Security(15)

“I’ll get Vivica right away.”

“I’ll get her.” Tessa massages her forehead. “Please come get started. Okay?”

“Sure thing, Tessa. I’m on my way.”

Tessa kicks the kitchen door wide.

“This is not me!” Henri shouts. “This stain, it is not of me!”

Tessa never yells. But here’s her version. “It’s not?”

“I stop giving samples to the workers when you say. I stop this even though they are virgin palates who can—”

“Henri, if you are lying . . .”

“I do not lie.” He puffs up again. A wheezy fart amplifies across stainless steel appliances.

Brian uses the excuse of the glass he’s still holding to edge past Tessa and rinse it, tray it, wash his soapy hand. “Is this what your average night’s like?”

“This is slow,” Tessa says. “I have to go to fifteen and check on a cherry stain—”

“This is not the cherries! Unless they steal! They steal the cherry coulis, mon Dieu!”

“I’ll come with you,” Brian says. “If that’s okay.”

“I’ll be back in—”

“I’d rather come with you.”

There’s a pause. Then Tessa laughs lightly, her eyes closed. “It was a puddle of cherries, Bri.”

“Not cherries! Zut, alors!”

Tessa points. When Tessa points, it is a signal to stop whatever one is doing. And if one can, to hide. “Henri, I swear to God, if you don’t chill out, cherries are not the only thing that can be canned. Got me?”

Henri shrinks. His sous--chefs exchange disloyal sneers.

Brian holds his chin and aims an expression of glee at the ballroom. It is, I agree, a great deal of fun to listen to Tessa be authoritative.

“Let’s go,” Tessa says.

Jules leaves Justin by the dance floor, where the two of them were pretending to examine place settings while actually eavesdropping on the kitchen. Jules excuses herself by explaining she needs to check her underpants for “fear splatter.” This makes Justin laugh uproariously. Brian, overhearing, grimaces in disgust. Jules crosses the ballroom in a southeasterly direction. Her body multiplies behind the champagne flute pyramid, then vanishes into the door marked “Ladies.” She locks the door behind her. Her face changes, becoming a cartoon of fear: bulging eyes and all twenty-eight teeth. Her hands go to her hair and pull. She squeaks at the pain, careful to do it quietly. The ladies’ room contains a sitting area with padded vanity chairs and mirrors framed in oversized bulbs. Jules leans over one of the chairs, braces her hands on the vanity counter, and breathes erratically at her reflection: she is of French Polynesian and British descent, pale, bleach blond, fine--boned, expertly contoured with cosmetics. She gropes an orange container from her blazer pocket and beats the childproof cap against the counter edge until it pops. Capsules erupt. Saying, “Shit, shit, shit,” she dry--swallows two, sweeps those on the counter into a pile with her palm, and pinches them into the container a couple at a time. She combs the chairs, crawls on the carpet, recovering capsules as if they were pearls. She misses one behind her; she stands and steps on it. Her psychiatrist has told Jules on several occasions she must be patient—antidepressants aren’t effective right away; take them daily at a designated time and sure, okay, here’s some Xanax for anxiety. Jules’s psychiatrist has also repeatedly told her it would be wise to inform Justin she is taking psychotropic medication and seeing a psychiatrist—keeping it a secret isn’t good for the marriage—but Jules has told no one. Jules stuffs the pills back in her blazer. She then glowers at her reflection until it consents to smile, and it’s a smile for a toothpaste ad. For any ad. Anyone would buy whatever she’s selling. She leaves the restroom, walks to Justin on the dance floor, snuggles to him, and singsongs, “Skid--mark--free.” He laughs again.

The Killer is leaving Room 717. He takes a left turn at the main elevator and presses a finger to his right hip pocket, where he’s clipped his controller. When he opens the cleaning closet door, the shelves have already moved aside. He gets on the secret elevator, nudging Vivica with his shoes to make space. Vivica is dead, but she wasn’t when the Killer left the secret elevator. Her bloody handprints are smeared all over the dull walls. Destin did not insist on white for the secret elevator. He insisted only that there be a secret elevator; he is paranoid he will die in a hotel like his father did, and he built Manderley the way he did so as to negate that possibility. The Killer holds one of the hotel’s paper laundry convenience bags in his left hand, his knife in his right. The bag contains his blood--soaked coveralls. He presses the controller’s button—the cleaning closet shelves slide over—and presses the button for the second floor with the tip of his knife.

“This thing takes a while, huh?” Brian is referring to the main elevator, outside of which he and Tessa are waiting, on the nineteenth floor.

“Don’t get me started,” says Tessa, then starts anyway. “Charles wanted a glass elevator because he liked Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Sadly I’m not.” Tessa checks her watch. “He had it modeled after the illustrations in the book, but the fact that it’s diamond shaped means there’s a bunch of stabilizing cables and winches that make it a death trap unless it moves so slow, it’d practically be faster to take the stairs.” Tessa watches the buttons for the floors light up as she speaks. “You said you wanted to talk to me, right?”