“What the . . .?” Nella lay on the floor beside the bathtub. She rolled to her back and stared at the ceiling. Her head spun and black dots swirled like snowflakes before her eyes. She blinked to clear her vision, ran a hand under the back of her head, and let out a breath. No lump. No blood. But what happened? She’d never ever fainted, but one minute she was walking to the bathroom, and the next . . .
After a moment to settle her head, she leaned up on her elbows, and blinked several times. This was crazy. Where was the ceiling light? The blinds? The only light coming into the room was through a crack at the edge of a set of red, brocade drapes where dust motes danced through the stream of sunlight.
Instead of dried flowers and lemon-scented dusting spray, the room smelled musty or like unwashed bodies and dirty clothing. Rather like her brother’s unkempt room when they were growing up. There was also the odor of the fuel oil her grandparents had used to heat their house.
Another underlying odor hit her nostrils. Metallic. A bit like . . . Blood? But she hadn’t cut her head. She checked her hands to see if she’d cut them on the way to the floor. Nope. As clean as they were when she entered the room.
She sat up. The sheets and blankets on the bed were in disarray. A white stocking hung over the bed’s metal footboard. A shattered lamp lay on the floor. Along with lamp oil pooling across the floor, shards of green glass were scattered about.
Something to her left caught her attention. Her breath and pulse hitched. A body lay across the rim of the tub. A drab gray nightgown barely covered the lower body. A nearly shredded stocking hung down to one ankle. Was it a match to the one on the end of the bed?
Her body shaking, Nella rose to her knees for a closer inspection. Bent at the waist, the woman’s upper body was draped over the tub. Her arms and head hung inside. Blood was splattered over the bottom and sides of the tub. Her long, brilliant red hair, a color not seen in nature, obscured the side of her face.
“Oh, my God. I think she’s dead.” Biting back a scream, she crab-walked across the floor toward the door, then clawed for the door handle. Wait. The bats. She couldn’t leave the room with all those bats out there. She sat on the floor, leaned against the door, and rested her head on her bent knees. Where had the woman come from? Was this a bad dream? Maybe she’d been doing too much research on Deadwood for her books.
That was it. She’d fallen asleep at her desk and was dreaming about the upstairs brothels. She pinched her arm. Damn. Maybe she shouldn’t have pinched herself so hard, but it wasn’t hard enough to wake herself up. The woman was still draped over the tub. The curtains were still red brocade, and there were no electric lights.
Bats or no bats, the best thing to do would be to leave the room and find someone to help her. First, she should look out the window. Maybe there was a way to leave without going into the other room and sneaking around the bats. But it would mean going past the dead woman. She sucked in a breath. So be it. After all, a deceased person couldn’t fly at her, get in her hair, bite her, or drop guano on her.
Nella stood. Instead of walking past the woman, she climbed over the bed; cowboy boots be damned. She’d pay for any damages they might cause. As she skittered across, the odor of the bedding stung her nose. Heavens, when was the last time this woman changed her sheets?
Along with the window blinds, the sign about the murdered prostitute was gone. She grabbed the drapes and yanked them open. Dust flew making her nose itch. After being in the darkened room, the bright light hurt her eyes. She blinked a few times and peered through the unwashed window into the empty lot behind the building.
Wait. Empty lot? Her car and everyone else’s vehicles should have been there. Instead, there was nothing but muddy ground, a slope leading to a hill, and a sorrel horse tied to a rickety post. After several pushes, she managed to open the two sides of the window. She breathed in fresh air, then jerked back into the room. When had the leaders of Deadwood allowed the city to smell like something from a farm or outhouse? Deadwood was always clean and fresh.
A rickety shack barely clung to the hillside. Music from an out-of-tune piano came from her left. A gunshot sounded too close for comfort. The tinny music stopped, then started up again. Laughter, both male and female, came from the other side of her door behind her.
Goosebumps pebbled her arms. She never understood people saying the hair on the back of their neck rose, but now she did. Something was wrong. Terribly, horribly, scarily wrong. This had to be a dream where she wasn’t where she was supposed to be.
“Ruby, someone is asking for you.”
Who was Ruby?
Someone knocked on the bedroom door. “C’mon, girl. Your first client is waiting.” The second knock was louder. “Ruby? Are you in there? It’s going to be a busy night. Get your ass out here.” The person rattled the doorknob.
She didn’t dare answer the door. If they came in the room and saw the body, presumably Ruby, they would assume she’d killed the woman. She couldn’t take a chance. Nella searched the room for a place to hide. Nothing where she could stuff her five-foot, eight-inch body. Crawling beneath the short bed would be impossible. There was no closet. The screen in the corner would be the first place someone looked.
The knocking grew louder and more persistent. Nella peered out the window again. The only place would be down. But how?
“Did anyone see Ruby leave her room?” The door handle rattled again.
Think, Nella. Think. The sheets. If she tied them together and then to the bedpost, would it be long enough to get her down from the second floor? There was only one way to find out.
Nella yanked back the patchwork quilt and wrinkled her nose at the exposed, dingy sheets.
A male voice joined the woman calling for Ruby. “Ruby. Answer the door. I paid fer you, so’s you’d better come out.”
There was no time to worry about bodily fluids and germs on the bedding. She removed the top and bottom sheets. She tied the ends together and pulled them tight, double tied one end to the metal footboard, and tossed the other end out the window.
“Darn it.” The end was about two feet shy of the ground.
“I’m gonna break this damn door in, Ruby, iff’n you don’ answer.” The entire door shook.
Grunting, Nella tugged the end of the bed until it was flush with the window, then climbed on the bed, and took hold of the sheet. Before heading down, she grabbed her hat and pressed it on her head, making sure it wouldn’t fall off.
“Here goes nothing.” She slid over the windowsill, clutched the end of the sheet then, hand-under-hand, slowly made her way down. Her boots hit the outside wall. Her hands sweated. Her heart pounded against her ribcage, and her lungs burned.
Nella glanced over her shoulder and shuddered. The ground was still too far away. And once she got to the bottom, what would she do? Obviously, she wasn’t where she’d started out when arriving at the brothel. But where was she?
A crash came from the room. The door must have been bashed open. Someone screamed. The rope moved upward. She had to get to the ground before she was pulled back up. A man’s head appeared in the window and the sheet slackened.
“Hey, you. Stop.”
Like she was going to listen. The sheet grew taut again and rose about a foot. The man was hauling her back up.
“I said stop.”
Without looking to see how close she was to the ground, and, instead of gripping hand-over-hand, she slid down the sheet. It was like trying to walk against the wind in a storm. She lowered herself two feet while she was hoisted up a foot. At least she was gaining ground. Speaking of ground, she was nearly there. Her tips of her shoes touched the mud, but before she could release her hands, she was jerked back up again.
The heck with it. She was close enough to the ground where she shouldn’t break or sprain an ankle. Since the ground was muddy, if she fell, she wouldn’t hurt herself. But, unfortunately, it was slippery enough to make her land on her rear end. Instantly, mud seeped through her jeans. Leaning back on her elbows, she glanced up at a man with a full, bushy beard. A blonde-haired woman stood beside him.
“You killed Ruby! You killed Ruby!” Her screams could probably be heard all the way to the front of the building.
“Don’t you move an inch, mister.” The dark-haired man raised a fist in the air. “I’m getting the cops.”
Uh, no. Obviously, she somehow traveled to another time. What year was it? Now was not the time to figure it out. She needed to hightail it somewhere safe. Lord only knew where.