At least no one else was wandering around at this hour. Winter shivered at the cool air as they passed by the open windows and made their way down the back stairwell. The feeling of unease that prickled his neck felt familiar—like how people could locate him no matter where he was, whether at some secret caféhe told no one about, or on a walk at an obscure park, or at his friend’s house in the middle of the night.
How had someone followed them here? His call with Gavi, perhaps. Or the girl who had checked him into the hotel. Had she sensed something wrong when she’d glimpsed Tems and Sydney heading up the stairwell behind him? Had she been so excited about seeing him that she’d told a friend?
It didn’t matter in the moment, as they arrived at a metal door leading to the back alley.
“Locked,” Sydney whispered as she reached it. Immediately, she pulled the pin from her hair and jammed the metal into the keyhole. Itonly took seconds for her to grimace. “Damn it all. This lock’s broken.” Winter bent down to watch her work as she went on. “I’m amazed they can lock it at all with a key—they must have to jiggle it every time. I can’t hook the pin to the mechanism inside.”
Winter glanced back the way they’d come. From the dim hall, he could see the lights on in the lobby and hear the faint sound of voices.
“It’s going to take too long to pick it open,” Tems whispered, barely containing his exasperation.
Sydney glared up at him. “Would you like to waltz through the front lobby?”
But Winter rose and took a step down the hall. Now he could make out the voices more distinctly—one was the girl from last night, high-pitched and friendly, if a little puzzled. The other was an older woman, someone who spoke with an accent too exaggerated to be native Mandarin.
He looked back over his shoulder to where Sydney continued working on the lock, her face tight with concentration.
Then he heard footsteps coming from the lobby.
“Forget the lock,” he hissed at Sydney as he hurried back to them. They both looked up at him in unison. “They’re coming.”
Tems glanced toward the lobby, then at the only other door in the corridor. He went to it and pulled it open. A supply closet with no windows.
He nodded wordlessly to the others. Sydney straightened and rubbed her shirt hurriedly on the back-door handle, erasing her fingerprints. Then she stepped inside the closet with Winter and Tems.
They stood ramrod straight, silent and tense, as the footsteps grew closer. “But, ma’am, only half of our rooms are occupied tonight, lah,” Winter could hear the attendant saying in Mandarin. “If you’d like, I can give you an hourly rate if you only need to stay for part of the day—”
“I’d like that room, then,” the woman replied. Again, Winter heardthe exaggeration in her accent. Their voices faded as they headed up the stairwell.
“There’s a security camera in the front lobby,” Sydney whispered in the darkness as silence settled around them again. “If we go that way, we’re going to get on video.”
“Not if we get rid of the camera first,” came Tems’s whisper from the blackness.
“They’ll know we were here for sure, then. We’ll leave an official mark for them to trace.”
Winter craned his neck up as he heard the girl’s distinct clicking heels walking down the hallway above them. There was no second set of footsteps—which meant the older lady must still be in the halls by herself. Maybe the girl had left her in the hotel room she’d asked for, not wanting to make an older woman go back down the stairs. It meant they had someone actively searching for them upstairs now. She would figure out in the next few minutes that their room was empty.
“We don’t have time to hang around and mess with a broken lock,” Winter muttered.
“I’ll do it,” Tems said. “The security cam. You two get to the alley and find us a ride.”
No more time to argue. Winter stepped out first, swinging the utility door open as quietly as he could and slipping out through the crack. The lobby was still empty.
Sydney was moving so soundlessly behind him that he had to glance back once to make sure she was still there. They headed into the lobby’s glaring brightness, careful to stick to the edge of the wall underneath the security cam.
Tems came up behind them like a shadow. With a hop, he made it onto a chair in the lobby and leaned up, his long arm stretching up to the security cam. He swiped one hand over the round lens, then nodded down at them.
Go.
Winter didn’t hesitate. He stole across the room, Sydney at his back. Behind them, he heard the attendant girl’s heels tapping against the wood of the stairs. She was going to arrive any moment now.
They slid into the shadows outside in the narrow street. Immediately, Winter headed to the alley by the hotel. There, he froze.
Police lights flashed blue against the wall at the end of the alley.
He glanced back at Sydney, whose eyes were fixed on the lights as well.
“They’re already here,” she whispered. She whirled and checked the other end of the street.
