The Case of the Dangerous Curves

Chapters 6-10

Chapter 6

I awoke with a start and looked around me. It was still dark outside and I sat up carefully on the bed, trying to figure out what had awakened me. Elizabeth was gone and the bathroom was dark, so I knew she wasn't there. I carefully put my feet on the floor and tried to stand. That whiskey had taken a lot out of me and I had to sit back down again before making it to my feet on the second try. The room seesawed around me as I leaned against the wall for support. Once the room calmed down, I took a step forward. On my second step, I barked my shins against something and went down hard into a face full of broken glass. Cursing loudly, I levered myself erect and leaned back against the wall for support. I felt my way around the outside of the room until I came to a light switch. I flipped it on and covered my eyes until they could get used to the dazzling light.

Once my eyes got used to the light, I looked around and saw devastation everywhere. Files were strewn across the room, pictures that had been hanging on the wall were smashed and thrown on the floor, my computer monitor was shattered and hanging off my desk by the cord and the tower had been hammered into a million pieces. All my desk drawers were open and their contents dumped on the floor and my two prize whiskey glasses had been shattered. It was these that I had fallen into when I had first gotten up. The one thing that brought me to tears, though, was my whiskey bottle lying shattered in a pool of amber liquid on my desk. Directly under the remains of the bottle were my cigars, shredded and soaking in alcohol.

The scene was too much for me to bear. I dragged myself over to the hide-a-bed and slowly pulled on my clothes. It took me three tries to get my pants on and my shirt seemed to fit oddly. I slipped on my shoes and walked gingerly through the broken glass back to the front door. I turned off the light and let myself out into the dark hall.

"Un?" a soft voice asked. I turned around just in time to see a fist emerge from the darkness and then the lights went out.

I awoke some time later, curled up in a little ball in the corner of the hallway. Honey and Lance loomed over me, looks of fear and concern on their faces. "What happened?" Honey asked as she helped me to a sitting position and tracing the worst of my bruises on my face with her fingertip.

"I was interviewing my client," I mumbled, trying to brush her fingers away. "Someone was waiting for me to leave and that's all I know."

"Come on, dear, let's get you up and take a look at the damage," Lance said, extending a hand. He and Honey helped me to my feet and they guided me back down the long hallway to my office. Along the way, I got to see the various blood spatters and smears that detailed my travels down to the end of the hall. I had a feeling my landlord wasn't going to be too pleased when he saw the mess.

I let them into my office and flipped on the light. Honey gasped and Lance went pale as they saw the damage done. "We've got a lot of work to do here," he commented. "The Early Cave Man style went out of date in the late seventies." They left me parked by the door and started at the far end of the room. They put the sofa back together and as they were replacing the cushions, Honey stood and turned to me, holding out a pair of red lace underwear on her fingertip.

"Interviewing your client?" she asked, hurt and angry. I closed my eyes and tried to recall if they were Elizabeth's. They weren't. I remembered that she hadn't been wearing anything under her tight dress. I opened my eyes just as a jackhammer inside my brain started trying to open a hole in my skull between my eyes. I groaned and told her I didn't know who the panties belonged to. I could tell she wasn't happy with me, even as she continued to help straighten up my office. Her cleaning had a decidedly hostile overtone to it.

I started straightening up my files and found that they weren't in as bad of shape as it first appeared. I had most of them back in the cabinets by the time Lance and Honey worked their way to my side of the room. Lance picked up the monitor, looked at it with pity and dropped it on the floor next to the monitor.