I get out and lean in the window. “You’ll stay put, right?”
He taps his phone. “I’ll be right here.”
I walk to the kiosk like I belong. That’s half the battle with these situations.
The guard looks up. Mid-fifties, radio on his shoulder, a face that has seen worse than me. “Back entrance is closed. Move your car. This is for deliveries only.”
I smile like I’ve got a secret. “I just need five. Guest recovery. Very important guest recovery, if you catch my drift. He’s going to set off the smoke alarm with whatever he’s burning in there, and then you’ll have paperwork. Let me help us both not have that day.”
He snorts. “Name and room.”
“Guest is Troy Turner. You can call up, but he won’t answer.”
“You got ID?”
I prefer not being recognized. Makes things easier most of the time. Today, though, it could go either way.
I slide my license across the counter with two VIP laminate passes from the residency and a folded bill under them. He looks at the ID. He looks at me. He looks at the bill and leaves it where it is, which I respect.
“Two minutes. Use the staff elevator. Don’t make me need to know you.”
“You got it.”
“I’m a man who wants quiet,” he says, and buzzes the door.
“Understood.” Most security guards are.
Back corridor. Concrete block. Fluorescent hum. The staff elevator is slow enough to make me want to kick it. I don’t. He’s on the fifth floor. I step out onto carpet that smells like lemon cleaner and bad choices.
Must be a bruise to Troy’s ego to stay here. He was used to how we do things. Resorts, spas, the works.
I wouldn’t order room service in this place.
His door is open a crack. There are voices. A laugh that hurts my teeth. Music coming from a phone tossed somewhere.
I knock once, then push.
Heat, perfume, stale alcohol, the candy-sweet metallic edge of cheap vape pens. Girls and guys spill past me on their way out—heels in hand, shirts half-buttoned, one dude in a towel that isn’t his. Someone says, “Oh my god, it’s him,” like I’m a second course.
I ignore it.
Troy stands in the middle of the room, half-dressed, half-awake, eyes glassy, hair in twenty directions like he fought the pillow and lost. He blinks at me.
“What.” Not a question. A complaint.
“I’m here for Lou’s things.”
He laughs. It’s ugly this close. “Of course you are.”
“Laptop. Clothes. Whatever she left.”
He staggers a step closer and squints like the light is personal. “You fucked every other woman on the planet,” he says, volume rising. “Now you gotta fuck my used-up ex too?”
My hand goes to his throat, palm to larynx, thumb under his jaw. I walk him back until his shoulders hit the wall, and it rattles. He smells like old liquor and something worse. Pretty sure my hand is sticky from touching him.
“Choose your next words carefully, Troy,” I growl. “Houston isn’t here to save you today.”
His eyes flare. His mouth opens. No sound. I feel the beat of his pulse against my hand. I hold him just long enough to make the point, then I let go. He drops to the carpet like a marionette with cut strings and coughs until his face goes red.
