“Sure,” Merlyn said. “Dandy.”
“So who’s the gentleman? Checking in?”
Hugo stepped forward and gave Merlyn a look. Once again, the choice of lying or being up front.
“My name is Hugo Marston,” he said. “Merlyn is helping me with a matter that is both urgent and sensitive.”
“Oh yes?” Rose lifted an eyebrow. She turned to Merlyn. “What is so urgent and sensitive in my hotel that I can’t be told?”
“Rose, it’s OK, trust me,” Merlyn said.
“Trust you about what, missy? If that’s one of my keys, I need to know what’s going on.” She put her hands on her hips, and Hugo saw they were at an impasse.
“One of your guests is in a lot of trouble,” he said.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning we need to find him,” Hugo said. “And fast.”
“Who?”
Hugo looked at Merlyn and realized he was seeking confirmation about the trustworthiness of a stranger from an almost-stranger. But when Merlyn nodded for him to go ahead, he knew he had little choice.
“Dayton Harper.”
“Well, now I know you’re lying,” Rose said. “He’s in jail.”
“No, he’s not,” Hugo said. “He was released today to my custody and he’s disappeared.”
“You lost him?” Rose smiled slightly. “And who might you be?”
“I work for the US State Department.”
Rose turned to Merlyn. “And how do you know him, my dear?”
“He came into the Ritz looking for Mr. Harper,” Merlyn said.
“And you believed every word he said, I suppose?”
Hugo reached for his badge and stepped forward. “She did. And you should, too. As I said, I’m Hugo Marston and I’m looking for Dayton Harper. Merlyn told me he had a room here. I need to know if he’s been back.”
“Why?” Rose asked, unmoving. The eyebrow went up again. “National security, I suppose?”
“Not really,” Hugo said. He put away his badge and looked her in the eye. “But his security is very much in question.”
“Like I said, I heard he was in jail.”
“And like I said, he’s not.”
“Then he’s probably at a spa or holed up with that hot little wife of his.”
“No,” said Hugo, deciding to take a risk. He’d wasted enough time and needed to find Harper above all else. “His wife is dead, and I plan to make sure he doesn’t end up the same way.”
“Dead?” Doubt swept across the woman’s face and she shifted nearer to the cash register as her eyes flicked over to Merlyn. Hugo looked at her, too, and saw that the blood had drained from her face, her pale lips mouthing a silent question: Dead?
When Hugo glanced back at Rose, she was eyeing the stairs. Harper clearly had a room here, still, but why did she move away from him to the register like that?
“Where did you get that cash?” Hugo asked.
“None of your business,” she bristled. But again, the flick of the eyes toward the stairs.
Hugo started forward, eyes now on Merlyn. “You have his key and room number?”
“Yes,” she said, doubt in her voice for the first time. “Rose, we should—”
“He’s here,” said Hugo. “Now. Let’s go, hurry.”
Rose sailed out from behind the counter, blocking their way up the stairs. “No you don’t, you have no right.”
Hugo, a foot taller and just as broad, put a firm hand on her shoulder and shunted her to the side. “We can talk about rights later.”
He started up the wooden stairs, taking them two at a time. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Merlyn ignore Rose’s glare and follow him. The staircase curved up and to the right, breaking at a landing before continuing to curl up to the second floor. Hugo paused to let Merlyn catch up and show him the way. She ghosted past him and looked quickly left and right, down each corridor where Hugo could see doors recessed into more stone.
“This way.” She headed to the left and Hugo followed, suddenly aware of the sound of his feet on the wooden floor. Cowboy boots scored high on comfort but less high for stealth, something he’d not needed to worry about for several years. Merlyn slowed and nodded toward a door. Harper’s room. She handed him the key and stepped back. Instinctively he pressed his elbow to his side, feeling the reassuring weight of his holster and SIG Sauer P229. He had no plans to use it but, like the long, slow breaths he took to calm himself before breaching a door, a reminder that he had a weapon calmed him in the final seconds before action.
He stepped close to the door and listened for two, three, four seconds. No sound. He moved the card toward the electronic lock but froze at a sound behind him, at the far end of the other corridor. He looked back and saw a heavy metal door swinging shut.
“Where does that door go?” His voice was low, urgent. And before Merlyn answered, he saw the small, rectangular signs, like Hansel and Gretel’s cookie crumbs.
Exit signs to the fire escape.
“That’s him.” Hugo pressed the room key into her hand. “Stay here.”
Hugo sprinted down the hallway, not caring about the noise. He passed several rooms, the doors set back under stone archways. He must have heard us coming and been lurking in one of the doorways.
Hugo hit the door at a full run, his ears ringing as it crashed into the wall as it flew open. He took the steps two and three at a time, touching the wall and metal rail to keep himself upright, slipping once as his boots lost traction. As he righted himself, he heard the bang of another door below.
He was there in less than ten seconds, barging through and finding himself in an alley, the mirror image of the one he’d left his car in. He looked right toward the dead end and saw no movement, then left to Cork Street, but saw only the flitter of traffic as cars passed the end of the narrow alley in the fading day, their headlights casting explosions of light on the wall as they went by.
Hugo ran toward Cork Street, anger and disappointment mixing in his chest and he fought to stay focused. At the entrance to the alleyway he stopped again and looked up and down the street. Small stores lined both sides to the left and right, and he saw just three pedestrians, none of whom was Harper.
Why the hell was he running? And to where?
Hugo pulled out his cell phone and dialed Pendrith’s number. The Englishman answered on the second ring.
“Pendrith here.”
“This is Marston. I found him but he’s back on the run.”
“Where?”
“Cork Street, he was staying at a hotel here.”
“I thought he was at the Ritz?”
“He was. He got a second room so I came to check it out, to see if he was here. He was, but he heard me coming and split.”
“The little bugger. Does he think this is a movie or something?”
“No idea what he thinks,” said Hugo honestly. “But we have to catch up with him, or at least figure out where he’s going.”
“I’m on my way.”
“What about the media?”
Pendrith laughed. “Don’t worry about them. There’s no greater keeper of England’s moral code than a tabloid reporter, until he commits a moral indiscretion of his own. Then he becomes quite the secret keeper. For now, anyway.”
“OK, good work,” said Hugo. “I’m going to check out Harper’s room; he came back here for a reason and I don’t think he was carrying anything when he hightailed it. Maybe he left something behind that will help us find him.”
“Wait for me, will you old chap? You’re a little out of your jurisdiction.”
“Maybe,” said Hugo with a smile, before closing his phone.
He started along Cork Street to the front of the hotel, pulling up in surprise as a police car nosed into the curb by the entrance, its blue light flashing. Two uniformed constables strode into the hotel, pulling caps onto their heads as they went. Hugo moved forward, cautiously now, but the hotel’s front door had closed behind the officers so he couldn’t see in. He assumed Rose had called them, and the last thing he wanted was a manhunt for him launched by London police.