In Her Skin(27)

“People care about you. You give them hope that sometimes, there are happy endings,” Mrs. Lovecraft says.

“But won’t it bring us more attention?” I say, attention being something I do not need.

“Actually, just the opposite,” Mr. Lovecraft says, happy to correct me. “I have a public relations woman on my staff. She strongly recommends doing the interview. See, though we handled the police, the press won’t leave us alone anytime soon. The Today Show is a one-shot deal, like ripping off a Band-Aid. It’s the same principle as our conversation with Detective Curley. The press will have their story, and they’ll leave us alone.”

I think of that single reporter underneath my window. “There haven’t been that many—”

“There’s something else,” he interjects. “Once the TV show airs and the public is behind us, the police will have more pressure on them to accept what you’ve told them.”

“He means once the public is sympathetic to your story,” Mrs. Lovecraft says.

There are a lot of things wrong with this idea. Instead, I blurt, “Two and done.”

“Excuse me?” Mr. Lovecraft asks.

“It’s not one and done anymore. It’s two and done. This is the second thing,” I explain.

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Lovecraft replies. “I suppose it is.”

“Done is done,” he says.

Here’s the larger problem: the Today Show is on TV everywhere. Being on a national TV show is the equivalent of handing the Last One a piece of paper with my address on it. I’m not truly afraid the Last One will find and kill me. A con always looks for the angle that will benefit him most.

I’m afraid he will find and blackmail me.

“I am not going on the Today Show,” you announce. “It would be supremely embarrassing.”

“No need for you to come, darling,” Mr. Lovecraft says, raising his palm. “This is about controlling Vivi’s message.”

“What Daddy means is that it would be a distraction from your activities. We can be down and back in the same day. It’s only Manhattan,” Mrs. Lovecraft says.

“No thank you,” I say quietly.

They peer at me as though I just shrank.

“No thank you, as in you’re not interested in doing the interview?” Mr. Lovecraft asks, with the faintest edge. I pull the bracelet into my lap, a knot in my throat. I have failed them, and they look disappointed. The weirdest part is, I actually care.

“Did they tell you this place is haunted?” you say suddenly.

This change of subject is its own kind of gift. “Haunted? By who?”

“A traveling liquor salesman who committed suicide in room 303. Guests say they can smell whiskey and hear laughter into the night,” you say.

Mr. and Mrs. Lovecraft roll their eyes at each other, and the topic of morning news shows is dropped. They talk over us in code, and it’s hard to listen in, because being the object of your laser focus is like being grass under a magnifying glass on a sunny day.

“And the elevator goes up to the third floor by itself, without anyone hitting the button,” you say.

“Wow, really? Cool!” I sound naive, but it works because Vivi is the kind of girl who walks away with a kidnapper.

You stand. “I need to pee. Come with?”

“Same, yes.” And thank you.

Mrs. Lovecraft studies us for a second. “Well, okay. Hurry back, though.”

“Quick, before she changes her mind,” you whisper. “We don’t have much time!”

“To pee?”

“To see the haunted room. You said you wanted to.”

I did?

“Follow me.” You drag me into the chichi hotel lobby, stealing past the clerk behind the desk and taking the stairs. We run, laughing, up three floors.

You stop on the third-floor landing. “Bwa-ha-ha-ha! Are you ready?”

Oh, Temple. There are scarier things in hotels than ghosts in rooms. Old men with bellies who have paid to meet you, for example.

“I’m ready.”

We push the door open and prowl the hall, stealthy, and you are funny, making exaggerated hush signs and tiptoeing. You’re corny, and it is cute, and you treat me like a dumb younger sister, and I sense that you’re leading me into trouble but I am so okay with it, because trouble with you is fun, old-fashioned, clean fun, stealing poems and spotting ghosts, and I am charmed. We are Betsy and Tacy, Anne Shirley and Diana Barry, Nancy Drew and Bess Marvin. Come to think of it, we are the characters in all the books I ever stole and loved.

We pass room 302, then 304, and you turn to face me, frowning. “This is wrong. Where’s 303?”

I study an unmarked door next to 305. “This has to be it.”

“This can’t be it. It’s not a room,” you say, sliding your palms together, like this is an emergency.

“It has to be. That’s 302 and 304; this is 305, and that down there’s 301,” I say, pointing down the hall. “They must have boarded it up and taken the number down.”

“They say you can smell whiskey and cigars. Can you smell anything?” you ask.

I lean into the door crack and sniff. “I smell ammonia. I think it’s a utility closet.”

“It’s not a utility closet.”