“Sure, but hardly anyone ever uses it, aside from exercise nuts who want to get steps in and people looking for a semi-private place to get kinky,” he says. I don’t like the way his lip curls up in a grin at the end of that sentence. The grossness of his grin radiates off him like too much cologne.
“Are there cameras in the stairwells?”
“No,” he says after a moment’s hesitation. I decide to let that one slide for now.
Lydia continues down the hall until she is out of view of the camera, and Mr. Robinson clicks the mouse. The view changes to another camera. This time Lydia is coming down from the top of the frame. As she gets about halfway down the hall, she suddenly stops and spins around. She is facing away from the camera, but it seems as if her jaw is moving as she’s talking to someone.
“Is anyone else in the hall with her?” I ask.
“No, the other camera, if you look on that screen, shows the first camera. It’s empty. It looks like she’s talking to herself, right?”
I don’t respond but sit back in my chair to keep watching. As Lydia makes her way down the halls, she begins to act more and more erratically. She begins to zigzag in the hall, occasionally bouncing off the wall and stumbling a bit. Once or twice she looks as if she’s half-heartedly trying a couple of doors, but they don’t open, so she continues.
The next camera I see shows a wide shot of a hallway with a dead end. Elevators line the wall the camera is facing, and Lydia comes from the bottom of the screen. She trips and falls down but gets herself back up quickly, ducking behind a large plant and hiding like a child. Only there is no playfulness there.
“She must have been wasted,” David comments, but I ignore him.
Lydia peeks her head out from behind the plant and looks back down the hall in the direction she came from. Then, sneaking out, she crosses over to the other wall and ducks behind it. She looks back down the hall again before turning away toward one of the ends of the hallway where the camera doesn’t see. It looks as if she is still talking.
“Where is this part of the hotel?” I ask.
“Deep in the East Wing. That’s what’s so odd. We rarely have anyone staying down there.”
Lydia continues her conversation with whatever she thinks she’s seeing, then looks back down the hall again. She seems to relax, as if whatever is chasing her stopped. Then something gets her attention from behind her, off beside the elevators where she had been speaking before, and she wanders that way, disappearing from view.
“And that’s it,” David says.
“What do you mean, ‘that’s it’? Where is the next camera?” I ask.
“There are none. That end of the hotel is blocked off to guests. Boarded up, even. Those elevator doors don’t even open. It’s why we don’t put people in those rooms often; that part of the hotel isn’t really used.”
“So, she just disappears?” I ask, my voice rising in frustration.
“Essentially, yes,” he nods, but there is something in his eyes. Something I can’t quite read.
“Essentially,” I repeat. “Have you searched the hotel?”
“Of course we have,” he says, sounding slightly offended.
“Have you? Personally?” I ask. There is a moment where he stares at me and blinks. Then he nods.
“Yes, but if you would like, I can take you out there, and you can see for yourself. She vanished without a trace at that point.”
“Let’s go,” I say, standing. Something isn’t adding up. People don’t just vanish.
Mr. Robinson leads me down to the hallway from the video, and we begin to walk slowly down it. As we reach the area I recognize from the first clip, I see a door leading to the outside. There is an emergency bar on it, but it looks as if it’s compressed permanently.
“Is this the door you were talking about?” I ask. “Where she got in?”
“Yes, it is used fairly often, so we disabled the emergency lock,” he says dismissively. As if all hotels have doors that are randomly left unlocked.
We keep walking, and I touch the walls where I remember her fingers tracing. I look back over my shoulder at times when I remember her doing the same. But nothing stands out. It’s just a hotel hallway.
“This is where she fell against the wall,” the manager points, a note of disdain in his voice. “Whatever she was on was affecting her balance pretty badly.”
I peer ahead to the end of the hallway. The bank of useless elevators sits, gold paint peeling away from what I am sure were once impressive columns. I make my way directly to the area where Lydia was seen last. When we get there, I turn to where she went. There is a blank wall, a utility closet, the door missing, and nothing else other than disheveled equipment leaned against the wall in various places.
“What’s all this?” I ask, pointing at the buckets and boxes lying around.
“Ah, just remnants from when the remodel was in full effect. Since no one stays on this side of the hotel, there was no rush to clean up when they abandoned it.”
“Were they working on the elevators?” I ask.
“Among other things,” he says. There is a caginess in his response.
Something catches my eye, and I step closer to it. Behind one of the large pieces of plywood leaning against the wall is another door. It is newer and cheap, but the lock looks solid.
“Where does this door go?” I ask.
“Oh, that? That’s locked. It has been locked for ages.”
“Where does it go, Mr. Robinson?” I ask again, this time, my voice dropping a little.
“I told you, it is locked.”
I turn toward him, and my expression must say all the words that are needed.
“But, if you like, I am sure I have a key.”
