Checkout #5
“We need bolt cutters,” Jude said.
“There were some in the basement locker room,” Tessa replied.
“Where Felix went.”
No one looked back.
Malik struck the padlock with the tire iron.
The blow echoed along the road.
He hit it again.
On the third strike, something fell from the gatepost.
A Polaroid landed at his feet.
The photograph showed all seven founders outside a freshman-year house party.
Avery remembered the night. Felix had stolen the wooden address numbers and nailed them above his bed. Maya had vomited into Tessa’s purse. Jude and Avery kissed for the first time behind an air-conditioning unit.
A black line had been drawn through Felix’s face.
Across the white border:
ONE CHECKED OUT.
Malik turned it over.
Another message covered the back.
THE GUEST MAY LEAVE.
He stared at it.
“You have got to be fucking kidding.”
“What does it mean?” Cass asked.
“It means he doesn’t care about me.”
“That isn’t what it says,” Nina replied.
“It says the guest may leave. There were seven founders. I’m the eighth person.”
Maya looked at the gate.
“You can climb.”
The gate stood eight feet high with spikes along the top.
Malik could manage it.
Avery could with help.
Maya, Nina and Tessa probably could not.
“We all climb,” Jude said. “Jackets over the spikes.”
“You’ll cut yourselves open.”
“Better than staying.”
Malik put the tire iron through the chain and twisted.
The metal did not move.
A voice came from the trees.
“At your service.”
Malik turned toward it.
A burgundy figure stood among the pines.
The white mask reflected their flashlights.
Malik ran at him.
“Malik!”
He crossed the ditch before anyone caught him.
The Night Clerk moved deeper into the trees.
Malik followed.
Jude started after him.
Avery caught his shirt.
“Stay on the road.”
“He’ll kill him.”
“That is what he wants.”
Malik disappeared behind the trunks.
His flashlight jumped through the woods.
They heard branches breaking.
Then Malik shouted.
The sound ended in a grunt.
Nina ran into the ditch.
Avery and Jude followed.
The ground dropped sharply beyond the first trees. Wet leaves slid beneath their shoes.
They found Malik twenty yards from the road.
He lay on his back.
A brass luggage tag had been driven through his cheek and pinned him to the earth.
The spike beneath the tag entered deep into the soil.
Blood filled the corner of his mouth.
The tag read:
VISITOR.
Nina dropped beside him.
“Don’t move.”
“No shit.”
The Night Clerk was gone.
Malik gripped Nina’s wrist.
“Uphill.”
Avery swept the beam across the trees.
Nothing moved.
Jude crouched beside Malik.
“We pull it.”
Nina examined the spike.
“It may have passed through the jaw.”
“Cut the tag away, then.”
“With what?”
Maya appeared at the ditch holding Felix’s pocketknife.
It had been one of the objects in Room 307.
“Where did you get that?” Avery asked.
“It was in my jacket.”
Maya unfolded the blade.
Nina cut through the plastic tag, leaving the brass spike in place.
Malik sat up carefully.
Blood ran down his neck.
“You still want to tell me I don’t count?”
No one answered.
They returned to the road.
The hotel music had stopped.
All the windows were dark except Room 413.
“We need cutters,” Jude said. “Then we come back.”
Malik wiped blood from his mouth.
“You’re going inside again?”
“We can’t open the gate.”
“We walk through the woods.”
“The fence follows the reservoir property,” Nina said. “We don’t know how far.”
“Then we follow it.”
“In the dark, with that through your face?”
Tessa looked toward the hotel.
“The maintenance rooms are in the basement. We go in together, get the cutters and leave.”
Maya shook her head.
“No.”
“We don’t search anything else.”
“Felix is in there.”
Tessa softened her voice.
“Yes.”
Maya stared at her.
“You keep saying things like that means you understand.”
“I loved him too.”
The sentence struck the group unevenly.
Maya’s face hardened.
“You fucked him twice.”
Avery looked at Tessa.
Jude did too.
Tessa did not deny it.
Maya continued.
“Once after my birthday, and once in Cass’s apartment while I was asleep in the next room.”
Cass looked at Nina.
Nina looked away.
Felix and Maya had never called themselves a couple. They spent most of college sleeping with other people and returning to each other afterward. Their lack of a title allowed everyone to pretend none of it counted as betrayal.
Tessa said, “He told you.”
“He told me after I found one of your earrings in his bed.”
The pearl earring from Room 307.
Tessa rubbed her bare earlobe.
“I did love him.”
“You love proof that anyone will choose you.”
Malik stood between them.
“We can do this when no one is hunting us.”
Maya laughed through her tears.
“That is what we always say.”
Avery looked back toward the chained gate.
The Night Clerk could be anywhere among the trees.
The hotel at least contained walls, doors and tools they understood.
“We get the cutters,” she said. “Five minutes. Basement and out.”
Maya looked at her.
“You don’t get to make the plan because you spoke last.”
“No. I get to make it because someone has to.”
Maya looked ready to fight her.
Then Malik swayed.
Nina caught him.
“We also need to remove the spike.”
Maya turned toward the hotel.
“Fine.”
They walked uphill.
No one mentioned the van horn.
The loading door remained open.
Inside the kitchen, the overhead lights were on.
The pizza boxes had been arranged across the counters.
Each lid displayed a room number in black marker.
201 — AVERY208 — JUDE307 — MAYA312 — NINA401 — TESSA413 — CASS
No box bore Malik’s name.
Felix’s sat alone on the floor.
CHECKED OUT had been written across it.
Cass stared at the box marked 413.
“I’m not going up there.”
“Good,” Avery said. “Nobody is.”
Tessa opened a cabinet and found clean towels.
Nina sat Malik beside the sink and examined the spike.
“It entered through the soft tissue and came out inside your mouth. I can push it back the same way.”
Malik gripped the counter.
“Do it.”
“This will hurt.”
“Everything you say is reassuring.”
Maya poured vodka over Nina’s hands.
Nina pushed the spike inward.
Malik made no sound at first.
Then his fingers crushed the edge of the counter.
The pointed end emerged between his teeth.
Nina pulled it free with pliers.
Blood poured from both sides of the wound.
Malik spat into the sink.
A small metal key struck the basin.
Nina stared at it.
The killer had hidden it inside the hollow spike.
A black tag was attached.
ARCHIVE.
Cass stepped backward.
“No.”
Avery picked up the key.
“What does it open?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said that like you do.”
Cass looked at Nina.
Nina’s face went still.
“What did you keep?”
“Nothing here.”
“What did you keep, Cass?”
“The drives.”
“We all know about the drives.”
“Not all of them.”
Maya moved toward her.
Cass backed into the refrigerator.
“I deleted the Red Room footage from the public archive.”
“You said you deleted it completely.”
“I deleted the copy everyone had.”
Avery understood.
“You kept the original.”
“I keep originals.”
“Of Maya unconscious on a bathroom floor?”
“Of everything.”
Maya’s voice became quiet.
“Where?”
Cass looked toward the box truck.
“The black case.”
“The archive drives are upstairs,” Tessa said.
“The edited ones. The originals stayed in the truck.”
Malik pushed himself upright.
“The truck is locked.”
“Felix had the keys.”
Avery looked at the tag in her hand.
“Maybe not anymore.”
They returned to the parking lot.
The ARCHIVE key opened the box truck’s cab.
Cass climbed inside first.
She reached beneath the passenger seat.
Her hand found empty space.
“The case is gone.”
Avery checked the floor.
A cable securing the case had been cut cleanly.
“What else was in it?”
“Footage. Contracts. Invitations. Location files.”
“Names?” Maya asked.
“Everyone who attended.”
“Medical information?”
Cass hesitated.
Maya grabbed the front of her coat.
“What did you keep?”
“Waivers. Incident notes.”
“You made incident notes?”
“For liability.”
“We didn’t have insurance.”
“We still needed records.”
Maya shoved her against the cab.
“You wrote down that I overdosed?”
“I wrote down what happened.”
“What happened according to whom?”
Cass looked at Avery.
That was the wrong choice.
Maya saw it.
“According to all of you.”
Nina caught Maya’s arm.
“Let her go.”
Maya turned.
“You’re protecting her.”
“I’m keeping you from hurting her.”
“Same thing.”
Cass looked at Nina.
“We do not have time for this.”
Nina’s hand remained on Maya’s arm.
“Are there videos of us?”
Cass did not answer.
“Private videos,” Nina clarified. “Bedrooms. Bathrooms. Things people did not know you were recording.”
“Some knew.”
“Did I?”
Cass looked down.
Nina released Maya.
The distance was only one step.
Cass reacted as though Nina had left the parking lot.
“I never showed anyone.”
“That is not the question.”
A telephone rang inside the hotel.
Cass’s phone lit inside her coat.
No service.
The incoming caller was CASS.
Her own name.
Avery said, “Don’t answer.”
The phone answered by itself.
A live video filled the screen.
Nina appeared on it.
She sat alone in Room 413 with her wrists tied behind her. Blood covered the front of her shirt.
Cass looked up.
The real Nina stood several feet away, unharmed.
The woman on the screen raised her head.
A white mask covered the face.
The Night Clerk wore Nina’s jacket.
One gloved hand held Cass’s archive case.
The other raised a room key.
The video ended.
Cass ran.
Nina caught the back of her coat.
“Where are you going?”
“That case has everything.”
“Let it.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand enough.”
Cass tore free.
Malik blocked the loading entrance.
“You are not going upstairs.”
“There are people in those videos who never agreed to be filmed.”
Maya stared at her.
“And now you care?”
Cass flinched.
The red light in Room 413 went out.
A camera flashed inside the ballroom.
Cass turned toward it.
Another flash came from the mezzanine.
Then another farther down the second-floor corridor.
A trail.
Nina grabbed Cass’s face with both hands.
“Look at me.”
Cass did.
“You are not following it.”
The next flash came from upstairs.