Borderline (The Arcadia Project, #1)(13)
Teo seemed to chew on this. “All right, you stay here. I’m going to check the restaurant, since he knows me.”
“Aren’t we supposed to stay together? In case one of us goes crazy or something?”
“I promise not to cut myself if you promise not to”—here he eyed me speculatively—“step in front of a train. Deal?”
“Whatever. You’re the boss.”
That seemed to please him; there was a strut in his step as he headed back to the elevator. I leaned against the wall, ignored the dull ache in my lower back, and waited.
And waited.
I got more fidgety with every passing moment. This was my first assignment, a test of sorts, and so far I’d been worse than useless.
I wished I had a phone or a watch or something, so I could know when the wait started getting ridiculous rather than just feeling ridiculous. I was pretty sure it shouldn’t take so long for Teo to find a restaurant, scan it for a familiar face, and come back.
My imagination ran haywire. What if Teo had tried to confront the viscount downstairs and a fight had broken out? What if one or both of them had been hauled off to jail, and I had no ride home? What if—
My thoughts were interrupted by a distant clinking sound. I glanced down the hall and saw a housekeeping cart. An elderly Latina was loading room service dishes onto it. I smiled and lifted a hand in a little wave.
“Yes?” she said. “How can I help you?”
I’d actually only waved to be friendly, but since she offered . . .
“Good morning,” I said with a warm smile. “I don’t suppose you know when the man staying in this room is likely to come back?”
She knew something; I could tell by the way she frowned when she saw where I was pointing. “If he is out, you can leave a message downstairs for him,” she said.
“Right, I know,” I said, feeling like an idiot but hoping she’d assume my blush was attached to a scandalous story. Fancy Los Angeles hotels are full of those stories, though admittedly I didn’t quite look the part.
“Why do you ask about him?” she said in a tone that suggested she was strongly considering notifying security.
“I left my phone in there,” I improvised. “I have an audition in an hour, and I don’t know the address. God, I hope he comes back soon.”
The housekeeper approached me with a skeptical expression, and I could tell when she was able to see my scars. I call it the “what-the-hell” distance. Strangers who approach me always look harder for a split second, then quickly away. The what-the-hell distance seemed to be less than twenty feet now. Interesting.
“I think he is gone all during the day,” she said a bit more kindly. “‘Do Not Disturb’ was on his door every day this week.”
“Damn it!” I sighed in what I hoped was an actressy fashion, leaning on my cane and covering my eyes with my free hand to hide how pleased I was to have turned up a scrap of information. “I’m sorry,” I said tragically. “It’s not your fault. Thank you anyway.” I looked up and gave her my best please don’t call security smile.
The housekeeper looked up and down the hall. “I’ll open it quickly. You can look for your phone. Hurry, please.”
I stood for a moment in stunned disbelief. Jackpot! Teo was going to kill me, but how could I pass up the opportunity? I’d just pop in briefly and make sure the viscount wasn’t rotting in a bathtub in there or something.
“Thanks so much,” I said as she opened the door.
The golden-brown leather seat in the window looked like a waffle; it was next to a table like a dish of creamy butter and two sleek backless chairs that reminded me of coffee mugs. It would have been enough to make me hungry if the room hadn’t been so relentlessly full of mirrors. It was hard to find somewhere to look that didn’t nauseate me with the wreckage of my face.
A tiny orange light blinked on the phone next to an unmade bed. Since the housekeeper was watching, I opened drawers, moved the curtains around, bent carefully to look underneath the edges of the bed, but meanwhile I was noticing something else entirely: there was nothing in the room but some papers in the trash can. No clothes strewn about, no suitcase, no razor, no hair product. I tried to touch as little as possible in case this was a crime scene, but I did nudge open the mirrored closet door to find no clothes hanging. No shoes, no bags. I looked at the glassy surface of the computer desk, and the microscopic layer of accumulated dust was the final nail in my certainty: this viscount fellow had packed up several days ago, hung a DO NOT DISTURB sign, and never come back.
I turned my attention to the window for a moment, trying to get my damaged brain into gear and make some sense of this. The curtains were open, affording me a view of Los Angeles that might have been striking if I’d been in a different mood. At the moment it was just a bunch of palm trees and terra-cotta rooftops, and me failing at my first assignment.
“What are you doing?” Teo’s voice was sharp from the doorway.
I turned around, trying not to let the oh crap show on my face.
The housekeeper said something to him in Spanish, and he waved her away irritably, pushing past her into the room.
“Teo, please be nice to the lady. She’s helping me look for my phone.” I tried desperately not to emphasize my words, waggle my eyebrows, or do any other kind of work with me dance, because I can smell stupid a mile off, and this woman was not giving me the faintest whiff of it.