Forbidden Guest House novel · Chapter 5 of 32

Chapter 5: Bedbugs

I zoomed in on the photo.

The mattress had a blue paisley pattern.

Every bed in Solberg Guest House had a white cotton mattress pad Gran bought in bulk from a hotel supply in Brainerd.

I carried the laptop into the kitchen.

Hedy was rolling out biscuits. Leif was eating one standing up.

"We have bedbugs," I said. "Forty-one people say so."

Hedy wiped her hands and put her glasses on.

She read for a while.

"We don't have bedbugs. I'd have bedbugs. I sit on every chair in this house."

"I know we don't. The internet doesn't."

Leif leaned over my shoulder and scrolled.

He smelled like coffee and sawdust.

"Click on one of the names," he said.

I clicked.

The account was made at 11:52 last night. One review, ever. Ours.

I clicked the next one.

11:54 last night.

The next one. 11:55.

"Somebody made forty-one accounts in an hour," Leif said.

"Somebody with nothing to do on a Saturday night."

I clicked the profile on the worst one, the paisley one, and looked at who it followed.

The Loon Lake Golf Club. A Minneapolis steakhouse. A boat dealer in Brainerd.

And Erik Moen.

I went through the rest one by one.

Twenty-two of the forty-one followed Erik.

None of them had ever posted a picture of their own face.

"He did it from his couch," I said.

"In his socks," Hedy said. "He does everything in his socks."

"How would you know that?"

"I fed him Sunday dinners for two years. I know a man's socks."

Leif straightened up.

"So report them."

"I'll report them. It'll take the site three weeks to look. I don't have three weeks."

I stood there with the laptop against my chest.

Then I went into the office and called a man in Duluth whose van I'd seen at a hotel conference once.

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