Page 48 of The Mystery Guest

I head to the washroom to return the Band-Aids to the first-aid kit. As I’m putting them away, I hear the key turn in the lock. I exit the washroom as Gran enters with a heaping hamper full of neatly folded laundry, which she puts down with a big huff. “My heavens, Molly, it’s hot as Hades in that laundry room,” she says as she closes and locks the door. She removes her shoes, wipes them, then goes straight to the kitchen for a tall glass of water. I follow her in.

“Gran, we had a visitor,” I say. “But don’t worry. I knew she wasn’t a stranger because I asked her questions, and she answered them all correctly. I knew she knew you, and she knew me, too, back from when I was only as tall as a grasshopper’s knees. She’s a maid, Gran. You worked together. It was nice to meet another maid, even if she has bedbugs. It’s just like you said. You can’t blame people for their circumstances. Oh, and she says you’re taking good care of me and that she misses you. I’m supposed to tell you that.”

Gran puts down her water glass with an audiblethunk.Her mouth is wide open, so open that if we still had bedbugs, they could climb right in. Her gaze turns to the kitchen table.

“Molly,” she says. “Did Mr. Rosso come by? Please tell me he picked up the envelope.”

I look down at the kitchen table.

That’s when I understand it, what Gran was saying earlier about invisible things.

Two variables come together in my mind: our recent guest and the envelope containing our rent money. I see the equation forming, but it’s too late.

Both are gone.

I did not sleep well. I tossed and turned all night. I reached out for Juan Manuel, found him absent, missing, only an empty space left behind on the mattress. I thought of calling him in the middle of the night, telling him everything that’s happened over the last couple of days, but at such a distance, he can’t do a thing to help me. And what was I supposed to say to him?Juan, I failed to inform you that a man dropped dead in the hotel tearoom two days ago. His death has since been deemed a murder, and it’s entirely possible the killer is on the loose in our hotel.Oh, and one more thing—our very good friend, Mr. Preston? He’s a thief. And now I’m starting to wonder if he might be something worse than that.

No wonder I didn’t sleep a wink.

I cannot erase the unthinkable thoughts from my mind. What if Mr. Preston, my dear friend and colleague, a man whom I’ve considered the purest personification of a good egg, is a thief? And if he’s capable of stealing, what else could he do?

It’s ridiculous. Absurd. I hear Gran admonish me in my head—Only fools jump to conclusions.

She’s right. And yet there’s no refuting what I saw at that pawn-shop—Mr. Preston, selling a rare first-edition copy of J. D. Grimthorpe’sThe Maid in the Mansionthe day after the author died and the value of said book skyrocketed. Is it possible that Mr. Grimthorpe was murdered out of pure and simple greed? And is it possible that Mr. Preston could have something to do with it? That’s the improbable, inconceivable notion that has me turned inside out.

I tear the blankets off me, jab my hot feet into my slippers, and stomp into the kitchen. It’s five in the morning, far too early to get up, but I can’t lie awake any longer. I grab a bucket from under the sink and fill it with water. I root around in the drawer for a reliable cleaning cloth, then I march into the living room and set my supplies down beside Gran’s curio cabinet.

I turn the TV on as a distraction, but sure enough, the news channel is replaying yesterday’s press conference in which Detective Stark declared Mr. Grimthorpe’s death a murder. I watch as reporters pelt Stark with questions.

“Detective, do you have any leads?”

“We’re following every lead we have,” Stark replies.

“Detective, is the murderer a guest or a hotel employee?”

“If I knew that, would I be here?” she replies.

“Detective, you said his tea was poisoned with antifreeze. Do you know how that could have happened?”

“We’re working on that,” she says. “We’re tracking an important piece of evidence.”

“Detective, do you have a message for the killer?”

Stark pauses. It’s as though she’s looking right through the TV at me. “You can hide the truth for a while, but it won’t stay buriedforever. Just remember that,” she says, before walking away from the scrum.

I turn off the TV.

I pick up my cloth and carefully open the glass doors of Gran’s curio cabinet.Deep cleaning gives life meaning. Just grab a duster, Buster.

Yes, Gran,I think to myself as I remove her precious treasures—a secondhand menagerie of Swarovski crystal animals, her pride and joy, and her souvenir spoons from far-flung places she never got to see with her own eyes.

I furiously polish each trinket, then turn to the framed photos on top of the cabinet. There’s a new photo of me and my dear Juan Manuel with matching ice cream mustaches. There are older photos, too, of Gran and me. But it’s the photo of my mother when she was young that I study with care. Dark hair like mine and a porcelain complexion, bright apple cheeks, not wan and hollowed out like that strange young woman who stole the rent on the first day of the month so long ago. As a child, I had no idea who she was. I realized only when I was much older that Maggie—the stranger at the door that day—was my mother, and that one of the reasons she’d come was to see me. How I failed to put two and two together at the time, I do not know. Why is it always like that? Why do I understand everything too late?

Now, I put all of Gran’s treasures back in the cabinet. I shower, then scrub the washroom until my fingers pucker into dried prunes. I eat a crumpet at the worn kitchen table, chewing every bite exactly twenty times. Then I leave the apartment and head to work, anxiety powering me like a jet engine.

Now that everyone knows Mr. Grimthorpe was poisoned, this workday at the Regency Grand will be the furthest thing from normal. I have no idea what to expect.

When I arrive, Mr. Preston is standing at the doorman’s podium,directing the throngs of guests on the plush red landing. I elbow my way through the crowd until I’m standing right in front of him.

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