Morgan had thought as much. “Thanks anyway,” he said to the valet, ushering Krys into the hotel through the automatic doors.
She pulled her arm away. “I can walk,” she reminded him.
“And talk, I see,” Morgan quipped. “Just humor me,” he requested. “My mother spent a lot of time instilling manners in me when I was a kid. I’d hate to feel I put up with all of that for no reason.”
When they entered the hotel, Krys began to go straight to the front desk, but Morgan caught her arm and directed her toward the first bank of elevators. “Let’s get your things first.”
“Are we making a fast getaway?” she asked, only partially kidding.
“We’re picking up your things before the driver-of-the-year has a chance to find your room and get yet another chance to eliminate you,” he told her.
She took that to mean that he finally believed her when she said someone was out to kill her. At least that was something.
“I suppose that makes sense,” she admitted.
“That’s why they pay me the big bucks,” Morgan deadpanned. “Making sense when everyone else around me is losing their heads.”
“Is that even a thing?” she asked, getting on the elevator.
Morgan laughed, amused. “Oh, you’d be surprised.”
At this point, she was beginning to doubt that anything would surprise her about this man.
When they reached the fifth floor, Krys announced, “This is me.”
Getting off, she led the way to a corner room that was located just beyond the ice machine. But as she went to use her keycard to open the door, Morgan put his hand on her arm and stopped her.
“Something wrong?” she asked.
Instead of answering her, Morgan took her keycard from her, opened the door and went in ahead of her.
“Stay behind me,” he told Krys as, his weapon drawn, he carefully cleared the room and then scanned all the corners to make doubly sure there was no one there.
Moving slowly, he made sure there was no one waiting for Krys inside the bathroom as well.
“Well, unless there’s a child hiding under your bed, I’d say that it’s safe to assume there is no one here.” He looked at her. “Look around. Do you see anything out of place?” he asked, even though the room looked as if the maid had just been there ten minutes ago.
“No,” she answered, and then made her way to the closet.
“Hold it,” he cautioned, then slowly opened the closet door for her, exposing a shallow interior with only a small suitcase standing on the floor.
“I was just going to get my to-go bag,” she told Morgan. Picking it up, she held it out to him. “You want to look inside, see if my stalker’s hiding in there?”
“It’s not a joke,” he said.
“I know that,” she said, her voice deadly serious. “My way of coping, remember?”
Actually, he thought, Krys was coping rather well, all things considered.
“You have everything?” he asked.
She paused to flip the flap on her backpack and took a look inside. The only thing she cared about was on top. Her laptop.
“Everything,” she replied. Closing the backpack and taking her suitcase, she swung that off the bed. “Okay, let’s go.”
She was about to walk out when Morgan surprised her by taking the suitcase from her.
“Let me carry that,” he told her. Then, anticipating her response, he said, “And yes, I know, you can carry your own suitcase.” He nodded down at the case. “It makes me feel useful.”
Krys said nothing. Instead, she walked out of the room beside the police detective and closed the door behind her.
When they came down to the first floor, this time they did cross to the registration desk.
“I’d like to check out, please,” Krys told the crisp young clerk whose name tag read Jeremy. “Krystyna Kowalski,” she told him so he could pull up her charges. Other than for the room, there weren’t any.
Jeremy’s brow furrowed. “Is there something wrong with your room?” he asked when he saw her check-in date. “You’re leaving us so soon.”
“No, there’s nothing wrong. The room was lovely,” she told him with warmth. “But I have people to meet and places to go.” It was a mantra that she lived by and tended to repeat whenever she was checking out of any hotel.
“Well, I’m glad that there’s nothing wrong and I hope you’ll remember us the next time you’re here in Aurora, Ms. Kowal—Koval—um—”
Morgan looked at her, a question in his eyes. She obviously hadn’t put down her actual home address, he thought, judging by what the desk clerk had just said to her.
“Krys will do fine,” she told the young man with a smile.
“Krys,” he repeated a little awkwardly.
Okay, that was enough chitchat, Morgan thought. Taking out his wallet, he flashed his ID as well as his police badge.
The smile on the desk clerk’s face vanished and his eyes grew huge.
“We’d like to see your surveillance tapes,” Morgan told him just as Krys gave the stunned clerk her credit card.
“Is something wrong?” he asked again, this time more hoarsely as his face turned ashen.
“Ms. Kowalski was almost hit by a black van just now in your parking lot. I was hoping to be able to get the van’s license plate.”
“Certainly, certainly.” And then the clerk paused. “Did this happen close to the hotel entrance?” he asked.
“As a matter of fact, it wasn’t. Why?”
“Because the cameras located closest to the entrance are working,” the clerk said, then continued, somewhat embarrassed, “but the ones that monitor the parking lots that are farther away have been down since last Saturday.” His voice sped up as he continued talking. “Security promised that they’d be up and running before the weekend, but if the incident you’re asking about happened in one of those lots, I’m afraid that I’m not going to be much help.”
“Show me what you have anyway.”
“Of course,” Jeremy said almost eagerly. “I’ll have copies made for you.”
“That’s all right. I’ll take the originals,” Morgan told him. “You’ll
