Free Ms America and the Offing on Oahu (Beauty Queen Mysteries No. 1) by Diana Dempsey Page A

direction of the mail room. I plaster myself back against the wall, as if that would help. Someone—the mail room man, I hope—stops at the elevator bank. I hear an elevator arrive, then sneak a peak around the corner. It’s him all right, stepping inside.
    Once he’s gone, I run to the mail room. God, I hope he left it open. And God, please don’t let him come back fast. I know it’s perverse to involve the Almighty in activities of dubious legality, but I hope He understands this is in service of a good cause.
    The mail room is open. Prayer one answered. I head for the stacking boxes that appear ready to go out. Tiffany’s is neither the top one, nor the second from the top.
    The mail room man’s words ring in my ears. I’m never gone long .
    Not the third from the top, either.
    But with the fourth I hit pay dirt. This one is addressed to Mr. Tony Postagino in Riverside, California. I lift it and set it aside. It’s fairly heavy but not too bad. None of the other boxes are going to him.
    Only one box? Yes, I realize, looking around. Because there are two suitcases as well, with tags instructing the mail room to box and ship them to Tony Postagino.
    The thing I really want is Tiffany’s laptop. Would that be in a suitcase or a box?
    Box, I decide. Because she probably carried it to Oahu in a computer bag and that would be too bulky to go in a suitcase. I restack the other boxes, lift hers, and run.
    I am so bad , I think to myself as I race away from the mail room carrying my booty. I am so hosed if anybody sees me .
    I’m not far from the elevator bank when I hear my cell phone ringing, loud and clear, from my beach bag. The basement corridor is suddenly filled with a Muzak version of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.” To make matters worse, I then hear the elevator begin its downward swoosh to the basement floor.
    I am about to be discovered. Thief, ‘80s-music fan, marauder.
    I sprint, fling myself around the corner, drop the box, then dive for my beach bag and the cell phone inside. I shut the damn thing up just as the elevator doors whoosh open. Footsteps again. I try desperately to hold my breath. I’m on all fours in the middle of the corridor, which really is no different from being plastered against the wall, though I feel strangely more vulnerable.
    The footsteps are receding. Apparently God is heeding the prayers of his new Ms. America, though I suspect that if I keep this up, I won’t have His forbearance for long.
    I gather my and Tiffany’s belongings, which is quite a load, and within seconds am in the elevator riding to the main floor. I wish I could go higher but that is not an option. When the doors open, I exit as nonchalantly as my thieving self can manage and sashay toward the elevator bank that’ll take me to the ninth floor.
    It is only when I am outside my own door that it occurs to me that if my roomie is in, I’ll have some explaining to do.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

    Of course Shanelle is in, because my good karma can’t last indefinitely.
    She’s on her bed wearing a black camisole and pink shorts and painting her toenails a metallic white. She’s let her hair dry into a natural Afro and tied it back with a black headband. She glances at the box in my arms and her expression grows quizzical. “What you got there?” she asks me.
    “Uh … just some stuff.” I set the box down in the narrow space between my bed and the wall. I then throw my beach bag on top of it, aiming for the shipping label that spells out in big block letters MR. TONY POSTAGINO.
    She rises from the bed and hobbles closer, undeterred by her fresh pedicure and the toe-separating thingie that’s protecting it. She’s looking at me the way mothers look at their children when they know said children are up to something of which the mother will not approve. Unless I want to wrestle her to the floor and thereby ruin her new polish, I cannot stop her from doing what she does next: picking up my beach bag and