‘Apparently,’ Beth continued, ‘I am pretty good at this. And yes, yes, I’m sure that you are sworn to secrecy by whoever has arranged all this, but I need to report that I found something – apparently lost on the twenty-third floor. This black cashmere glove. It needs its mate.’
Going along with the script, she winked at Steve and smiled, feeling very clever and confident.
But his face gave nothing away. ‘You said you found a glove? On the twenty-third floor?’ he repeated.
Beth nodded and placed it on the marble countertop. ‘Yep. Seems odd – a cashmere glove just lying around like that – very out of place. And so I knocked on the door. The glove was lying outside one of the hotel room doors – a suite. The gentleman who answered, well, he suggested that I come down here and turn it in. He said it wasn’t his, but I think that he is involved in this, just like you are,’ she added with a knowing grin.
Steve picked up a clipboard that was on his side of the desk. ‘The suite on twenty-three? Yes, Mr Yussopov. Nice gentleman.’
Beth’s eyebrows rose when she heard the name. The woman’s voice inside the suite had called him Yuri. And Steve just revealed his last name.
Yuri Yussopov. She had a full name, and, again, it was sounding familiar. Beth thought hard. How did she know that name?
Steve reached across the counter and picked up the glove. ‘Thanks. I appreciate you turning this in.’ Then he just smiled and turned back to whatever he was doing.
Beth suddenly felt confused. ‘What? I don’t get it. You’re just going to take it? There isn’t another glove? I don’t understand.’
He smiled again. ‘Actually, itwasreported missing.’
‘By whom?’ she enquired anxiously.
‘By someone who thinks that you’re the most important thing in the world,’ Steve said slowly, with particular emphasis on the last half of the sentence.
‘Sorry – what?’ She blinked, hoping to catch what he was trying to tell her.
‘Someone out there thinks that you’re the most important thing in the world, Beth. Does that make sense?’
Beth narrowed her eyes. She was almost sure Steve was quoting something. A line from another movie? It had to be.
You’re the most important thing in the world. If it was another movie quote, then it was an incredibly obscure reference. Beth racked her brain. It definitely wasn’t fromSleepless in Seattle, orYou’ve Got Mail, orAn Affair to Remember –none of the easily identifiable New York movie classics. Maybe something more modern?Something Borrowed,Sex and the CityorDefinitely Maybe?
But again, nothing jumped out.
‘That’s it? That’s all I get?’ she implored. ‘But that makes no sense…’
Evidently feeling that he had toyed with her enough, Steve cleared his throat. ‘Actually, there is something else. My instructions were to give you this.’ He slid an envelope that had a noticeable bulge in it across the desk to her. On the front, there was some nondescript handwriting. Simple block letters that read ‘Beth’.
‘The person who believes that you’re the most important thing in the world left this for when you turned in the glove.’
Now what…?Beth reached for the envelope with shaking hands. She swallowed hard and felt Steve’s eyes on her, studying her.
‘This is pretty awesome, actually,’ he said, apparently to himself, and for the first time Beth looked up at him, wondering his age. Just then, he had sounded like a kid. A chink in his armour, perhaps?
‘How old are you, Steve?’ she asked. She’d thought that he might be around twenty, and his answer surprised her.
‘Seventeen. Just turned. This is just a part-time job for the holidays.’
‘As a concierge?’ Beth asked sceptically, suspecting Waldorf concierges usually had a few more years’ experience and grey hairs on them.
‘Not quite,’ he answered. ‘Bellhop. I just knew that I needed to look out for you. Needed to be around when you came looking for lost and found.’
Satisfied by this – if not terribly illuminated – Beth nodded. If she only had a vague idea of the script that needed to be followed by the supporting characters in her journey it would help, and now she had confirmation that someone really was pulling a lot of strings and incorporating quite a few people into this quest.
‘So how didyouget involved in this, Steve?’ she enquired, hoping to take advantage of the teenager’s youth to get him to say something he shouldn’t. But he wasn’t going to be tricked.
‘Let’s just say that helping out with your treasure hunt will put some money in my pocket that will help me buy something nice for my girl this Christmas.’
Beth narrowed her eyes, trying to figure it all out. She was hoping there was some hidden meaning to everything that Steve was telling her now. All of the supporting roles she had come across thus far in this story did have meaning, and she was becoming surer all the time that nothing and no one involved in this quest was placed there by chance.
