Page 22 of Our Last Resort

“It was a…”

A feeling I had?

“A collection of details,” I say, and wince internally.A collection of details.That’ll look nice on the police report.

Harris scribbles some more.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll let my colleagues know.”

It’s not enough, but it’s all I have.

I thank the deputy for his time and head back to our suite. As I’m about to press my key card to the reader, my phone dings.

It’s a text from Gabriel.

There’s food in the dining room. Where are you?

I’m not hungry, but Gabriel needs to eat. It’s the whole migraine thing: He should eat regularly, sleep enough, not work too hard. Which is hilarious, because for most of our lives, all three of those were complete impossibilities.

As long as my phone’s out, I check on my dog: He’s at one of those fancy doggy day cares right now, the kind that sends you updates every day and lets you watch a live feed of your pet. Its app informs me that Charlie is “doing very well” and has “eaten most of his food.”

I text Gabriel back:Be right there.

The Ara’s lobby was designed for relaxation. You can tell someone looked at the space and thought,This is where people will go to chill.It’s furnished with custom-built banquettes and plump ottomans. At the center of the room is an enormous vase filled with dried flowers (“globe amaranths,” per Catalina), fluffy white puffs raised to the ceiling. For the duration of our stay, a gas fireplace has burned at the back of the room, oblivious to the desert and its heat.

Today, the peace has been disrupted. Guests are milling allaround. There’s the youngish couple and their two kids. Next to them, the divorcée who was having words with her lawyer over the phone the other day. A few feet from them, an actor I recognize from the most recent season ofLaw & Order: SVU.

The divorcée is scribbling on a piece of hotel stationery. The actor scrolls on his device. The couple is in a tense conversation. I catch snippets: “flights,” “stay,” “worried about nothing.”

There are things people can’t say. Things they must all be thinking.

This was not a cheap trip.

We won’t be able to get a refund now. Not unless the hotel kicks us out.

We don’t even know what happened.

Would it really be so bad, staying?

Gabriel waves me over to a table in the dining room. He has changed into shorts and a fresh T-shirt. At a nearby table sit the three young women I’ve seen throughout our stay posing for various photos, Instagram tiles come to life, one leg forward, the other back, or crouching by the pool, tongue out. A seemingly endless parade of outfits, neon shorts, matching sets in stretchy fabrics, crocheted halter tops.

Now the three influencers are human again, swallowed by cotton hoodies in neutral tones. Flamingos painted gray.

Gabriel slides a plate toward me. “I grabbed you some stuff,” he says. A hard-boiled egg, a banana. “But go see what’s left, too.”

At the front of the room, someone has unfolded a table and covered it with a tablecloth that doesn’t quite match its contours. There are coffee and hot-water dispensers, tea bags, sliced bread, containers of yogurt on a bowl of ice.

This isn’t how the hotel does breakfast. There is—usually—nobuffetat the Ara. Until today, we’ve sat and studied the same set menu every morning. In the soft, dimmed glow of the dining room, we’ve sampled the American, the Continental, the Wellness. Silky scrambled eggs, delicate croissants, artful muesli parfaits with slices of melon fanned out on the side.

It sat so unnaturally with me. Luxury, always unnecessary, forever unearned.

At the buffet, people are lining up, reaching around one another in search of sugar and jelly. Their voices are hushed, their gestures nervous. A vision from the world Gabriel and I left behind: kids lined up inside a cafeteria, a meager bread pile, a self-styled prophet sipping coffee at the back of the room.

I return to our table.

“Nothing?” Gabriel asks.

I shake my head.

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