Chapter 4

04

"Room service, sir." I stood outside 1708 and knocked twice. I'd tuned my voice down to something humble and mild, the smooth register of a trained hotel attendant. Hunter, following my orders, was tucked behind the corner at the end of the hall, in the camera's blind spot.

"Didn't you just bring stuff up? What now?" Xavier's voice came through the door, thick with irritation.

"I'm very sorry to disturb you, sir." I kept the professional tone. "It's just that the colleague who delivered your meal reported a mistake on your bill. I've come to confirm it with you and swap in a fresh complimentary champagne. The error's on us. Please bear with me."

I was betting he'd never actually looked at that so-called bill, and betting he couldn't resist a small freebie like complimentary champagne. More than that, framing it as our mistake would drop his guard as far as anything could.

Silence behind the door. I caught the faint shift of footsteps. He seemed to be weighing it.

"Just leave it by the door. I'll grab it later." Still not opening up.

"Sir, I really can't do that." I let just the right amount of trouble and worry into my voice. "My manager's downstairs. If he finds out I left a comp bottle sitting outside the door, there goes my bonus this month. One minute of your time. I'll swap it out, you sign, and I'm gone."

I painted myself as a pitiful working stiff, the kind who gets pushed around. For a self-important elite like Xavier, that gap in status would give him a comfortable, looking-down sense of ease.

Sure enough, a dozen or so seconds later, the lock gave a soft click.

The door opened a crack, and Xavier's face appeared. Still in that bathrobe, hair still beaded with water, eyes full of suspicion and impatience.

"Make it quick!" he snapped.

"Right away, sir." I answered while pretending to dig something out of my pocket. The instant his attention locked onto me, I flicked a glance at Hunter around the corner.

The next second Hunter came off the wall like a tiger let loose, charging from the corner. All that bulk and momentum drove straight into the barely latched door.

Bang! One massive crash, and the solid wood door was slammed open, the panel smacking into Xavier's face and body. He shrieked and flew back like a burst sack, hitting the entryway floor hard.

"Who are you? What do you want?" He clutched his bleeding nose, screaming in terror.

Hunter gave him no chance at all. One stride, and his knee was pinning Xavier's chest, those broad hands wrenching both arms back so he couldn't move an inch.

"Hold still!" Hunter's roar rang through the room.

I didn't spare the howling Xavier a single look. From the moment I crossed the threshold, my whole line of sight had locked onto that rumpled bed.

On it, the blankets were piled in a mess, barely tracing out the shape of a person.

I walked toward it, step by step. The carpet under my feet was so soft, yet every step felt like treading on clouds, weightless and unreal.

I reached the edge of the bed. No shouting like I'd braced for, no hysterical demands. The room was strangely quiet, quiet enough that all I could hear was my own heartbeat and Xavier's broken, muffled groans from the floor.

I put out my hand, fingertips trembling faintly with nerves. I caught one corner of the blanket.

Then I threw it back.

The blanket slid away, and everything on the bed lay exposed in front of me.

My whole body went rigid, as if some spell had frozen me in place.

Lying there was, indeed, a woman. She wore the cream-white skirt suit I knew so well, the hem bunched up from the way she lay, her long calves showing.

That face was exactly Linda's, my wife's. Identical, down to the last detail.

But she wasn't trembling, wasn't wild with fear. She just lay there, still, eyes shut, her face drained of any color, lips slightly parted, like a wax figure sculpted with great care and then stripped of all life. Her hands hung limp at her sides, no reaction at all to the intrusion or the crash of noise.

She looked asleep, but that deathly stillness set my heart pounding harder than any scream could have.

"She... what's wrong with her?" Hunter had seen the bed now too, his voice full of shock and confusion.

I crouched down, my trembling finger reaching for the artery at her neck.

What came back to my fingertip was a pulse, faint but unmistakably there.

She was alive.

But she was unconscious.