Page 58 of The Business Trip

The group started dispersing back toward inside, and Trent pulled ten dollars from his wallet.

“Always tip waitresses, especially those who aren’t hard onthe eyes,” he said to me with a wink and slid the money under his plate. Disgusting creature. I tried to smile back.

“Come on, Steph, I’ll walk you to table four.” He put his arm out and crooked his elbow.

“Oh, thanks… I, uh. I have something I have to do. I’ll catch up with you.” I forced myself to smile again.

“Sure,” he said, straightening up and running one hand through his gelled hair. “I’ll keep your seat warm for you.” He grinned like a Cheshire cat.

I went to the side of the portico and looked at both my phone and Steph’s again, trying to act like some important news director checking messages. In reality, I just wanted to be sure there were still no texts for either of us. There weren’t. I exhaled.

Our waitress was at our table, picking up Trent’s ten-dollar tip. No one else was close by, so I walked over to her.

“Excuse me,” I asked. “Do you know where I can find some ice?”

She looked puzzled. “Do you mean ice water?”

“No, actually like a bag of ice, or even two,” I replied, hoping that the request was not too bizarre.

“Umm, I think we have some in the back,” she answered. “Aren’t you going back to the conference, though?”

“I’ll go back in a little bit,” I answered and thought fast. “I just have some medicine in my room that I’m trying to keep cold.”

“Don’t you have a refrigerator?”

I was starting to get annoyed by her questions but hid it and answered back quickly. “My refrigerator is broken. I have some medicine in my room that I’m trying to keep cold.”

“What room are you in? I can send it up.”

I hesitated. Should I lie? Should I tell the truth? Should Iavoid the question? If I lied and they found out, they might get super suspicious.

“It’s… uh, 630,” I replied, then hastily added, “but I’ll take them up.”

“OK,” she said. “Sure, I’ll go get them.”

I drifted back to the door closest to the elevators and waited for her, looking at my phone again. The waitress came back with two bags of ice neatly tied at the top with zip ties.

“Do you want help?” she asked. “I can send one of the guys in back to go with you.”

“No, thank you,” I said, and straightened my shoulders as she handed me the bags. “I appreciate it, though.”

Turning toward the elevators, I tried to walk as upright and confidently as I could. It was only when I got into the elevator alone that I crumbled, putting the bags of ice down and hunching over, rubbing my throbbing temples.

Back at the door to my room, I was relieved to see theDO NOT DISTURBsign still in place, and even more relieved when I opened the door and confirmed that the bed was unmade and the towels in the bathroom not replaced. Clearly no housekeeper had been here in my absence. The suitcase sat across the room. I felt a bit sick looking at it. I needed to get Stephanie’s body away from me as quickly as I could.

Disposing of a dead body was not an easy task. I had to think through a way that wouldn’t arouse suspicion. I couldn’t just roll through the lobby now in the middle of the day. Someone might ask me where I was going or comment that “Stephanie” was leaving the conference with a giant rolling bag.

The back of each name tag had a tiny schedule printed on it, and I flipped mine over to read what was happening. A cocktail hour that night caught my eye. Everyone in this group was sure to either opt in for the free drinks or crash out in their room.There might be people in the hallway, sure, but likely people not from the conference—people attending a wedding or in town for some other sort of thing. I could walk down rolling my suitcase and maybe find a side door to get to my next destination, which was… where?

Kicking off the black tennis shoes that were too big for me and sitting at the desk, I googled “hidden places, coastline San Diego” and found one just a few miles from the hotel.

“Completely secluded and quiet,” the description said. “A short bridge goes over the deepest part. Bring a flashlight, there are no lights.”

That seemed spot-on to me.

Now I needed the weights. Again, the hotel gym came to mind, and I realized suddenly that the best time was right now. It was midday, and there were not likely to be many people working out. To be safe, I would try not to look like Stephanie as I went down there, in case anyone from the conference happened to be walking through the hallway and saw me.

Putting the ice in the suitcase next to her and changing out of Stephanie’s expensive clothing and back into my crappy stuff, I pulled out my trusty baseball cap and tucked my hair under it, then stepped into the bathroom, did some transformative makeup tricks to make my face look a bit different, and got out my John Lennon glasses again, adjusting them on my nose. I had no idea if hotel gyms had security cameras, but I would look around the place first to make sure I didn’t see anything obvious.

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