Her shoe slid on a piece of paper, a note Mr. K had slipped under the door. Without opening it, she knew what it said. He’d want to talk once the police left. She ignored the letter, headed for the whiskey decanter, closed her weary eyes, and measured a generous pour by its sound in the tumbler.
The abandoned treasures furnishing Room 25 were left by previous residents. Serafina had painted the high walls a deep emerald green, her favorite color. The moody decor lent a coziness to the vast suite, which was filled with tasteful antiques Sterling was slowly destroying. A baroque secretary desk with wood inlay, graffitied with watermarks from abandoned coffee cups. A Remington typewriter with a necklace tangled between its keys. A Louis XV coffee table with a wobbly leg, broken after a raucous rendezvous last year.
She threw her robe over her full-length mirror before carrying both whiskey decanter and glass into the bathroom. She avoided her reflection as she undressed, tossing her wet clothes into the tub. It took the last of her strength to wrench the water on. Theancient showerhead sprayed water everywhere except down. With sopping-wet clothes at her feet, she sank into the tub and clutched her knees to her chest, moving only to lift the cut-crystal tumbler to her lips. The steam and scattered spray rinsed red from her freshly dyed hair and swirled it down the drain like blood washed off guilty hands.
She remained there until it ran cold.
She wandered into the living room wrapped in a towel, hairbrush in one hand, glass in the other, and slumped onto the floor in front of her velvet couch. Leaning back, she took another long sip, calculating how many more she could afford and still be lucid in a few hours. She closed her eyes and thought of Hedy, as she had many nights when falling asleep.
Grief is a learned skill. Not the sort you put on a résumé, but one she’d mastered after enough opportunities. Sterling welcomed the familiar numbness. Denial was the good part. A natural high. The hazy time to get shit done before everything hurt. When she peeled her eyes open, she took in the chaos of her room, the detritus of debauchery. Discarded clothing everywhere, only some of it hers.
The whiskey hit her head faster than usual. Her stomach was empty for once. She had to slow down. She set the tumbler on the coffee table, stretched forward, and nudged it out of reach. Her eyes locked on the rim as she leaned back, telling herself she wouldn’t finish the glass. She stopped eating only after a death. It had taken her a week to manage more than a bite after Serafina died. It wasn’t about weight; she loved her body. Her aunt had raised her to.
Her ancient mini fridge was full of cheese and open wine bottles emptied to a few sips, enough for her to pretend she hadn’t finished them. The phone was closer than the fridge. She could call downstairs, ask for her usual scrambled eggs she’d skipped that morning. No, she wanted them boiled today. She wasn’t sure why. It didn’t matter; they’d have sent the chef home.
Hedy never ate breakfast. She hardly ate. She’d linger in bed while Sterling munched away, drinking that wretched concoction of herbal tea she claimed cured everything. She’d kiss every fold on Sterling’s stomach like it was sacred, then stare at her own reflection for hours, tracing her ribs and sucking in her stomach, before weighing out her food by the gram. Everything Hedy did was calculated.
The whole fiasco had been a good lesson. Dating Hedy was like earning a PhD in heartbreak. Another skill unfit for a résumé. Fuck. She might be out of a job.
Sterling eyed Mr. K’s letter, still unopened, and did the math. If the cops left in a few hours, and he wanted to meet then, she had enough time for two more sips. Ten more if she ate. She rose, then refilled the tumbler on the way to the fridge. While chewing, she dressed one-handed, never setting the whiskey down.
She picked up Mr. K’s letter with her toes, then slumped back down in front of the couch and applied eyeliner by way of the blurry reflection in her aunt’s letter opener before using it to slice open the envelope. She read Mr. K’s orders while swiping on lipstick from muscle memory. As she expected, he’d kindly requested a private meeting at her earliest convenience. He didn’t say where. Or when. He assumed she would know.
As she read, water from her wet hair traced down her neck. The shower had washed away the remnants of Hedy’s lavender perfume from when Sterling searched her fur coat, from when she’d touched her body. Hedy always wore too much of it. It had a different scent on cold skin.
Sterling set down the glass, then lifted her wrist to her nose and took a deep breath. The last hint of lavender was gone.
Like the whiskey was gone.
Like Hedy was gone.
— 13 —Dreizehn
Technically, there was no Room 13. Well, it depended how close you looked. Since its founding, the Orient had transferred hands countless times, her secrets lost for one generation then rediscovered by the next. While ownership was prone to change, superstition maintained its firm grasp on the upper thigh of the Austrian population. They disliked the number thirteen.
Klaus Kleinmann Junior, better known as Mr. K, inherited the keys for the Hotel from Klaus Kleinmann Senior, better known as Herr Kleinmann. Room 13 had been his father’s secret, but it became his to keep.
Mr. K reached the first-floor landing, followed by Fernando and Sterling. The uniformed officer guarding the crime scene downstairs was another regular, so he’d looked the other way, literally.
The hall clock chimed seven, most people’s dinnertime. Twelve hours since Sterling found the body, twenty-four since she’d slept. She’d changed, opting for a tight black velvet dress, given the somber occasion, with a green brooch that matched her corset clasped atthe sweetheart neckline. She’d pinned a fresh rose behind her left ear. White. Like a funeral flower.
Fernando still had on his bellhop jacket, unbuttoned. He carried a stack of towels clutched protectively to his chest.
Mr. K stopped before the bookshelf, checking the hall for prying eyes, even though the guests were gone.
Most visitors paid no mind to the bookshelf. They weren’t here to read. So they never noticed how the thick maroon-leather-bound edition of Arthur Schnitzler’sTraumnovelleat the end of the middle shelf was peculiarly girthy. The real novel was a slender volume, its limited pages rife with sinful detail. Mr. K tilted the book forward, its gilded edges shining. Sterling listened to him fumble with the mechanism behind it.
“No, not there,” she instructed. “Lower. A little to the left. Higher. That’s it, right there. Good boy.”
He shot her an admonishing look.
She clasped her hands behind her back. “Apologies, sir. Force of habit.”
He winked, subtly enough that she might have imagined it.
The lock clicked, and the shelf creaked forward, revealing a crack of pale light behind it. Mr. K held the door open, motioning them under his outstretched arm into Room 13, the library.
It was freezing. She closed the curtains, lit the chandelier, then put a record on to drown out their voices as well as the footsteps of any restless spirits pacing the floor.
