5. Nicola
Nicola
The room fills slowly with more housekeeping and maintenance staff, plus a few bellboys and front desk people.
Normally, we would be in two separate break rooms—back of house and front of house—but tonight, we are all one.
A small radio in the corner plays mariachi music, and the smell of authentic, home-cooked Mexican food hits me.
I help Nubia light the candles. A bellboy barely over eighteen that I don’t recognize approaches. “Nubes!” She turns, smiles big, and gives him a huge hug. “Happy birthday!”
“Gracias, mijo! Tell your mama I say hi. You look good in the uniform!”
He does a little twirl and then takes out a hundred-dollar bill. “You’ll never guess who I helped today.”
My ears perk up. I continue lighting candles, pretending not to listen.
Nubia shushes him. “I told you, be careful talking freely about the guests.” Nubia lowers her voice. “Who was it?”
I glance up as the bellboy leans in. “Jason Redfern.”
My heart starts beating faster. A couple of maids approach. I watch them all talk and laugh as the sound gets wrung out of the room.
Jason Redfern.
Why do I keep encountering Jason Redfern?
A thought comes running into my head, swift and cutting, a knife through my brain.
You know why.
The bellboy hands Nubia the hundred-dollar bill. “This is for you. I’ll get more,” he says proudly. “Let’s just say 1114 is rolling in it!”
They laugh, and I turn. “1114?” I blurt.
The bellboy nods at me, and Nubia gives me an inquisitive look. “Yeah. Redfern has the corner suite.”
“I hear he doesn’t let the valets park his car. He wants it kept out front where he can see it,” someone chimes in.
“Rich snob,” one of the maids adds bitterly. “He’ll let us clean his toilet, though, and wash his sheets. Shit.”
I finish lighting the last few candles. Meanwhile, the number keeps going round and round in my head.
1114.
1114.
Someone in the back of the room shuts off the lights, and the whole lunchroom goes dark. Everyone begins to sing.
“… Que los sigas cumpliendo hasta el ano tres mil!”
Nubia bends down into the light of her candlelit cake and closes her eyes. She takes in a breath and blows out the candles, making the room pitch dark. Everyone cheers, but the lights don’t come on.
The voices rise louder. Laughter, cheers, a few whoops and shouts, and someone searches for the light switch. Instinctively, I cover my ears and try to drown it out. The voices in my head merge together, becoming a high-pitched scream.
In the darkness, I hold my breath and count to ten.
My left side aches and burns from my hip to my toes, and I shake my head, trying to stop the screaming.
My ears carry a heartbeat, relentless and intense, as the darkness takes on a form.
I see the blood. His blood, flowing toward me, black on the pavement, Ben’s body so twisted up that I won’t be able to look away.
The voice inside my head is quick and certain. Go.
My hands grasp for the table. I fumble, trying to steady myself. My heartbeat rises in my chest. A wave of nausea comes over me, and my legs feel weak. I need to sit down.
“Gracias a todos por las celebraciones y los muchos afectos!” Nubia grabs an old-looking kitchen knife and starts cutting her birthday cake into small pieces. She picks at a piece of red candle wax dripping down the side of the white frosting.
Real blood isn’t that red. Real blood, when it really counts, is black. Deep, dark, and saturated with so much color. A void of pure darkness squelching toward you.
1114. Hurry. Go and see.
It happens before I really think about it. One moment, I’m standing next to Nubia, the next, I’m on the floor, huddled into a ball, my body convulsing.
I’m falling into a deep cavern of myself. This isn’t where I want to be. No, it isn’t. I begin fighting it, even as I quietly slip away.
When I wake, I know I’m still in the hotel, but I’m not where I should be. I recognize the gray-patterned carpet, the light washing over the walls, the subtle blues and beiges of the furnishings in the guest rooms.
I shouldn’t be here.
My hands raise, shaking, a smear of blood on my fingers, my palm. The room swirls around me in a haze. At the window, I look out and see the city, small and glimmering. I dart to the phone on the desk and spot the room number.
1114.
Jason Redfern’s room.
“No, no, no, no,” I say, my voice small and panicked. Nubia’s key is in my pocket.
My heart pounds as I grab two bottles of water and a newspaper from the desk and turn to leave.
Stop. Find it.
“I can’t be here,” I whisper, my voice faint. “I need to leave. Now.”
Find it.
The room is disheveled, the bed unmade, a room service tray on the floor, expensive-looking clothes strewn over the furniture, a designer bag open on the desk.
Before I can think about what I’m doing, my hands are searching through it.
I find Louis Vuitton aftershave, workout gear, a toiletry bag monogrammed with J.R, and a wallet, the touch of the black leather smooth in my hands.
Inside, his driver’s license and home address peek out from one of the folds. I pry it out of the leather with shaking hands. My eyes fixate on the address: 1900 North Alpine Drive. Beverly Hills, CA.
It would be so easy to take a picture. Just snap it. Done. Right here. Then I’d have him. But I freeze, my heart pumping in my chest. I can’t do it.
A flash of heat from within as the familiar voice returns. But you’re close. So close.
“Close to what?” I answer.
Close to the truth.
My heart races as I quickly snap a picture with my phone and stow the license and wallet back in the bag.
From outside, voices approach. My spine straightens as I hear the tiny click of the lock opening. Looking around, I see nowhere for me to go. The bathroom and closet are on the opposite side of the room. I’ll never make it.
Footsteps near, and the voices grow louder.
I want to disappear, but I can’t. They’re going to find me.
The door swings open, and Jason Redfern enters with a tall brunette woman, slender and chic. It’s the actress, Lauren LaMonte. She sees me first, her expression shifting from alarm to anger. Jason turns, his eyes flashing with sudden rage. “What the fuck? What are you doing?”
My breath escapes me.
Redfern’s face contorts. “Fucking thief. I’m calling security.”
Before I can protest, he’s on the phone. LaMonte glares at me like I’m garbage. In moments, two security staff enter and come straight for me. It happens so fast, there’s nothing I can do, nothing I can explain.
Inside, the voice returns.
Relax. You’ve got what you came here for.
I back away from them as the two burly security guards muscle me to my knees.
My face hits the floor, and the stiff carpet burns against my cheek.
They grab me and yank me up but restrain me at the same time.
My head snaps back as they hold me tautly under the arms, and one says loudly, “Sorry about this, Mr. Redfern. We’ve got her. ”
My body collapses beneath me, and they hold me, fully restrained, like I have a gun. “Easy,” one of them says. “We need you to be nice and still.”
The other starts searching me, breathing heavy, his hands rough on my body as he pats me down. My arms ache where they hold me. They hustle me toward the door. I glance back one last time, catching Redfern in my periphery.
Downstairs, the security guards take me into the back room and release me into a chair.
My legs are rubbery, my back hot with sweat.
I realize I’m panting. They search me for stolen jewelry and cash, then empty the contents of my purse and my bag onto a long table.
I cringe as my pills spill out—Imitrex, Topamax, and painkillers all over the place.
“There’s half a drug store in here,” one of the security guards says, smirking.
“I didn’t take anything,” I reply as they pore over my things.
“You’re just lucky we’re not involving the police.” I turn as the general manager enters, observing me. “And Mr. Redfern and Ms. LaMonte are not pressing charges.”
“They’re not?”
The general manager shakes his head. “You got off lucky there.”
But I know luck has nothing to do with it. They won’t press charges. Why would they? They’d have to file a police report, and it might get out that they were here together. In one hotel room. Then again, for Jason Redfern, perhaps that’s not the only reason.
Then they fire me. Of course, they fire me.
Immediate termination. No severance. No nothing.
The throbbing in my cheek intensifies as I lean over to repack my belongings, and security ushers me out the back past the kitchens to the private exit.
They throw me out into the blinding daylight, and I head toward my car in the employee parking lot.
That’s when I hear it. The cool tone of his voice shouting for something at the valets working the entrance.
I head round to listen, taking a second to stand in the shade of the building, next to an air vent sending hot air toward my legs.
Go on then if you don’t believe me. Have a look.
For a second, pressing my head against the cold side of the building feels good, relieving. Anything to quiet the inner voice. But it’s there again, nagging me.
Go on.
I head around the building, squinting in the sunlight. Tourists wait for their valeted cars. A couple of teenagers sit wrapped in each other’s arms near the glass doors. A kid with a smartphone sits playing in the corner. No Redfern.
I don’t see him. But I hear him.
Running toward the exit, I can almost spot him. I run past the valets toward the road, where Redfern is about to pull out.
I catch him, or rather he catches me, as a white Rolls-Royce, slick and clean like a weapon, pulls out in front of me. The brakes screech as he stops right in front of my legs, a credit card’s depth away from my flesh. Again. The irony.
Jason Redfern glares at me from behind the windshield and revs the engine. I step to one side and collapse onto the sidewalk as he pulls out and turns sharply into the street, where he accelerates straight through a stop sign.
A sickening sensation comes over me as my breath quickens and the voice returns, cooing softly in my ears.
See? I told you. I told you.