troll dolls and toy soldiers.
The short man untied his bathrobe belt and cinched it up even tighter. “This isn’t a diamond necklace that’s been taken.” He slapped his arm with the ends of the belt, increasing the intensity as he talked. “This is Binky, my Binky, a live animal. Have you tried to get help from the front desk? Half the time there isn’t even someone there. You have to do something.” He clamped a hand onto the security guard’s shoulder. “This squirrel is the centerpiece of the convention.”
With Squirrel Man occupying the security guard’s attention while beating himself silly with a bathrobe belt, Ginger slipped away. There had to be another way onto the convention floor. Xabier Knight, a.k.a. Steiff bear, had run from one end of the floor to the other and then disappeared from view. Maybe there was another entrance. She slowed her pace. And probably there was just another cranky security guard at that entrance who would explain that the rules were the rules.
She passed a murky room where four men and one woman sat at a table playing cards. The elevator doors caught her attention and caused something to click in her brain. The only other way onto the convention floor was that glass elevator. She’d watched the glass elevator for a long time waiting for Dustin to make his grand entrance. She estimated that it was one floor above her room. She hesitated, remembering her last ride on an elevator. This was for Earl. She stepped inside the lobby elevator and pushed six. The numbers sped past without a glitch.
The doors opened, and she stepped out into another lobby area, very different from the walls of doors that led to hotel rooms on the fifth floor. Plush Victorian couches lined a wall done in antique red and gold roses. The carpeting was a rich red with gold threads running through it. Wooden doors occupied either side of the waiting area. The intent of the decorating was probably to create an effect of tasteful sophistication, but overkill made it come across as gaudy. One of the wooden doors was slightly ajar.
“Dustin, is that you?” The voice lilted slightly. “Did you bring me my Belgian chocolate?” The voice was almost singing. The door swung open. A woman of about sixty held her hands aloft theatrically. She gave Ginger a quick head-to-toe and then let her arms fall by her side. “You’re not Dustin.”
“No, I umm—” Ginger scrambled for an explanation. To come clean or try to find a way to get to that elevator that had to be on the other side of the door? That was the question. She had the feeling she had stumbled onto a private residence. But Xabier had said that Little Vicky lived on the second floor. Yet, something about this woman screamed former child star.
The