Page 42 of The Mystery Guest

“Did you put this box in your trolley?” I ask.

She shakes her head.

“Do you know who did?”

She shakes her head again, then stares at me with those dark, glassy eyes.

“Tell me, Lily. I implore you.”

She has only one thing to say: “Loose lips sink ships.”

—

My nerves are frayed. As I help Lily clean Room 429, I feel desperately unsettled. I know the true source of my malaise. It is not really Lily, though of course I’m concerned about her. It’s not even Mr. Grimthorpe’s death or the strange occurrences in the hotel. It’s the fact that I’ve become embroiled in a lie, and the very notionshakes me to the core of my being.

Tell a lie once and your truth becomes questionable.Gran’s voice keeps echoing in my head, and I can’t make it stop.

“Lily,” I say. “It’s lunch hour. Time for a break.”

She nods, puts down her spray bottle, and quickly leaves the room.

I suddenly know what I have to do, and there’s not a moment to lose.

I leave the room in a state of imperfection and hurry down to the lobby. I exit the hotel, making my way to the bottom of the plush, red-carpeted stairs. Mr. Preston spots me and stops me.

“Molly,” he says. “Where are you off to in such a rush?”

“An errand,” I explain. “I’ll be back later.”

“I’ve got one to run myself,” he says. “Now, Molly, about that dinner we were going to have this Sunday, I was thinking—”

“Mr. Preston,” I say, interrupting. “Can our dinner please wait until Juan Manuel returns? I’m barely managing as it is, and I just don’t think I can handle anything more right now.”

Mr. Preston’s face falls like a cake taken out of the oven too soon, but before he can say anything else, some businessmen with luggage in tow wave him down. He jumps to their service while I make my hasty retreat.

I head toward the next street over. I walk briskly, turning left, then right, then left again. I arrive at the police station in exactly fifteen minutes. I take a moment to survey the building from across the street—a gray, brutalist block with tinted windows.

I cross the busy street and enter through the main doors into the police reception area.

A blond woman with long purple nails greets me. “Yes?” she says.

“I’m here to see a detective,” I explain, trying to keep my voice steady.

“Complaint? Tip-off? Or are you turning yourself in?” the woman asks.

“The latter,” I say.

She pauses. “You know ‘the latter’ means the last thing I said, right?”

“Yes,” I reply. “I have a flair for vocabulary.”

She of the Purple Talons stares at me with strange, unreadable eyes.

“It’s Detective Stark I must speak with,” I say. “She knows me. I’m a maid at the hotel where Mr. Grimthorpe dropped dead.”

The woman stands then, very slowly. Still facing me, she opens a door behind her and yells down the corridor in a tremulous voice, “Detective Stark! Come quickly! Please?!”

She doesn’t go back to her desk as I expect her to do. Rather, she just stands there, pressed up against the wall, eyeing me like I might steal something or pull a gun.

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