CHAPTER TEN
Hannah Glenn pushed her sunglasses higher on her nose as she crossed the hotel lobby, keeping her head down just enough to avoid direct eye contact with anyone who might recognize her.
The hat helped, too. It was a wide-brimmed thing she'd picked up at Barneys specifically for afternoons like this.
Between the hat and the sunglasses and the oversized black trench coat, she felt reasonably anonymous.
The elevator doors opened and she stepped inside, pressing the button for the fourteenth floor.
Her reflection stared back at her from the polished brass panels.
She looked ridiculous dressed like this in the middle of the afternoon, but that was the point.
Michael had been very clear about discretion.
No patterns, no predictability, nothing that could be traced back to either of them.
The elevator climbed and Hannah felt the familiar flutter of anticipation mixed with guilt.
This had been going on for a month now. Four weeks of stolen afternoons in this same hotel, this same room.
Michael always arrived an hour early to make sure everything was ready.
She would show up later, separate entrances, separate trips through the lobby. They had it down to a science.
Hannah reached the door and paused. It was open. Not wide open, but definitely not closed all the way. A gap of maybe two inches showed darkness beyond.
That was odd. Michael was obsessive about locking the door behind him. He always made sure it was secure before she arrived, always double-checked it after she left. Leaving it ajar like this went against every precaution they'd taken.
She pushed the door open slowly, peering into the dim room. The curtains were drawn and only a thin line of daylight came through where they didn't quite meet in the middle. She could make out the shape of the bed and someone lying on it.
"Michael?" Her voice sounded too loud in the quiet space.
No response.
She stepped inside and let the door close behind her.
Her eyes adjusted to the low light and she could see him more clearly now.
He was lying on his side, facing away from her, fully dressed in the suit he'd probably worn to work that morning.
His shoes were still on. That was odd, too.
Michael always took his shoes off immediately; he always complained about how uncomfortable dress shoes were after a full day at the office.
"Michael, are you asleep?"
Still nothing.
Hannah walked to the bed. Maybe he'd had a hard day. Maybe he'd come here early and just crashed, exhausted from whatever crisis was happening at Meridian Financial this week. It wouldn't be the first time work had drained him completely.
She shrugged off the trench coat and let it fall to the floor.
Underneath she was naked, exactly how Michael liked her to arrive.
The air conditioning made her skin prickle with goosebumps as she slid onto the bed beside him.
The mattress dipped under her weight and she crawled onto it and pressed herself against his back.
She wrapped one arm around his waist and draped a leg over his hip.
"Wake up," she said softly, shaking him gently. "I'm here."
His body moved with her shaking but he didn't respond. His arm felt stiff under her hand, colder than it should have been. She shook him harder, pulling at his shoulder to turn him toward her.
"Michael, come on. This isn't funny."
She managed to roll him partially onto his back and that's when she saw his face.
His eyes were open, staring at nothing. His mouth was open, too, wider than seemed natural.
And inside that mouth, coating his tongue and teeth and the entire cavity, was something that caught what little light filtered through the curtains.
Something metallic. Something that gleamed silver-white.
Hannah screamed.
She scrambled backward off the bed, her legs tangling in the sheets. She hit the floor hard, her hip slamming into the carpet. The pain didn't register. All she could see was Michael's face, those empty eyes, that horrible metallic sheen in his mouth.
She tried to stand but her legs wouldn't cooperate.
Her hands slipped on the carpet as she pushed herself away from the bed, away from the body, away from whatever nightmare this was.
Her back hit the wall and she pulled her knees to her chest, unable to look away from Michael's face.
The metallic coating extended past his lips; she could see that now.
It covered his chin in places, dripped down toward his neck in frozen rivulets.
It looked almost like silver paint but thicker, more substantial.
It had texture and depth and a weight that seemed wrong.
Hannah's breath came in short, rapid gasps. She needed to call someone. Police. Hotel security. Anyone. But her phone was in her purse and her purse was in the pocket of the trench coat and the trench coat was on the other side of the bed. On the other side of Michael.
She forced herself to move, crawling on hands and knees around the foot of the bed. She kept her eyes away from Michael as much as possible but his reflection caught in the mirror above the dresser. That open mouth. That silver gleam.
Her hands found the trench coat and she yanked it toward her, fishing through the pockets until she found her phone.
Her fingers were shaking so badly she could barely unlock the screen.
She managed to dial 911 and pressed the phone to her ear but the entire time, she could not take her eyes away from that awful shimmering shine around his mouth.