Free Sammy Keyes and the Hollywood Mummy by Wendelin Van Draanen Page A

sweating away, rolling up bedding and throwing around furniture.
    So we just stood in the doorway, watching as she flipped the chair upside down on the desk and then popped the wastepaper basket between the legs of the chair.
    When she finally sees us, she says hello with a scowl, then picks a pair of my mother's shoes up off the floor and puts them next to the chair.
    I take a step in and ask, “What are you doing?”
    “Got orders to vacuum, too.” She eyes me with a smirk. “You here to help?”
    I hesitate, then step all the way in. “Sure.”
    She stops what she's doing, stares at me for a few seconds, then throws her head back and laughs. Not an oh-you're-so-funny laugh, a hysterical laugh. Like she's on the verge of completely losing it.
    Very quietly I say, “I'm serious, Hali. We'll help.” I look over my shoulder. “Won't we, Marissa?”
    Marissa says, “Uh…sure,” and steps around a bundle of bedding to join us.
    Hali stares at me, then at Marissa, then back at me. “It's Sammy, right?”
    “That's right.”
    She sighs and says, “God, I'm sorry I've been such a witch. I'm just freaked out about something, and I'm finding it hard to deal.”
    “Well, it's pretty easy to see you're mad about something.”
    She shakes her head. “I'd like to hang 'em both.”
    I took a stab. “Inga and Max?”
    She snorts and says, “Yeah, her too.”
    Marissa whispers, “What's up with those bandages she wears, anyway?”
    Hali takes a rag out of her apron and starts wiping down the dresser. “You go in to get beautiful, you come out looking like a monster.”
    “What?”
    “Her plastic surgery was a disaster. They did some sort of skin peel, but she had a weird reaction to it, so now they're planing off the scars and grafting skin and trying to fix her up with some sort of intense skin rejuvenation program. I haven't actually seen it, but Tammy did, and I know it really freaked her out.”
    Now, while Hali's explaining about Inga's cosmetic fiasco, she's buffing the dresser with a dust rag. And while she's talking, little snapshots of the morning start flipping through my brain—LeBrandi, dead in bed; the vial of pills on the dresser behind her; people passing the vial around; Tammy slamming it back on the dresser. And these snapshots keep bringing me back to the dresser.
    The dresser.
    Slowly a chill comes over me and holds on tight. And all of a sudden it feels like I'm trapped in a walk-in freezer— I'm cold, I'm panicky, and I know I can't get out without crying for help.
    “Hali,” I say, but it's no cry at all. It's barely a whisper. “Hali!”
    “What?” She stops mid-swipe. “Don't you go fainting on me, girl. What's wrong?”
    I sit down on the edge of the mattress and ask, “Was there a glass in here?”
    “What?”
    “When you were cleaning up—did you find a glass?”
    “No.”
    I turn to Marissa. “Did you see one this morning?”
    Marissa shakes her head.
    “Is there a cup, a bottle,
anything
in the trash can?” Hali checks. “Two Kleenex and a pantyhose wrapper. What are you getting at?”
    “What happened to the vial?”
    “What vial? Oh, her sleeping pills? I don't know. Maybe the paramedics took it.”
    I sat there a minute, trying not to shiver, but the moreI thought about it, the more I knew that there was too much wrong here for me not to be right.
    Hali puts her hands on her hips and says, “What is up with you, girl?”
    I look at her and whisper, “She didn't have water.”
    “What?”
    “Water. How could she have swallowed all those pills without any water?”

EIGHT
    The moment it was out of my mouth, I wished I could take it back. I mean, who was I to say LeBrandi didn't swallow a fistful of pills without water? Maybe she had super-slick saliva that slid those suckers straight to her stomach. Maybe she just opened her throat and shook 'em down whole. Or maybe she'd gotten up, put all the pills in her hand, walked clear down to the bathroom, and downed them a