Page 31 of The Hotel Nantucket
“How long will he be?” Franny asked, checking her phone. “I’d like to get to bed.”
“Of course,” Lizbet said. Just then, Raoul called. “She’s not on the second floor, and Kimber says she and Doug checked the third floor and she’s not there either. I’ll sweep the fourth floor. You’ve checked the pools, yes?”
“Pools?” Lizbet said. She started to tremble. “No…”
“Oh, man,” Raoul said.
Lizbet hung up. She held prayer hands up to Franny. “I’ll be back in just a minute.”
“But my room number? My key? My luggage is still on the sidewalk. What if someone takes it?”
“This is Nantucket,” Lizbet said. “No one is going to touch it and it’s too big for anyone to walk away with. I’ll get your keys as soon as…” But Lizbet didn’t finish the sentence. She hurried out the pool door, praying she wasn’t going to see the small form of Wanda Marsh floating facedown. Both children could swim, she reminded herself. She hit the pool lights. No Wanda. She exhaled—but there was still the adult pool on the lower level and the hot tub. She recalled that Wanda was intensely curious about the Mystery of the Hot Tub, because it was restricted to people fourteen and older. Lizbet raced back through the lobby, passing Franny Yates, who had plopped herself cross-leggedon the floorin front of the desk, which Lizbet understood was some kind of statement or protest, because there were armchairs and ottomans less than five feet away. “Be right—” Lizbet said. She ran down the stairs, through the wellness center, and out the door. The adult pool was dark and quiet.
“Wanda?” Lizbet whispered. She peered into the hot tub, feeling very much like the doomed heroine in a horror film.
It was empty.
Lizbet headed back upstairs, thinking she had dodged a huge bullet—Wanda hadn’t drowned in the pools. Though Lizbet was growing more and more agitated. Wherewasshe?
“Let me get your keys,” Lizbet said to Franny Yates. “I’ll upgrade you to a suite because you’ve been so patient. Here you go. Suite two fourteen. You can take either the stairs or the elevator to the second floor, and then it’s all the way down the hall to the left.”
“What about myluggage?” Franny Yates said.
“As soon as the bellman is free, I’ll have him bring it to you.”
“I want to go to sleep!”
“Ms. Yates, I need to ask for your indulgence. We have a situation here—”
“Your situation is that your hotel stinks,” Franny Yates said. She marched off down the hall.
Lizbet wasn’t sure what to do. Should she try to schlep Franny Yates’s luggage up the stairs herself? Should she go up to the fourth floor to help look for Wanda? Should she call the police?A child is lost.Lizbet wasn’t a mother but she understood how serious this was. Lizbet went down the stairs to the street and looked both ways. No Wanda.
She heard the phone ringing back in the lobby and she hustled up the stairs, taking them two at a time, so when she reached the top, her heart was pounding in her ears. “Hello?”
“We found her,” Raoul said. “She was wandering around the fourth floor.”
“Oh, thank God.” Lizbet paused. “What was she doingthere?” The fourth floor had odd roof angles and very small windows, and the Historic District Commission would have had to approve any structural changes that would be visible from the street, so Xavier had opted not to renovate it just yet. Lizbet had ventured up to the fourth floor only once; it was, essentially, a cavernous and dusty attic.
Raoul said, “She said she was looking for the ghost.”
The ghost!Lizbet thought. She had been very careful never to mention the supposed ghost to anyone, and especially not Wanda, but Zeke might have let it slip.
“We have a check-in to suite two fourteen who is very anxious for her bags. There are three of them, and I would deliver them myself but they’re each the size of a small home.”
“I’ll be down as soon as I’m finished cleaning up here.”
“Cleaning up?” Lizbet said.
“Doug was so excited to see Wanda that he had an accident.”
Lizbet closed her eyes. The other line of the hotel phone rang. It was suite 214. “Youhaveto get suite two fourteen her luggage. Please, Raoul. Right now.”
“But the dog—”
“Raoul, please!”
“Yes, boss,” Raoul said.
