19. Lena #2
His expression hardened. The ease between us shifted into frustration. “Dead ends. Every lead turns into nothing. The scent from the crime scene is familiar, but I cannot place it. It is like trying to find a single voice in a crowd where everyone keeps talking over each other.”
“You will find them.” I squeezed his thigh. “Whoever killed Stephanie. You will find them.”
“I will not stop until I do.”
I believed him. Whatever else Raphael Antonov was, he was relentless. The person who had killed Stephanie, who had been terrorizing my hotel, had no idea what was hunting them. No idea what would happen when the wolf finally caught their scent.
The hotel was busy when I arrived that afternoon.
Summer season in full swing, guests filling the lobby with their luggage and their laughter, the hum of activity that meant the Hughes Palace Hotel was recovering from the string of disasters that had nearly destroyed us.
The fountain sparkled in the sunlight, no trace of the blood that had stained it weeks ago.
I settled into my office and tried to focus on the Midsummer Gala preparations. Catering confirmations. Vendor contracts. The endless details that went into making a signature event look effortless. The stack of papers on my desk multiplied every time I looked away.
But first, I had something to follow up on.
I found Gerald in the restaurant kitchen, elbow-deep in a broken ice machine. He looked up when I approached, gray beard flecked with condensation, and wiped his hands on a rag.
“Ms. Hughes. Everything okay?”
“Just a quick question.” I kept my voice casual. “I was reviewing security logs and noticed some late-night access on your keycard. A few weeks back. Loading dock entries around two, three in the morning.”
His forehead creased. “That’s strange. I haven’t worked a night shift in months.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.” He scratched his beard, thinking.
“Although…” He trailed off, reaching for his toolbag.
Rummaged through it and pulled out his keycard.
“I did lose this for a while. Thought I was going crazy. Searched everywhere, filed for a replacement, then found the damn thing in my toolbag a week later. Right where I always keep it.”
My stomach tightened. “When was this?”
“Maybe six weeks ago? Right around when all that trouble started with the dead animals.”
I thanked him and walked back to my office, my thoughts churning. Someone had borrowed Gerald’s card. Someone who knew exactly where to return it.
But my mind kept wandering back to the cabin. To the wolf. To the way Raphael’s voice had broken when he talked about his mother. The wolf lurking beneath his skin.
I shook my head and reached for another folder. Focus. I could process the supernatural revelation later. Right now, I had a hotel to run.
The bottom drawer of my father’s desk stuck when I pulled it.
His desk, still. Even months after his death, I could not think of it as mine.
I yanked harder, and the drawer came free with a screech of warped wood.
Inside, the usual mess of old contracts and receipts he had never bothered to file properly.
I needed the vendor contact list from three years ago, the one from the last Midsummer Gala he had organized.
I pulled out a stack of papers and something shifted in the back of the drawer. The panel had come loose when I tugged at it. A false bottom.
Behind it sat a single folder.
Leather-bound. Cracked with age. My father’s handwriting on the label in faded blue ink. I did not recognize it from the regular files, and I knew every file in this office.
“Private Suite Arrangements,” the label read. “Discretion Required.”
I opened it.
Inside were lists. Names I recognized, some from newspapers, some from local politics.
State senators. A federal judge. The CEO of a company that had been in the news last year for accounting fraud.
Dates and room numbers, all on the fourth floor.
Notes in my father’s careful handwriting about “privacy requirements” and “special access protocols.”
A separate entrance through the service corridor. Soundproofed walls. Staff instructed to forget certain faces.
My father had run more than a luxury hotel. He had run a place where powerful people could do things they did not want anyone to know about.
A knock on my door made me jump, my heart slamming against my ribs. Sophie poked her head in, her red hair bright against the dark wood of the doorframe.
“Hey, you. Just checking in.” She studied my face with the perceptive gaze that made her such a good listener. “You look different today.”
“Different how?”
“More settled. Less like you are about to vibrate out of your skin.” She smiled, leaning against the doorframe. “Whatever happened last night, it agrees with you.”
I thought about telling her. The wolf. The shift. The revelation that my husband was something other than human. But the words caught in my throat. It was not my secret to share. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
“Just a good night’s sleep,” I said instead.
Sophie did not look convinced, but she let it go. She had always been good at knowing when not to push. “If you need anything, you know where to find me.”
After she left, I stared at the folder in my hands. The fourth-floor suites. The secrets my father had helped people keep. The leverage that knowledge would have given him.
I knew who might have answers.
Maya Pavlova’s suite smelled like roses and powder and the faintest trace of expensive perfume. The retired opera singer had lived at the Hughes Palace for nearly two decades, paying a premium for the privilege and becoming something like family in the process.
She had taught me piano after my mother died. Had watched me grow from a grieving four-year-old into whatever I was now. Had known my father better than almost anyone.
The moment I knocked, a chorus of yapping erupted from behind the door.
When Maya opened it, seven corgis swarmed my ankles, stubby tails wagging, wet noses pressing against my calves.
I crouched to greet them, scratching ears and accepting enthusiastic licks.
There had been eight, once. Winston’s absence still left a gap in their formation, a space where the smallest and friendliest used to push to the front.
“Lena, darling.” Maya shooed the dogs back with a gentle sweep of her silk-slippered foot. She was elegant even in her house clothes. Cream silk loungewear that was probably hand-stitched. “You look like you have questions.”
“I found some of my father’s old files.” I held up the folder. “Private suite arrangements. Fourth floor.”
Maya’s expression shifted. Surprise, quickly masked. Then wariness moved behind her eyes before she smoothed it away behind a practiced smile.
“Sit down,” she said. “I will make tea.”
I sat on her velvet settee while she busied herself with the kettle, her movements precise and unhurried. The ritual of tea-making was giving her time to decide what to tell me. How much truth I could handle.
When she finally handed me a cup and settled across from me, her face had composed itself into careful neutrality.
“What do you want to know?”
“What was my father running up there?”
She sighed, the sound heavy with years of secrets. “Richard was a businessman, darling. A very good one. And part of being good at business is understanding that people have needs they cannot fulfill in public.”
“Affairs.”
“Some.” She took a sip of her tea, her eyes never leaving my face. “But also meetings that could not happen officially. Negotiations that required privacy. Conversations between people who could not be seen speaking to each other.”
The implications settled in my stomach like lead. “He was helping people keep secrets.”
“Richard knew everyone’s secrets because he helped them keep them.” Maya paused, her elegant fingers wrapped around her teacup. “And people who keep secrets always keep some of their own.”
“What kind of secrets?”
Her eyes met mine, and I saw something there I did not like. Pity, maybe. Or warning.
“Your father was not a bad man, Lena. He was a complicated one. He loved you fiercely. He wanted to protect you from the uglier parts of his world.” She set down her cup with a soft clink against the saucer. “But protection and honesty are not always the same thing.”
“Maya.” I leaned forward. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“I am telling you to be careful digging into his past. Some secrets are buried for a reason. And some of the people your father knew…” She shook her head slowly. “They would not appreciate having their arrangements examined.”
Blackmail. She was talking about blackmail. The fourth-floor suites were not just about discretion. They were about leverage. My father had built a system that let powerful people do things in secret, and in return, he had held those secrets over their heads.
“Who managed the arrangements? The fourth-floor suites?”
Maya’s expression closed like a door. “Your father handled those personally. Always. He never trusted anyone else with the details.” She paused, something flickering behind her eyes. “That should tell you something about the nature of what he was keeping.”
The nature of what he was keeping. Secrets valuable enough that he could not risk even his most trusted staff knowing the full picture.
“Thank you, Maya.”
“Lena.” She caught my hand as I stood to leave, her grip surprisingly strong for her age. “Your father’s world was more complicated than you knew. Be careful what doors you open. Some of them cannot be closed again.”
I left her suite with more questions than answers and a cold feeling settling in my chest.
In the hallway, I nearly collided with Michael.
“Whoa, careful there.” He caught my arm, steadying me with that warm, concerned smile that had seen me through so many crises. His grip was gentle, familiar. “You okay? You look like you have seen a ghost.”