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

few at a time while she gulped water under the faucet.
    Right.
    And what about the banging? I mean, you don't usually bang like that against a wall if you're drugged up with sleeping pills. You don't do that if you're dying of natural causes, either. Well, unless maybe you're choking, but I hadn't noticed any boxes of bonbons or half-eaten sandwiches waiting to be bagged and tagged as evidence.
    No, you bang against a wall like that in a struggle. In a fight.
    In a murder.
    And if she
was
murdered, well, who in the world had wanted her dead?
    The obvious choice sizzled like a branding iron againstmy brain. I jerked back and tried to run from the idea. It had to be someone else! It had to be. I raced through some other possibilities, starting with Max. LeBrandi had Max's brooch in her sock drawer and… and that was an obvious dead end. Max didn't even know that the Honeymoon Jewels were missing until a little while ago.
    Okay. Hali and Reena. Yeah! They'd been really upset with LeBrandi. But in my heart I knew—this was stretching things way too far. I mean, you don't kill someone over calling you
or
your mother a Jamaican Jailer.
    Then it flashed through my mind that really, it could be anyone. Anyone at all! Someone could have come in through the window—no, there was no window. Okay, the door. I got up and checked the doorknob and then the jamb. No splintered wood, no stressed or pried-up metal. Whoever had come in had just walked in.
    As I factored in the security system, the possibilities were coming down fast. Twelve women, plus Inga and Max, and Hali and Reena. And even though I didn't know anything about most of them, I did know a lot about
one
of them. Someone who was desperate enough and determined enough to do something as drastic as murdering LeBrandi.
    My mother.
    It was a horrible, panicky thought, but it rang so completely true. Getting the part of Jewel meant everything to my mother. It would mean she was a “real” actress, and it would mean getting away from Max—from the whole prospect of marrying Max
and
from the danger of being found out. For my mother to admit now that she wasLana Keyes, truck-stop waitress from Santa Martina, would kill her. Absolutely kill her.
    She'd also been gone—mysteriously gone—at the exact same time I'd heard the thumping from LeBrandi's room. And when I'd mentioned the thumping, my mother had wanted me to believe that I'd imagined it.
    And what a quick and easy diversion the vial was! All she had to do was throw the pills out.
    Or flush them down the toilet.
    And even though she'd been very upset—even though she'd looked shocked and pale and frightened by LeBrandi, dead in her bed—I was starting to get the picture that my mother
was
an actress.
    A very
good
actress.
    I stood there panting for air, not knowing what to do. It was a perfect setup. My mother's fingerprints, her strands of hair, fibers from her clothes—any evidence that might be used against her
couldn't
be used against her. They were all things that you'd expect to find there. It was
her
room.
    And her alibi would be airtight, except for one pesky little thing.
    Me.
    Hali pulled me out of my train wreck of emotions. “What are you doing over there?”
    I came away from the door. “N-nothing.”
    “Well, what were you saying?”
    I shook my head. “Never mind. It was stupid.”
    But Marissa's caught on. “Wow,” she says, but then adds, “Well… she could've gone down to the bathroom.Sleeping pills don't kill you right away, do they? There'd be time.”
    I try to sound confident as I say, “Yeah. I'm sure you're right,” but in my heart there's a cloud the size of Kansas moving in, and it feels heavy and dark.
    And evil.
    And for the first time in my life, that little part of my brain that helps me figure out what to do is quiet. Completely quiet. It's not knocking or nagging, not shaking or flagging. It's like a mute in there, arms crossed, eyes closed.
    I wished with all my heart that I