"Help you?"
"I'm looking for a guest. Adrian Richter. He's been here a couple of weeks. Tall guy, dark hair, carries a lot of camera equipment."
She tapped at her keyboard. "Not in his room. I saw him leave."
"Any idea when he'll be back?"
"I'm a desk clerk, not a psychic."
The exit was right there: glass doors and a gray sky. I could walk out. Go back to Jake's couch and his cheese puffs and Evan's quietly worried eyes.
Except—
Juno's voice, in my head:Ask the questions you've been afraid to ask.
My voice, too, the one that lived under all the noise:You're tired. You're so tired of being the last person to know what's happening in your own story.
"Is there somewhere I can wait?" I asked. "Besides the lobby?"
She glanced up. Took in the Storm hoodie, the jeans, and the Crocs. "You know the guy?"
"Yeah. He's expecting me."
She studied me for another beat—calculating whether I was a problem, creep, or just some guy in aggressively orange footwear who clearly knew the guest in question.
"Housekeeping's on his floor," she said finally. "Second floor, room 214. If you know the guy and he's expecting you, you can wait up there by the door. Just don't wander around being weird."
That was it. The entire vetting process. Thunder Bay still had a small-town perspective. If something looked normal, it probably was.
I understood what she offered. Not permission. Not authorization. Absence of obstruction.
"Thanks," I said.
She grunted without looking up.
I climbed the stairs slowly. I was usually a take them two at a time and occasionally trip on the last one kind of stair-climber. Today I placed each foot carefully. Watched my orange Crocs rise and fall against the gray concrete.
Through a window at the landing, I saw the parking lot below.
Adrian's rental car wasn't there.
He really was gone.
I pushed through to the second floor. The carpet muffled my footsteps. Somewhere down the hall, a vacuum cleaner droned.
Room 210. 212. The housekeeping cart sat parked outside 216.
Room 214.
Adrian's door was ajar.
Not open. Not closed. Just—ajar. A two-inch gap between the door and the frame, like someone had pushed it most of the way shut but hadn't committed to the click.
I stopped walking.
Through the gap, I saw a sliver of the room. The edge of a desk. A corner of curtain, beige on beige. No movement. No sound except the vacuum next door.
I stood in the hallway. If anyone walked by, they'd see what I was: a guy in a Storm hoodie standing outside a door, making no attempt to hide.
