An Unwanted Guest

The others turn his way, startled.

David knows they are all in shock, and probably not thinking clearly. ‘Two people are dead. Murdered. We may not be the only ones here,’ he says bluntly.

Frightened faces look back at him from the shadows.

‘Whoever did this must be insane,’ Lauren whispers.

‘There’s no one else staying at the hotel,’ James stammers.

‘No other staff we don’t know about?’

James shakes his head. ‘No. Just me and Bradley. Because of the storm. The others couldn’t make it in.’

‘Someone might be here without our knowing it,’ David says.

‘No,’ Bradley says, shaking his head. ‘The rooms are kept locked.’

‘This room was locked,’ David says, ‘and there’s a dead body inside. How did that happen?’ They all fall silent for a moment.

‘Maybe she answered the door,’ Matthew suggests, no doubt thinking of his own Dana, inexplicably found dead outside her own room.

‘Possibly,’ David says, thinking aloud. ‘But judging from the position of the body, she was standing at the desk with her back to the door when she was strangled. She either answered the door to someone she knows, and trusts, or at least recognizes – one of us perhaps – and was comfortable enough to let them in and then turn her back on them, or someone unlocked the door without her being aware of it.’

‘But that’s not possible,’ James says. ‘The keys are kept behind the reception desk.’ Then he colours, as if realizing the inadequacy of his argument.

‘But there isn’t always someone there,’ David points out. ‘Not this weekend.’

Henry says, ‘Someone could have taken the key – if there was no one in the lobby to see them.’

‘But wouldn’t she have heard the door open?’ Ian asks.

David raises a hand calling for quiet. The sound of the wind howling violently outside answers Ian’s question.

‘Jesus,’ Lauren says, in deep dismay.

Riley blurts out, with barely concealed hysteria, ‘You’re suggesting that there’s someone else in this hotel? A killer? Who can get into our rooms?’ Her eyes are wild.

Gwen looks anxiously at Riley and says quickly, ‘Maybe the door was already open. Maybe she left it open. Maybe she just came up to get something.’

‘Maybe,’ David says.

There’s a long silence as everyone ponders the position they are all in.

David says again, ‘I suggest we search the entire hotel, including our own rooms – unless there is anyone here who objects?’ He surveys them all carefully. He wants to know if anyone has anything to hide. And he wants to find out if there is someone else here. Someone they don’t know about.

The guests look at each other uneasily, but no one objects.

‘Shall we cover her?’ Bradley asks, his voice uneven.

‘No, leave her as she is,’ David says. He adds, ‘It would probably be better if only some of us search and the rest of you go back downstairs and stay by the fire. I’ll need James and Bradley with me.’

‘I’ll go back downstairs,’ Riley offers quickly.

‘I’ll come with you,’ Lauren says. ‘I don’t want to go around this place in the dark.’

‘I’m staying with you,’ Ian says protectively. ‘I’m not letting you out of my sight.’

Henry says, ‘I want to help search.’ He turns to his wife and says, ‘Why don’t you go back downstairs and stay warm, with the others.’

‘No, I want to be with you,’ Beverly says, as if being with her husband is the only way she will feel safe. Her husband is the only one she knows here.

David turns to Matthew. ‘What about you?’

‘I’ll join the search party,’ Matthew says decisively.

David says to Gwen, ‘Why don’t you go with Riley and the rest of them?’ He’s worried about her. She looks so frightened and vulnerable.

She nods and slips away from him. David watches Ian usher Lauren, Gwen, and Riley out of the door on their way back to the lobby.

Riley follows Ian, Lauren, and Gwen out of Candice’s room. She sticks so close to Gwen that she almost steps on her heels. Out in the hall, the darkness seems absolute, even though there’s a pinprick of light ahead from Ian’s mobile phone. But she is at the back of the little group. As they make their way silently down the stairs from the second floor, Riley tries to extinguish the image of Candice’s lifeless body from her mind. But she can’t discipline her thoughts. Her imagination takes control – she imagines what Candice’s final moments must have been like. Someone came to find her in that cold, dark room and snuffed the life out of her. Riley imagines how it must have felt to have that scarf pulled so tightly around her neck that she couldn’t breathe. She must have struggled …

Riley can feel her own breath quicken and become shallower. She glances uneasily over her shoulder, into the dark. The darkness is like a curtain of rich black velvet – you can’t see past it. She realizes she is falling behind, her feet not as steady on the stairs as the others. She grips the banister tightly. She ran so quickly up these stairs, just a short while ago, but now – since seeing Candice dead – she feels like she’s walking through molasses, one slow, thick step after another. She’s not herself. She tries to hurry, to catch up before the others make the turn on the landing and the small beam of light disappears.

She can’t shake the sense that there is someone else in the hotel, someone watching their every move. He must have been watching Candice, and now she’s dead. Maybe he’s watching Riley now, maybe he’s behind her on the stairs, waiting to pick her off, the straggler left behind … Suddenly she can feel him watching, knows that he is behind her, behind that black curtain, a grim reaper reaching out for her.

She senses movement above and behind her on the stairs, hears someone, something. Panicking, she rushes towards the others, stumbling, leaning heavily on the banister. ‘Wait!’ she cries. She tumbles into Gwen in front of her; Gwen is not so far away, after all. Gwen takes her in her arms.

‘I’m right here, Riley,’ she says.

‘I think there might be someone up there!’ Riley gasps.

The light from the mobile phone flashes in her face, almost blinding her, then moves off, playing against the stairs and walls behind her. They all look up. They can’t see far.

‘I don’t think there’s anyone there, Riley,’ Ian says firmly.

‘Come on,’ Gwen says, taking her by the arm. ‘We’re almost there.’

David turns to the others. ‘Let’s start with the empty rooms on this floor.’

David notices that this time, Bradley seems more distraught than his father. He watches as James quietly takes the keys from Bradley – whose hands are visibly shaking – and sorts through them. They start with the room next to Candice’s, which is across the hall from Lauren and Ian’s. James inserts the key into the lock, as David holds the oil lamp up so James can see what he’s doing. David glances over his shoulder at the rest of them, hovering in the darkened corridor. The door swings open, and David enters the room first, carrying the lamp. The others follow, some with iPhones giving off beams of light.

There’s nothing there. The room is pristine, as if waiting for the next guest. They check the bathroom, the wardrobes, look under the neatly made bed. There’s nothing.

They exit the room and move on to the next unoccupied room, the one next to Candice’s on the other side. It’s empty as well.