Chapter Seventy

Scavenger Hunt

Jenny shook her head in amazement. It had all worked out exactly as Jason had said it would. The Billy guy dismantled the electronic lock—no easy feat, if the lock company was to be believed—and then put it back together again in half the time. Then he stood up, smiled, exchanged a few words with Kimberly and the stripper, and headed for the vending area, hopping over the worst piles of ice, tools in hand. Kimberly and the stripper came out of the room, talked to Billy for a second, then slipped back inside the room, leaving the door cracked open. Jenny watched with interest, waiting for them to reappear. She had to use the monitors instead of waiting for everything to get recorded and then playing it in the VCR, so she didn't have the option of fast-forwarding. It was annoying even without the fact that she couldn't rewind, pause and fast-forward, as the monitors were up high and put a crick in her neck, but it was all worth it. She just wished they'd hurry up and come back into view. Unlike when Tommy had been banging on doors, this was taking far too long and happening in too many parts for her to wait for it to end and then watch it at her leisure. Not that the TV/VCR was for entertaining herself; it was used mostly to go through a tape quickly and find a specific incident…

"Hello? Anybody here?"

Cursing the idiot customers that felt it necessary to interrupt her fun, Jenny left the back room and went out behind the desk, only to find herself looking at the sleepy kid and his rollaway cot. "Can I help you?"

"If I'm really, really lucky," he grumbled. "Look, I doubt you want a full, in-depth explanation, but I need a place to sleep."

"Well, we're actually all booked up at the moment," Jenny said apologetically. "I can't give you a room."

"Oh, I already have a room. I am paying for it. I just can't sleep in it. However, since I'm paying to sleep here and unable to, I don't think it's unfair to ask that I be allowed to sleep elsewhere."

"Actually—"

"So I tried to unfold my cot in the elevator, but it wouldn't fit. So I'm kind of hoping I can sleep here."

"Here?"

"Yes. Here. Right here. I'm sure it's probably pretty quiet down here. And I don't snore or anything. I'll just set up over here, out of the way, and take a nap." With that, he determinedly snapped open his cot and began putting his sheets back on it.

"I'm sorry, but you can't just crash here in the—"

"Excuse me, ma'am?"

"What now?" Jenny growled, and turned to face a trio of guys in swimming trunks with towels around their necks. "Yes?"

"We just thought we'd let you know that these crazy girls about six or seven floors up claim their ninja stripper jumped off the balcony," a guy in green swimming trunks said.

Jenny froze. "What?"

"Yeah. They asked us if we'd seen anyone jump off," he said. "We said no, asked if they were on something, but they just said their ninja stripper had vanished. Not sure if you need to do anything about it or not."

Jenny stared at him. "He jumped off the balcony?"

"That's what they said. But no one saw anything."

"Thank you."

The guy smiled at her and the three of them walked away. "That'll teach them not to invite us up," one of the guys muttered.

"Call me crazy, but I'm not sure I want to hook up with girls drunk enough to think their stripper committed suicide in mid-pole dance," the third guy said dryly.

"You're crazy. Those are exactly the kind of girls I want to hook up with," the guy in green replied.

Jenny pulled out her cell and dialed Carrie. "Hey, Jen," Carrie said. "I thought you said it was cool if I didn't come back right away—"

"Put that Jason guy back on the phone."

"Um, okay."

"Yeah?" Jason asked a moment later.

"I think that Tommy Oliver guy just… um… well, I think he just committed suicide."

"What?"

"These guys just came in and told me that some girls up on six said their ninja stripper jumped off the balcony."

Jason paused, then burst out laughing. "Oh, my god. You mean he was actually posing as a stripper?"

"Yeah, but—"

"They actually thought he was a real stripper? HAHAHA!"

"Would you quit laughing? Didn't you just hear me? He committed suicide!"

"No he didn't. He just went to Kimberly's room."

"…What?"

"Tommy's really athletic. I know he's hopped across the balconies to Kimberly's room at least once. He must've put on hi—Trent's ninja costume and used it to get the girls to let him in. Then he ran out onto the balcony and jumped across the sixth floor's balconies to Kim's room, and they all thought he'd leaped to his death."

"That's sixty or seventy feet in the air! Is he insane?"

"Yes. He's beyond insane."

Jenny shook her head, awed at the craziness of this guy. It was amazing to her to think that just last night she'd actually thought the whack job could be a Power Ranger. "Well, why didn't he just use his own balcony? Why pose as a stripper to use someone else's?"

"I don't know. Can you think of anything else you saw him do?"

"Yeah, actually. Come to think of it, he went and knocked on Kimberly's door, then knocked on his own door."

"Oh, well, if that's the case, he might be back in his own room by now instead of Kimberly's. Matter of fact, I just remembered—I have his room key. He's just locked out; that's why he's using the balconies."

"Why not just come down and get a spare key from me, like he did last night?"

"Eh, well, to be honest, Tommy's got the memory of Swiss cheese. Swiss cheese that isn't just aged, it's ancient. And has contracted Alzheimer's. And had several head injuries. He must have just forgotten that was an option. I told you this wasn't as criminal as it seemed."

Jenny gave the phone an incredulous look, which was as close to smacking Jason upside the head as she could currently get. "Gee, how silly of me, not to take all of this in stride. Now, if you'll excuse me, that kid who got dumped off his cot is trying to sleep in my lobby."

"Ethan? Aw, come on. Have a heart. Look at him."

Jenny looked. By now, he'd set up his cot and was curled tightly in a ball, his body posture implying that he expected an anvil fall on his head at any moment, while his face was now peaceful and relaxed. She sighed, watching the serene expression for a moment. What was it about sleep that made everyone, from the ugliest of people to the drop-dead gorgeous, look so darned cute?
"All the same, I think I've done you people enough favors tonight," Jenny said firmly.

"Tell you what. Are you a Tanya Sloan fan?"

"Yeah, why?"

"She's a good friend of mine. You let Ethan get some rest and let these little… issues go unnoticed, name your concert and I'll get you tickets. Backstage passes, too."

"Are you serious?"

"Ask Carrie. Or just watch the any of the Grammy Awards that Tanya won something at. Every acceptance speech she ever gave, she mentions Jason Scott. And Tommy Oliver. We're her best friends from high school."

"No way. You people might be weird, but that's just a little too freaky."

"I'm beyond serious. As a matter of fact, her boyfriend—my buddy Adam—is currently crashing in Tommy's room; we were all having a party. Check the tapes, about eleven or twelve o'clock, you'll see him walk into the room. It's the same guy you've probably seen in magazines or on TV standing next to her on the red carpet. Check it out. If I'm lying, feel free to call security. And if I'm not, you let Ethan sleep until a few minutes before your shift is over, and you don't call security on my friends."

Jenny rushed into the back room, turned on the TV/VCR, and rewound the tape of the sixth floor until the clock in the lower left-hand corner of the screen read eleven twenty-four. Sure enough, there he was, walking down the hall with a guy in a red T-shirt. Jenny had met Adam Park on several occasions when he'd vacationed in Angel Grove with Tanya; he'd always been a total sweetheart to the staff, just like Tanya, and he was a lot easier to talk to, as being around him didn't make Jenny nearly as star-struck.

"Holy crap, Adam Park's in the hotel," Jenny breathed. "How did I miss that?"

"Same way you must have missed all those crazy wacky people on the sixth floor," Jason said nonchalantly. "Do we have a deal?"

"Any concert I want?"

"Any concert you want. I go to a lot of the ones in California myself. I even spent one summer touring with her, back when I was in college and had the summers off. Carrie's got my number; just let me know when you want to go. Okay?"

"Hell yeah," Jenny breathed, forgetting all about how many ways her boss would have a stroke if he knew about the nonsense Jason's friends were causing. Jenny loved music almost as much as she loved sports, and even though she adored Tanya's albums she'd never been able to make one of Tanya's concerts. All the ones in the area sold out too fast. Jenny hung up the phone and checked the monitors; Billy was now gone. She'd call housekeeping to go clean up the ice mess on the sixth floor and let Ethan take shelter in the lobby. No way was she going to call security on one of her favorite singer's friends. She'd just have to hope nothing too freakish went down.

Adam was happily cavorting through the meadow with twelve singing wildebeests, three belly-dancing mastodons, and a Chinese spy, enjoying the bright green sunlight and the lush black grass and the beautiful yellow trees when disaster struck. Someone woke him up. How incredibly rude.

"What's a matter?" Adam spluttered.

"Who the hell are you?" Zack demanded.

"I'm Adam," Adam explained. "And you're Zack, in case you were wondering."

Zack gave him an odd look. "No, I meant that guy."

Adam looked where Zack was pointing—straight at a police officer, who was looking pretty mortified. The cop cleared his throat and glowered at them.

"You are not singing wildebeests," Adam declared. "Or belly-dancing mastodons. Or a Chinese spy. In fact, you're not even Chinese. And I doubt you sing."

"Actually, um, I don't know about mastodon, but the belly dancer thing—" the cop began.

"How about you start with who you are?" Zack repeated, hopping out of the bed. "And where are Tommy and Jason?"

"I… don't know," the cop said slowly, backing away from Zack.

Adam, realizing that he should support his friend, flipped out of the bed, ran at the cop, and got in the cop's face. Quite literally; the tip of his nose was pressed against the cop's cheek. "Are you sure?" Adam asked.

"Y-yeah," the cop stammered.

Adam looked at Zack. "He doesn't know who he is. Maybe we should ask around."

"No, no, I know who I am, I just don't know where Tommy and Jason are," the cop explained. "I came in here with—OW!" A small object came out of nowhere to hit Marco in the forehead before it bounced away.

"What was that?" Zack asked, looking suspiciously around the darkened room.

"Something fell from the sky, silly," Adam said.

"Dude, how much did you drink?" Zack demanded.

"I forget." Adam flung out his arms and began jumping around the room. "Hurry up and cut off his hands and toes, Zack! I want to go back to playing with the wildebeests!"

Zack frowned at Adam, then shook his head and went back to glaring at the cop. "Now, listen. I don't know who you think you are, but since I didn't let you in, and Tommy and Jase aren't even here, and Adam's obviously gone off the deep end, you didn't have permission to be in here. You have no right to come in here without consent. Cop or not, you can't just barge into our rooms without announcing yourself, never mind without probable cause. You got a warrant?"

"I'm…" The cop sighed. "I'm not actually a cop."

"You mean you're a wildebeest?" Adam asked excitedly, pausing in his frolicking.

"I'm a male stripper," he continued, ignoring Adam. "My name's Marco."

Zack took several hasty steps backwards. "Then what the hell are you doing in our room?" His expression turned even more horrified. "Adam, man, what did you do while I was sleeping?"

"I danced in the black meadow of happy thoughts," Adam replied. "I was only gone for a moment."

"Something tells me you were gone longer than that," Zack said dryly. "Okay, so, Marco. How'd you get in?"

"The door was open," Marco said quickly. His face lit up, as if something had just occurred to him. "Isn't this room 628?"

"No, it's 618!"

"No! It's the land of eternal hiccupping toiletries!" Adam exclaimed, leaping on top of the dresser and spinning in circles.

"Oh, my god, I'm sorry! They told me they'd leave the door open for me, and this door was open, and I just saw the eight and I came right in! Stupid me. I'll be going now. So sorry for the mix-up."

"No weirder than anything else that's happened today," Zack muttered as Adam toppled off the dresser.

Marco rushed out of the door while Zack went to check on Adam. "You okay?"

"I am grander than the Grand Canyon! I am grander than the Grand Master! I am grander than the Grandest of Grand People, Places, Things, Ideas, and Any Other Forms of Nouns! I am GRAND! I am the true Lord of the Dance! I am the Harbinger of the Wildebeests!"

"That's nice," Zack said, shaking his head. "But if I find out you ordered a male stripper while I was sleeping, let alone sharing a blanket with you, I'm gonna kick your ass."

"And kick it well you shall," Adam told him solemnly.

Zack sighed and grabbed his shirt and jeans, checking to make sure he still had his keycard, wallet, keys and cell phone in the pants pockets before throwing the clothes on. "I'm gonna go see if I can find Tommy or Jason. Will you be, uh, grand while I'm gone?"

"I could never be grand without you! For you are my dear friend, and you are just as grand as I!"

Zack shook his head. "The gang is right. It's always me the weird stuff happens to."

Zack left, shutting the door behind him. Adam stared happily off into space until something Kimberly-shaped filled the space he was staring into. "Hello, Adam," said Kimberly in a slow, gentle voice.

"Hello, dear Kimberly. Where hast thou been?"

Kimberly grinned. "Billy wasn't kidding."

"Nay, Billy is not a child. Nor am I. I am a man, dear Kimberly, with wants and needs and desires and ears." Adam jerked into a sitting position and took her hand in his. "Kimberly, dear Kimberly, would thou fly me to Africa so that I can be a man with my dearest Tanya and the singing wildebeests?"

Kimberly stared at him for a long moment. "Uh, no."

Adam was instantly crestfallen, but he brightened almost as fast. "Well, then, I shall just have to flap my arms until I arrive at Tanya's location!"

"Yeah, you do that. By the way, do you know where Tommy put my clothes?"

"Haven't the foggiest. I am, however, aware that he stashed your entire collection of miniskirts and everything from your sock drawer under the bed."

"Thank you." Kimberly walked away. Adam stared blankly ahead until Kimberly returned to his side, holding a trash bag. "Come on, Adam. Let's get you back into bed."

"Will there be cheese?"

"…Probably not, but you never now."

"WHOO!" Adam leaped up and flung himself on the bed, snuggling down into the pillows. "Will you sing to me, dear Kimberly?"

"Only if you stop calling me 'dear Kimberly.'"

"Yes, my little pink wildebeest of glory."

"…Never mind. 'Dear Kimberly' is fine."

"Yes, dear Kimberly."

"Well, I'm gonna go now."

"You said you'd sing!"

Kimberly rolled her eyes and glanced nervously at the door, then back at Adam. "Okay, um… go to sleep, crazy Adam, go to sleep where you lay. Um… I've finally stolen back my panties, and want to go away, before Tommy can find me. Now that Zack met Marco, I'm sorry but I must go. So sleep, crazy Adam, the effects will wear off soon, so sleep, crazy Adam, sleep straight through until noon… sleep…"

Adam's eyes fluttered closed. Kimberly stopped her singing and waited to see if he would protest or not. When he didn't, she went to the balcony door and unlocked it; she didn't want to go out the bedroom door, just in case Zack was still in the hall. She shut the balcony door behind her, hoping no one would notice it was now unlocked, and checked to be sure all of her underwear and miniskirts were in the bag. Satisfied, she hopped across the balconies, pausing when she reached the fifth one and heard music.

Peering through the window, she saw that Marco was inside, dancing for a group of maybe a dozen girls, his shirt already off. A girl who looked thoroughly embarrassed was handcuffed to a chair in the center of the room. Marco happened to see Kimberly and faltered in his dance, staring at her. Kimberly gave him a sheepish wave, held up the bag for a second to show that she'd succeeded in her mission, and mouthed "Thank you." Then she quickly hurried on, not wanting anyone to wonder what he was staring at and come out on the balcony to look.

She had a moment of panic when she returned to her balcony and saw the door was closed, but thankfully it was still unlocked. Breathing a sigh of relief, she went inside, dumped the contents of the bag back into her sock drawer, put the marinara sauce and razor back in their rightful places, and headed for her bed. Trini was sleeping peacefully, covered from head to toe in the blankets. Kimberly lay down beside her, careful not to disturb Trini or Kira.

Well, this didn't turn out so badly, Kimberly thought as she closed her eyes. Ice aside, anyway. And at least I got my clothes back. I can always sneak attack him with the head-shaving tomorrow. Wonder where he went, anyway.

Trini rolled over beside her, knocking some of the covers back onto Kimberly. A moment later, Trini's arm snaked around Kimberly's waist. Kimberly ignored it; Trini did that a lot, probably from all that time spent sleeping next to Jason. Without opening her eyes, Kimberly arranged the blankets on top of herself and let her mind drift off into sleep.

If she hadn't, she might have noticed that the arm she thought was Trini's actually belonged to Tommy.

Jenny heard the doorbell go off and irritably returned to the front desk. After all that avid watching, Kimberly still hadn't emerged from the room. Marco had run out of the room as if being chased by hungry lions and snatched a stereo up off the floor by the elevator. Then he'd practically broken down the door to room 628 before someone had opened it and he'd flung himself inside. A guy who looked vaguely familiar had come out shortly after Marco's escape, but not Kimberly, and he'd gone straight to the elevator after stopping to talk to Billy, who chatted with him for a moment while he finished tinkering with the ice machine. Housekeeping was now cleaning up the ice, and all was quiet on the sixth floor. Still, Jenny wanted to keep watching the action, and now someone had the nerve to interrupt her by coming into the lobby.

Jenny spotted the culprit heading for the elevator—an Asian woman that she'd seen come down from the sixth floor earlier, but the camera's rotation had missed which room the woman had come from. Jenny watched as she hit the elevator button, hoping the woman would go away quickly without asking Jenny for anything.

When the doors opened, they revealed the guy who'd left Tommy's room, who looked startled at the woman's appearance. "Trini!"

"Zack. What are you doing?"

"What are you doing?"

"It's a long story."

"Me, too." Zack stepped out of the elevator, letting the doors close behind him. Jenny groaned. Now she'd have to wait until they decided if they wanted to talk to the receptionist or not.

"Have you seen Kimberly?"

"No. Have you seen Tommy or Jason?"

"Yeah. Tommy, at least. He said he had a nightmare, got locked out of his room and crawled into my bed, of all the crazy things to do."

Well, that explains where he went, at least, Jenny thought, shaking her head.

"Billy said he might be out of it. Apparently that aq—" Zack glanced around, saw Jenny, and changed his tune. "Amish water causes side effects if you mix it with beer and then try to go to sleep. Adam's acting like a total crackpot, too. Kept going on and on about singing wildebeests and I think he might've somehow ordered a male stripper."

"A what?"

"A male stripper. I heard this noise and I woke up and there was this stripper dressed like a cop in the room. He said he had the wrong room, thought that since our door was open we must be the right place, but with Adam acting like he was on ecstasy, the stripper dude might've just freaked out and bolted."

Jenny covered her mouth to muffled her laughter. That's awesome! she thought gleefully.

"Well, now, that's interesting," Trini said dryly.

"I'll say. Anyway, I thought I'd look around for Tommy and Jason, make sure they're not completely wacko, but if Tommy's in your room…"

"Then we just need to find Kimberly and my darling husband," Trini finished.

Jenny's eyes widened as her body filled with dread. That was Jason's wife! Oh, god, no way was she telling them where Jason was—at least, not while Carrie was near Jason. Both Trini and Zack looked a little too… athletic.

Calm down, I'll just lie and say I don't know where they went. There's no way they'd suspect me of… oh, crap, Ethan! He was here when I told Carrie to put Jason on the phone!

Jenny rushed around to the other side of the desk, braced her hands on Ethan's cot, and shoved, watching Trini and Zack over her shoulder the whole time. All she had to do was get him behind the desk; it was too high for them to see the cot over it, especially from all the way across the lobby…

She got him behind the counter without any incident, but there was no way she'd get him into the back room; the doorway was too narrow. Jenny darted into the back, grabbed and armload of sheets and towels, and dumped them on top of Ethan until every visible part of him was covered.

"…I checked the truck, the Escalade, the Jeep, the Mercedes and the Mustang, but they were all empty and exactly where we'd left them," Trini was saying as Jenny leaned against the counter as nonchalantly as she could, watching them warily. "Maybe Kim and Jason went out for a walk or something."

"Did you check the pool?"

"Yeah, that was the first place I looked. And the restaurant, and the bar, and the arcade… I even checked out some of the vending areas, since the ice machine on our floor was busted."

"Billy said he hadn't seen Kimberly or Tommy; I asked."

"Maybe the girl at the front desk has seen them."

Zack squinted at Jenny, who did her best to pretend she didn't notice. "I don't think that's the crazy girl with the crush on me. I think that's the one who asked me and Conner not to eat Play-Doh in the lobby. She was real polite about it, though. You wanna ask?"

Ah, so THAT'S where I've seen him before, Jenny thought. Jeez, is EVERYONE that Jason guy knows a total whack job?

Trini approached the desk, Zack keeping his distance. Jenny pasted on her best fake smile. "Can I help you?"

"Yeah, I…" Trini trailed off, noticing the cot covered in blankets, sheets and towels. "Huh. You guys really are all booked up, eh?"

"Oh, um… that's my… long story."

"Everything always is. Anyway, have you seen a brunette girl come through here, about this tall, wearing a big green button-down shirt? Or a guy with short dark hair, about this tall, wearing red or black?"

"I think she knows who Jason is," Zack called before Jenny could answer. "She was here this morning—or yesterday morning, whatever—so I think she's Carrie's friend."

Crap, Jenny groaned to herself. Great. Now she couldn't just lie her ass off and hope that it didn't get back to these people that she'd lied about seeing Jason or Kimberly.

"Oh, hello," Trini said, looking startled by this information. She gave Jenny the once-over. "You're the one who did a few… favors for Carrie, on behalf of Tommy Oliver, then?"

Jenny nodded. "Yeah, that's me."

"You deleted a few… choice… names off the registry, right?"

"Tommy Oliver, Kimberly Hart and Zack Taylor, yeah," Jenny said cautiously. "A little while ago, Kimberly came down and asked for a key to 618, but I didn't give her one, since that wasn't her room. Jason came by and said the candy machine ate his dollar." Jenny stopped. Now she'd just have to wait for Trini to say something else, and then she could say that she told the partial truth if it ever came back on her.

"So Kim was trying to bust into our room," Zack said. "That explains where she went."

"And Jason's out for candy," Trini added. "He probably decided to walk to the corner store or something. Mystery solved. Well, let's go get some sleep, Zack." She smiled brightly at Jenny. "Hey, are you a Tanya Sloan fan?"

Jenny stared at her for a moment. "Yeah."

"Well, I believe your friend Carrie has Jason's number. If you ever want to go to a concert of hers, have Carrie get in touch with Jason. We can get tickets to anything she does. Backstage passes, too. Completely free. Our way of saying thank you for what you did for Tommy."

"Oh. Um, thanks."

Trini and Zack said their goodbyes and disappeared into the elevator. "Well that's just great," Jenny muttered to herself. "I agree to put even more of my neck on the block, and the dude's wife offers me the same thing he did without the extra favors. That's just swell."

Jenny went to Ethan's cot, unburied him, and woke him up. "Sorry, kid. You just became a liability."

Ethan looked up at her in confusion. "I'm really good with secrets."

"Somehow, that doesn't surprise me. But you're gonna have to find a new place to crash."

Ethan sighed, rolled off his cot, folded it up and wheeled it to the elevator without another word. The moment he was inside, Jenny dialed Carrie.

"I want to talk to Jason."

"Okay, but I'm beginning to think you like him more than me," Carrie joked before handing the phone over.

"Hello?"

"You need to get back in here."

"Why?"

"Your wife was out looking for you. I told her you came down about a candy machine stealing a dollar, and she left. Thought you were out getting snacks somewhere."

"Damn. Did you say anything else?"

"Told her Kimberly asked for a room key, but I didn't give her one. Oh, and she said she'd get me Tanya Sloan tickets just for deleting Tommy Oliver's name."

"And you said what?"

"I thanked her. Especially since she didn't ask me to ignore twenty other things that could get me fired."

"You just thanked her? You didn't say 'oh my god, that's awesome' or 'really, how do you know Tanya' or anything?"

"No…"

"What else did she say?"

"Well, she was with this guy named Zack—good-looking, eats Play-Doh—"

"You saw him eating Play-Doh?"

"Yeah. The other night. Why, is that important?"

"Only if you've had a traumatic childhood experience involving Zack eating your red Play-Doh. Anyway, never mind that. Tell me what else happened."

Jenny related the entirety of what had occurred—on the tapes, with Ethan, and with Trini and Zack—since she'd last talked to Jason. "So you need to get back in here, because something tells me your wife is the type who might get a little annoyed that you snuck off with my best friend in the middle of the night."

"Are you crazy? The last thing I need to do is come back in there."

"What? Why's that?"

"There are too many clues. Trini will figure it out by morning. Depending on how awake she is and how many things she's got going through her head, she'll realize that you were a little too casual about the thought of Tanya Sloan tickets. She'll also realize that the door to our room was open for the stripper to get through, but Tommy was already in her room because he was locked out. And if Tommy got locked out of his room, it was probably because I had his key, meaning I left before he did. Add that to Zack saying Billy, technology genius extraordinaire, was in the hall, and… well, there's a big, confusing mess right there. Trini's gonna figure something out very, very soon. If I walk back into that building before she's asleep, I'm a dead man. She'll put two and two together and—"

The stairwell door banged open. Trini emerged, looking livid. Zack was chasing after her, obviously worried. Trini fixed her gaze on Jenny and began storming across the lobby.

"Gotta go," Jenny told Jason, hastily turning off her cell phone.

"Okay," Trini growled as she stormed up to the counter, "what was on the cot?"

"Huh? I don't know what—"

"Listen, lady, I've been winning martial arts contests since I was five years old. Tell me where my husband is."

"I don't know!" Jenny exclaimed, beyond glad that that was, in fact, the truth. "I told you, he came downstairs, said the candy machine ate his dollar, and left!"

"He offered you Tanya Sloan tickets, didn't he."

"I… no…"

"You didn't even blink when I told you I knew her! It was Jason, wasn't it?"

Struck by divine inspiration, Jenny shook her head wildly. "I saw Adam Park come into this hotel. Went into Tommy Oliver's room. I've met him several times; Tanya stays here a lot. So I watched to see where he was going, because I figured Park and Oliver are pretty close in the alphabet and I should have noticed him on the registry when I went through it for Carrie. I watched the elevator numbers once he got in so I'd know what floor he was going to, then watched the monitor for the sixth floor. So I was all like, 'wow, that crazy not-a-Power-Ranger guy knows Adam Park, and Carrie told me that yeah, Adam and Tommy are old friends. So I figured you knew her too, because I kept hearing that guy—" she pointed at Zack, who looked like a deer out for a nighttime stroll who found himself standing in the middle of an eight-lane freeway full of speeding semi trucks— "mention Tommy the other night when he was eating Play-Doh, and the kid with him kept saying 'Dr. O' and 'Dr. Oliver' until I kicked them out, and I remembered wondering if it was the same guy."

"So you didn't just delete Tommy's name. You know what he looks like," Trini said slowly.

"Are you kidding? I was watching a news report on him and he shows up half-naked and asks me for a spare key! That's not the sort of thing you just forget. Especially not when two whack jobs—no offense," she added to Zack.

"We're cool," Zack told her dismissively.

"Especially not when two whack jobs run out of the elevator three minutes later as if being chased by a Yeti and start snacking on Play-Doh," Jenny finished.

Trini stared at her thoughtfully for a long moment. "Then what was up with the cot, and where is it now?"

"I don't know where he went, but it was this kid, Ethan. He said he got kicked out of his room and asked if he could crash down here."

"And you let him?" Trini demanded. Jenny shrugged and nodded. "Why'd you move it behind the desk when Zack and I were talking?"

Damn. She IS observant. "I thought I saw my boss's car pull up out front. Was trying to hide it."

Trini thought that over. Then she smiled brightly and clapped Jenny on the shoulder. "You're good. Not good enough to save Jason from his fate, but good enough to save your own ass. I admire that."

"What?" Jenny asked blankly.

Trini turned and walked away. Zack sighed heavily and gave Jenny an apologetic look. "Seriously, any concert you want," he told her, then chased after Trini. "Every concert you want!" he called over his shoulder as he and Trini disappeared into the stairwell.

Jenny took a deep, shuddering breath. She found herself randomly thinking of that time she'd fallen out of a tree when she was twelve, then realized her life had just flashed before her eyes and she's been too busy panicking to notice. Once again, she dialed Carrie.

Jason picked up. "Are you okay?"

"I take back any comment I ever made about you and Carrie. No one would be stupid enough to cheat on that."

"Okay, so what just happened?" Zack demanded as Trini charged up the stairs.

"Not much. I'd assume Jason's chatting up that Carrie girl right now. The nerve of him! Not trusting me to be cool with that!"

"What? How do you get 'Jason's chatting up Carrie' from 'he wanted some candy?' I mean, yeah, euphemism, but still—"

"I don't think he's, you know, 'getting candy' from her," Trini said, rolling her eyes. "I think they're probably off somewhere talking."

"And you got there how?"

"Carrie's good pal at the front desk is lying. We know for a fact that she doesn't know Jason that well, and she doesn't mind risking her job for Carrie. I'd guess Carrie and Jason met up in the lobby and wandered off somewhere so they could talk about him being the first Red without worrying about eavesdroppers, and Jenny, being a good friend, is covering for both of them. Jason's probably been talking to her for a while now. Long before Tommy came to me; when he was ranting about his dream he said 'Jason vanished.' I thought it was just part of his whacked-out dream sequence, but now I'm pretty sure it meant that Jason left before Tommy did, so he's been gone pretty much since we all went to sleep."

"And you picked this all out because that girl wasn't shocked that you knew Tanya Sloan? How do you know she wasn't telling the truth about Adam?"

"Because she wasn't at the front desk when Jason, Billy and I got here. We came in a little before midnight, and Adam got here before we did. Given how busy the place is, and the fact that she worked night shift and was still there after breakfast yesterday, I'd guess they're having her work midnight to noon, since checkout time is one and check-in time is three."

"Sounds about right. I know that creepy Harriet chick doesn't show up until at least noon." Zack shook his head. "You really are scary observant."

"Thank you."

"So. Is Jason gonna be dead come morning?"

"Nah. I'll probably just smack him around a little. I like making him sweat."

"Too much information."

"Shut up, Zack," Trini said affectionately as they emerged from the stairwell on the sixth floor. "See you in the morning?"

"Provided Adam doesn't try to sacrifice me to the god of wildebeests or something, yeah," Zack replied dryly.

"I'll try to send Tommy back into your room. Kimberly's going to kill me if she gets back to the room and finds Tommy in our bed."

"Good luck convincing Tommy what color he is."

"It's always hardest with Tommy," Trini joked. Zack laughed and headed on down the hall, while Trini unlocked her door and went inside.

She kicked off her shoes and changed back into her nightgown, then headed for her bed, wondering where Kimberly was. She was almost to the edge of the bed when she uncovered Kimberly's whereabouts—she was currently lying in the bed, curled up with Tommy.

Trini gaped at the two of them for several minutes straight before turning and diving for her purse, rummaging through it wildly. When she failed to find what she was looking for, she rushed at Kira and shook her awake.

"Wha?" Kira groaned.

"Kira, wake up. It's very important."

"What?"

"I need a camera. Now."

End Notes: Freyja's currently weathering the storms in Kansas, and I am awaiting a new court date, so everything should be fine. For a while, anyway. For the record, I have no idea where the wildebeests came from, and I'm not sure I wanna know.