Page 19

I’m holding a murdered woman’s cell phone. I’ve unlocked it. My fingerprints are all over it.

The door starts to open, and I dive behind it. I don’t think. I can’t. I panic and scramble behind the door. Then I see the closet, its sliding door halfway open.

A woman knocks and calls, “Ms. Morales?” and as she does, I creep into the closet and ease the slider almost shut.

Footsteps sound.

“Ms. Morales?” a woman calls tentatively. “I am sorry to bother you, but we received a call that you were in trouble. I have brought security.”

Someone reported a problem? How? I haven’t made any noise.

No one heard anything, you idiot. You’re here. That’s what counts. You’re here, and whoever killed Isabella knows it. Now you’re about to be caught hiding in the damn closet. Are you trying to help the killer frame you?

Two people enter, one set of light footsteps and another heavier, presumably the security guard and the staff member who brought him.

They whisper right outside the closet, and I hold my breath.

All I see is the front door, pushed against the closet.

Then that closes with a whoosh as they decide the woman should lead the way i n case Ms. Morales is still in bed. The guard will follow right behind.

As they head inside, I check my phone to see that my final text to Isabella – telling her I’m here – has been read.

Isabella’s killer is in this suite. They picked up Isabella’s phone downstairs while I was in her bedroom, and they read my message–

No, that’s not possible. When I picked up Isabella’s phone, my text showed as a new notification. Someone read it while I had her phone in my hand.

I’m about to say that’s impossible when I remember one of my music students getting texts on her watch.

I’d marveled at the technology, and she’d teased that I was showing my age.

She’d shown me how messages from her phone appeared on both her watch and her tablet, and they could be answered from any of the three.

I stuff Isabella’s phone into my purse as the stairs creak. I peer through the cracked-open closet door just as the security guard’s pant legs disappear up the stairs.

Now’s your chance. You have about twenty seconds between them finding the body and calling for help.

Run, Lucy.

I take a deep breath.

I will not run. I haven’t done anything wrong. I was lured here, and I can prove it. I just can’t afford to be found in this damn closet. Or found with Isabella’s cell phone.

I consider my options and decide it’s best not to be found in her room at all. Pretend I just arrived after receiving those texts.

I slip off my ankle boots and ease open the door. Footsteps overhead walk into the master bedroom. I brace for a scream. Instead, there’s a gasp and then:

“Ms. Morales!” The man says.

“Is she–?”

“Call–”

I don’t hear the last. I’m already out the door. I fly past the elevator, following the emergency-exit signs to the stairwell.

Twenty flights of stairs. They’re empty, and as I zoom down, I wipe off Isabella’s phone.

I have to pause at the bottom to catch my breath and pull on my boots. Then I take out my phone. However bad this might look, I have proof that yesterday’s talk with Isabella wasn’t a heated argument. Proof that we’d parted on good terms, as supported by my texts.

I take out the phone and flip to the recording. I put it to my ear and press Play and…

I hear voices. Muffled and indistinct voices. I turn up the volume, and the distortion only comes louder as my eyes round in horror.

The phone didn’t pick up the conversation through my purse. I never checked that it would work. I’d just blithely hit Record and left it in my purse, pleased with myself for being clever.

Not clever at all.

I don’t have a recording of our conversation, just voices so muffled I can’t even tell who’s who.

Deep breath.

I didn’t kill Isabella, and that’s what counts.

I step from the stairwell with as much dignity as I can muster. There’s no one in sight. I walk into the crowded lobby and take a seat in a plush chair.

With a tissue, I surreptitiously remove Isabella’s phone and tuck it under the seat cushion. I’ll come back for it later. T hen I head onto the elevator and hit the button for the penthouse level.

It is only as the elevator doors open again that my brain screams a flaw in my plan. That final text I sent – the one saying Isabella’s door was unlocked and I was coming in. It proves I didn’t arrive just now.

I reach to stop the doors from opening, but of course, they still do. And there’s a security guard standing right there, blocking the way to Isabella’s room.

I could retreat. Pretend I have the wrong floor and…

He turns and sees me.

I step off the elevator. The door to the penthouse is open, and inside, people are talking, voices coming fast and urgent.

I look toward it. Before I can say a word, the guard says, “If you’re here to see Ms. Morales, there’s been an incident. You’ll have to come back later.”

Retreat.

Just retreat.

No, I need to be honest. Or as honest as I can be under the circumstances.

I cast a worried look toward the penthouse and then back to the guard. He’s maybe forty, bald, with a beard that tries for trendy and fails.

“I was just up here,” I say. “I was meeting Isabella for breakfast, and the door was ajar. She wasn’t answering. I texted to say I was coming inside, but that felt weird, so I went downstairs and waited for her to call.”

“You were up here earlier?” the guard asks.

I nod. “Maybe twenty-five minutes ago?” I check my phone. “Twenty-eight, apparently. The door was ajar. I figured that was accidental, and I shut it. She never did answer my text, so I came back up. Is she okay?”

He says nothing. Just studies me. A slow once-over – a little too slow for comfort – and then he eases back.

“What was your business with Ms. Morales?” he asks.

“Breakfast.” Like I said. “We were supposed to have lunch, but she texted this morning to ask if she could switch to breakfast.”

His eyes narrow. He checks his watch. “Awfully early, isn’t it?”

“Her plans changed. I said I was up, and she asked if I could come over right away.”

His lips purse behind the sparse beard. His gaze slides over me again, still slow, as if using the excuse.

“Were you the redhead in those Jurassic movies?”

I laugh softly. If the guy thinks I look like Bryce Dallas Howard, he’s clearly seen too many “celebrities without makeup” tabloid spreads. He must know Isabella is in showbiz, and Ms. Howard is probably the only red-haired actress he can think of.

The question does make me relax, though, and I say, “No, but thank you. That’s very flattering. I’m just an old acquaintance of Isabella’s.” I cast an anxious gaze at her room. “ Is she all right?”

The elevator opens. A gurney comes off, and I gasp, while mentally reminding myself not to oversell this.

“Did something happen?” I say.

The guard tugs me aside to make way for the paramedics, though I’ve already moved. He uses the excuse to hold me there, his thumb rubbing my bare forearm.

“I’m in the way,” I say. “I should go.”

“Better give me your contact information first,” he says. “In case they need it.”

I glance toward the room. “She is all right, isn’t she?”

“Give me your card, and I’ll have someone get back to you.”

“Thank you. I don’t have a card, but I’ll jot down my name and number.”

I write Genevieve Callahan and my cell number on a scrap of paper. As I pass it over, I add, “Isabella calls me Lucy, but Genevieve is my legal name.” I don’t want anyone claiming I tried to hide my identity, but nor do I want to write “Lucy Callahan” on anything involved with Isabella.

As he pockets the scrap, the elevator doors open, and he catches my arm again, using the excuse to pull me aside, though by now I’m ten feet from the elevator.

“Are you sure you’re not an actress?” he says. “I feel like I’ve seen you before.”

“Excuse me,” says a voice over my shoulder. I turn to see a woman about my age, wearing a suit. I think she’s with the hotel… until I spot the two uniformed officers behind her. My gaze drops to her detective’s badge.

“Is something…?” I swing on the security guard. “Is Isabella okay?”

“Do you work here?” the detective says brusquely to the guard.

He straightens. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Then you’re supposed to be guarding this floor. It’s a crime scene, and the media is going to descend at any moment…” A pointed look at me. “If it hasn’t already.”

“Cr-crime scene?” I say, my voice rising.

“She’s not a reporter,” the guard interjects. “She knows Ms. Morales. She was here for breakfast with the lady.”

And with that, my chance to escape evaporates. Which is fine. I have to do this sooner or later.

The detective tells me that Isabella is dead, apparently from a slip and fall, and I pretend I just found out. I’m shocked, and… Oh, my god, was she in the bathroom? Showering for our breakfast? Maybe if I’d gone inside, I could have saved her.

I hate myself for my performance. Earlier, I’d thought this would be easy. A small lie. One little omission.

Yes, I came to the hotel. Yes, I went to Isabella’s suite. But I didn’t find her body.

It’s not simple. I have to dredge up every film-camp acting lesson. Even then, I stand outside myself, critiquing.

You don’t seem shocked enough to have just heard the news.

You seem too shocked for someone who already saw the EMT go into the suite.

You don’t seem upset enough for having just found out an old friend is dead.

You seem too upset over someone you haven’t seen in years.

Once I’m past my “Oh, my God, Isabella is dead” performance, the woman – Detective Kotnik – leads me into the suite, where she can speak to me in relative privacy.

I tell her everything, and I show her the texts. Those definitely catch her attention. Whatever the EMTs have said about possible time of death, she knows it’s significant that I received these barely an hour ago.

That’s when she sends one of the officers to look for Isabella’s phone, and my moment of panic turns to one of relief. It may be a good thing they won’t find it here. It’ll look as if Isabella’s killer took her phone to lure me in.

Detective Kotnik says nothing about the possibility that Isabella isn’t the one who contacted me.

I don’t, either. I remind myself that if I hadn’t seen Isabella’s body, I’d be confused and concerned – and maybe a little curious – so I r egularly glance toward the second floor, where the EMTs and Kotnik’s partner work.

Kotnik takes my statement. When she asks what I was talking to Isabella about, I say it was a mix of personal and business, which is not untrue.

I knew Isabella years ago, and we were catching up, and she had a business proposition for me.

I’d initially turned her down, but I’d agreed to think it over last night and meet for lunch.

I show the texts to support my story. I don’t use the name Lucy, but I show my passport for ID, and Lucille is there as my middle name, which is good enough.

I’m not hiding anything. Well, not hiding much, at least.

We’re going through my statement again when Kotnik’s partner calls her upstairs. She lifts a finger for me to wait.

As she leaves, I exhale. I’ve played it cool, even if my stomach hasn’t stopped twisting the entire time.

The moment I saw Isabella on the floor, I should have summoned help. When the hotel staff arrived, I lost that chance.

No, I had that chance stolen from me. Intentionally. Whoever sent those texts was waiting for me, and I helpfully signaled my arrival by texting Isabella that I was coming in. Her killer gave me just enough time to be discovered with the body.

When I escaped, I should have just kept going, raced back to my hotel and…

And what? Pretended I’d never left it? This is a murder. They’ll check Isabella’s texts. For all I know, cameras caught me coming into the hotel, too.

You should have run. Just run.

No, that’s the worst thing I could have done.

What if they discover I’ve already lied? That I did come inside and found the body?

Someone set you up, Lucy.

You’re being framed.

You need to get out of here.

They’ll find out who you are, and that will change everything. You know it will.

But I didn’t kill Isabella.

You didn’t sleep with Colt, either.

A young woman’s voice sounds in the foyer. Someone’s trying to block her entrance, and she’s blasting them.

I know that voice.

Do I? No, when I strain, it doesn’t sound familiar.

I can’t hear what she’s saying, just a brief and angry interchange before she marches in and our eyes meet and…

I’m looking at Tiana Morales-Gordon.

It doesn’t matter that I haven’t seen her since she was ten years old. There is not a single heartbeat when I wonder whether I’m mistaken.

God, how much she looks like her mother!

That’s my first thought, but then I realize it’s not entirely true. Tiana is a taller version of Isabella, her dark curls cut shoulder length, her blue eyes flashing.

When Tiana sees me, there is not a moment’s hesitation for her, either. Her mouth tightens, and those blue eyes blast pure hate. Then she pivots and marches upstairs, and even as her heels click toward the bedroom, she’s already snapping, “What the hell is she doing here?”

There’s a moment of confusion, and Tiana has to identify herself and be shooed out of the bedroom, which makes her forget about me as she argues that this is her mother, and she’s not leaving.

A temporary reprieve.

Very temporary.

She will tell them exactly who I am, and I will leave this suite in handcuffs.

Stop that. You’re overreacting.

Am I?

I need to get out of here. Not flee. Just get out and talk to someone. My mother. Nylah. Marco. Someone I can entrust with my story in case I am arrested. Someone who will tell me what I should do.

Upstairs, the police are still trying to keep Tiana from her mother, which is going as well as one might expect. Down here, the officer at the door is busy casting anxious glances up there, as if wondering how much trouble he’ll catch for allowing Tiana inside.

I walk over and say, “I should probably go.”

The officer cuts me a quick glance.

“Detective Kotnik got my statement,” I continue. “I was just waiting to let her know I’ll be at my hotel if she has questions, but there’s obviously an issue up there, and she’s going to be a while.”

He nods absently, his attention slingshotting back to the argument.

“She has my contact information,” I say.

Another nod. And with that, I’m free. Kotnik does have my contact information, and if that doesn’t include my hotel name, well, she can remedy that oversight with a bit of digging. It’ll give me the time I need to come up with a plan.

I pause at the door, listening to Tiana above. Then I’m gone.