His forehead creased.“That’s strange.I haven’t worked a night shift in months.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”He scratched his beard, thinking.“Although…” He trailed off, reaching for his toolbag.Rummaged through it and pulled out his keycard.“I did lose this for a while.Thought I was going crazy.Searched everywhere, filed for a replacement, then found the damn thing in my toolbag a week later.Right where I always keep it.”
My stomach tightened.“When was this?”
“Maybe six weeks ago?Right around when all that trouble started with the dead animals.”
I thanked him and walked back to my office, my thoughts churning.Someone had borrowed Gerald’s card.Someone who knew exactly where to return it.
But my mind kept wandering back to the cabin.To the wolf.To the way Raphael’s voice had broken when he talked about his mother.The wolf lurking beneath his skin.
I shook my head and reached for another folder.Focus.I could process the supernatural revelation later.Right now, I had a hotel to run.
The bottom drawer of my father’s desk stuck when I pulled it.His desk, still.Even months after his death, I could not think of it as mine.I yanked harder, and the drawer came free with a screech of warped wood.Inside, the usual mess of old contracts and receipts he had never bothered to file properly.I needed the vendor contact list from three years ago, the one from the last Midsummer Gala he had organized.
I pulled out a stack of papers and something shifted in the back of the drawer.The panel had come loose when I tugged at it.A false bottom.
Behind it sat a single folder.
Leather-bound.Cracked with age.My father’s handwriting on the label in faded blue ink.I did not recognize it from the regular files, and I knew every file in this office.
“Private Suite Arrangements,” the label read.“Discretion Required.”
I opened it.
Inside were lists.Names I recognized, some from newspapers, some from local politics.State senators.A federal judge.The CEO of a company that had been in the news last year for accounting fraud.Dates and room numbers, all on the fourth floor.Notes in my father’s careful handwriting about “privacy requirements” and “special access protocols.”
A separate entrance through the service corridor.Soundproofed walls.Staff instructed to forget certain faces.
My father had run more than a luxury hotel.He had run a place where powerful people could do things they did not want anyone to know about.
A knock on my door made me jump, my heart slamming against my ribs.Sophie poked her head in, her red hair bright against the dark wood of the doorframe.
“Hey, you.Just checking in.”She studied my face with the perceptive gaze that made her such a good listener.“You look different today.”
“Different how?”
“More settled.Less like you are about to vibrate out of your skin.”She smiled, leaning against the doorframe.“Whatever happened last night, it agrees with you.”
I thought about telling her.The wolf.The shift.The revelation that my husband was something other than human.But the words caught in my throat.It was not my secret to share.Not yet.Maybe not ever.
“Just a good night’s sleep,” I said instead.
Sophie did not look convinced, but she let it go.She had always been good at knowing when not to push.“If you need anything, you know where to find me.”
After she left, I stared at the folder in my hands.The fourth-floor suites.The secrets my father had helped people keep.The leverage that knowledge would have given him.
I knew who might have answers.
Maya Pavlova’s suite smelled like roses and powder and the faintest trace of expensive perfume.The retired opera singer had lived at the Hughes Palace for nearly two decades, paying a premium for the privilege and becoming something like family in the process.
She had taught me piano after my mother died.Had watched me grow from a grieving four-year-old into whatever I was now.Had known my father better than almost anyone.
The moment I knocked, a chorus of yapping erupted from behind the door.When Maya opened it, seven corgis swarmed my ankles, stubby tails wagging, wet noses pressing against my calves.I crouched to greet them, scratching ears and accepting enthusiastic licks.There had been eight, once.Winston’s absence still left a gap in their formation, a space where the smallest and friendliest used to push to the front.
“Lena, darling.”Maya shooed the dogs back with a gentle sweep of her silk-slippered foot.She was elegant even in her house clothes.Cream silk loungewear that was probably hand-stitched.“You look like you have questions.”
