14
After three days of running the initials they had past other wizards, magicians and members of the magic community, Theresa suddenly realized that the initials looked a great deal like the signature letters of the Hotel Tipton in Manhattan. That was when Jerry realized where he had seen those initials - he had seen a variant of them when Justin won that cruise of the SS Tipton, the stalwart cruise ship of the Hotel Tipton chain. Jerry immediately checked the hotel out looking for Alex then faced the realization that the hotel chain had locations in forty-three cities across the world from Toronto to London. If there were any hope in finding Alex, they'd have to check all of them.
"Dad…" Justin had been to nine of them and flashing Alex's picture. "Why are we starting from the bottom of the list?" He stood in the loft and looked at his father.
"Because with our luck, she's going to be in the last one we check."
"What if going from the bottom, she still ends up at the end of the list." Justin remarked. Jerry paused and looked back at him. He hated it when Justin was so rational. Theresa looked over from the sofa with an annoyed roll of the eyes. Her daughter was supposed to be home in her body two weeks ago!
"Uh…Oh!" Jerry had an idea. "What if we bounce from the top of the list to the bottom until we get to the middle?"
"Jerry…" Theresa looked up from sorting laundry. "What if we don't find Alex?" She looked up with two distraught eyes.
"We're going to find her." Her husband was a man with a mission. "Okay, Justin, today, you're going to the…." He paused, closed his eyes and waved his finger around on the list of Tiptons printed off the Hotel Tipton Website until it landed on one. He looked under his finger. "Tipton in Boston. I've got a really good feeling about this one."
"You said the same thing about the last seven of them."
"Just say the spell…"
"Okay…" Justin sighed. "Transportus Immortus, the men's room of the Boston Hotel Tipton…" He always chose the bathroom because he knew they'd always be empty and no one would see him appearing out of nowhere, but on this occasion, the odds were against him. As the energies of the teleportation spell faded away and he appeared back in the real world, he not only found himself in the hotel men's room on the first floor but appearing before maintenance engineer Arwin Hawkhauser. Having fixed the leaky pipe under the third sink, Arwin dropped his pipe wrench in his belt and looked up to Justin appearing before him.
"What? How? I…" He stood amazed. Justin was just as shocked to meet him. "Oh my God!" He was giddy with excitement as he composed himself and restained his fear and anxiety. "Let me guess! Are you some sort of time traveler appearing here with extra-temporal matter to energy to matter technology arriving here to observe history?"
"What?" Justin thought fast and realized he too was into science fiction. "Yes, yes, I am! I have arrived here from the 23rd Century on behalf of the United Federation of Planets to tell you…. Uh…" He lost where he was going with this act.
"Arwin Hawkhauser." Arwin though Justin had come for him.
"Arwin Hawkhauser…" Justin continued. "That the fate of the universe is in your hands. Only you can save the future!"
"It's my plans for my invention to cross breed Swiss Cheese with Peanut Butter, isn't it?" Arwin guessed.
"No, the other one."
"My ultra-sonic high-powered mail-sorter?"
"Your other one."
"My trans-dimensional teleporter?"
"Why not?"
"I'll get right back to it." Arwin saluted Justin. "And to think I was going to strip it for parts!"
"Oh, and you can't tell anyone who I am." Justin warned him.
"Who would I tell?!" Arwin turned and rushed from the bathroom leaving Justin behind. Left behind once more, Justin sighed a bit and rolled his eyes to his reflection in the bathroom mirror.
"God, I hope this doesn't come back to bite me in the ass." He mumbled to himself. A brief sigh and he moved forward, pushing open the door to the bathroom and heading into the hotel corridor. Virtually all the Tipton Hotels had the same layout and this one was no different. To his right, a grand stairway went up to the hotel restaurant, but he turned left to head toward the lobby area where he stepped outward on to a grand foyer area with a sunken sitting area and a rotating door heading out of the hotel. He stopped and turned around the gold and mahogany furnished gallery filled with guests and diplomats, with travelers and merchants and tourists and sightseers. Every hotel seemed as grand as the last one if not more. He followed one pathway over to the elevators and then descended down the steps into the lobby. To his right, cute and brunette Corrie Willows had replaced Maddie as the candy girl and Carey Martin managed the acts in the hotel lounge area, saving a night or two for herself and her singing. Her two boys no longer ran loose and unattended through the place. Crossing the sitting area, Justin motioned around wealthy guests and visitors of opulent means. Composing himself, he cleared his throat and stood up straight at the admittance desk as the young lady on duty turned to meet him.
"Hello and welcome to the…" Maddie looked again. "Justin? Oh my god…" She recognized him.
"Maddie?" Justin smirked a bit bashfully. "Oh my God…. I haven't seen you since…"
"The party at Collinwood!" The lovely blonde shined a bit to remember him. "Wow! It's been what? A year or two?"
"Yeah…" Justin tried to be suave. "I didn't know… I mean… I should have… We almost…"
"I bet you have a girlfriend now." Maddie broke his awkwardness.
"What?" Justin remembered Juliet Van Heusen, a beautiful blonde he had fallen for who had also turned out to be a vampire. They had become very close, but spells between her family and a rival werewolf clan had complicated their inherent family curses. Mason had permanently become a wolf, and Juliet had lost her enchanted vitality, but he couldn't go into all those details to Maddie without revealing his mystical heritage. "Oh yeah, I did…." He opted to stay vague about it. "But… things came up."
"I understand." Maddie knew about relationships even if she didn't know about magic. "But we almost had a nice time except for that problem with that girl."
"Yeah, Alex…" Justin grunted remembering the incident at Collinwood.
"Who?" Maddie responded confused.
"Alex…" Justin reminded her. "My sister…"
"That girl was your sister?!" Maddie's mystically altered memories had been tampered with to remove all memories of Alex from them. Justin looked back to Maddie. How could she have forgot that Alex was his sister? Did something happen to remove that memory from her?
"Yeah…." Justin reacted slightly perturbed. "You remember me, but you don't recall Alex? No one ever forgets Alex!"
"I guess I did…" Maddie responded. "I guess it's just because of everything that's happened here since. Do you recall London? She was sent to attend school at sea."
"I remember London." Justin had almost dated her on the ship when he won the cruise.
"Well, Mr. Moseby also left and he got replaced by Miss Orpington…." Maddie talked as she dealt with paperwork. "We've hired a lot more staff, Chef Paollo retired and then Miss Frost moved into the hotel. She is the nicest person in the world."
"Excuse me…" Justin heard a name he knew. "Frost?"
"Monica Frost, the heiress…" Maddie mentioned her name matter-of-factly. "She lives here. She let's me call her Nikki."
Justin felt a strained excited smile coming over him.
"Nikki…" He said the name almost in disbelief. "She let's you call her Nikki."
"Yeah…." Maddie noticed Justin's mood struggling to stay light. "Would you like to meet her? She ought to be back soon. She's buying toys for the local orphans."
"Toys for the local orphans?" Justin was trying to keep himself from laughing. "Yes…" He contained his amused surprise. "I would so love to meet her!"
"Great…" Maddie picked up the stack of envelopes she had filled. "Just let me get these in the mail first." She grinned whole-heartedly to Justin and came from around the front desk headed for the back employee area. In her absence, Justin fought to contain himself. In his gut, he knew he'd found his sister, but should he keep it a secret? Should he keep it from his parents? His life was going so well without her, but if he didn't tell and his parents discovered the truth anyway?
"Nikki…" He chuckled on the name. "She calls herself Nikki."
"Miss Frost…" Someone at the door announced the young heiress, and Justin looked up in shock. He didn't want her seeing him before he could see her. He spun around distractedly and backed out of the way behind a tall hydrangea plant near the candy counter just as Alex entered the Tipton lobby. She had longer hair than he remembered, and she was wearing a violet blouse with a matching white jacket and skirt combo. She looked very well off; her hand fussed a bit with her purse as she entered the lobby past the doorman holding it for her. Close to Justin, Corrie came around trying to see what he was doing.
"Excuse me, sir," She found him hiding out of view. "Are you looking for something?"
"I'm hiding from someone." Justin answered. Corrie looked back to the person she knew as Monica Frost, although almost everyone here called her Nikki. She was the nicest most personable person Corrie knew. Up on the landing, Alex paused to shuffle her purse and looked out past Edward the doorman.
"Vielen Dank, Gustav," She was speaking another language. "Sie bitte diese Spielzeug für die Kinder im Waisenhaus liefern konnten." She looked next to Edward. "Danke, Edward…" She tipped him with a five-dollar bill for holding the door as the sixty-something Tipton employee beamed back a smile. As Justin watched from a far, he watched his sister gliding regally for the elevator and hitting the buttons. The doors opened, and as she entered and spun around to face the front, Justin dived behind the sofa to hide. Did she see him? He wasn't sure, but when he looked back, the elevator was going up to the seventh floor.
"German?" Justin stood shocked. "Since when does she speak German?" He looked to Corrie and back again. "She barely speaks English!"
Corrie looked at Justin a few seconds more, rolled her eyes and stepped back to the candy counter to help a guest. As Justin paced back and forth a bit trying to plan what to do next, Seeley Booth lowered the newspaper he had been reading and tossed it to the table. He rose from the chair carrying a file under his arm while straightening his tie and moved past Justin to hop up on the landing to the elevators. Hitting the buttons on the other elevator, he turned and adjusted his tie once again with his free hand as the elevator doors closed on him rising up into the hotel.
Up in her suite, Alex had changed her attire. Now garbed in a long silver gown with a white housedress, she gestured to her bar area to pour herself a nice sherry. The bottle levitated itself up in time to pour a drink that was ready for her to accept after she had taken her appointment book to her writing desk. A small sip, and she pulled some reading glasses on before sitting down to check off another appointment from her book. Her assistant had booked her a doctor's appointment and then there was that thing with the local school. The kids wanted to thank her for donating new playground equipment. Sundays she spent visiting the local centers and checking to see what they required. Between appearances, she invested and managed her money.
Seeley Booth knocked at the doors of her suite.
Another sip of sherry, Alex rose with her housedress trailing behind her and forming a short train behind her. Gliding across the carpet, she opened her doorway to the tall handsome FBI agent she had met in DC. Booth peeked through the doors of her suite before he noticed her.
"Agent Booth…." Alex was unsure what he wanted. "Entrée…" She invited him in to her suite with a little French and a graceful sway of her left hand.
"I hope I'm not bothering you…" Booth walked in playing detective in this unofficial investigation. His hands were deep into his pockets with the file he was carrying tucked under his arm. Alex curiously narrowed her eyes to him wondering what he was up to.
"No problem…" Alex closed her door and motioned to her liquor cabinet. "I like having guests. Drink?"
"None for me…" Booth raised his head toward her. "That was a neat trick you pulled at the Jeffersonian…" He grinned at her. "I don't think Bones has ever been at a loss for words before."
"It wasn't a trick…" Alex whimsically tilted her head to the side. "I really do have second sight."
"Yeah…" Booth looked back at her. "Well, you don't have to convince me. I know the sorts of things you psychics and mediums can do."
Alex stood and waited with a playful grin for him to get to whatever point that had brought him here.
"Can you also fake a blood test?" Booth went straight to the point. "You see, we scanned your face into our facial reconstruction software and we came up with something weird." He looked up to the Frost family portrait. "Everyone in the Frost family tree looks like each other from your great-grandfather Jack Frost to your Aunt Abigail. We even tested the last known public photo of your father before he vanished, and guess what? He passed. Everyone passed that we know about…" He handed his file to Alex to peruse. "…except you."
"Well," Alex looked the work over. The computer program had matched seventeen points of characteristics common within her family, but they failed to match Alex's body with her real relatives. She was foiled by the science, but her mind was already working. "I was always told I looked more like my mother than my father."
"Oh, yeah…" Booth recalled the paperwork she had provided to create her identity. "What was your mother's name again? Tricia Foster?…" He clicked his tongue. "I can't find anything that says she even exists. Tell me, where was she buried again?"
"I'm sure it's all in my paperwork…" Alex matched wits with him and gave him his file back.
"Is there anyone who can confirm your mother existed?"
"Mr. Collins…" Alex answered. "He went to school with her."
"No…." Booth cringed a bit catching her in another lie. "You see, William was a really good friend of mine." He strolled through her suite knowing he had exposed her. "We went to Camp Arawak together as boys, and I happened to know he was home-schooled for much of his life, and he only attended four years at Collinsport High School, and yet, in all of those four years, they never had a Tricia Foster enrolled there."
"Hmmm…" Alex reacted as if it was news to her. "That's very weird…" She paused by her crystal ball on the table and seemed to polish it. "And when was the last time you saw him before he died?"
"The last time?" Booth thought back to the Annual Collins Family Cotillion as if it had just happened. He didn't mean to, but the memory had come rushing back to him. The Collins family had started them in the Twenties to open Collinwood to their friends and family. They had stopped briefly for several years then were picked up again in the Seventies. William's last public appearance in it was his largest one yet; he had padded the guest list with all his friends and the invitations topped out at over three hundred, three times over what was usual. Seeley had taken Temperance with him, and while they had the chance to visit Collinwood for the first time, they also had the chance too meet so many other guests. In his mind's eye, Booth recalled cajoling with Fox Mulder, hobnobbing with historian Benjamin Gates and even clashing a bit with the ego of Patrick Jane, but there was something else. A memory he had forgotten… When he was standing in the foyer looking at the portrait of the first Barnabas Collins, something had happened. As Bones was talking about how odd it was for William's father to look like his ancestor, someone had smacked into Booth that night. He remembered the girl that night. She was brunette, thin and attractive. She was running from her brother. She and Booth had locked eyes for that minute. What was her name?
"Alex…" Harper came over. "Watch where you're running…" She excused herself. "Excuse us…" They looked at Booth one last time and headed for the buffet set out that night. What was the girl's name again? Booth replayed the scene over from his memory. He reversed it and played it again. The young brunette was racing toward him once more.
"Nikki, watch where you're running…" Harper excused herself in the altered memory. "Excuse us…" She and the girl known as Monica Frost now existed in Booth's memory of the event. As he replayed the incident, another person came into it.
"That girl is going to be the death of me." A stunning brunette appeared. "I'm sorry. I told her to stop running through the halls."
"Seeley…" William appeared that night. "I want you to meet Tricia Foster. She's an old friend of mine from school…" Booth shot forward to the present. Where did those memories come from? He'd never had them before. Had meeting Nikki again reawakened them?
"Your mother…" Booth suddenly realized he had met her. "I met her that night…."
"Who do you believe more?" Alex stood a bit more assuredly as she stopped polishing her crystal ball. "Your research or your memories?" She tilted her head to the side with a light grin.
"Your mother never finished her schooling in Collinsport, did she?" Booth thought about it. "That would explain them not having records for her."
"Now that you mention it…" Alex turned to pour herself more sherry. "I do recall someone saying she transferred to another school." She filled her glass and lifted it to her lips for a drink. "Oh, wait a second…" She set her glass aside and headed back toward her bedroom. Left behind, Seeley picked up and perused his data again. Angela had said that the facial reconstruction software wasn't meant to be absolute without photos of Nikki's maternal family tree. The problem was… no one could find her maternal relatives. In over thirty years, several families named Foster had passed in and out of Collinsport, and being a small town, there was so much room for error in the Collinsport census records. Alex reentered the room.
"Here's my mother." She produced a photo with herself and an older version of herself. "She was beautiful, wasn't she?"
"She sure is…" Booth noticed. In the photo, Tricia looked like Alex as a grown woman of forty holding her daughter on her lap. "I think I briefly met her too." He forced himself to confess.
"Go ahead, take it."
"No, I can't…"
"Are you sure?"
"Positive…" Booth chucked the research he had in a wastebasket by the desk. "I'm not sure why I started this."
"Maybe because you have unresolved feelings over the death of your friend…" Alex replied. Booth looked at her perturbed by her theory.
"I've read a little psychology…" Alex answered.
"Look…" Booth reacted a bit nostalgic. "I'm sorry I confronted you like this. It's just that… Well, on the surface, your claims seemed a bit sketchy."
"I understand…" Alex followed him as he turned to head out.
"Look…" Booth produced his card. "If you ever need any help."
"I'll remember you." Alex took his card then innocently hugged him. Booth chuckled a bit and hugged her back. He headed out and pointed himself for the elevators. Behind him, Alex closed the doors to her suite and turned around with her left hand daintily to her chest. A light gasp and her eyes directed their gaze to her wastebasket by her writing desk. A puff of smoke came from it as flames consumed its contents.
"That's about as close as I ever want to come to that…." She told herself.