The Chosen

wondered. Vera’s own little group of rental suites were located at the other end of the wing, and no one had been checked into any of them. Just Kyle’s rooms on the upper floors. So what could this maid be doing here?

Then…

Vera squinted out. As the maid walked on, another figure appeared, just stepping onto the landing. Vera wasn’t sure but—

Donna? Is that… Donna?

The figure passed the maid without a word or so much as a glance. After another few steps, Vera knew her eyes didn’t deceive her.

It is Donna, she recognized.

Another mystery. Donna had gone to bed hours ago. What was she doing coming up from downstairs at this hour? There was no reason for Donna to be downstairs now. And—

What the hell! Vera thought next.

Now she simply couldn’t believe her eyes.

Donna was dressed in nothing but that racy lingerie she’d bought in town the other day…

The darkness swarmed. Even in the feeble light, Donna’s state of attire could not be dismissed as a trick of the eye. The stout breasts shone more than plain in the sheer nippleless lace bra. Even more than plain was the thick plot of pubic hair revealed by the diminutive crotchless panties…

“Donna!’’ Vera whispered. “Donna!’’

Her friend approached, or at least seemed to—

“Donna, what in God’s name are you doing walking around The Inn dressed in—”

—and then she walked right past Vera without reply or even recognition. Donna’s face, in the grainy dark, looked blank.

Then she went into her bedroom and closed the door quietly behind her.

This is ridiculous! Vera seethed. Sure, she was whispering, but it was a pretty fierce whisper, and there was no way Donna wouldn’t have seen her standing in her own doorway.

Vera stepped out into the hall, approached Donna’s door, and raised her fist to knock…

But at once she felt too embarrassed. What would she say? And surely she’d wake up Dan B. Maybe she has some sleep disorder, she then reluctantly considered. And as her thoughts ticked, standing there before Donna’s door, she…smelled something.

Oh no, she thought.

The smell, just the faintest trace, could not be mistaken, and that made her think at once of the bottle of rail liquor she’d found hidden beside the fireplace…

Downstairs.

Donna, her friend, but the reformed alcoholic nonetheless.

And this was what she smelled in the air at Donna’s door: Scotch.

— | — | —

^{CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE}

“Right in there,” she heard Kyle’s voice beyond her office doorway the next morning. Vera looked up