AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It’s when they move to the last unoccupied room on that side, across the hall from the room currently occupied by Gwen and Riley, that they find something disturbing. James inserts the key and opens the door, David beside him with the light. James’s face registers surprise, and David turns his attention away from the owner to the room itself. The first thing he notices is that the bed has been slept in.
‘Nobody move,’ David says tersely. He stands still, listening keenly for any sound. His eyes fly to the bathroom door, which is open. Someone has been in this room. Maybe he’s still here, in the bathroom. He feels a chill of fear. But something, perhaps his sense of hearing, or smell, something running below his conscious radar, tells him that there is no one else here. He steps quickly to the bathroom and looks inside. It’s empty.
‘What’s going on?’ Beverly asks from the corridor, her voice shrill.
‘Nothing, it’s fine,’ David says.
The others spill into the empty hotel room and David hears their gasps of dismay at the sight of the unmade bed.
‘Christ,’ Henry says, his voice tense.
David walks up more closely to the bed, its covers thrown back in disarray. The oil lamp casts a small pool of flickering light as he moves observantly about the dark room. There’s no luggage, no clothing, no sign of anyone’s effects. It’s as if the person had checked out and the room had not been made up. But there is no customary tip for the housemaid lying on the pillow, or resting on the desk or the bureau, as you would certainly expect. David opens the wardrobe doors, but finds only empty hangers. He looks again into the bathroom, more closely this time. There is water splashed around the sink, a towel left on the counter, but no personal items. The others are milling around the room now, clearly distressed.
‘I don’t understand this,’ James says, visibly unnerved.
David asks, ‘Is it possible that housekeeping simply missed this room? That the previous guest checked out and the room was missed somehow and not made up again?’
‘That would never happen,’ James says emphatically. ‘This is a small hotel. It’s not hard to keep track of the rooms.’
‘Bradley?’
‘I don’t know,’ Bradley says, sounding shaken. ‘I think it’s very unlikely. It’s never happened before.’
‘Well, it’s either that, or someone we don’t know about has been using this room, and possibly moving about the hotel without us knowing,’ David says. The room is directly across the hall from the room Gwen and Riley are staying in. He feels a sudden fear for Gwen clutching at his heart. He looks around at the others, huddled together, their faces drawn.
‘Let’s move on,’ David says.
Chapter Nineteen
HENRY DOESN’T KNOW which is worse – the possibility that one of the people in their little group might be a murderer, or the possibility that there is someone they’re not aware of, moving about the hotel, who has already killed two people.
As they search Gwen and Riley’s room, Henry wonders what it is they’re even looking for. He’s not sure why David suggested they search the guests’ rooms, too, not just the empty ones, or why they all agreed to it. He doesn’t know what David expects to find. It feels like they’re playing at something, some sort of parlour game, or murder mystery evening, with the lights out. Only no one’s having fun.
Beverly finds some medication in Riley’s bag and holds it up to the light.
‘What is it?’ Henry asks, for all of them.
David looks at it. ‘For anxiety,’ he says, and Beverly puts it back in Riley’s overnight bag.
Continuing with the second floor, they search the sitting room by the stairs and then the housekeeping closet. In Lauren’s room, they discover that she uses strong sleeping pills – Ambien. But they don’t find anything else of interest.
At last they are finished with the second floor. They move down to the first floor, where the rest of the guests have their rooms. David’s room is in the northwest corner, directly below Gwen and Riley’s, next to the sitting room. Across the hall from the sitting room is Dana and Matthew’s room, diagonally opposite David’s. Next to it, across from David’s, is another unoccupied room.
They start with the empty room across from David’s. It looks the way a properly made up hotel room should look.
Next, David leads them to his own room, across the hall. Henry’s certain they’re not going to find anything there. They move about in the dark with their fading iPhones, pulling open the drawers of the bedside table, the dresser, the bathroom vanity unit. Matthew stirs the cold remains of the fire in the grate with a poker. The room – the entire hotel – is chilly, and Henry wishes he had a thicker sweater, or his jacket. Henry looks under the bed. Beverly looks through David’s luggage while David watches, picking through the contents of his overnight bag – boxer shorts and socks, clothes, books – and opening zippered pouches. Meanwhile Henry lifts the mattress and looks beneath it. He remembers hiding porn mags under his mattress as a teenager.
Finally, they are finished, and as they all leave the room, Henry casts an anxious look out of the window. The sky is black outside. The wind howls around the hotel. He can hear the creaking of the ice-coated branches sawing in the wind outside the windows. He feels a sinking sensation in his core – more than that – it’s a sensation of dread.
They step out of the room, and David closes his door behind them. The others are already entering Matthew’s room, where David leaves it to them to feel through luggage, open drawers, lift carpets, stir ashes. He watches Matthew’s reaction as his and Dana’s room and private belongings are searched. He is uncomfortable at having his things examined, but nothing more than that.
David is startled when Henry finds a gun. It’s in Matthew’s luggage, properly locked and stowed, along with ammunition.
‘I have a permit,’ Matthew says a little defensively. ‘I don’t normally take it anywhere,’ he tells them. ‘I keep it in my bedside table at home, in case of intruders. But I thought it might be handy if we did some skiing or hiking up here. There are bears. Better to be prepared.’ He turns to James. ‘You can scare them off easily with the sound of a shot. Isn’t that right?’
James nods nervously. ‘Yes.’
David nods, and Henry returns the gun carefully to the overnight bag and puts the bag back down on the floor.
Matthew leans over and grabs the overnight bag and pulls it towards him and puts it on the bed. He takes the gun out of the bag and methodically loads it. David freezes. Everyone has stopped what they’re doing to watch Matthew. He grabs extra ammunition and shoves it into his pockets. He’s not looking at anyone. He holds the gun in his hand; David wonders if he should say something, do something.
Time seems to stop. David’s heart is racing. Everyone is transfixed by the sight of Matthew handling his gun. As if they are afraid that Matthew is the murderer, and he is going to kill them all. But then Matthew looks up, and it’s just Matthew.
‘We could use this, for protection,’ he says. And the moment passes.
Henry and Beverly’s room is beside Matthew’s, across from the empty housekeeping closet. They find nothing there. Now even David doesn’t know what they’re looking for. He’s starting to think he’s on a fool’s errand, searching the guests’ rooms. The two rooms across from each other at the end of the hall, near the back staircase, are unoccupied, and cleaned, prepared for the next guests.
Saturday, 6:30 PM
