Security(22)

But when Tessa stops chattering, he says, “That smell’s . . .”

“What?” They pass the housekeeping storage area.

“Nothing,” Brian says.

Tessa walks into the break room. She frowns. “Vivica?”

Brian’s hands are out of his pockets. He frowns, too, and sniffs.

Tessa walks to Delores’s office, but sticks only her head in. She believes it’s important to respect others’ workspace. “Viv, are you—?” Tessa snaps her fingers—“She’s in storage”—and passes Brian in the doorway. “I bet she has her earbuds in, which is against—” A forbearing smile is on Tessa’s lips, ready to deliver a lecture about using personal cell phones and all other devices while on the clock. But the housekeeping storage area is empty. The alcove that houses the washers and dryers is not fully visible, so Tessa goes to check it, saying, “Vivica, really, I need you up—” But Vivica isn’t there.

In the secret elevator, Vivica’s dead eyes stare at one of her smeared handprints.

“Hey, Tess?” Brian is kneeling by a spatter of blood on the floor. It’s the size of two postage stamps, and the shape of Florida.

“Franklin,” Tessa says to the blood. She takes a roll of toilet paper off the housekeeping shelves and holds down the outer corner with her thumb, winding a thick white wad around the thick white wad of her bandage.

“Who’s Franklin?” Brian kneels and stops Tessa from wiping up the tiny puddle. “Hold on a second. Back up. Who’s Franklin?”

“The hotel manager,” Tessa says, allowing Brian to continue holding her bandaged hand above the stain.

“Your boss?”

“He wishes. Why?”

Brian appears to do difficult mental math, but he does it looking around at the space. He looks at the bloodstain. “How do you know this is his?”

Tessa realizes what he’s getting at. She smiles—amused. Charmed, goddamn it. “It’s fake. The blood’s fake. Franklin likes to play practical jokes.”

“Yeah?” Brian says, still holding her hand. “Like what kind of jokes?”

“The sick kind. He promised to stop, but I think he kind of can’t help it.” Tessa laughs at Brian’s plain worry. “Okay,” she says. Dipping a finger in the red, she raises it to her mouth.

Brian catches her wrist. “Tess, Christ, don’t—”

“It’s fake! Franklin messes with Delores all the time. She’s his favorite target. Look at the soaps, the empty water bottle on the floor, the ladder right there. He was sticking the soaps together. He’s done it before.”

“And to give his prank a one--two punch, he squirts some fake blood on the floor.” Brian brings her dripping fingertip to his nose. He smells it. “Smell it,” he says. “Don’t taste it. Smell it.”

Tessa does. Her lip curls in faint revulsion. “Right. So?”

“So, they don’t usually bother to make fake blood smell like blood.”

Brian releases her hands, steals the toilet paper, and wipes her fingertip clean while Tessa says, “Fine. One of two things happened. Either our head of security caught Franklin at it and intervened—”

“Intervened?” Brian echoes. “And caught him how?”

“I don’t know. That’s not my department. I’m design and logistics.” She steals the toilet paper back and wipes the stain, though Brian protests. “Franklin’s right now having his ass handed to him. Hopefully getting fired, though that’ll make the next few days a living hell for me, finding a replacement.”

“What about the smell?” Brian says, standing when Tessa does. He watches her toss the bloody paper in the trash.

“Ha!” she says. She reaches into the garbage can, most of her top half disappearing. She lifts out the soap ball. “That creep is fired.” She drops it, and a duo of thuds suggests it bounces in the bottom of the can.

Brian repeats, “What about the smell? And you said one of two things happened.”

“Someone cut themselves,” Tessa says, reorganizing the soaps on the housekeeping shelves. She spots the collapsed stacks of dryer sheets and fixes those. “Vivica. She came down for a snack, was checking on—I don’t know, something—in this room, she cuts herself, overcooks her food—”

“You’re reaching,” Brian says.

“What else would it be?”

The buzz of fluorescent lights fills a telling silence.

Brian says, “That’s not food. It’s meat, but it’s not.” He blows all his breath at the floor and forces himself to look up. “On the circuit. When there was a crash and gas spilled and a guy got burned—big--time burned; we’re talking ass grafts to the face—this is how it smelled.”

Tessa looks sick, but she stands up straighter. She turns and leaves the housekeeping storage area for the employee break room. She does so professionally, shoulders back, expression controlled, until she’s no longer in front of Brian. Then her forehead crimps, and she presses on her mouth. Tessa is an ambulant contradiction. She is at once strikingly strong and heartrendingly vulnerable. The paradox makes a natural protector desperate to protect her. The best security is invisible security. The most thorough safety is safety one’s object of protection doesn’t know about. She shakes her head at a dirty dish in the employee break room sink, rinses it, and sets it in the drying rack. This seems to focus her, and she rounds the long break room table to stand in front of the lockers. Employees are assigned a padlock. Tessa turns her combination.