The Blue Room Vol. 2: The Blue Room Series Read Free

remains.
                If
they didn't kill Roz – who did?

 
    Chapter 2
     
     
                A s I sit alone in my luxurious suite at the
Blue Towers, I'm more desperate than ever to find out the answers. This room,
which was so stunning, so beautiful when I first moved in, now feels like a
prison. Every painting on the walls, every sculpture in the corner, every
elaborate “amenity” feels poisoned to me by what I know.
                And
what do I know? I'm not even sure what to think now. I don't know anything,
after all. All I have to go on are rumors, whispers, terrors. All I have to go
on is the fact that Roz was left-handed, that the gun was in her right hand,
that Brandi and Scarlett and Julie are all sure, so sure, that Mr. X. loved Roz
too much to ever jilt her.
                But
that's all I know about her, about him. I don't know anything, really. Secrets,
lies, falsehoods. That's all this place is, I think. A place of lies. A place
of beauty for sale, of illusions broken and maintained, of appearances to keep
up in the name of discretion. Of Roz, lying there, dead on the floor, and
nobody calling the police, everyone protecting the identity of the mysterious
Mr. X. Everyone protecting the living man who wasn't there for the dead girl
who loved him. The thought of it all makes me sick to my stomach.
                I
have half a mind to wonder if it wasn't Mr. X. who killed Roz all along. Sure,
they all said that he loved her. But if he's the same Mr. X. that Rita
mentioned only a short time ago, he's hardly the most loyal or most faithful of
men. Not exactly the man to be trusted with the heart of a good woman – or an
woman at all, for that matter.
                I
go over the suspects in my head for the murder.
                There's
Mr. X. – X marks the spot, I think – about whom I know exactly three things.
Rita loved him. Roz loved him. Maybe he loved Roz. Maybe someone killed Roz to
get to Mr. X – that's Brandi's theory, anyway. Used her to send him a message.
A business deal gone wrong, maybe, or something else connected with the shady
dealings of the rich and powerful. But two dead or missing girls associated
with the same man? The only unifying factor in their story is X.
                Sure,
Brandi swears that he loved her. But I know what love can be like. The sick,
possessive, blinding sort of love men use to control women. That's nothing any
sane girl would want, no matter how much she loved him back. That's the kind of
love that demands more than mere reciprocation. That's the kind of love that
demands your total freedom. That asks you for yourself. That can get you
killed. Love alone is no reason to rule out Mr. X., I decide.
                It
could be one of the others: Brandi, Julie, or Scarlett. Maybe one of them did
kill her out of jealousy over her set-up with Mr. X. But it seems unlikely.
After all, they wanted me to think it wasn't suicide. They wanted me to
think it was murder. And they knew better than to leave the gun in Roz's right
hand. If any one of them had killed her, they were doing a piss-poor job of
covering it up. Plus, Brandi and the others seemed trustworthy – albeit in
their own prickly way. They might be a little snarky, even a little mean, but
they weren't killers. And they all genuinely seemed to like Roz – in spite of
their jealousy. Who couldn't like Roz? I thought bitterly. She was the
sweetest, the nicest-seeming, the most generous girl I'd met here so far.
                So
I guess it wasn't too much of a surprise that she ended up dead. That seemed to
be the way of things in the Blues universe.
                Then
there was my mysterious patron – the sicko with the intense, degrading
fantasies. I didn't know his alphabet yet – but I assumed it wasn't Mr. X., who
was otherwise busy with Roz. He'd been a suspect earlier on, but I felt I could
safely