Chapter 2
I reached the Bellweather Hotel at 12:26 in the morning.
The lobby was almost empty. A man slept in a chair near the entrance while a television played silently above him. Behind the front desk, a young woman was typing on a computer.
I walked toward her without taking off my coat.
"I called earlier about a stolen credit card."
She looked up.
"Mrs. Hayes?"
"Yes."
Her eyes dropped to my black dress, then moved away.
I placed my phone on the counter and showed her the charge. Daniel's damaged wallet sat inside my coat pocket. I had touched it several times during the drive, making sure it was still there.
"The card belongs to my husband," I said.
"I need to know who used it."
"I understand, but I can't give out a guest's information."
"My husband was buried this afternoon."
Her hands stopped over the keyboard.
I took a folded copy of Daniel's death certificate from my purse and set it beside the phone. I had brought it because grief had turned every simple task into paperwork. Close an account. Show the certificate. Cancel a service. Show it again.
The clerk read Daniel's name.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly.
"So am I. Who has his card?"
She called the night manager.
He arrived with a hotel security guard, a heavy man with a radio clipped to his belt. I explained everything again while the manager checked the transaction.
"The card was used for the room deposit," he said.
"By whom?"
"I can't give you the name, but we can contact the guest."
"Then do it."
The manager hesitated before picking up the phone.
He called the room twice. No one answered.
The security guard looked at him.
"I'll go up."
"I'm coming with you."
"Mrs. Hayes, it would be better if you waited here."
I took Daniel's wallet from my pocket and placed it on the counter. The burned leather curled away from the metal clasp.
"This was taken from my husband's body," I said.
"His other credit card was inside. The one used tonight was missing."
The guard studied the wallet, then my face.
"Stay behind me," he said.
We took the elevator to the sixth floor.
My reflection in the mirrored wall looked like someone I didn't know. My funeral dress was wrinkled from the drive. My hair had come loose, and a dark line of mascara remained beneath one eye.
Daniel would have told me to clean myself up before confronting anyone.
The thought made me stand straighter.
Room 614 was at the end of the hallway.
The guard knocked.
"Hotel security."
Nothing happened.
He knocked again, louder this time. I heard movement inside. A drawer closed. Then the lock turned.
The door opened a few inches.
A girl looked out.
She was nineteen, maybe twenty. Her brown hair was tied on top of her head, and she held Daniel's black credit card in one hand.
But that wasn't what stopped me.
She was wearing his gray college sweatshirt.
Daniel used to wear it on Sunday mornings. The sleeves had always been too long, and there was a small bleach mark near the pocket. I hadn't seen it in years. He told me he must have left it at a gym.
The girl pulled the door closer to her body.
"What's wrong?"
The guard pointed to the card in her hand.
"Did you use that to check in?"
"Yes."
"Does it belong to you?"
"It belongs to my dad."
My hand closed around the strap of my purse.
"What's your name?" I asked.
She looked at the guard before answering.
"Emma Mercer."
The surname meant nothing to me.
"Where did your father get that card?"
Her expression changed.
"What do you mean?"
"It belongs to my husband."
"No, it doesn't."
She said it without hesitation.
The guard stepped between us slightly, but I barely noticed him. I was watching the sweatshirt. The bleach mark. The stretched cuffs. Daniel's clothes on a stranger's body.
"What is your father's name?" I asked.
She did not answer right away.
Instead, she reached for her phone on the table behind her.
The door opened wider.
I saw an overnight bag on the floor and a stack of college brochures beside the bed. No man. No second suitcase. No sign that Daniel had been inside the room.
The girl unlocked her phone and held up a photograph.
Daniel stood beside her at a graduation ceremony. His arm was around her shoulders. She wore a blue cap and gown. He was smiling directly at the camera.
Not the polite smile he used with clients.
The real one.
My stomach tightened.
"When was this taken?"
"Last June. At my graduation."
Last June, Daniel had told me he was spending three days at a conference in Boston.
I pulled out my phone.
My thumb shook as I opened the photograph from the funeral. Daniel's framed portrait stood beside his closed coffin. White flowers covered the lower half of the casket.
I turned the screen toward her.
The girl stared at it.
The color slowly left her face.
"That's my father," she whispered.
Then she looked at me.
"Who are you?"