Chapter 2 - THE NIGHT LAURA DISAPPEARED FROM THE HOTEL
Nathan took Emily upstairs to the private family suite before asking another question.
He wrapped her in one of the hotel robes and ordered hot chocolate she barely touched.
The broken violin rested on the coffee table.
Voss remained downstairs under instructions from hotel security not to leave until Nathan returned.
Nathan had no intention of questioning him while Emily was still trembling.
“Why did Mom put that pouch inside her violin?”
Emily rubbed one braid between her fingers.
“I didn’t know it was there.”
“How did it come out?”
“When he broke it.”
Nathan winced.
Emily looked at the old photograph again.
“Was Mom famous here?”
The question surprised him.
“She played here.”
“Like concerts?”
“Sometimes. Mostly evening performances in the lobby.”
Nathan had met Laura Morgan at the Halcyon sixteen years earlier.
He had been twenty-eight, arrogant enough to assume every room belonged to him because his last name was on the company letterhead.
Laura had been twenty-six and finishing a master’s degree at Northwestern.
She played violin in the lobby four nights a week to cover rent.
Nathan fell in love with her because she never seemed impressed by him.
Then, one winter, Laura disappeared from the hotel.
No goodbye.
No final shift.
No forwarding contact.
Victor Voss, an assistant operations manager at the time, told Nathan she had resigned after “an internal incident.”
Nathan had pushed.
Voss claimed employee confidentiality prevented him from saying more.
Nathan’s mother had been colder.
“Leave the girl alone.”
Three months later Nathan found Laura performing at a small chamber concert in Evanston.
She refused to discuss the Halcyon.
“It wasn’t a good place for me,” she said.
That was all.
They eventually married.
Nathan asked about the hotel several more times during their early years.
Laura always shut the conversation down.
He interpreted it as pride.
Maybe shame.
He hated himself now for not asking differently.
Emily pointed toward the photograph.
“Why is Grandma there?”
Nathan looked.
Celeste was unmistakable in the reflection.
Pearl earrings.
Cream coat.
A black enamel brooch she wore for years.
“I don’t know.”
Emily frowned.
“Does Grandma know Mr. Voss?”
“Yes.”
“Does she know Mom?”
Nathan almost said of course.
Then stopped.
Celeste had always spoken about Laura as though they had met through Nathan.
Nathan suddenly realized that was impossible.
The photograph predated his first date with Laura.
His mother had known Laura at the hotel before Nathan brought her home.
He picked up the brass key.
B-17.
The old musicians’ lockers had been beneath the ballroom level, behind a service corridor closed during a renovation thirteen years earlier.
Most of the lockers were removed.
Some remained inside a storage room because nobody considered them worth the labor.
Nathan called Martin Reyes, the hotel’s director of security.
“Do we still have access to the old basement musician corridor?”
“Yes.”
“Who has keys?”
“To the corridor? Security.”
“What about individual lockers?”
Martin paused.
“Those locks are ancient. If they’re still there, original keys.”
Nathan looked at B-17.
“Keep the corridor sealed.”
“Problem?”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
Nathan looked at Emily.
“The kind that waited fifteen years.”
Before he ended the call, his phone lit with his mother’s name.
Celeste.
Nathan stared at it.
She had been at the charity dinner across the street.
She should not yet have known anything had happened in the lobby.
He answered.
“Nathan.”
Her voice was sharp.
“Do not open that basement locker until I get there.”
Nathan said nothing.
May you like
Celeste realized what she had just admitted.
Nathan slowly looked at the photograph again.
