Replicas Risk Ruin A Percy James Mystery
Kat Simons
REPLICAS RISK RUIN
Copyright © 2024 by Katrina Tipton
Cover design: © 2024 T&D Publishing
Cover Art: © Ocsana | Dreamstime.com
Published by: T&D Publishing
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Welcome to the Azur Regent
February brings calm and quiet to the Azur Regent. But for a sleep deprived Percy James, she could do with a little more excitement. Or a night’s sleep. A full night’s sleep would really help. With her baby niece sick and her sister losing her mind over the baby’s first cold, Percy starts to feel like a walking zombie.
She even starts imagining things with one of the few guests staying at the hotel. Percy prides herself on her cheerful work ethic. Seeing suspicious things where none exist proves she needs more than makeup to cover the circles under her eyes.
Fortunately, working at a hotel comes with perks. A night of uninterrupted, undisturbed sleep will put Percy back to rights.
Except nothing at the Azur Regent is ever that simple. Even a night’s sleep.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
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To my family.
Even sleepless nights are okay because we’re together.
One
Being an aunt comes with a lot of rewards. Especially if, like me, you’re a live-in aunt. There’s all the cute baby snuggles, and baby laughs, and getting to see a lot of firsts, like the first grabby hands, the first taste of solid food, the first roll over—that was an exciting day in our house.
But living with a baby that is not yours does have a few drawbacks. Not that I’m complaining. I love Becky and Lilith. I love them living with me while Becky’s husband, Pat, an army sergeant, is oversees. I never even really minded the whole waking up a few times at night to help Becky in the early days when Lilith didn’t sleep through. Well, to be fair, Lilith still doesn’t sleep through the night. She’s not one of those kinds of babies yet. But I will give her the naps. She naps like a champ.
What I’m getting at here, though, is that sometimes babies have bad nights. Can be for a lot of reasons. At the moment, that reason for Lilith is some sort of cold. The cold comes with congestion and a low fever, and since Lilith is Becky’s first, the whole sick with a cold and low-grade fever is new, and it’s freaking Becky out.
That’s the real drawback here. Not so much the sick baby—which is miserable for everyone involved because who likes a sick baby, right? Poor little thing with her stuffy nose and crying cause she feels horrible. Can’t even blame her. I’d cry too if I were sick. I don’t hardly get sick, so that’s probably why I’m such a baby about it when I do. No, it’s not our poor baby being sick so much as it is Becky losing her complete mind over our poor baby being sick.
She’s not sleeping. She’s worried all the time. She’s scrolling her phone in the middle of the night looking up all the worst possible things that could be happening with Lilith, which isn’t helping with either the sleep or the worry. She’s called the doctor four times in three days. And we took Lilith to the doctor yesterday cause even though the fever had died down and was mostly gone, Becky started to worry Lilith had gotten dehydrated somewhere along the lines. She had not. She was fine. And thankfully, Lilith is doing much better.
Becky is not.
With all this going on, I still have to go into work. Where I work with the public and have to smile and cover up the circles under my eyes with enough makeup to scare tiny children. To be fair, I’m better at my makeup than that. I’m not exaggerating about the circles, though. When Becky doesn’t sleep because she’s worried, none of us sleep well.
So when I stopped in at Jake’s Halal truck, on my way into work that morning, Jake spotted my exhaustion a mile away. “Baby’s still sick, huh?” he asked as he was cooking up my rice and chicken.
“Actually, she’s getting better. Becky is still not okay, though.” I dug in my purse for the cash, as the cold February wind slapped my cheeks. I appreciated it trying to wake me up.
“I have a sister whose like that. Every time one of her kids gets sick, she loses her mind. Can’t eat, can’t sleep. Nearly makes herself sick. The kids get better and she has to take a few days off to recover.” He shook his head as he loaded up my to-go box. “And my mother is nagging me to settle down to that?”
I chuckled. “Your mother just wants more grandkids.”
“She’s got enough.” He handed me the box inside a plastic bag. “Good luck today.”
“Thanks.”
The sidewalk between the entrance to my place of work and Jake’s truck was not crowded and this was a good thing since I was stumbling-around exhausted. It’s mostly the weather. Bitter cold and lots of wind. The wind is sharp off the East River, and it keeps everyone who doesn’t have to be outside inside. To me, this morning, all that cold felt nice.
The heat when I walked into the Azur Regent would have normally felt like a really pleasant contrast, and I would have enjoyed the warmth seeping into my cold cheeks. But today, all I could think was that heat was going to put me to sleep.
