Page 34 of Total Exposure

I don’t think so. And I don’t care. When was the last time someone sent me a letter?

I can’t even recall. I was a child, probably. It was a fan. Or one of the many perverts who used to stalk me online and after performances.

Read it! my mind screams. Open it and read it!

My fingers are so nearly numb, they fumble with the folded sheet of thick paper. It’s nice paper, I realize, as I manage to open it up.

You’re cold. Go upstairs. Find the master bedroom. Get in the bed, cover up, and go to sleep.

One fact and five commands.

Just as that thought leaves my head the birds stop singing.

I think about that for a little while, unexpectedly reflective about the loss of music. My heart is racing, but not too bad. Which surprises me.

You’re cold.

I’m chilled so bad, all I really want is to be at home taking a hot bath in my giant, private tub. But that’s not gonna happen. Not while I’m here, at least. There are cameras up there. In all the rooms, even the bathrooms. That much I know.

Go upstairs. Find the master bedroom. Get in the bed, cover up, and go to sleep.

It’s the answer I’m looking for.

Simple. Direct. Obtainable.

I push up from the floor, still clutching the note in my hand, and exhale.

It’s dark now. I could leave. Find a phone somewhere. Call the concierge and go home.

But it all sounds like so much effort.

I look at the note again and sigh.

That all sounds so easy.

So I do what I’m told.

I leave the library, closing the double doors behind me so I don’t have to see that stupid violin again should I wander down this way tomorrow, and walk down the dark hallway until I come back to the grand foyer.

I stand there, looking up, the wide staircase beckoning me like an old friend. I go to it, heeding the call, and place my hand on the smoothly polished wood of the banister. Still looking up as I climb, wondering if my watcher is waiting for me up there.

And unexpected heat rises from my lower stomach. A stirring between my legs as I picture him. Maybe it’s a her? No, the printing was very masculine.

What if he is old? And Lucinda was lying?

What if he’s not?

It doesn’t matter because when I get to the top of the stairs, he’s not there.

I look left and right. Nothing but closed doors in both directions. There’s another staircase at the end of the hall to my left. Is he in the attic? Did he mean for me to go up to the third floor?

Find the master bedroom was his next command.

So I do that. I open the first door and find a bathroom, then notice a little red blinking light in a plug and wonder how hidden his cameras are. If it wasn’t dark I probably wouldn’t notice that red light. I’d think that was just a useful adapter for my phone.

I close the door and go to the next. A bedroom, but small and decorated for a small princess, so not the master. And then another, a nursery. And another, a teen room. And another bathroom. Then more bedrooms, but none are what I’ve been assigned to find.

So I turn back, pass the grand staircase again, and head towards the second set of stairs. I pass several doors, but they are closets, and one is a bathroom. And another bedroom, still too small to be a master in this size house.