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I take a sip of tea and nearly choke when I see my face appear on the screen. It’s a photograph that was taken when I was hired, for my HR file. I didn’t smile for the picture, but at least I look professional. I’m wearing my uniform. It’s clean, freshly pressed. The captions continue to scroll:
…currently out on bail. Anyone requiring further information is invited to…
I tune out then because I hear cars coming to a screeching halt. Across the street, right in front of the hotel, are four dark cruisers. Several armed officers jump out of the vehicles and run up the stairs. I watch as Mr. Preston ushers them in. The whole event lasts only a few seconds. Mr. Preston emerges again from the revolving doors, followed by Mr. Snow. They exchange a few words and then turn to the various guests on the landing, no doubt reassuring them that everything is fine when everything is most definitely not fine. I feel completely helpless as I watch from afar. There’s nothing to do except wait and hope. And make a call. One important call.
It’s time.
This is the only part of the plan that I have kept to myself all this time. I never shared it with anyone—not with Mr. Preston or Charlotte or even Juan Manuel. There are still some things that only I know, things only I can understand because I’ve lived them. I know what it’s like to be alone, to be so alone that you make the wrong choices, that out of desperation you trust the wrong people.
I open my contacts on my phone. I call Giselle.
It rings once, twice, three times, and just when I think that she won’t answer…
“Hello?”
“Good evening, Giselle. It’s Molly, Molly the maid. Your friend.”
“Oh my God, Molly. I’ve been waiting for you to call. I haven’t seen you at the hotel. I’ve missed you. Is everything all right?”
I don’t have time for niceties, and I do believe this is one of the few situations in life when skipping the rules of etiquette is entirely appropriate. “You lied to me,” I say. “Rodney’s your boyfriend. Your secret boyfriend. You never told me that.”
There’s a pause on the other end of the line.
“Oh, Molly,” she says after a time, “I’m so sorry.” I can hear it in her voice, that little catch that tells me she is near tears.
“I thought we were friends.”
“Wearefriends,” she replies.
I feel the sting of this like a barb.
“Molly, I’m lost. I’m…I’m so lost,” she says. She’s crying openly now, her voice meek and scared.
“You made me move your gun,” I say.
“I know. I shouldn’t have gotten you involved in my mess. I was scared, scared the police would find it and then everything would point to me. And I figured they’d never suspect you.”
“The police found your gun in my vacuum. Everything’s pointing to me now, Giselle. I’ve been arrested on many charges. It was publicly announced a few minutes ago.”
“Oh God. This can’t be happening,” she says.
“It is happening. To me. And I did not kill Mr. Black.”
“I know that,” she says. “But I didn’t either, Molly. I swear.”
“I know,” I say. “Did you realize that Rodney would frame me?”
“Molly, I swear I didn’t. And the stuff Rodney made you do, cleaning rooms after his shipments? I only found that out on Monday morning. Before that, I had no idea. That black eye he has? That’s because I hit him when he told me. We had a big fight about it. I told him it wasn’t right, that you were an innocent, good person, and that he couldn’t just use people like that. I flung my purse at him, Molly. I was so mad. The chain whopped him right in the eye.”
That was one mystery solved, but only one. “Did you know that Rodney and Mr. Black were partners in illicit activity?” I ask. “Did you know that they were running an illegal operation through the hotel?”
I hear her shift and shuffle on the end of the line. “Yes,” she says. “I’ve known for a while. That’s why we spent so much time in this fucking hotel. But the part about you? About Rodney involving you in his dirty work? I didn’t know that until this week. If I’d known earlier, I swear, I would have put a stop to it. And I’m telling you, I had nothing to do with Charles’s murder. Rodney and I joked about it, sure, how we would fix our lives and finally be able to be together openly, just by offing his boss and my husband with the same bullet. We even planned running away together, far away.”
It clicks then. The flight itinerary, two one-way tickets. “To the Caymans,” I say.
“Yes, to the Caymans. That’s why I asked Charles to put that property in my name. I was going to leave him and run away, file for divorce from afar. Rodney and I were going to start a new life, a better life. Just the two of us. But I never actually thought…I didn’t know Rodney could actually be capable of…”
She trails off. “Have you ever felt betrayed, Giselle?” I ask. “Have you ever put a great deal of faith in someone who then let you down?”
