"She told me things about myself that only I would know."
~ Client testimonial, Sneak Peek
"Never confuse movement with action."
~ Ernest Hemingway, misquoted
The bathroom is empty.
The stall behind the shower curtain is empty. The small closet for hanging bathrobes is empty. The toilet is not empty, but it's just the way Zandra left it. The cleaning staff must've skipped it. Whether that was an intentional oversight isn't clear.
Zandra addresses the toilet with a flush, then searches the bathroom for signs of activity. She's careful to watch her step.
Inside the shower, behind the curtain, is the only place someone could hide. Do showers ever really dry out? Not in hotels. The basins are all shit. The plastic is lumpy. Little pools of water form that never make it to the drain.
There. Right there.
She spots a thin crescent of water roughly in the shape of a heel on a tile between the shower and the vanity.
Could that have been from me?
There's no way to tell the actual size of the apparent heel, but Zandra tries anyway. She sheaths the lawnmower knife. With a hand that braces against the counter of the vanity, she guides her right heel into place in the crescent. Her sense of balance works against her, and her foot scatters the water.
"Someone had to have been in here," Zandra says to no one in particular after hoisting herself back upright.
Zandra rubs her eyes. She shuffles out of the bathroom and back to the phone to dial Sunglasses's room.
"I just about pulled a Norman Bates in here," Zandra says after Sunglasses picks up, citing one of the handful of movies she's made the time to watch.
"What? Norman who?" Sunglasses says.
"Psycho. The shower scene? Never mind," Zandra says. "Look, I think someone was in my bathroom."
Sunglasses pauses, and then says, "You should've let me clear your room. I don't know why you won't accept help."
"Fuck yourself, that's why. I haven't even gotten to the best part," Zandra says.
"You sound remarkably calm for someone who hasn't told me the best part yet."
"The person was in the bathroom while I was in the room. I heard them moving around, but when I checked, no one was there," Zandra says.
"I'm coming over," Sunglasses says and ends the call.
A minute later, Zandra hears a knock at the door. She confirms with the peephole that it's Sunglasses before opening up. He's still dressed in a Packers T-shirt and jorts, but the sunglasses and flip-flops are missing. He steps barefoot into the bathroom.
"This bathroom?" Sunglasses says, his hand planted in the pocket with the revolver.
"No, I shit the bed and call the sheets a bathroom. Of course it's this bathroom," Zandra says. She stays a few steps away from Sunglasses. The lawnmower knife stays in its sheath up her sleeve, but Zandra keeps her right hand fingers wrapped around its paracord handle. She notices Sunglasses catching a glimpse at the stunted way she keeps her hand. She returns the look with one of her own at the revolver.
There's a pause, and then they both brandish their respective weapons.
"Behind the curtain, right?" Sunglasses says and sticks his head into the shower.
"Right," Zandra says.
"Strange."
"I know. There were scraping noises, and then nothing."
"Did you get a glimpse of the person?" Sunglasses says.
"I think I would've mentioned if I did."
Sunglasses spends the next 10 minutes checking over the room. He's especially interested in the mirrors in the bathroom and by the bed. He places a finger on each mirror, and in different locations of the glass.
"Making busy work for the cleaning staff?" Zandra says, looking at the smudgy fingerprints he leaves on the glass.
"Checking for a two-way mirror," Sunglasses says. "Press a finger to a mirror. If your finger and the finger's reflection touch, it's a two-way mirror. If there's a space between the two, it's a standard mirror."
"I thought you already cleared this room," Zandra says. She pays close attention to what parts of the room Sunglasses's focuses on, and what parts he doesn't.
"I did, but I'm being safe. Your room's been busy. Maybe trashing your room was a distraction to get observation points installed," Sunglasses says.
Not a bad point.
"What about trap doors?" Zandra says.
"Good idea," Sunglasses says and holsters the revolver. He fetches a broom from one of the closets and starts tapping its long, wooden handle on the floor by the bed.
"No. Stop. The bathroom. Check the bathroom," Zandra says.
"I'm just being thorough."
"Go be thorough in the bathroom."
Sunglasses obliges while Zandra watches. He taps each tile with the handle, listening for a hollow sound. He repeats the process on the walls, methodically tapping sections like a grid search. Nothing.
"I could get you another room if that would make you more comfortable," Sunglasses says.
Condescending prick.
"You think I imagined this," Zandra says through a throaty growl of rattling phlegm. She clears it with a cough into her sleeve.
"I didn't say that," Sunglasses says. "It's possible this person exited the room through the door and you didn't notice."
"I think I would've noticed."
"It's been a long day."
"I heard what I heard," Zandra says.
"No need to get defensive. I believe you're saying what you believe is true," Sunglasses says.
The old "truth" argument. There's "my truth" and there's "the truth." One bends to perception, and one doesn't give a shit what you think about it. I'm both.
"I'm going to get you a different room just to be safe," Sunglasses says.
Zandra takes a seat on the bed and presses a knuckle to the space between her eyebrows. "No."
"No?" Sunglasses says.
"I'm fine staying here."
Sunglasses cocks his head to one side. "You sure?"
Zandra closes her eyes and twists the knuckle. "You're right. It's been a long day. Maybe I imagined it."
Sunglasses doesn't say anything in response. He pauses, eyes on Zandra, and then gives a nod before leaving the room. Zandra's back on her feet as soon as he's gone.
He looked in a lot of places, but where didn't he look?
The standard hotel room doesn't offer many places to look in the first place, which makes the process of elimination all the easier. Zandra hobbles to the bathroom.
He spent a lot of time on the vanity mirror and the tiles, but he skipped one of the most obvious places.
Zandra opens the cabinet beneath the sink. Dropping to her elbows, she takes a close look inside. The usual plumbing stares back at her on the right half of cabinet. On the left half is empty space and drywall.
Zandra gives a half-hearted check of the rest of the room. She knows pushing her ankle any further tonight will mean a day spent in the bed tomorrow. A soak in a hot bathtub is in order.
The lawnmower knife, unsheathed, waits on a towel beside the tub while Zandra dips into the soap and suds. The tub helps not only her ankle, but also her mind. It's cluttered, in dire need of defragging, and threadbare from paranoia. The confines of the tub force her to let the day go, because there's not much else to do other than stare. She picks a spot on the ceiling and focuses on it, letting her eyes relax and blur.
After a good while of listening to herself breathe and feeling the water cool, the static in her mind condenses into a single, nagging suspicion.
Something is wrong.
She feels an almost physical tug leading her away from the tub. It comes from deep in her stomach, and it takes effort to notice, but it's there.
After drying off and slipping into one of the complimentary bathrobes, she returns to the cabinet beneath the sink and opens the dual-facing doors. Even with all the lights on, the inside of the cabinet is dim, so she goes to grab a desk lamp from the little workspace near the bed. Her ankle still barks, but it no longer bites.
The lamp's cord is just long enough for Zandra to plug it in by the vanity and lower the light into the open cabinet. Down on all fours, she waves the light from side to side.
There.
A crease runs in the shape of a square in the drywall on the left side. It makes the square look removable, like a door.
I hate being right.
Zandra backs up from the cabinet, rises with a grunt, and replaces the lamp with the handle of a broom. She taps on the square.
It's hollow.
Zandra slides away, trading the broom for her knife and stares at the square. A child or small adult might be able to squeeze past the plumbing and through the square, but it's tight.
What about an exceptionally motivated adult?
Zandra waits a few minutes before exiting the bathroom. She changes into her purple gown and re-wraps the sheath around her wrist. The gown is already well worn. A trip into the square won't do the fabric any worse than her coughing.
She slips the lawnmower knife up into the sheath, wishing Sunglasses's flashlight were still around. She glances toward the phone by the bed, but only for a moment.
Returning to the cabinet, she presses a hand against the square. There's a slight wiggle to it, but the way it remains fixed in place suggests it's secured from the other side of the drywall.
They locked the door behind them.
Out comes the lawnmower knife. The blade shouldn't have any issues cutting through the drywall. Zandra places the tip against a stretch of crease. She turns it like a screwdriver until a small indent appears. The dust from the drywall makes her cough, which spreads more dust and makes her cough all over again.
To ensure only cigarettes pollute her lungs and not drywall dust, Zandra fashions a facemask out of a strip of fabric she cuts from a bed sheet and two rubber bands.
With the mask over her mouth and nose, she continues twisting the point of the knife into the drywall and pressing forward. The blade pops through the other side. This time Zandra hesitates for a different reason.
Do I really want to find out what's on the other side of this?
Zandra squeezes the paracord-wrapped handle of the knife.
Fuck it. It's Sunglasses's deposit.
Zandra turns the blade inside the hole she created and slices along the indentation. It doesn't take long for the square to wobble. She turns the blade toward the center of the square and makes a diagonal cut. That's enough for the square to split in half, allowing Zandra to paw the jagged pieces out of the cabinet.
With the cord stretched tight, Zandra pushes the desk lamp into the opened space.
Oh, shit.