She takes the tissue from my hand. “Thanks,” she replies. “Molly, the last time I saw you, you didn’t speak at all. Your gran was worried. She was worried that maybe you’d turn out…” She pauses like she can’t find the word.
“Different?” I offer.
“Yeah. That.”
“I am different,” I say. “But I can speak just fine. In fact, it’s hard for me to follow the rule of ‘children should be seen and not heard.’ Or ‘not seen and not heard.’ Or whatever the rule is. I enjoy words. Do you? I like the word ‘loquacious.’ What word do you like?”
She blows her nose into the tissue. “I like simpler words. Right now, I like the word ‘home.’ ” She starts to cry again, but then her eyes spy the envelope on the table. Her tears turn off instantly, the same way the washroom tap does when I twist the knob right after rinsing my hands.
“Jesus. First of the month,” she says shaking her head. “That same slumlord still own this place? What was his name…”
“Mr. Rosso,” I say. “He’s still the landlord. I expected him at the door, not you.”
She starts to breathe in and out really fast. She scratches her head hard, so hard it makes me nervous.
“Molly,” she says. “Do you have any Band-Aids?”
“Oh,” I say. “You don’t have to be ashamed of your arms. Bedbugs aren’t your fault. Gran says they spread from apartment to apartment because landlords don’t spend enough on sanitation. It doesn’t mean you’re not clean.”
“I’m not clean, Molly,” she says. “That’s exactly my problem.”
I go down the hall to the washroom and open the cupboard under the sink. At the back is our first-aid kit. I remove it and take out three of the biggest Band-Aids to offer Gran’s friend. When I leave the washroom, she’s standing by the front door putting on her dirty, old shoes. She’s wiping at her eyes with the crumpled tissue in her hand.
“Are you leaving already?” I ask.
“I gotta run,” she says.
“Aren’t you going to wait for Gran? I’m sure she’ll be glad to see you.”
“No. This was a mistake. I don’t want her to see me like this.”
“Here are your Band-Aids.”
“Keep ’em,” she says. “Who am I kidding? Can’t hide what I am.”
She turns the knob and opens the door.
“Hold on!” I say. “What should I tell Gran?”
She stops for a moment. “Tell her…tell her she’s taking really good care of you. And that I miss her.” She starts to cry again, and I feel a hurt in my belly and my heart, a heavy pain I don’t understand.
“Wait!” I say. “I don’t even know your name.”
“My name?” she says, pausing for a moment to look at me. “It’s Maggie.”
“It was nice to meet you, Maggie,” I say. I reach out a hand, but instead of shaking it, she squeezes it in hers and kisses it before letting go.
“Come back for a visit anytime,” I say.
She puts a hand on my hair, then takes it away. “Goodbye, Molly.”
She turns away from me and pulls the door closed behind her.
I bolt it immediately. Lock the door tight, in the day and in the night.
I lean against the door for a moment. I feel off-kilter, dizzy but excited, too. I feel like a bona fide grown-up. I’ve hosted a visitor, my very own, all by myself! If this is what grown-up socializing is, maybe I can do it. It’s not like this with kids, who are horrible and mean, rude and insulting. And even though Gran’s friend was sad, I figured that out right away. And I knew how to make her feel better, too.
I head to the washroom to return the Band-Aids to the first-aid kit. As I’m putting them away, I hear the key turn in the lock. I exit the washroom as Gran enters with a heaping hamper full of neatly folded laundry, which she puts down with a big huff. “My heavens, Molly, it’s hot as Hades in that laundry room,” she says as she closes and locks the door. She removes her shoes, wipes them, then goes straight to the kitchen for a tall glass of water. I follow her in.
“Gran, we had a visitor,” I say. “But don’t worry. I knew she wasn’t a stranger because I asked her questions, and she answered them all correctly. I knew she knew you, and she knew me, too, back from when I was only as tall as a grasshopper’s knees. She’s a maid, Gran. You worked together. It was nice to meet another maid, even if she has bedbugs. It’s just like you said. You can’t blame people for their circumstances. Oh, and she says you’re taking good care of me and that she misses you. I’m supposed to tell you that.”
Gran puts down her water glass with an audible thunk. Her mouth is wide open, so open that if we still had bedbugs, they could climb right in. Her gaze turns to the kitchen table.
“Molly,” she says. “Did Mr. Rosso come by? Please tell me he picked up the envelope.”
I look down at the kitchen table.
That’s when I understand it, what Gran was saying earlier about invisible things.
Two variables come together in my mind: our recent guest and the envelope containing our rent money. I see the equation forming, but it’s too late.
Both are gone.
Chapter 14
I did not sleep well. I tossed and turned all night. I reached out for Juan Manuel, found him absent, missing, only an empty space left behind on the mattress. I thought of calling him in the middle of the night, telling him everything that’s happened over the last couple of days, but at such a distance, he can’t do a thing to help me. And what was I supposed to say to him? Juan, I failed to inform you that a man dropped dead in the hotel tearoom two days ago. His death has since been deemed a murder, and it’s entirely possible the killer is on the loose in our hotel. Oh, and one more thing—our very good friend, Mr. Preston? He’s a thief. And now I’m starting to wonder if he might be something worse than that.
No wonder I didn’t sleep a wink.
I cannot erase the unthinkable thoughts from my mind. What if Mr. Preston, my dear friend and colleague, a man whom I’ve considered the purest personification of a good egg, is a thief? And if he’s capable of stealing, what else could he do?
It’s ridiculous. Absurd. I hear Gran admonish me in my head—Only fools jump to conclusions.
She’s right. And yet there’s no refuting what I saw at that pawn-shop—Mr. Preston, selling a rare first-edition copy of J. D. Grimthorpe’s The Maid in the Mansion the day after the author died and the value of said book skyrocketed. Is it possible that Mr. Grimthorpe was murdered out of pure and simple greed? And is it possible that Mr. Preston could have something to do with it? That’s the improbable, inconceivable notion that has me turned inside out.
I tear the blankets off me, jab my hot feet into my slippers, and stomp into the kitchen. It’s five in the morning, far too early to get up, but I can’t lie awake any longer. I grab a bucket from under the sink and fill it with water. I root around in the drawer for a reliable cleaning cloth, then I march into the living room and set my supplies down beside Gran’s curio cabinet.
I turn the TV on as a distraction, but sure enough, the news channel is replaying yesterday’s press conference in which Detective Stark declared Mr. Grimthorpe’s death a murder. I watch as reporters pelt Stark with questions.
“Detective, do you have any leads?”
“We’re following every lead we have,” Stark replies.
“Detective, is the murderer a guest or a hotel employee?”
“If I knew that, would I be here?” she replies.
“Detective, you said his tea was poisoned with antifreeze. Do you know how that could have happened?”
“We’re working on that,” she says. “We’re tracking an important piece of evidence.”