Chương 11
“They said they didn’t send anyone.”
Hale was quiet.
“Move away from the door.”
I did.
The woman knocked again.
Then I heard another voice farther down the hallway.
Male.
Too muffled to make out.
The housekeeper answered him in Spanish.
Her tone changed immediately.
Sharper.
Concerned.
Footsteps approached.
I tightened my grip on the phone.
Then the hotel room phone rang.
I almost dropped mine.
Hale said, “Answer it.”
I picked up the receiver.
The front desk clerk spoke quickly.
“Ms. Carter, security is outside your room with our housekeeping supervisor.”
I closed my eyes.
“Why?”
“The employee at your door says someone downstairs asked her to check whether you were in the room.”
My stomach dropped.
“Who?”
“She doesn’t know.”
Hale heard enough through my cell phone.
“Tell them nobody enters until police arrive.”
I repeated it.
The clerk agreed.
The woman outside stopped knocking.
A male voice said, “Ma’am, hotel security.”
I still did not open the door.
Hale stayed on the phone until two officers arrived eleven minutes later.
Eleven minutes had never taken so long.
I sat on the bathroom floor with my back against the tub and listened to hallway voices through two doors and a wall.
At one point the ice machine dropped another load of cubes.
I nearly screamed.
When Hale finally told me uniformed officers were outside and had confirmed with him directly, I went to the door.
My hand hovered over the deadbolt.
I hated how much trust it required to turn one small piece of metal.
The hallway contained four people.
The housekeeper stood beside an embarrassed-looking security guard.
Two officers were talking to a man near the elevator.
He wore a baseball cap and a gray hoodie.
My body reacted before my mind could.
“That’s not Daniel.”
One of the officers turned.
“Ma’am, stay inside.”
I backed into the room.
The man in the hoodie looked toward me.
He did not seem surprised.
That was worse than if he had run.
He raised both hands while the officers approached.
The housekeeper, Rosa, stepped closer to my door.
“I am sorry,” she said.
“I thought you asked for towels.”
“You didn’t do anything.”
She shook her head.
“A man downstairs said his wife was sick and would not answer.”
My mouth went dry.
“Did he say my name?”
“No.”
She looked ashamed.
“He gave me your room number.”
The security guard swore quietly.
One officer led the man toward the elevator.
The other came to my door.
“Ms. Carter?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Officer Bell.”
He looked over his shoulder.
“The man says he’s a delivery driver.”
“For what?”
“He claims someone paid him to bring you an envelope.”
I stared at him.
“Where is it?”
“He says it’s in his car.”
“Do you believe him?”
Bell’s expression gave nothing away.
“We’re checking.”
The security guard muttered, “He lied about being her husband.”
Rosa nodded.
“He said she had medicine and was confused.”
The words made me unexpectedly furious.
Not because they were clever.
Because they were ordinary.
A worried husband.
A confused wife.
A helpful employee.
Someone had found the smallest believable story and used it to get close to my door.
Bell asked whether I recognized the man.
“No.”
“Have you ever seen him before?”
“No.”
“Any idea who might have sent him?”
I looked at my phone.
“Maybe.”
Hale was still there.
He said, “Don’t speculate beyond what you know.”
Bell heard him.
“You have Sergeant Hale?”
“Yes.”
Bell nodded.
“Good.”
He stepped aside and made a call.
Rosa remained near the wall.
Her towels were still in her arms.
One had fallen halfway loose.
I wanted to tell her she could put them down.
Instead I asked, “Did he follow you up?”
“No.”
“He stayed downstairs.”
“Then why is he here?”
The security guard answered.
“We saw him watching the elevator monitor after she came up.”
The hotel apparently displayed floor numbers when elevators moved.
He had asked which one had gone to four.
That had been enough for security to approach him.
He became argumentative.
Then Bell and his partner arrived.
It was not a brilliant criminal scheme.
It was a series of small opportunistic choices made by someone who expected strangers to be helpful.
That frightened me more than sophistication would have.
Bell came back several minutes later.
“There is an envelope.”
My mouth went dry.
“What’s in it?”
“We haven’t opened it.”
“Why not?”
“It’s addressed to you.”
He held up a clear evidence bag.
Inside was a plain white envelope with EMILY written across the front in black marker.
The handwriting was unfamiliar.
“Do you want it?”
I stared at it.
Every instinct said no.
Hale’s voice came from my phone.
“Emily, let them take custody of it.”
Bell nodded.
“We can preserve it and document it.”
“Please.”
He wrote something on a form.
The man in the hoodie was gone now.
“Is he arrested?”
Bell shook his head.
“Not at this point.”
A flare of anger hit me.
“He lied to get someone to my door.”
“We’re documenting that.”
“That’s it?”
“Right now, yes.”
I hated procedural answers.
They were probably the only honest kind.
Bell gave me a case number and told me another officer would remain nearby while hotel management moved me to a different property.
“I can’t stay here?”
“You can.”
His tone suggested he did not recommend it.
The security guard said, “We can relocate you without putting the new room on the regular guest system.”
I looked at him.
“Can you do that?”
“For safety situations, yes.”
A woman from hotel management arrived ten minutes later with a master key and the expression of someone already imagining liability forms.
She apologized three times.
I asked her not to.
Nobody’s apology could make the last hour smaller.
They moved me to a sister property fifteen minutes away.
A hotel employee drove me.
May you like
An officer followed.
I sat in the back seat with my bag clutched against my stomach and watched traffic move normally around us.
